I love spring time. I feel the hope of sunshine, new beginnings, shedding the winter coat, enjoying the longer days, the relaxing evenings at baseball games, and the promise of summer fun. I'm thankful for all of that, because Spring can also be hard because it holds my mom's birthday and a few other "anniversaries" that remind me of heartache and some seemingly crucial failures in life.
Today, on this Good Friday, my mom would have been 65...which is crazy to think. Where has time gone? Sometimes I get stuck thinking I'm still that little girl, whose grandmother is 65, and I have my whole life ahead of me.
But then, I look in the mirror or see pictures of myself and I am quickly reminded that life has moved on; I'm no longer that youngster and much of my life has passed by.
Visions of all I'd do in my thirties have yet to come to fruition, and my thirties are quickly exiting.
Last night at small group as we were discussing a new book we are going to read with our families, 3 questions were posed:
If only ________________________ I'd be happy.
If only ________________________ I'd be respected.
If only ________________________ I'd feel loved.
I could fill those blanks in with a number of things: If only I could travel more, go to law school, was thinner, didn't own a TV, read all the time, spoke a couple languages, was financially secure, and on, and on, and on.
It's basically a list of how I view myself falling short.
It's a list of how I see my significance manifesting in a world surrounded by people...because that's what I respect, love, and view as happiness.
It kind of reminds me of that verse, "how you judge, you also will be judged."
I wonder if we sentence our own selves to the death of guilt and shame by how we give and see significance among others.
I certainly hang from the noose of my own deep seeded pronouncements on humanity...I end up hanging from the rope I intended for others.
But, the one...the very one that could answer all 3 of those questions for me, the one that regularly haunts me and I can't seem to run fast enough from, suppress, ignore, and deny is my desire to be loved by someone here on earth.
I hate typing that and admitting it, and truly the only reason I even can is because from a computer there is anonymity, and I think no one really reads this thing anyways.
What's ironic is that when we steps back and look at our lists, we know none of that will REALLY make us happy or bring us respect or make us feel loved...or if it does, it's temporary, and will cause an equal amount of conflict.
But, even still, we chase, we dream, we wish, we hope for the day when something changes, a door opens, and an emptiness that we feel, will start getting filled.
I can't explain my loneliness.
I can't explain why it hurts amongst a life that I love and is extremely fulfilling and fun and simple and at times even magical.
My friends, my job, my son, my freedom, my health, my opportunity...all of it is awesome, and I wouldn't trade any of it in, because all of it makes my life full and rich and fun.
But, periodically, and by periodically, I mean fairly regularly, as I drive alone, go home alone, walk into church alone, go to dinner alone, shop alone, travel alone, I wish there was someone with me.
But, I don't want just anyone with me, I desire a best friend, someone who I find super special and who finds me the same way.
My deep down, deep seeded desire is to be special to someone.
This month reminds me of how my mom is gone, and that I'm alone. March 4th is the day my divorce was finalized. And even though it was an end that was necessary and one that marked a death occurring years before, it still brings up sentiments of failure, of how I missed the boat, of my loss of time and missing out on one of the hardest but most beautiful pieces in life.
I see it as a failure bigger than God's redemption...or one that maybe doesn't really deserve His redemption. A screw up that deserves years of consequence and a forever sentence of loneliness.
One's mind is powerful. Things we tell ourselves wouldn't even be in the ballpark of what we'd tell others or even believe for them.
But, what I tell myself is harsh, worst case scenario, and isn't true.
One of the many things I love about my job is that I get to teach Bible. In 5th grade, we go through the Gospels, and come springtime, my favorite chapter in the entire Bible comes back around.
It's the story of how Jesus raised Lazarus from the Dead...but it's SO much more than that.
Just when March is kicking in, and I find myself in that hole of discouragement and I'm fighting through the frustration of feeling sad or down or blah, John 11 gets opened once again.
John 11 is the picture of grief, of trusting God, of waiting on Jesus, of heartache, and of Him being there in all of it.
The story is of 2 women, Mary and Martha, who are called friends of Jesus. The Bible includes other stories of them, so they truly have a relationship with Jesus, an intimate, real, and tangible friendship with Him.
Their brother Lazarus becomes sick. They send word to their friend, to the man they know is the Son of God; their Jesus who loves them and their brother.
But what comes back to them is heartbreaking.
It's silence.
They hear nothing. Just, silence.
Being someone who has felt that silence, it's gut wrenching to read that and go back there in my own life...to feel the emptiness of silence.
If someone wants to hurt me to my very core and break my heart, then just be silent. Don't explain, don't answer, don't come, just let there be silence.
Mary and Martha waited days for Jesus to show up, and He didn't.
Can you imagine the confusion and hurt?
Jesus, our friend, healer, Savior, Lord, the one who loves us not coming.
Their brother dies. They bury him. They weep and grieve the loss of him.
But I think they grieve even more because of the seeming silence of Jesus in their heartache.
One of my students asked me the other day why we don't get to experience Him in person like those of the Bible do. Why is the "Bible back then" and not now?
I won't rabbit trail off on all that I answered, but part of my answer included the grace of having the Bible in our hands, for us to read, to see the stories playing out and seeing much of God's perspective on the events and not just living them out ourselves. Oh what GRACE is involved in that.
Mary and Martha lived it, but we get to read both their part and Jesus' part. We get to see the Narrator and the narrated.
We get to read that Jesus received the message of Lazarus' illness, and we get to see that He had a plan, "This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified in it."
But we also see, "He then stayed two days longer."
There was no telegram, text message, or phone call.
They sent word, and He sent silence back.
The crushing blow of that would have been devastating.
Today, in our lives, it can be devastating.
But, the story continues and we get to see it play out in the lives of Martha and Mary, which gives us hope in our own.
After He declares to His disciples that Lazarus is dead, Jesus says, "Let's go to Him."
When Jesus arrived, Lazarus had been in the tomb four days. I'm not quite sure the exact timing, but it seems like at least a week has passed since word had been sent to Jesus about Lazarus' illness, and I would say it's safe to assume even more time than that had passed.
Mary and Martha had spent quite some time in silence without hearing from Jesus.
When word came that Jesus was approaching, Martha quickly got up and went to Him, but Mary stayed back.
I would have been Mary. I would have stayed back.
I don't know if it was out of hurt or anger or confusion or why she stayed back...but that's where I would have been. In life, when I'm hurt, I go get in my hole, I pull back, I can't face the person, and even with Jesus, if I'm hurt or sad or lonely, sometimes I feel so guilty of my lack in gratitude or contentment that I just can't face Him. I can't walk to Him while feeling silenced, forgotten, or ashamed of having felt those ways.
With grief, it can be the same way. Confusion, anger, loneliness, heartache, and the feeling of rejection can keep us from going to Jesus.
There have been times in my life that I just couldn't say another word to Him, I'd curl up and cry with my heart aching for Him and His assurance, but I couldn't go to Him. I remember falling asleep a number of nights with my Bible under my hand like it was a blanket or a teddy bear, but I couldn't open it, I couldn't face the explosion of hurt and what I thought He might be telling me in the silence of the pain.
Martha though, she goes, and runs to Him. She blurts out her pain, "Lord, if you would have been here, my brother would not have died."
She couldn't hold it back. The blame, the hurt, the grief came spilling out onto Jesus. He takes it in and has a conversation with her, assuring her that her brother would rise again, telling her that HE is the resurrection and the life and whoever believes in Him will never die.
Martha quickly runs back to her sister and lets her know that Jesus is calling for her.
Once Mary hears Jesus is calling for her, she hurriedly goes to Him. Once her name is called by Him, she runs, falls at His feet weeping, and cries out, "Lord, if You had been here..."
"When Jesus saw her weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and was troubled."
"Jesus wept."
Jesus had a plan. There was a plan from the beginning with Lazarus, for the glory of God to be shown.
And the plan was going to require patience, death, grief, yet it was all wrapped in deep love, a deep love for family, for friends, and from Jesus.
And this is why John 11 is my favorite chapter...it is a picture of life.
In life, we are often times faced with a great need for Jesus and some of the times we are faced with a seeming silence from Him. We pray, we seek, we beg, but no answer seems to come.
Our friend, our Savior, our Lord may not come with an immediate answer and we must sit and wait. We might even have to walk through pain and death.
But, one of the overwhelming things I learn from John chapter 11 is I can run to Jesus, and even if I can't bring myself to run to Him, He's going to come and call for me.
I can run to Him, fall at His feet, and release all that my heart feels, even if it's blame: If You would have been here Lord!
And the second, and the most beautiful part: He is here...even in the silence. He's here.
Jesus didn't have to come to heal Lazarus. He could've done it from afar.
Jesus' plan included other roads, other ways, and other reasons.
His timing was part of the plan, but even in that, Jesus didn't expect Mary and Martha to be rockstar believers and never be shaken by the pain and grief of losing their brother. Their blame didn't throw Him, annoy Him, or change Him.
Their pain and their weeping upset Him and greatly moved Him, and He too wept with them.
He came and He wept with them, and then He miraculously brought Lazarus back to life.
I miss my mom. I miss there being a person on this earth who thinks I'm very special. I miss being able to call someone any time of the day or night and who would sit and listen, whose shoulder is ever ready, whose prayers always include me, and who reminds me that God has great plans for me...that loneliness will wane and a new dawn will arrive. To remind me that God's grace is bigger than my mistakes, and to not listen to everything my mind tells me.
John 11 reminds me that Jesus has a plan, it requires patience, but in all of that, He comes and He weeps with me in my grief.
He doesn't expect me to buck up and press on, but He calls me to love deeply and when that love faces death, the grief that follows is tough. It is heart breaking, and at times, one must weep.
Just fall at His feet and weep.
And then watch Him do the miraculous that will follow, because with Jesus, something miraculous and full of grace will follow.
With Jesus, death does not win or have the final say, life will always follow.
Spring does come.
This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope.
22 The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.
24 “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.”
25 The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the person who seeks Him.
26 It is good that he waits silently for the salvation of the Lord. Lamentations 3:20-25
The pain, the tragedy, the horror, and the silence on Friday must have been crushing to Jesus's disciples, but in 3 days, GRACE erupted.
He had a plan, it required patience, death, grief, and a seeming silence in it all...but then, the miraculous, LIFE sprang forth.
Never doubt it my friend, spring will come, Grace will erupt.
This I know, that God is for you.
Shelly27
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015
Redemption had one more beast to slay...
Why I have to be sitting here writing another heavy post one week later, I do not know...other than the muck and mire runs deep and once pay dirt was hit, God wasn't going to stop digging it all out.
I started another post earlier in the week. It was on redemption. I spent a bit of time on it but didn't get far. Redemption is something I've prayed for for a long time but have yet to fully experience the trueness of it in my heart.
After last weekend, I was beginning to see glimpses of it...but my post never got finished, and I wasn't necessarily compelled to finish it either. I wasn't ready. The shadow of it passing by wasn't enough.
Then, this morning happened, and now I know there was one more step, one more dig that had to take place before I could truly get the view of redemption in my life. Before, I was still angling for personal redemption, a self serving redemption, a redemption that made me right and all others wrong.
God had to show me that if I truly wanted redemption, then I'd have to lay aside what I thought it was and should be, and let Him show me what it truly is.
