Note from Team LO: We are SO excited to bring you this month’s post from our LO sister member, Abbie Miller! If you want to be a part of this incredible community, the doors are currently open! Find out more about this online sisterhood HERE. Now, enjoy today’s post from Abbie 🙂 

I’m not writing to you as someone who wants to preach at you or tell you to suck it up. I’m not going to chastise you for the decisions you may have made that have led you here.  I won’t call you dramatic or insist that you are nothing more than an attention seeker. I refuse to tell you this is all a mental thing and that you’ll feel better if you just “think about good things.” More than likely, thinking about good things hurts even worse, doesn’t it? At this point, you wholeheartedly believe those good things are out of your reach. You think you’re too dirty. You think you’re undeserving and unworthy. You believe you are broken.

Are you exhausted from forcing yourself to smile, when smiling is the last thing you want to do? Are you terrified to dream for fear of waking up to the pain that never seems to be completely gone? Are you desperately seeking love in any place you can find it, knowing that if you give in, you’re going to wake up tomorrow feeling more useless than you felt today?

Dear Hopeless Heart, my friend, I’m not here to feed you with empty promises of a tomorrow that is completely free from worry or pain. I’m here to tell you that I know you. And though you may feel all alone in that dark and hopeless place, you’re not. My friend, you are never alone.

I met someone a little while ago, while I was grieving for my own hopeless heart. Maybe you don’t trust men. Maybe you don’t trust fathers. That’s okay, I didn’t either. This Man is different. He didn’t meet me with a look of disappointment. He didn’t walk away from me when He listened to me curse at Him nor did He turn His eyes away from me when He saw my past. The names I had grown used to hearing, the way my body was misused and taken advantage of, the alcohol, the countless nights I questioned if there would ever be anyone who wasn’t going to walk away from me -He saw it all. My shame and guilt had finally become too big to hide and too heavy for me to carry, and I broke. Right in front of Him, I broke. And as I looked up, expecting to see another person running away from me, I was met with the tear-soaked face of this strange and magnificent Man. Slowly and gently, He began to wipe away the mascara stained tears from my cheeks and whispered to me what He saw in me.

You are beautiful.

You are strong.

You are enough.

You are good.

You are worth fighting for.

You are going to move mountains.

You are an overcomer.

You are important.

You are My friend.

You are My daughter.

My friend, I had never ever let myself believe that there was better. I had accepted that the darkness was all life had to offer me. And if I had never met that Man, you may know Him as Jesus, darkness is the only thing I could have expected to find. A long time ago I was told that darkness is merely the absence of light. This Man, Jesus, is a light that can never burn out. Where He is, darkness flees. His nature is one of mercy, love, compassion, and patience. As you mourn for all that this life may have taken from you, He kneels down to meet you right in the middle of that mess and embraces you. My friend, that hug is what gave me life. At last, I could breathe. I ask, I beg, let Him hold you. Dare to believe Him. Dare to let Him in.

Dear Hopeless Heart, as impossible as it may seem, you have the potential to be a beacon of hope for others who have felt what you are feeling right now. Your pain is not meaningless. Jesus is The Redeemer. He uses it all, nothing will be wasted. Dear Hopeless Heart, dare to hope again.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Abbie Miller currently attending West Texas A&M University where she plans to major in Social Work. Her dream is to spend her life speaking the words God is so good at filling her with. You can read more from Abbie at www.heyletsthrive.com