Blank Spaces

My current situation is sitting in a trendy coffee-shop with a laptop, books and scowl, very official looking writer territory. When I pulled up to this spot, I had a big idea about writing the most phenomenal blog post I've ever scribbled out. Unfortunately, this blank space has been staring back at me very expectantly for far too long and all I've managed to do is become over-caffeinated and underwhelmed. Some days, the inspiration just doesn't arrive. Some days, you labor and deliberate over how to make something happen. Some days, you just cannot. 

And that's where I'm drawing inspiration from today. That uncomfortable place where you know God is around, but you just can't make the connection. Going through the motions and wondering where He will surface again so you can quit holding your breath. Well, friends, I'm going to exhale. Will you take in a deep breath and exhale with me? Just try it. This is the place where our faith grows feet and momentum, where we lean in a little closer and instead of striving and contriving to reconnect and earn the goodness that flows freely, we just do the next right and good thing. We kiss our kids and love our neighbors. We scratch tasks off our to-do lists with a Heavenward glance every so often. We stir soup and run the errands; catch a cold, pay the bills and chase a dream, All the while, God's there. He's smiling, He's loving and He's near. These blank spaces, they are an empty canvas for God to lavishly paint His grace upon in the broad strokes of sunsets and falling leaves; the eternal and perennial reminders of purpose and seasons. This is where we learn the art of  "be still and know" even when we don't feel. A time when well-worn patches grow from knees dug in a little deeper, hoping for that quickening of our hearts. From this place, we learn that we were created for this divine connection and the longing in our hearts becomes louder than the thrum of the chaotic rhythms of our lives. As deserted as this place can feel, we need it sometimes as a reminder to fill. 

So, I'm going to log off here and go do the next right thing. Eat a sandwich. Smile at a stranger. Listen from a heart filled with "me too" instead of "you need to". Love my people fiercely. And every so often, I will glance Heavenward and smile. I have faith that my Father hasn't taken His eyes off me yet. 

"Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever"-Psalm 23:6 NLT

Faulty Structures

I don't remember many specifics about the day I met Jesus. There wasn't anything terribly out of the ordinary going on that day. The day before? I'm not sure. Those were days strung together like so many identical paper dolls cut out of the same tattered sheath. Pain-filled days of feeling like I was a mistake, that life was always going to bear the images of strife and struggle that none of them really stick out in my mind. I imagine it started out with an inherently hopeful heart that was quickly washed on to the shores of my then constant state of apathy. A glance in the mirror would've garnered even more pain as I surveyed everything I saw wrong with myself and quick decisions were made about how little I would eat that day or how much I would punish my body for betraying me with such things as imperfections and flaws. The thought that rose to the forefront of my mind every day of my life for as long as I could remember would hit soon after. I hate myself. 

That day when I met Jesus, I was living under the influence of a multitude of lies and was willing to do anything to stop hearing them, including take my own life. At some point in time, long before that day, before I can even remember, I had started believing that everything about me was wrong. I'm ugly. It's bad to need. I'm not good enough, Nobody loves me. I'm alone. I shouldn't be here. I'm not lovable. If I were different, I would be loved. 

If a stronghold is a structure of thoughts built on a foundation of lies, I had constructed a mansion. The thought that if I were different I would be loved had become my dysfunctional mission statement. I will be different. Other than what I am that keeps getting me abandoned. Used. Rejected. For many years before that day, I made a constant effort to be anything other than the "real" me, During that time I learned a behavior that was borrowed from the serpent itself. 

