I Like My Trashy Pictures!

Apparently, nothing I do is right.  It’s more than likely a given that my kids will find themselves vertical on some psychologist’s couch at some point in their adult life because I let them cry too much, or I held them too long, or I exposed them to too much, or I didn’t expose them to enough, or I let them eat too much junk, or I caused them to be way too deprived.  Actually, for my oldest son, it’ll probably be my not allowing him to have a cell phone at age twelve.  I’m pretty sure he already sees himself as mortally wounded because of that one.  Not only are my kids a mess and my parenting screwed up, I don’t clean my house properly.  I didn’t know that, but fortunately for me, I received an email today informing me of “Eight Ways You’re Probably Cleaning Wrong”.  Sigh.  Who knew?  And just in case I didn’t have enough things to check off my “Epic Fail” list, Pinterest was more than ready to step up to the plate and help me out.  Now, don’t get me wrong.  I enjoy Pinterest.  I’ve already pinned more recipes than I could possibly make in my lifetime and an equal number of craft projects to make one of these “Somedays”.  But there are days when looking at everyone else’s masterpieces and maternal successes can make me feel like a great big pile of mediocre sludge.  From Elf on the Shelf to cutesy ornaments to picture perfect holiday treats, I already knew that I’m not one of “those” mothers.  You know the type?  Those women who seem to be some beautiful, magical amalgamation of Caroline Ingalls and June Cleaver and Clair Huxtable and Martha Stewart, with just a pinch of Xena, Princess Warrior thrown in for good measure.  Quite frankly, there are days when I feel like my parenting probably more closely resembles The Simpsons.  Probably Homer.  Double sigh.

Anyway…

I had come to grips with the fact that I wasn’t Super Santa Mom.  But then I saw something that further revealed my homemaking haplessness.  A picture perfect (no pun intended) Pinteresty idea on how to make your holiday pictures picture perfect.  Wrap the outside of a large box in festive Christmas paper and place all the trash and wrappings in the box in order to eliminate unsightly garbage bags from ruining your holiday photos.

Ingenious!  Make a note of this.  One more thing to add to the “Not to Be a Loser Mom on Christmas” list.  Oh, my poor Christmas pictures from yesteryear!  To be forever marred by Hefty-ness!  Horrors!  Shame on me… WAIT A MINUTE!

To be quite clear, I am by NO means a photographer.  I am, according to a “real” photographer I became acquainted with earlier this week, one who causes those of her kind to cringe (i.e., I use the camera on my phone to snap pictures).  I have great respect and admiration for those who use the medium of photography to tell stories, but my interests are different than theirs.  For me, picture taking is not my creative outlet of choice but is a means by which I can (attempt to) capture and preserve memories.

And I don’t care if my pictures look trashy!

But I care about what others think of me.  I want to be “in.”  I want to be deemed acceptable… worthy… desirable… choose-able.  So I assess what needs to be done to make my “trash” look attractive, losing sight of the fact that a dressed up box of junk is still, after all, a box of junk.  And for all my efforts, I end up looking more like a little girl who’s been playing in her mommy’s make-up bag than I do the picture I’ve embraced of a person I’m supposed to be who really looks nothing like me at all.

 The trouble with dressing up your trash is that it puts the focus on your trash.  When I take photos of my family, whether at Christmas or any other time, I want to capture the essence of them.  And that means, in our family, there’s sometimes chaos, quite often a mess, perhaps a Hefty bag showing; and it’s beautiful and wonderful and amazing.  When I look at pictures like that, I don’t focus on the trash or the mess; I focus on the faces of my loves, and my heart melts.  Maybe when God looks at me, his focus isn’t on the trash in there, either.  That time I lost my cool and spoke in higher decibels than I like?  God says, “There’s passion in there!  I can work with that!”  That time I crossed my arms and wouldn’t budge until things went my way?  God says, “There’s tenacity in there!  I can work with that!”  That time I stumbled and fell to my knees in despair because it wasn’t the first time, it was about the four millionth time?!  God says, “You’re doing SO much better than you realize!  And I’m so PROUD of you!  I don’t look at you in light of all you do wrong, but I see all you do right!  You’re so beautiful to me!”

