Sundays: Beauty from these Ashes

Today is Sunday. Today is sacred, holy, magnificent. Sundays always seem to be a day where my heart softens just a bit more, relaxing with each hymn we sing at church, each hug I give & receive from church family, each moment of connection we cannot have the same exact way again, and I remain fragile all day. Some days I cling to that feeling of openness to the world, where I see joy and beauty everywhere- in each laugh, each kiss and every tear. I cling to Jesus throughout the day, because my heart is better with Him than without Him. But today, Sunday, I realize that it is so uncomfortable and hard at times to allow myself to be fragile and most of all- not everyone feels this way on Sundays.

My prayer life has evolved as I have become more rooted in such a loving God. At times, though, when my depression seems so great and my anxiety consumes my heart, I try to call out to God. But I fall silent. And I feel weak, ashamed that I cannot put my hurt into words to my Father who calls me Beloved. I have been struggling with this most recently, and it’s at these times that I am most vulnerable, yearning for Him to draw near to me. However, maybe I need to allow myself to draw nearer to Him, coming to His feet with empty hands and aching heart. Because God has never moved. But that is SO hard to remember.

I always feel that I need to give ALL of my heart and ALL of my hands out to God when I pray. Just thinking about it, preparing for this lavish, thought-out, deep conversation with God causes me to already think that it will not be enough, that I will not be enough for Him. I said it. Whew. But. I want to think that maybe God is just calling me to start, to begin, to take that next step to be closer to Him. If that means I close my eyes and take a deep breath while looking at the mountains in the distance from my porch, then maybe that is praying and being in relationship with God. Maybe I don’t need to sing every line of every hymn with exuberant voice, but maybe a soft whisper or a hum allows me to still be in relationship, in worship with God. Maybe a prayer of “please help me” is just what God needs to hear. Because God knows my heart- even more than I do. And I need to understand that these tiny steps of gratefulness, of worship, these tiny seconds or minutes with God is being in relationship with Him, still.

Romans 8:26-28– Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

On Sundays, everyday, I want to feel more open. I want to try to remain fragile so I can be closer to God. I want to continue to be intimate in my prayer life- through the short “thank you” prayers and the long “I need you now” prayers. And I want to begin anew each day, each and every sunrise, because God wants to see me grow. And He knows my heart. He can make Beauty from these Ashes.

xo.

Why You Really Matter: An Anthem for Women

via Ann Voskamp @ http://www.aholyexperience.com

The gorgeous woman that had stood up there on stage with the microphone?

Yeah, she hikes up the side of her shirt to show the whole crowd of us how her white thigh spills thick over the elasticized waist of her pants.

And I’m sitting there wanting to know what Jesus thinks of women.

“I’ve been rejected all of my life because of my size.“

That’s what she says at this gathering of women I was once at.

The singer holds her milk white thigh right there and she’s vulnerable thin to the front row and to those at the back  and I look down at my feet.

 

She’s standing on a stage and she’s holding out her bare roll of skin, a bearing of soul, holding out her cellulite.

She’s begging us to look in her eyes and why are we looking away?

There are thousands of women there were sitting under this roof holding out their hearts like empty cups.

They were right next to me — all these women rejected for the size of their pants, the size of their house, the size of their family, the size of their callings, the size of their work.

Women brushed off because they live too large or they live too small, because there is more of them than people know what to do with.

 Because they can’t or don’t or they won’t fit into someone else’s box.

Women who can’t make their faith just fit thin into their heads and these skinny lines of dry bullet points, but let their God-life roll over into their outed closets and messy stories.

Women who don’t only fit into these categories — mommy blogger, size small, housewife, single career woman, mother, retiree — because they are women made in the image of God and they are more. than. only. this.

I look around at all these women, scarred and banged up and brave and still standing, and the singer is standing there a bit bare and all I can hear is their song.

