Haley Blake

I’ve done a lot of hospital and nursing home visits over the years, but the last few months it’s become an official part of my job.
There’s really nothing official about it, though, for me. Connecting with people in their deepest need has always been a holy honor.
There is something sacred about walking into a room where someone is suffering. Everything superficial is stripped away.
Bruised arms from IV’s, thin hospital gowns, and bars keeping weak bodies from falling. Humbling for us all, and my heart simply aches.
I can offer a listening ear, a touch, a plea in the form of a broken prayer. I walked out today and wept waiting for the elevator. Suffering is never easy to see …but when it happens to “good” people, people you love, it’s even harder.
While I often leave more blessed by their faith and determination in the face of uncertainty, I still ache with the age-old question: why.
I don’t have answers to why — but I know God hears those desperate hospital-room prayers. The veil between heaven and earth feels a little thinner in these moments.
His presence becomes more real the more I don’t understand, because I have to trust more.
The deeper our trust is, the more intimate our relationship is.
I’ll never get over it: the Great Physician mends hearts during the painful process of suffering.

Grief dares us to love again - Terry Tempest William
I didn’t write these words, but I’ve lived them:
“It would be easy, wouldn’t it, to somehow close down the valves of loving so we couldn’t be hurt this much again?
No, it wouldn’t. It’s probable that for a while we will feel a kind of numbness, a recoil against the blow we have suffered. But without the love of friends and family, we’d never make it through this time of grieving.
And love calls to love. We are summoned from our grief by love, and we will be healed by love.
But we will not be healed if we don’t participate, if we don’t answer the love of others by our love for them.
Yes, it takes courage to risk loving again. It is the courage to be most fully human. It is the courage that affirms the love we shared with the one we have lost.” - Martha W. Hickman, Healing After Loss

“…but if we are to share His glory, we must also share His suffering.” Roman’s 8:17
We’ve said it this week, “What’s next?! What else could possibly happen?!” There are some days you just feel the weight of this world and wonder if you can handle hearing of anther tragedy. Yet, for the Christian, here’s what’s next: Glory! We must suffer here on this earth, and walk through difficulties, tragedies, suffering … yet His promises sustain and strengthen. Look to Jesus, and anticipate sharing in His glory one day 🙌 THAT’S what’s next 🙌

Something strange happened this week. I found out that three of my favorite people have suffered deeply in their past, things I never imagined. A long-ago divorce, a death of a grandchild, a devastating heart attack. As I heard their different stories for the first time, my heart registered surprise that I didn’t know these things had happened in their lives - and yet at the same time it all made sense. They have suffered deeply and then walked paths of healing that have made them the people I deeply love and respect. Their losses have enriched my life. Their pain has helped to bring me healing. This is the cycle that God has orchestrated: the comfort He pours into us allows us to comfort others. The light we discover in our darkest times becomes a lighthouse for others in their storms. He makes the impossible, possible. He keeps surprising me with His marvelous ways.

Today at work I answered the phone
to hear a mama asking for recommendations for a Christian counselor who works with children. I efficiently listed off the ones we recommend and she was grateful. Then I commented about the one who had helped me during one of my most difficult seasons. Suddenly, there was a “you, too?” connection and she started crying.
I shared that this counselor helped to change the course of my life, and my children’s lives.
I told her there isn’t anything she’s going through that God doesn’t have provision for.
I prayed with her, for her family, and for their future. We cried together and she thanked me over and over.
I wasn’t speaking from a place of “maybe this will work” or “perhaps God will show up for you”.
I spoke from a place of having experienced a journey from death to life.
From deepest loss to finding hope again.
From a journey filled with wounding to now being on a path of healing.
How full of grace is our God!
There’s no other description: today was simply a miracle.

Sometimes a wrong decision is just that: a wrong decision.
Sometimes a right decision appears wrong because the timing is off.
When a right decision is made, at the right time- it can be like a gentle rain on dry earth. Refreshing, needed, welcomed.
God, give us wisdom and grace and patience to be in tune with Your timing.
In step with Your will.
In sync with Your voice.
For the glory of Your name, and the honor of Your Kingdom.

