Hanging on to the Broken Mirror

Confession:  When I started this blog a little over a year ago, I was not entirely sure I would stick with it.  I was almost sure I would be criticized, judged, and defeated.  And while I am sure my critics are out there, because we all have them, I am beyond humbled by those of you who have reached out to me in response to a message that touched you.  I can tell you that those messages that pierce you right in the "feels", those are are not from me, but from Him.  I recently spent an afternoon going back and reviewing where I started and where I was finding myself.  And I cried at the things God used me to say.  The Letter To My 30-Year Old Self had me boo-hoo-ing at the healing and the scars that mark the journey ten years later.

And here is one of the first things I wrote in that initial blog, that first step into transparency, that embracement of vulnerability, that "let me invite you into my very imperfect world":

I feel called to share my Faith in a BIG way, but am becoming more aware each day that the SMALL ways are when He works most effectively.  If I can give one half of one ounce of HOPE to one person, then my day can be check-marked a success, and if not, I will mark the box that says "try again tomorrow".  I feel called to be completely ordinary, completely broken, and completely available to share how perfectly imperfect our brief lives are.

I have set a goal for myself, outside of this blog, to write one thousand words a day for thirty days.  Not including weekends because...Yeah!  Weekends!  Besides the fact that we are usually at baseball and if you could see the variety of activities that vomited on my June calendar this past week, well.  Yeah!  Weekends.  I have had some blips hit my radar and missed some week days, but the goal is to have a goal, do my very best to make it a priority, and have a giant cup of coffee and a whole lot of grace if the day goes otherwise.

I have a piece of broken mirror that I use everyday to check the back of my hair in the larger bathroom mirror.  This piece is the larger fragment of a small square travel mirror which I recently dropped.  But here is the deal, before I had this shard, I had been using another shard for almost five years.  It was a smooth triangular piece that came from a similar mirror that busted in conjunction with our lives being shattered by shady business deals, hail storms, break-ins, and bankruptcy.  We were having so much "bad luck" that that broken mirror had nothing on me!  So I kept it as a daily reminder of what we were going and had gone through, and how far we had come.  And just when I decided to get rid of it and let the past be the past, two days later I break the new mirror.

I realized that I need that little piece of brokenness to start my day each morning.  A small reflection to keep my humble and remind me that 7-years is 7-years:  bad luck, good luck, blessings, broken dreams, new paths, old dreams, new blessings, shorter hair, and a little larger waist size.  A reminder that beautiful things sometimes get broken in a thousand different ways, but that doesn't make them less useful, less important, less loved.

As I wrote this week of an event in my past, it drew out some crocodile tears.  I had a busy week last week and did not have a chance to finish a personal bible study I was almost at the end of.  I would like to draw attention to God's timing here because my True Spirituality book by Chip Ingram, in Chapter 22:  Will You Let Christ Heal You?, tells me that Forgiveness is a three-stage process.  My emotional surface was questioning this memory and debating if I had indeed forgiven.

Stage 1 - to forgive - is a choice; an act of the will.  You don't need to feel like forgiving someone to do it.  You need to choose to release any desire for retribution to God and treat them with mercy.

Stage 2 - forgiving - is a process whereby your choice to forgive begins over time to align with your emotions.  This process can take months or even years.  The key at this stage is prayer.  Prayer for the ability to let the bitterness and denial go...

Stage 3 - forgiven - is an alignment of the Spirit of God, your choice to obey God in forgiving, combined with the emotional experience of feeling genuine joy when blessing that person's life.  It is not an easy process!

My writing is the process I use to begin the work of letting the past go.  And as I read and reread these steps I come to the the conclusion that it is forgiven...but the brokenness remains.  Then I realized that just like my broken mirror reminder and the story that Paul shares with the Corinthians, I have a thorn in my side.  I have a weakness in this vulnerability that allows me to lean fully on the grace of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 12:7  So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

The other night I placed a notepad and pencil by my bed because I am pretty brilliant while I overthink at 2:00 am or in between sleeps and the snooze button.  The other day God said to my heart, "the world looks broken because we fail to be".  All the brokenness that we are trying to hide, the cracks in the glass, the kinks in the armor...those are being projected onto our world.  If I can just hide my flaws and failings, then I can project it onto something else and take the attention away from what is lying just skin deep.  The world is reflection of what we are.  And my friends, whether you like to admit it or not, you are broken.

We will never be whole in the way we were before we hit the ground and slivers of us were swept up and sifted through.  We have to embrace the fact that we are looking in one mirror to see what the other mirrors sees.  It is important to share our shards, our thorns, our stories.  In doing so, we are saying I will be the reflection you need to get up and keep going, I will be the rose to your thorn, I will be the chapter in the book that yells "plot twist!" and walks arm and arm with you into a world that yes, is broken, but is also a million plus different pieces of beautiful...

If you take nothing else from this today, please break yourself down for 3 minutes and 16 seconds to not just hear, but listen, not just watch, but absorb the words from my girl Francesca, "If We're Honest"...

Praying surrender, courage, acceptance, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love over my readers today.  May you feel the brokenness that Christ endured pierce your heart in honesty.  Amen.

