E is for Extend.

i was pilfering through my drawers and boxes the other night when i came across one of my favorite gerard kelly pieces. i had written out his alphabet a few years back when i first heard it. E is one of my favorites: "extend me beyond my feeble dreams."

if i am going to get a tattoo anytime in the near future it will probably say that..

i was driving home today and listening to jonathan david helser's 'you're never giving up'. i think i've actually even written about this before - but somewhere in the twelve minute range, his wife sings 'you're breaking off the disappointment of the seasons - when i thought you'd left me.'and i became really overwhelmed with the goodness of a God i have stifled in a box smaller than one of the three i keep letters in.

this month marks a year since the big break up. and i can honestly remember exactly what i was doing this time last year. and every day up until the eighteenth. and then i can remember every minute of that day. and that night. and the next day and the next nights. safe to say this month is etched in my memory.

on that night, i can honestly remember feeling like i had no idea who God was. and i think that probably every one who has experienced pain in that fashion has wondered just who the heck God thinks he is to put you through that. and looking back on it, i can see that i really should have been asking, 'just who the heck am i?' i had told God before that day that no matter what happened in my relationship with this boy, i would serve him. and God reminded me of that promise quite often after the break up. serve him i did - but i served him in confusion and in just plain heart break.

deep down in the wells of my soul i felt that this could not be the end for me, but every practical bone in my body was saying this was the grand finale. no other boy would ever love me that much, think i was that beautiful, funny or talented; and i could never think any of the aforementioned about any other boy regardless of what he thought of me. i hated being awake and i hated trying to sleep. everything was a reminder of the life i didn't and wasn't going to have.

but my heart has been picked up and dusted off. not just by the Lord, but by my family, my best friends, by music, by books, by prayer... it's amazing the kind of all star cast it takes to bring you back to health.

so it's amazing to me to think that this time last year i thought it was all just about over. and now i am refreshed to be thinking of how much God is shaping and healing my heart in ways known and unknown to me. he is such a good guy. i'm joy bethany abare and i've got a lot of good stuff ahead of me. more than my feeble dreams could ever even... dream.