Lauren Gaskill

My husband and I walked hand in hand, away from the shoreline and down Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head, North Carolina, my eyes growing wider with every step we took. The meteorologist on the morning news had warned us that Hurricane Michael was quickly approaching the Outer Banks islands, and the winds had picked up to at least 30 miles per hour.

I squeezed my man’s hand and leaned in close as the pier’s wind turbines whipped and squeaked at rapid intervals above our heads. To my left and right, the waves raged and swirled whitecaps at every angle, creating along with the wind a symphony of chaos and sound. Come midnight, Michael would hit the pier with all of its force and fury, about a month after Florence had threatened to take the islands out.

We reached the end of the pier and I stopped and stared out into the distance, marveling at the magnitude and beauty of the Atlantic stretched out before me.

How wide, how long, how high, and how deep my love is for you, daughter.

The wind and waves should have drowned out any other sound from making its way into my brain, but these words echoed crisply in my mind.

Yes, His love is stronger, wider, longer, higher and deeper than any pier, ocean or hurricane.

God’s Love Will Carry Us

I’ve spent a great deal of my life caught in what I like to call the undertow of doubt, fear and despair. When the waves of chronic pain, depression and anxiety came crashing over my head, I didn’t know how to overcome them, and so I closed myself off from receiving God’s love and believing things would get better. I heard people say His love was strong enough to save me, but after years of battling the same issues and seeing little to no progress, I had hardened my heart to the truth.

I can’t pinpoint the moment when God’s love finally broke through my incomprehension. It’s not as if I woke up one morning and instantly felt God’s love. Instead, much like my unraveling, recognizing and accepting God’s love was a process.

The more I prayed for God to reveal and help me feel His love, the more He showed up in the most amazing ways to woo me back to Him.

There’s not enough space here for me to tell you the many ways God’s love has carried me through the high sea battles I’ve faced over the years, but I will tell you this: the depths of His great love saved and continue to save me from sinking into the undertow of doubt, fear and despair every single day.

I don’t know what high sea battles you are facing today, but I do know that His love can and will carry you too. All it takes is a little courage and a tiny seed of faith that’s willing to say, “OK, God, I can’t face this storm alone, but I’m trusting You and Your love to carry me through to the other side.”

May we all have the power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ today and every day (Ephesians 3:18). And may we declare, right here and now, that the only thing we are going to drown in in this life is God’s deep love — not the deep waters that surround us.

Say it with me: Jesus, I need your love. 

Want to learn more about God’s deep love and go deeper in your faith? Read my new book, Into the Deep: Diving into a Life of Courageous Faith.

“Did you hear about Jessica?” I overheard them whisper.

“She nearly overdosed at a party last weekend and now she’s in a treatment facility,” another added. “Poor thing. How sad.”

Poor thing. How sad.

While I didn’t know the Jessica whom they spoke of, I was pretty familiar with the words they used to describe her. Because every time I looked in the mirror that’s exactly what I said about myself.

I picked up my backpack, not wanting to hear more of their conversation, and beelined it for the library exit. But before my feet could take me down the ramp, I found myself headed for the Christian nonfiction department instead.

At this point in my faith journey and experience with chronic pain, anxiety and depression, I really struggled to read the Bible. In my pain, none of it felt real to me. The stories seemed like a distant fairy tale — something only for people who had it all together and not for someone as messed up as me. Maybe you can relate to feeling this way.

Though I didn’t find what I was looking for that day, later that night I came across an advertisement for Francis Chan’s Crazy Love. After years of praying and pleading for God to take my suffering away, the title of the first chapter stopped me in my tracks: Stop Praying.

Francis writes, “What if I said, Stop praying?” What if I told you to stop talking at God for awhile, but instead to take a long, hard look at Him before you speak another word?”

Now, this might not seem revolutionary to you, but for my 18-year-old self, it’s what God used to begin the healing process in my heart. Let me be clear: I didn’t wake up the next morning and feel completely set free from all of my pain. In fact, life got much worse before it got better about four years after reading the book … but while Crazy Love did not make my life better overnight, the book certainly ministered to me in one of the deepest valleys of my life. And for that, I am forever grateful.

Books are powerful, and it is through this experience that I 1) learned about their potential to change lives and 2) vowed to do the same for someone else by writing a book if it was God’s will someday.

Shortly after reading Crazy Love, I started blogging and finally picked up the Bible in an attempt to revive and go deeper in my faith. And you know what happened? As I dove deeper into my relationship with God, He pulled me up out of the undertow of doubt, darkness and despair, and into a place of joy, hope, peace, freedom and courageous faith as I learned to swim through life with Him.

And He can and will do the same for you if you reach out for Him!

My first book, Into the Deep: Diving Into a Life of Courageous Faith, is the story of God helped me rediscover and go deeper in faith, but it is also a love letter to you. All 201 pages are full of love and encouragement to help you go deeper in your faith journey — whatever you may be going through.

This book is a lifelong book because faith is a lifelong journey. 

This one is for the fighters.
The overcomers.
The ones who want to rise above.
This one is for the one’s who are tired of trying to swim through life’s deep waters on their own.
For the overwhelmed.
For the one who wonders … is there more to life?
For the one who wants to step out of fear and into courage and faith.

Order your copy today, and get ready to exchange fear and frustration for the boldness, courage, and holy confidence that lead to a life of deep faith and joy!

And remember: The waves of life are no match for those who are courageous enough to live by faith.

