The Ultimate Balm for Your Weary HeartSample

Blue and White and New

Beloved One: I never left him. I held him each day. I was with him before he was born. I was with him the day he breathed his first breath. I am with him, even still, beyond the moment he breathed his last. It isn’t over, my darling. It has only begun.

Your heart, I know, feels like it will burst from sorrow some days. Your heart feels too heavy for you to rise, on some days. But I made you, and I made him, too. I am with you, from the beginning to the end. 

Know this too: With me there is no end. This suffering, this pain and stretch of time when life feels so long and so hard . . . there will come an end. I have come, I have restored you, and called you by name. You are mine. 

The sorrow cuts. But I want you to know this, too: I know your smile, and I know how you love, and I love your questions and your yearning. I love your desires and your dreams. Those dreams of yours are ones I want you to give me. You are made to be with me, trusting me, letting yourself believe in what feels impossible because anything is possible with me. I have held you, in the hard moments, and I have never left you. I know his absence feels so much to bear, but you also know I’ve given you a strength that you recognize as mine, in you. 

I give you faith. I give you hope. I give you the dreams, the searching. There is so much more I have for you, my daughter. 

Come. See.

Exercise & Prayer

Find a smooth stone that you can write on. Look at it carefully, notice its curves, bumps, design, and color. In a conversation with God, God will tell you how he knows you, how he sees you, how he is inviting you to dream. What dream do you have with God? Hold the stone in your hand and close your eyes. Ask God to give you a word for the dream he is inviting you to share with him. Write it down on the stone with a permanent marker and keep it close to you, where you can see it. Continue to ask God for courage to pursue him. Ask Him to help you believe more in how He made you—and for help in realizing that dream. 

Father, I give you my heart, which aches with the pain of loss, sadness, and regret. Restore me to you so I can dream. I want to live in the freedom of knowing you hold me, hold everything, in all situations—and that with you, everything is beginning again. In Jesus’ name, Amen.