All I can hear is the whole uncontainable song of this sisterhood of women and I see how their lives break the refrain and the whole place reverberates with a truth that rolls over…. rolls like thunder.

Our God is the God of Hagar and Ours is the God who sees.

For the women forgotten and for the women discouraged and the women lost, there is water in the wilderness and He is our well and all. is. well.

Ours is the Savior who told women stories and this is serious theology — stories that were messy and large and in full colour life:  stories about a woman with a broom and He says she is the hero who lives good doctrine, the woman in her house seeking and finding the certain kingdom of God.

Ours is the Savior who sings of us, of the woman who won’t walk away from the unjust judge, the woman who will not walk away from the call, from the plea, the women who never give up, who just keep on keeping on —  and He says she is honored and His, the woman who just keeps going and giving and believing in grace.

And God Incarnate, Son of Man in the flesh, He makes one of His daughters the cameo of real theology and right praxis, a sister, this woman, this widow, who walks into the temple, and gives the very smallest of coins, 1/5th of a penny —

And God Incarnate praises the woman who. did. what. she. could…. who just did what she could in the small and the sacrificed, and He said it was everything and He deems it large and this is who we are.

We are the women who want the thing God wants — more than we are afraid of it. 

We are the women who know when the love of Christ motivates — the more fearless of everything we become.

We are the women who know real joy is not found in having the best of everything but in trusting that God’s making the best of everything.

We are the women who make our lives about the cause of Christ, not the applause of men.

We are the women who live to express the Gospel, not to impress the Jones’.

We are the women who live not to make our absence felt, but to make Christ’s presence known.

We are the women who know it’s not about us and all about Jesus. 

We are the women who unloose the hair, the women who do the lavish unlikely, the women who bow at the bare feet of God and touch pure holiness and we are rent by grace and we break and we fit and we spill over everyone with this shocking love.

We are the women who are the real sisterhood:

Girls can rival each other. But the Real Sisterhood of Women revive each other.

Girls can empale each other. But the Real Sisterhood of Women empower each other.

Girls can compare each other. But the Real Sisterhood of Women champion each other.

We were made from dust, a bit of earth kissed by heaven,and we are made to be ground breakers and peacemakers and freedom shakers.

So you can take your glossy Vogue covers and use them for washing windows because we’ve always thought the most beautiful women have dirt under their fingernails and could shake a bit of the very earth out of their worn and pioneering shoes.

The singer on the stage, she stands there and she says this, her eyes welling, her skin bare right there in her hands:

“I’ve been rejected for my size — but Jesus takes all of me.”

And all the women who’ve felt rejected for the size of their lives and the size of their bodies and the size of their gifts, they stand and sing it with this breaking free abandon— Jesus takes all of me.

Thousands of women lifting the roof right off everything.

Jesus Wept, Too

 

A friend of mine recently chose to end his life after a year-long battle of depression. This has been very hard to comprehend and deal with as we talked frequently about our sufferings. It’s hard to see a loving God in such an awful act of suicide.

“Jesus Wept”. I feel like people overlook this verse so much. Jesus wept. Jesus was human. Jesus had feelings. Jesus relates to us more than people understand. I love this verse in its simplicity and its complexity.

When you weep remember that He weeps right alongside with you.

xo.

Picture Perfect

Real. True. Honest. Take some time to watch this brave heart share her thoughts on being “picture perfect”. I don’t know about you…but I choose the messy!

A Girl Like Me

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Tears Worth Celebrating

Tears taste salty. They seem to be more present now during my days and not so much during my nights. And their saltiness is bittersweet as I begin to let go (which I know is good), but then I remember that I am not safe and worry who will catch my tears as they fall down my cheek. Who will catch me when I fall? A sweet card from a preschooler of mine or a scene in a movie I just changed the channel to or a cruel and judgmental comment my mom will say to me- anything will capture my heart and squeeze it just a little tighter making my tears a little bigger in my eyes…until they fall. Sometimes I hold them back & other times I just can’t keep them in. When I do decide to let go, I feel myself becoming angry that I let it happen…angry that I couldn’t hold it together.. When I let myself be seen I’m brutally open and uncomfortable and exposed to a broken world- a broken family- a broken home- exposed to see my own broken heart. And that’s hard to come to terms with.