So bring on the garbage bags.  Bring on the beautifully perfect imperfection.  Snap a few trashy pictures.  I think they make God smile. 

A Blog Post About Absolutely Nothing

Today I wanted desperately to write a blog post.  There have been those moments when the need to write has been paramount- when the swirls of thoughts and emotions tinged with passionate conviction have been so strong yet so nebulous that I must give them form and tangibility, if for no other reason than to be able to give voice to and bring a semblance of sanity to the frantic musings of my somewhat ADD brain.  Then there have been those times when I’ve wanted to write, but without a doubt, I was motivated by insecurity that sought out affirmation as well as fleshly desires to shine.  But today was different.  I wanted to write, simply because I wanted to write.  It’s something I enjoy quite a lot.  In the words of Rainer Maria Rilke, “If, when you wake up in the morning, you can think of nothing but writing… then you are a writer.”  Now, with a somewhat ADD brain and all, I readily admit that it’s not that I think of NOTHING but writing; however, I think about it a lot.  I love words, and I love painting word pictures.  And I’m recognizing more and more how much God, just like the doting parent that he is, gushes over my art just as any parent would his or her precious child’s masterpiece.  He’s helping me to see how much he delights in watching me twirl for him (metaphorically speaking.  I was imagining a little girl in her “princess” dress twirling for her daddy.  Which, in my mind, was a beautiful and poetic way of saying that God likes it when I write.  If it didn’t come across quite as cleverly and seamlessly as I imagined, just go with it and let me live in my little delusion.  I’m feeling fragile.).  The more I see that, the more content I am with doing what I do as a love offering for a Daddy who is crazy in love with me.  And when I give something to God, he can then use it however he wishes for whatever he purposes.  “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as though you were working for the Lord and not for people.” (Colossians 3:23)  Oh, I like to pretend I might know how he’ll use a particular thing, how he might use the words I pen to speak thus and such to him or her; but the truth is, for every one thing I could imagine, there are countless others that would blow my little human mind.

So why are you troubled, oh my soul?  What is this frustration that has welled up within me?  If I’m beginning to have greater understanding that performance requiring perfection is unnecessary, that I’m “working” for one who is my biggest cheerleader and focuses on all I do right as opposed to being hyper critical, and that the onus isn’t on me to make certain my words reach exactly the right audience, shouldn’t I be feeling light and cheerful?  Enjoying my medium of expression a lot more?  I would be- if I had SOMETHING.  Something to pair with my desire.  A thing of substance.  A topic.  Any topic!  Certainly there are those days like I mentioned before, when desire is coupled with, if not surpassed by, the need to give voice to those things that seem they would cause my head and heart to burst.  And I know that I know that God will do amazing things with the words that spill forth in those moments.  But what can he do with NOTHING?  When the desire to write is almost the need in itself… When it’s as if I can’t not write, but… there’s nothing “good” about which to write.  What then?

And then it happens.  As I’m sitting in the corner of a coffee shop, writing about having nothing to write about, a song plays on the radio.  Not just any song- a Bruno Mars song.  And not just any Bruno Mars song (and quite frankly, I don’t know that many Bruno Mars songs)- the Bruno Mars song that happened to be playing on a radio station I never listen to but just happened to have turned to one day when I was feeling less than wonderful.  It’s definitely a song about the love of a man for a woman, and there may be those who would question whether God could or would use anything- gasp!- “secular” to speak truth to a heart, but the message he spoke to my heart through the lyrics of this song was as clear as day:

“I know, I know
When I compliment her she won't believe me.
And it's so, it's so
Sad to think that she don't see what I see.
But every time she asks me, ‘Do I look okay?’
I say,

When I see your face
There's not a thing that I would change
'Cause you're amazing
Just the way you are.
And when you smile
The whole world stops and stares for a while
'Cause, girl, you're amazing
Just the way you are.”

