Brokenness in Community

I wrote this first part several years ago while I was still in college. I found that it still rings true today. None of the original words were changed.

Brokenness in Community

I have seen and known the beauty of brokenness. But what is this brokenness that I’m talking about? When many people hear about being broken before the Lord they think of people wearing ashes, tearing their clothes, and being all together miserable. But what they fail to realize is the true meaning behind brokenness. Brokenness is being brought to true humility before the Lord and before the Body of Christ. And humility is not thinking less of yourself but thinking of yourself less. Brokenness and humility go hand-in-hand with each other and they both lead to a beauty that is so indescribable that it can only be God.

Again I ask you, what is brokenness? Brokenness is coming before the Lord with what little you truly have and offering it all to Him. Brokenness is bowing down before God and acknowledging Him as Almighty God, King of all Kings, and the Lord of all Lords. Brokenness is coming before God with all your sins and depravity, placing it all at His feet and knowing through faith that He has already destroyed your sins and forgiven you, and has replaced all those faults with His unfailing, radical love. And brokenness is healing.

But what does brokenness have to do with community? I will tell you through my own personal application.

When I first came into Bethel I had my own certain view of the world, a certain view of people, a certain view of Christians, and I was firmly grounded in that view. But along with all my clothes and books that I brought with me in my suitcase to Bethel I also brought with me all my prejudices, judgments, viewpoints, and even my own sinful struggles. I saw myself as being a pretty good Christian – I mean I didn’t listen to single secular song, I didn’t watch the movies with murderous or sensual scenes in it, I didn’t swear, and I didn’t purposely try to act prideful. But Bethel being a pretty liberal university placed me into a whole new world where I was surrounded by Christians who did not all act like me in my conservative, strict ways and it kind of shook me up. Amidst this shaking God brought me into a safe haven with Pray First, where I was surrounded by people who eagerly wanted to learn more about prayer and to pray for other people. This was my community that I ran to whenever the pressure was so great I could collapse.

But what I found in this community was a group of people who saw me for who I really was along with all my faults and failures and still did not judge me. I found a community where you could go up to someone when you were struggling with sin, confess it to them, and have them look at you with this love that can only come from God, confess how much they love you, and then gently correct you through prayer and scripture. There was no condemnation, there was no judgment, and there was no rejection. This community accepted me just as I was and I have experienced freedom from so many wounds, so many prejudices, and they have taught me how to love with a God kind of love.

This is brokenness within community. It’s being able to go to each other, confess your sins, and confess that you need help, tell how wonderful or how poorly your day is going, and have the other(s) lavish God’s love on you in such a way that walls can’t help but come crumbling down. It’s speaking truth to each other, it’s speaking life to each other, and it’s expressing God’s fierce and radical love to each other.

What is sad, however, is that this type of community is pretty rare. How many people have tried to go to someone for help and ended up getting judged and walk away wounded. This is NOT the love that God wants us to lavish on each other. 1 Corinthians 13 says “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. Love never fails.” This is what love is, God’s love. I myself am convicted of not loving in this way. In fact, I have sinned by not loving in every possible way listed above. I have been impatient, unkind envious, boastful, proud. When my “enemies” are hurt I have rejoiced in them being hurt instead of rejoicing with the truth. I have not protected, I have not trusted, I have not hoped, and I have given up. But praise God we have a God who truly knows how to love and has forgiven me of every wrong I have committed.

How many of us claim to be Christians and yet do not love with the God kind of love? How can we say that Christ lives in us if we do not show God’s love to others? I had a girl approach me with tears the other day during Vespers because she was confused as to why the church could not love her just because she was a little different. And it broke my heart. Have we as a community, as the Body of Christ, strayed so far from love and truth that we have to turn around and hurt our brothers and sisters? This is not the love that God intended to be in the church. And I am truly sorry if you have been hurt by Christians because of their lack of love.

Now, I know it seems like I’ve taken a bunny trail but I actually turned a corner here in what I’m about to tell you. You see, God intended community to be a safe haven from the sins and turmoil of the world around you. And how can it be a safe haven if people are thrown out of the haven because of their faults and sins and differences. Matthew 7:1-2 says “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” To say it bluntly, don’t judge because you yourself are just as guilty of sin as that other person is. Sin is sin. But God’s love is radical and life changing.

If we as Christians ALL learned how to live within community with brokenness and humility before God and each other think of how incredibly powerful this would be! I mean if Jesus could love with God’s love (being only one person) and give an entire humanity freedom and salvation from sin and acceptance into this radical kind of love how much more can an entire population of people who love with God’s love do to this world. This may sound completely impossible, because after all we are human, but it all starts with your own brokenness and your own humility before God. And out of that brokenness the love that God lavishes on you will spill over and into the lives of everyone you are in contact with. Imagine, a whole world freed from every sin, every pain, and every wall of injustice and selfish ambitions; and imagine a world where brother could go to brother, sister to sister, and even brother to sister and everyone giving each other this kind of radical love and being broken before each other. This is the beauty of brokenness in community.

