On Posting, Shards, and an Artist

What do I really have to share with you guys?

Just fragments of a stumbling story, sanctification slowly breaking through the cracks of me.

Sometimes I wonder if my words really make a difference. I mean, I know God is working everything out for a glorious purpose. But what if He wants me to close this chapter and get on with life? Because I really don't write much on this blog.

I have this notion that it takes too much time.

That I need some lightbulb-revelation flecked with gorgeous word pictures if I'm going to ask you to read my posts.

But now that I think on that a bit, I don't think that's the truth. God was pleased with the poor widow's offering of two small coins and not with the rich people's heaps of money. Because she gave all that she had.

Yeah. I don't have much - sometimes my spring of words is all dried up. But God hasn't closed this blog's door yet so He must still be crafting a masterpiece. And these words are still paint on His brush.

So I'll keep writing. But instead of hoarding my coins until I've got a decent offering to bring, I'm going to start giving all that I have. Like the poor widow.

Just the little lessons. Short, honest, messy things. I'll be offering up the bits of this sanctification story as they emerge, smudged and worn like my journal that time I cried as I wrote.

So I'm going to stop trying to bring great offerings for God, trying to help Him out by teaching you some important lessons. I'll leave that to the rich people. This is now God's studio and you'll be seeing the chipped and broken things - all I really have to give.

Because God? He's fantastic at making stained glass. You know - that gorgeous art made of fractured misfit shards. 

Yes. A stained glass studio. My life is the broken being made beautiful. And God? He's awesome so He's both the artist and the very light that will make me shine.

It's not a Balance Thing

I'm not an easy-going person. If I had to describe myself as either "laid back" or "up tight" it would definitely be the latter. Which means I'm very punctual, precise, self-motivated, and driven. My energy is either directed 100% towards a cause... or not at all.

So I've always struggled with this balance thing. 

See, I've read a lot of words and heard a lot of talks

that I've walked away from thinking that a "good Christian life" is a balance. 

The area that's on my heart right now is that of health, eating, and exercise. I believe many people are caught in idolatry - myself included - in this area. We either obsess over health and being fit - or throw our health out the window and obsess over eating. And remember how I said I'm an all-out driven person? So I find myself parked in either of these idol camps way, way, too often. Seeing as these two temples are located at opposite ends of the spectrum, it would seem that a healthy God-honoring place is in the middle. In the balance. 

But guess what. God talked to me. I was begging Him to be a good father to me because I'm such a lost little girl sometimes. I'll have to beg more often in the future, because He left me silly-stunned, blessed by Him.Thankfully I had my journal handy. This, my friends, is what I wrote. Raw from my journal, a shard of my heart.

I've been trying to find a balance between obsessing over food and obsessing over health/skinniness, but God just told me something. What if it's not a balance at all, but an all-out feast on God? What if the key is not controlling my actions/desires, but letting myself be controlled by Him? 

BAM! Mind blown. 

Because of course God isn't in the middle of this spectrum of idol camps. He's God, for goodness sake! And God's not in the same dimension as idols. He's got nothing in common with them. 

I refuse to believe that God is in the middle of a row of idols. 

If that thought weren't horrifying enough, I've found that I wasn't created to stand steady in the balance-middle-tightrope place. God made me with a drive to run somewhere far, and the legs to get me there. Remember my 100% or nothing tendency?

So. 

It's really that simple. Huh. 

Not money....God.

Not food.....God.

Not appearances.....God.

Not health......God.

Not friends....God.

But all those other things? God's word says they will be given to us after we seek God (His "kingdom and his righteousness") in Matthew 6:25-34. So we get to feast on God and get our physical human needs fulfilled. 

This anti-balance principle is written all over the Bible, now that my mind has been sufficiently blown. Take Colossians 2:21- 3:4, where Paul admonishes the Colossians for sticking to the dimension of this world, following it's rules, self-imposed worship, and harsh treatment of the body. He goes on to tell the Colossians to set their hearts - their want-to and motivation - on a different dimension. The dimension above this world, where Christ is. 

Guys, I'm sick and tired of this balance thing. I'm on a mission, 100%. An all-out feast. 

