because of Grace.

Go back seven years and my world was Miley World. Miley wore black nail polish I wore black nail polish. Miley posed for every single photograph with the peace sign so did I. My door had a piece of paper tacked onto it that said Only Miley Cyrus fans allowed. When we had to do a project on a famous person, everyone knew that I had dibs on Miley. After all, I was the reason they even knew who she was.

I was so jealous when my friend got the Hannah Montana/Meet Miley Cyrus CD before me. I'd make mum turn up the radio when See You Again started playing because radio never played songs that I knew and I had a door of posters and a framed picture of Hannah Montana that my auntie gave me for my birthday and a book that came with a bunch of stickers that I didn't really know what to do with. I paid for that with my own money.

And I was astounded when I realized that you could rearrange the letters of my name, Emily, to Miley, by simply by moving the E between the L and the Y.

Of course, there was that stage when you had to pretend you didn't still watch Hannah Montana and that the Jonas Brothers weren't cool and, anyway, Taylor Swift has a song called Love Story.

CS Lewis said,

Someday you'll be old enough to start reading fairytales again

and these days we watch Hannah Montana and the movie with Lucas Till and we laugh, and listen to If We Were a Movie and True Friend, but there's something bittersweet about it all.

Someone Else, it's on her new album, and Miley, she's broken like the rest of us and where is peace, where is mercy, where is healing? Because we cling to all these gods and we're running on empty, not slowing down we're committed to filling the ache the hole the emptiness the brokenness and we won't stop till we get there. Only we seem to never get there nothing does it. We can get everything we thought we wanted and become everything we ever wanted to be and there's still this massive gaping hole. 

We don't stop being broken on earth. We're transforming but we're not transformed: we're forgiven but we stuff up a thousand times over and over and over again. And we forget Truth somedays and we're not sure if we're allowed to believe in healing.

And I found it in Hosea 14.

You’re down but you’re not out.
Prepare your confession

    and come back to God.

Assyria won’t save us; 
    horses won’t get us where we want to go.

We’ll never again say ‘our god’

    to something we’ve made or made up.

You’re our last hope. Is it not true

    that in You the orphan finds mercy?”

I will heal their waywardness. 

 I will love them lavishly.

Ephraim is finished with gods that are no-gods.
From now on I’m the one who answers and satisfies him.

I am like a luxuriant fruit tree.

    Everything you need is to be found in me.

If you want to live well,
   make sure you understand all of this.

If you know what’s good for you,

    you’ll learn this inside and out.

Healing in the brokenness. 
Wholeness and peace gone emptiness. 
There's only grace. 

It's because of Grace.