Before I could write about it, redemption had one more beast to slay and that beast was in me.
If I thought I didn't want to write last weeks' post, multiply that by 10 and you get me right about now.
I felt physically ill pulling into Starbucks, and as I write, my body is like jelly and adrenaline is pumping through me at rates I don't care for.
The only thing that is getting me here to sit down and write is I saw what God did last Sunday...not just for me but for the multitude that ended up reading my post. I've never had a response like that to one of my blogs. I can't tell you how many messages I received, phone calls, emails, and face to face conversations. I'm grateful that so many saw themselves in my post and that it blessed them as they walk and work their own things out with God.
All week Psalm 56 kept pouring over me and through me...God is for you Shelly...just keep walking this out and trusting that God is for you in this. As I felt vulnerable or exposed, as I cried and lost courage, I just kept hearing...God is for you.
I received a phone call from one of my best friends late Tuesday night. We ended up talking for over 2 hours about stuff I had written. Her call was a gift from God because she was able to hash it out with me, to pry a bit more, and to take it down some roads I had yet traveled. It was a gift of His grace.
Toward the end of the call she said, "Shelly, I have to ask you something. I've asked it before and the last time I did, your response was dismissive, one that told me you hadn't even come close to doing it."
I couldn't imagine what she was talking about.
"I have to ask you if you think you have finally forgiven yourself for what happened. Have you forgiven yourself Shelly?"
Tears started flowing. I began to weep.
It hadn't even crossed my mind.
A thought that had always seemed ludicrous and insurmountable, unfathomable and unwarranted, now came crashing through my body. The thought of forgiving myself, the one who should've known better, who grew up with an unbelievable heritage of faith and perseverance with parents who loved the Lord more than life itself, had never been seen as attainable. Forgiveness for my coldness and arrogance had never been an option for me.
I couldn't speak for a minute, but finally, with tears and a freedom I'd never known before I said, "I think I have."
It was in that question I knew God had had that conversation take place. He knew I needed to see that and feel it. What He had done in my life was powerful, but for Him to come in and break the chains I had on myself, absolutely took my breath away. My own sin of self righteousness had kept me in chains for years, from extending grace upon my own confusion, pain, mistakes, and ignorance. I continued to cry and I continued to thank God for washing me with His grace, His amazing, overwhelming grace.
And then, another Sunday...
Six years, one month, and 15 days ago, I laid (grammar police??) in my bed upstairs in my dad's house weeping. My 5 year old son was in the room next to me, and I was staring at my bedroom wall emotionally spent.
I was in full conversation, out loud with God. The decision had been made, the papers served, and I lay there broken...more broken than I had ever been before.
I knew without a doubt I had missed out on love. I knew I was a toxic wasteland for love. At the time, I didn't get it, and all I thought I knew about love was what had happened over the last 10 years. I had glimpses of my part, glimpses of what I wrote last week had come in, but they faded as the devastation and anger flooded in with how the last several years played out.
As I wept, in both anger and relief, pain and determination I begged God to redeem my love story. I told Him I knew I was toxic, and I begged Him to clean me out, to right the wrongs, to rebalance the pendulum, and to redeem love in my life.
"Don't let this be what I live my life thinking love is. Don't let this be my love story. I beg You God, give me another chance!"
The infamous response of, "What if it takes 3 years Shelly?" came next. (blogged about that years ago)
Weeping, I yelled back, "I don't care how long it takes, I beg You God, just redeem it."
As I've blogged over these last 6 years, I've watched and experienced God show me what love is. He placed me in a job where love is the ingredient of every single day...the great kind of love, the easy kind of love...
I get to love on 10 year olds and they love on me every single day. They tell me I'm pretty, they laugh at my jokes, they buy me a desk full of Valentine's, and they shower me with gifts and notes on my birthday. But, even better than that, through time, God has shown me how the students seem to love me the more I am just me and the less I try to be anyone else. I don't have to perform for them, and the love still flows.
God has used my job to graciously and gently show me how love works.
He's used friends who have faithfully walked tough roads with me, left me sweet gifts on my porch at Christmas time so I had a special joy each night to come home to, they've sent their sons to mow my yard and put up Christmas lights, they encourage me and remind me that I'm seen and worthy. My family laughs and supports me, my son and I go on adventures and I watch how faithful God is to us and how He provides opportunities for precious conversations that would have never taken place without His hand and His goodness.
I've watched miracle after miracle, provision after provision, love after love, Grace upon grace in my life.
So, when last Sunday happened and God broke the barrier of how my own sin was holding me back from truly knowing what love is, and washed me clean of so much mire and muck, it was like being raised from the dead.
The death of self preservation took place and life was rising out of it.
No matter how far He had brought me before, I continued to have this weight, this suffocating weight of never truly understanding something I thought the rest of the world clearly knew.
He was showing me that love includes sacrifice, and sacrifice actually meant sacrifice. It's self giving and self denying, and for this girl who was all about self preservation, love was going to be nearly impossible until she decided to truly let go.
As I chatted with my friend Tuesday night, it became clear that at age 9, I had welded grief and security together, and as I grew up, I never separated them back out.
If I felt grief or even just sadness, it meant my security was in question, so I avoided any pain that could have been associated with sadness and grief.
Here's the problem with that...
Without the risk of sadness, joy is avoided as well. Without grief, love can't be found.
That equates to a very lonely life, a very numb and cold life.
I've always said, looking back on it all, that I don't think I would have ever pulled out of my ways without death and divorce occurring.
Now, I see why.
The fracturing of grief and security had to take place, and that was only going to occur with my ultimate fears and grief happening for me to see that my security was not and could not be tied to something on this earth.
How my marriage ended was always my biggest fear and losing my mom was always going to be the source of my greatest grief.
But, when those 2 things happened, my security remained.
I 've always found it remarkable how for the 6 years leading up to both, I was a complete and total mess, but the 6 years since, I've walked with little rattling my security. They both forced me toward God, God used them both as a slingshot for me to find my true place of peace and rest.
In fact, the relief that came after my divorce was mind blowing...which, unfortunately, allowed me to stay on my high horse for a little too long, but I was about to get knocked off.
Amongst the tragic, I learned that life goes on, that God wakes you up, breathes His strength in, and walks you out...something I desperately needed to learn.
I've become thankful for my grief over my mom. Each time my heart might burst with missing her, I thank Him for giving me a mom worth missing. I was given the greatest gift...an incredible mom who loved me immeasurably for 31 years, and that's worth grieving.
I had finally concluded that deep grief meant there was a deep love. God showed me I had been capable of a deep love.
And even more, the grief that came with it, I had survived, and He had carried me through it.
For 3 years God kept digging and after I hit the infamous 3 year mark, I felt ready. I felt free and I thought my love story would soon begin...after all, my conversation with God had explicitly included the, "What if it takes 3 years?" moment.
So, after year 4 passed and I remained alone and lonely, I began to pull away from God. I blogged about that here and there but my dailiness with Him slowed. I mean I had my usual bullet prayers, conversations, and lonely nights in my room begging Him for relief.
Deep down I knew I was still a lost puppy when it came to love, but I pretended as best I could I was an independent and strong woman.
My friends kept encouraging me, I continued to travel and have my mountain top moments with Him, but I drifted. The time I spent in His word became shorter and shorter.
Some nights my heart would be so sad, I would just sleep next to my Bible, with my hand on it, not opening it, but just wishing I didn't feel so lost and alone. After year 5, I stopped my half-marathons and knew I needed a break from all sorts...the striving, the wonderings, and the wanderings.
I'd have the proddings to dig back in, to read, to spend the year with Him again, but I never could. I just couldn't and I wouldn't, and I was mad and ashamed and hurt by my own pulling away.
This last fall, as year 6 was quickly ending, the prodding began. This time it was different, and I knew it was time for another half. I'd walked a few new roads and saw both victories and some defeats in my personal life in 2014 and was ready to refocus. I'd finally shed some of the hang ups and was ready to hit the restart button and dig back in. I knew where the answers could be found, and I was finally ready to acknowledge I needed some. I told myself I'd sign up for the DC half, and in December I made the decision to read the Bible in a year once more. For the first time in a few years, it wasn't out of guilt, it was out of a calling from deep within my soul.
Year 6 had humbled me enough to the point of me finally admitting I couldn't do this without God any longer.
January 1st was day one of my reading. I haven't missed but a couple of days. And thankfully, God used a ninth grader to thwart my desire to bail on my half. The DC half is in a few weeks.
It's February 15th and I've now had 2 life changing moments with God...life. changing.
It makes me wonder if I had just continued 3 years, one month, and 15 days if the conversation I had had in my bed 6 years ago would have been right on.
Or maybe, the voice was mine, or it had really said, "what if it takes 3 years?" and due to my uncontrollable sobbing at the thought of waiting 3 years to be rescued from the torture I was in, I didn't hear the follow up of, "What if it takes as long as it takes?"
The unknown on that night would have killed me. Killed me.
Three years, even though seemed like an eternity, had a time line. I can do time lines.
Unknowns are nearly impossible for me. And by nearly, I mean completely.
So, last Sunday came and God had a meeting with me, and He showed me myself. Psalm 139 at its finest, a mirror to my soul, to my hurt, to the wounds I had and had never let Him in to heal.
Six years ago when all my bandaids of security were stripped from me, my guard had weakened, and so, by His grace, the door had been left open for Him to enter in.
And as He entered, it broke me more, it washed away the toxins, it rebalanced the pendulum, it spoke to me clearly what had always been foreign before.
Allowing Him to search my soul, let me see just how miraculous His grace would be as it made its way through me. His grace had gone from drips, to streams, to now a waterfall.
Which brings me to today...
Cade and I were driving to church. He asked me if I'd help him buy a Valentine for his step mom. I hesitated. I didn't want to.
When he asked me, he used the endearing name he has for her...and by endearing, I mean the one that grates at all my nerves. When I answer him, I use her actual name. I can't handle the other.
I told him I'd take him somewhere and he could buy one for her. (It wasn't my finest moment)
"Mom, I don't have any money left."
I already knew that. I was with him just the day before when he had spent his last penny. I knew there was nothing in his coffers and that was part of me not having my finest moment...but it gets worse.
"You could return one of the items you bought yesterday, and use that money."
"Mom! (exasperated and disappointed) You said you'd help me buy her a Christmas gift, but I earned the money instead, so could we use that money you never spent at Christmas?"
"Maybe you can mow the lawn today and earn some money."
I knew what I was doing wasn't right, but this was Valentine's and for some reason, Valentine's was different than Christmas, and I had no desire to bend on this one.
I didn't like my response but didn't give it another thought because I have lots of fine mom moments, and just this one ugly one wouldn't prove a thing...until I was sitting in church.
In Sunday School as I was listening to the Sunday School yoda talk about taking the blinders off and seeing those around us and what God might have for us, I pondered.
She went on to explain to the room of 7th grade girls how she asks God to make it clear to her if He wants her to do something and that she can always tell it's him because her heart begins to race like 200 beats per minute and He won't let her escape it.
I continued to ponder...
Cade and I went into service. I'd already forgotten how God used last week's sermon to completely shatter some of my walls...because the walls were shattered and I was certain there were no more.
When the singing started, I felt compelled to write something in my Bible. I grabbed it, wrote, put it back in my chair and continued in worship.
