Beauty in the Hard

I would consider myself a very deep thinker. I feel in words, in smells, thoughts and memories. I can express myself deeply and throughout my life I have wondered if that’s a curse or a blessing. As I am getting older and learning the beauty of who I am and how God created me, I find comfort in being a deep person. The world needs those, just as it needs every other type of person. It can be so easy to discount your strengths because it doesn’t seem as important as the driven, talented, outward accomplished person you so often compare yourself to. We often don’t see what we have to offer the world because we are stuck in trying to be humble and also trying to be honest. I have bad days, like everyone else. Sometimes those bad days feel as if it takes away from my strengths. Maybe the outward happy person is a fraud because she struggles with depression, insecurity, and things that don’t line up with who she wants to be. It’s a weight that feels as if it keeps you weighed down and shackled from where God wants us. But as I sit back and reflect with honesty and sincerity, I realize that God created us in His image. His image is Holiness, righteousness, love, faithfulness, sovereignty, Mercy and compassion. You see all the good in me is actually who the Lord created me to be. The complications and the negatives is because of sin and the messiness of this world. When God looks at me with all of His sovereignty and love, He see’s me as He created me to be. Unique, with purpose, and with the unique characteristics and qualities that He breathed and wove into me. When I sit on that, I am humbled and thankful. Thankful that I do not have to accept the brokenness of my human heart but that I get to hold onto the identity that with Christ, I am good. And though I struggle as most do, I am a loving and deep feeling child of the Almighty. I get to claim the good and give Him the bad. I get to start everyday as a clean slate trying to cleanse my heart of sin with His gracious truth. There is so much comfort in that. We are, who He says we are, who He created us to be. If you need to hear that, I hope it hits deeply, all the way to the pit in your stomach and the deepness in your heart. I hope you can realize that His plan for you is goodness, to know Him and be in relationship with Him, To be more like Him so that when you look in the mirror, you can see what He sees and how He originally designed you.

I am looking forward to sharing my heart, my troubles, tribulations, thoughts and my feelings. They won’t always feel beautiful and inspiring, oh how I wish they did. But my hope is that when you read my words, whoever you may be that you will not feel alone. That you will feel like a friend is in the thick of it with you and that you will see the beauty in the hard. What I have learned over the years is through any amount of hardship, there has always been some sort of beauty. I heard someone refer to it yesterday as the “messy middle.” The beginning and end can come with feelings of anticipation and relief, but it’s in the messy middle where we realize how much strength we really have. It’s in the messy middle where we see the growth, the changes, the need to ask for help, not seeing what the ending looks like. There is fear there and I often struggle in the messy middle because my control nature wants to know that it will work out. But it’s also in the messy middle where we need to lean on our faith the most.

There can be beauty in the hard, and I hope my words encourage you to stop and look for it.

My counselor shared Psalm 91 with me yesterday, and I found it to be so encouraging. Even when I dwell by giving it to God, He covers me, He rescues me, He is there for me. You know what’s incredible, He does the same for you.

Psalm 91

¹ Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.^[a]
2 I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

³ Surely he will save you
    from the fowler’s snare
    and from the deadly pestilence.
⁴ He will cover you with his feathers,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

Be blessed Friends

Brittany Hollander