Being

It was several years ago I came into an awakening of sorts. An awakening of me, an awakening of others, and the experiences I had walked through for most of my life. I would look at myself in the mirror and hate what I saw peering back. My eyes were clouded by lenses I believed I should have been wearing, dictated by what was around me and what I believed was right and wrong. I used to spend so much energy trying to fit myself into who others believed I should be and my reputation was held with such high priority that I learned to constantly be concerned with what people thought of me. I built myself a pedestal and stood up on it believing that was where I was supposed to be and thought I was being the dutiful, obedient, well-mannered young woman that I always dreamed I would be. And yet I hated who I was. I couldn't even allow myself to enter into being human, the experience of enduring humanity with all of it's foibles and frailty and beauty.

I recently saw "Wonder Woman" and it it was this message of whether man is good but deceived by an evil being or are they truly inherently evil and just tempted by an evil being. And if they are inherently evil are they worthy of being saved? It's a question worth pondering. Just talk to any parent and they will tell you that humans are inherently sinful. Worthy of being saved? If we were to truly look at ourselves, see ourselves staring back in that mirror would we be able to say that we are worthy of being saved? Maybe some would question the reasoning behind needing to be saved. Maybe some would question why worth is even a question. But it is still a question we each have to ask. Are humans worthy of being saved? Am I worthy of being saved?

It has been a journey to say the least of finding beauty in the brokenness, finding worth in the filth, and believing ashes could be turned into diamonds. Learning to look in the mirror and find worth and beauty in the flaws and imperfections of all of my being staring back. Being honest about the truth of what is in my heart. Honest about what it means to have this body and it's humanness. Discerning about my tendencies versus what I truly desire in every way - body, mind, spirit, will, emotions, etc. Radically accepting my story as my story, that it is a part of me and makes up my present experience. But that I am more than my story. Which means the present sadness, anger, happiness, excitement, bitterness, etc., that I am currently experiencing isn't where I'm going to stay. Nothing brings me more joy than knowing that God can use any of it and all of it for something beautiful. I just have to surrender to Him.

There have been recent events that happened that revealed to me that even painful things can produce beautiful fruit. Like a friend's hurtful words, spurring me towards making some changes that God has been speaking to me about for some time. Or an anxious spell that revealed several beautiful gifts in my life that I didn't notice before. Or my PTSD pushing me to dig deep into God's heart so I can be set free to be me as a woman of God. You learn a lot about yourself and about God when suffering has a place at the dinner table.

I have a tendency to find my life in the extremes. But what I noticed was so do so many other people. And I think it's because we try to avoid the pain, the suffering and the brokenness. We don't know how to take it by it's hand and let it be a close friend. Instead we are afraid, chaotic, confused and full of shame. Pain, suffering, brokenness becomes too much on top of that. Just as the Israelites cried out for God to deliver them from Egypt, they had to endure more pain and suffering for them to be rid of their slave mentality. God desired for them to enter into the Promised Land, but first they had to learn to be who they really were. And that took stripping away their current identity for their true identity - a Light to the Nations.

"It is suffering that has the realist possibility to bear down and deliver grace. And grace that chooses to bear the cross of suffering overcomes that suffering." ~ Ann Voskamp One Thousand Gifts.

Joy and grace are found in the suffering, in accepting that to live is to endure pain. And just as Christ bore the pain of the cross for our freedom, so too must we enter into His death so we can enter into His resurrection. The brokenness in our lives become breaks in the veil to peer into the Holy One's heart, an invitation to draw near to Him and listen closely to His voice. It causes us to be transformed as it slowly strips away pieces of ourselves so that God can fill the voids in our lives with His love and grace. The pain and suffering may not go away, we may have to endure our entire lives with an ongoing place of suffering. "God is our refuge and strength, always ready to help in times of trouble. So we will not fear when earthquakes come and the mountains crumble into the sea." Psalms 46:1. Without God our suffering has no meaning. There is no purpose to the pain and troubles that come into our lives without the Cross, without God's redemption. To know that the pain and brokenness in our lives has a purpose and can be used by God offers us a profound hope in the midst of our darkness. Even Jesus had to suffer so we could be set free. We are not alone.

God can do something beautiful with it in the midst of our suffering. Only in accepting  and making room for our pain, suffering, brokenness, frailty and failure will we ever be free to truly live and be. Only in surrendering and accepting the pain, brokenness and ugliness of the Cross can our pain be redeemed and made into a mosaic of beauty.

