Kristen Elizabeth Stories

I love the stories of God healing hearts! I have heard so many amazing testimonies people give about how God made their hearts whole again and I wanted one of those wonderful stories to be mine, but it’s not.

My heart is broken into a million shattered pieces that keep trying to put themselves back together again. I pray and ask God to make me better. I ask him to heal my heart and to take away my fear and anxiety, but he doesn’t. The only thing he tells me is that He is enough. It’s one thing to read the story of Paul asking God to take the thorn in his flesh away and to read that God told Paul that His grace is enough, but it’s altogether another thing to live that story! I don’t want that answer! I don’t even like that answer! I just want the pain to go away and my weaknesses to fade, but they don’t.

I don’t want to get out of bed. I am afraid. I have scary things I have to face today and everyday. My daughter is still sleeping. My husband is at work. I am so tense. I sit up in bed. I put my slippers on. I put my crazy, energetic puppy outside on the deck and pour myself a cup of coffee. I put up the curtains and sit on the couch. The sun is so bright that it is reflecting off of the floor hurting my eyes, so I get up off the couch and close the curtains I just opened and sit there in the dark sipping my coffee that is lukewarm by now.

I pray. It feels like I have been praying forever and there has been no relief for what I have been praying about. I open the Bible and read a bit about how God will set the captives free and how He is the fortress of those who put their trust in him. I am too weak to put my trust in him. I am so tired. I am so beat up. I start to cry. I close my eyes and try to stop the tears. There are no words or thoughts in my head, just a sort of dark grey bleakness.

“Broken and spilled out for love of you , Jesus.” These words begin to sing in my head. I can’t remember any other words to this song. More tears fall. I pray. “Jesus, is it possible that these tears are part of being broken and spilled out for you? Is my fear and all my anxiety and all of my weaknesses part of being spilled out and broken for love of you? I don’t understand, but for this one moment I put my trust in you. Please, live up to your promise of being enough. I am so weak and tired and scared.”

I take another sip of coffee. I can now taste a slight hint of blueberry in my Wild Maine Blueberry coffee. It’s one of my favorites! I look out the window and the sun no longer hurts my eyes but reminds me that there is hope. There is a fuzzy caterpillar on a branch of a tree. There are two mourning doves eating bird seed out on the front lawn reminding my heart that Jesus is enough. Tears of some sort of strange relief flow down my face…..Broken and spilled out ….for Love of you, Jesus. Jesus, you are enough. Amen