I started to tell lies. I didn't want anyone to know about my past or my home life and I began to weave an intricate web of things I wished were true about my life, hoping to avoid rejection. Friends at school started noticing that my Dad wasn't around and would ask where he was and I'd concoct a story about how he was in the military and had to fly to some far off locale for an important assignment. He was in the military, but living with a girlfriend somewhere not too far away and didn't have time for things like back to school night or father-daughter dances.  Later on, in middle school I would go on to tell concerned teachers that my parents were traveling internationally when nobody showed up for an awards ceremony. Remember that scene in Pretty In Pink where Molly Ringwald's character didn't want Andrew McCarthy's character to drive her home because she was embarrassed for him to see where she lived? I identified so hard it left my head spinning. Eventually, these made-up scenarios became even more fantastic and I found myself becoming angrier and angrier at my reality. These deceptions were becoming exceedingly difficult to hold together on the outside, but each one became the glue that solidified what I believed to be true inside- if anyone knew the truth, they would reject me. Are you starting to see how twisted a stronghold is? I lied to keep anyone from really knowing me, for fear that they would reject me, which in turn led me to further shame because now I knew their love, acceptance or affection couldn't be real because they didn't know the "real" me. The real me had been bound and gagged and left in a dungeon of emptiness. 

If I've learned anything in my life it is this- nothing gets you into bigger trouble than emptiness. Comfort becomes a demanding and transient little "g" god and essentially is the enemy of fulfillment. In our fallen nature, we get really creative about how to fill ourselves up, don't we? Whether it comes in the form of food, alcohol, drugs, sex, money, gossip, escapism, self-harm, exercise, people-pleasing, intellectualism or any manner of behaviors that we abuse, we find ourselves needing more and more to keep the emptiness at bay. What I've discovered in all of my own empty ventures is that any time you can't get enough of anything, it is because you are missing something very important. Deficient of a healthy way to cope with the emptiness, we become "other", seek "other", and eventually bow down to "other" to achieve a fleeting moment of comfort. Eventually, I became unable to see anything in myself that was good as I had given way to stringing those fleeting moments together to feel anything. People began to lose their value to me as I learned to view them as residing in one of two different camps; those I could get something from and those I couldn't. Guess which camp I spent the most time in? I had become a taker, entitled to my own wants and unable to form a healthy bond with anyone, no matter how hard they tried to love me. To believe that anyone could love me was a painful, dangerous fantasy that I couldn't dare indulge in. I could be whoever I needed to be to blend in with my surroundings and eventually I couldn't even hear the muffled cries of the "real" me any longer.

None of this is easy to admit, but it's real. It is an inside glimpse into how the enemy of our souls begins his unceasing campaign to blot us out. Maybe you experienced some painful events in your past and began to hear the lies too? Maybe your behavior showed up in the form of perfectionism or way too much wine to numb life or even becoming extremely controlling so nothing could burst your safe little bubble- but whatever it looks like I implore you to know you don't have to stay there.

The day after I met Jesus, my life looked exactly the same, but it felt different. There was a hope in my heart that just wouldn't budge and for the first time, I realized that I didn't feel completely and utterly burdened by my past and present. And the possibility that I could even have a future? All of a sudden it felt like I did! One thing I've discovered after giving my life to Jesus is a new perspective on how we don't really fight against a flesh and blood enemy, it is a battle in the spiritual: the enemy can only sloppily copy and pervert what God has already done. The devil cannot create anything new, so he twists and distorts what's already been created. Satan sees how the Holy Spirit comes to renew us and make us Christ like, so he dispatches his unholy spirits to destroy us and make us more like him. Empty, hateful, deceitful and broken. Puts a new spin on "misery loves company", doesn't it?

Jesus sacrificed His life and conquered death to deliver us out of the kingdom of darkness and misery. He poured out our freedom in a red and thick covering over those most deeply felt needs for peace and hope and joy. For faith, for love! Every need met and not because of what we bring but according to His glory. Once I made the decision to follow Jesus, I was transferred over into eternity with Him. Forever. The reign and dominion of darkness on my life ceased immediately. The behaviors, however; they hung on a little longer. I spent many years building those faulty structures and my "flesh" was experiencing quite a bit of muscle memory. Old patterns are difficult to undo, but not impossible. The Bible says it like this, "With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible"-Matthew 19:26 (NLT). Those patterns have taken some time and total surrender of this sack of dust.  I've had to learn to transform myself by thinking differently about who I am and especially open my heart to receive all of the love Jesus has for me. I've had to learn to accept and love myself as God made me. Rejecting myself was saying He didn't do a good enough work! How do you tell GOD that He messed up? I've severed ties to people in my life who were unhealthy and forged new friendships with people who love me where I am and also keep me on the good and narrow path.  The most beautiful and redeeming part of this journey though? Learning that I was liar for the wrong kingdom because I am an even better truth teller for God's Kingdom. There is the purest, most unimaginable joy that comes into my heart when I am able to minister God's word and truth and show His lost children the way home. No longer do I look at people as a way to get what I need, but now I listen for what God might say they need. Should it surprise me that it is almost always love and understanding?

