Dear Little Girl Whose Hopes Aren't Panning Out How She Thought,

Oh Sweet One, I see your aching heart, and mine aches with yours.

For all the hopes that haven't come through, and all the dreams that lay dying at your feet.

For those words yesterday, that goodbye last month, that shame last year and the daily ache that it takes to be human.

For the betrayal and the abandonment.

For the stinging tears in the night.

For the pain of loss and the sting of rejection.

For the hope-sucking diagnosis and the sensitive conversations that follow.

For the burning desire for it to be any other way.

It breaks open your dear little heart, and lays it right there on the floor too.

The little pieces with rough edges scatter in the wind.

This isn't the way it was supposed to be. . .

Looking back at the last couple years, this is clearly a wrong turn.

Looking at the next couple of years, this is clearly the wrong direction.

Looking back. . . it doesn't add up.

Looking forward. . . it doesn't add up.

That picture-perfect life that you thought you were about to plunge into? Yeah, I think it's gone. Instead of a refreshing splash, it feels as though the moment you jumped, the crystal clear water disappeared, and you've gotten stuck in a free fall.

And it can feel like it just keeps going on and on. . .

That no matter what you do or say or think can save you from plummeting. You just keep falling, out of control, out of your mind.

And when it finally stops, when it really stops - everything stops.

And somehow, the whole world continues on while your feet hit the cracked earth of the bottom of the pool.

It's over. This is it. There is no water, but this is where you are now. There is nothing to be done.

The stillness can ring in your ears.

How can the world keep spinning when you're down there gasping for a quench of thirst, but instead you just feel the raw back of your scratchy throat?

It's almost numbing. Alone, so alone.

How can they not seem to see that you're actually dying a little bit on the inside?

How can they not see?

Dear One, I see you.

I see your cracked lips and your bloodshot eyes.

I see you.

I see the dry wasteland where you now find yourself.

I see you. . . because I'm there too.

And I know that doesn't take us out of this desert.

I know we're still here.

I know the sun is beating down, and it's drying out our very souls.

I know that it is so easy to watch people in their sparkling pools, and wonder how everything of yours could've dried up when there's clearly so much everywhere else but where you are.

But Little Girl, there is more to the pool than the water you wanted.

This place may be desolate and suffocating.

But we're both here.

And we are not alone - believe this: we are not alone.

So Little Girl, when nothing is making any sense, when it seems there's nothing that we can do, when it all feels like it's flying wildly out of control, when our landing place is the last thing we wanted, when our water has dried up, there's only one thing we can count on.

God is here.

God is forever in the deserts, forever in our deserts.

He spends His time making a way through them.

God is making a way.

Here is His heart:

“Forget about what’s happened;
don’t keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new.
It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it?
There it is! I’m making a road through the desert,
rivers in the badlands."

God will always always always restore you. In the devastation, He is always always always working something brand new. It may not be the same water you were picturing, it may have a different sparkle or a different taste, but Little Girl, one thing I know for sure, God is always always always what we were meant to drink.

Look for it. And when you see it, cup both your hands and receive.