This journey through life isn’t always an easy one. Some seasons might be better, more light-hearted, but some seasons are just plain hard.
We’re all walking on this road before us, taking one step at a time, and maybe a leap every now and then. We’re strolling, or running, sometimes we’re tumbling or falling.
This road, a symbol for our lives, it brings us joy, and it brings us pain. It brings us the most glorious moments, but it also leaves us in agony and pain sometimes.
The root of it all, of this life, of most of our joyous moments, and most of our most painful moments, is love.
A love that runs so deep that it evokes feelings in us we couldn’t have thought possible. It’s what makes life matter, because this love matters.
It’s a love that sometimes leaves us wishing we wouldn’t care so much, that makes us realize that no matter how much we love a person, we can’t change them.
It’s a love that will shatter our hearts into a thousand pieces, sometimes slowly, over time, and sometimes on one fateful day or in an instant, when the news reached us.
The news of their tragic accident.
The news of their betrayal.
The news of their passing.
The news of -fill-in-the-blank-.
I’m pretty sure you’ve got something to fill it with.
It’s this love that lead us here, the pain that brought us here, our shattered heart, that is now confronted with the question of how to go on, even if it seems impossible.
I pray that, when you face all those tiny little crossroads in your life, you’ll find the direction that leads you to the One who is perfect love.
Martha – Martha’s Mary Project
And the road, this life, all of a sudden isn’t straight anymore.
Instead, it comes with ups and downs and twists and turns and it’s impossible to see where it leads, sometimes to even see what the next day or hour looks like.
And we encounter a fateful crossroad: a crossroad that will take us in different directions.
One direction will lead us closer to Him, will lead us to renewed and restored hope, despite not believing we will ever get there. It will bring us closer to Jesus, and it will be the making of us.
The other direction will lead us away from Him, it will lead us to despair, to drown. In the long run, it will break us.
Probably, as we’re walking along this road, there will be dozens of small, little crossroads, and we will be walking both directions: sometimes, we might be able to hold on to the tiniest glimmer of hope we see, and bring all our heartache and brokenness to Jesus.
But there will be other moments of despair, where all the pain is drowning out the little hope we might have to hold on.
In those moments when it will feel impossible to take one more step, when faith doesn’t make sense, my prayer for you and me is that we will hold on to Him, that we will have the strength to gather all those broken pieces of our hearts and bring them to Jesus.
I pray that my heart will be healed through the only thing I think is capable of healing a broken heart: love. It’s ironic, isn’t it? The very thing that shattered our heart is the very thing that will make it whole again.
And that slowly, day by day, life will be rebuilt again.
I pray that, when you face all those tiny little crossroads in your life, you’ll find the direction that leads you to the One who is perfect love.
