In the last few weeks, I have wondered if ComeSoAlive.com was finished.  I wondered, “How do I show others ‘coming alive’ when I am so destroyed right now?  I’m only writing about how hard life is.  I sound like Eeyore.”

These posts of honesty and pain and sadness are what I need right now.  I have had days that I’ve asked God to help me write, because it’s healing and what I needed.  But this darkness isn’t lifting anytime soon, and you may all trickle away in the meantime. 

So, I thought, “Maybe I should stop writing for a while.”

On the website, I organize the different posts by categories, such as “Beauty in the Storm.”  I typed thoughts during five years of epilepsy and, when I started Come So Alive, I thought that material, “Beauty in the Storm,” was what I would mostly use for posts…until I ran out of those entries.  (I figured it may be a short-lived website.)

Yet, week after week, God has surprised me with blog posts that aren’t about epilepsy.  Some certainly have been but, amazingly, I frequently wrote posts the day I published them that I couldn’t have even written four or five days before, because part of the story hadn’t happened yet.  I have added new categories to the website as the topic list grew.  I didn’t think “Eeyore” would be a great category to add though so I’ve wondered.

While I have struggled with what to write, I’ve also struggled with what Bible study or book to read.  I bought a book before the surgery that included 50 days of devotionals on contemplative practices that I thought may be a good way to endure the first 50 days Chuck’s open-heart surgery recovery – until his stroke and a recovery that will take way more than 50 days.

But last weekend, I felt the need for…something.  Too tired to read, I decided to watch a video.  So, I looked up Beth Moore on YouTube and scrolled through the videos until one called “A Life of Extremes” jumped out at me.  Yes, that seemed appropriate.

She talked about how hard life can be, all the things that break us, all the heartaches.  She ended with,

“You know, so often we realize we are not as strong as we thought we were.  But the other side of the weird coin is that sometimes we thought we were a lot more fragile than we were.”

And immediately the picture on the screen cut from her talking to a Bible verse:

Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by his vast strength.

Ephesians 6:10 CSB

That verse might not mean much to you but it does to me.  In thinking about this new time of life I’m writing about, I had felt a little push to label the new category, “His vast strength.”

Several years ago, I thought I had a book idea about a segment of our life that included epilepsy heartbreaks, deaths in the family, and an unexpected open-heart surgery.  The book title was “His Vast Strength,” based on two Bible verses I had been repeatedly encountering:

and what is the immeasurable greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.

Ephesians 1:19 HCSB

Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength.

Ephesians 6:10 HCSB

I even typed an outline and that outline grew into a 24-page Word document of ideas.  And it has sat in a folder on my computer for the last two years.  (Now in my defense, that was the start of the covid pandemic and distance learning so…)

But here it was again as I followed an urge to watch something, and that something just happened to end with the words that had been in my head for several days. 

As I added that new category to the website and to my most recent posts, I also saw with fresh eyes something else on my own website – something that I put there but have just taken for granted…for a long time now…and don’t really pay attention to anymore.

See that small section on the right that says, “THE VALLEY OF DRY BONES”? Here’s a close-up so you can read it:

And I realized (remembered) that my writing is about God and what He’s done, not about how I’ve changed myself.  About what He’s going to do, not anything I can try to do on my own.  All of Come So Alive is about Him, not me.

I also realized that I may not be alone in feeling this way.  For pandemic reasons and other reasons, you may feel dry and brittle as well.

So welcome to a section of life called “His Vast Strength.”  Where I get to witness how He works in my dry bones and puts breath back into me that I may come alive again.  And while I continue to write, we’ll walk through the valley together, coming back to life through God’s vast strength.