awake again. (re-post)

My wonderful friend Leeana wrote an amazing book called Found Art, which I highly recommend. In it, she tells the story of her first year of marriage, which so happened to take place in a foreign country, while her husband was serving in the military. After many years back in the United States, Steve is again stationed in Bahrain, and Leeana is with him again, and this time they have children. In a recent blog post, Leeana quotes her own book, and recounts how she had been walking around, with the lights out in her own soul, and yet in the souq, she felt that she was coming alive. In a souq of all places. It was an unusual place, in a foreign land, that God used to heal her. She had this to say about it: “God has a way of taking the most unsuspecting elements and using them to bind us up. When the miracle happens, when he touches our eyes with these elements and we are able to see, we realize that even dirt and spit contain a beauty all their own. . . .” I think that I allowed a part of me to grow dim some time ago. I realized it last week, about the time that I read Leeana’s blog post, that deep inside, God is healing part of me. I have a tendency to compartmentalize my life, and there are some compartments that have been almost rusted shut. I couldn’t feel anything in those parts of my life, I couldn’t see anything. They were just there, in the background, but not really there at all. Broken, and yet I didn’t spend the emotional energy to ask God to heal them, to allow Him to do work on them, I just journeyed on. I concentrated on what was easier, what wasn’t so broken, and ignored the part of me that felt incapable of emotion. Until recently. Until God just showed me that He has every desire to make me completely whole. That He won’t allow me to live only half alive. He is healing the very part of me where my lights had gone out, in ways that I couldn’t see. He is using unusual things, things foreign to me. I can’t describe it really, I just know that I was driving home one night and realized what it was like to feel something that I didn’t know I ever would again. And I know that ability to feel came from God, from His healing mixture that He placed on the broken parts of my soul. The thing that I can describe is the beauty of it. How as I come to feel alive in every way, how much I love the freedom that comes with it, and how much I long to praise God for it. I can’t believe that He cares so much more then I thought He did, and I can’t believe how wonderful His gifts are. I read somewhere, I can’t remember where, that one day, we will reach a place where the difficulty of our journey will be eclipsed by the joy of what we receive from God, that the difficulties of our journey will be nothing in light of eternity. And in the meantime, I think we should take the time to allow God to heal the parts of us that are dim, or dying. I know He longs to. I know He longs to do it today, long before we reach heaven. I believe that He wants us to start experiencing wholeness here on earth. It won’t be perfect, but it’s a glimpse of heaven. It’s part of living life to the full (John 10:10). Seriously, everyone should go get Leeana’s book. It’s so good.

thinking. (re-post)

This last few months has been interesting for me. I have had highs and lows. I’ve cried so many tears of pain that I can’t imagine that I could even have tears left, and laughed hard enough to cry any tears that I did in fact have still in me. I have been hit with things that I would have never seen coming, both for the good and the bad. I’ve said tough goodbyes, that have left empty spaces in my heart, and questioned why we must disconnect from those we love. I’ve felt numb so often, putting up walls to try to keep emotions at bay because I didn’t even know how to interact with all that was going on, but ended up allowing myself to enter the deep pain that was indeed residing in my heart for the sole purpose of pushing through it. The levels of frustration, stress, and anxiety in my life reached record highs, and record lows. I’ve hoped, and felt let down for doing so. And yet, I’ve chosen to hope again. I have bemoaned the grey northwest days, claiming that the skies matched the feelings in my hurting soul, and a few short days later realized that I might actually be ok with living in Snohomish for a long time to come. In case you weren’t aware, that is quite the claim for a sunshine-loving big city girl. I’ve taken risks that I normally wouldn’t, done things I would have never thought, and experienced more joy and peace in those times than I would have thought.
I guess this season, with all its highs and lows, is somehow, someway, good for me. Because somewhere along the way, I’ve learned more about God, and myself. I hate saying that, because it feels so very cliche, like what every Christian should say in the midst of craziness, but I’ve found that it’s just so true. I have actually reached a point where I don’t regret all bad that’s happened, although I’m still in the middle of the messy process of grieving some really tough losses, and I am well aware that more losses are ahead. Despite knowing that pain is still surrounding me and in front of me, I can say that I am beginning to truly believe that God loves me, and that that love will, in the words of Rob Bell, win in the end. I guess I am learning to look at things a bit differently. God is moving, albeit in His timing, and His timing doesn’t match mine.
I am also realizing that our moments of greatest pain can lead us to a time of fantastically joyful memories. What we do to survive, the ways we reach out for help, the prayers we pray in desperation from a feeling of emptiness, allows something new and different to enter in. When we are empty of all we think we know, of all the things we think are perfect and right for us, when we remove all that we hold tight to and ask God to help us out of the despair, we get to experience something that we would have never imagined, and usually that something is truly beautiful. I know that it’s beautiful because that’s the pattern, that’s the story of God. That’s what redemption from sin is, God creating something beautiful out of the despair. I don’t know what will happen next in my life, but I do know that even if it really sucks, God will create something beautiful with it. That doesn’t mean I would be super excited to walk a hard road, but it does mean that I am willing to walk it.