What I know

I used to consider myself a writer.

Writing was always a life source. A processing. An artistic expression. A necessity.

I used to think that I could do some good, encourage others by sharing my heart.

And maybe that was true.

But.

Now I wonder if I was just an overly opinionated person who thought others needed to hear what I had to say.

The past seven years have been extremely difficult. Now that’s not to say there hasn’t been any good, there has. It’s just that life rapidly, drastically changed multiple times over, and many many hardships occurred that we never imagined we would walk through, that it has left me a bit speechless. 

I’ve written this same thing over and over. I have lamented at the exodus of my words. I have wondered what was wrong and why the well that was once plentiful now seems to be bone dry. 

Maybe I have less words to put to paper because I have changed…

Outside of the Gospel, life is not as black and white as I once believed. 

I find myself with fewer strong opinions. 

I find myself questioning more than I ever did. 

I don’t know it all anymore.

The older I get, the more I walk through, the more I realize just how little I actually do know.

I see more and more the value of letting the Holy Spirit work in others, without my interference.

I see how deeply flawed I am. 

How deeply flawed the Church is. 

And yet how deeply loved we are despite it. 

I see that the Christian life isn’t a set of rules to live by.

How very damaging legalism is.

How living in fear steals joy and life. 

And how kindness and compassion are more important than being right.

I see how desperately grace is needed.

How very much love has to be present.

While writing out these few thoughts, I stopped and picked up the book The Green Letters by Miles Stanford. What I read was so profound, and maybe just where I am at in life right now.


“When we first start out hungry and zealous for Him it is often imagined that extensive progress has been made, when as yet we have barely begun. As our Lord takes us along through the years it slowly dawns upon us that there are vast, almost infinite, areas of development through which He must still lead us.


Many of these development areas are just plain desert- no spiritual activity, no service, little to no fellowship with Him, or others. What prayer there is has to be forced and is sometimes dropped altogether for months at a time. Bible study finally feels that God has ceased to carry out His part, and there is little or no use in seeking to continue on. And yet there is a hunger deep within that will not allow him to quit. “The foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.” (2 Tim 2:19a)


Are we to love and trust and respond to Him only when He seems to be “blessing us? What sort off love is that? Self-love? Our Father strips everything away from time to time to give us the opportunity of loving and trusting and responding to Him just because He is our Father. He knows what the cross is going to mean in our lives; He knows the death-march that lies ahead of us in order that there may be resurrection life; He knows the barren bleeding hearts beyond to whom He must minister through us- hence He is going to bring us to the place where we don’t care what happens: He is all that matters!”


He is all that matters.

Not my words.

Maybe I couldn’t write because everything that would have come out of my mouth during the years of strong refinement, because if I’m honest that’s what these past seven years have been, would have only produced chaff. Walking though hell and fire produces chaff. 

I hope that once the chaff has blown away, what remains looks more like Him.

Because He is all that matters.