I will call upon your name and keep my eyes above the waves.

it just got laid on my heart to write on our blog today. :) but i honestly have no idea what i'm going to write about...

okay! so, last week i was driving down cantrell and messing with the radio. and this song was on k-love:

The days will come when you don't have the strength
When all you hear is you're not worth anything
Wondering if you ever could be loved
And if they truly saw your heart they'd see too much

You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful
You're beautiful
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His
You're beautiful

And praying that you have the heart to find
Cause you are more than what is hurting you tonight
For all the lies you've held inside so long
And they are nothing in the shadow of the cross

Before you ever took a breath
Long before the world began
Of all the wonders He possessed
There was one more precious
Of all the earth and skies above
You're the one He madly loves
Enough to die...

and oh my goodness, with everything going on in my heart right now, i just started crying! i realized that the things i've been wanting and chasing after will only lead to hurt, and i was made for so much more than all of this. 

i wouldn't call it a lightbulb moment or anything like that... it was more like, the first rung of a ladder that leads out of a deep hole. 

i find it slightly annoying yet extremely beautiful that God uses our mistakes & problems & struggles to make his truth & promise & love even more glorious. sometimes he has to bring us really low to remind us that he is there and has it under control. 

i don't have much else to say. i still don't really know what the point of this blog post is... but i guess i just want to say that everything happens for a reason. God is going to use your heartache and your struggle to weave a beautiful story whether or not it feels beautiful right now. and sometimes, it gets worse before it gets better, like when i'm doing a deep-clean of my room it always gets even messier before it can be totally clean.

i am struggling. you are struggling. but God is working through that, and i am still beautiful and you are still beautiful.

-r a c h e l