Towards God. 

Want to join me? It's gonna be a wild ride!

Because I Forget

I've been learning to remind myself lately. To remind myself of God's goodness, of my reliance on Him, and to remind myself that this life is just a passing breath - my one chance to let Christ change eternity through me.

I've realized that I don't have time to forget. 

I don't have time to learn and relearn - then relearn again - every lesson God teaches. 

So. 

I need to remember them. I need to remember the truths that help my heart to beat in tune with the Spirit.

I'm stumbling through this, guys. So far I've tripped and fell upon two ways to remember. 

I write myself notes on my hand some mornings, notes from scripture - life words inked dark on my hand. It reminds me twofold: because sometimes I need to forget what others think. I need to forget fitting in and remember that Christ didn't go with the flow. To me, that scripture-scrawl is worth a curious glance or two. Those words from the Jesus book can change my day because living words on my hand spread to my mind and heart. 

The second thing I do to remind myself is to make signs to put up on my bedroom walls. These signs are quotes, Bible verses, and thought provoking messages. This way I am literally surrounded with encouraging and challenging messages. Here are a few of my favorites:

Reminding me who He is and who that makes me:

Reminding me to surrender everything I am to Christ:

On my mirror to remind me that true beauty isn't what's on the outside:

How do you remind yourself of God's truth?

This Living Land

Picture an epic battle: good fighting evil. The noble king of light owns the turf, but the lord of the night has a heart blacker than death itself. He covets the beautiful and fruitful plot of land. The attack has been long, for the lord of the night is cunning and persistent, constantly bringing new strategies and weapons into play. His spies circle overhead, searching out weak spots in the defensive line. The battle, however, is not going as he hoped. Just like every other gorgeous pot of land owned by the king of light, this land is living. 

The lord of the night's eyes narrow and he grinds his teeth, staring at his minion Vaain tumble into a gaping crevice in the earth that had cracked open with a brilliant flash of light. Yet another, taken captive. He spins on his heel, cloak brushing a standard-bearer with flames a color deeper than black. The creature yelps and glowers, slinking away from his lord. 

"Send Leyzi to that weak spot on the north end," the lord of the night barks.

"You can count on me to keep things from getting done, my liege," purrs a creature nearby. He hoists two sets of shackles over his shoulder and slips metal pebbles labeled "x-cusiz" into his pockets. 

"Just don't get taken, you hear?" 

Leyzi bows and slinks away. 

Meanwhile on the side of light, the living land is busy pushing waves of the living water from its source - the words pouring from the king of light's mouth - to every drying acre of ground. The water heals, satisfies, and energizes everything it washes against, creating a mosaic of vibrant green flowing from the source - the king. Every time the ground pulses or shifts, guiding the living water to thirsty corners, it knocks dark agents of the lord of the night off their feet. The very force giving life to the land sends waves of confusion through the ranks of snarling black minions. 

If you were watching this battle from afar, your eyes would be drawn to two things. One is a glowing cloud hovering over the whole battle. This cloud is the very spirit of the king of light, and it sends messages enclosed in glistening raindrops to the ground, pointing out areas the enemy has broken through and encouraging the land to take as many captives as possible. This leads to the second noticeable thing - flashes of light that dance over the battlefield. Every time the cloud pricks the land with a prompting to fight or to take a minion captive, the land responds, splitting open to capture the enemy. And inside, underneath the land, there is light.

The land is very busy, you see. Very busy fighting and growing and listening and being... And have you figured it out yet my friends? That living land is very real, that king and dark lord and battle are closer than the air we breathe. The living land is my mind. (And yours if you are a child of God) The battle is raging inside of me, and I've heard the very words of the king of light: For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every prevention that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor. 10:5)

It's the reality, folks. This living land. 

White Flag

I started a post on surrender, trying to force the words. How silly of me. And when they didn't come I laid my head down, dejected. Useless. Then in the quiet I heard a voice.

True surrender is not doing what you think I want you to do.

An authentic white flag is the exposing of yourself. Surrender is the abandonment of all self-preservation in the presence of one more powerful than you. Surrender is, in essence, turning over your own life and will to someone else's hands. 

