Flowers In The Valley

He moved all of his things out today. My husband…

Even though he hasn’t really lived here for the last eight months, his things still lingered like quiet reminders of the life that once filled this space. His clothes hung in the closet. His coffee mug waited in the cabinet. His chair claimed its place at the kitchen table.

And now, all of it is gone.

The closet cleaned out. The table is missing. He took all of it. And it feels empty….

But, sometimes, even what gets taken is part of the release. Sometimes absence is the final mercy that helps you see what has already been gone for a long time.

It doesn’t make it easier though. Because tonight I am in the valley… The kind where you hold your own arms just to remember what it feels like to be held. The kind where faith doesn’t roar, but sits quietly in the hall. Where hope isn’t bright, yet you still search for the silver lining.

Scripture calls it the valley of the shadow. I understand that differently now. The shadow of the valley is the in between. Between what was and what will be. Between grief and growth. Between the ache of loss and the quiet work of becoming.

There is something sacred about this kind of emptiness. It’s like the weeding out of the bad, so the new thing can take root… The silence before the song returns…

And as I sit here tonight, surrounded by the echoes of what used to be, I find myself whispering the same prayer that has carried me through so many unseen nights…

Thank You, Jesus. For the struggles. For the losses. For the valleys that bring me closer to YOU… Because even when I thought I was wilting, You were still watering. Even when I felt forgotten, You were tending to something deep beneath the surface.

The growth in me has always happened when noone but God held the watering can…

Yes. The traces of a life I once fought so hard to build are gone.

But God.

But God has faithfully again left me with something worth holding on to.

He has left me with His peace. With His presence. With flower petals pushing through the dirt of what was broken.

This valley isn’t the end of my story. It’s the soil of it. Because somehow, against all odds, flowers really do grow here. Bright. Brave. Blooming right out of the ache.

Even now, He is planting something new beneath the soil of what was lost.

And I am reminded, yet again, that flowers grow in the valley. And they sure are a sight to behold….