All my love,
Lauren

Please join me in welcoming Danita Janae to the blog, as she guest posts about finding joy in God’s word, even if at first it irritates you.

Something you and Lauren and I have in common is our quest to find joy even in the face of chronic illness, depression, and plenty of other trials. But to be honest with you, I used to detest that verse that says, “Count it all joy, my brothers and sisters, when you face trials of many kinds because the testing of your faith will produce perseverance,” James 1:2-3. That verse annoyed me. Why? Because if I read something in God’s Word, then I believe it’s true. And whenever I read something in God’s Word that doesn’t line up with my experience, it aggravates me. But in a good way. Bare with me here.

That aggravation is so much like what makes a pearl at the bottom of the sea. Stay with me. A tiny speck of irritation rubs and rubs against the inside of an oyster until it transforms into a little round reflection of the very thing it was irritating. Are you tracking? It’s like when I come to God’s Word, His radiant, luminescent, transcending Word, sometimes it irritates me. Like how “hot and cold should not come out of the same mouth.” I’m going to rub up against that Word because it irritates my flesh. But the glory of God is that you become Who you hang out with. So, the more you hang out with God’s word, the more He rubs off on you, and eventually, you become like Him. How do we “be holy as He is holy?” How do we find that “peace that passes understanding” and that “joy unspeakable” that everyone talks about?

It’s attainable. She found joy, (wink, wink) and I found it too. But the road to getting there wasn’t anything like I expected. I didn’t find joy when my physical illnesses were miraculously healed. I didn’t find joy when my mental illnesses were miraculously healed. I didn’t find joy when my mind was delivered from a butt-load of oppressive thoughts. I feel joyful thanks to each of these amazing works of God, but that’s not where I found joy. I first found joy in the trials, then later it was just a bonus to find joy again in the miracles. Because joy is not a thing to attain, it’s a Person to get to know. Joy is the Person of Jesus Christ.

The Road to Joy Is the Road to Trust

And here’s what I realized. Jesus doesn’t jump out of a birthday box on the day of healing and say, “Ta da!! You’re healed so you can have joy now!” Nope.

He is also there when you are bawling on your bathroom floor and kicking in the wall because you feel like this illness is never going to end. He is also there when you want to just take your life because you feel like what’s the point of enduring one more day?

Joy comes and sits down with you in that moment. And you get to decide how you will answer one basic question.

“Do you trust Me?” 

Your answer to that question is going to determine the level of joy in your life.

This transcends circumstances. Joy isn’t about circumstances. I’ve been through enough heartache and grief and depression to confirm that joy is not about circumstances.

Does that sound a little audacious to say such a thing? That the level of your joy is determined by how you answer one question? “Can you trust God?” Here’s my foundation for saying this. I have lived and experienced Romans 15:13 through my husband’s deployment, through heartache, through depression, and all kinds of trials. I clung to this Word. I rubbed up against it until it became a core part of my countenance and my identity:

“May the God of all hope fill you will all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you may overflow in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit,” (Romans 15:13).

Isn’t that what everyone is after? Some hope and joy and peace? People are trying through their workouts, their social feeds, their coffee addictions, their pictures of unicorns and rainbows.  People are trying. We all want some hope and joy and peace. But I’m telling you. It was the trials and the sufferings that actually brought me to the place of joy and the Person of Joy. The key words for me in this verse are “AS YOU TRUST IN HIM.” Every time I write it out, I draw an arrow under those words, “as you trust” that points to “in Him.” As you trust in Him. That is the road to joy. It’s the road of trust.

So, let’s talk a little about that trust. It’s not a grit-your-teeth-and-bare-it type of thing here. It’s not a by-golly-I’m-gonna-do-this. Because see what it says, “by the power of the Holy Spirit.” That means it’s not on you. It’s His power that gets you to this place. Let’s rest in that right off the bat, shall we?

I believe the precursor to joy is vulnerability. And I believe that vulnerability and shame are in a war against each other within you. If shame wins, it squelches the joy. If vulnerability wins, trust grows, and as promised, the God of all hope fills you up with joy and peace as you trust in Him.

So, what does that look like in real life? It looks like being honest with God about what parts of His promises offend your way of thinking. That’s vulnerable. That’s an act of trusting God with your whole heart and where you’re really at, not pretending to be where you think you should be. It’s about being honest with God about your doubts. Did you know that telling God you have doubts is an act of faith? You demonstrate faith in God’s goodness and faithfulness to you to meet you in your place of doubt and to have to power to help you overcome it. That’s faith.

My challenge to you? This week, take note of where God’s truth irritates your flesh and your experiences. Take note and be honest with God about it. Quit pretending, stuffing, or saying, “I shouldn’t feel this way.” Be vulnerable and offer even those places of your heart and emotions to the Lord. Then, you have set your heart on the vulnerable path of trusting the Lord that will lead you to greater peace and joy.

Prayer: Lord God, help me be honest with you. Break down shame and facades that keep me from being vulnerable with you. Help me trust you more and fill me with all joy and all peace as I do so. In Jesus’ Name, amen.

Wanna go a little deeper with this? I’m sharing a real-life, practical example of how this plays out. A pretty vulnerable story about how being honest with my self-worth led me down the path to Joy. I’d love for you to stop by www.SplatterJoy.com, my little online home. We can pick up the rest of the conversation there.

Thanks for having me pop in, Lauren. You are a joy to me!