As the sermon kicked in, my self righteous voice inside my head kicked in as well. I begged my mind to turn off so I could hear what I needed to hear, but it continued.
I kept waiting to see if he (and by he, I mean, one of the best preachers I've ever listened to) would get the story "right".
My self-righteousness was in full swing...
The sermon series is on being a "Second Mile Christian."
This week's was using the story of the Good Samaritan. As he walked us through it and landed at the final, not taking it as far as I would have wanted him to mind you, but certainly opening my eyes to how the Samaritan had sacrificed honor, dignity, time, and money for the injured man...I began to see the weaving of how Jesus was defining love in this story just as much as He was defining neighbor.
Jesus isn't saying that life comes from loving God with all you have and help the less fortunate.
I think most of us feel a twinge when it's someone who so apparently needs our help.
My unbelievably good preacher didn't go down that road, he didn't land where my self righteous mind thought he should land, but I now see how God used that very fact to expose my deepest sin, and I was about to fall on my own sword.
The way John preached it, concentrating on how the Samaritan sacrificed and what he sacrificed for this injured man, along with my self righteous commentary, was about to SLAY me once more.
Love your neighbor as yourself Shelly.
"But who's my neighbor?" she asks.
And the story of who to love and what love looks like, follows...
There's a man who gets mugged and is left to die on the side of the road. The self righteous and the busy pass by, the one concerned with the law and the one who knows the rules but doesn't sacrifice passes by thinking I do it a lot, for many people, but not today. This one time is fine and the ping in my heart is a sign I'm a good person, so ignoring the ping here and there is fine.
Then a Samaritan stops, bandages the man up, goes out of his way and stays with him. He pays for anything he needs, and makes sure he's taken care of.
The Samaritan loves by sacrificing himself on the man's behalf. He'd sacrificed his dignity, his honor, his time, and his money on behalf of compassion towards another. He had loved.
And, then...And here's where I'd love it if the neighbor is the hurt guy on the side of the road, because the ambiguous, the stranger whose story I don't know and can concoct whatever one I want for them is easy for me to love and show compassion to. In fact, it feeds my self righteousness and makes me feel good about myself. It keeps me from seeing my own sin...but the irony is, God was about to use that very side of myself...the one that would't let the sermon be what it was and kept hounding on whether he would get it "right".. God was going to use that as the mirror of Psalm 139 once more.
See, the story ends with Jesus asking the lawyer, "who proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands?"
The man who fell into the robber's hands wasn't the neighbor..the neighbor helped him, so the injured man can't be the neighbor in the story.
And when Jesus asks, "who proved to be a neighbor to the man?" the self righteous lawyer was caught. Jesus had shared a story on how one SHOWS love and at the same time tells the man who God means for him TO LOVE.
The self righteous lawyer had to be so dumbfounded that he thought he might keel over at that very moment.
The lawyer couldn't even say his answer.
He couldn't say the word Samaritan.
See, Samaritans were hated by the Jews. They were the dirty, half breeds that didn't do anything the Jews thought made them holy, made them true children of God. I believe Jews would have felt way more compassion on the Gentile because they didn't know better. It would be easy for them to show compassion toward the one who had no shot in life. It would feed their self righteousness even more perhaps. They were the pagan who never knew God, but the Samaritan, that's where the hatred was.
In fact, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well includes the note of how in the synagogue services, the priests would actually say prayers cursing the Samaritans.
The priests would pray that God would CURSE these people.
I stared at my Bible. I stared at the line where the lawyer couldn't even answer with the word, but had to say, "the one who showed mercy toward him."
Then Jesus said, "Go and do the same."
Jesus used what the Samaritan did to the injured man to define what love was, what it looked like.
And then he shattered the lawyers heart with who God told him to go love.
"The one who showed mercy toward him."
The neighbor was the Samaritan, the one cursed in synagogues, the one hated. The one the self righteous thought he had every right to hate.
At that very instant, I felt the pit in my stomach and the question came.
Who can you not name Shelly? Who can you not say the name of?
Who is the person you hold a special "justified" hatred for? Who do you slight? curse? jab at? blame? undermine?
WHO'S YOUR NEIGHBOR?
My heart began to pound.
It began to race 200 beats a minute.
I literally thought I was going to have a heart attack. If it hadn't been for my Sunday School yoda reminding me how God speaks to her, I would have probably had an anxiety attack right then and there because I felt like I couldn't catch my breath, and I was certain my heart was about to come out of my chest.
I knew the answer. I teared up because I knew the answer.
I crumbled in my chair.
My heart broke.
I knew I couldn't leave church without telling my preacher who my neighbor was, and it wasn't the hurt and marginalized...even though they are my neighbor as well. But, this self righteous lawyer had another one she was pretending not to have to love and had hoped for years that God believed the same thing she did.
John graciously met with me for a few minutes after everyone cleared out of church.
Cade kept asking me what was wrong. He even asked me if I was going to get baptized again or something.
I told him no. I told him I just had to tell John something.
Cade was bothered. He saw my angst.
I sat with John. I told him the events of the how the sermon played out for me.
I told him that feeding the hurt, homeless man was how I built myself up. It was easy for me to help the sick, the stranger, the one who needs a peanut butter sandwch and a smile. It made me feel good and even fed the beast within me.
And as my lip quivered and tears rolled down my face, I told him that the neighbor God was showing me I needed to love was my very own "Samaritan".
My neighbor was the one I couldn't even name. I told him who it was.
John was kind, listened, prayed and encouraged me.
But, I knew he wasn't the only one I was going to have to tell.
Cade was waiting for me and he now saw the tears.
He put his arm around me as we walked to the car.
We shut our car doors, I turned to him, and I told him.
And when I got to the part where I said, "My neighbor is the person I can't even name." I followed it with the question, "Who can't I even name Cade?"
Without hesitation, he said her name, quickly followed by, "and my dad."
Without hesitation.
Without hesitation.
Even though the years have included me trying my best to not cloud or say or speak ugly, my son knew, without hesitation, the people I struggled loving.
All I could do was apologize.
I told him we were headed to buy them a Valentine's, one that would bless them on the day celebrating their love. He chose a restaurant for a gift card, bought them balloons, and a box of chocolates.
For once, I wasn't doing it out of guilt or to feed my self righteousness by trying to prove I'm better than they are.
I did it because that's what God calls me to do. I did it because if I want love redeemed in my life, then I better drop this self righteous act and start loving the way God calls me to love, by the way He defines love.
Jesus, where is life found?
Love the Lord with all your heart Shelly, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And go love...love your neighbor as yourself.
I love because He first loved me...and I'm truly beginning to see and believe, it's so worth it.
"I suppose that's the point of this book. There's truth in the idea, we're never going to be perfect in love but we can get close, and the closer we get, the healthier we will be. Love is not a game any of us can win, it's just a story we can live and enjoy. It's a noble ambition, then, to add a chapter to the story of love, and to make our chapter a good one.
We don't think much about how our love stories will affect the world, but they do. Children learn what's worth living for and what's worth dying for by the stories they watch us live. I want to teach our children how to get scary close, and more, how to be brave. I want to teach them that love is worth what it costs." Scary Close by Don Miller
I watched my parents walk out a beautiful love story, so I always knew there was more to love, that's one of the reasons I was always so bothered by my confusion. But too many lines got crossed and poor decisions on my part tangled and mangled my view.
But through time...and God's act of redeeming, God has led me down a road with Him. His road, though one of sacrificing my own ideas on life, my own plans and dreams, my own thoughts on how life should work or where I think my security rests, laying aside my control of others and what I think they should do and what they should do for me, a road of unknowns and grey areas and exposing that self preservation is only a weapon that causes self inflicting wounds, His road is one leading to freedom.
It takes me off a road being paved with the broken tools of a broken girl and brings me to the road paved by the Maker of Heaven and earth.
"I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God." Psalm 40:1-3
For this I know, that God is for you Shelly.
For this I know my friend, that God is for you!
In Him,
Shelly
I started another post earlier in the week. It was on redemption. I spent a bit of time on it but didn't get far. Redemption is something I've prayed for for a long time but have yet to fully experience the trueness of it in my heart.
After last weekend, I was beginning to see glimpses of it...but my post never got finished, and I wasn't necessarily compelled to finish it either. I wasn't ready. The shadow of it passing by wasn't enough.
Then, this morning happened, and now I know there was one more step, one more dig that had to take place before I could truly get the view of redemption in my life. Before, I was still angling for personal redemption, a self serving redemption, a redemption that made me right and all others wrong.
God had to show me that if I truly wanted redemption, then I'd have to lay aside what I thought it was and should be, and let Him show me what it truly is.
Before I could write about it, redemption had one more beast to slay and that beast was in me.
If I thought I didn't want to write last weeks' post, multiply that by 10 and you get me right about now.
I felt physically ill pulling into Starbucks, and as I write, my body is like jelly and adrenaline is pumping through me at rates I don't care for.
The only thing that is getting me here to sit down and write is I saw what God did last Sunday...not just for me but for the multitude that ended up reading my post. I've never had a response like that to one of my blogs. I can't tell you how many messages I received, phone calls, emails, and face to face conversations. I'm grateful that so many saw themselves in my post and that it blessed them as they walk and work their own things out with God.
All week Psalm 56 kept pouring over me and through me...God is for you Shelly...just keep walking this out and trusting that God is for you in this. As I felt vulnerable or exposed, as I cried and lost courage, I just kept hearing...God is for you.
I received a phone call from one of my best friends late Tuesday night. We ended up talking for over 2 hours about stuff I had written. Her call was a gift from God because she was able to hash it out with me, to pry a bit more, and to take it down some roads I had yet traveled. It was a gift of His grace.
Toward the end of the call she said, "Shelly, I have to ask you something. I've asked it before and the last time I did, your response was dismissive, one that told me you hadn't even come close to doing it."
I couldn't imagine what she was talking about.
"I have to ask you if you think you have finally forgiven yourself for what happened. Have you forgiven yourself Shelly?"
Tears started flowing. I began to weep.
It hadn't even crossed my mind.
A thought that had always seemed ludicrous and insurmountable, unfathomable and unwarranted, now came crashing through my body. The thought of forgiving myself, the one who should've known better, who grew up with an unbelievable heritage of faith and perseverance with parents who loved the Lord more than life itself, had never been seen as attainable. Forgiveness for my coldness and arrogance had never been an option for me.
I couldn't speak for a minute, but finally, with tears and a freedom I'd never known before I said, "I think I have."
It was in that question I knew God had had that conversation take place. He knew I needed to see that and feel it. What He had done in my life was powerful, but for Him to come in and break the chains I had on myself, absolutely took my breath away. My own sin of self righteousness had kept me in chains for years, from extending grace upon my own confusion, pain, mistakes, and ignorance. I continued to cry and I continued to thank God for washing me with His grace, His amazing, overwhelming grace.
And then, another Sunday...
Six years, one month, and 15 days ago, I laid (grammar police??) in my bed upstairs in my dad's house weeping. My 5 year old son was in the room next to me, and I was staring at my bedroom wall emotionally spent.
I was in full conversation, out loud with God. The decision had been made, the papers served, and I lay there broken...more broken than I had ever been before.
