the conversation

I've been afraid to start back at this.

As silly as it may seem to label this as “Emily being vulnerable”, this blog has cost me my comfort and the little idea I have of being hidden as a stay-at-home-mom. 
In return, vulnerability has seemingly been an enemy to me the majority of 2021.
Once you lay a deep piece of you bare before others to see (“others” could mean 5 to 5,000 people), that openness can cost you. 

The purpose of this website in which I spew my thoughts and revelations is that maybe even just one heart could be drawn closer to Holy Spirit’s true nature. 
Now, don’t forget (because heaven knows that I won’t),
I’m still desperately seeking out what the true nature of God looks like.
We have endless books and diaries, theologies and even the scriptures that speak of tiny glimpses of who He is and how He relates and communicates to man. I have searched, read, and studied some of these resources for years to find out even just a hint about the depths of this Man. I’m certain that even a face-to-face encounter wouldn’t be enough to know the expanse of His goodness. The deeper I go, the more I see the depths of my own depravity and how desperately I need even more of Him.


Now, back to the vulnerability thing…

The antagonist of all creation loathes when man is willing
to lay bare before the God of the universe. The whole of him aims to destroy
anything that leads to Life (see John 14:6). 
This blog was my step outside of myself to search deeper than I ever had before.
It was a simple idea that the Lord put in my heart as one way that this stay-at-home-mom could outwardly follow His directives. This basis comes from Matthew 5:14-16 where Jesus tells us to be a visible beacon of glorious light, never hidden from the world. The challenge, however, lay within one’s own understanding of what it actually means to willingly become uncovered and remain unhidden.

Shortly after launching this website, things began to shift for me.
Deep places in me where bitterness and anger festered began to bubble up. For some reason, my response this time wasn’t to yield my weakness before him (as had become my reflex) but rather to become complacent and numb in the nasty place called self-preservation. Soon, another agonizing trip to the hospital via ambulance lead me to sink deeper and deeper into that wretched place that’s more dangerous than outright rebellion.
Unanswered questions beckoned me to harden my heart away from His whispers.
He was longing to reveal a new, more intimate side of Himself to me,
but I refused - that’s not how I wanted to hear Him. 

After months of complacent spiritual existence, I realized it was time to have a tearful conversation with the Lord. The greatest indicator of this was that basic prompting for prayer and connection often left me squeamish (even repulsed) by this point in my numbness. I couldn’t even get excited about the little boy I have been growing in my belly. 
​
God, why? 
It’s as if there is no life in me!

---

 Backtrack to October 18th, 2020.

Christopher sat in a dimly lit waiting room in the middle of the night, unsure of what would become of his wife and whom we had thought was our son in my belly. After losing consciousness from a ruptured pregnancy and intense internal bleeding, fear was doing everything it could to suffocate his hope.
 
Through tears, all he could say was, “God, all I know is that You are good.”

This statement became the anthem for a very rough year to follow.
After each twist and turn, followed by more internal bleeding and surgeries for me in April, this statement remained shaky,
but constant.

God, I know You’re good.
I don’t understand any of this,
But You are still good. 

Months passed and my "why’s" became consuming. I still could not for the life of me understand why I didn’t hear, see, feel or sense His peace or presence back in April. That was completely uncharacteristically distant of Him in our relationship thus far when I was in the midst of intense struggle. It truly became a “dark night of the soul.” 

Getting down to the wire to deliver our son,
my conversations with the Lord turned into something like,

“If I don’t get SOME type of answer soon, Lord, I don’t think I can go through with this delivery!”

I suppose that I was unusually persuasive that September Sunday.

The Lord reminded me of a teaching from John Bevere that Christopher had shown me months ago. A short video displayed the infallible relationship between a father and his daughter. Their relationship was so beautiful that it effortlessly drew you into their story. Soon you learn that she develops a disease that causes blindness, leaving her confused and hopeless. Her father becomes silent. She panics in her darkness, running and searching, grasping for any chance at a glimpse of the light they had previously shared. What she hadn’t known was that her desperation causes her to go further than she had ever gone before, even with her sight. Just as she's about to unknowingly leap from the edge of a cliff, her father catches her mid-air with the arms only a father could extend.

I heard the Lord whisper as He reminded me of the fear I felt that night in April in the hospital, but how I did it on my own without medication and little-to-no help from the frustrated doctors.

My dear, look at what you accomplished on your own!
Now, imagine what we can do together.


I began to weep with a restorative joy and peace that I hadn’t felt in many, many months.
All it took was a word from the Father for my entire paradigm to shift.
I found myself completely unafraid to move forward in loving this little boy in my belly with everything in me. Most of all, I was no longer afraid of tragedy following me around like the "black dog" of which Edgar Allen Poe frequently spoke (and I too frequently referenced). I know with everything in me that my Father will join me in this beautiful delivery process, but only as I remain in the place of genuine vulnerability.

The true misunderstanding was in that I believed vulnerability with the Lord and those around me implied weakness, a lack of self-respect and even failure.

But how could you possibly see the richness of any relationship if you never let them see you?

It all begins with a conversation.