God

Optimism

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I don’t want to be here. This place, my soul hates, this void of existence….but here I am. People talk from the outside about who I should be, who I am, the next moves I should make in this existence that is my life. What do they know?

This place is a place of pain, of heartache and grief. No one else knows the ache. Similar stories are of no relevance here. This moment is mine and I am alone in it.

So a word of advice from the depths of a bleeding soul…don’t say you understand. Don’t say it’s okay. Don’t try to minimize or trivialize. Just be there. A person with skin on who actually cares is all that’s required.

Grief takes many forms and actualizes for many reasons. You probably can’t fully understand so be someone to lean on. Empathy takes many forms. At the end of the day, we’re all different. We’ve had different histories, different struggles. What feels one way to you may feel entirely different to me.

Embrace the difference. Hold in your hand the willingness to not understand but care anyway. Humanity brings its own version of struggle and wholeness. Don’t try to assess mine based on yours. Just be there.

Tomorrow will be better and even if it’s not, life goes on. We grow. We learn. We change. Tonight I’m not settling. Tomorrow I may be a pool of self loathing. The next day, I might be a warrior. We are human.

God sees. He knows. He heals. He helps us grow. Don’t shirk from the hard things. Don’t minimize them in others. Be kind. Bring truth. Love without abandon. And just like that the world is a better place.

Sincerely, a broken hearted optimist.

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.

Dust Buster

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boy in duststorm

Photo credit: Arthur Rothstein, A young boy in dust storm, Oklahoma, 1936 PBS

 

“Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust” Isaiah 26:19

The dust hangs heavy in the air, swirling around hiding the light with haze.

It’s easy to become lost in the chaos, caught up as the torrent of fear flows by, catching us unaware, unprepared.

It’s easy to break and stumble. It’s easy to give in and crumble as the mud starts to cake, heavy, on our skin. We become a sculpture of something else, a figure we never expected to be.

The mirror betrays us. We can’t recognize the person staring back, glass eyes, with fire dimmed to ember.

But there’s a song, a melody resounding above the thickness and our eyes suddenly open to the wonder.

Open your mouth and sing along. Let praise emanate from within. Let it cleanse the air with the sweetness of Spirit. Let it wash the skin and mind with life.

Sing of His greatness, hear Him call you by name, and know that nothing else matters. He sees, He hears, and He adores you.

Figure of dust, know that you are a treasure, transformed by love song into beauty.

To be a Real Woman

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This morning began like any other. I guzzled some coffee, did my mom thing, got a quick workout in, did laundry. At some point when the dust had settled, I sat down for a dose of social media while the Today Show played in the background. There was a post (which I will not link here because there is a curse word in it) from a friend of mine that in essence said a “real woman” is whatever she wants to be rather than curvy or skinny or muscular etc. Meanwhile, the Today Show can’t stop talking about People Magazine’s selection of Lupita Nyong’o as Most Beautiful person of the year.

Lupita Nyong'o - She is beautiful isn't she?

Lupita Nyong’o – She is beautiful isn’t she?

The Today Show host said that Lupita had said in an interview that growing up, she didn’t feel beautiful at all. And it hit me afresh how many women feel this way. How sad that we’ve allowed outside opinion and influence to dictate our identity. I too am guilty of propagating the lie.

Just this morning, I caught myself thinking, as I looked a friend’s photo, “She is such a pretty girl, but she wears WAY too much makeup!” I know I’ve said the opposite as well, “She would be so pretty if she wore a little makeup.” Or “lost weight” or “gained weight” or “dressed better” or…you get the idea.

I’ve propagated the lie inward as well. “I need to lose those last few baby pounds.” “I need shoes like that” “I need a new hairstyle.”…you get the idea. Don’t misunderstand, there is nothing wrong with doing things that make you feel confident like getting a new haircut or wearing those outfits that make you feel like you can conquer earth with your awesomeness. I think those things are important and healthy. The problem starts when we believe the lie that we are defined from the outside.