You see, I have a hard time seeing in me what God sees in me, and I constantly question his affirmation of me.  But his ever constant, ever patient, ever loving response to me is, You’re amazing just the way you are.”  And he goes on to say, “When you smile, the whole world stops and stares for awhile.  Because you allow me to love deeply through you, and because of that, you’re radiant.  It defies words.  It’s not what you do, but who you are.”

Suddenly, it makes so much sense to me!  I can offer my “nothing” to God just as well as I can my “substance”, and what he can do with my nothing is by no means any less than what he can do with my more.

So here’s my blog post about absolutely nothing.  And I think God loves it.

Mountain Climbing DNA

This past week, my husband and I were afforded an amazing opportunity.  We were able to attend a three-day conference in the beautiful Rocky Mountains in Keystone, Colorado.  Amazing hardly seems to sum it up.  Breathtaking; exhilarating; rejuvenating… All of those and so much more.  Author Mark Batterson says that “a change of pace + a change of pace = a change of perspective.”  This certainly proved true for me.  I found myself looking at things at new and fresh angles; contemplating the “what ifs” in a manner far removed from a worrisome or fear-based line of thinking; and simply drinking in the goodness of God.  What a glorious time!

On the morning we left to return home, we stopped in the quaint little town of Georgetown, Colorado for food and fuel.  While Cory was putting gas in the tank, I sat gazing out the window at the mountains, as I had for so many hours of our trip, mesmerized by their grandeur and beauty.  As I studied the opulent landscape, I sensed both a beckoning and a yearning.  It was as if the mountain before me called out to me, “Come!  Be among these trees.  Explore these rocks and crags.  What other treasures might abound upon these slopes?  Climb!  Ascend!”  My heart responded with desire to acquiesce.  This mountain before me seemed to exist, if for no other reason, than to be climbed, and I wanted to climb it!  Of course, I knew such an adventure was not to be had that morning.  First of all, we were under time constraints.  Secondly, while this was by no means the tallest peak we had seen on our get-away, it was a mountain nonetheless, and I was ill-equipped to tackle such a rigorous activity.  But were I to be perfectly honest, I knew the real reason I wouldn’t be climbing that mountain.  It’s because I’m a chicken baby.  You see, I recognize the desire I have to be adventurous; but I also recognize a voice within me that says, “It’s a mountain.  You might fall.  Off the side of a mountain.  And DIE!!!”

Isn’t this essentially the same struggle I have each day?  These dueling rivals for my heart- a life of adventure or a life of self-preservation- always at odds with one another.  It occurred to me that day as we drove away from Georgetown, mountain climbing is a part of our DNA.  Our spiritual DNA.  In the book of Romans, Paul says, “God’s Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!  This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike ‘What’s next, Papa?’”  In other words, there are mountains before us to climb and explore and treasure to be found!  And my spirit responds, “Yes!  I want to climb!”

But fear would love to have the last word.  “It’s not safe,” it says.  “You might…”  “What if…”  “It’s too risky.”

Certainly in any adventure, there is an element of risk.  God’s not safe; he’s not tame.  Yet he’s entirely good, and I’m completely safe in his hands, regardless of any outcome.  I want to choose to yield to that which is a part of my spiritual makeup, to climb every mountain before me.  To simply play it safe, wondering what I might have seen at the summit, is an unbearable alternative to scaling the heights with Jesus.

  

"Woo hoo hoo me, Mommy?"

               “Woo hoo hoo me, Mommy?”  Big brown, pleading eyes looked up at me, little arms raised expectantly.  The music was playing, the beat was lively, and my precious boy knew this as an invitation to be swept up into my arms and twirled around in a silly, wonderful, beautiful mommy/son dance, jubilantly shouting out, “Woo hoo hoo!” as we spun ourselves dizzy.

