Sewn within every great struggle, and branded into every thread of brokenness are immense possibilities. Ministry, connection, growth and healing grant our greatest grievances capabilities to be molded into our most priceless gifts.
Tag: courage
My Daily Prayer
My Daily Prayer:
Jesus when loved ones are struggling, relationships are shaky; people are ailing, help me resist the desire to fix what is. May I remember that scrambling for solutions can become a form of control and unbelief. Keep me cognizant that it takes more courage and faith to release my most precious treasures to You, free of my clinging hands. Allow me to care without control, hold without hovering and support without suffocating all people and situations I encounter today, and each day forward. Jesus grant me the grace that enables me to rest not carefree, but confidently in your sovereignty amidst the backdrop of a broken world. Amen.
Shedding Souls
Our bodies seem to have been created for sloughing? Sloughing is defined as the act of casting off dead tissue or cells. According to The American Academy of Dermatology, the average person looses anywhere from 50 to 100 strands of hair a day. We loose an estimated one million skin cells per hour. This is not only natural, but necessary for optimal health. If this is the way our bodies were made to function on the outside, why should our insides be any different?
When I fail to remember the value, and importance of shedding the built up atrophy of my soul, I head down a frail path. Life, responsibilities and circumstances build up and form layers of dead weight that are important to yield in order to give our minds and bodies rest.
Why do we carry burdens and worries so long? I often bottle worries deep inside me and bear them longer than needed. Then when I cannot shoulder the weight anymore, I have to make a critical choice; I either shed them or become subordinate to them.
Have you ever noticed how good you feel after you release a burden to a trusted friend? It can sometimes feel like an extreme weight loss. We just feel lighter. A load has been lifted, and we can breathe with less effort.
Not too long ago, my son was wearing the weight of a heavy burden that had been enslaving him too long. He finally reached a point where he could not keep it at bay anymore. He needed to “shed” the weight of his heart to someone. He said it all from behind the voice of one trying to hold it all in, but tainted with the sound of tears. I knew that sound. He could not hide it. Not from me. Not from me who knows him so well. So he released it all bravely, and then he was rescued by a deep, desperate sleep.
Isn’t that an organic picture of life? We try to hold it all in, and conceal that which opposes us. We try hard, and then a little harder to not be found. Then there comes a point when we are pinned under the pressure of the fire we are walking through, and we release it in a spewing of toxic ash that has been brewing under the surface.
It is in those times, when we let ourselves be fully known that we can be fully loved. It is those moments of true identity and authenticity that afford us the pacifying balm that our true self-longs for every day. It’s in the most desperate moments that we are most receptive to receiving the mending, and comfort of Jesus, who already knows us just as we are anyway. Masking of inadequacies only delays God’s refurbishment.
We live in a world that is in the business of replacing all that is broken, but Jesus is in the business of restoration. We shoulder burdens and limitations that we were never meant to bear. Why do we delay our recovery so long? There comes moments in this life when it takes more courage to fall apart in the presence of someone who loves us than it does to keep it all together.
At the heart of us all we just really want to be seen, heard and understood. This is a beckoning to trust in our Savior who in His timing restores, and makes all things strong and steadfast. Part of the renewal process is releasing all the rot that begins to infest our souls.
Restoration rarely happens how we envision it, and never as timely as we would like, but all good things have to happen on a timetable that is outside of ourselves. Overseen and orchestrated by The One who knitted us together, every little detail, with his soft, sovereign hands.
I am thankful for those moments when courage wins. I am thankful for glimpses of people’s true identity. I pray as we all mature in our secure standing of Christ’s righteousness that we will become more comfortable shedding the layers of entanglement and trade them in for the acceptance and love that transparency affords.
It is in our purest identity that we are open to the most beautiful of possibility. May we all embrace, learn from and release all things that embattle us. We were given them for a reason, a resource and as a bridge for restoration.
Patchwork People
This is a patchwork quit that was made for me by a very special lady who now quilts, sews, bedazzles everything, and likely plays cards in Heaven. She made one for everyone she loved. I love this quilt, and many days I find refuge under it from cold, exhaustion or just the weight of what the day has supplied. It is warm and insulating, and when blanketed in it, I feel safe, secure, and like I am reminiscing with happy places, and some sad places of years gone by.
I was laying under this quilt with Macey last night, as she was telling me a story. A story that was a piece of her, and letting it go set a little part of her heart free. As she talked I began noticing each distinct square of the quilt. They are all individual. Not one is the exact same. Some may resemble, but each one has it’s own unique character. Each square, if it could talk, I imagine would tell a story.
People are a lot like patchwork quilts. Everyone has a story. Some very tragic, some triumphant, many perpetually present. No two people’s stories are exactly identical, and no two people come through a story with the same experience to tell. We all reflect an individual character that like a patchwork quilt was carefully handpicked, each and every part, and delicately sewn together to make up who we are. Those parts of us, along with the roads we travel in life make up our stories, our own unique quilts. Our stories, like patchwork quilts, are meant to be shared, and given away for the benefit of others. It is in their revealing that we not only give, but gain comfort, protection, freedom, connection, healing and friendship. 2 Corinthians 1:4 ~He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.