I knew without a doubt I had missed out on love. I knew I was a toxic wasteland for love. At the time, I didn't get it, and all I thought I knew about love was what had happened over the last 10 years. I had glimpses of my part, glimpses of what I wrote last week had come in, but they faded as the devastation and anger flooded in with how the last several years played out.
As I wept, in both anger and relief, pain and determination I begged God to redeem my love story. I told Him I knew I was toxic, and I begged Him to clean me out, to right the wrongs, to rebalance the pendulum, and to redeem love in my life.
"Don't let this be what I live my life thinking love is. Don't let this be my love story. I beg You God, give me another chance!"
The infamous response of, "What if it takes 3 years Shelly?" came next. (blogged about that years ago)
Weeping, I yelled back, "I don't care how long it takes, I beg You God, just redeem it."
As I've blogged over these last 6 years, I've watched and experienced God show me what love is. He placed me in a job where love is the ingredient of every single day...the great kind of love, the easy kind of love...
I get to love on 10 year olds and they love on me every single day. They tell me I'm pretty, they laugh at my jokes, they buy me a desk full of Valentine's, and they shower me with gifts and notes on my birthday. But, even better than that, through time, God has shown me how the students seem to love me the more I am just me and the less I try to be anyone else. I don't have to perform for them, and the love still flows.
God has used my job to graciously and gently show me how love works.
He's used friends who have faithfully walked tough roads with me, left me sweet gifts on my porch at Christmas time so I had a special joy each night to come home to, they've sent their sons to mow my yard and put up Christmas lights, they encourage me and remind me that I'm seen and worthy. My family laughs and supports me, my son and I go on adventures and I watch how faithful God is to us and how He provides opportunities for precious conversations that would have never taken place without His hand and His goodness.
I've watched miracle after miracle, provision after provision, love after love, Grace upon grace in my life.
So, when last Sunday happened and God broke the barrier of how my own sin was holding me back from truly knowing what love is, and washed me clean of so much mire and muck, it was like being raised from the dead.
The death of self preservation took place and life was rising out of it.
No matter how far He had brought me before, I continued to have this weight, this suffocating weight of never truly understanding something I thought the rest of the world clearly knew.
He was showing me that love includes sacrifice, and sacrifice actually meant sacrifice. It's self giving and self denying, and for this girl who was all about self preservation, love was going to be nearly impossible until she decided to truly let go.
As I chatted with my friend Tuesday night, it became clear that at age 9, I had welded grief and security together, and as I grew up, I never separated them back out.
If I felt grief or even just sadness, it meant my security was in question, so I avoided any pain that could have been associated with sadness and grief.
Here's the problem with that...
Without the risk of sadness, joy is avoided as well. Without grief, love can't be found.
That equates to a very lonely life, a very numb and cold life.
I've always said, looking back on it all, that I don't think I would have ever pulled out of my ways without death and divorce occurring.
Now, I see why.
The fracturing of grief and security had to take place, and that was only going to occur with my ultimate fears and grief happening for me to see that my security was not and could not be tied to something on this earth.
How my marriage ended was always my biggest fear and losing my mom was always going to be the source of my greatest grief.
But, when those 2 things happened, my security remained.
I 've always found it remarkable how for the 6 years leading up to both, I was a complete and total mess, but the 6 years since, I've walked with little rattling my security. They both forced me toward God, God used them both as a slingshot for me to find my true place of peace and rest.
In fact, the relief that came after my divorce was mind blowing...which, unfortunately, allowed me to stay on my high horse for a little too long, but I was about to get knocked off.
Amongst the tragic, I learned that life goes on, that God wakes you up, breathes His strength in, and walks you out...something I desperately needed to learn.
I've become thankful for my grief over my mom. Each time my heart might burst with missing her, I thank Him for giving me a mom worth missing. I was given the greatest gift...an incredible mom who loved me immeasurably for 31 years, and that's worth grieving.
I had finally concluded that deep grief meant there was a deep love. God showed me I had been capable of a deep love.
And even more, the grief that came with it, I had survived, and He had carried me through it.
God taught me through my grief that my mom's LOVE had been worth it. I would never trade it for anything...if I wanted that kind of river of love, then grief was the risk, and that was now okay with me.
It makes me want to be a mom worth missing; it makes me want to love in a way that when I'm gone, I'm dreadfully missed.
So, after year 4 passed and I remained alone and lonely, I began to pull away from God. I blogged about that here and there but my dailiness with Him slowed. I mean I had my usual bullet prayers, conversations, and lonely nights in my room begging Him for relief.
Deep down I knew I was still a lost puppy when it came to love, but I pretended as best I could I was an independent and strong woman.
My friends kept encouraging me, I continued to travel and have my mountain top moments with Him, but I drifted. The time I spent in His word became shorter and shorter.
Some nights my heart would be so sad, I would just sleep next to my Bible, with my hand on it, not opening it, but just wishing I didn't feel so lost and alone. After year 5, I stopped my half-marathons and knew I needed a break from all sorts...the striving, the wonderings, and the wanderings.
I'd have the proddings to dig back in, to read, to spend the year with Him again, but I never could. I just couldn't and I wouldn't, and I was mad and ashamed and hurt by my own pulling away.
This last fall, as year 6 was quickly ending, the prodding began. This time it was different, and I knew it was time for another half. I'd walked a few new roads and saw both victories and some defeats in my personal life in 2014 and was ready to refocus. I'd finally shed some of the hang ups and was ready to hit the restart button and dig back in. I knew where the answers could be found, and I was finally ready to acknowledge I needed some. I told myself I'd sign up for the DC half, and in December I made the decision to read the Bible in a year once more. For the first time in a few years, it wasn't out of guilt, it was out of a calling from deep within my soul.
Year 6 had humbled me enough to the point of me finally admitting I couldn't do this without God any longer.
January 1st was day one of my reading. I haven't missed but a couple of days. And thankfully, God used a ninth grader to thwart my desire to bail on my half. The DC half is in a few weeks.
It's February 15th and I've now had 2 life changing moments with God...life. changing.
It makes me wonder if I had just continued 3 years, one month, and 15 days if the conversation I had had in my bed 6 years ago would have been right on.
Or maybe, the voice was mine, or it had really said, "what if it takes 3 years?" and due to my uncontrollable sobbing at the thought of waiting 3 years to be rescued from the torture I was in, I didn't hear the follow up of, "What if it takes as long as it takes?"
The unknown on that night would have killed me. Killed me.
Three years, even though seemed like an eternity, had a time line. I can do time lines.
Unknowns are nearly impossible for me. And by nearly, I mean completely.
So, last Sunday came and God had a meeting with me, and He showed me myself. Psalm 139 at its finest, a mirror to my soul, to my hurt, to the wounds I had and had never let Him in to heal.
Six years ago when all my bandaids of security were stripped from me, my guard had weakened, and so, by His grace, the door had been left open for Him to enter in.
And as He entered, it broke me more, it washed away the toxins, it rebalanced the pendulum, it spoke to me clearly what had always been foreign before.
Allowing Him to search my soul, let me see just how miraculous His grace would be as it made its way through me. His grace had gone from drips, to streams, to now a waterfall.
Which brings me to today...
Cade and I were driving to church. He asked me if I'd help him buy a Valentine for his step mom. I hesitated. I didn't want to.
When he asked me, he used the endearing name he has for her...and by endearing, I mean the one that grates at all my nerves. When I answer him, I use her actual name. I can't handle the other.
I told him I'd take him somewhere and he could buy one for her. (It wasn't my finest moment)
"Mom, I don't have any money left."
I already knew that. I was with him just the day before when he had spent his last penny. I knew there was nothing in his coffers and that was part of me not having my finest moment...but it gets worse.
"You could return one of the items you bought yesterday, and use that money."
"Mom! (exasperated and disappointed) You said you'd help me buy her a Christmas gift, but I earned the money instead, so could we use that money you never spent at Christmas?"
"Maybe you can mow the lawn today and earn some money."
I knew what I was doing wasn't right, but this was Valentine's and for some reason, Valentine's was different than Christmas, and I had no desire to bend on this one.
I didn't like my response but didn't give it another thought because I have lots of fine mom moments, and just this one ugly one wouldn't prove a thing...until I was sitting in church.
In Sunday School as I was listening to the Sunday School yoda talk about taking the blinders off and seeing those around us and what God might have for us, I pondered.
She went on to explain to the room of 7th grade girls how she asks God to make it clear to her if He wants her to do something and that she can always tell it's him because her heart begins to race like 200 beats per minute and He won't let her escape it.
I continued to ponder...
Cade and I went into service. I'd already forgotten how God used last week's sermon to completely shatter some of my walls...because the walls were shattered and I was certain there were no more.
When the singing started, I felt compelled to write something in my Bible. I grabbed it, wrote, put it back in my chair and continued in worship.
As the sermon kicked in, my self righteous voice inside my head kicked in as well. I begged my mind to turn off so I could hear what I needed to hear, but it continued.
I kept waiting to see if he (and by he, I mean, one of the best preachers I've ever listened to) would get the story "right".
My self-righteousness was in full swing...
The same preacher whose sermon SLAYED my self preservation and unwillingness to sacrifice last week...SLAYED it in a way that caused a miraculous shift within me...and I thought it had slayed my self righteousness as well, but I was wrong, oh so very wrong.
I had no idea at the time, but God was about to use this sermon to SLAY my self righteousness in one fell swoop. He was going to use my own weapon against me...and it was going to cut deeper than I ever thought possible.
I had no idea at the time, but God was about to use this sermon to SLAY my self righteousness in one fell swoop. He was going to use my own weapon against me...and it was going to cut deeper than I ever thought possible.
The sermon series is on being a "Second Mile Christian."
This week's was using the story of the Good Samaritan. As he walked us through it and landed at the final, not taking it as far as I would have wanted him to mind you, but certainly opening my eyes to how the Samaritan had sacrificed honor, dignity, time, and money for the injured man...I began to see the weaving of how Jesus was defining love in this story just as much as He was defining neighbor.
The arrogant, self righteous lawyer asks, "How do I inheirt eternal life?"Years ago, one of my favorite Bible teachers had pointed out that typically, when sermons are given on this story, the neighbor is always the injured man. And the great lesson of having compassion on the injured man is Biblical and helping that injured man is what all of us as followers of Jesus should do, but he pointed out that if one reads the story carefully, that's not the neighbor.
Jesus replied, "What does the law say?"
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself."
"You have it right."
"But Teacher, who's my neighbor?"
Jesus isn't saying that life comes from loving God with all you have and help the less fortunate.
I think most of us feel a twinge when it's someone who so apparently needs our help.
My unbelievably good preacher didn't go down that road, he didn't land where my self righteous mind thought he should land, but I now see how God used that very fact to expose my deepest sin, and I was about to fall on my own sword.
The way John preached it, concentrating on how the Samaritan sacrificed and what he sacrificed for this injured man, along with my self righteous commentary, was about to SLAY me once more.
Love your neighbor as yourself Shelly.
"But who's my neighbor?" she asks.
And the story of who to love and what love looks like, follows...
There's a man who gets mugged and is left to die on the side of the road. The self righteous and the busy pass by, the one concerned with the law and the one who knows the rules but doesn't sacrifice passes by thinking I do it a lot, for many people, but not today. This one time is fine and the ping in my heart is a sign I'm a good person, so ignoring the ping here and there is fine.
