Homecoming

It has been almost five months since I have written a blog. I have had trouble forming words or the courage to write. Do you ever feel like you have so much to say but you also feel speechless? It has felt like anything I could write to address what is happening globally and locally would be like a drop in the bucket. Our world has been in so much pain and chaos during this season. We have been laboring through a global pandemic, national division, racial tensions, natural disasters and so much more. I won’t pretend that I can offer wisdom to put a band-aid on these things or neatly make sense of so much swirling feelings, thoughts and emotions.

Personally, I have been in a huge season of transition. I got married to the love of my life on May 16th, 2020 in a small ceremony in my dad’s yard in Frankfort where I grew up. I then, moved to the southside of Indianapolis to Chad’s house. I had so many feelings and thoughts about all of this but I didn’t know how to formulate a blog to describe them. It has been amazing to see God take me full circle in my life. When I moved to Seattle in 2002, I didn’t think that in 2020, I’d be back in Frankfort getting married at 44 in my dad’s yard. Life is full of surprises.

In addition, I have seen God connect the dots in my life in this season in ways that I never thought possible. I have been working as a counselor at a faith based counseling center in Indianapolis since January. Since being there, I have reconnected with themes that I learned in graduate school in Seattle in a deeper way and reconnected with friends from my past who are connected in some way with where I work. It is hard to put into writing what I’ve felt. It is like there have been broken pieces in my life and disconnection that I never knew could be put back together and God has been faithfully and patiently stitching a patchwork quilt from my life.

My theme word going into 2020 was the word Rooted and even though the world has seemed deeply uncertain, I have felt God giving me roots in a way that I doubted would ever happen to me. I came back to Indiana in 2017 from Seattle deeply uprooted and broken after a divorce feeling like humpty-dumpty thinking I may never be put back together again. Not due to my own goodness but because of God’s, I see the ways that I have not only been put back together but I’ve been woven into a better and deeper story.

It is not that life is always easy or perfect. Chad and I had a rough week full of disappointments even in the midst of good gifts. Yet, it is undeniable -at least to us- to see that God is working in the midst of these difficulties to bring about blessing even if we cannot see the outcome yet. It is often like that in our lives - trials come and it is almost impossible to imagine how anything good can come out of them and yet (I don’t say this lightly), there is still good. We can either be so focused on what we’ve lost or we can choose to be open to the goodness that is happening and/or has yet to happen.

I listened to this song (attached)

by Hillsong today and I cried. I love the lyrics. Here is a sample of them:

“So I will praise You on the mountain and I will praise you when the mountain’s in my way
You’re the summit where my feet are
So I will praise You in the valleys all the same
No less God within the shadows
No less faithful when the night leads me astray
You’re the heaven where my heart is
In the highlands and the heartache all the same.”

I pray that whether you are in a valley or a mountain that you experience the goodness of God working in the yet unseen patterns in your own life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UcqNYaduo0

Love & Blessings, Shelley