It hasn’t been until recently that I’ve noticed that my heart handles things very differently than that of my family’s. Whenever things are tight or if there is a problem, an argument, a big misunderstanding, I have been taught and shown to simply not communicate with each other. Instead, I have seen things dealt with internally in the home until we burst out of this awful mold we seem to have built ourselves. And I absolutely can’t stand it. As I am learning to form my own values and beliefs as a nineteen year old making my way out of the house, I find that I don’t agree with a lot of what I have been taught and told and nagged to do and feel and act and say. And boy is that hard to put into words to the other people under the same roof as you. I have learned that…sometimes you just can’t say those things. That has been one of the hardest things to learn, actually. I’ve hurt my family by trying to share those things & they have hurt me by not listening- and the other way around. It seems to be a vicious cycle we have created and now we are just going through the motions simply trying to bear the day, bear the weight of what the other person said the night before that maybe they didn’t wholeheartedly mean at the time- but the words were put out there for a reason, and oh how they can sting and burn and bruise and sometimes…scar a heart.

And I feel that my heart has taken a beating here in my home. Not literally, whatsoever. But emotionally, spiritually…I feel a little busted up. I know that I am loved, but a lot of times I can’t feel it. I try to open my heart by being vulnerable enough to say that that comment hurts or it makes me sad when you don’t recognize me in a certain way. YES. It is hard to communicate, especially with those you love and love you and YES it can hurt to do so. But if you never begin, you can never feel your heart and soul grow in a positive way after.

“If you ask to see the beauty, then the world will also show you brutality.”

-Glennon Doyle Melton

I’m trying to remember this as I try to find a healthy balance living here at home- that no home is perfect, no family is perfect. I just wish I wasn’t the only one who shed tears in the open so often. I feel wimpy and weak at first, but you know what…I am strong, I am brave to let my tears fall and fall hard. Tears are worth celebrating. They SHOULD be worth celebrating. Though it is hard to feel lonely as I walk the path of depression in a household that has no idea what it’s like, I am never alone. I am loved and forgiven by a God who grants me grace everyday, every tear I cry, every comment I wish I could take back, and every new breath I take each new day.

Friends, I hope you know that you are loved and forgiven, no matter how much you may think you have messed up or who you may feel you have let down. Nothing will ever keep you from the power of God’s love! THAT is definitely something to celebrate! Through the messy tears and the joyful moments…CELEBRATE!

xo.

BE BRAVE: An Everyday Practice

I just love @kelly rae roberts’ words of truth & sincerity as she seems to know what my heart needs to hear. Being brave is an everyday practice that I hope you have the courage and grace to do for yourself. For your own self-care. Check out more of Kelly’s inspiring work here: www.kellyraeroberts.com

xo.

The Busted Up Stuff Is The Good Stuff

RE-BLOGGED FROM MOMASTERY.COM. Love the true words Glennon Doyle Melton shares with the whole wide world.

 

When we were little, many of us learned that God made a garden called Eden and God put the first two people there – Adam and Eve. Then God gave them everything they needed and one thing they didn’t need – which was a tree in the middle of the garden called “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” God told them not to eat from that tree. But Eve did, and her eyes were opened – and everything got all kinds of jacked up after that.

I was taught that Eden is a story about temptation. That our nature is to do the opposite of what God says to do, and that causes problems for us. But since I was little I’ve been wondering if this story is also about the dangers of trying to know what is good and what is bad. Maybe it wasn’t just defying God that screwed everything up for poor Eve- maybe it was that she insisted on Knowing Something Unknowable.