Then a Samaritan stops, bandages the man up, goes out of his way and stays with him. He pays for anything he needs, and makes sure he's taken care of.
The Samaritan loves by sacrificing himself on the man's behalf. He'd sacrificed his dignity, his honor, his time, and his money on behalf of compassion towards another. He had loved.
And, then...And here's where I'd love it if the neighbor is the hurt guy on the side of the road, because the ambiguous, the stranger whose story I don't know and can concoct whatever one I want for them is easy for me to love and show compassion to. In fact, it feeds my self righteousness and makes me feel good about myself. It keeps me from seeing my own sin...but the irony is, God was about to use that very side of myself...the one that would't let the sermon be what it was and kept hounding on whether he would get it "right".. God was going to use that as the mirror of Psalm 139 once more.
See, the story ends with Jesus asking the lawyer, "who proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robber's hands?"
The man who fell into the robber's hands wasn't the neighbor..the neighbor helped him, so the injured man can't be the neighbor in the story.
And when Jesus asks, "who proved to be a neighbor to the man?" the self righteous lawyer was caught. Jesus had shared a story on how one SHOWS love and at the same time tells the man who God means for him TO LOVE.
The self righteous lawyer had to be so dumbfounded that he thought he might keel over at that very moment.
The lawyer couldn't even say his answer.
He couldn't say the word Samaritan.
See, Samaritans were hated by the Jews. They were the dirty, half breeds that didn't do anything the Jews thought made them holy, made them true children of God. I believe Jews would have felt way more compassion on the Gentile because they didn't know better. It would be easy for them to show compassion toward the one who had no shot in life. It would feed their self righteousness even more perhaps. They were the pagan who never knew God, but the Samaritan, that's where the hatred was.
In fact, the story of the Samaritan woman at the well includes the note of how in the synagogue services, the priests would actually say prayers cursing the Samaritans.
The priests would pray that God would CURSE these people.
I stared at my Bible. I stared at the line where the lawyer couldn't even answer with the word, but had to say, "the one who showed mercy toward him."
Then Jesus said, "Go and do the same."
Jesus used what the Samaritan did to the injured man to define what love was, what it looked like.
And then he shattered the lawyers heart with who God told him to go love.
"The one who showed mercy toward him."
The neighbor was the Samaritan, the one cursed in synagogues, the one hated. The one the self righteous thought he had every right to hate.
At that very instant, I felt the pit in my stomach and the question came.
Who's your neighbor Shelly?
And the self righteous one was caught. She was dumbfounded and thought she might keel over.
I sat there with nowhere to run...just me and Jesus. The room around me had gone silent.
I sat there with nowhere to run...just me and Jesus. The room around me had gone silent.
Who can you not name Shelly? Who can you not say the name of?
Who is the person you hold a special "justified" hatred for? Who do you slight? curse? jab at? blame? undermine?
WHO'S YOUR NEIGHBOR?
My heart began to pound.
It began to race 200 beats a minute.
I literally thought I was going to have a heart attack. If it hadn't been for my Sunday School yoda reminding me how God speaks to her, I would have probably had an anxiety attack right then and there because I felt like I couldn't catch my breath, and I was certain my heart was about to come out of my chest.
I knew the answer. I teared up because I knew the answer.
I crumbled in my chair.
My heart broke.
I knew I couldn't leave church without telling my preacher who my neighbor was, and it wasn't the hurt and marginalized...even though they are my neighbor as well. But, this self righteous lawyer had another one she was pretending not to have to love and had hoped for years that God believed the same thing she did.
John graciously met with me for a few minutes after everyone cleared out of church.
Cade kept asking me what was wrong. He even asked me if I was going to get baptized again or something.
I told him no. I told him I just had to tell John something.
Cade was bothered. He saw my angst.
I sat with John. I told him the events of the how the sermon played out for me.
I told him that feeding the hurt, homeless man was how I built myself up. It was easy for me to help the sick, the stranger, the one who needs a peanut butter sandwch and a smile. It made me feel good and even fed the beast within me.
And as my lip quivered and tears rolled down my face, I told him that the neighbor God was showing me I needed to love was my very own "Samaritan".
My neighbor was the one I couldn't even name. I told him who it was.
John was kind, listened, prayed and encouraged me.
But, I knew he wasn't the only one I was going to have to tell.
Cade was waiting for me and he now saw the tears.
He put his arm around me as we walked to the car.
We shut our car doors, I turned to him, and I told him.
And when I got to the part where I said, "My neighbor is the person I can't even name." I followed it with the question, "Who can't I even name Cade?"
Without hesitation, he said her name, quickly followed by, "and my dad."
Without hesitation.
Without hesitation.
Even though the years have included me trying my best to not cloud or say or speak ugly, my son knew, without hesitation, the people I struggled loving.
All I could do was apologize.
I told him we were headed to buy them a Valentine's, one that would bless them on the day celebrating their love. He chose a restaurant for a gift card, bought them balloons, and a box of chocolates.
For once, I wasn't doing it out of guilt or to feed my self righteousness by trying to prove I'm better than they are.
I did it because that's what God calls me to do. I did it because if I want love redeemed in my life, then I better drop this self righteous act and start loving the way God calls me to love, by the way He defines love.
Jesus, where is life found?
Love the Lord with all your heart Shelly, with all your mind, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And go love...love your neighbor as yourself.
I love because He first loved me...and I'm truly beginning to see and believe, it's so worth it.
"I suppose that's the point of this book. There's truth in the idea, we're never going to be perfect in love but we can get close, and the closer we get, the healthier we will be. Love is not a game any of us can win, it's just a story we can live and enjoy. It's a noble ambition, then, to add a chapter to the story of love, and to make our chapter a good one.
We don't think much about how our love stories will affect the world, but they do. Children learn what's worth living for and what's worth dying for by the stories they watch us live. I want to teach our children how to get scary close, and more, how to be brave. I want to teach them that love is worth what it costs." Scary Close by Don Miller
I watched my parents walk out a beautiful love story, so I always knew there was more to love, that's one of the reasons I was always so bothered by my confusion. But too many lines got crossed and poor decisions on my part tangled and mangled my view.
But through time...and God's act of redeeming, God has led me down a road with Him. His road, though one of sacrificing my own ideas on life, my own plans and dreams, my own thoughts on how life should work or where I think my security rests, laying aside my control of others and what I think they should do and what they should do for me, a road of unknowns and grey areas and exposing that self preservation is only a weapon that causes self inflicting wounds, His road is one leading to freedom.
It takes me off a road being paved with the broken tools of a broken girl and brings me to the road paved by the Maker of Heaven and earth.
"I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me and heard my cry. He brought me up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay and He set my feet upon a rock making my footsteps firm. He put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God." Psalm 40:1-3
For this I know, that God is for you Shelly.
For this I know my friend, that God is for you!
In Him,
Shelly
Monday, February 9, 2015
The longest road and the hardest lesson: how insecurity ran my life
"Search me O God, and know my heart; try me and know my anxious thoughts; and see if there be any hurtful way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way." Psalm 139:23
I don't like that prayer. I avoid that prayer. In fact, not too long ago, as I read it and knowing I should pray it, I actually said out loud, "God, I don't want to pray that prayer."
Now, looking back, I believe that was a culminating moment...a moment 7 years in the making.
I went for a long walk this weekend, outside and alone. Something always happens within me when I go for walks/runs outside. It's forced time alone, with my thoughts, and with God. I have no TV and few distractions, so it doesn't take long for me to end up in the depths with God.
I used to take them a lot, not just long physical journeys, but spiritual ones. For years I traveled alone, completed numerous half marathons, read and contemplated for hours, but these last few years much of that has changed. But when 2015 began, I knew that it was time...it was time to start walking once again.
Two days ago, God woke me nudging me to go on a walk with Him again. I could tell there was something for me. My mind wouldn't stop whirling, thoughts were flooding in, and I knew I had to grab my phone and record some memos as I drove because the stories wouldn't stop, and I had no doubt I was supposed to write them down.
This morning I sit, after wrestling for 48 hours on this, having entered it thinking I'd be writing on being intentional or the power of community, or surviving loneliness..but no, that's not what God had in mind.
He was taking me somewhere I didn't want to go. Like it or not, it was time for me to face Psalm 139.
I stopped writing last night at midnight, with my final thoughts to Him on how I didn't want any part in publishing this. I still don't. This story I'd like to keep to myself.
He let me sleep until 5 before waking me with an urgency to write down more, and as I squirmed and wrestled with Him, I knew I couldn't run from this.
And as I teared up and pleaded that this healing moment could be just between Him and me, I knew that sometime "publish" would have to be hit. Psalm 56 kept repeating over in my head. I begged God hoping Psalm 56 would play out as I shared more than I ever have.
His best lessons for me have always been in the depths...if I'm willing to walk it out, He's been ever willing to walk me through it.
I left my house, opened my computer and showed up to write the story He had in mind. Before I began, I flipped my Bible open...and Psalm 56 was staring at me.
"This I know, that God is for me."
I've often wondered what I would tell my 17 year old self...the very time I see so much of the last 20 years going awry. I've never known what I would have told her.
Almost 20 years to the day, I think I now know...
I'm preparing for a half-marathon again, so I've gotta get off my treadmill and hit the streets to get ready. I didn't want to do it. In fact, I really wanted to bail on the half all together.
It's been over a year since my last one, and it's been long enough that fear and anxiety were kicking in. Last April, I got really sick, almost fainted on the treadmill, and had several anxiety attacks after that. It was awful. It led to about 4 weeks of complete wonkiness in my life. My poor, yet uber sweet friends and family, fielded phone calls at 2:30 a.m., came over at midnight, took me to Urgent Care, and prayed for me incessantly as I tried to carry on with my life as nothing was right physically or mentally with me. It was awful. It was embarrassing. It's something I don't want to go through again.
I've yet to get back up to running at the same speeds I was a year ago...I'm too afraid that might happen again.
Therefore, the thought of a half-marathon, being a form of physical exhaustion, has a cloud of fear surrounding it. I had concluded the risk was too great.
But, due to some God-like circumstances, which that's what it would have taken, I'm going to do it after all.
And with the encouragement of a friend, I left the security and nicely temped gym Sunday, and hit the streets and hills of the Texas hill country.
For several years after my divorce, God used half-marathons to teach me endurance and perseverance; how to get up, keep going, and that the only way to finish, was to actually do it, to go through it, and not quit. Quitting wouldn't get me to my car. Only finishing would.
It all became a metaphor for life, and it's helped me in countless ways; mainly by reminding me I'm a fighter. I'm willing to duke it out. I've got some fight in me, and life takes fight.
But, it's been a little too long, and now I'd seen myself as breakable yet again, and so fear had started to build.
I began to think I wouldn't be able to complete a half.
I was afraid, and anxiety is fear's nasty companion.
Anxiety is a battle of the mind convincing you you can't do something, convincing you you will be completely out of control if you do that.
Anxiety has been part of my life for years. I've struggled with it more at various times, but it's been a struggle for as long as I can remember.
Anxiety used to run my life. It kicked in full blast about 5 years into my marriage and it didn't leave, unfortunately, until my marriage was over.
You can read into that statement as much as you'd like, and I'd probably agree that much of your assumptions are true, but if I'm being honest, which I don't always like to be when it comes to that time in my life, it had more to do with me.
