Maybe you laughed when you read that. Or maybe you scratched your head and said, “Wha—?”

Because “hurt” doesn’t follow our definition of encouragement. Somehow we’ve come to believe that encouragement is to agree with someone. So we tell them they’ll be great at something when, in fact, they’re probably not cut out for the job. We feed their fantasies because that’s what we think they want.

We think we’re being encouraging.
We think we’re being a good friend.

But what we’re really doing is selling each other short.

I think that’s been the main problem in most of my friendships. I get tired of people who claim to be my friends telling me what I want to hear in the moment, only to find that their “supportive” claims are detrimental in the long run. Because they should have known that my gifts weren’t aligning with the shape of my dreams. And they should have been the ones clear-headed enough to see that he really wasn’t that into me.

en·cour·age

a : to inspire with courage, spirit, or hope : hearten
b : to attempt to persuade : urge

I always needed someone to encourage me by the standard of Mr. Merriam-Webster.

I needed the kind of friend who would try to persuade me. The one who would inspire me with the courage to find a new dream instead of letting me cling to that hope, that chance, that slight possibility that something may come of this.

I needed the kind of friend who would help me pack up and move on when my heart is still longing to linger in a place that was only meant for passing through. The kind of friend who would sit on my over-packed suitcase as she rips the zipper into place.

“Move on, Rebekah,” she would say. “It’s time to move on.”

She would be the kind of friend who would not only take me to the airport, but walk me to security and sit there and wait until she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wouldn’t go charging back out those doors. Because I would keep walking if I knew she was waiting. I would keep walking and not turn around.

And I might get upset with her for a moment. I might tell her she isn’t helping when really she’s helping more than anyone else ever dared.

Because, while she didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear, she gave me what I needed. And I would always much prefer the friend who would give me what I need.

And, deep down, past the part of me that wants to stay here, I know that she’s right. The skies hold brighter things for me. There are uncharted lands that wait to be discovered. And maybe I’ll circle back to this place sometime in the future, but it wasn’t meant to hold me now. There’s no way it could hold me now.

So I’ll sit with my head pressed to the window, watching my dreams fade into clouds.

And, yes, it hurts right now, but it will be so much better in the long run.

In the long run I’ll be thankful for that painful encouragement that sets me free.

He said he was hungry, and maybe he was, but it wasn’t the kind of hunger a handful of Cheese Nips could solve. And I wish that it was because it’s so much easier to conjure up a handful of Cheese Nips than to piece together the splintered remains of a broken heart.

So there I am, with my box of unwanted snacks, simply staring at this boy with his thick, long lashes that are laced with tears and longing.

“He wants his mommy,” one of my students sagely observes.

I’ll bet he does. I’ll bet he does. And it would be so much easier to see him cry if I knew he had a mommy to go home to. But he doesn’t. Because he was transferred to my school at the same time he was transferred to a new foster family.

He’s five years old and he has nothing to cling to in life.

He mentioned a brother, but I didn’t dare ask if they were placed in the same home. I was afraid of what the answer might be.

Can I confess something to you?

Sometimes I feel so small.

Sometimes I feel helpless and useless and completely overwhelmed by the world around me.

And while I’ve never been one to doubt that one life can make a difference, sometimes I wonder if we make difference enough.

Because my arms aren’t quite big enough to rock the whole world close to my heart.

And I realize that my presence in the life of this child is temporary. Just a few, short weeks until school is out and he passes from my life forever—gone just as quickly as he came.

It’s almost enough to make me question the purpose of giving him all I’ve got.

Almost.

There’s a reason Rebekah means “Devoted.” I don’t know how to love with anything less than all I’ve got.

So I’m sitting there looking at this child, asking God why. Why would He give me something so fragile to hold for such a short time? Why would He give me the desire to nurture and mend and create wings for this child when such a task cannot possibly be done in a mere handful of weeks?

And what does one do with an untouched pile of Cheese Nips on her table and a steady stream of tears creating a puddle on her floor?

You let them stay just as they are, and you draw that child close to your heart, and you make him your world for a moment.

Yes, you make him your world, and you’ll see…

The world fits quite nicely in the curve of your arms.

You’re big enough to cradle the world, after all.

Yes, that’s how you cradle the world.

And while he laughed about how awesome it is to get the “mom seal of approval,” he also shared this little gem with me:

“Continue to ask your mom if you can keep people! There’s a lot of people who need to be kept.”

There’s a lot of people who need to be kept.

I think that phrase has echoed in my mind at least twenty times since I read it just last night.