Summer Breeze

Today I sit before the cross. It's something I used to do a lot up until just about two years ago, before everything got crazy, confusing and conflicted. So in a rare moment, I come before the cross, kneel down to the floor and my heart cries out with words and emotions my face and body are too exhausted to process. A warm breeze gently blows against my face as if the Father has bent down and tenderly lifted my face so I can stare into His eyes of love. It's something. It's a start. It's a moment of rekindling. The breeze is my reminder of what is true and real, this connection to the Eternal.

A few weeks ago I pushed through the end of my Spring term and am now into my last year (supposedly) of grad school. Time has flown and I'm not sure I've done enough wrestling and studying to really know what I'm doing. But it's a start. At the same time I have been in a season of redeeming my past. For reasons beyond what I can understand I've found myself remembering different passions and desires I had when I was younger. What plans and dreams I had for my future. And I've been rekindling, slowly, some of those same desires and passions once again. I've also found relationships with people who used to be in my life coming back into my life once again. Those who seem to be messengers from the Lord at just the right moment, coming to speak to me and remind me who I am to get back on track with where God has called me.The other day I ran into a friend I had grown up with, a friend that I had lost because of the broken relationship with my former best friends. Both of us recounted memories from our childhood, the struggles we experienced through our adulting process, the ways we have changed, and it was a gift. It restored to me many of the years I had lost in the pain of the betrayal and anger I felt over my former best friends walking away from a friendship that had been established since we were very young.

I also began being mentored and counseled by a remarkable woman of God who has been there for many of my adult years. She stepped back into my life in a moment of need. When I was extremely lonely and those who were in my smaller than I'd like world were not able to be there for me. It was at the same time that my counselor and I discovered I am a third culture kid, existing as a square peg in a world of round holes. Never really fitting in anywhere, never really being understood. This led to finally attacking some of the deeper pain behind my feelings that I am never good enough, the feelings that there is something fundamentally wrong with me and that I am always wrong.

Being able to adjust to many different environments and people but never really belonging has been an immense struggle in my life. And I wonder if others out there have been in the same boat. Never really feeling like you belong. There's something powerful in discovering who God has made you to be and how He wants to use and invite you into His plans. Our identity and gifting are meant to be cherished and celebrated and often times it's not. Satan and the fallen world and fallen humanity will constantly send messages of inadequacy to us. Messages that push us to be the same, messages that shame us and tear us down to the point of being ineffective for the beautiful and powerful call that God has placed over our lives. Even the Church has fallen prey to be the bearer of these same messages, done in the name of God, because we are fallen human beings too who struggle to truly work out our salvation, and are too quick to speak our words and our interpretations before we speak His truth.

It's kind of like this (VERY simply put):
A certain group of people really connect well with each other one day. Over time the sameness that drew them together leads to discovery of differences and uniqueness among all of its members. At that point each person discovers and relates to these differences in different ways and at different times. And some may never come to points of clarity and may continue to stay in confusion about the other person. At that point each person has a choice to accept the tension and choose to work through it and draw closer, or they choose that the tension is not worth it and begin to pull away. 

Some people may never really be able to be related to. The capacity for the other members of the group to work through the tension and begin to accept and draw closer to them is not really there.

I point this out more to offer grace and awareness, especially to those who are experiencing similar things. And I'm here to say that there is nothing wrong with you! Did you hear me? There is nothing wrong with you! Who you are has nothing to do with what you do. Not even your areas of gifting define who you are. For your identity cannot be controlled by you, your mom, your friends, your neighbors, your church, your government, your SAT or GRE score, your athleticism, your work, nor even your body. Your identity is found in the Holy One, who invites you to crawl up into His lap, lay your head against His chest and hear His heartbeat. Your identity is found in the Alpha and Omega who saw you before time began and yearned to be in relationship with you and for you to draw near to Him. Your identity is found in the blood of Christ shed on Calvary. The Prince of Peace who asks you to just reach out and touch the hem of his garment. The Lover of your Soul, who knows every hair on your head.

So the Lord asks us to come together and remember, together, what Jesus did on the cross. Communion invites everyone, every Son and Daughter, to the table to partake. Which means I need you as much as you need me. I need you to be you and you need me to be me so we can come together and enter into the courts of our King with thanksgiving. I think this is something that has been really lost in this generation - unity, community, connection. And I'll be the first to say I am guilty of this. I'd like to believe I do this but the reality is that I don't. Grace upon grace says don't stay there. So if you feel outcast, misunderstood, trampled on, ineffective, or inadequate (and the list goes on), know you are welcome at the Table of the Lord. Here, you belong...we all belong.

