I’ve felt so much hope this week. God has really been blessing me over and over again. Truly, I feel like I’m seeing the end of the tunnel and I’m feeling such a deeper peace over my life and where I am right now in Charlotte.
I never thought I’d leave the dark, endless tunnel that I’ve been in for awhile now. I thought it would keep stretching onwards and that life would continue to feel so hopeless and dark for a long time. But suddenly, without even expecting it or realizing it’s right around the corner.
Like that first bit of sun when it’s pitch black in the morning but when the sun comes out and starts to light up the road in front of you…there truly are no other words to describe that feeling. Such joy, such peace, such hope for the future of what’s ahead.
That’s what I feel right now.
No matter how dark and bleak everything has looked for the last few months, no matter how discouraged I’ve been or angry at God and life and circumstances around me. The light at the end of the tunnel has a way of not making you forget these bad seasons but it makes you realize just how sweet the good seasons really are. When you’ve been hopeless and discouraged for a good long while, it’s hard to remember the good times. It’s hard to even imagine that there will be good times in your life again.
But I promise there will be. They’re there. Right around the corner, even when it doesn’t feel like it or you don’t see them coming. Even when the rough seasons never seem to end or come close to it.
Today I heard a sermon about suffering and seasons of crisis and the pastor said that it’s not necessarily the suffering that will get you, it’s the not knowing how long you have to suffer before it’ll be over. It’s the timing, the unknown time of how long it’ll last. And boy did I feel that. That was speaking directly to me, someone who was in a dark season for so long.
I can feel and see God moving in my life, and I’m just standing here amazed at what He’s been able to do in a matter of a week or two of my life. One second I was thinking about moving back to the northeast, now I’m standing here wondering how my community is growing so quickly in Charlotte and believing that this is the very sign that God has me here and wants me here.
Amazing the beautiful things that can happen and how quickly your circumstances can begin changing with prayer and faith in God. With surrender and letting go of outcomes and control over your life.
I’m not saying that the things that led me to the dark season are gone or that everything is magically better, but I will say that even my outlook on life has changed so much in this last week. I’ve started to feel like I’m thriving again, like I have so much to look forward to again. Like I belong where I am and that it’s okay for me to sit in the present and be fully here instead of the future or one day.
Sometimes God takes us through tough seasons to grow us and really teach us the things that maybe we haven’t quite gotten ahold of in the past. The things we refuse to believe when everything is going well for us and we’re going through the high seasons.
I know that God has taught me about how everything I have and where I am today – it’s all because of God, not my own actions or strategies. God has taught me that stuffing down my emotions rather than being honest with Him isn’t an effective strategy. About how at some point even after a dark season I have to choose – will I be angry forever and succumb to the darkness and hopelessness or will I trust Him again even in the face of so much hopelessness and disappointment – to have faith that things are going to be okay? That there are so many beautiful things on their way?
There comes a time where you do have to make a choice and draw a line in the sand. You might have been in a dark season for a long time and had your doubts and depression through it all, but God will bring you out of it. He will give you the chance to choose what you will do at the end of the season – will you continue it knowing how things have been so bad and how you have so many doubts and distrusting feelings? Or will you, despite everything around you screaming not to, choose to put all of your faith in God and what He can do in your life and how He can rebuild you and bring you into a new season? It may not be right away or the way that you want Him to, but I promise that He’ll come through.
It’s been a long road and journey to get to where I am today. And I can tell you that it’s been God who has sustained me the whole way. I faltered at every step, I lost hope and faith at every step. I turned away at every step. But God. God walked me through all of it, He didn’t quit on me when I quit on Him. He kept pursuing me, kept calling me, kept reminding me of His goodness and the things to come.
But I also think that He reminded me that life’s circumstances and outcomes aren’t based on my actions. He will make things happen. He will do the thing because He is God and can do the thing.
There are things that pushed me into the dark season that didn’t resolve as I’ve walked out of the dark season. I’m still not married, nor am I close to marriage. I’m still not in a career or job that I love. I’m still not even sure what I’ll be doing a year from now. I’m still building a community of people here in Charlotte. But I can promise you that I can already see the wind shifting – things are moving in my life, whether into place or stirring them up for what’s to come.
It may not look like how I thought it would by now, but I can tell you it’s better than I thought before. I’m not sure I can explain that well or the reason behind that, because I used to think that only getting what I want would make me happy. But it’s true – it’s more than I could imagine or hope for. Everything isn’t perfect but everything right now that’s happening is a clear sign that God is working actively in my life to bring about the things that He’s been wanting to for awhile. He’s here and I see His actions and love and goodness in it all.
The new friends, sitting with people at church, knowing people at church, the energy and thought about working again, and so much more.
Knowing that I don’t have to always be on and have it all together for things to happen and work out. That’s such a relief. To surrender and rest in the knowledge that God will make things happen, I just need to be open and obedient to Him through it all.
I’ll leave you with this:
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27:13-14
Keep hoping, keep believing, keep the faith no matter how dark the circumstances might seem right now. I promise that I’ve been there and that things will start to get better. It might not look like it, but I promise that God will come through for you the way He has for me time and time again.
-Marissa