The truth is that a real woman is not defined by her appearance. A real woman is not defined by weight, style, physical attributes, clothing, shoes, hair, makeup. A real woman is defined by who she is, who she was made to be and the God who created her with purpose and destiny.

Maybe if we all realized that we are beautiful just because we were created to carry the beauty of the divine and share that beauty with the world, we would start living a little differently. Think about it, what is more beautiful than a woman stopping to wipe tears from little eyes and help a smile reappear? What is more beautiful than reaching a hand to someone no one else sees and showing them they have value? What is more beautiful than the one who brings food to the hungry, water to the thirsty? When someone stops the chaos for a moment of conversation and tenderness?

When we will stop being distracted by the trivial and start living the eternal? Love is forever.

When we carry the divine, we are beautiful.

I am beautiful because He is beauty and He lives in me.

Secret Place

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I had my own private spot in the woods where two trees had fallen together creating a little seat just right for me. I would sit there for what seemed like hours singing and praying. It was there that all seemed right with the world. It was there, in my secret place, that I found my solace, meaning…peace. It was there that I began to know God. There, God could be felt, His presence overwhelming my soul. It was almost tangible. It filled the air like fragrance, the sweet incense of grace, permeating my heart until all doubts disappeared. Those moments in my secret place shaped my life forever.

It’s easy to forget when we’re running. There are kids to wrangle, clothes to wash, meals to prepare and we are spinning in circles wondering where the day went. Chasing after daylight like the last shadows melting away too soon. Yet, in the midst of the madness, the lover of our soul has prepared a place. It is there, in the middle of it all, that He waits, knocking softly on the door of our hearts. It is there, we can find our rest.

All it takes is a moment in His presence to ease the ache of overused feet. One moment with Him and all that seems too much becomes just enough because He is enough. Search for Him today. Find your secret place where He calls to you. Dance with Him as He rejoices over you with singing. Run with Him through flowery fields. Sit with Him on the dock and watch the sunset. Wherever He calls, answer and you will truly live.

Don’t Settle for Seasoning

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ImageThere once was a man named Naboth. You’ll find him in I Kings 21. He had a vineyard. The only problem with this vineyard was that it was just a little too close to the residence of a certain king named Ahab. Ahab decided he wanted an herb garden and offered to buy Naboth’s vineyard. Naboth refused and Ahab started pouting. Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, arranged for Naboth to be killed. Ahab got his vineyard and Elijah prophesied the death of Ahab and his entire line. That sums up the chapter.

This got me thinking. So often we see fruit in someone else’s life and we want that. There’s a catch to having fruit though. Fruit comes from walking in Spirit. It takes us dying to us and living for God and others. It’s a lot easier to want herbs. Herbs give a hint of flavor, they taste good but don’t necessarily nourish. It’s easy to say we’re Christians. It’s easy to be nice people (most of the time). We’re good people right? But, true religion is this, “Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.” James 1:27.

Galatians 5:22-26 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.“

Today, let’s not settle for seasoning. Today, let’s go ALL IN! Walk in the Spirit and grow a vineyard.

Autopilot

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eagle_flying_bird

Autopilot – when I go through the motions

Head down, resolved, ready to do whatever it takes to make it happen

And then I sometimes break as resistance pushes me to realize I’m not built to maintain; I’m built for greatness.

Not greatness I’ve built with the persistent efforts of my hands, but greatness that comes only when I let go of my ambitions and allow yours to take over.

I ask so often for you to take all of me and then I feel injured when it’s pointed out that I can’t do everything on my own.

Why I allow the stubborn me to crawl off the altar of sacrifice and proffer a vote, I’ll never understand.

So today, once again, take it ALL.

Take my rights, my self preservation, my emotions, my ambitions, my plans.

Make them yours and use them for your glory.

I will fix my eyes firmly where they should stay, on the prize of the high calling of Christ.

There my feet find wings and fly, above the clutter, into your presence.

There, I find peace.

Blue skies