the 7 weeks that changed everything

Walking into this birthday feels different.

There have been times in the past that as I moved closer to forty, I felt a quiet hopelessness of what the future would look like. But this year it feels different.

It feels freeing. It feels healing.

If feels like stepping into a confidence that is only from the Lord, one where I feel more like myself again and fully see all the healing that He has done. This feeling caught me by surprise the last seven weeks. It’s been unexpected, surprising and amazing all at the same time.

The journey I have been on has been hard and refining. It’s taken longer than I imagined and parts of me never thought I’d get past it…even just a few months ago.

But recently, it all changed. I feel lighter and more free than I have in the past six years but maybe even more so than in my twenties.

While I once longed for the life I had before, the “good years” of love that filled my twenties, believing it would never get better than that. The Lord has shown me recently, that just isn’t true. He has revealed how far He’s brought me and how deeply He has healed me.

The thing I once feared suddenly and unexpectedly no longer has a hold on me.

He showed me a glimpse that He can truly do it better than before. For years, there have been two pieces of paper that hang in my bathroom: one says, “He will restore better than before” and the other “He is a God of miracles.” These served as reminders to my weary soul, but now…I saw a glimpse of the power of His redemption.

And while I wait, He’s whispered that He still has immeasurably more in store for me. It was a glimpse that proved to me, I truly am whole again, all because of Him. I am healed. Somehow through someone unexpected, the Lord healed deep parts of me I never thought could be completely healed.

I do not know what the future holds but I am holding on to Him and His promises, praying He will give me the desires of my heart.