            I don’t remember the last time we engaged in the “woo hoo hoo” ritual.  But there was indeed a last time.  My little boy is big now.  On the verge of teendom, he looks me in the eye now when we stand face to face.  His little boy features are being replaced with the chiseled features of a handsome young man.  He hasn’t reached his arms out to me to be gathered up in mine for quite some time, and quite honestly, I often find myself at a loss as to how I fit in his quickly growing and changing world.  I try to hold onto the fleeting vestiges of a little boy who needs his mommy, and I am met with the sullen response of a preteen who resents being held tightly when he wants to soar.  Oh, I know he loves me… but he doesn’t “need” me.  And what is a mom if she isn’t needed?

            The sweet voice of my heavenly Father whispers to my heart.  He reminds me that the definition of my life- who I am- is not “Mom.”  First and foremost, I am Lisa, his beloved, and he has created me to be his friend, to love, and to love through.  I am not defined by what I do, but through what I do, who I am shines forth.  And what my boy needs is a mom who loves Jesus and is being transformed into a more “real” version of her true self and to love him in light of that.  He reminds me that he’ll teach me how to love my son in the manner he needs to be loved at every stage of his life, and that who I am and what I do are significant.

            “Hey, Mom, can I show you this cool ship I just built?”  Handsome brown eyes look across at me, long arms holding a monster of a Lego creation.

            “Wow,” I reply, “that’s amazing!”

            A grin comes across his face, and he begins to show me all the details and intricacies of his masterpiece.  I listen to what he’s telling me and watch the excitement on his face as he shares with me, and what I hear is, “Woo hoo hoo me, Mommy?”  And I’m most happy to oblige.

Seasons Change

All is well in my world today.  It’s 75°.  Windows and curtains are wide open, and I’ve been cleaning out my refrigerator.  Not usually my most favorite task, but with spring in the air and its beautiful breezes wafting through, the most mundane of chores takes on a guise of fun and excitement.  Well, maybe not excitement… but nonetheless, it’s a good day.  Ushered in with the delightful temperatures is a sense of anticipation.  Spring is on its way.  Winter is nearly over.

This truth is exceptionally meaningful for me right now.  The past few weeks have been rough.  My brokenness has been felt in all its fullness.  Emotionally, I’ve been in a place that isn’t at all unfamiliar.  And I’ve been so irritated with myself for that!  After all, hasn’t God spoken to me about this issue or that in the past?  Shared truth with me that permeated my heart and, in another time and place, left me hope filled and expectant?  So what am I doing wrong or not doing right?  Where have I erred?  “Shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” scream at me:

“You’re just not a very good Christian!”

A week or so ago, I was in a particularly painful place.  The Tenth Avenue North song “Worn” played over and over in my head, so I pulled it up on the computer and watched the music video.  As I watched, I began to weep as the words of the song resonated with the cry of my heart.

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn
I wanna know a song can rise
From the ashes of a broken life
And all that’s dead inside can be reborn
Cause I’m worn

“God,” I prayed, “I, too, feel like I need to know that what is dead inside can be reborn.  But, God, don’t I already know that?”  Certainly I do; many times over, the very thing I knew would crush me was a catalyst for rebirth.  So why was I feeling such a need to know a truth I already knew?

As I sat crying and praying and listening, I glanced out the window.  On that particular day, snow was falling.  I happened to think, “This won’t last much longer.  It’s almost spring.”  One season changing into the next.  Happens year after year.

It’s okay.  This is a season.

As the Holy Spirit whispered that to my heart, it occurred to me that maybe the way I viewed seasons of life was a bit off.  Perhaps seasons of life are more like the four seasons of weather change than I’d ever considered.  I suppose I viewed a life season as a one-time, it’s done and over with, end of the chapter sort of a deal.  If that were the case, then my frustration would certainly be warranted.  It would mean that I’ve been in one very long season of perpetual “blah”.  But it hasn’t been perpetual.  I’ve experienced sadness that lasted a night followed by gladness in a morning.  I’ve surrendered ashes only to have them exchanged for beauty.

