The Beauty of Irony {and LINKY}

It’s been a long week.

Who am I kidding? It’s been a long year!

While it’s true that this year has been full of personal and professional victories, growth opportunities, and celebrations – it’s also been a year of great heartache, struggle, and uncertainty.

To be quite honest,

I am physically, spiritually, and emotionally exhausted.

And yet, at the same time, I am convinced that God is with me and inspired by God’s promises for the future that lies before me.

The Christian walk rarely runs short of irony.

God uses the foolish to shame the wise.

His power is made perfect in my weakness

When I am weak, then I am strong.

By offering my life, I keep it, but if I endeavor to keep it, I lose it.

Suffering produces hope.

Peace that surpasses all understanding can be found in the midst of struggle.

Whoever wants to be first must first be a slave.

Wow.

Isaiah 55:9 (NIV) reads,

“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

That almost seems like a huge understatement. Yet, I can not deny that

there is great beauty and majesty in the irony of God’s wisdom.

I may not always know why, or how, or if God is moving. But each day bring a clearer revelation of the great love that is poured out onto us by an even greater God.

God loves me so much that He refuses to give up on me.

He knows how very much I need Him. He also knows that I am far too foolish to simply turn over my life to Him. God is well aware of my faults, flaws, and personal limitations. He knows that I am stubborn and prideful and still He loves me. He sees my fear and anxiety, and still He desires to use me.

He understands that because I am young and rebellious, that I will struggle and kick against the goad, and He has designed my life and heart so that when I have exhausted myself, I will be a prepared plot of land ready for planting healthy and reproductive fruit.

He understands that as I struggle and overcome I grow stronger, and with each failure, my humility allows me to receive and submit to a little more of Him.

We serve an amazing God.

Because of His wisdom and intricate knowledge of who we are combined with his all-encompassing love for us, we can trust Him. He knows what we are capable of, and when only His strength will carry us through. And if necessary, He carries us through our darkest and hardest seasons.

Because He is more than faithful.

And He loves me.

And you.

More and more.

So, for all of you who, like me, feel more like it’s a Wednesday than a Monday, here’s…