Cracks in the Veil: When Your Brokenness Shows Too Much

For the last several weeks my exhaustion and stress has fed on my mind and emotions more than what I'm comfortable with. I started having a sense that I was losing control, my anxiety spiked, and everywhere I looked I was in panic mode. Coupled with the lack of emotional support and the lack of quality people time and it's a recipe for a slip in the psyche, a boiling over of the emotions and a collapse of the body. One more stressor and I felt I was done-for. Having a mental illness adds a certain level of stress onto everyday to the point where you're "normal" is much higher than everyone else's. What was added to this was the silence in response to my cries for help. It wasn't like I was bad enough to be hospitalized but I was bad enough that I shouldn't be alone. The thoughts started pouring in, thoughts of rejection, feeling abandoned, feeling used, feeling like no one really cared about me. It was a breeding ground for Satan to slip a few thoughts in there and they spread like weeds. And my slipped psyche didn't have the capacity to deal with it well. Especially alone.

I prayed and cried out to God. I meditated on Scripture and claimed it over my life, my body, my mind, my emotions and my environment. I asked for help. I tried my hardest to focus enough to figure out what to do. I wanted to run. Literally. I wanted to pack up the car, drive to another state, change my name and all of my history and have a complete do-over and maybe, just maybe this time I can have the community I am looking for. Maybe then people can understand me. Maybe then I can finally find a place in this world where I can be loved and fit in. All the while continuing to pour into these young children who have real desperate needs in their life. All the while hearing them complain and complain and yell at me as if I was the one who abused them. As if I was the one that marked their souls. All the while sitting in that pain with them, wondering how much of my own pain am I really able to handle on top of theirs?

Then another wave of anxiety came. I knew I wasn't safe and I really shouldn't be alone. I really needed people in that moment. I cried out to God with all of my being, asking Him for someway that this can work out. What I got from some of those I cared about was "Stop depending on people so much. You need to depend on God more."

I share this because I think so many people walk through experiences like this - this hidden struggle with mental illness. This hidden struggle wondering who you are with this illness...this hidden struggle with faith in the midst of dealing with some form of mental illness. And people don't understand. A lot of people judge. I've been around church communities even who describe mental illness as a result of sin or possibly a Satanic attack...we demonize mental illness or any sickness really and surround it with a lot of shame. It's bad, it needs to go away...and then it morphs into a description of who that person is - "If your faith was stronger, you wouldn't struggle with ____" "If you just prayed more or believed more God would heal you from ____."

When in reality it's just another factor of the brokenness of the world around us.

Just because it shows a little more than the brokenness of other people doesn't mean that you or I are any less. That's something I've personally struggled with my whole life, the message of I am "not enough" and I know I'm not alone. I think many of us who secretly struggle with these sorts of issues can really get hard on ourselves. We have a whole slew of feelings about letting this side of us show. We feel shame for letting our brokenness show. We feel embarrassed or angry or anxious. We want it to go away. We feel that it hinders us from being effective followers of Christ. And maybe some of us feel that if other people knew, if we were authentic and vulnerable that we would find ourselves even more alone. So we get desperate and do whatever to try to control it.

When in reality that's not what God has for us.

There was once a time in my life where God really redefined the meaning of "sin" for me. Growing up I believed that sin was a shame thing. I heard from several adults in my life this "Shame on you for ___" message - shame for making a mistake, shame for not being perfect, shame for not knowing what I was doing because I was young, shame for embarrassing me, shame for ____. It was a cycle of control that I'm still struggling to get out of. But that was my definition sin = shame. It wasn't until I came across a book by Brennan Manning called Abba's Child where God redefined sin as this:

Sin is what keeps you from walking in the complete freedom and joy that I have given you. Sin is what keeps you from Me.

God wanted the sin out of my life not because it was bad and therefore I was bad, but He wanted it gone so that I could be free, so I could enjoy the gift He had given to me.

And by constantly bringing this part of me before the Lord, this part that is sinning, He would pour His love over that piece of me and slowly over time it would become smaller and smaller and quieter and quieter. And I would be more aware of God's presence and would be satisfied and at peace in my life because I knew His love. That side of me is never going to go away this side of heaven, it just wont. But what will happen is it will stop ruling my life so much because I know the Voice of Love. I know I am His Beloved. I know that He wont leave because of my sin or mistake or brokenness. He just wants me to let Him love me. He just wants you to let Him love you. And He wants you to know that even if this problem never goes away He has a plan and a purpose and a hope in the midst of it.

Let me tell you, there have been so many times I have found my depression to be a real gift. Ponder that for a little bit. :)

If you're really struggling at this point in your life, whether that's a mental illness or a sickness or a financial struggle or a struggle with your faith. Whatever it is, I want you to know that it's OK to not be OK. I want you to know there are safe people and safe places where you can go and find love and acceptance. When your brokenness shows too much it's not because you are any less than if that brokenness wasn't there; it's just a byproduct of this fallen world. And when your brokenness shows too much that's when you need more love and more acceptance. When you need someone to speak life to your soul.

Because you are worth it.

If you are reading this and need some prayer or further help please feel free to contact me. The comments you leave on here I get to determine whether I will make it public or not, so you can know that it will remain confidential if you say you want it to.

