Being in a dark and stormy place can be enduring. The winds of your actions having broken your bows. Heavy with humility and disbelief; humiliated, aggravated and low. Sometimes when you’ve made amends to someone you hurt or betrayed, that’s not enough. Or it may not feel like it anyway. Is there more that you can do? Even when you go to a place, seeking out redemption, asking for forgiveness and counsel, you may only see short glimpses of it. Could you lose a community of friends you had grown close to and sought out refuge? Could you lose the community that you made sacrifices for and would have laid your life down for? The community you had been nurtured by, grown in and loved? At times it feels defeating. The entire situation. You want to bury your head in the sand and hide away. You feel that whatever good you do now, it will only be overshadowed by your miscalculation and it is only aggravated and stirred as more of the gossip rages on. This game of telephone is exhausting. Whatever you do, the truth seems to be reinterpreted to something new, erasing what was said.
Trudging through heavy waters of despair that have no salt or gentleness. Tumbling you back and forth like a twig, their goal is to sink and drag you to the bottom of the sea. You tip your head to keep it above water, but your mouth still fills with it. It feels as though some of your closest friends have abandoned you at your time of need, sending you half-hearted wishes your situation will is resolved. You had thought there was a pact we had sought to grow and build something great together. To stand by each other in the best and worst of situations. It used to feel like your life had become something unique, profound and exciting, but now you feel like an outsider. You were once admired and sought out for advice, counsel and encouragement, and now it is you that is seeking this, clasping your hands to the dirt, weeping, throwing dirt in the air; covering yourself.
You are called to be courageous and virtuous. One who leads diligently, faithfully, strategically, gracefully; with strength and integrity. But today you may feel like a Saul, having acted and led with your head, woefully leading your opportunities to Hades. There’s a feeling of despair, having wasted an opportunity to rise to my potential and change this space. This world needs so much love, but you don’t feel like you’ve done a very good job of helping with that. Have you wasted the opportunity, talents, gifts and connections that have been given to you? Or is it just your perspective, and this overwhelming feeling you’re experiencing is really just fuelled by emotions that will take time to quell? We humans tend to have a hard time seeing past our situations, and focus on what is the bigger picture. 
A lot of the time we only recognize what’s in front of us. Can everything be redeemed and your situation be restored to a greater and more prominent level of promise; one greater than you ever thought possible? Yes, absolutely! In fact it is very possible that your future has been saved through this experience and it is to help uproot the weeds you have have hidden, that were choking your plant from growing to its potential. You can rebuild the trust of those you feel you may have failed. It will take time, but everything can be made new and restored. There is only one who can fully restore and redeem your situation. All this may seem so surreal, and you want time to speed ahead so this will all be over. But there is something powerful about being broken and enduring the pain. You are within a story, that you will know and understand the end until you finish each page of life. Your story is not finished. You must have faith yours will continue to develop, strengthening and developing you. Through humility, counsel, commitment and perseverance and time all can be redeemed. This is a new year.
Josh Nash 