Sometimes you have to step away from your passion to recharge, regroup and reload, so that’s what I did, and I’m back after a much needed break. I didn’t want it and I didn’t like it, but I was running on passion and grief charged adrenaline and I was wearing out. I’m not one to accept defeat, which is what any kind of break would have felt like to me, so I kept going. Until I couldn’t. I had an Elijah season, curled up under a tree consumed by what I couldn’t do, or hadn’t done, and truly did feel like I couldn’t keep going. I felt like I’d had enough. Seeing the onslaught of death at the hands of Fentanyl and sharing the heartache of so many people that I didn’t know but loved dearly had left me empty, feeling an assumed defeat, and unable to do what I knew He called me to do. It sucked. It sucked for Elijah too, and the same loving Father that sent The Angel of the Lord to tend to his prophet - feeding him, encouraging him to rest while under his tree- sent one my way too. The rest was needed. He knew that, but we didn’t, and the emotions that consumed us made us blind to the work He was doing and the love that He was providing while we rested fitfully - discouraged and depleted - under our trees. They offered little shade or protection, but He was there doing what the tree could not. He came to our “I can’t do this anymore parties” and instead of chastising us for seemingly giving up, He lovingly prepared us for the next leg of our journeys knowing they would be too much for us without the increased strength and power of Heaven. The remarkable thing about that Angel is that many theologians believe, as do I, that He was a manifestation of the Lord Himself. He personally tended to Elijah and He personally tended to me. Did I see Him? No. That Angel hasn’t been seen since the appearance of the Man of Sorrow, the One acquainted with grief, over 2,000 years ago. But I saw the ones He sent, and I heard the soft whispers of the Holy Spirit, the One sent to offer comfort and encouragement that no man can. And I was fed. While I did nothing under that tree but wonder if I could keep going and what my future would look like if I didn’t, He made sure that I would be ready for what came next. And above all, He made sure I didn’t stay there. What came next for Elijah, was a 40 day trek through the wilderness to the Mountain of God, where the Lord came to him for a talk. Mine was a proverbial wilderness, which is equally unpleasant, and while I didn’t enter a cave, the Lord still CAME TO ME and much like Elijah’s conversation with Him, I gave Him the multitude of reasons why I was done, along with my apologies for failing Him. He listened patiently to both of us, and then made it perfectly clear that we were but one of many, that it had always been His strength that we possessed, and while we may have thought we were done, He wasn’t done with us. Not even close. Our purposes were and are well defined, and His strength is endless. Elijah was a prophet of the Lord. I am not, nor would I ever claim to be. What I am, and what he was, is a faithful servant to the One who isn’t blind or deaf to what is happening to His children. Don’t miss this. If I hadn’t crawled up under that tree depleted, He wouldn’t have had the opportunity to prepare me for the brutally honest conversation with Him which led to the renewal of my strength and increase of my faith. I thought I was done but He said “no baby girl, we’re just getting started.” He made it perfectly clear that He knows full well how difficult it is to be a voice of Hope in a hopeless world and how disheartening it is to see so many suffer with no apparent end in site. He knows the frustrations of the snail’s pace of change and the deafness of those that can bring about that change but refuse to listen. He knows the anger directed at death and most importantly to me, He knows the great sorrow of losing a son. And He sat with me under my tree. In Elijah’s case, He wasn’t going to allow a threat of death from his enemy to remove one of His greatest prophets from his destiny. In my case, He wasn’t going to allow the immense threat of Fentanyl or the grief of multitudes to keep me from mine. Elijah went on to see his enemy defeated and I will too. His fell out of a window and was eaten by wild dogs. Can’t wait to see what happens to mine considering it killed my child and the children of thousands upon thousands of others like me. This war is far from over, and I’m back on the front lines with sword in hand, new and improved armor, and the God of the Angel armies standing behind me and all of us in the battle. Our enemy will fall, and with it the peddlers of death assigned to increase the body count will too. We cannot give up. If you’re weary from the battle, find your tree. He will meet you there, tend to you, love you, and lead you to the place where He will listen to the reasons why you can’t (all the while knowing you can), fill you up and show you how vital you are to His plan.