I stood looking out my dining room window, admiring the lush, soft white which spread out before me. Intricate little gifts fell from the sky, landing on bare trees and covering the length of yard I had yet to explore. This was my new home. I had been carrying the weight of hope undone, a heart-wound unbound. Even as grief continued to run its course, as it must, I was looking forward to beginning again, and this place called me forth.
Gratitude became real that wintry day and swelled up where the internal embers of failure and loss had remained a constant reminder of my lack. I posted a photo on social media of the scene unfolding behind my house. In the caption, I wrote:
Sometimes we think we know what we most want. But sometimes we find that gifts surpassing even our deepest desires are standing there bright-eyed, saying, "This is how much you are loved, and so much more."
My journal holds notes from those days declaring helplessness in my need for God and persistence to rebuild. You know, God is always at work behind the scenes. In my deepest need, He surprised me with a gift I couldn't measure. It was His kindness showing up in the generosity of some friends. I was just beginning to understand. My cottage in the woods would serve as a sanctuary and a balm, healing for my feelings of isolation and rejection, and a place where I would instead learn solitude, acceptance, forgiveness, and grace. When I took up residence there, I began the hard work of plowing my heart.
The word sanctuary comes from the Latin root "sanctus," meaning "holy." The sweet sister-word of sanctuary is sacredness. This was most certainly a sacred, holy place, a retreat, a harbor where I could stay connected. I stood at my dining room window that day not knowing that some of my worst days, but also some of my very best, were not far off. I found in the coming weeks and months I would have need of God like I'd never before needed Him and therefore, I began to encounter Him like I'd never before encountered Him. I learned how my facedown moments brought me face-to-face with Jesus, and what I found there was Love---a new kind of Love which I had never known in all my prior study and seeking of Him.
In Turn My Mourning into Dancing, Henri Nouwen writes:
"Solitude means that our aloneness does not come as a sad fact needing healing but rather offers a place where God comes to bring communion... solitude carries notes of joy and possibility. For solitude, for the Christian, means not just to wander off to woods or desert or mountaintop for private withdrawal. It means daring to stand in God's presence. Not to guard time simply to be alone, but alone in God's company."
My cottage, my sanctuary, provided space and time alone with God, where I met with Him and He met with me, to fasten my heart to His unbending, and unending love for me. When you get into His presence, it changes you! We sorted through the broken places. We sifted through the dirt and the bitter roots. He taught me how to loosen my grip. He taught me about forgiveness---He taught me, most of all, about belovedness.
Nouwen continues, "We can love only because we have first been loved... Solitude is the place where you can hear the voice that calls you the beloved, that leads you on to the next page of the adventure..."
God loves to give good gifts to His children, and He is such a good Giver! There is giftedness in all of this---snowfall, evening walks, piles of mascara-covered tissues, quietness, stillness, dancing in my kitchen, joy, music, discovery, possibility... Rest. Restoration.
I'm finishing packing up to move this week. Some kind of new beginning is in the works again. At church last month, words were spoken over me---jump was one of them, a jump "not to run away, but with courage into the next thing that God has for me." I'm reminded again that God removes, but He also restores in abundance.