I understand that shame never has to darken my face again and I am free to let the "real" me out to run wild and free. The work of restoration is not an easy labor, but it is one ripe with discovery.  Learning to stand on a solid foundation of truth that is only found in God's word has helped me form a new mission statement, by the way. Want to know what it is?

Everything God says about me is true!

"For no matter how many promises God has made, they are a "Yes" in Christ. And so through Him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God."- 2 Corinthians 1:20

Did You See The Size Of That Chicken?

The title of this post is my favorite movie quote of all time. If you are not familiar with it, I'm not entirely sure we can maintain this relationship...

Joking, of course. Spoiler alert- the quote is from the movie Young Guns and is shouted by an addle-brained cowboy who ingests Peyote on the advice of a Navajo Indian who rides in the same gang. In his attempt to enlighten these stiff-necked cowpokes via organic chemical toxins, myriad hi-jinks ensue and the result is pure comedic gold. To my addled brain, at least. Probably not what you were expecting to read about as you clicked your way here, but I am nothing if not transparent. 

And I am also a sizable chicken. 

I haven't posted in almost...I don't know...four months now? I got scared that I wasn't that great of a writer and that y'all were beginning to figure it out. It seemed to me that I was running out of things to write about and lost my confidence. I also experienced a moment of feeling naked and ashamed (so very Eve) at how much STUFF I had just put out there. So, like a big 'ol chicken, I just stopped showing up.

Honestly, it was the best thing I could have done for both of us. In this time, I have hopscotched my way to a new glory and am seeing through a different lens. I can't take anyone further than Jesus has taken me and friends, I had put the brakes on. I didn't want to tread where He was taking me, it was so much easier to just talk about some of the pain and trauma of my past than approach it as Jesus was asking me to do with Him. Entirely more comfortable to sit back and tell all of you how to fix this or that than to actually take a long, painful look at what I was allowing in me. What I don't want to admit is that I got really good at pretending I was fine when I wasn't. So, here I am. Wrecked. Oh no, you aren't getting the end result me. I'm at the very center of a major smack-down in my heart. This is Holy Ground, people. This messy place where we admit that things aren't working, our hearts are no longer just coping and something in our spirit is restless and about to give birth to a God-smeared you. I have co-labored with Jesus for almost a year now to deliver this. Together, we have battled the rulers of my heart named; anxiety, shame, hopelessness, worthlessness, neediness, un-forgiveness, bitterness, anger, and loneliness. Together, we have stood firm against each of their henchmen; isolation, rejection, addiction, perfectionism, apathy, idolatry, control and, suicidal thoughts to name a few. Does it mean that all of these things are magically erased from my life? No, we are still in the thick of battle, but I rest in knowing that each battle is covered by His blood. 

Why share all of this? Because I believe that we all are capable of running from the places in our hearts that seem too scary to run into. I know, I spent a lot of time running from some doozies. Turns out that what is written in Ephesians 5:13-14 is complete truth; "But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light" (ESV) and when I started pulling back the curtains of my heart to let the light in, I began to feel the beams of joy and peace transform the darkest of places. This isn't just a metaphor, this is the the beginning of the very journey I was created for. Discovering who God created me to be. I'm finding my voice. I'm discovering my gifts. It may even turn out that I'm not that great of a writer and I'll get thrown off the internet for poor punctuation. Okay, I really hope I don't discover that. Ack. Ugh...just keep telling me the truth in love. Deal?