There’s a lot of people who need to be kept.

It reminds me of that story in Genesis where God asks Cain where Abel is, and Cain replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”

And I think maybe—just maybe—that question wasn’t deserving of such a sarcastic response.

Because maybe Cain was his brother’s keeper.

Maybe we all are.

And maybe that’s why the question has always tumbled from my lips so freely. “Mommy, can we keep him?”

Because it has always been my duty:

To keep you from stumbling.
To keep you out of harm’s way.
To keep you close to my heart.

Because we all need to be kept. Every one of us.

And maybe some of us don’t even know what that means. Because we’ve never been kept before. Maybe you don’t know what it is to be cherished so deeply that someone would have a hard time saying goodbye—letting you go.

I don’t think I need my mom’s permission to ask if I can keep you. To ask if I can be that person who would ascribe worth to you.

I want to keep you, friend. I want to be the one who would hold you close to my heart and never let you go.

Because you’ve always needed to be held this way.

And if I have but one purpose, one calling, one way to summarize the rest of my life, I hope it would be this:

To be a Keeper of the World.

Let’s all be Keepers of the World.

Anyway… There are a lot of great quotes crammed into that short video, but I find the one the resonates most with me today is where he quotes (or technically misquotes) Robert Frost.

“Two roads diverged in the woods… and I took the road less traveled.”

“AND IT HURT, MAN!”

I couldn’t help laughing at the dramatics as this child rants about rocks and thorns and glass. (“Not cool, Robert Frost.”) But at the same time I feel the weight of his declaration because I know… I know about those less traveled paths and how they hurt really bad. I know what it’s like to have those moments of doubt where I wonder if the other path would have been a better choice.

But then, I didn’t choose the less-traveled path; I was basically forced down it. So maybe a quote that resonates better with me is the words of the witty Maureen Johnson:

“There are times in life when only one path is presented to you. The path may be rocky, on fire, populated by poisonous cottonmouth snakes… but it’s your path.”

I’ll forgive her the redundant expression about poisonous cottonmouth snakes (duh), because I feel for her main character as I read those words. I know all about that dangerous path being the only one. And let me tell you… IT HURTS, MAN!

It has been exactly one year since I was officially declared a published author. One year since Beyond Waiting became a tangible object I could share with all of you. One year that feels like a lifetime. Because it has been so much longer than a year for me. It has, in fact, been three years. Three years of rocks and thorns and poisonous snakes.

All those months riddled with late night arguments where I explained to God that I am a novelist and will therefore never write anything other than a novel (Ha!).

All those stressful days of computer malfunctions and printer jams and last minute edits that wouldn’t save.

And then there was The Night. The Night I sat in a hotel corridor, waiting to be called in for a meeting with a publisher as my leg bounced frantically from a combination of nerves and the five glasses of sweet tea I was trying so hard to retain. The Night that woman (who has clearly never undergone the pains of presenting a book proposal) said to me in her thick, southern drawl, “It’s okay, honey. There’s nothing to be nervous about.”

I cried tears and lost sleep and threw my body all out of whack from the stress of this journey.

It hurt, man.
Really bad.

But you know something? Even if I could go back and choose a different path, I wouldn’t.

Because the journey was as beautiful as it was painful.

For every tear I cried, there were a dozen smiles. For every minute of sleep I lost, there was a moment when I was fully alive.

I argued with God and I danced with Him.

The computer malfunctioned, but the words never stopped spilling from my fingertips.

When the printer jammed, someone fixed it.

And on that very night I nearly died from a nervous breakdown and/or an overdose of sweet tea, Shannon Primicerio gave me a hug and promised me an endorsement.

I held a book in my hands. It had my name on the cover. I opened it up and buried my nose in its crisp, white pages. I handed it to a friend and watched him bury his nose in those crisp, white pages (because apparently we have the same, odd habit when it comes to books).

I watched a dream come true.

And there are people all around the world who thank me for the words I almost didn’t write.

Because I almost gave up and started paving my own path.

Almost.

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

I’m not complaining, because the answer was actually quite timely and maybe I didn’t need to know four months ago. Maybe I only needed the answer when it finally came to me. Maybe God has better timing than I ever gave Him credit for. And maybe He’s sitting up there in heaven saying, “You mean you only figured that out just now?” (Because, as it turns out, God is not the only slow one in this relationship.)

I find it amazing that, while God is not bound by time, timing is such an important part of His work in our lives. God doesn’t always give answers on the day we ask questions because we may not need the answers until a little more time has passed—be it four days, four months, or four years.