Blessings!

Mending Our Brokenness

All that matters on ‪#‎MaundyThursday‬... is just friendship with God.
To wait with Him in the Garden...
to let Him kneel & wash your wounded places...
to stay with Jesus, to keep company with Jesus, to keep watch with Jesus, right to the end.
Because in Him, whatever goes bad, He'll work it for good. It's what God does. He will turn the broken into beautiful. God's line of work is *transformations* -- so hold on to Him as your lifeline. You can't be undone.
He let Himself be forsaken of the Father -- so we in our sinful brokenness, would never, ever, ever be forsaken.
So all that matters today -- is just to stay close to Jesus.
There is meaning and hope around all of us -- because *He is all around us.* On Maundy Thursday, we could stop & feel the humming Peace of something sacred in our veins, enlarging our lungs.
Always believe: even in our darkest places — look for it, feel along for it — *there is the light of Christ’s graces.*
~ Ann Voskamp

In the stillness of this morning, clouds gray with rain, I find myself contemplating the things that have happened this week. I came across this quote posted above by Ann Voskamp and was struck by the directness it hit me with. "To wait with Him in the Garden...to let Him kneel and wash your wounded places...

What are the wounded places exactly? Those places known and unknown, that we dare to peer into but always carry with us. The places of piercing, the baggage we carry around with us. The load Jesus promised to carry. What does it mean to let him wash our wounded places?

What would it mean to know that the King of the World places His holy hands on the dirt of our feet? What would it mean to know that the Prince of Peace cleanse your face with a corner of His robes of righteousness. The splendor and majesty of the Great I Am, humbled in love to wipe every tear from your eyes with His nail pierced hands.

Does not fear rise up in your soul as your entire being yells out "I am not worthy!"? As the Lamb of God says "You are priceless!"

I think of my own wounded places. The two year old who woke up in India to her parents and brother missing, clutching her blanket and stuffed bear in fear that she was abandoned. Twenty-four years she's clutched that blanket in fear that people would abandon her. The three year old who watched the baby fall down the steps overwhelmed with guilt and shame over what she's done. Twenty-three years remembering that baby falling with a message on her lips - "I'm not good enough." The nine-year old who is confused about what just happened, why she feels incredibly dirty inside as innocent dreams are smashed on the kitchen floor. The twelve-year old who is frightened to leave the bathroom of an odd gas station because she's not sure why that man almost followed her in there. The fourteen-year old who was ready to give up on it all and be free of the pain of all the other things that came before. The fifteen-year old who couldn't understand why people belittled and mocked her for reacting so strongly to a hug she didn't want and was inappropriately done. And the list goes on.

And He touches it all. Mends it all. And asks us to be with Him even knowing that every piece of brokenness, every mark of sin in this world that we have done or has been done to us, means another nail pierced into Him. "You're worth it Beloved!" He speaks that to the two-year-old, the three-year-old, the nine-year-old, the twelve-year-old, the fourteen-year-old, the fifteen-year-old...and the now twenty-six year-old. "You're worth it...you are so worth it..."

Sit with Him in the Garden. Let Him wrap His arms around you and be free to gaze into His eyes of love. Fear washed with joy.

This Holy Week draw near to Him, let Him touch those oh so tender and vulnerable spots in us, in our story, in our present as all the other younger selves sit at the Passover Table. And let Him wash the feet of every one of them. "This is My body broken for you. This is My blood shed for you...Do this in remembrance of Me..."

The Breaking

What a beautiful morning it was! I don't remember if it was cold, rainy, sunny or warm out. All I remember was I woke up and felt joy and peace in all of its fullness. I wanted to spend time with God. I remembered the name of a gentleman that had come to my old church several years ago and wanted to listen to his beautiful instrumental once again. I had to rush off to work, but for this morning I was still and in my Lord's presence for just a little bit. I rushed off to work marveling at how nice this morning was.

On a white canvas hues of pinks and yellows, purple and oranges, golds and blues were painted. Had been being painted. The colors danced and delighted in simply being. They were meant to be in this formation, in this design. All of it was worship. It seemed the first time in a while light had broken through the clouds in my life and the storms rolled on by. I was walking in days of peace and nearness with the Lord. It seemed as if all the birds sang, all the animals danced, and my heart felt an assurance of belonging, like it was home. It was like coming into shore and going out to sea all at the same time.

Suddenly, blacks and greys and deep, ugly reds were horridly splashed across the canvas, layering over the beautiful design. What a mess! My heart thumped in my chest as I discovered what had happened, my house had been broken into. I was not prepared for this, I had no idea. Confusion swirled in my mind over why things were not where I left them, why the place was such a mess. Until my brain settled for a word that brought understanding: burglary.