What I know for certain though is that I have approached a turning point in my life where people-pleasing now feels more uncomfortable than rejection and that is a VICTORY.  

Another victory? Perfectionism has begun to give way to grace, which means that I require way less in the way of perfection from those around me. That whole, "if mama ain't happy, nobody is happy" was playing out in real life and I want my people ridiculously happy. It only showed how little grace I had for myself when I went around demanding that everyone else should carry on like etiquette school valedictorians. God's love isn't based on our behavior, mine shouldn't be either. Besides, what is a band-aid of grace without a skinned knee? It just sits in the box. 

God isn't interested in perfection from us, He's interested in our heart. Love Him. Love me. Love others. There is plenty of wiggle room in trying to figure out how on all three counts, believe me. Christa Black Gifford pointed out in a beautiful book called Heart Made Whole that the Bible speaks more of the heart than anything else in the entire book! A running theme of that magnitude should give us pause and start asking the simple question of; why?

I had the courage to stop and ask that question. So maybe courage is too strong of a word here. Maybe it was more of a "why won't this yucky junk stop showing up in my liiiiiiiiiiiife??", elicited in a semi-whiny tone. In tears. With snot. I had to get real about the fact that I was the common denominator of said junk and start shoveling through all of the unhealthy stuff my heart had hoarded over the years, long before I knew Jesus.  I honestly didn't think He'd be so interested in all of that broken stuff, but He has been supremely kind of obsessive about going through it and so now, I am too. Means I get to spend more time with this gentle, yet fierce Savior. Means I get to hear His take on each broken piece and come away with jewels of wisdom and the anointing of healing. This has been a precious time in my life. I have realized that nobody was angrier about the pain of my past than Jesus and that He willingly died to take that pain away and rose to conquer it. He is my Defender and Mighty Protector and that's what my soul has been aching for all this time. Someone to love me right where I am and show me that I am worth protecting and saving. This big 'ol chicken has experienced some big 'ol healing. 

Wherever you are in your journey, I ask you today to pray a simple prayer and ask that Jesus reveal who He is to you. He is so faithful to answer. 

Stay tuned as I unpack each of the broken places and what I've learned about the behaviors that came from them. Peace, joy and love be with you. 

You Found Me

You found me.

I wandered so far away, knowing I was lost.

I kept walking.

Searching. Breaking. Dying.

Too many wounds to name

so many faces that haunted me.

Let me stay lost, broken. Dead.

It's easier there, I don't have to feel. 

Looking for You was like walking on glass

a path too painful to take.

So, You found me. 

You tread on sharp places unafraid

the Blood forms a softness

under my feet

So I walk unafraid

across the sea of pain

knowing I won't slip under

You found me. 

So many years ago, you broke bread. Poured wine. Knowing, it was all for me. So that I may be made whole. This kind of love is unreal, yet it's more real than anything I've ever known. 

Thank You for staying in that garden for me, even when you saw the brutality making its way toward You. 

All because I fled the garden and didn't stay and the pain of me walking away from You was greater than anything You ever endured in the flesh. Every drop of blood, like a tear. Every strip of torn flesh, the very splitting of Your heart. The agony of limbs pierced, the truth of our separation. Your death, love undone. Resurrection, love unending. 

You paid the highest cost of love for me. Jesus, you found me. 

 

"but He was pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole. He was whipped so we could be healed." Isaiah 53:5

Freedom Run

A little girl of 3 years old, messy hair and starry-eyes, running with her arms outstretched like wings, circling around and swooping low. A smile beaming out from her dimpled face, shining with hope and remnants of her mama's lipstick smeared on in "secret". As she gets further away, she turns to look over her shoulder at the Daddy she's sure is watching and smiles her biggest, she knows when she circles back around from her "flight" that he's going to scoop her up and tell her how pretty and remarkable his girl is. She's loved and she just knows it. She doesn't have to do a single thing but run in the freedom of who she is. This is what her Father calls her "freedom run". 

