This song by Tenth Avenue North has affected me so much in this season of unknown that I decided to write a blog about it.
“Was there purpose for the pain? Did I cry these tears in vain?”
I remember this time in my life when I felt so broken, so broken down, so defeated.
I had had the script for a powerfully moving film about human trafficking… for six months. I had felt as if during that time of preparation and research that I had become this character. I even dyed my hair blonde for the callback after being told it was down to me and two other girls. And then when I learned they decided to add nudity to the project—something I promised myself and God I would never do—I had to turn it down.
It felt as if someone had died. And I don’t say that lightly because I have experienced my share of loss throughout my life. It truly felt as if I lost someone—her, this character, this part of me that I had created.
It felt so worthless—all this time I had spent preparing for a role I would never even have the chance to play. I wondered if I had spent that time in vain.
“Will you catch every tear? Or will you just leave me here?”
It was around that time that a boy at church named Clay started showing interest in me. I had had my eye on him for nine months. I remember tearing out my weed-filled garden the day after I had to turn down that project and planting in their place some wildflower seeds from a friend’s wedding, watering the very soil with my tears. I went to church that night and told him about having to turn down the opportunity.
Little did I know that during that time God would be planting a new beginning through a relationship with Clay.
And yet after a whirlwind seven months of dating and a six month engagement, I found myself more depressed than ever due to some worse-than-ever chronic physical pain. I cried so many countless tears and experienced so many dark moments of wondering if life was worth living… like this… in pain, day in and day out.
It all seemed so worthless, like such a waste. Wouldn’t my life be better lived for His Kingdom if I had the energy and ability to go out and be a joy and serve others?
“As I walk this great unknown, questions come and questions go.”
On a jog the other day I found my eyes flooded with tears as these these all-too-familiar lyrics played.
God has since led me down a path of help, of knowledge, of wisdom and of healing. I am not 100% pain free, but He has provided me such incredible relief. I stand amazed. After fourteen years of pain, it is almost completely gone.
And yet I stand in another season of unknown–one in which I have so many questions about what God is doing. Since last July it feels like Clay and I have been waiting, in an interim, as he has taken an interim position as youth director at our church. He has a true heart for global outreach and social justice, and yet he has not found a job. And the church has not hired his replacement. And so we sit in the in between.
I’d love to plan our lives—to buy a house, to feel settled, to hang things on the wall… and to not share one with a 2-year-old’s bedroom on the other side of my office where I sit and try to write a book admist constant distraction and noise.
I’m not great at waiting. I’m not good at unknowns. But even as I sit in this season of both, I can’t say much else but that despite it all, “I have this hope in the depth of my soul” because I know that in the flood or the fire He is with me and He won’t let go.
He hasn’t yet and He won’t ever.
As I look back on those other two seasons of tears and unknown, I can see so clearly all that He was doing:
– Turning down that role played into my desire to write—to not simply be at the mercy of the projects for which I was auditioning {and into which I was pouring my heart and my soul.} It was all a part of my path that led me to writing this very book I am writing today—a vision I wouldn’t trade for any acting job.
– And that season of depression and deep pain? Without it I never would have had this testimony, this perspective on pain, and this compassion for others. And it wouldn’t be a very tie-in in this book that I am writing—a parallel of the painful and long season of waiting in singleness that so many endure.
And so while I can’t see the whole picture God is creating with this moment right now, and while I can’t envision or even begin to fathom all that He is doing in and through this season, I can’t not have confidence that He’s doing something…Something great. Something big. Something worthwhile.
In this season of unknown, He knows exactly what He is doing, I’m sure.
. . . . . . .
Are you in a season of unknown? Are you waiting for something? Are you filled with questions and doubts?
May all your doubts be replaced with hope in all that He is doing behind the scenes and all He will continue to do in your future as you look back on your past and remember His faithfulness and how He never left you or abandoned you. He hasn’t yet and He won’t ever.
“For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?”– Romans 8:24
“But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and now grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.”– Isaiah 40:31