Because when I surge ahead, living my life like I think God wants me to, I'm still living my own life.

When I obey His leading only when it is comfy or cool, I'm just fitting obedience into my life whenever I want to. 

No. Surrender doesn't look like that. Surrender looks like turning in my old life in exchange for the new. Surrender means dying to what I was so that Christ's resurrection power can come to life in me. 

Surrender is most definitely a kind of death. But what kind of a God would call His followers to present each moment as a waving white flag? A good God, that's who. Because my God - the God who calls me to daily surrender - has a better life to give me. I've learned that when I give up my life to Christ, He gives me His life in return. 

When I surrender, it is no longer I who lives, but Christ in me. 

And that's what a white flag is. 

A humbling, 

uncovering, 

dying of myself 

so that one more powerful than I can live.

Some broken red stumbles

    Why did I ever think I had it all figured out? Like I had some answers that would pour out like miracle salve on anyone who read my words? 

    I'm finding that it's not gonna happen. This blog might help someone, but it will more than likely be me - a place to bleed a bit on some pages and wipe away the splatters so it looks like perfect red lettering, marching politely across the screen - so I can smile incredulous at the beauty that doesn't look like me.

    I'm scared, I think. Scared that if I left my raw wounded letters stuttering through sentences... that it would turn you away. Because since when did raw bleeding stumbles heal the hearts of the wounded? 

    But wait a second. They did. 

    How could I forget that my heart was healed, my life made new, by Jesus' blood dripping red? What kind of irony is this? That the raw hurting of one would pour healing on another? 

    If someone figures this all out, just let me know. 

    In the meantime, I'm back to my own bleeding. I've got struggles, you know - lots of them. I have daily inward battles concerning my eating, for example. I'm not anorexic or overweight, but the inside of me is wearing away from the corrosive idol of food set up in my heart. 

    I just love it too much, plain and simple. I realize that I was crafted to be a worshiper - God made me to have a burning desire for Him and His kingdom - but somehow I keep pushing Him aside and putting pizza or ice cream in His place.

    So right now I'm begging God. Begging Him to knock over the idols in my life and set up camp Himself. 

    Because I know I'm a worshiper. 

    A passionate, emotional being that runs on a fuel of driving desire. 

    And if I'm not wildly desiring God? 

    I can't run on empty. So if He is not my driving force, something else will be. And this old insatiable desire for food - it doesn't fill me up, leaves me stranded, guilty, hungry, again and again. 

    So I'm begging, begging God. These idols are awfully heavy, and could you please knock them down? Cause I can't....

    And fill me up, Jesus, with your agenda. Give me a desire and a tangible goal - something to strive towards - to drive me to joy. Give me orphans to love, things to make, cards to write... anything, Lord. To keep me worshiping, worshiping You and not food.

    Because I know I'm a worshiper. A worshiper begging God. 

    And the words run red, struggling raw, and I realize it's not the broken itself that heals others. The spilling hurt is only the vessel through which God's resurrecting power flows. 

    Just like at the cross. 

    So I don't have it figured out, and if you want pretty words all in line, don't come here. I'm fixing to keep pouring raw and open, because I believe in a story about a God who used the red flowing pain of a man to heal the broken-hearted. (Luke 4:18, Isaiah 53:5) 

Here.

He is here. 

Blank screen, pulsing line. Cursor.

He is here.

Not scolding in the past, or waiting in the future, but here.

Now. 

And more loving than the world and bigger than life and more real than the ground under my feet.

Unimaginable. 

Do you comprehend that word? Unable to be imagined. 

Let that sink in a second.

Because the ground under my feet is only holding me up with the attraction of minuscule molecules, one to another, keeping wood particles whole.

He holds those molecules together.

And He is here. 

Can you imagine someone more real than reality, a fifth dimension, ten thousand new colors and bigger than the biggest universe? 

And He holds those molecules together, under my feet.

And He is here.

"I am," He said. 

He is. 

He is not "I was," nor "the great I will be" 

"I am who I am."

Because the only thing that's real right now is something that is here. In this moment. 

