Faith

This is my story

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So there’s this thing about life…

We all have a story and that story defines us, empowers us, or derails us.

What will your story be?

Will you tell it openly or live in fear of what repercussions it may bring?

I, too long, lived in fear of my story.

My story, even the worst parts, makes me who I am. It makes me better.

Don’t shy away from the hard chapters in an effort to hide. Own it!

Be unapologetically you…the “you” God created you to be.

God created us with purpose and destiny.

Our stories make us stronger and reveal the glory of God to the world.

Fear has no place here.

Shine!

Show His goodness. Because no matter what, you’re standing. Even when your legs give out and it’s too heavy. Tomorrow will bring strength. If not tomorrow, then the next day or the day after that.

Never ever give up! Someone needs you to succeed.

Go all in! Make today your moment! Shine! If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for the next person who is watching.

Listening

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The dark can be so daunting

The light can seem so dim

Still, from heaven, you are calling.

Can I hear your voice again?

No fear in death or life, though all of hell presses in

Your voice, the roaring lion, shatters mountains and hangs on the wind.

Still small voice, speak to me. I’m listening!





It is Enough!

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This post is a little different from my standard posts. I’m sharing with you what I wrote this morning while reading my Bible. Last night was a particularly difficult night for me. This morning, Is brighter because His word brings life and hope. Hopefully, you can glean something from it that will encourage you today. If you’re unfamiliar with the stories I’m referencing, read I Kings chapters 18 & 19.

It is Enough!

God showed Himself mightily through Elijah. In I Kings 18, he proves himself by sending fire to consume the sacrifice and turns the hearts of the people back to the Lord. Then he hears the “sound of abundance of rain” and prays until the clouds form and outruns Ahab’s chariot. Still, he (Elijah) was under a tremendous amount of pressure and adversity. By chapter 19 of I Kings, he’s running for his life from Jezebel, and it finally overwhelms him. He prays in verse 4 that he would die, “It is enough! Now Lord take my life, for I am no better than my fathers!” He is tired and feels like a failure.

How many times in my life, have I felt exactly this way? The heaviness of it all gets to me from time to time, no matter how hard I try. I don’t think Elijah was suicidal. He wasn’t trying to hurt himself and if he really wanted to die, he wouldn’t have bothered running from Jezebel. He just needed to rest and find the voice and peace of God in the middle of the pain.

God was there and shows up to sustain him, just like he always does for us. For Elijah, he sent an angel to tap him on the shoulder and feed him. The angel says to him in verse 7, “The journey is too great for you”. God know what we can handle and when it’s too much for us. He doesn’t expect us to do it on our own or in our own strength. He is there with compassion and provision when we don’t have the strength to keep going. His provision strengthens us. Elijah went, “in the strength of that food” all the way to the “mountain of God”.

“What are you doing here Elijah?”

God could have been asking him this because he should have been somewhere else and he was hiding out in a cave instead, but I think God asked him this because He wanted Elijah to see where he was. He wanted Elijah to see his purpose and who he was and who God is.

“Then He said, ‘Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.’ And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.” I Kings 19:11-12

When Elijah heard the “still small voice”, he wraps his face in his mantle, the symbol of his prophetic authority and “went out and stood”. “What are you doing here Elijah?” It’s then, when Elijah knows why he’s there and recognizes who he is and that he’s not alone, that he goes back and follows the instructions of the Lord and continues the work of the Lord.

Sometimes this life, these trials, are too much for me. I lay down just like Elijah and pray “It is enough!” God is there for me as well. He sees and provides and leads me through. I need to lean in. I need to trust Him. When he says, “Arise and eat.”, for me that means devouring the word of God and letting His word sustain me. I need to realize that though the winds, and earthquakes, and fire, break the rocks into pieces, He is still, unmoving, constant. The seemingly smallest of things contain the most meaning. I need to lean in and steady myself in that! I need to remember who I am.

Elijah wrapped his face in his mantle, his purpose. My purpose is to glorify God in and through everything…to show Him to the world. When I remember why I’m here, I can stand up.

Like, Elijah, I also need to remember I’m not alone. God has placed people around me strategically to fight alongside me. I don’t have to find alone, and I can rest in that. Still, Elijah had to go out and appoint and anoint them. I need to stop being afraid of being vulnerable and be willing to reach out and accept help and support. That’s a tough one for me, but I’m working on it.