It is the painful stories, the ones that scar our souls, that are often kept hidden under all the make shift patchwork quilts we can acquire. The detriment of this is that it is those very stories, the ones we want to hide, that possess just as much potential, if not more, than the ones we are eager to tell. The real tragedy is not bound to the story itself, but the concealing of it, which leaves us hostage to its control.
Our lives are a series of stories, that if we cut apart and sewed together, would make a beautiful patchwork quilt. Some squares would be prettier than others, but they would all be necessary to complete the quilt. One thing is for sure, each square of our quilt embodies a valuable story full of precious life lessons. Those stories, like patchwork quilts, were not meant to be hidden away in dark places where they become collectors of dust, rendered useless by the dark room they inhabit. They were intended for connecting in order to create something beautiful.
In setting our stories free, we set ourselves free. Even our darkest experiences manifest beams of light waiting to be turned into, and told as a testimony. All darkness is impenetrable by light. It is only the presence of light that makes it possible to visualize the beauty that the darkness conceals.
Courage is sometimes having the strength to let your light shine through darkness, and tell your truth so to create community with others and healing communion with your soul. It is there in that community and communion that we can begin to let our lights shine, and sew our patchwork quilts free in order that they may tell the tale of our beautifully, broken journey. A journey that holds so much pain and poise, graces and grievances, wins and losses.
Like a lighthouse on a lonely, battered island, hidden by the fog and rain of a heavy storm, our stories are persistently lit, and beckoning us toward the light. No one lights a lamp, and then hides it or puts it under a basket. Instead a lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house.~Luke 11:33 You don’t have to share it with the world, but share it with your people-your safe community. It will be told one way or another, by healthy or unhealthy means, so set yourself free.
There is Beauty in the Crisis
It was exactly 5 weeks ago yesterday that Carter’s accident occurred, and our family began a new journey carved out of crisis. The definition of crisis is: A crucial or decisive point or situation, especially a difficult or unstable situation involving an impending change. It is the very identity of the word that sheds light on our fate of victim or victor. A crisis diverges into two roads, and the direction we walk either creates or conquers us.
There is so much potential, opportunity and beauty that can be born out of crisis. It is something most dread. None of us would choose it, but unfortunately it sometimes chooses us. It’s where we react from when our name is called that writes our story of one who soared or succumbed. It is not the strength of our faith, or the amount of knowledge we possess, but Who possesses us that determines our destiny as we travel through a crisis.
Today Carter was in the neuropsychologists office for 6.5 hours of cognitive testing. I picked him up at 11:30 for an hour lunch break. He ate about five bites of food, and immediately fell asleep in the car. He was huddled in the seat with the sun piercing the windows shining warmly on his face. It had been 2.5 hours into his day and he was exhausted. The taxing of his mind in that short time was a lofty challenge.
Before falling asleep he told me: my eyes hurt, I feel pressure in my head and my vision is blurry. He said it all from behind the voice of one trying to hold it all in, but tainted with the sound of tears. I knew that sound. He could not hide it. Not from me. Not from me who knows him so well. So he released it all bravely, and then he was rescued by a deep, desperate sleep.
Isn’t that an organic picture of life? We try to hold it all in, and conceal that which opposes us. We try hard, and then a little harder to not be found. Then there comes a point when we are pinned under the pressure of the fire we are walking through, and we release it in a spewing of toxic ash that has been brewing under the surface. It is in those times, when we let ourselves be fully known that we can be fully loved. It is those moments of true identity and authenticity that afford us the pacifying balm that our true self longs for everyday. It’s in the most desperate moments that we are most receptive to receiving the mending, and comfort of Jesus, who already knows us just as we are anyway.
Masking of inadequacies only delays His refurbishment. We live in a world that is in the business of replacing all that is broken, but Jesus is in the business of restoration. It was right there in my car today that Carter was allowed to fall apart and risk being fully recognized. It was also there in that hot, cramped parking lot of his favorite burger place that I was reminded that this is how it goes. We carry things far too long. We shoulder burdens and limitations that we were never meant to bear. Why do we delay our recovery so long?
There comes moments in this life when it takes more courage to fall apart in the presence of someone who loves us than it does to keep it all together. At the heart of us all we just really want to be seen, heard and understood.
Today, again was a call to trust in our Savior who in His timing restores, and makes all things strong and steadfast. In his kindness God called you to share in his eternal glory by means of Christ Jesus. So after you have suffered a little while, he will restore, support, and strengthen you, and he will place you on a firm foundation.~1 Peter 5:10
Restoration rarely happens how we envision it, and never as timely as we would like, but all good things have to happen on a timetable that is outside of ourselves. Overseen and orchestrated by The One who knitted us together, every little detail, with his soft and sovereign hands.
I am thankful for those moments when courage wins. I am thankful for glimpses of Carter’s true struggle today. I pray as he matures that he will become more and more comfortable shedding the layers of protection and trading them in for the acceptance and love that transparency affords. It is in our purest identity that we are open to the most beautiful of possibility. May we all embrace those things that embattle us. We were given them for a reason, a resource and as a bridge for restoration. Much love and thankfulness for all of your prayers and support in so many ways.