faith / inclusion + respite

love is louder than circumstance

• by kerri

You make all things work together for my good.

and if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? [. . .] our God is healer, awesome in power . . .

 

I hear ignition in the words off her tongue.  I see the light in her eyes.

This IS the girl I knew last year, but the girl has grown.  I am seeing the change, seeing the love.  And I am blessed, amazed, astounded at the work that God is doing in this girl.

She’s sixteen, and has the beautiful trusting mind and relentless love of a five-year-old.  A glowing smile, and a hug every time we see each other.  And the above are a few of the choice lyrics that overflowed from her heart tonight during worship.

Last year she came but rarely engaged.  Worship was too crazy, too overwhelming for her, and on the bigger, busier nights, she’d often choose to stay home.  This year, I can’t even piece together what changed in her, except that God is doing amazing things through music in this girl.  She runs in every single week, finds me, gives me a hug and then holds onto my shoulders, jumps up and down and says “Kerri! Are we doing worship tonight?!”  And I am so, so happy every time that I get the opportunity to say “YES!”  And then she asks me repeatedly “How long until worship?”

The character of God is changing the character of this girl.  I love that when I least expect it, He opens my eyes through her in such a way that only a big, big, BIG God can do.

I am blessed.

I am blessed by her presence, her heart, her love, her perspective.  Her perception.  Seriously, she caught me tonight, figured out I was tired, and then after worship told me I needed to go home and go to bed.

I am blessed that through some path only an amazing God has created that our paths crossed, and I’m able to be a part of her world–I do one-on-one respite support for her at our youth events on Friday nights.  It’s something I never perceived happening when I signed up to be a youth leader, but it was definitely not an accident.  And it’s an amazing learning experience, not only in working with people with disabilities, but in life.

She opens my eyes every single time.

She teaches me how to trust.  How to engage when the moment is right for not everyone, but for me . . . as she does.  She teaches me how to open myself up to others . . . not for them to see more of me, but for me to see more of them.

She reminds me time and time again that LOVE is LOUDER than circumstance.

faith

six years.

• by kerri

Always, always when I think of this, on this day, a wave of disbelief and dizziness in reliving those moments of desperation passes over me.  The day comes and goes, year after year, where I was so close to losing it all, and then in an instant, got it all back.  And I still don’t know what to say about it, what to do about it.  In a moment where everything was crumbling in front of my eyes, the darkness that surrounded everything around me and everything in me became light.

Six years later, I am still without words for the redemptive love of my amazing Saviour who saved my life.  Protected me from myself and saved my life when I was so, so close to throwing everything away.  Throwing my life away.

I have no other words.  I am still alive.

And thank You will never be enough. But those two words, HOPE for tomorrow, and a heart of love for my God is all I have.  Hope that only begun in me six years ago today, and love that I try to let shine through in my life.

I don’t deserve this.  I don’t deserve to be transformed, to be changed.  I don’t deserve the amazing people around me, my amazing jobs, the amazing kids I work with, my amazing church.  I don’t deserve all of the things I’ve been blessed with.  I don’t deserve the love of my God after all the times I pushed Him away and smacked Him in the face.

Yet He loves me despite it all.  He loves me enough that He opened my heart that September day in 2005 by telling me that I didn’t have to end my story then and there.  That He alone could get me through everything I was facing–lighten my darkness, take the depression, and heal my grandma of the cancer that invaded her for a few more years.

I’m living a life that six years ago I’d have never dreamed.  I’ve had amazing ups, and I’ve had huge downs.  I’ve learned, I’ve grown, I’ve danced, I’ve cried.  I’ve reached my arms to the sky in worship and fallen to my knees in desperation.

I’ve created new chapters of the same story that God is writing.

I am ALIVE.