Time slowed down as I disconnected from the world around me and rode the flood of emotions that had come into shore. Stepping back from the canvas, I was shocked at the changes to my design. A design I thought the Lord had given me. Instead, someone else hidden from my view had splashed these colors onto the beautiful canvas I was working on. All the dark, ugly colors seemed out of place amidst the backdrop of bright colors dancing across the canvas. If I threw it away and started over it would diminish the work that had already been done. And yet, someone else had placed their mark upon my work in an ugly and unjust way. But was it really all my work? Wasn't it more God's work in my life? Wasn't all of this supposed to be worship, a gift to my King?

"What should I do?" Was the question that was asked, as dark navy blues were quickly splattered over the greys and blacks and reds. Hastily and quickly done, it didn't begin to erase what had been done. I could still see it all, even though I thought the police were there to help. Then came the flurry of anxious smudging, trying to erase and soften the sharpness and yuckiness of it all. Mother, Father, friends and neighbors. All rushing to comfort and support. But all I could focus on was the design that was now there, forever changed but not completely gone. In that hope there was a peace inside that came, soothing the shock and opening my eyes to see a bigger design than what I could see on my own. A peace I hadn't really stepped into for some time. Looking at the canvas, I still saw the yellows and golds, the pinks and purples. Mingled and dancing with the greys and reds. They were still there, together with the splashes of dark navy blues. It all played together, creating a design that I could not control. But was not without purpose.

A soft light came through the window, ever gently touching the canvas with it's warmth. A breaking in the veil between heaven and earth, assuring me I am not alone. That not all is lost and that there is still beauty here in what I thought to be a broken design. I looked down at the pallet of colors in my hand and wondered why these particular colors were being painted with. It was because the Lord had been doing something in my life for the last several weeks.

Why were those colors on the burglar's pallet? Why the greys, blacks and deep, ugly red?

I began to wonder with sadness at this. What kind of life must this person live to think that they needed more stuff, to shatter someone's boundaries to fulfill a longing of theirs? What hunger must they have for the true bread of life? I began to wonder why God chose my canvas to splash their pallet onto?

I wonder if they saw something upon my canvas that struck a cord deep inside? I wonder if they struck my canvas because the Lord has been chasing after them for some time? I wonder if they struck my canvas because the Lord was trying to open my eyes to see something, or finally hear and obey something He's been speaking about for some time? And I wonder if they chased after things, my things, because they were running away from themselves and running towards something that they thought would satisfy them?

Dear burglars, I have been there too.

I thought I needed my canvas hidden. I thought I needed to keep it safe inside. And I do. It's my canvas - it was cruel what they did. The shock of someone invading my canvas can never be undone. But the splashes of the burglar's pallet upon my canvas are also splashes upon God's canvas, as He shared in the pain of the broken design too. Yet, He invited me to paint upon His canvas - where my pallet, colors, life and being all belong and have a purpose. It's ultimately all God's. I'm sure His heart would love these burglars to paint their pallet upon His canvas too; to find purpose and belonging just as I have.

For to have a white canvas, it had to be dipped in red.

The canvas is not what it used to be, but these colors are now a part of my life, my story...and ultimately His story. So I pick up the brush and begin to paint again. Not to hide or to erase what was already done, but to layer upon it with more color. All is not lost. Hope is still there, hidden in a different design than I had imagined. Because no matter what, He is still good.

Perfect Brokenness

They say once you break a bone, the bone grows back stronger and thicker than it was before the break happened. I've also heard it was the Chinese who would mend broken vases with gold, highlighting the story of the vase over the years. Adding value to the brokenness.

Stained glass windows cannot be made unless the glass is broken. And we cannot truly become a part of God's army unless we are first made into wounded warriors.

I think there's something sad to our society, this Western culture, devaluing flaws and imperfections. We point out the brokenness in others as reasons to make ourselves feel better, all the while missing the gold in that brokenness.

I was three years old when I first understood myself as broken and flawed. A few months ago I posted about my traumatic experience of accidentally causing a baby to fall down a flight of stairs and land on the cold, cement basement floor. I blamed myself my entire life for that and I never wanted to know if she survived or not. And that was just the start. I became a survivor over the years, as many more things happened that led to me feeling worthless, unsafe, rejected and struggling to feel worthy of love. It wasn't until last year that my counselor, after a year and a half of therapy, finally said the words "I think we need to treat this as trauma."

It took me quite some time to believe that it was possible that I could be healed. That it was possible that God had more written for me beyond the brokenness, that the brokenness on top of the mending, the healing was something that I could believe for. I really struggled to believe that God would hear me. I really struggled to believe that I wouldn't be stuck forever with my mind in a constant state of cycling through the traumatic memories or thoughts related to those memories. Where triggers were everywhere. "If I can use you in that place where the healing never came, think of how much more I could use you if the healing came." Back in December I started receiving additional EMDR treatment and found God ready to go to work with me to heal my mind. This week was the first time my mind was calm. That I had really, truly begun to find relief and I celebrated it with a night of worship at my church. What incredible, sweet freedom.