Maybe wanting to know what will be good for us and what will be bad for us causes all our trouble. Because we should all be ready to admit by now that we suck at knowing the difference between what is good and what is bad for us.

If you ask folks what their wildest dream is many would say: winning the lottery,  even though this is often the kiss of death for families. We want MORE STUFF- even though it’s been proven again and again that after our basic needs our met- more stuff doesn’t make us happier. We collect and hoard and hold on tight to our money- even though we KNOW that giving feels better. We want to be smart- even though happiness and intelligence are inversely related. We  trade our time for cars and fancy clothes and shiny houses and then we realize all we’ve gained is more stress and higher bills- and in the end – we just want all that time back. Stuff that tastes good makes us feel bad, but we eat it anyway. We say things that feel good to “get off our chests” and we feel awful about it later. We want to become famous even though we know that fame destroys. We are desperate for perfectly “typical” kids even though parents with special needs kids consider them the biggest blessings of their lives. We avoid poverty even though God promises us the Kingdom is there. We avoid heartbreak by any means necessary even though that’s where the peace and connection and meaning is. We act like we are perfect even though nobody trusts perfect. We really want to be loved but choose being envied again and again.

I  receive oodles of emails (from non-religious folks) saying: “Why do you think you’re so broken? Why do you wallow in brokenness? You are WHOLE.” And (from religious folks) I often hear: “You need more Jesus. Jesus is all you need.”

But for goodness sake. Jesus promises not to leave us ALONE, he doesn’t promise not to leave us HUMAN. And to clarify – I don’t want to be “whole.” I want to be busted up and beautiful.  While I’m still here, I want to be FULLY HUMAN.

I talk about my addictions because everything beautiful in my life right now came out of the ugliness back then. And still does. I talk about my Lyme disease because I didn’t become strong and peaceful until I learned to surrender to my weakness and mania. I talk about my intolerance and jealousy and sadness and neurosis because those things make me HUMAN and I think that being a messy hypocritical, busted up human is a brutiful honor.

I talk about my flailing marriage because ( and a year ago I’d have ripped your well-meaning head off if you’d predicted this to me) the truth is that my marriage had to be shattered before it could be pieced back together. My marriage was like a busted arm that The Doctor had to re-break before it could heal right. A year ago- it all fell apart. Yes it did. And I about died. But now. Just a year later – my marriage is excruciating and real and true and deep and GORGEOUS for the first time. For the very first time. It also still sucks. It hurts and burns and refuses to leave me in peace – like every crucible does. But damned if all that discomfort didn’t turn out to be the good stuff. Like the Velveteen Rabbit – maybe neither people nor marriages become Real until the shine and newness rubs off and they look ugly and worn out to the rest of the world but real and soft and comforting and lovely to the one who holds them. This past year has been a special slice of hell for me and Craig-  and I never, ever thought  it would get better. I had no outward hope for a long while– but I kept showing up, and so did Craig. We kept fiercely and relentlessly showing up. We did NOT commit to each other this past year. We individually committed to the Spiritual Practice of Showing Up.

And last week I looked at Craig and thought- Holy SHIT. I think I love him. For the first time. For the first time – I respect the hell out of this man. It took a year of tears and faith and sweat and therapy and prayer and more tears and it will always be hard. It will always be hard and that’s okay. We have proved to our kids and ourselves that We Can Do Hard Things.

And so- when I talk about this stuff- this messy stuff in my life – I have a PURPOSE.  I’m not “wallowing in brokenness.” I’m trying to suggest that maybe THE BUSTED UP STUFF IS THE GOOD STUFF.  We resist that idea because we really, really suck at being judges of things. God didn’t ask us not to judge so we’d be nice people. God asks us not to judge for the same reason Craig asks me not to cook- because We just plain SUCK AT IT. So we should just leave that tree to God.