I've been reading some books by a Navy Seal.
Their training is highly focused on resisting stress, coping with immeasurable amounts of it, and being forced to make decisions while still under it.
If their body is broken down and pushed to the max, can their mind still function properly?
Will they break when things are out of their control?
For a long time, my anxiety was linked to my inner security being shot. And since my security was linked to my marriage and my husband, and since neither of those were going that well, I lived in a constant state of fear, the fear of everything falling apart.
Fear is the acknowledgement of no control and anxiety is allowing the thought of having no control scare you to death.
I believe that's why you think you're going to die during an anxiety attack, your mind has gotten to a point that truly believes that...until reality can kick in again.
Anxiety and anxiety attacks do that to you over time. They convince you and remind you that you're breakable, and that scares me to death.
Physical stress can mimic depression, fear, and anxiety, so as I traveled the road of anxiety, my mind began to equate physical exertion and tiredness as something to panic about. The moment my body was put under physical stress, my mind seemed to not be able to handle it anymore. In other words, I'm not Seal material. ;)
So, unfortunately, I've had to battle through convincing my mind, that just because I'm physically tired, doesn't mean I'm under attack. I don't need to panic or shut down. It's taken years to untangle that, and one day, sick on a treadmill, had me questioning it once again.
Anxiety had entered back into my life, and even though it left after a few weeks, it reminded me it was a snake in the grass, and I was its prey...(it's a man eating kind of snake!)
My first memory of being anxious is from when I was 9. My mom got cancer, and I realized my world was breakable. As a child, quite rightly, my security was completely tied to my parents, and at 9, I realized I had no control over my world, and it could be shattered at a moment's notice.
That changed me. It rattled me to my core.
The moment I felt breakable, I saw that my security was up for grabs.
And consequently, I've spent a lifetime trying to avoid the pain that happened at that moment.
But what's ironic is my world was already broken. I had come into a broken world, and I was experiencing the pain of that brokenness. My security was resting in something of this world, and this world is temporary, which meant my security needed to rest in something eternal. I just hadn't come to know that part yet.
Looking back, I wish I'd taken that lesson from it, but for some reason, I didn't. My road would not be one of establishing a close and intimate relationship with God, knowing He was the answer to the chasm that had just fractured inside of me, that my security could rest in Him, the eternal One.
Instead, I was the little girl who saw her security being taken, and I couldn't get my eyes off the pain I was feeling, and I became desperate to not feel that kind of pain ever again.
So, for the next 28 years, I'd be on a search for where to place my security, how to avoid pain, and how to become unbreakable.
I was all about self preservation, and when one is all about self preservation, certain things in life don't work.
See, when it comes to security, control is the key, so situations that are seemingly out of one's control are daunting, are ones I'd walk away from. Needless to say, relationships weren't my forte. I had my people, the ones that I loved and loved me, but I kept them at a distance. I didn't like being vulnerable, because weakness might lead to being broken. I wasn't a fan of making new friends or risking too much. It took me into unknown territory and I didn't like that. I didn't like being in situations I couldn't predict. Unpredictable equaled high potential for pain in my world.
People were unpredictable. Love was even more unpredictable.
So, when one tries to date, it doesn't work out well. My lack of dating was (and is) masked as independence, a strong sense of self, with a vision for my life, but it's actually just a cover up for extreme insecurity. You get to know me and that'll come out. You'll see right through my show.
My seeming strengths and gifts are just a cover up for my extreme weaknesses.
Dating involves high risk and love requires great sacrifice, and since I was about self-preservation, I was not up for any of that, so needless to say, in dating, I unknowingly chose a situation that was seemingly more controllable and didn't require much sacrifice.
I was an unhealthy teenager, latching onto something unhealthy, and it wasn't going to end well.
It couldn't end well.
No relationship is controllable, but I'd chosen to give it a try. Manipulation and inauthenticity are the tools of self preservation, so it didn't take long for it to show the set up was highly flawed, and just how breakable it was.
Unfortunately, I was married before having to truly face the music on that one, and it didn't take long for me to figure it out. I knew something wasn't right or natural, and I didn't know what to do about it. I knew I wasn't myself, and I was quite certain I felt less secure than ever. Something was missing, so anxiety kicked in early on for reasons of my own doing, as well as others; for the situation I had created as well as the one manifesting out of how we dealt with it.
To this day, nearly removed by 7 years, having reflected on it ad nauseam (as any over-thinker worth her salt would), I believe my marriage was doomed from the get go.
I do.
Many might question that, heck, I do quite frequently, but something happened on that walk on Sunday that made me see something in myself I hadn't really seen before. And yes, I feel the shame of that.
As much as being breakable scared the crap out of me, and I was doing everything in my power to prevent the pain that comes from that, what I hadn't fully grasped was that I was already broken.
I'm a broken pot, walking around trying to hold all of my shards together, wondering why everything keeps leaking and not working.
I'm the girl in the pew who has worked all week trying to make good decisions, being intentional, and striving to make the right choices, because I know what I want, SELF PRESERVATION, and I keep thinking that if I just would follow the stinkin formula, I'd get it.
If I could just keep all these freakin broken shards glued in, painted over, and facing the right direction, then maybe I wouldn't really be a broken pot.
Just give me the formula, and I'll do it. For the love of Pete, just tell me I'm not broken.
And I'm arrogant and blind enough to think I'm doing it. My self-righteousness runs so deep, I'm numb to it.
If I can build my walls, secure the fortress, be intentional enough then Shelly will make it through. The pain will be less, the resistance will go down, the unknown will become known, the grey won't be so scary, and I can rest secure that it's all going to be okay.
But that's a lie.
I can't do a damn thing to make me unbreakable.
I'm broken.
I'm already broken.
And the only person I'm kidding is myself to think I'm not.
And even one step more, the point is I have to be broken for any of this to work.
For years, I linked my security to people. and I quickly discovered people die and people make mistakes.
If my security rests on them, I'm guaranteed to be walking in a world filled with fear. Anxiety will rule my life because I've placed my security in something that is guaranteed to fail.
If I place it in my job, in money, in my ability to pull myself up, if I place it in my beauty, my health, or my children, it's just a matter of time before my security crumbles.
My marriage was doomed because I walked into it placing my security in a person, in a marriage, and, even worse, in having "settled that detail of my life".
No matter who he was or what he did, he didn't deserve to be set up like that. Marriage deserves more than that. They were both pawns in my attempt to feel secure.
It was about me. I wasn't willing to sacrifice myself, my dreams, my plan, my comfort, or my heart. In the name of self preservation, I wasn't willing to learn how to love, and so, in turn, I sacrificed way more...with wakes larger than my heart can take.
Ya, hindsight. It's a killer.
Love can't flourish under those circumstances, love can't hardly begin or have a chance to grow under that pressure. I chose to make my marriage fill a hole in my life that it was never meant to occupy. I defined it erroneously and it was doomed to fail because the ship was never righted, and I'm not sure it could've been because no matter how much I tried and believe me, the fighter in me tried, but for whatever reason, the ship could never right itself. Maybe too many bridges had been burned, or the two who had said they'd become one had lost too much along the way that they couldn't be found anymore.
Either way, our journey didn't include one of the most beautiful parts of marriage: finding healing and redemption together. And I believe much of that had to do with me not facing my brokenness sooner.
I've walked through life searching for security, because I seemingly lost mine at 9. I've been wandering through life as that scared little 9 year old girl, afraid that she'd be alone, that her heart would break beyond repair, unable to face what was ahead of her. The pain of grief, the feeling of fear, the realization that not a thing was under my control was too much for me to handle.
I would do anything to find security.
I thought I could find that in marriage or in people.
I was wrong.
I was wrong.
I mean it. I was wrong.
It's taken 17 years, including death, divorce, and 6 long years alone walking this out with God to finally face that.
No formulas, no intentionality, no preventive measures or "right choices" could get me out of it.
It's taken 17 long years to stand before God saying I'm broken and I'm sorry Lord. I'm sorry for all the times I haven't thought You were enough. I'm sorry for thinking I am smarter than You, more capable and better than You. I'm sorry for choosing myself and my wishes and my wants before listening to Your words and Your love and Your wisdom and grace.
I'm sorry that I chose self preservation above anything else, and I was too afraid to trust You with my life.
I've let my fear of grief and that gut wrenching pain that makes me question if I can do this rule me. I've allowed my loneliness to tempt me, and I've listened to the lie that I'm not enough and never will be and at the same time afraid that I'm too much and always will be.
God, I've run my entire life trying to not face that I'm completely broken. And I need Your grace to save me Lord. I need Your grace to save me.
Not because someone else broke me, not because of circumstances or anything else, but just because me, Shelly Vaughn is a broken woman, whose sin runs so deep that it takes years to dig it out and for her to even acknowledge it.
I'm the girl on the pew who says, at least I'm not doing that...or why God, I try to do it right, yet still...
I'm the girl who reads a book and has a list of people who really "need" to read it, or if only this person would hear that sermon, then they'd change.
Because if others need fixing, then the playing field is leveled for me.
God, forgive me, for I'm more broken than I want to face, and I've walked around completely blind to that fact and running from it, thinking Your death wasn't completely necessary for me, that all the grace I need is more like a thin sheet, rather than layers of unstoppable forgiveness, and waves of an immeasurable ocean crashing over me, the one that sits here still hesitating to let go.
God, I still don't know how to fully separate my security from people or things. Even after all of this, I'm not even sure I grasp the tip of how broken I am and how much I've missed because I've been too scared and am too arrogant to admit that.
But, I do know that my life is in Your hands, and no matter what might come my way, You'll walk me through it.
The only guarantee I have is, You'll walk me through it.
And I can rest securely in that.
You have taken account of my wanderings;
Put my tears in Your bottle.
Are they not in Your book?...
Put my tears in Your bottle.
Are they not in Your book?...
This I know, God is for me.
In God whose word I praise
In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid...
for You have delivered my soul from death,
indeed my feet from stumbling,
So that I may walk before God in the light of the living. Psalm 56
In God whose word I praise
In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid...
for You have delivered my soul from death,
indeed my feet from stumbling,
So that I may walk before God in the light of the living. Psalm 56
This I know, God is FOR YOU!
Shelly
PS - Don Miller's books have impacted me for years, but God has used his new one, Scary Close:Dropping the Act and finding True Intimacy, as an integral part of putting these last few puzzle pieces together for me. I'm so grateful Don wrote it. It was one more catalyst for me to run to God and seek His grace.
http://www.amazon.com/Scary-Close-Dropping-Finding-Intimacy/dp/078521318X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1423737820&sr=8-1&keywords=scary+close
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Your Life Matters
Gosh, it's been a long while. Writing seems like something I avoid these days...or something I have avoided for months and months. Honestly, I think I needed to just go out and live, and my reflections on it all needed to be my very own reflections for a little while.
The writing bug is coming back though...the reading, the sifting, the intentionality of doing something that I believe God put inside of me is rising within.
I think for a year I replaced writing on a computer to unknown adults to writing hundreds of letters to known kiddos. I love sending notes to students and former students. I think my love for it (or need for it) comes from a few places within me.
1. I was 9 once. My mom had cancer and I was scared. I didn't know how it worked. I didn't know if she would die and how God was going to be real in all of that.
