What love really means

Turn off the music at the bottom of the page for this, trust me you'll want to hear what this song has to say about real love. It made me think, it made me cry, it made sense to me. For this is what I heard on that day when God spoke to my heart, to my life. He came to me in my darkest hour and said these words to me.

So beyond thankful for a God who can love me like that. There are no words.

Jake - I praise God for you!

I penned out these words in my little "made of recycled materials" notebook as I sat in Starbucks last week Saturday afternoon. Yes Starbucks, I went for a walk, and well "Hello, my name is Nikki and I am addicted to Starbucks," their beverages mostly, but on Saturday afternoon the mood was mellow and calm sitting at that table by the window along Lincoln Way.

As I was sipping on my SFCD, Soy Frapp, my head was filled with all these thoughts of our upcoming anniversary celebration. For those of you who do not know, Jake and I have been together since January of 1999 and got married on October 6th, 2007. You do the math :-)

My pen kept going, my mind and heart overflowing with all these words and thoughts of my husband:

God given, lover of God, man after Him.

Life sustaining- normalcy bringer, you bring me back down in those moments when I could drift away into the depths. You know.

Hand to hold. Fingers interlocking. Squeezing, warm. Amazing.

Arms to wrap. Always warm, always ready and waiting. Comforting.

Blue-eyed wonder. Love it. No other words.

Working hard. Always, in everything you do. Thank you for this. I don't say it enough.

Striving, trying, you make me proud. All the time. Never doubt that. Ever.

Searching for answers, always wanting to know more.

Dreaming big dreams, you know what. We dream together. Thank you.

Hopeful about the future and what it will bring, trusting God to lead.

Learning, always learning. I love this about you.

Enduring. Holding me up. Pushing through the pain and the darkness with me, even in the darkest hours you never abandoned.

Encouraging me in all things, loving me, praising me. Love you.

Smile. Oh that smile! God knew I needed it in my life. Yes He did!

Friend. You are my best friend. I know you are mine, God gave you to me for a reason.

Random. Love that my randomness amuses you. You know I try. Something about cows talking?

Laid Back. You help me relax. You help lighten my load, my burdens are lessened thanks to you. I love you.

Uncle. You're amazing with those kiddos. They love you and you take it all in stride. It's amazing to see you with them. Did I mention you're amazing?

Future Father. Someday. I know you'll be great. We'll be great together. Never perfect, but we'll make it, no doubt.

My Favorite. Always. As long as we both shall live. You know this. I tell you often.

I love you.
My God-given, Blue-eyed man.
I love you.

Learning to Lament

God I need you, this sickness is gripping my life and sometimes controlling me. I have my good days which you have given me and for that I am forever grateful! I know your love and grace can rise above all of this as it has done so many times before.

Dear God, I suffer with depression, with anxiety and sometimes my bipolar-ness feels like to much for me. I am in a dark place, a place so deep that I feel as if the light will never reach me. People around me can see this change in me, and they don't like it anymore than me. I have abandoned you Lord, I have turned away from you because I feel like you are not there, like not even you could help me now.

Still God, I know you are there, you are holding me, walking beside me, being my light in the darkness. I can see your hand in and through my life, my family and friends.

God please take away this darkness, this evil thing that surrounds me, hold my heart God, you are the maker of the moon and stars and you know my heart, my mind and you've seen it breaking and cracking and you are holding it in your hands.

I know you hear me, you have lightened my darkness you have pulled my life out of that dark, horrible place. You protected me even when I turned from you. I will tell everybody about how in my darkest night you came to me in my little apartment on Douglas Avenue and showed me you are still there, you have been there all along, you shone your light behind my bedroom door and I praise you for bringing me back, to you, to the world, my friends and family.

God I praise you for your light in my life!


This is something I wrote in our Adult Discipleship/Sunday school class this past April after Jake and I started going back to church. We were "challenged" to write a Psalm of Lament and this is what came out. I have to say it was a very cleansing and purifying thing for me to write my grief, my darkness down in this way. I have always loved poetry and writing, but this was something new, something I grabbed onto and something I now cling to; it helps me get through a lot of dark moments.

I encourage you to write your own Psalm of Lament, if you have any questions about how I went about this let me know. I have a "checklist" of the structure a lament should take, but regardless, just know that no matter how you write it God will hear you and be in that moment with you. He is never so far that we cannot reach him, that he cannot hold us. He is there in every moment and goes before us. What a comfort.