Storms.

Many people are broken. Many people go through various "storms" throughout their lives. The hardest thing to do is to admit when you're in a storm. I will tell you right now, as hard as it is, I'm a mess. I'm BROKEN. Completely, utterly, hopelessly broken.

I was sure by now

God You would have reached down

And wiped our tears away

Stepped in and saved the day

But once again, I say "Amen", and it's still raining

As the thunder rolls

I barely hear Your whisper through the rain

"I'm with you"

And as Your mercy falls

I raise my hands and praise the God who gives

And takes away

This song by Casting Crowns is MY song right now. I cannot begin to tell you how many days I have to just play this song over and over and over. I can't even count the thoughts of "death" that have tortured me over the last year. Sometimes spiritual death and sometimes literal. I'm not in the worst of storms by far, but I'm struggling. Being newly married with a baby and living with my parents isn't the greatest. I'm so thankful for them and everything they do for us, but I feel like it will never be over. I wonder why God won't step in and give Dean a good enough job that would allow us to move out. So many times I let my circumstances get in the way of who it's really about. I like to believe it's about me, but it's not. It's so easy to be selfish. It's so easy to victimize myself. I hope and I PRAY that I don't act on it as much as I feel it inside. I know that God provides. He has shown his faithfulness and I know that He will continue to be faithful. Today was just one of those days.

I start the day, the war begins, endless reminding of my sin

Time and time again Your truth is drowned out by the storm I'm in

Today I feel like I'm just one mistake away from You leaving me this way

Every day is a battle for me. Every day I struggle with feeling worthless and neglected. I have always struggled with this. I've never been the popular one. I've never had more than 1 or 2 truly good friends. I've been rejected and left out. Even by the people who said I was their "bff." Getting pregnant before I was married didn't help my emotional and spiritual state at all. My entire pregnancy I felt worthless and forgotten. I felt like I didn't have a true friend. I had to be constantly reminded of who I am in Christ and how treasured I truly am. Today was a reminder day. I was struggling all morning to point that I cried when they played that song in worship.

Yesterday I received a letter from one of my best friends who is in New Zealand right now. Little did she know that the words she wrote to me were words that I so badly needed to hear (read?). She reminded me of when we were little how we planned to be missionaries in China together. She continued to reassure me that God has called me and that I am a missionary, despite my circumstance. What a coincidence that it would line up with today's lesson at church. We studied Luke 5, the calling of the disciples. I was reminded that Jesus didn't pick the best-of-the-best, smartest, strongest, wisest or oldest guys. He picked fishermen who were likely teenagers. He picked the lowly, broken people.

I'm done with hiding. I'm tired of feeling like I have to have it all together. I can't do it on my own and I don't have to because my Lord and Savior, my Abba Father, HE has it all together. I don't know why God has me in this "storm," but I do know that it will all be for HIS glory and not my own. I can only pray that I will be obedient and that I will praise him at all times. I pray that I would be completely transparent so that people wouldn't see Taylor, but that they would see Jesus.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. - 2 Corinthians 1:3-6