The beauty and perfection is not found in the healing but in the brokenness. How could we know love unless we were restricted from that which could harm us? How could we know acceptance unless we had been rejected? How could we know God's power and love unless we recognized our need for it. How could Jesus save us, unless His body was first broken. The truth is, the painful experiences we've had in our lives don't diminish us or the value of our lives. Instead they become gaps in the veil for us to see through into God's holiness. Gaps for His love to be received through into our lives. And just as the Chinese mended those broken vases with gold, God mends our broken lives with His glory. Re-writing and redeeming our brokenness as something to be cherished and valued. The world may not understand this, it may be hard to believe this, but true beauty is not found in that which is not broken. But instead in that which is broken. Because God is capable of taking that which is broken and turning it into a mosaic of beauty.

A Letter to My Friends

It was around a year ago that I buried pieces of my heart. Pieces of who I am. I had painfully come to realize that I was made very differently than everyone else around me. I was painfully reminded that I could never truly be myself on this earth. And that to survive I had to lay down pieces of my being, pieces of my heart and walk away. Since then I've been terrified of connection. Terrified that if people truly saw all of me that they would walk away. Since many of them have before. Terrified that if people really got a glimpse of all of me then they would reject me because I am too much.

At that time my life had shattered into a million tiny shards of glass. My best friend had started saying some things about me that were not true, claiming I was this monster. Simply because I was panicking. I had found myself in a very stressful job, balancing school work, all of my safety nets were removed in one week's time frame and suddenly I was trying to not drown. I was in full panic mode and I had become so intensely clingy. My anxiety, depression, and PTSD were in hyper drive all at the same time, making it seem like borderline personality disorder and yet it wasn't. I felt like I couldn't breathe and all I was seeking was comfort and protection. I couldn't hear God's voice and I was beyond desperate to hear His voice. I felt like I was walking through hell. I felt like all these forces were sucking me under the crashing waves and I alone had to fend them off. My faith crumbled. My life crumbled. And God was silent. I was angry. And I was emotionally and verbally being beaten up by someone I trusted to the core of who I was. It's been a long road of recovery. A road many looked down their noses at me for. A road they couldn't comprehend because they didn't understand the depths of my relationship with God. And the depths that my heart went for people. Nor could they comprehend the sheer battle I was in with my own mental illness. My body and my brain had gone to war against me and there was no grounding point for me.

I learned from that point on to never trust people. To trust would mean all of who I am could be accepted and respected, that others could understand and love me for who I am completely and still stay by my side. To understand that I have a mental illness and to still love me even if the healing never comes. But the truth is my wiring and who I am overwhelms. It scares people. I have a capacity and depth of connection, and am deeply empathetic, that very few people share. And some that do share struggle immensely in the same way I do. So I determined I could never connect deeply with people this side of heaven. Because those I connect deeply with reject me or they just don't have the same capacity to connect deeply that I do. And I'm left unsatisfied and wanting. Can you imagine how lonely this is?

So when I say I'm lonely, I'm really saying is there someone out there that I can be OK with to finally bring those pieces of myself I buried into the light? Is there someone I can be myself with, who is willing to take the time to unwrap and CHERISH the gift of all the intricacies that make up who I am? When I say I'm lonely I'm really wondering if someone is going to respond to say "I have not rejected you!" When I say I'm lonely, I'm really looking for safety. I have never felt safe in all of my life. When I say I'm lonely, I'm really asking if I've been forgotten about. When I say I'm lonely, I'm really wondering if those people whom I have revealed myself to still cherish the self I've revealed. When I say I'm lonely, I'm really wondering if others have been positively impacted by me, that they've been blessed to have me in their life. When I say I'm lonely, I'm really asking if someone will make some time to pay attention to me because I make time to pay attention to everyone else.

The truth is God did not make any mistakes when He made me. In fact, there is a call on my life that many people believe to be really powerful. I'm a very passionate and intense person and I believe there's nothing shameful in that. The call on my life requires this depth of passion and love. But it's a call I have an EXTREMELY hard time following because it requires me to lay absolutely everything I want in life down on the altar of God and walk away in service to my King. I walk around with a bleeding heart most days, a mind that constantly betrays me, a body that is always overreacting to stress or different emotional things and companionship is one of the prime avenues through which my soul is filled back up again when I become drained.

I long to know I have made a difference in someone's life.

So dear friends I write this out of a place of need. A need to be able to commune with those who can bring me deeper in love with my Savior, who can be OK to develop deep, intimate relationships with me that I can be safe in. Who can allow my days when I'm overwhelming to simply be and not shame me for them because you know that all I need in those times is companionship. Who are equally able to be wholehearted and authentic, including those days when you are overwhelmed and open to receiving as well. Who are open to discussing the boundaries of what is OK and what isn't.

