Healing...

"How high-how wide-no matter where I am
Healing is in Your hands!
How deep-how strong-now by Your grace I stand
Healing is in Your hands!"-Christy Nockels

Today is a good day-it really is:) It's a day I celebrate the birth of my brother, which also makes it bittersweet. I find that farther away from his passing that it gets, the more I realize that the wound of losing him hasn't really healed at all. In fact it's still very bruised and tender, but I'm learning to realize that that in itself is a GREAT thing! It means that Shane was such an amazing man and that our bond was close and deep. It means that our relationship as brothers was real and that he changed my life. If it didn't hurt, that would mean that we weren't that close or that my memories of him were not fond ones. It hurts because Shane was everything he was advertised to be: a great father, a great husband, a great brother, a great son-a GREAT MAN of God!

Whats been constantly helping me is the fact that God's grace is sufficient for me. It's sufficient for all of us. SO when I'm emotionally exhausted and can't cry any more due to lack of tears, God is there reassuring me that He is with me in this brokenness and in this pain. That's the big misconception about being a Christ follower: I hear a lot of people preach that once you become a Christian life is easier, and that's simply not true. Life is life friends, and we are a fallen people, God never promises that things will be easy or that life will be full of sunshine-He promises that no matter what He's there right by our side, hurting with us, crying with us, breathing with us and loving us! That's the healing power of Christ!!! It's knowing that no matter what life throws our way, God is there with us and we can rely on Him. God's not a cosmic vending machine Whom we can just ask and He will give us whatever we want, He's our FATHER. My dad loves me and let me tell you something, he didn't give me a lot of things that I thought I had to have, he gave me what I needed and loved me thats it!!! I wouldn't trade him for anything and that's how we need to picture God.

He is a healer of the brokenhearted and a friend to the mourning and He is comfort in a world full of pain. SO if youre going through something rough right now, just remember this-God isn't abandoning you, he's drawing closer to you!

Cheers,

travis