And it’s like I’ll never learn that God has the answers all wrapped up for me as He awaits the perfect timing to hand me the gift of knowing. It’s like I’ll never be content to wait for His timing even though I’ve learned His timing is always perfect.

Because sometimes I just want an answer.

Whether or not I truly need the answer in that moment, I’d prefer not to endure four months of silence. And wouldn’t it make sense for me to simply store the answer in the back of my mind until the day I really need it? Why am I left with the questions and never the answers?

I think sometimes God must laugh at my ignorance, and not in a mocking way. Not in a way that makes Him roll His eyes and sigh in frustration because I still don’t understand. No, I think God must look at me the way I look at my preschoolers when they try to explain the mysteries of life. When they come up with a story that is so outrageous to those who know the truth, yet makes perfect sense in the naive logic of their minds. Yes, I think God smiles at me like I smile at them, knowing that one day I’ll know the truth and my childish imaginings will seem so silly even to me.

And though I know this, I keep coming up with my own explanations to questions that are yet to be answered.

I forget that it’s a timing thing.

I forget that the answers are on a need-to-know basis and I do not yet need to know.

And sometimes I get discouraged. And sometimes I forget…

God’s timing is so much better than mine. God’s timing is, in fact, perfect.

And maybe it’s okay that my questions remain unanswered for now, because the answers will be there when I need them most.

We’re over there talking about dreams—the big kind. The kind you’ll spend the rest of your life either pursuing or watching them fade away. It’s your choice. And to be honest, it’s sort of a hard choice. Once you meet opposition, it can be all too easy to want to let go and find a dream that won’t demand so much of you.

But you can’t do that. And here’s why: No Wasted Dreams on Devotional Diva.

“The girl who is right for me,” he began, “is not the one who will cross in front of me, leading me off my path. When God brings the right girl, she will come and run alongside me.”

And even when I published those words last year, I had no idea how close he was to finding that one. I had no idea how soon he would glance over and realize that someone had been running alongside him all along.

If you’ve noticed a silence in this corner of the internet recently it’s because I spent the last two weeks in Europe where I witnessed the wedding of my precious brother Donald and his beautiful British bride.

You know, a lot of people have told me that I’ll have to write a sequel to Beyond Waiting  once I get married (and I just laugh like, “Sooo not happening”). While I’m not anywhere close to doing that, if you open that book to page 39, you’ll find the beginnings of a love story that promises to be absolutely beautiful: My Ugandan-born brother, his English wife, and a calling to reach the lost people in Mexico.

Only God could ordain that. Only God could bring those two together. Only God could make them realize they had been running the same path all along.

So I sit here and watch as God knits three nations together like some sort of beautiful patchwork quilt.

I sit here reminded that part of living the Beyond Waiting journey is to never slow down, but to make my prince catch up. Which reminds me that it is possible. He can  catch up. Somewhere in the world, there’s someone running the same path I run and we’re bound to find each other.

As I celebrated with my brother and new sister-in-law, I was so inspired by their story. By the way God slowly knit their hearts together. And I was reminded to keep running—just keep running—knowing that one day I’ll look up and find I’m not alone. Knowing that God is writing a story more beautiful than I can possibly imagine, just as He did for Donald and Becky.

So here’s some advice from my brother and his new bride:

Don’t. Slow. Down.

Don’t let yourself become distracted.

Just keep pressing on toward the dream God has given you until you realize you’re no longer alone. And when that day comes, keep on running—just keep on running. Because that makes for the most beautiful love story of all.

Sometimes I fear I’ve allowed the little things to swallow up the Greatest Thing of All. Sometimes I look around the clutter of my life and realize I can’t find You. And life is simply too boring when it is not lived in constant awareness of who You are and all You offer me.

And I feel that I’ve lost something I desperately want to reclaim.

I want to recapture the mystery that is You. I want to lose myself in that fairytale wonder where pumpkins turn to carriages and kisses break spells and there’s always that hope of dreams coming true. I want to drink deeply of Your Presence and lose myself in Your love. I want to dance unhindered in the courts of Your Kingdom.

But my happy thoughts have been replaced with an endless list of things I need to do and I’m learning that pixie dust wears off if you haven’t used it for awhile. That Neverland wonder feels so far away when I’m too weighed down by the trivial things in life to be able to fly.

And I know that You care about the little things. I know that You concern Yourself with the tiny details of my life. And yet… Yet I hear You calling me away from the intricacies that consume me. You beckon me out from the mundane and invite me to dance in the realm of wonder and magic.

