Covering-Grace

 It had been one of those stretches of time where it all felt like just. too. much. 

Too much broken, too much sad, too much heartache, too much me, too much...everything and everyone else. 

And I. was. done! 

Perhaps you know the feeling, too: overwhelmed with all the feelings, all the things, all the people, and you just seem to have lost your patience, your grace, your perseverance for all of it and any of it. 

In the days before, I'd struggled with my worst bout of depression in months, the onset of which had been brought on by a variety of factors which layered one upon the other until my body, my mind, my soul couldn't hold up any longer. It's strange to say that you've become, out of necessity, an expert in sitting with pain - pain of the heart, pain of the body. Trauma does that to you - forces you to make the choice of either fighting the imperfect and broken of your life-story and cause further harm to yourself, or make room for the unpredictable ebbs and flows of living an internal reality that's been altered by hardship you never asked for or wanted. 

Dark days had run into more dark days and, amidst the inner damage control and survival state I was in, I kept on hearing others were walking their own dark also. Sort of like a collective heaviness had settled in on many souls... 

There was the text from a friend about an unexpected church situation and a request for prayer that God would help and heal and show the next right thing to do. 

There was the confession of intense spiritual warfare from someone else who was having difficulty resistance temptation and fighting the good fight in his life. 

There was the email from someone at the end of their rope with family drama. 

There was the friend reaching out and keeping me updated on the memorial service for her young cousin, gone too soon and how she and her family are journeying their grief. 

Come to our captive hearts, Emmanuel, and minister to us here! 

Technical issues with two necessary video chats earlier in the day and finally one last thing gone wrong in the day, and I flipped. It was the last straw. One seemingly minor thing turned sideways and I snapped and soon, I found myself leaking all tears over the imperfect and the not-right and just telling God I was tired of the ugly... the ugly in myself, the ugly in others, the ugly in this world. 

But then, sometime later, I looked out...

White flakes were falling and settling on brown earth and the whole place was beginning to sparkle purity and beauty and I felt a sense of His presence as I realized yet again: Grace covers over. God is in the business of forgiving and granting new beginnings. Fresh starts and do-overs are His specialty. And even the ugliest of anything and everyone isn't too much for Him EVER! 

Yes... "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be made white as snow..." (Isaiah 1:18). And though your ugly be the ugliest ever and though the world feel like its gone to hell in a hand-basket and though the ugly of others spill itself all over you and coat you in its worst nastiness and though you feel like this life is one dark chapter after another... they shall be covered. smoothed over. renewed. And you shall be restored. 

God is kind and we are often ignorant of just how much and His love frequently goes unnoticed to us in the hurry of our business and the struggle of our survival. But He continues to go about His work of mending even in the spite of us... all because He cares for us just. that. much. 

So if you're feeling like it's all too much and you're too much and they're too much, remind yourself that it isn't too much for God. There's a reason He's promised to give you "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness" (Jeremiah 6:26) and all the weighty things are but minuscule in His eyes. He can handle it...even when we can't. And this exchange of our hardship for His healing, our dark for His light is how we grow to depend on Him, trust Him, love Him. 

You are not too much. I am not too much. Nobody is. At least not to Him. Life may feel that way and we may feel that way to ourselves or each other, but God's got us and God's got all this, too. So rest in that. Believe that. Hope that. Live that. 

In this on-going dark, He is here. He knows. And it's going to be okay.