I’m trying not to judge my own life by the world’s standards because my suspicion is that often – our bad is God’s good and our good is God’s bad. The last are first and the first are last. When we start seeing clearly- we learn that it’s always opposite day. In my life- the brutal ALWAYS transforms into the beautiful.  And so after thirty eight years I have learned this about what life is offering me: IF IT’S EASY AND SHINY- BEWARE. IF IT STINGS A LITTLE – SIT TIGHT, GET CURIOUS, AND THEN LEAN IN.

I used to say: I’m broken. Fix me. Then I grew up a little and said : WAIT A MINUTE. I’M NOT BROKEN. And now I’m a real grown up so I say: Of course I’m broken. And I love, love, love myself that way. If you’re comfortable with that – come sit with me and we can laugh and cry and be broken and beautiful together. But don’t try to fix me- I didn’t ask for that. I just asked for some good company in which to be human

.

Be Still in your garden and trust that you don’t need to decide what is good in your life and what is bad. You can stop striving for good and resisting bad and instead –  surrender to all of it. You can stop judging your circumstances and your life and your people. Striving for good and resisting bad is the source of all of our worry, all of our stress. All our problems stem from our refusal to surrender to what IS. To what life is and who people are. Let it be. Let it come, whatever it is. Breathe deeply and know that if you let it come and feel it all – it won’t kill you. It will pass away soon enough and leave you better, kinder, softer, and stronger. Let the brutal make you even more beautiful.

*Find G’s book here: http://momastery.com/carry-on-warrior/

*Watch G’s TED talk here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NHHPNMIK-fY

Forgiving a Broken Soul

Please take a moment to read this beautiful & brave story from guest writer, Taylar, who shares with her whole heart on how to forgive even a broken soul.

A Girl Like Me

I’m going to be honest. I know that I am not the best person to write about forgiveness, so that’s why I want to introduce you to my friend Taylar. She has been and is walking through one of the most challenging stories on forgiveness I have ever heard. She is a college student and I am incredibly blessed to mentor her and live life with her. Taylar radiates Jesus’ love and joy to all around her and I think you will see why when you read her story.  So here it is:

Who has been the hardest person in your life to forgive?

My stepdad of 10 years. Over the past 10 years he has physically, emotionally, financially, and verbally abused my family. I was almost 10 years old when I first saw him beat my mom. That night, because he was drunk, he punched holes in our walls…

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Guarding My Heart

I get it. I understand how much it can hurt to rely on others- to depend- to trust- to speak your heart to them. And then just get blank stares and awkward silenced feedback in return. That’s the worst…I mean can I at least get a hesitated pat on the back or a mere hug??? Helloooo…I am HURTING here. I am about to burst- blow up- fall to pieces…and all you can do is stare at me for feeling this way, for speaking my truth? Actually, I don’t get it. I don’t get how glamorous you can make yourself up to be when I can barely remember that I do have mascara on before rubbing my eyes. Such a glamour don’t. I just don’t get how you can’t hurt in this world. I am hurting…and you look like you have it all together. I wouldn’t call how I feel jealous…but simply…confused how I have to feel this awful hurt when you don’t. Or…are you…hurting too?

Bro-ken. That’s one thing I feel that I have always understood- specifically the brokenhearted. I connect to the pain in people’s eyes and feel their hurt with them. Extending a hand to those whose hearts aren’t strong enough to keep going feels like my duty, a part of me. I want to be there for that person who is barely hanging on, who is just relying on things of the world to numb the pain, to distract them for a moment from the everyday heartbreak. I understand that it hurts and that’s uncomfortable in itself. It can make us feel sad, unworthy, angry, confused, and alone. But you aren’t. Brokenness has allowed me to come in and be there for that person- to be a friend. Not to “save the day” with my cape flying in the wind on my back, but to be a real-life person that actually GETS IT.  Empathy, people. Can you show a little?