He is. Here. Now. Holding together the molecules under your feet and loving you more than you could ever comprehend. 

Let that sink in a second.

And if the Great I Am is here, holding together wooden floors and loving and being Himself - ginormous and brilliant and stronger than strong and infinitely, wondrously, good - then who are we to fret and question and worry and complain? 

He is here. 

And that is enough. 

**************

If you want more info on the subject and/or the story behind God calling Himself "I Am", you can look it up in Exodus  3:1-14. :)

Overflowing

How can I write words unless I'm filled to the tippy-top and overflowing with the Word Himself?

How do I write when the well is dry, cracked, and unable to keep drops from seeping away?

How? I wondered.

Fill me up, Jesus, whispered my heart. Give me a new well, one without cracks, one with a source everflowing.

Renew my mind, Lord, 'cause I'm dry and thirsty and how is one supposed to bubble life when life's sunk deep below the fill line top?

Oh, and Jesus?

You've got to do the work. I tried it before, tried filling up with your water, but when I struggle to wrap arms and life's broken shards around life liquid flowing, my heart forgets it has a spring. 

Yesterday my heart whispered, a faint, parched cry.

But Jesus, He's got good ears, you know?

So moment by moment He renewed my mind. They came like drops of crystal clear sweet water itself, small gifts of thoughts pointing straight to Him.

Time after time, all day long, He reminded me of Himself.

The Living Water.

And I sipped sweet life, all day long, as He splashed into my mind, renewed, and my heart, made new.

The well I had been was one clenching and grabbing, struggling to grasp water. 

But boa constrictors squeeze and clench to crush their prey. 

And my well fractured and cracked and leaked all the more as I frantically hugged the life leaking away.

So when I whispered, unclenched, loosened my grip, I made room for Him in my heart. 

You know the Christmas carol singing "let every heart prepare Him room?"

It sings of truth.

Because the human heart is made to clench, to squeeze, to beat pumping something. And if we don't release and open up to the Maker, our hearts squeeze and crack, broken wells, unable to hold water.

But Jesus is working in this heart of mine, renewing me, reminding me.

Because I don't have to hold tight to the water.

My well is filling, always flowing, from the spring of Life-water Himself.

And my pumping, squeezing, pulsing, heart?

It is the means by which Life-water splashes and bubbles, flowing over and over,

pulsing life.

Strong in Grace

Paul's words caught me, tugged at my heart this afternoon as pages fell open to 2 Timothy 2:1. 

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. 

How many times have I judged someone's strength by their outward appearances, or the witty replies of their minds? 

How many times have strong ones crumbled, fragile as dust, behind doors slammed shut or feet pounding away? How many times have the strong ones felt weak standing against comparison's dark army? How many times have I thought myself strong for scaling a hill only to find a sheer rocky cliff awaiting me?

So the strong ones are weak, and I wonder how I can be strong. But the strong I need, deep down inside, is not the strong of this world, but a Jesus-type strong. 

And the Jesus-type strong is grace. 

Years ago my ballet teacher told of feathery light movements, steps so soft and effortless looking - grace embodied. Peel back the feathers, she said, and underneath there is always strength hard as iron. Because grace is strong, and strength is shown by grace. 

The strongest kind of strong is always and only embodied like Jesus, grace Himself. 

Strong touched the lepers. Strong spoke with and loved sinners of the worst kind. Strong endured physical pain and torture without calling down vengeance from heaven. Strong hung dying a criminal's death and said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing." 

Strong was grace. 

But the strongest kind of strong - this strong in grace? To the world it looks like weakness. Why are ballet dancers often portrayed as frilly, wimpy girls twirling and standing on their tippy-toes? Why are grace, vulnerability, and forgiveness thought of as qualities of a weakling? 

The answer is simple, spoken by Jesus himself: "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you." 

So to become truly strong - in grace - I must choose to disregard the voice of the world, of those who are strong without grace. And I'm making that choice again today, to shine strong on the inside by grace on the outside, touching the lepers in my life, loving the sinners, hanging forgiving when others do me wrong. Today I'm choosing to be strong in grace. 

How about you?