And I write this because I secretly know many out there who, like me, are struggling right now. I invite you to come a little closer, peer a little deeper into God's heart, look a little harder into who other people are and really challenge yourself to love God and love others more.

I apologize that this wasn't a very helpful posting. My hope is that in some way that my authenticity and the realness of my life would connect with others and reveal to them God's presence in their life. I understand that doesn't quite make a whole lot of sense, but I hope you can see in this that God has been working in my heart recently to not just settle, to not just pour out, to not just be helpless against the things in life. That justice comes through the next step taken after the shattering. That justice comes in lifting others up, that vulnerability is beautiful, and that Satan ain't going to keep me knocked down.

Thank you!

My 2016 in Review (Part 2): Worth It All

Happy New Year!!! Welcome to 2017 :)

This last year, 2016, was definitely a year where everything I thought was certain, stable and dependable was shaken. The end of 2015 began with me giving up a lot of things to follow after what I thought was God's leading in my life. It seemed very clear to me. And it lead to so much pain. So much loss. The beginning of 2016 began in a state of loss and continued to hold a lot of loss for me in it. Every year since high school has been hard, but I would say 2016 was one of the harder years for me.

2016 began with me in a state of uncertainty about myself. I had lost a semblance of who I was, where my identity lay, and what God really wanted me to do...and really I had lost a semblance of what my relationship with God was, which was ultimately at the core of myself. I was in an identity crisis at 24.

The crisis, at least from my perspective, was influenced by the major stressors in my life between work, school, relationship struggles, financial struggles, limited access to my well-being support system and living in survival mode for months on end. I thought if I could just get through these stressors, run away from them, change them then everything would go back to normal. What I didn't factor was the months of healing it would take. A tornado had swept through my life, leaving a huge path of destruction and I felt like I barely escaped with my life. It would take some time to put the pieces of my life back together again. My heart was numb, my body was locked up with all the stress. And it felt like core pieces of who I am had died, or at least I had to send them away for safe keeping just to deal with everything I was facing. And I couldn't hear God speak to me. I can't describe well enough what that was like to not be able to hear God speak, but to me it felt like the closest thing to hell I could have walked through.

But there was a small piece of my heart I could not ignore, and it said weakly but with certainty that above all else I had to get my relationship with God back in place. I would not be complete without that. For I am nothing without God. I really can't say when that was, but it had to have been around the time when I put my resignation in at Medica. Which led me into my three day prayer retreat. That was when I knew God had been hearing me the whole time. I knew that, but my desperation made holding to the faith difficult.

How many times have we caught ourselves holding to a deceptive lie when we knew the truth? When the lies speak louder than the truth.

It was at the prayer retreat that God revealed to me this simple truth: if there's something I'm believing that is causing me to doubt any piece of God's character, than it's a lie.

That became a stepping stone in my journey, put a skip in my step and gave me a bit more joy as the light of truth was able to break through the storm clouds. The quakes became less and slowly God started breathing life back into me. It was at this point I looked back and saw how I had grown through that experience and I saw hope that yes I'm getting back to where I want to be with my Savior.

There was more loss to come, there was more struggle that I had to walk through. The aftershocks and more storms came through and yet things had turned. I still dealt with an intense amount of anger and I struggled to connect with God but I kept praying and believing. It was with the last loss that I realized I had allowed good things that God had given me to help me along my survival journey to become hindrances to completing the journey of 2016. It wasn't until I released those things that my prayer life took off, my time with God deepened and my healing really took off.

I chose this particular song by Meredith Andrews because it really portrays the state I'm in as I head into 2017. "Everything I've lost I have found in you...You are worth it all."

As much as I still feel angry at God over some of the things that happened, some of the ways I was treated and how little vindication there was, how many times God asked me to surrender everything precious to me over to Him, I can honestly say He is worth it all. All of this brought me closer to God, and pushed me to become stronger. And not only did I find my relationship with God stronger, but I also found myself stepping into more of who I am meant to be.

Oh precious Jesus, thank you for your faithfulness and love throughout this last year. Thank you for protecting and guiding me and for all the blessings that were evident in both the good and the bad. I am not the same woman I was at the beginning of the year. That is purely by your grace, none of this was my doing. I could not have made it without you there, right beside me through it all. Carrying me and guarding me. Thank you for your gentleness with me in the midst of my complaints and whining, in the midst of my immaturity and unbelief. You truly are worth it all...I pray that my testimony doesn't just become nice words on a page but becomes a seed, an open door in the hearts of those who read this that leads them to deeper communion with you. Wherever they are at. Lord would you be glorified and magnified in 2017. You are worthy of glory and honor and praise! Amen.