Your hand extends the good part that Mary embraced and Martha scorned. Today I can choose to be either Mary or Martha.

So I set aside my broken priorities and allow You to sweep me off into the fantastical wonder of Your once upon a time tale.

But the message that tripped me up today was Hannah’s final point—Number 25:

“Darling, darling–the victim song is never going to fit you. It will never be good enough for your lungs. It will never be good enough for your time. You are stronger than you know and more graceful than you know. Don’t let the parts of you that want to be a victim live on any longer. You’ve got a voice… you’ve got a story… Do us all a favor and use it. Without any apologies. Without any stepping back. If ever you need a listener, come find me…”

And I wonder how many of us live with that victim mentality. I wonder how many of us cut ourselves off at the knees because we’ve been cut off before. I wonder how many of us live with the lie that our voice is not strong enough. Our story is not big enough. Our words are not powerful enough.

I wonder how many of us drown out the song of our worth with the mournful refrains of the victim song.

vic·tim

1. A person harmed, injured, or killed as a result of a crime, accident, or other event or action.
2. A person who is tricked or duped: “the victim of a hoax”.

We. Are. Killing. Ourselves.

And maybe we were harmed by someone else. Maybe we were tricked or duped or injured as a result of actions that were not our own. And if you were the victim of some horrible crime, I’m terribly sorry for that.

But in the past, you were a victim. Today, you don’t have to be. Oh no, you don’t have to be.

You don’t have to keep reliving the moments that destroyed you. You don’t have to keep repeating the words that wounded your spirit. You don’t have to be the victim of your memories.

Darling, darling, that victim song will never be good enough for your lungs.

There’s a better tune out there, waiting to whistle through your windpipes. Waiting to show the world that you are so much more than a victim. You’ve got more worth than that.

And maybe you’re thinking, “Rebekah, you don’t know. You’ve had it so easy. You’ve never experienced what I’ve experienced.”

And you would be right. I’ve shed plenty of tears for loved ones, but I don’t know what it is to be a victim. Not like that.

So let me introduce you to someone who understands. I want you to meet a girl who knows the lyrics of the victim song more strongly than she does her own name. This is the girl who has been on the receiving end of a crime so terrible I hate to put words to it. This is a victim of India’s sex trade.

But see the bends of her smile? That soft knowing that she doesn’t have to be a victim anymore? See the new lyrics she holds close to her heart because someone sang them into her when they pulled her from the brothel that had long been her prison?

That victim song doesn’t fit her any longer. To be honest, it never did.
Because she was valuable all along.

All those nights when her heart cried with the horror of it, there was a song that hoped to fill her with its beauty. A song of redemption and value and worth.

That’s the song she was meant to sing. That’s the song she would pass on to you.

So take a deep breath and let it fill your lungs.

A sigh wrestled with the smile on my mouth as I told him to play the cards. Just play the cards already.

Three hours later, I stood before my bedroom mirror in my Easter dress with my curls undone and I repeated his words aloud. “You are a beautiful woman.”

It’s funny that those words can have such an impact on me even when they are spoken by a guy who is gloating that my discard just helped him effectively triple my score in gin rummy. But they do. Because they remind me of something I’ve always known, but have a hard time remembering:

God makes beautiful things. I’m a firm believer of that. And yet, I don’t always let that knowledge slip from my head to my heart. I don’t always feel beautiful. But I am.

I am a beautiful woman.

And it’s crazy how simply speaking those words aloud can leave me breathless, reeling with the possibility that maybe, just maybe they’re true. Maybe I am beautiful. Maybe I am desirable. Maybe I’ve got more worth than I ever ascribed to me.

I don’t think of myself as an insecure human being. I’m not one to string lies into titles and lay them upon myself, but I do sometimes struggle with the word beautiful. With my vision of it and God’s vision of it. Because I often see beauty as that illusive image even the most desirable woman in the world can’t hold onto for long.

But that’s not what beautiful is.

Beautiful is any vessel God has crafted for His glory, even though they’ve long forgotten to find beauty in the curves of the clay that gives them form.

Beautiful is the colors cast upon the floors of God’s house by a stained glass window that is comprised of all the broken and flawed pieces of you.

Beautiful is the bride of Christ dancing in her Lover’s arms.

Beautiful is you.

Yes, you.

You are a beautiful woman.

And maybe that thought has been elusive for too long, but today I encourage you to take hold of it. Cradle it close to your heart. Roll it around and around on your tongue until it finds a home there.

Because you are a beautiful  woman. And you’ve been forgetting that far too long.