Unhinged

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I sit in silence for hours and days while the world passes by unhinged. I watch the clock dismantle and in haze because time no longer makes sense.

Then I breathe and remember that today will be gone in an instant and tomorrow will either repeat the same or be glorious.

Tonight I choose the latter.

Fear is a Terrible Driver

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It’s been a hard year. It seems like we’ve all said that so many times now, it’s become an anecdote. The reasons for its sting are different for everyone. I wish for me, it were simply the work of a pandemic and its’ resulting madness, but it’s been so much more than that. The darkness of all the broken parts of my story threatened to undo all of me, everything I’ve built, and the woman I’ve become. I am so grateful for the light I’ve found in spite of it, that lifts me.

The hand of God still reaches for me. His fingers lightly nudging the stony parts of my heart until it beats again with softness. I am slowly ambling my way out of the deep into the deeper, truer, reasonableness that is faith.

I read a quote this morning from Ann Voskamp, “He who is driven by fear delays the comfort of God.” I can see it so clearly now. I lost sight of truth for a time…of all the wonder and goodness. I let fear take the wheel and drive. It drove me in circles in a vacuum of sorts. I was unable to find the air that fear had stolen from me. I gave it away. I was just along for the ride until I remembered it’s my car and took back the keys.

Now the comforter is near, wrapping me up once again. He never left but I had kicked Him off when the room got too hot. I forgot that He alone is enough. Isn’t remembering the things we too often forget, one of the greatest things in life?

The hard stuff can either make us hard or draw us to Him. Choose wisely and don’t let fear anywhere near your car.

The Light

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When the light turns on, the darkness becomes inconsequential. The glory appears in the brilliance of the light. It’s all in your perspective.

I confess, I’ve been lost in the shadows for awhile. I can’t explain why I let the light hide. I can’t explain why I couldn’t find it, but I lost track of it somehow. I let my pen fall silent. The same pen, I’ve so often prayed to “be a pen in the hand of a ready writer”, as the Psalmist says (Psalm 45:1), I tucked away deep inside of myself. I soaked it in tears. I allowed my story to become a side plot in someone else’s book.

I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t know that we ever really possess that capability. We’re all walking through our journeys with different points of reference, different experiences, different packs strapped to our backs carrying the remnants of yesterday’s climb. That’s where empathy comes in. When our understanding falters, we can choose to hear. We can choose to dig deep with compassion and find the eternal spark in each other. The humanity veiling divine destiny in another person can lead us to love deeply even when we don’t get it. But I digress.

I feel like I’ve, too often, used the phrase, “It’s been a hard season.” It’s a great Christian cliché to hide behind. Mainly, because this time, I’m sick of it. I don’t want to say it all again. I don’t want to admit that I’ve been wandering around in the desert for forty years in the same shoes. Now I’m realizing that maybe I needed the desert to find the sun.

If the eye is the lamp of the body (Matthew 6:22) and Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:12), and He lives in me, shouldn’t I be seeing things through His perspective and not my own limited one? Shouldn’t I be shining the same light to others instead of closing my eyes tight and thinking if I don’t look, maybe it will all disappear? Shouldn’t I be holding my head high in the middle of the struggles, knowing that He’s got me?

Maybe I can stand again, pull up my socks, lace up my boots, and continue walking. Maybe I need to stop and rest and breathe in the moments that make me human. Maybe I need to trust. I am surrounded by light.

So I throw these words into the air defying the silence. They may not mean anything to you, but to me, they mean I’m alive. To me, they mean I’m done wandering. To me they mean, I will fight for myself, strengthened in weakness, until I become who I really am. To me, that’s enough.

Under Construction

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I realized something about myself this morning. As much as I hate to admit it. I can be a bit short-sighted. My husband and I have had big plans for our property since we purchased it and remodeled it a few years back. He is a dreamer in every sense of the word, but he’s so much more than that. He is a mover and a shaker. He tends to have several projects in the works at a time. Me, I can get stuck. He thinks big picture, long term, how amazing it will be when it’s complete. I think “right now” and get caught up on the demo.