How far does God pursue us? Let me tell you. A small group of friends from our ladies Bible study met at a local restaurant for Valentine’s. I grabbed two study books to carry into the restaurant for the two ladies who didn’t have theirs yet- but heard a whisper “Take a third”. I brushed it off. I didn’t want to carry in an unneeded book! But I couldn’t get away from the whisper so I begrudgingly grabbed a third book and settled in at our table. When three of our group didn’t show, the hostess returned to our table to take away the extra settings. “What is this?” She picked up the book and studied the cover, running her hand over the embossed title. My friend explained that we were doing a beautiful Bible study, and I told her about our group. “Oh MY! I LOVE Bible studies!” She kept leafing through the book, touching the pages like they were precious to her. She lingered but said she lived too far away to attend our weekly group. The third “extra” book was sitting by my plate and suddenly I knew it wasn’t extra. It was meant for Donna. “God wanted you to have this!” She protested but we insisted. She said with tears then that God knew how to meet her where she needed Him. And isn’t that just like Him? The restaurant we picked two weeks before, the ladies who had to cancel last minute, the exact timing, the “extra” book that I stubbornly didn’t want to bring — He went to great lengths to show Donna love on Love Day.

I heard you talking to your buddy on the ski lift, my teenage sons between us. You like her, you said, a lot. But you are struggling. She’s a single mom and her “I can do this” attitude is off-putting. You wonder why she feels this way. You wonder why she allows her children so much screen time on a snow day while she works. You are frustrated. She’s great, but you are frustrated. I’m a single mom but you don’t know that. Just like you probably don’t know her “I can do this attitude” isn’t because she wants to do it all, it’s because she’s had to do it all. Her lack of skills at allowing her kids less time on their iPads isn’t because she doesn’t know it’s not good for them. It’s because she runs out of time and energy to make changes. She’s putting everything into filling the roles of two adults. She’s being two parents at once. My advice?
Be gentle to her.
Take the day off on a snow day and take care of her kids. Make a meal or buy a meal for them on a busy weeknight. Do a load of laundry, or get the oil changed in her car. Just do something.
Show up for her quietly. Show up for her kids. Prove that she’s not alone. Don’t let her independence frustrate you, instead see it for the strength it is.

I remember it like it was yesterday, because some days it still is.
The pain of those first holidays without him. Then as if scraping an open wound the pain of having to give up holidays with my children.
I watch with aching heart as I see others navigating this painful road, especially those first years.
Holidays forever split, even when they are grown. There will be no coming home to mom and dad’s house, no more shared memories.
They say time heals all wounds but it’s not true. The difficult road of grief only gets … more familiar. Separation through death or divorce or broken relationships will always sting, because God created our hearts to be whole.
How can they be whole, in a world where loss is always present? Not only present, but magnified in joy.
So we look up, to a Father who gave His own Son for us. Allowed separation to happen, in order to bring us wholeness.
Someday Heaven will ring with the joyful praises of the brokenhearted made completely whole. No more separation, or loss.
Forever complete in Him.
Today, even as we celebrate, we hold on for That Day.

Waking up to an empty house on a holiday never gets easier.
The quietness is overwhelmingly loud.
The emptiness presses in.
I’ve lived long enough to know there are different versions of an empty house.
A partner who is physically close but emotionally removed.
A loved one who doesn’t speak.
Relationships that bring more pain than joy leave an aching emptiness.
Or a missing place at the table, which only a reunion in Heaven will fill. Death can leave us empty no matter how deeply we know the truth of Heaven.
Brandi Wilson says that loneliness isn’t being alone so much as it is the fear that no one cares.
One of the best ways to remind ourselves that Jesus cares is to show His care to others. Is there someone you can pray for, send a card or text to, reminding them they are loved?
In these lonely moments, whispered prayers can become our lifeline. If we listen closely we’ll be reminded that the One who had every single person leave Him, understands.
He weeps with us. He walks with us in these lonely places like no one else can. Emptiness drives us into His arms. Even as we experience emptiness we will be able to say to Him with thanksgiving “You are my Master! Every good thing I have comes from you.” Psalms‬ ‭16‬:‭2‬ ‭
‬‬ Because He fills the hungry, the empty, with good things. That’s what He does.