A response to the melancholy portrait

A follow-up to this.

The past may be full of regrets, but that doesn't mean the present is meaningless or the future hopeless. In every faithful task you do, however humble and valueless it may seem at the time, you can be honoring God and blessing the people He has placed in your life. You may not be doing the grand and glorious things you once dreamed of - and maybe it is your own fault, because of your own sin and carelessness - but that doesn't mean God has given up on you and condemned the remainder of your life to worthlessness! You may have given up on yourself (it is so easy, is it not, when you see how often you have failed before?) but He is still calling out to you: "in this time, in this place, hear My voice and follow Me. Leave your past behind you and press in towards Me now - take up these daily toils with a willing heart, set aside your dreams of glory, and find your joy in Me."

Joy comes from knowing the Lord who loves you - from seeing Him in His beauty and glory and rejoicing in the breath-taking realization that He wants you to be His! Love is found in surrendering to that same Lord and beginning to live truly for Him - not "for Him" as a mask for living for yourself and winning the approval and admiration of others, but truly and sacrificially for Him. That love can hurt sometimes, but it is more than worth it, and at least it will break up that emptiness in your heart. I've felt it too, you know, and I've found that immersing oneself in the love of God, in the precious blood of Christ, will erode its foundation of fog and deceit. What's more, it will give you the power to love other people as you've always wanted to love them, in a life-changing way. You just have to be willing to let go of yourself and who you've always wanted and striven to be.

The Spirit is waiting to craft you into a work of beauty, a living testament to His grace and goodness - but you have to be willing to let Him choose the final design. That might mean that you'll never be known as a great woman of God far and wide through your books or ministries or missionary work, but it doesn't mean that you won't actually be a great woman of God. Your children might rise up and call you blessed; your husband may praise you. Or they might not. But if you step into God's joy and give up yourself to Him, to labor in His love by His grace, to faithfully do what He has set before you even when you can't see or imagine the purpose, you will hear those most wonderful words when at last your life here is over: "Well done, good and faithful servant; enter into the joy of your Lord."