I think I am dehydrated...

No one ever said it would be easy, but then again, no one ever told me just how hard it would be.
I could not stop them. It was impossible.
Maybe I am free of the rainy season once again. I hope so.
I remember the years that passed without my shedding a tear. I was tough.
I was able to handle whatever was thrown my way.
My heart was immune to the virus of emotion.
Or so I thought.

In reality, I simply shoved every pain into a closet. And I never darkened that door.
Until God brought me into a community that truly revealed the love of Christ.
It was the love that accepted me with all of my faults, those hidden and those obvious.
Love stood at the door of that closet and asked to know what was inside.
And little by little I cracked open the door. I even pulled some of the pain out and let Love carry it away to the landfill.
Yet, there were no tears.

The tears first fell when I realized how much I truly loved others. Then I cried.
I am so thankful for that.
It took realizing that I am utterly broken and useless without the power of the Holy Spirit filling me.
It was realizing that I am a part of a huge, devastated world that is searching for the very thing that God surrounds me with each and every day, His unconditional love.
It took making a million mistakes and inflicting wounds on the ones I love the most to realize that my deepest fears of being alone were unfounded.
There is nothing that I can do to chase God away from me.
Even without the tangible, there is still the invisible hope.
Since I discovered my own brokeness, I am breaking all the more.
When I said "Break my heart for what breaks yours", I had no idea that God would show me that breaking is the first step to becoming whole.

God must really enjoy mosaics. That is what I have become.
Broken, shattered slivers of colored glass. I would be nothing without the hand of the Artist.
He cements these pieces of broken glass into His mold so perfectly.
For what is art, but a way to communicate the depths of the creator's heart to a searching world?
I cannot see the big picture yet, but that is okay.
I pray He uses me to reveal the depths of His love that he has so faithfully lavished on me.

Leaving this community is hard. It is the next step. I will always be so thankful for what I have experienced here. For the most precious gifts that God has given me.