John 16:33 tells me that while I exist in this world, trouble will come my way.  Trouble:  tribulation; pressure; anguish; distress.  And maybe some of those troubles will be dressed up in the same clothes as a trouble I’ve already dealt with.  But I’m encouraged by this thought:  This spring is looking to be quite similar to many other springs I’ve experienced; but it’s not exactly the same because this spring has never been before.  Likewise, I may (and most likely will) come to another season of crying out to God, “I need to know that all that’s dead inside can be reborn!”  And it may feel very much like every other season of internal “deadness” I’ve experienced; but I’ll be different.  I’ll have come through more, grown more, experienced more of God’s love and grace… And it’s all okay.  It’s okay to feel what I feel right now.  Jesus told me it would come.  He also told me to take heart, because he’s overcome the world.  When I need encouragement, he’ll give it to me.  When I need reminded that it’ll be okay, he’ll remind me.  And when it feels like all is dead inside, he’ll show me a sign of life.

Oh, how he loves me!

A Brand New Belief

"You're about to be given new grounds for believing."

John 11:15

I view that challenge I'm facing, that hardship I'm enduring, that pain I'm suffering through lenses of black and white.  There exists what is and what is not; the possible and the impossible.  The lenses through which I look are constructed of pragmatism born of my experiences.  As did Martha when told by Jesus that her brother would be raised from the dead, I acknowledge that he can do anything but determine the parameters within which he can work.

Martha said, "Master, if you'd been here, my brother wouldn't have died.  Even now, I know that whatever you ask God, he will give you."

Jesus said, "Your brother will be raised up."

Martha replied, "I know that he will be raised up in the resurrection at the end of time." 

In utter exasperation, I cry out, "God, I really don't see how you can!"  He replies, "You're about to be given new grounds for believing."  An experiential encounter.  An exposure of the roots of my beliefs that gives me the opportunity to choose childlike faith.  I claim more of that freedom that is mine for the having as a co-heir of Christ, and I have greater perspective than I did before.  Perhaps tomorrow's challenge or hardship or pain will be met not with resignation and despair, but with expectant, wide-eyed wonder and the accompanying faith that says, "I may not know how God will come through, but I'm about to be given new grounds for believing." 

If I Were a Hobbitt...

I’ve been pondering Hobbits this morning.  More specifically, I’ve been pondering Frodo.  

Frodo Baggins: ring bearer and heralded hero of Middle Earth.  For all intents and purposes, a great guy… er, Hobbit.  Yet I find myself not all that fond of said great Hobbit.  I don’t like his whininess.  Irritating!  And his “poor little me, I have such a great burden to carry” victim mentality.  I just find myself wanting to say, “Suck it up, Hobbit boy!”  Why can’t he be more like Samwise Gamgee?  Sam:  loyal friend; one who makes moving inspirational speeches; he who does not whine along the journey.  In my opinion, Sam is the true hero of Middle Earth.  If I were a Hobbit, I’d so be Samwise Gamgee.

Were I to be honest, however, I’d have to admit that I do, in fact, have Frodo-like tendencies.  While I’d like to think that after nearly forty years on earth, I’ve mastered the ability to speak in languages other than whine, I can still throw the grandest of adult-style temper tantrums.  When things aren’t too my liking, the spirit of whine can certainly manifest itself in my words and actions whether or not it’s nerve cutting edge is in my voice.  Complaints come forth from my lips, albeit “maturely” dressed up in the robes of “venting” or “stating the facts.”  I can still play the victim with the best of them, although I will often adopt the more grown-up version and become the martyr instead.  Horrors!  I AM Frodo!  And I hate that.  Especially when others applaud some valiancy on my part.  Sure, I enjoy accolades as much as the next guy, but what a fraud I am!  I mean, really!  People telling me, “Well done!  Good job!  Way to go!”  When they have absolutely no idea that, time and again along the way, I blew it.  I whined.  I simultaneously griped about the burden I bore while refusing help offered to bear it.  If they only knew.

But then I notice God himself is at the helm of the cheerleading!  One would think that would cause one to glow with pride.  But I want to yell, “No, God!  Don’t you see?!  I’m so NOT Samwise Gamgee!  I’m Frodo!”  And I feel guilty.  Unworthy.  Much less than heroic.  Perhaps epic, but only as it pertains to failure.