Their eyes are always the first thing I find, soft, but their actions always so hard and loud for all the world to hear. I came right away when my girlfriend got her heart broken for the first time and just shook on her bed as tears ran down her face, and I held onto her tight…when my friend’s parents were going through an ugly divorce and smoking weed made everything “fine” and easily forgettable for him, until the smoke cleared and the sun poured in to shed light on another hard day.

Life is brutally hard. So hard that I would much rather put on a happy face any day than for people to see that I am, in fact, broken (and breaking) inside too. This is something I struggle with daily. For me to be broken is to be vulnerable, to let the cruel, mean world see that I cannot hold on, that I need to fall apart to fit back together again.

I somehow lost what I loved in a matter of a year, broken in all of 12 months. It is still strange to try to place it all together- what led up to everything, to try to pin-point the warning signs or the cause. Pshhh…the effect is the easy part. I could no longer feel my friends around me. I no longer felt their presence, their care, or their hearts in my life. So I continued to push anything and everything away from me so that I wouldn’t HAVE to feel any of that awful pain, sadness, or insecurity and realize that they really were gone and that I really was alone. I relied on them to hold me when I broke, just as I held onto them before. When I finally did break… I shattered on the ground into a million pieces. And I learned the HARD way. Slowly of course- not all at once- slowly, painfully, and brutally.

“Cursed is the strong one
who depends on mere humans,
Who thinks he can make it on muscle alone
and sets God aside as dead weight.
He’s like a tumbleweed on the prairie,
out of touch with the good earth.
He lives rootless and aimless
in a land where nothing grows.

7-8 “But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
bearing fresh fruit every season.

9-10 “The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
not as they pretend to be.”

11 Like a cowbird that cheats by laying its eggs
in another bird’s nest
Is the person who gets rich by cheating.
When the eggs hatch, the deceit is exposed.
What a fool he’ll look like then!

12-13 From early on your Sanctuary was set high,
a throne of glory, exalted!
O God, you’re the hope of Israel.
All who leave you end up as fools,
Deserters with nothing to show for their lives,
who walk off from God, fountain of living waters—
and wind up dead!

14-18 God, pick up the pieces.
Put me back together again.
You are my praise!

Though I have lost, I have gained SO MUCH MORE  through the process. I have been forced to seek God for advice and guidance, to seek God when I need an embrace, to seek God when I am sad & lonely. And it has been the worst, and the most beautiful part of who I am becoming. I am at my lowest low and I want to give up as soon as the alarm goes off in the morning, but I cannot. Because You didn’t give up on me and You haven’t still. Though I am a mess, I am a glorious mess of Jesus- and that’s a better, cleaner mess to clean up than that of the world, where you can’t always trust to catch you when you fall.

So now when I want to give my heart away, when I want to help, when I think about speaking with my heart, I take a moment to guard it. Everything good and holy flows from it, right? So it must be something pretty special that God gave me, and I want to use it well. Now that doesn’t mean that it won’t remain in tact all day, everyday. In fact, I feel so much more than I used to, and with my sensitive heart I am changing the way I change the world–I give it to God before I even love on he or she….or it or that. My imperfect heart is stitched up all over the place and tears every now and then.

But I am courageous each day that I decide to use it the way that God wants me to. Not for the world’s glory, but for HIS.

He Comes to Us

“Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” -Romans 8:39

Because He comes to us right where we are. Grateful.

A Girl Like Me

1 John 3:16- “By this we know love, that He laid down HIs life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.”

I think we are a people who likes to be in control.  We have had many conversations about this.  We like to know that we can put our hands to something and see the results first hand.  We like accomplishment, we like success, we like to take just a little bit of the glory for ourselves.  We like to be good at something and we like to take credit for all the good we do.  It’s in our nature.  So naturally we like to think that our faith is what gets us to God.  I think all people, Christian or not, want to know that there is a deeper meaning to our little lives.  And if you believe in God, then we’re all…

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