2. I've been divorced, and I have a son I've watched navigate that path...those tragic cards he was dealt. I witness, and at times, experience his pain.
3. I'm single, so I feel alone a lot. I desire to be seen, to be known, to love and be loved by someone in a way that differs from all others.
So, I write...I tell those kiddos WHO they are, that they MATTER to this world, that God is with them and will never leave them...
because with all I have traveled, whether hard or beautiful, God has been consistent, never changing, always true, always there, and everything about Him has panned out just as He says it will.
There are so many confusing messages out there, so many questions, hardships, disappointments, failings, and lies, and this 37 year old falls for them all the time, so as a reminder to myself and as an anthem to them, I write letters.
But for me, I think it's time to circle the wagons one more time and start sifting, reading, reflecting, and writing.
I just returned from the Storyline Conference. It's one of my all time favorites to attend. This was my third time to go. I've gone every 2 years. The conference has evolved over time, so I get the benefits of their new ways, new speakers, and new crowds, but I also get to hear some of the same stuff again as I have evolved, grown, changed, and seen the fruits of trusting God with the story of my life.
If I had to explain the conference in one sentence, I'd say it's about living intentionally, realizing/acknowledging your story matters to this world.
Trust God, trust what He's taught you, and GO LIVE for Him.
I think one of the main lessons I've taken over these last 6 years is you just have to move, you've gotta take that step, make a choice, and go with it.
He's given us the tools, His word, His presence, His guidance, and now we must start walking it out.
If we think about Jesus and His disciples, they lived and walked out the life with Him for 3 years. They rarely knew where they were going or why or what would happen along the way, but Jesus did...and they just followed Him.
Much of the time they got it wrong, said the wrong thing, were confused, doubted, were terrified, fell asleep, and scattered.
But Jesus remained. He kept inviting them along, talking as they went, teaching as they walked, and somehow, at the end of their time with Him, they witnessed His ultimate love for them...they had believed in who He was and walked out the time with Him, but until they lived the darkest time, thinking all was lost and nothing was what they had thought, did their worlds completely change.
Once Jesus proved His ultimate love, laid out His perfect plan, and overcame what is the darkest end for us all, those disciples took this world by storm, holding nothing back, not letting the greusomest of deaths deter them.
They knew their lives, their stories, mattered because they experienced and held the ultimate story of hope, they knew the deepest of truths, and had to share it with the world.
I refuse to believe Jesus came to experience all human suffering, die the ultimate death for my sin and yours, and conquer all that is evil for a people whose lives don't really matter.
Jesus didn't do all of that for a life to be lived safe, numb, for consuming and accumulating toys and human pleasures.
History has not played out the way it has played for a people whose lives don't matter. You mattered, I mattered so much that throughout time, the evils and vilest of times, the heartache and darkness, the death and destruction, God pursued, God thundered down, God created, grieved, and CAME. He set to love, to rescue, to redeem, to sacrifice Himself so that I may live, so you may live.
If that doesn't tell me that my life matters, then I don't know what would.
But even if we think or have an inkling that our life matters, so often we can be paralyzed with "But what does God want me to do? What's His plan for my life?"
Well, since God didn't reveal His plan to any of the greats in the Bible, I don't think any of us should sit around thinking that He's going to miraculously give us a blueprint. That's not how it works. From the beginning of time, He's never revealed His plan...to anyone. So you and me, sitting in our homes in Texas, New York, California, or Japan...shouldn't think He's going to give us one either.
But, He has given us plenty to go on.
I have great plans for you!
If you search for Me with all your heart, you'll find me!
Love one another.
Build others up.
Pray without ceasing.
The truth will set you free.
Stay in My word.
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
Abide in Me.
Wait for the Lord.
Trust in Me.
Stay with God.
Do not fear.
Be strong.
Be courageous.
I will be with you!
Love mercy.
Do justice.
Walk humbly with God.
Be a living stone.
Tell others what Jesus has done for you.
Preach Christ crucified.
Live for Him
Live a life that ministers
Be gracious
Be gentle
Be honest
Be hospitable
Be alert and sober, putting on faith and love, wearing the hope of our salvation, appreciating those around us, letting peace rule us, encouraging, helping, and being patient. Hold fast to what is true and to what is good, Rejoice always, and KNOW, without a doubt,
that Faithful is He who calls us.
As I sat in Starbucks this weekend, for the first time in a long time, working on some notes from the
conference, basically doodling thoughts from 2 days, a lady leaned over and asked me what I did for a living.
"Are you working? Is what you're doing part of your job? Not that I was reading all it said, but I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life and I had to ask you what you did."
I told her I was doing a little bit of both...working and just living.
I had been grading papers, but now I was just processing some notes from a conference I had been at.
She still pressed me for what I did as a job.
As I told her about being a teacher, lighting up, saying it's the best job in the world, she said,
"So you always knew what you wanted to be?" with a little disappointment in her voice.
I assured her I didn't always know I wanted to be a teacher. I'd had many thoughts and directions, but God knew being a teacher was the perfect thing for me during this season of my life. He knew that for a myriad of reasons teaching was going to be one of the greatest joys in my life and that I could live out some of my gifts and experience some of His ultimate graces in my life.
She proceeded to tell me she had 2 daughters and loved art and design but just didn't know what God wanted her to do with her life. She'd been praying and asking but didn't know what to do.
I looked her in the eye, telling her I'd been there. I knew what she felt but instead of feeling paralyzed by not knowing, look at it from a different angle. God is giving you the FREEDOM to go out and make choices, to go and figure it out: To trust that He will be with you as you go, but He's asking you to go. What are your passions? Where are you leaning? Trust He'll be with you and go.
I went on to tell her I had just been grading compositions my 5th graders wrote. We spend over 2 weeks on them. We read, discover and take notes about the topic together. Then we read and take notes on our own. Then each student must organize their notes on another day. Then we outline those notes. I hold their hand each step of the way. It's laid out, it's full of directions with simple tasks. But then the day of writing arrives. They must take those 4 previous days of work and knowledge and begin to write...On their own.
They must stare at a blank paper and begin to tell the story from what they've learned over the past week.
Many are paralyzed.
So, I tell them two things, and this is what I'd tell you.
Start with what you know. Just start writing what you do know. Don't worry about making sense of it all, just start writing. Turn that white paper into something filled with what you've learned.
And second, I tell them I'm a fantastic editor, but I can only edit what you've written. You gotta give me something to edit. I won't write it for you, but after you begin, I'll guide it, rearrange, make corrections, give you better ideas, different ideas, and remind you of things you have learned but have forgotten to include.
I'm a great editor, their greatest tool when it comes to writing the paper, but I can't edit a blank page.
I think of God that way too sometimes. He's an incredible editor. He lets us live and choose based on what we know and what we've learned. He wants us to move in a direction our heart leads and then He'll come along and edit.
So, just take what you know, trust in what you know about God, and go take a step knowing that He's with you and He'll guide you, He'll edit, He'll protect and show, and even correct the mistakes in one form or another.
She smiled, thanked me, and I went back to doodling and thinking.
Over this last year, I firmly believe there were things I had to walk out. I didn't always know what I should do, what the right answer was, or even if I should be where I was...but I kept getting this prompting of "just be true to who you are and who you want to be and walk it out."
Twelve months later, a book couldn't contain the lessons I learned along the way. I wouldn't have learned them if I'd played it safe, stayed paralyzed and never trusted God that He'd be with me as a 37 year old woman with fears and hang ups and insecurities navigated life.
I witnessed God's grace, protection, lessons in the hard, and I saw myself grow, mature, rely on Him, and that making "mistakes" was ok and part of being human.
I'll end with this.
At the conference, one of my favorite caveats was when Don Miller was talking about how God did not create us to live in reaction but to be co-creators of a meaningful life...that God bonds with us when we do things. He wants to share experiences with us.
And the Bible is full of stories of people doing, living and experiencing a life where they had no idea what was coming next: getting to feed the 5000, crossing the Red Sea, walking on water, talking to a king, watching a brother die, sitting under a broom tree ready to die, having everything they had taken away, riding in an ark full of animals and a smell so foul as the entire earth gets swallowed by water, but they were trusting God and relying on Him as they took each step, that He would provide the ground when it was time for their foot to land.
Don went on to say, " I think God is up there saying, 'let's get into some trouble "we" can't get out of'."
And isn't that what the Bible and living a life of depth is full of...circumstances that require the hand of God to get us through?!
A meaningful life takes risk. It takes walking into an unknown, but remembering we're not empty handed. We're armed with God's word, God's promises, God's presence, and a grace so magical and unimaginable that He's just waiting for us to take Him up on it.
So reader, don't ever forget that YOU MATTER. You matter to God and you matter to His plan in this world.
His death did not come cheap, our redemption price was so high that only the God of the Universe could pay it, so let us go live knowing grace had a cost He saw worth paying, and He lavishes it on you and me because we matter to Him.
"The accuser was overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony and they didn't love their life even when faced with death." Revelation 12:11
In Him,
Shelly
The writing bug is coming back though...the reading, the sifting, the intentionality of doing something that I believe God put inside of me is rising within.
I think for a year I replaced writing on a computer to unknown adults to writing hundreds of letters to known kiddos. I love sending notes to students and former students. I think my love for it (or need for it) comes from a few places within me.
1. I was 9 once. My mom had cancer and I was scared. I didn't know how it worked. I didn't know if she would die and how God was going to be real in all of that.
2. I've been divorced, and I have a son I've watched navigate that path...those tragic cards he was dealt. I witness, and at times, experience his pain.
3. I'm single, so I feel alone a lot. I desire to be seen, to be known, to love and be loved by someone in a way that differs from all others.
So, I write...I tell those kiddos WHO they are, that they MATTER to this world, that God is with them and will never leave them...
because with all I have traveled, whether hard or beautiful, God has been consistent, never changing, always true, always there, and everything about Him has panned out just as He says it will.
There are so many confusing messages out there, so many questions, hardships, disappointments, failings, and lies, and this 37 year old falls for them all the time, so as a reminder to myself and as an anthem to them, I write letters.
But for me, I think it's time to circle the wagons one more time and start sifting, reading, reflecting, and writing.
If I had to explain the conference in one sentence, I'd say it's about living intentionally, realizing/acknowledging your story matters to this world.
Trust God, trust what He's taught you, and GO LIVE for Him.
I think one of the main lessons I've taken over these last 6 years is you just have to move, you've gotta take that step, make a choice, and go with it.
He's given us the tools, His word, His presence, His guidance, and now we must start walking it out.
If we think about Jesus and His disciples, they lived and walked out the life with Him for 3 years. They rarely knew where they were going or why or what would happen along the way, but Jesus did...and they just followed Him.
Much of the time they got it wrong, said the wrong thing, were confused, doubted, were terrified, fell asleep, and scattered.
But Jesus remained. He kept inviting them along, talking as they went, teaching as they walked, and somehow, at the end of their time with Him, they witnessed His ultimate love for them...they had believed in who He was and walked out the time with Him, but until they lived the darkest time, thinking all was lost and nothing was what they had thought, did their worlds completely change.
Once Jesus proved His ultimate love, laid out His perfect plan, and overcame what is the darkest end for us all, those disciples took this world by storm, holding nothing back, not letting the greusomest of deaths deter them.
