Blessed is He whose Help is the Lord.

What a journey this is. What a journey.

Yesterday, I drove up and down my favorite Kansas City street, one lined with overhanging trees and not guarded by quite so fierce a speed limit. Suddenly in a different world, my thoughts wander to a conclusion: "Pain doesn't kill you. When you lean upon the Lord..."

Christina and I text back and forth through our week, finding comfort that we're not the only one learning what it means to press on toward the goal, through underbrush of trials, and despite the pain, and past the bog of doubt. He who promised is faithful...

And I sometimes sit in a room full of people and feel like I'm the only one, until the whisper of the Holy Spirit: "I am here. I am here, and I know."

Then suddenly, there's a phone call and I hear that a dear friend's world has been ripped in two, and my pain seems so small, but I still believe it's true for the both of us: "Pain doesn't kill you. When you lean upon the Lord..."

Sometimes there's a shame in admitting to being in pain. It's easy to believe the lie that you're a failure at victorious living, simply for the fighting to keep your eyes wide open, turned toward the Bright and Morning Star.

But the fight...the fight does not make you a failure. The trial is a learning process, the trial cannot be wished away, the existence of trial is thoroughly Biblical.

"Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of various kinds."
"Though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials..."
"For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead."

It is not about the pain, but it is about the hope. The Hope who is alive. The Hope to whom I lift my eyes, my Help. Always a Rock, strong on my behalf. He nevers fails, He is ever strong.

I am thankful. Thankful, for He is teaching me to lean upon Him. Lean hard, friends. Lean completely.