When the pieces fall apart...

...you take a step back from life. This week I have cried more than I cried in the last several months combined, I've spent more time scouring my Bible for truth than I have in a long time, and have fallen apart in more friends' rooms than I can count. It feels a little like my world is falling apart, but I can't put my finger on exactly what is the final blow that broke all the pieces apart. You know how people say that a picture is worth a thousand words? I think that a song is worth ten thousand; my iTunes library says more about me than most people would find out in a month of Sundays, and this song by Tenth Avenue North is quickly climbing to the top of my "25 Most Played" playlist. It's called "By Your Side."

Why are you striving these days
Why are you trying to earn grace
Why are you crying
Let me lift up your face
Just don't turn away

Why are you looking for love
Why are you still searching as if I'm not enough
To where will you go child
Tell me where will you run
To where will you run

(Chorus)
And I'll be by your side
Wherever you fall
In the dead of night
Whenever you call
And please don't fight
These hands that are holding you
My hands are holding you

Look at these hands and My side
They swallowed the grave on that night
When I drank the world's sin
So I could carry you in
And give you life
I want to give you life

(Chorus 2x)
(here's a link to listen to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdjRmM0Q0qs)

...you try to hold it all together. And when that doesn't work and I walk into the dorm and several people ask me if I am OK, I know that it must be written on my face. Thankfully, I can't hide stuff that well and I have friends here who will write me a message on Facebook, send me a text, or give me a call to let me know they are praying for me. I know that I don't have to say anything, and they are bringing me before The Throne in their prayers. And that means so much. I am so incredibly thankful that I have friends like that here at college!

...you remember that you are never alone. Just because my relationship with the Lord is lacking the fire that I so long for, and I have a lot of priorities out of line, I know that He has not left me alone. He is still there longing for my heart.

...you ask why. And I hear an answer from the Master Potter, "My daughter, it's when you are broken that I can put you back together. And when I put you back together My light will shine out of you and into the lives of those around you. Let Me put you back together. That is why I broke you... because I love you."

...you long for an escape. I love college life; really I do. But I miss sitting on my dock watching the sun set over the lake. A kitten nudging me and a glass of iced coffee beside me. Kind of like I am so lost and confused that I need a return to the last known point. Like it's been so long since I've heard from the Lord that I need to run back to the last place I found Him and wait until He returns. But I know that He is here too... I just haven't found Him here yet!

...and strangely enough, you learn to embrace the brokeness. I know that my frustration with memorizing the choreography for dance company, my stress about keeping grades up, my homesickness for the first time in my life, my anxiousness about confusing relationships, and my aching heart for those I love are not meant to ruin my life, but turn my heart back to the One who is breaking me. And I learn to stop fighting the brokeness and rest in teh fact that He who begins the process will not stop until He is finished. And there will be a day I look in the mirror and won't be able to recognize the girl He has created... Oh how I long for the day!

Well, dear reader, this is not the normal random happy monologe on life my blog seems to have become, but in the dance of life it's not all roses. There are a few times in the spotlight, but there is a lot of behind the scenes rehearsing and standing in the wings as an understudy ready to go on stage if needed. And right now, that is where I am. So, if you actually read all of this, "Brava" to you!