This World is Not My Own--Only He Sees Clearly

I struggle to post this beacuse I worry that I'll be percieved as exalting myself, as though I've done something impossibly good and deserve praise. It's the opposite--I have been found so needy and lacking these seasons that I find it hard--even painful--to take a close look for myself at what I've "done". As I'm peering out at what seems to be the wreckage of my life through fingers covering my face, He gently prys away my hands and holds them in His and explains what He sees. And it changes everything.

A little something that came to me after worship at Bible study yesterday and then I'm done:

"I'm at a place in my life where most people would say, 

'You've made it!'

but I'll let it all go to possess Him

the value of knowing Him is more to me 

than any accolade from men,

any money I could pursue

I will leave it all when He says

and He has said, 'Go.'

So I walk out into the unknown,

asking for His strength and 

guidance,  knowing He will work 

out His will in me

His timing is perfect, holy and He

is working out the cross through 

me bringing purity, holiness,

righteousness--all that is good and smells

of Him--to flow out of my life in a way

that is evident to others and blesses

others. May they find Him as they look at me."

Deep Triumph

It's funny when things end...

Sometimes you expect it. For me, the school year is coming to a close and I am anticipating and trying to plan for empty days. I know I'll fill them (a certain book which is trying to burst out of me comes to mind :)) but I will miss--desperately--filling those (these) days with 19/20 (numbers fluctuate!) little people who need my attention and want my love. There'll be something so bittersweet and heart wrenching about saying good by for the last time. I'm going to try really hard not to cry.

It's a funny season--to be so aware of what my heart needs and to keep moving forward even though I don't know how it all will end. I know what He's called me to--and I know what I think it should look like (actually, I'm pretty clueless in that regard!)--but God is so much bigger (thank goodness)! I know that whatever is coming will surprise and delight me while it also blows away all my misconceptions about what God is capable of and how He can move.

I can't wait.

But I have to wait (haha) and tell people I'm waiting and live that out faithfully before them.

And, though it is difficult, it is a special privilege to be delighted in by the Lord during this time and trusted. I get to be a faithful witness--one who exists in His love and is so filled by His peace that no matter what comes, no part of me fears.

And that's a big deal for this little girl.

I was always the one who reacted out of fear, it was, in fact, central to who I was.

And these days--God is showing just how powerfully He has changed and influenced my life--that I, even I, can be free from fear. The little girl who cried before every first day of school because she didn't know exactly what would happen (desperate for control, approval, belonging) can now live free even in the middle of deep uncertainty.

That is a miracle. That is the deep triumph of God in my life.

Anticipating the 'more' to come from a holy God who has His perfect timing in store...

The Disconnect: How I Missed You

I’m looking at a couple kids standing around at a gas station.

They’re not my kids, it’s not even in real time—it’s a picture, kids I used to know, who used to love each other.

And there’s a waterfall in between—I put it there, the picture of it: tall rock walls separating these two—but for me it represents the chasm that has come between these two sweet kids.

See, last year when they went on this trip together, they stood next to each other. Nothing came between them, every picture and moment is “together” and they were living in the sweetest, most innocent way of love I have ever seen. He declared his love for her one night (unintentionally) by trying to compliment her (we each picked someone on the trip to affirm and encourage that night) and stammering through saying how wonderful she was.

The beautiful, lucky, absolutely darling thing was that they had no clue (even though everyone around them could see it): he was just this awesome kid who didn’t know he loved her and she thought that for sure he couldn’t love her—they were just best friends who spent a lot of time together.

And isn’t that the best way for love to start?

But this girl, though unaware of it herself, is beautiful—and others guys started to notice, specifically, one of the boy’s best guy friends. This guy had charisma, had plenty of dating experience and was older than the two of them—and the girl believed in his affections for her…and a chasm opened between her and the original, adorably dorky guy.

Saddest thing I’ve ever witnessed.

The other older guy is in this photo, posing (I covered him with the waterfall)…but the beautiful girl isn’t even looking at him—she’s looking back to the original, unassuming guy who loved her purely, even unintentionally…and I just wonder what she’s thinking.

Love is hard, that’s all I know. I don’t think it comes along often and when it does, I don’t think we’ve been trained to see it. In fact, I would say the opposite is true: we’ve been trained (overtrained) to recognize and go for lust, but love—in its sweetest form—is so rare as to be unrecognizable. And when someone stumbles on it these days, it feels like a true miracle.

But how often do we actually see it, recognize it for what it is and go for it? Ask that pretty girl out, talk to that guy that has an indescribable pull on you, take the time…? I think we often move too fast and move too scared. We go for the easier-to-see lust because it makes itself loud and proud and in our faces and gentle love gets pushed away. Love is a frightening thing—taking over the senses so that when you see the beloved, you truly can hardly think, let alone talk to them. (It’s so much easier to avoid them and walk the other way than to wade through all the convoluted emotions bashing around in you, making you feel so uncomfortable—haha, speaking from experience.)

Long ago and far away, I was in love. I was like the girl I’ve been writing about—completely insecure and so sure that there was no way that I could be loved. It was the one unspoken and unrealized dream of my heart to be loved completely (only uncovered as I painfully sorted out why liking this guy was so disconcerting for me)—but because it was so close to the core of who I was and I was so sure it would never happen, I fought it. I fought to believe I was made for bigger, grander things and didn’t need love. I would earn love: give my life to serve the poor and be so selfless that I would finally be worthy of love I’d never received. 