The first step in a remodeling project is planning and dreaming. Then you move on to demo. When we started remodeling our home, I would stop by to look at the progress and inevitably more had been taken out, more walls were gone. I remember walking in the kitchen one day and seeing nothing but daylight streaming in from the open concrete wall where my sink should have been. I understood the interior demo, but looking at my backyard through the wall was enough to make me panic.

Kitchen Before

My Kitchen Before the Demo (It was pretty bad!!!)

It’s a dumb thing actually. I completely trust my contractor husband, especially in matters of construction, yet there I was panicking over a hole in a wall. I know nothing about construction, other than what I picked up during our project, and what I’ve heard from his mouth while managing the office of his company since he came into my life. Yet, here I was standing in an empty, soon to be kitchen, panicking at the chaos, instead of dreaming of what it would one day become.

Kitchen

My kitchen now. 

I did it again this morning watching a worker rip out some old brush and clean up the back yard. He really made a clean canvas for us to create something beautiful, but I sat there thinking “he’s tearing up my yard”. It’s a character flaw I suppose. But what matters most is that God does the same thing in my own heart sometimes.

This last year especially has been like that. I’ve been in a demo phase and that should excite me.

“We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9

I should be grateful and happy knowing that when God begins a good work, he is faithful to complete it. (Phil 1:6) and the end result will be better than I can even begin to dream. But I get lost in the moment. I get stuck in the chaos from time to time.

Here’s the thing though, I will gladly take every moment of chaos, every tear, every trial, if it makes me more like Christ. I will gladly walk through the craziest internal construction project if it’s necessary to make me into a woman through which His glory is revealed.

Nothing we go through is wasted. 2 Corinthians 1:6 says, “Now if we are afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effective for enduring the same sufferings which we also suffer. Or if we are comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.”

There is always a reason even in suffering. I’m not saying God is smiting us with afflictions. What I am saying is that in suffering and affliction, He is there with us, not only comforting us, but also strengthening us. If we’re going through something, He will cause us to grow through it. It is grace and His unfailing love that always advocates for us and calls us to dig deeper. If it takes a bit of demo to make something beautiful out of me, I’m in!

I don’t know what you may be going through right now. But if you find yourself like me, panicking at the demo phase, I encourage you to trust the contractor. God knows what He’s doing and He’s got you! Try not to fear the process, but rather try to envision the finished product.

Identity

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My kids teach me something everyday. Life with children is certainly an adventure. Last night as I was giving my last round of snuggles to my five-year old and tucking him in for the night, I said the words I so often say to him. “Goodnight mighty man of God. Do you know you will change the world someday?” His response was a simple, sleepy, “Uh huh”. It made me smile. There’s a sweetness to the simplicity of their honest responses. He simply said, “Uh huh,” and closed his eyes.

I began to realize something as I thought about our exchange throughout the rest of the evening. Every night I tell him he was designed with a purpose and a destiny and that he will do great things. It’s become our bedtime mantra. The thing is, he has come to believe it. I’ve spoken it over his life so many times that it’s not even something he questions or longs to understand. It’s just the truth…his truth.

How many things have I spoken of myself that I’ve come to believe as truth? How many lies have I told myself over the years that, though in my head are known for what they are, in my heart have played on repeat defining who I am? When will I become fed up enough and know who I am? The answer to that one is NOW!

I was created with purpose and destiny. I am enough. I am loved. I am beautiful. I am strong. I am forgiven. I will change the world. I am changing the world everyday. I am uniquely, fearfully, wonderfully made. And so are you!

I am honest enough to reveal these things about myself because I know I’m not alone. I know so many who seem so totally put together on the outside, but inside, are filled with doubts. We doubt so much about our greatness. We doubt it’s okay to even admit that we are destined for greatness. Our successes and failures play out like a Netflix original series, all the while, we hide the reality of who we are behind the approval of the crowd.

We crouch and minimize our achievements so we aren’t embarrassed by the criticism of others. Or we amplify and scream them to the masses in an attempt to prove that we are actually capable and worthy. Both are the same. Both are our insecurities blaring like trumpets that we are unsure.

