Exhale.

We are about to enter week three as the excitement is fading, we begin to regret staying up super late as we walk into 8 AM's looking like a train hit us, as we begin to grow into the routine of not knowing whether to grab your neighbors hand during chapel prayer or not, and, for some of us, as the excitement fades, the roller coaster begins. This roller coaster of extreme excitement as the head of an organization contacts you, as you're hired to teach English as a second language, as you begin your internship at a new church that fully lifts you up and supports you, then the lows of the roller coaster commission as your heart is broken by a best friend and the walls of trust around your heart that you took down piece by piece begins to rebuild. You plaster back on the facade of perfection and extreme happiness when the people that know you best recognize this is a stage of brokenness and they say "it's okay to not be okay." And they provide a safe place in the midst of doubt of your choice of best friends, in the midst of some of the deeper hurt you've experienced as you begin to come to terms with this level of betrayal. As you sob and it becomes harder and harder to breathe, you feel this embrace of these arms that you know, without a shadow of a doubt, are safe. Your heart is embraced so strongly by the most gentle, humble Father. As He does so, you become lost in surrender as you sob harder and it feels like your chest is caving by the weight of the situation and He whispers "Just breathe." So you breathe and as you do so the heart breaks and you keep breathing in as your heart breaks greater and greater..

As the heart breaks, something different happens than prior situations of betrayal. He beckons you to build a longer table rather than a higher wall. He reminds you of the last supper as Jesus sat and ate with the people that would betray Him. He tells you that Jesus continues to build a longer table as the people that He committed the greatest act of empathy for, continue to betray Him.

..So you breathe and as you do so the heart breaks and you keep breathing in as your heart breaks greater and greater..

 and then you exhale.

You begin to use the bricks that built up the walls around your heart to build longer benches for your table. 

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