I am excited, I am nervous, and I am overwhelmed. On the pages of this website, you will journey with me into the darkest times of my life. I feel dangerously vulnerable yet vehemently open; unsure of where to take this yet certain my story needs to be told.

I have titled this series He Met Me In The Dark. Sometimes, life is clear and bright and the world around you is in plain sight. Other times, there is a fog so thick and so dark it seems as though all the light in the world has vanished. What used to be so plain – the road ahead, the people around you, the presence of God – now seems like it was just a dream, or another life all together. It is there in that darkness where hearts break, where spirits are weakened, where strength fails. It is also there in the darkness where God shows up just as presently as He did in the light.

And sometimes more intimately so.

My purpose for writing is threefold. First, I want to chisel away at the walls that separate us. I want to expose my pain, my struggles, my suffering, and my heartache that others experiencing the same might feel less alone. I want to extend a hand and say: your suffering is not unnoticed and it is not meaningless. Your suffering should not be felt or experienced alone, and, if you’d be so kind, I would like to step into that with you. 

Secondly, I would like to offer resources for all parties involved: those who experience any blip on the radar of suffering, tragedy, or depression, and those who love people who are experiencing any of the above. My hope and my prayer is that my experiences, my thoughts, and my [hopefully-well-articulated] advice might help hearts learn better to love themselves, love each other, and love the God who loves them more than they can imagine.

Third and lastly, I would like to display a God who is unchanging in circumstance. A God who loves so deeply and so fiercely that He weeps with us in our darkness, and who never, ever, lets go. A God who waits patiently as we learn to walk again; a God who not only redeems our suffering but provides abundantly throughout. A God whose grace and mercies are new every morning. A God who allows us to ask questions that sometimes have no answer, and who allows us to feel all the ugly corners of anger and sadness and heartache and bring them directly to His feet.

I cannot promise you that you will agree with anything that I say, or any ways that I responded to my life. I cannot promise you that you will understand, that you will not question, that you will accept me for who I am and what I’ve been through. In fact, I can almost assuredly promise you that you will not wholly understand – as I would not wholly understand your life, because I am not you, and you are not me. That said, I ask for grace. I ask for grace as you, hopefully, view this from a lens that accepts differences and showers empathy upon hurting souls.

Even so, I can take it. More than the absence of judgement or critique, I wish that God may be glorified as you witness a testament to His faithfulness. This is not fundamentally about me or what you think of me. This is fundamentally about my God.

Come and listen
come to the waters edge,
all you who know and fear the Lord
come and listen
come to the waters edge,
all you who are thirsty
come
let me tell you what He
has done for me
let me tell you what He
has done for me
He has done for you
He has done for us
come and listen

{david crowder band, Come And Listen}

#Write31Days
As I write each day, a link will be posted for each day for that particular post. It will help to read in chronological order if you can.

Day 1: Before

Day 2: Desert

Day 3: Recommended

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