They knew their lives, their stories, mattered because they experienced and held the ultimate story of hope, they knew the deepest of truths, and had to share it with the world.
I refuse to believe Jesus came to experience all human suffering, die the ultimate death for my sin and yours, and conquer all that is evil for a people whose lives don't really matter.
Jesus didn't do all of that for a life to be lived safe, numb, for consuming and accumulating toys and human pleasures.
History has not played out the way it has played for a people whose lives don't matter. You mattered, I mattered so much that throughout time, the evils and vilest of times, the heartache and darkness, the death and destruction, God pursued, God thundered down, God created, grieved, and CAME. He set to love, to rescue, to redeem, to sacrifice Himself so that I may live, so you may live.
If that doesn't tell me that my life matters, then I don't know what would.
But even if we think or have an inkling that our life matters, so often we can be paralyzed with "But what does God want me to do? What's His plan for my life?"
Well, since God didn't reveal His plan to any of the greats in the Bible, I don't think any of us should sit around thinking that He's going to miraculously give us a blueprint. That's not how it works. From the beginning of time, He's never revealed His plan...to anyone. So you and me, sitting in our homes in Texas, New York, California, or Japan...shouldn't think He's going to give us one either.
But, He has given us plenty to go on.
I have great plans for you!
If you search for Me with all your heart, you'll find me!
Love one another.
Build others up.
Pray without ceasing.
The truth will set you free.
Stay in My word.
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
Abide in Me.
Wait for the Lord.
Trust in Me.
Stay with God.
Do not fear.
Be strong.
Be courageous.
I will be with you!
Love mercy.
Do justice.
Walk humbly with God.
Be a living stone.
Tell others what Jesus has done for you.
Preach Christ crucified.
Live for Him
Live a life that ministers
Be gracious
Be gentle
Be honest
Be hospitable
Be alert and sober, putting on faith and love, wearing the hope of our salvation, appreciating those around us, letting peace rule us, encouraging, helping, and being patient. Hold fast to what is true and to what is good, Rejoice always, and KNOW, without a doubt,
that Faithful is He who calls us.
As I sat in Starbucks this weekend, for the first time in a long time, working on some notes from the
"Are you working? Is what you're doing part of your job? Not that I was reading all it said, but I'm trying to figure out what to do with my life and I had to ask you what you did."
I told her I was doing a little bit of both...working and just living.
I had been grading papers, but now I was just processing some notes from a conference I had been at.
She still pressed me for what I did as a job.
As I told her about being a teacher, lighting up, saying it's the best job in the world, she said,
"So you always knew what you wanted to be?" with a little disappointment in her voice.
I assured her I didn't always know I wanted to be a teacher. I'd had many thoughts and directions, but God knew being a teacher was the perfect thing for me during this season of my life. He knew that for a myriad of reasons teaching was going to be one of the greatest joys in my life and that I could live out some of my gifts and experience some of His ultimate graces in my life.
She proceeded to tell me she had 2 daughters and loved art and design but just didn't know what God wanted her to do with her life. She'd been praying and asking but didn't know what to do.
I looked her in the eye, telling her I'd been there. I knew what she felt but instead of feeling paralyzed by not knowing, look at it from a different angle. God is giving you the FREEDOM to go out and make choices, to go and figure it out: To trust that He will be with you as you go, but He's asking you to go. What are your passions? Where are you leaning? Trust He'll be with you and go.
I went on to tell her I had just been grading compositions my 5th graders wrote. We spend over 2 weeks on them. We read, discover and take notes about the topic together. Then we read and take notes on our own. Then each student must organize their notes on another day. Then we outline those notes. I hold their hand each step of the way. It's laid out, it's full of directions with simple tasks. But then the day of writing arrives. They must take those 4 previous days of work and knowledge and begin to write...On their own.
They must stare at a blank paper and begin to tell the story from what they've learned over the past week.
Many are paralyzed.
So, I tell them two things, and this is what I'd tell you.
Start with what you know. Just start writing what you do know. Don't worry about making sense of it all, just start writing. Turn that white paper into something filled with what you've learned.
And second, I tell them I'm a fantastic editor, but I can only edit what you've written. You gotta give me something to edit. I won't write it for you, but after you begin, I'll guide it, rearrange, make corrections, give you better ideas, different ideas, and remind you of things you have learned but have forgotten to include.
I'm a great editor, their greatest tool when it comes to writing the paper, but I can't edit a blank page.
I think of God that way too sometimes. He's an incredible editor. He lets us live and choose based on what we know and what we've learned. He wants us to move in a direction our heart leads and then He'll come along and edit.
So, just take what you know, trust in what you know about God, and go take a step knowing that He's with you and He'll guide you, He'll edit, He'll protect and show, and even correct the mistakes in one form or another.
She smiled, thanked me, and I went back to doodling and thinking.
Over this last year, I firmly believe there were things I had to walk out. I didn't always know what I should do, what the right answer was, or even if I should be where I was...but I kept getting this prompting of "just be true to who you are and who you want to be and walk it out."
Twelve months later, a book couldn't contain the lessons I learned along the way. I wouldn't have learned them if I'd played it safe, stayed paralyzed and never trusted God that He'd be with me as a 37 year old woman with fears and hang ups and insecurities navigated life.
I witnessed God's grace, protection, lessons in the hard, and I saw myself grow, mature, rely on Him, and that making "mistakes" was ok and part of being human.
I'll end with this.
At the conference, one of my favorite caveats was when Don Miller was talking about how God did not create us to live in reaction but to be co-creators of a meaningful life...that God bonds with us when we do things. He wants to share experiences with us.
And the Bible is full of stories of people doing, living and experiencing a life where they had no idea what was coming next: getting to feed the 5000, crossing the Red Sea, walking on water, talking to a king, watching a brother die, sitting under a broom tree ready to die, having everything they had taken away, riding in an ark full of animals and a smell so foul as the entire earth gets swallowed by water, but they were trusting God and relying on Him as they took each step, that He would provide the ground when it was time for their foot to land.
And isn't that what the Bible and living a life of depth is full of...circumstances that require the hand of God to get us through?!
A meaningful life takes risk. It takes walking into an unknown, but remembering we're not empty handed. We're armed with God's word, God's promises, God's presence, and a grace so magical and unimaginable that He's just waiting for us to take Him up on it.
So reader, don't ever forget that YOU MATTER. You matter to God and you matter to His plan in this world.
His death did not come cheap, our redemption price was so high that only the God of the Universe could pay it, so let us go live knowing grace had a cost He saw worth paying, and He lavishes it on you and me because we matter to Him.
"The accuser was overcome by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony and they didn't love their life even when faced with death." Revelation 12:11
In Him,
Shelly
Sunday, June 22, 2014
Being Irreplaceable...
I haven't written in months. I'm not sure I know how to anymore...
When I woke this morning, I knew that I couldn't end the day without writing. I don't know why, but I feel like I will have walked away from something if I don't.
So, here I am.
Lord, here I am.
I awoke at 6:39 with thoughts of death. Not the scary kind...more the reminiscing kind.
I had one major thought amongst all the little ones. It was how much I would miss certain people if I were gone. Those I have and even those I hope for.
I immediately thought of a conversation my mom and I had before she died.
See, she knew her death was imminent. We had a handful of conversations about it...about life without her.
This particular one took place in my parents' living room, on the couch. She told me she was going to miss being my mom, that she hated how I wouldn't have one anymore, and she even worried that someone would replace her in that role someday.
I assured her that was impossible. Her role was filled, and she was irreplaceable.
I laid there, on my pillow, having the thoughts of how no matter what happens, life continues on, but our hearts long to be irreplaceable.
My deepest longing is to not only be known, but to be sought and cherished, to be longed for, and to be someone that can't be replaced.
I want to be someone's favorite.
I want to be someone's favorite.
And honestly, I'm not sure that's a terrific desire to have or even a healthy one. I do know it gets me stuck a whole lot in my life and even causes me to stare at this screen for an exhaustive amount of time not knowing what to write next.
As I continued to lay in my bed and think, I wondered why I was remembering those conversations with my mom and then it hit me...she died 6 years ago this coming Friday.
I can't remember if I told her that day on the couch how much I would miss her.
I really hope I did.
But, I'm afraid I couldn't really go there in my mind, and I so wanted to comfort her by not getting upset. But I hope she knew...losing her would leave a void in my life that impacts me daily.
She was one person I knew I was her favorite...daughter that is...but that was enough to be.
We are a "get over it" society and I am certainly a "get over it" kind of girl, but somedays one must stop, reminisce, and remember.
I remember her...her soft hands, her constant pursuit of me, her love for Cade, her easy laugh, her flautas and lasagna, her prayers, her driving, her inability to say "fifth", her endless list of friendships, her love of shopping and buying, and I remember how she made me feel special, valued, cherished, irreplaceable...I remember how I was her favorite.
I remember daily just how irreplaceable she really is.
It's a beautiful memory and I'm so grateful that God's grace is deep enough that I have that to remember, but I'm also deeply thankful for the gift of knowing one day, I will sit with her again.
In Him,
Shelly
When I woke this morning, I knew that I couldn't end the day without writing. I don't know why, but I feel like I will have walked away from something if I don't.
So, here I am.
Lord, here I am.
I awoke at 6:39 with thoughts of death. Not the scary kind...more the reminiscing kind.
I had one major thought amongst all the little ones. It was how much I would miss certain people if I were gone. Those I have and even those I hope for.
I immediately thought of a conversation my mom and I had before she died.
See, she knew her death was imminent. We had a handful of conversations about it...about life without her.
This particular one took place in my parents' living room, on the couch. She told me she was going to miss being my mom, that she hated how I wouldn't have one anymore, and she even worried that someone would replace her in that role someday.
I laid there, on my pillow, having the thoughts of how no matter what happens, life continues on, but our hearts long to be irreplaceable.
My deepest longing is to not only be known, but to be sought and cherished, to be longed for, and to be someone that can't be replaced.
I want to be someone's favorite.
I want to be someone's favorite.
And honestly, I'm not sure that's a terrific desire to have or even a healthy one. I do know it gets me stuck a whole lot in my life and even causes me to stare at this screen for an exhaustive amount of time not knowing what to write next.
As I continued to lay in my bed and think, I wondered why I was remembering those conversations with my mom and then it hit me...she died 6 years ago this coming Friday.
I can't remember if I told her that day on the couch how much I would miss her.
I really hope I did.
But, I'm afraid I couldn't really go there in my mind, and I so wanted to comfort her by not getting upset. But I hope she knew...losing her would leave a void in my life that impacts me daily.
She was one person I knew I was her favorite...daughter that is...but that was enough to be.
We are a "get over it" society and I am certainly a "get over it" kind of girl, but somedays one must stop, reminisce, and remember.
I remember her...her soft hands, her constant pursuit of me, her love for Cade, her easy laugh, her flautas and lasagna, her prayers, her driving, her inability to say "fifth", her endless list of friendships, her love of shopping and buying, and I remember how she made me feel special, valued, cherished, irreplaceable...I remember how I was her favorite.I remember daily just how irreplaceable she really is.
It's a beautiful memory and I'm so grateful that God's grace is deep enough that I have that to remember, but I'm also deeply thankful for the gift of knowing one day, I will sit with her again.
In Him,
Shelly
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)