As a wannabe writer, one of the worst things I can do is abandon my social media. Social media is an incredibly important tool for writers these days: it is a way to proactively engage with your community, it’s a way to build a platform, it’s a way to get your words out into the world for people to actually read, absorb, and share.  Social media for a writer is crucial if you ever want to be published.

But yet, mostly over the last few months, and truly over the last year or two, I’ve somewhat avoided spending any time on social media. I’ve avoided writing.  I’ve avoided people and places and really all the things.  And I can look back at it now and realize I’ve been in this land of mourning, of grief, over some things that have happened in my life.  Maybe someday I will share these things in a blog or book or talk but for now I will just say, I have been in a season… a season of mourning.  And it’s been for a long time.  I have reached the very end of myself where there was nothing left but me, at the bottom of my brokenness, and God. I have been the person who was a mess.  Who screamed and cried and begged God to show His face.  Who felt like the storms of life were tossing me every direction.  I have felt alone and abandoned… even by Him. It truly felt like He had forgotten my name.  But when I came to the end of myself, after all the trials and hurt and pain and despair so deep I wanted to die, I found He was still there. Waiting. Loving.  And offering me the chance to heal.

I used to feel so ashamed to feel broken. I don’t anymore. Brokenness happens to us all. It’s a season we will all walk through at various time in our lives. But admitting the brokenness allows the healing to begin.  I found mercy in my mess and an unwavering assurance that no matter what we walk through, we are NOT alone.  Yes, I’ve been in a long season of mourning and I’ve pulled myself away from so much that my heart actually needed during that time… but maybe that’s what God needed me to lose for a fresh awakening in Him.

I’m currently walking out of this mourning stage. Baby steps right now.  It’s slow and methodically and heavily dependent and leaning on a Savior.  I still feel the rain but it doesn’t feel like a storm anymore. It feels like the fresh rain of spring that makes the leaves bud and the flowers grow.  It feels soft and gentle and gives me so much hope. I feel a breath of relief and thankfulness as I am reminded that without the rain there wouldn’t be any flowers.  So I’m back here to the place I love the most: writing and being as vulnerable as I can in hopes others feeling caught in the storm can hold on.

Things aren’t better yet. But I know they will be.  And it’s close enough that I can smell the flowers through the rain.