Hearts of Clay

I was honored this morning to be a part of a brief activity at our local elementary school.  Our small town boasts one of the only heart-shaped labyrinths in the world.  When we moved back, it was in the planning phases and now, almost ten years later...wow...it is a destination place for a variety of events. We talk about God's timing and trusting that He will bring all things to good - sometimes this takes years!  Moses wandered the desert for my entire life span.  The artists and committee who designed the "Heart In The Park", have been working on a project since that first brick was laid and now, ten years in the making, it is progressing toward fruition.

Every year the first grade class and new students in upper grades are asked to put their thumb print on a clay heart and decorate it any way they wish.  I watched all those little hands press into the soft, damp clay, determination on their young faces, and each one turned out exactly the way they wanted and no two were even close to being alike.  They wanted to know where clay came from?  How it got shaped like that?  How it gets changed in the fire?

Those little clay hearts are very much like our own hearts.  Each one has been imprinted on differently, has taken on its own identity, and is so soft and pliable when we are young and creative.   Then somewhere along the line, perhaps, bit by bit, we are hardened by the experiences.  The fires we face transform our heart into something a little more akin to stone and we don't even realize we are sitting in the kiln.  Where do we come from?  What shapes us?  How will we react to the fire?

What God worked on me today is that even hardened hearts are beautiful.  Even hardened hearts have a place in the bigger picture of this project known as life.  They are etched both with shallow and deep impressions; no mark is exactly the same as another.  Every heart has a story to tell, perfectly crafted by the Master Artist, and may take ten years or more to put the final piece in place. What one views as an "Oopsie," someone else is saying "Perfection!"

Romans 11:25 I want you to understand this mystery, dear brothers and sisters, so that you will not feel proud about yourselves.  Some of the people of Israel have hard hearts, but this will last only until the full number of Gentiles comes to Christ.

This verse adds to my current hope.  Hardened hearts only last until the time is right, and at that moment, it is not ours to be proud of.  God is in the lucrative business of changing hearts and has perfected His technique.  His refining could take hours, days, or years depending on the size of the project.  We all start out as clay in His capable hands and become crafted into something that he sees as "Perfection!"

Mark 3:5 He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts.  Then he said to the man, "Hold out your hand." So the man held out his hand, and it was restored.

It is really hard for me to know how to approach hard hearts; to help begin the restoration.  But, there is comfort in knowing that Jesus was sad and even angry at their stubbornness.  I realize that it is my job to authentically present the love and joy that can be found in Jesus, not church, but in Him alone. He will take it from there.  I visit with  many people whose hearts are hardened towards the church -please know that Jesus never intended for the church to be what it has become.  Let Him, not religion, work on your heart.   I would be happy to give you His business card.

One little guy asked me, "what if I move?"  My response was, "you always have something to come back to to call your own."  A little piece of heart in every project we have ever been a part of, coming together shape by shape, scratch by scratch, and scrape by scrape.  The hardened heart has a story to tell...peek into the kiln and find the beauty that is revealed.

Abundance and Need

The Mom Quilt (click to purchase) is out in paperback on Amazon!  What an exciting project to be a part of - It is both exhilarating and frightening to see your name in print!  The water well in Kenya has been fully funded through the initial PDF sales of the book and generous matching donations.  Check out this picture of the well being drilled - I helped with that!

So that is my exciting news for the week!  In other news...

My sweet grandma finished up her 96 years here on earth.  While we miss knowing that we can hug or see her at a moments notice, it is such a blessing to know her body, soul, and spirit are finally at rest.  I know that there were many people so excited to see her as she entered the gates.  I giggled yesterday as I pictured her at Jesus' feet shewing everyone else away so she could have some time with Him.

Philippians 4:13 is a favorite verse among many:  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Taken as itself it is used by athletes to find inner strength, to encourage and persevere.  But I think, in actuality we have missed the original intent of the verse.

Philippins 4:11-12 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  (And now 13) I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Even when things don't work out the way we planned, when we have to say good-bye, when we don't live in our "dream house" working our "dream job" taking "dream vacations"...God is giving us strength in the hunger and in the need, getting us through one more day.  And we are to draw on His strength when we experience the defeat and grief, as well as when we receive the victory and the blessing.  We can do anything through Him...

We can fight cancer.
We can say good-bye to a loved one.
We can find blessings in whatever roof is over our head.
We can hold our head-up as we receive grace at the Food Bank.
We can face terminal diagnosis with an eternal perspective.
We can pray.
We can write.
We can wait patiently (or throw a fit while Jesus taps His foot)
We can count, at minimum...three Blessings in our day...we may not want to see the good, but it is there. It is up to you to see it, no one can do it for you.  Close your eyes and hold on to them with all your heart.
We can mend what was broken.
We can be found...
And yes, we can win the victory of the moment.

I have spoken to several people this week that are attending or returning from funerals.  Just this morning I saw that a High School friend lost his two-year old son...Dear Lord, in your strength keep them together.

Abundance and Need fill my heart this season of life:
Graduation and dreams of the future are everywhere for high school and college students.  I love watching their excitement!
Women and their babies are receiving fresh water in Kenya.  Thanks be to God!
People are grieving.
Grandparents are ill.
Babies are being born and babies are being lost.

In His strength you will without a doubt find abundance and need today.  That is life my friends.  May He surround you with angel armies and earthly embraces and celebrations as He meets you exactly where you are today!