You couldn't have broken me from that vision if you tried. Rooted in place, arms meagerly raised in "worship", that vision stole the very air out of my lungs. Father, you couldn't possibly mean..

"Yes. I entirely mean..."

He showed me the freedom He wants me to live in. Through the eyes of three year old me, God showed me what it feels like to know. The words "child like faith" consume me and through this moment, I understand something I've spent my entire life trying to chase down.

Effortless love.

This is hard. Seriously this is difficult to look at and watch because my feeble brain is looking for the catch and cannot find one. This moment is untainted, the vision unblemished.

It is called grace and the stuff sticks all over you, thickest in the places where the wounds are deepest. An undeserved gift served up in the least expected places in moments when it seems to be mythical to believe in things like forgiveness and mercy. This is where I collide with love, head on. All of my huffing and puffing in my previous posts leaves me a bit chagrined because this is what God does. God does love without even trying and no matter how much I try, He isn't budging. I can bring Him my failures and He gets all giddy and tosses them over His shoulder like so much worthless rubbish and then leans in for a hug around the neck. He wants to be close to me, the failures aren't to be ruminated on when there is so much love to be given. When I want to whine and squirm about my boo-boos, Jesus is pure focus, willing me to hold still so He can goop some mercy on them. I try to explain how it got there and why it looks so bad and my Savior gives me the "pay no mind" look as He shows me how He paid it all on that cross. If I want to be injured and nurse the wounds for attention or anything short of praising God for the healing that has already begun, well, I can take my mat and park it next to the springs for the next 38 years if that suites me, however; He knows me better than that. He knows His girl better than that. I want to be healed.

I've spent the last few months getting used to a new haircut. Worrying that maybe I should've just left it alone and "what if I don't look pretty?" and God shows me a little girl with a mess of tangled up hair from the wind she's been catching in her freedom run. It's glorious. 

I spend a lot of time thinking about my wardrobe and what I could wear to emphasize this or minimize that and God shows me a little girl who's contagious joy will outlast any fashion trends. It's breathtaking.

My smile gets hidden behind grins and smirks because I'm self conscious about my imperfect teeth and then God shows me a child beaming with such abandon that I can't even describe her teeth, all I see is the radiance of her confidence. It's liberating.

Entire days of my life have been spent consumed with thoughts of being unlovable or not good enough. Days hungry for food, attention or love. Then God shows me a little girl who's body is nourished by full acceptance, never once concerned with whether she will be wanted when she circles back around because the world hasn't tainted how she sees herself and she knows she is seen and thoroughly adored. It's captivating. 

Oh, the effort I have put into trying to get it right and please those around me who seem to have standards I can never meet. Then the image of a little girl, effortlessly just being who she is and it is more than enough, the ease in which she runs doesn't come from thinking too hard about it. She runs the best way any of us can; with the full knowledge that she is seen. Her joy comes purely from knowing that her Father loves her and loves to see her freedom run. 

After all of this time, all of my blustering about; I'd forgotten about freedom. I didn't realize that I was still striving so hard. I cannot explain what exactly happened in my heart today and I won't even pretend to translate it here the way it took place. All I know is that God took me back to a place and time before the world changed my view of Him and myself and life got terribly painful and confusing. In a dazzling moment of pure mercy, I was shown that forgiveness and redemption look like bare feet running in summer grass with only one destination in mind; freedom. It's been a very long time since I've felt those sun-warmed blades of grass under my feet. I remember them though.

Father, take me there. My arms are open wide and I'm circling back to you. 

An Invitation

I've spent some time looking over my older posts. Cringing, laughing and often times just staring at the screen with my jaw dropped to the floor. I wrote that? There's some messy stuff in those posts, friends! Messy grammar, sloppy sentences and mostly, gory truth about some really hard things. At the time, I felt so convicted to just put everything out there and invite all of you into the mountain and valley landscape of my life. Now, it feels so vulnerable! So raw! And I'm grateful. Bringing all of those wounds to the light has ignited a chain reaction of healing in my life that only the gracious love of Jesus Christ could spark. Insisting that you're healed of things doesn't necessarily make you healed; what I found is that I had highly developed coping skills instead of strong and sinewy muscles of uprooting. Coping skills work for a period of time, but they mostly keep you from getting to the root of the pain. Let's admit it, pain is not our favorite destination to visit, let alone dwell in long enough to find the truth in it. I've learned that there is always truth in it though. So, I'm going to share with you what I've learned about pain, healing and moving on. So far.