I was a mess.

And this guy awakened things in me and made me realize things about myself that were very painful. It was terrifying for me to be falling for someone—even if he was a great guy, I just couldn’t stand it. It threw me off balance, made me see myself in a different light and made me vulnerable. It was terrible: couple all those feelings with immersing myself in the book Passion and Purity and you have one big mess—my heart was in turmoil within me, but I couldn’t let on because, as Elisabeth Elliott clearly reiterated over and over again, “The man has to lead.”

And the guy never made a move (I saw him every other day all year!)…so, I suffered in silence.

Beyond a mess at this point: and he dates someone else. Find me in the woods after he announces he’s going to a dance with her, almost breaking a guitar with the violence of my sorrow and seriously wondering what’s wrong with me. Find me tripping through the next years asking God why and battling longing to serve God completely while still wondering…Find me praying for this girl and guy as they date, because he keeps coming to mind and I want the best for them…find me twenty-six now, wondering what’s next.

I write about this because it’s common to man: I thought I was the only one who knew the torturous, unrequited side of love…but there’s more of us out there than you would guess. I want to encourage you that God heals and moves and does amazing things in the middle of your sorrow, your breaking heart—and His love does come in and transform the battered heart.

I think it’s because He understands: He is, after all, the ultimate embodiment of heartbroken love. His love goes far beyond one meager person—covering the whole world—and so the pain must be that much greater. But for the ones that chose Him—that choose to say yes to His love and let their lives become His—imagine the joy.

Jesus knew the joy that was coming—it’s what enabled Him to travel to the cross, to endure what was set before Him. He knew, He knew it would be torture and yet “for the joy set before Him” He endured that cross, rejecting the shame and embracing what His Father had chosen for Him.

I have life today because of that choice—and so do you, and so can you. It is made available, beyond all the pain of the world and the pain you may have brought to your father (heavenly or earthly)—choose Jesus and (seriously!) life abounds for you.

The waterfall in the picture that I put between my two friends who have become disconnected is called Bridalveil. I love that waterfall—the towering magnificence of it and all that it represents. Jesus came for a Bride. The disconnect happens—many times, all over the world, where love is lost or broken—but the Lord stands above it all, still longing and looking for His Bride.

There is still hope.

The Shape of Loss

I used to believe that pain was mutually exclusive—unable to be shared because of its breadth and width and length. Like an earthquake: the magnitude exponentially increased and at the same rate, so did its ability to be understood and shared with another. So the bigger the loss, the further beyond explanation, reasoning and ability to share it went—until at some point the one who was feeling the pain (call them the paine—haha) could not share at all what was happening inside them, only suffer the loss in silence while others looked on—or even worse, at some point others around them would have no idea that they were in pain and therefore wouldn’t try to connect with them.

That was how I lived…so I reasoned it must be the same, that this rule I had created in my head about my pain was how everyone lived: bottled up, growing more and more unhappy, searching for answers but beyond able to believe they were out there. A hell of my own making. It’s how I lived through loving Haiti and various other challenges in my life.

Until it became true—the pain was so excruciating around my heart that I was locked into silence. Radio silence. Inside a screaming wall, urging to be released but with a mindset that had me believing: “No one can understand this. I have to face this alone—they can’t understand it. This is my burden to bear.”

Until it became too much and the floodgates (thank God!) opened as I learned that others around me are capable of and knowledgeable about pain—the situations are so different (true) but the same God is in the midst, teaching us how to have joy in Him, how to see His face in the middle of the world breaking (thinking of the Haiti earthquake) and choosing to love us through.

Pain—it is not mutually exclusive—it is universal. It is not for ignoring and numbing into silence…the Lord God who created the earth and every hair on my head sees my pain…and He has made this world for FULLY LIVING—in the joy, the death, the hope, the resurrection. Not pushing down and visualizing outside of our pain as some religions teach, but entering in, with Him, feeling the shape of it, the depth and width and breadth and the tang and smell and hope in it…the way it moves us toward to a better country, helps us see that we are not alone: there are a lot of people right here with us too. As His followers, I believe we are called to be the ones who live present tense before those who do not yet know His name: showing the grace of God and the agony of life in the way we walk out every painful circumstance in our life that they may not only learn to mourn with us and enter in, but they may also see: life is hard, just because you have Christ, that does not end. But life is worth living and worth fully living because when (not if, but when) you start hitting that pain, you also start hitting that joy: the joy of knowing that there is a Saviour who goes before you, to clear the nails and grit out of the way and show you His love, even in the middle of the worst circumstances. When you lose your job…when your children betray you…when your hope seems lost—the one thing you kept near and dear in your heart is finally heartbreakingly free…The world will see how you deal with your pain—they’ll see the shape of your loss before their eyes—and when the grace of God comes in and overwhelms you with its goodness, it’ll overwhelm them too.

So let the shape of your loss be seen, live out your pain, in grace, in the middle of your life and those watching—they will never be the same.

Because they’ll see Him there, carrying it for you on a cross, and they’ll want the same.

This is indeed the Deepest Hunger…