"Water it with your tears if you must, but release your fears that nothing but nothingness is ahead for you." - Beth Moore

I can’t believe it’s over. After all this time of planning. Mountain highs and valley lows. It was everything I had hoped for and more. Beauty surrounded me at every turn, wonder restored at every outlook, and love experienced with each deep breath.

My heart ached as I walked down the corridor. Memories flashing through my mind like reels from a movie, words replayed like a favorite song on repeat, longing to go back to moments memories just can’t do justice. Sometimes none of it seems real. You wonder if it actually happened the way your memories remember.

At the end of the corridor was our flight. The trip was also over. The mountains, waterfalls, too many shades of green to count. The train rides throughout the country, laughter with family, bridges suspended over mountain peaks testing your courage.

My heart ached for what I was walking out of and for what it was walking into. 9 hours of waiting for a new normal waiting for me on the other side of the ocean. And honestly, I was nervous. I feared nothing but nothingness was ahead of me. A fear I have fought often in my life. And I would imagine I am not the only one…the only one who has feared nothing but triviality, disappointment, setbacks, pain….

I don’t know what the new normal will look like and I don’t have the energy to try to figure it out. I do believe it will be good and I do know it is right. But I know because I have watered many things with my tears. I have watered heartache, confusion, regrets, suffering, But belief, faith and hope rose out of those tears by the mercy of God.

I cried those tears as I fell before God.

I cried those tears as I wrestled doubt and fears with God.

I cried those tears in the dark alone with God.

You are seen. You are known. God sees me, He sees you. He surrounds you with His love. The sooner we embrace He is in everything, even in the dark and uncomfortable moments, the moments our pride cries a cry of death- Those are the moments when healing begins, when beauty blooms and our nothing but nothingness ahead becomes nothing but significance.

“There’s no place I could go your love won’t find me. No place I could hide that you don’t see.
No place I could fall your love couldn’t catch me.
You see it all, you see it all, through the eyes of love. You’re in everything. You’re all around me.
When I withdraw, still you pursue. When I miss understand, your love understands me.
You see it all. You’re in everything. You are all around me with your song.
Come and see me. Come and know me. Come and search my heart and make me like You. Make me new. I want to be just like You. ”
-Bethel Music, “You don’t miss a thing”

I have dreamt of writing my entire life. I never thought it was something I could share until I was in college. And I didn’t know it was something I was called to do until recently. God didn’t miss this desire I have held as long as I could hold a pencil to paper. Through God’s grace he has coated my raw edges with His grace and called me into something new and outside of normal. He has called me deeper into what He has put inside of me.

But the truth is I’m tired. Some days I don’t know if I am standing on mountaintops or in the low valleys. After standing on the depth of the valley and hiking to the edge of the mountain, I’m starting to wonder if there is any difference. The views were both beautiful. Just a different perspective. From the valley, you can feel the protection of the mountains surrounding you. From the cliff of the mountain, you can see how far you’ve come. Both restored wonder in me this last week.

From each step and from each place I stood in Switzerland, each vision was outside of normal. I truly have never seen beauty as I have seen trekking through the Alps. I am sure there are more breathtaking places on this earth outside of Switzerland. The Himalayas, New Zealand, and even the crystal blue waters of Fiji- I am sure they are in the running. But for what I’ve seen and for what I know- Switzerland was the most awe-inspiring places and trips I have ever gone on- I hate leaving. And from what I know of God, I believe the beauty does not stop at the peaks or in the valleys. I know His beauty and love are coming with me as I drive back through the Tennessee Smokey Mountains into my new city.

As my nerves subside and as my nerves return, I hope for unusual because God is unusual. He never does the expected. He never does the normal. He exceeds it and he is beyond it.

God met me on the Swiss foothills and snowy summits. And I think God meets us in our memories of those beautiful things and even the things that bring pain rushing back into our veins. But we have to invite him and be ready for him. Open for what he may remind us of and heal us there or laugh with us there. Open to listen. Listen to what is being said to us. Anything reminding us: you’re wrong, you’re not, you’ll never, you can’t… isn’t the memory God is in.

As my nephew would say, “God made the mountains because he is love.” God made you because he is love. He is bringing you into a new normal, through the tears and out of nothingness, because he is love. He can make it unconventional and significant.
Nothing but significance is ahead of us as sure as God is the God of love who made the mighty Alps, who made you for your story, and who made you to be His and no one else’s.

I'm choosing to let go of my fears that nothingness is ahead. Water what I must with tears.

Embrace Him. Embrace the unusual. Be remarkably you and I will be remarkably me. Be His.