"Late in the midnight hour..."

Last night, at midnight, God moved. He moved in my life, and I needed it. I had been battling spiritual attack (and failing epically), emotional attack, and I'm pretty sure physical attack was imminent. lol. But seriously, it's been a rough couple of days. I'd given up and given in in a lot of ways. I could feel God reaching out His hand, but I refused to take hold of it. I've learned a lot of things lately:

1. I'm more stubborn, prideful, and selfish that I had thought. Talk about a humbling realization.
2. As Casting Crowns put it, it really is a "slow fade". No one crumbles in a day. I felt like I was slowly sinking, and no one was noticing. Death and destruction is a choice; as is life and freedom. "Choose today who you will serve."
3. My emotions can get the better of me. Sometimes I overanalyze. Ha, okay, that's probably the UNDERSTATEMENT of the century. I always overanalyze. And I've learned that sometimes things are not as big as they seem. Somethings aren't always what they seem.

There's a song that I first heard at the Urbana Student Missions Conference in 2006 (oh, Urbana. Love you). We sang it on December 31st as we counted down to the new year. The chorus went like this: "Late in the midnight hour, God's gonna turn it around. He's gonna work in your favor." I've heard so many stories of how God woke people up in the middle of the night and spoke to them and it was a powerful, changing moment. And it finally happened to me. Last night, late in the midnight hour, God woke me up. Actually, He woke me up SEVERAL times. I'd come to the end of the road that night before I went to bed. I was feeling far from God, alone, and empty. Each time God woke me up, I could feel Him in the room. I could hear Him saying, "He I am. I'm still here. Come to me. You must take the first step." After refuting that I actually was woken up by the Holy Spirit multiple times and heard that message in my spirit, I finally was woken up one more time around 3:00AM. And I looked at my phone and saw that I had a voicemail. It was from my best friend Ty. I had been emotionally raw lately, and I had some hurt feelings because of Ty that weren't fully warranted. And I really needed my best friend. I really needed my brother to be there for me. And he was. We hadn't talked in days, and that voicemail was the first time I'd heard from him. For some reason, that voicemail was the culmination of everything God had been doing that night, and when I heard his voice and him saying how much he cared for me, was grateful for me, and was so glad that I am his friend and brother who would always be there in the hard times -I just broke. In that moment I surrendered to God. And I could literally feel a weight lift. A peace, a joy, and a renewed sense of life came over me. It was beautiful.

I'm trading this ashes for beauty. Darkness for light. Hallelujah. Late in the midnight hour...