The thing about feelings, though, is that they’re so fickle and shouldn’t be trusted as indicators of truth.  The facts- even when my feelings don’t line up with them- are:

1.             I only fail when I stop.  I stumble and fumble and trip up.  I whine and gripe and mess up.  But when I continue to press on, continue to care, continue to cry out to God with every misstep (and also sing and dance with him when I nail it), I’m not failing.  I’m learning, and I’m changing, and I’m growing.

2.             I am Frodo.  And I am Sam.  Well, actually, I’m Lisa.  And that means that I’m a beautiful, messy, wonderful paradoxical being.  As a friend of Jesus, I exist in that “already but not yet” state.  I’ve already been redeemed, and God already sees me through a “Jesus lens”, as I tell my children.  I’m already made right with God because of Jesus’ demonstration of love.  But unlike God, I live within the boundaries of time.  So I’m living out the “not yet” part of my existence, walking out the “becoming”.  I don’t yet see the complete picture.

So, like Frodo, I won’t always handle my journey with the utmost grace and dignity.  I’ll falter here, trip there, snap at people on occasion and complain about how arduous things are.  But God sees through all that.  He knows that the desire of my heart is to be like Sam, loving and loyal and kind.  Not only does he know that’s my desire, he knows it’s my true, God-created nature that came into existence when I chose life with Jesus.  I’m someone totally brand new!  And my life is an adventure of discovering who that is.  I say, let’s bring it! 

Rejected Treasure

 

To say that I was experiencing emotional agitation would be a gross understatement.  I was crushed.  The logical, grown-up part of me that “knows better” could not override the pain coming from somewhere deep within that was causing my heart to bleed.  This was not an unfamiliar feeling; indeed, I wouldn’t have to try hard to bring to mind instances wherein I’d felt this familiar hurt, and were I to trace its origins, I would discover that the onset had occurred sometime in my very early years.  I was experiencing what has been called the “sting of rejection.”  That term in itself is laughable.  It should be called the “knife in the heart, punch in the gut, ripping off of fingernails pain of rejection.”  The “knowing better” part could see that the people from whom I had perceived rejection hadn’t done anything wrong.  They hadn’t been blatantly mean.  It was more rejection by non-affirmation.

The truth is, this isn’t a feeling uncommon to most.  Every person alive has, at one time or another, in one measure or another, experienced this pain.  It’s innate in us to desire an understanding of our unique place in this world; to know that we’re here for more than just taking up space; to know that we matter.  Ultimately, that desire is met in the arms of a Father who made us and is crazy in love with us.  Ephesians 1:11 tells us, “It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for.”  And in Christ, we discover that who we are is the apple of God’s eye; a pearl of great price; the woman in The Last of the Mohicans who is told by the man who loves her, “I will find you!” (Okay, that last one may just be for me.  I’m a romantic at heart, and that’s one of my most favorite lines in any movie!)  The point is, we were created to dance with Jesus!  To live loved.  Each of us is God’s favorite.

Don't be afraid, I've redeemed you. I've called your name. You're mine. When you're in over your head, I'll be there with you. When you're in rough waters, you will not go down. When you're between a rock and a hard place, it won't be a dead end— Because I am God, your personal God, The Holy of Israel, your Savior. I paid a huge price for you: all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in! That's how much you mean to me! That's how much I love you! I'd sell off the whole world to get you back, trade the creation just for you.     ~Isaiah 43:1

When we embrace this truth and live out an ever-increasing love relationship with God, we become that message.  We’re transformed.  We can stop looking for things by which we can measure up or present ourselves acceptable or worthwhile, which is what we do in our frantic attempts to avoid rejection, for to be rejected would solidify in our hearts the lie that is perpetuated that says we are, in fact, worthless; not good enough; not as good as; worthy only to be discarded.  Ironically, in our mad scrambling to keep rejection at bay, we do to others the very thing that causes us such heartache when done to us.