I think the truth, the real truth, is in the ability to rest…in the ability to stop and settle once and for all that who we are is who we are meant to be. This spot in our journey is exactly the spot where we will learn what we need for the next mile. We may not have attained the goals we are working towards yet, but that doesn’t have to mean we won’t. Sure, we need to continue to grow. That’s part of the beauty and if we can rest and be at peace, and finally silence that inner voice who’s lying to us, then man, will it be beautiful. Don’t listen to the crowd. Listen to the one who calmed the seas, who hung the stars, who created you with purpose and destiny.

You were created for greatness! You will change the world! It’s up to you to decide how. It’s up to you to decide to live, I mean really LIVE, your life. It’s up to you. You are more than enough. Can I get an “Uh huh”?

 

Reflecting on the Absence of Me

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Look up

Let me start with an apology, despite the fact that my husband tells me frequently to stop apologizing. I apologize far too frequently for things I shouldn’t, but that’s a story for another post…

I apologize for allowing my head to stop my heart from living. I apologize for allowing circumstance to dictate my perceptions. I apologize for allowing myself to become missing in the haze of chaos rather than being present and available. I apologize for being absent from my own life.

This season I’ve been trudging through has been…I’ll just say…hard. I’m naming it, in my own nerdy way, “The Transitional Positional”. Without getting into the details, I’ll just say, I’ve been going through a lot both personally and professionally. The ground I often expected to remain solid beneath my feet has been shifting and cracking and quaking. At times, it’s been a lot to take in. With that, I’ve had a few realizations that I thought I’d share.

The first is that I am ultimately responsible for my life. Of course, I knew this, but not I KNOW this! I can be highly reactive and deal with things as they arise from a reactive posture rather than a responsive posture. Everything must be handled simply because it’s happening but I forget to stop and think and respond appropriately. I forget to delegate and acknowledge that I do not have to do it all and be everything for everyone. I have the power to say what I’m thinking, to feel what I’m feeling, and to find gratefulness in the process. The two letter word, “no” is not a four letter word and I can use it when necessary. I can choose to be happy when everything around me seems to be falling apart. It’s all a part of the journey. I get to be who I choose to be, plain and simple.

I’ve also realized that perfection is a myth. I’ve spent the majority of my life trying to attain the elusive, self-proclaimed, standard of “good enough” not realizing that I have been good enough all along. The only “perfect” out there worth attaining is “perfectly myself”, with all my flaws and failings. “Perfect” is the acceptance that God made me to be the best me I can be (forgive the Dr. Seuss-esque rhythm of the preceding). It is good and perfect to embrace the process of growth in my life rather than constantly feeling less than in the pursuit of perfection. I refuse to listen to that lie anymore.

The thing about transition is that I can choose one of two perspectives. I can look at the things I’m leaving behind and feel sting and loss. Or I can look to the unknowns ahead and feel anticipation for the good I know will come. Which perspective I choose, again, is ultimately my responsibility. I choose to believe my best days are ahead. I choose to get up each day and walk, and sing, and dance, and laugh, despite anything that life hurls at me along the way. My response is my choice.

Somehow along the way, I allowed myself to go missing into myself. I held back. I hid in the corner. I forgot how to use my voice. I forgot that I have something to offer. I admit, part of the reason I’m writing this post is to force myself to come back to the world of the living. It’s kind of like releasing the hatch on the bunker I’ve been hiding in and stepping back outside. But, it is also, because I’m realizing that I’m not the only one. I see it in the faces of others who struggle and fight to keep their heads above water, and I know the whole time, they are strong, and beautiful, and perfectly “enough”. They just can’t see it from the middle. In the middle of the haze and the chaos, they’re clouded. I was clouded.

There is this light though…it shines and breaks darkness to pieces. There’s this grace that reaches through the thickest fog and finds us. It shows us the way home. It wraps us up wholly. It carries us back to solid ground. I think so often, I turned my face away from the light thinking I was not worthy to be seen. In truth, the light was inside of me the whole time and the light of the world was using this, and every trial, to guide me into the “me” He designed me to be.

“Arise, shine, for your light has come. And the glory of The Lord rises upon you.” Isaiah 60:1

So I apologize for hiding. I apologize to myself for letting my heart be taken captive by “busy”, and fear. I write this now, my resolve to live on purpose.

I am alive and I am grateful.