The question posed for centuries, why does God allow pain? I'm not any kind of expert on God (He is so unfathomable!), but I am an ear-perked disciple of Christ, which puts me kind of in the know. Also, I've experienced the stuff pain produces. 

People cause pain, God does not. In Genesis when God was going about the creation business, He said something pretty profound after He created man; "let them have dominion over..." and then pretty much gives us dominion over every living thing. On Earth. Clearly separating Heaven from Earth, right? So, this shows us a rule that God made for us and Himself. It's called free will. He wanted a relationship with us. What good is a relationship without the freedom to choose to be in the relationship? Aha! It's not a relationship at that point, it is called domination. God expected that as His image bearers, we would reflect His love and that we would not dominate one another. This is about the time the slithery devil whispered in Eve's ear and messed it all up. Where did he come from?? That's for another blog post! The more important question we can ask is, why Eve? Not why, Eve?? But why did he choose to approach Eve. My opinion? The devil purposefully and maliciously usurped God's order. Remember, Adam was created first and was the leader of their twosome. Since the devil is full of lies and deceit, he craftily and spitefully went against the harmonious order God chose. Why didn't God do anything to stop this from happening?? He did. He created Adam. Only Adam did nothing, in fact Adam ate the fruit too. So when you ask the question about pain, it's important to revisit this story which has become almost mundane to most. The answer is, God gave us authority on Earth to be His image bearers. His authority was in Heaven. He created us to be Him, here on Earth. God won't even break His own rules because He is incapable of going back on His word. Man mistakenly trusted a very unreliable source and took it upon himself to think he knew better than God. Sin and death made their appearance and have been whispering in our ears ever since, causing us to treat one another with anything other than the love we were created to bear. Instead, we bear the fruit of the tree we stole from, rather than bear the fruit from the tree of life we were given full access to. 

Many of you may ask again, why didn't God do anything? 

He did. 

He put skin on and birthed His way into our world through the womb of a woman so He could save us from pain, bondage, sickness and death that our mistaken choice created. 

His name is Jesus Christ. 

He has authority here and in Heaven. He has authority to strike the serpent before it even whispers. He gave us the same authority. Are you walking in it or shrinking away from pain and feeling helpless to it? Pain is not your master. Pain is not in charge of you. You do not have to be in bondage to it.  

Pain? It will happen because of that misinformed choice in the Garden of Eve. We don't have to cause it though. We don't even have to wallow in it when others cause it. We still have a choice to bear the Love that was born and died here for us. God in all of His infinite wisdom and love, has kept His rules and still gives us a choice to love Him in return. He still wants that relationship with us and created a way for us to be brought back into that right relationship through a Savior. Only God. 

Hands weren't created to hurt. Hearts weren't created to be broken. Bodies weren't created for illness. Mouths weren't created to do harm. They were meant to comfort, love and give life. If someone has robbed you of these things, there is still hope.  There is always hope. 

Invite the living God into your pain. Let Jesus shine His light into the shame-filled, sketchy, messy, dirty corners of your home, heart and life. He wants to come into those places and fill them with remarkable light. God is not unfamiliar with pain. He took on a human body and was beaten and whipped to shreds so we wouldn't have to be. God spilled His blood to bring us into His presence and willingly let His body be broken so we wouldn't have to break into pieces. And if you're already in pieces, The Good News is that once you invite Him in, its only a matter of time until you're made whole. Complete. Alive.  

Just keep inviting Jesus in. 

"Truly, truly I say to you that whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgement, but has passed from death to life" John 5:24