Why, then, would it surprise us that the enemy would utilize rejection as a tool of his trade?  He’s intent on our destruction.  It’s an incredible threat to him for us to become the message of love to a world that so desperately needs it.  There are people who have been fed the lie of inferiority for so long that they’ve embraced it as truth and can’t see even a trace of their true, God-created identities; the treasure inside of them.

I want to love like Jesus loved.  Like he still loves.  He was willing to touch those whom society deemed worthless; unclean; those to be avoided.  He saw beyond their exterior to the heart of who he truly knew them to be.  He sees you.  He knows who you truly are- not who you pretend to be, or who you've been told you are.  And he loves what he sees.  He loves who you are.  You're not worthless or one to be avoided, but you're one to be heralded as God's favorite! 

The Dance of the Gracefully Impaired

How I’ve toiled and troubled over this blog entry.  It’s ridiculous, really.  A blog by definition is comprised of the writer’s own experiences or observations or opinions.  I’ve experienced many things, and I’ve observed many more, and opinions are NOT a thing of which I’m in short supply!  Yet my ongoing tussle with perfectionism has served to render me paralyzed.  Or more accurately stated, my tendency to embrace perfectionism is more rightly to blame for my mental paralysis.

I know perfectly well what I wish to convey to anyone who reads my musings.

You matter, and your life has purpose, and your brokenness matters, and it is not a disease, nor is it definition. 

There is not one of us who isn’t broken in one way or another.  But our brokenness has found redemption.  Love made a way, and as only Love can, he holds on to every single shard, sliver, and fragment, and he gloriously calls those pieces into wholeness.  What an amazing, incredible, mystifying dichotomy- being beautifully broken and wholly complete, already but not yet.

This message of hope is what my heart longs to convey.  You are loved.  And while that phrase, unfortunately, has become somewhat trite and cliché and holds no meaning to many who have been offered a brand of “love” that is as far from the real thing as night is from day, there is a true Love who knows all and sees all and looks upon you and says, “You are amazing!  Your beauty captivates me, and my heart longs for you.”

But I want to say all of this the “right” way.  What if the words I choose are somewhat lackluster?  Will I have failed?  I must ask myself, “Fail at what?”  Because if this is about my ability to string words together and construct sentences, then this becomes so much less about the hearts of the broken and my desire to share Love with those to whom have been affixed the labels “Unlovable”; “Undesirable”; “Unwanted”; “Broken”; “Discarded”… and it becomes all about me.  Certainly I’m apt to fail.  Inevitably, I’ll overlook the use of an exceptionally fitting word and use one that doesn’t quite make the statement I’m hoping to make, or I’ll commit some heinous grammatical faux pas.  But my writing savvy or lack thereof is NOT what I desire this be about.  This is about saying yes to a dance.  You see, I’ve been she who has worn the aforementioned labels (and then some), who has longed to be loved and wanted simply because of who I was while fearing to hope that who I was would be enough.  I’ve been broken; I am broken.  But I’m also one who has been swept off her feet and up into the arms of Love himself and invited to dance with him forever.  Part of that dance is discovering who I am as he puts pieces of my life back in place, and in that discovery process, passions are unearthed.  One of mine is seeing broken lives restored and life breathed into parched hearts as people encounter God as he truly is- not one out to condemn them or chastise them or point out every flaw and foible, but one who sees beyond the missteps and fumbles and setbacks and shortcomings to a heart he longs for and labels nothing less than “Beloved.” 

So he smiles at me, holds out his hand, and asks, “Will you dance with me?”  And oh, how my heart leaps!  And I step up to take his hand, and then… I look at my feet.  Huh.  Not too graceful.  My form is all wrong!  I look like I’m doing the Robot when God is clearly dancing a waltz!  Good grief!

But I realize:  God never asked me if I could dance.  He asked me if I would dance.  Maybe he’s perfectly capable of perfectly leading a less than capable dancer such as myself because he could care less about my form.  Perhaps he’s delighted simply with my willingness to take his hand and clumsily move.  Maybe he’ll work on the form as we go along; or maybe he’s especially fond of the “gracefully impaired.”  Whatever the case, he loves me.  He loves you.  And he’s lovingly taking care of all the pieces.