So, this was the weekend I've been waiting for for about 2 years now...pretty exciting eh? Probably not to anybody else but me. Sometimes I feel so redundant when talking about the last 2 years of my life but the reality is...is that it has been the darkest time in my life until last weekend when I finally felt my heart again...finally felt something other than pain. Ok, so you would say but you've seemed so happy....I have had awesome times with my husband and kids and friends...I've kept living, pressing on, making the best out of every moment...everything I knew how to do...everything I've been taught in life to do when "storms" come. I almost got to good with going through all the motions and being strong enough on my own..or so I thought. While walking out the last couple years of my life while watching my dads sickness deteriorate the man I knew and then grieving his loss, I had built such a wall around my heart of pain that nobody could get through to it to touch it...not even God it seemed. I kept pursuing Him the only way I knew how...I loved Him with everything and I knew that he was the one carrying me through this whole mess but my heart felt cold and far from Him even though I didn't want it to. I'd beg him to speak to me and help me to feel His presence again like I used to but it just wasn't happening...it was horribly dark. You may say that I may be being slightly dramatic..maybe...but last weekend I got to be who I remembered being before my dad got sick! I was invited to go to a women's "retreat" getaway with an amazing friend of mine to spend a couple of days with worship leader/songwriter Rita Springer. I thought this would be a pretty good idea since I was going there mainly to ask her some questions about worship...that never happened..God had a different plan for me this weekend. I went there but not for the reason I thought I was going there for! As soon as she sat down at the piano to start the Friday night service tears began streaming down my face because for the first time in 2 years I felt the presence of God! We started to just worship God and tears kept streaming down my face as I pleaded with God to allow me to see His face again...to make my heart soft again...to infuse my soul with Joy again! That was, after all, what I was known for before this whole mess began...JOY! And with each song I began to feel all the walls I had been building around my broken heart just fall away. I could feel God around me again. For the last 2 years I've known in my head that God was around me, holding me, carrying me, bringing peace into a seemingly impossible situation, but Friday night it went from knowing it to finally feeling it...feeling something more than hurt or anger or frustration or pain or nothing at all...I can't tell you how liberating this feels! But then an even more amazing thing happened. Rita said a short phrase that has completely changed my life..she was talking in John 11 about when Lazarus died Jesus turned to Thomas and said let's go see Lazarus and, being obedient to Jesus, he said ok let's go...Thomas immediately followed Jesus...well when you think of Thomas what automatically comes to your mind? Doubting Thomas right? Rita made a connection at that point that rocked my world...she said Thomas was obedient to Jesus...after the death of Jesus the Bible said He doubted Jesus...in his grief he doubted Jesus. She said his doubt was his grief..The Bible wanted to make a statement before that grief that Thomas was obedient before to God and that's how God viewed him...obedient..his grief and doubt wasn't what God saw in Him and wasn't how God defined him! Do you know that after his grief and doubt Thomas was the disciple to take the gospel and spread it into Asia?! God used him AFTER his doubt because what was really in his heart that defined him was obedience! The grief tripped him up for a moment but God used him in an awesome way after that! At that point I literally had to take everything inside of me to not fall on the floor and weep! My heart has doubted for the last year and a half and I've hated every second of it...begging God to take this doubt from my heart and I kept trying to press in to make that horrible feeling go away! I've questioned more than I ever have until Friday night! God you can still use me despite my failures and questions and doubts!! He knows my heart and loves me still! I can sing about Him with confidence now knowing He still loves me and can work through my life even after all my doubts and my grief!! I can soar with eagles wings now because He brought freedom to my broken heart!