Restoration

Things I have been praying for for over two years are finally being answered, but far from how I expected them to be answered.

I’m finally feeling confident in myself. I’ve spent so many years in turmoil as to who I was. I had always rested on the church saying that I am to find my identity in Christ but that only left things in gray.

I guess I had mapped out how i thought that these prayers should be answered and figured I would nudge them along. I would read articles on identity and who I was supposed to be in Christ, but it wasn’t till I revealed my hurting heart to my local body of believers that true healing and change began to happen.

I have found a cluster of believers who have lifted me up in prayer and whom have reached out to include me in their own lives. I have truly become part of their own families.

I eat with them, play with them, laugh, cry, hurt, and rejoice with them. Not only have they enaged me physically but emotionally into their lives. This is where change begins.

With one particular family, I have had the joy of sharing an even closer friendship and this friendship has made all of the difference. I finally feel confident in who God made me to be by being part of something bigger. In the past few weeks, I’ve learned how to fix cars, fix lawn mowers, create my own BBQ marinade, grill, play a decent game of kickball, actually know what I’m talking about when I walk in a mechanic shop, keep up with football, discipline kids, love kids, have kids climb into my lap to be put to sleep, and find that God wants to show me who I am through His glorious and heavenly body of believers. Yes, I have been saved by Christ alone, but I have been restored through the body of Christ.

Lynch, Ky Mission Trip Day 1

Well, we finally made it. After 8 hours of travel filled with packed vehicles and a few wrong turns, we are here. The ride was long and tiresome, but well worth it. Not only did I become closer with my fellow Christians, I began to understand a little bit more about myself; more about where I fit into the big picture-my portion of the story that God is writing.

As we traveled up the steep mountains and back down into the deep valleys, I was reminded of a similar trip I took almost 10 years ago with my youth group. We traveled to Bluefield, West Virginia. Another coal mine town similar to Lynch. In fact, it was almost a replica of the same thing I had experienced so long ago.

The roads up the mountains were lined with medium sized houses that had not been kept up in some time. The yards were unkept and many of the houses and buildings looked abandoned. My heart immediately stung with hurt for these people.

I couldn’t help but notice how ironic it was that God was bringing me back to a similar place that I had once visited in my story and that I would be ministering to alot of the same demographics of people. It seems, I had become so worried about the starving children in Africa as of late, that I had forgotten about my own countrymen who had not experienced the love that comes from Christ.

Tonight after dinner, Lonnie, the owner of the place that we are staying, spoke to us about his story and how fully relying on God and realizing that nothing he had done or accomplished was his to boast about anyway-that everything came from God. The words he spoke hit home with what my own heart had been telling me. It had been crying out to express the same things- that nothing else matters except fully relying on Christ for your every need and that He wants to pour out His gifts and blessings onto each of us, if we will just trust Him.

My Story

Posted below is an excerpt from a book/testimony i’m writing. I’ll be speaking in church in two weeks and I have to write things out. This is part of it.

It seems to be a recent trend in today’s Christian culture to refer to our lives as a story that God is writing. I find it to be quite poetic actually. To think that our maker is literally writing word for word, chapter for chapter of our lives in a big book that we will someday get to read. I often wonder if my book is just getting started or if God’s starting to run out of ink.

Every once in awhile, I will try and categorize myself into book genres. Sometimes I see it as a trajedy with all the grief, rejection and, loneliness that seem to cloud my life. At others, it seems like a comedical sitcom that people gather round to watch once a week and if they are lucky enough, they get to see the reruns in the summer. Sadly, when I first began thinking about this concept, I never saw it as a romantic plot. Don’t get me wrong, I had a mother who loved me, along with other family members, but I never had a girl love me; or at least I never thought so. I know that I never loved one back.

It’s hard to think of God in a romantic way. It’s like trying to write a love song to the wind or a blade of grass. It always starts out sentimental and then, by the end, it sounds dumb. But it seems that God has been writing our love story long before we were even around. I find parts of my own love story written throughout Scripture, but most of the time, I find it hard to even see in my everyday life.

The parts that I do see, I’m not so sure I’m convinced that they are real; as though they are pieces I’m making up in my head to make myself feel wanted. But there are the few times God gives clarity and I can see the pieces fall into place.

As of late, it seems He has been laying them out for me in a beautiful format. Something I can comprehend, and so in an attempt to not forget anything, I give you my story so far.

Letting Go

Lately, I’ve been struggling with my dominant sin alot more than usual. When I say dominant sin, I mean that thorn in the flesh sin; the one that hounds me late at nights. That one sin that throws me into deep depressions and self loathing.

I know that grace is upon me in these times, but this time, it all feels different.

I guess it all started this past Saturday. My roommate and best friend sat out on our front porch having deep discussions and coming clean about the sin in our lives. I had no intention of releasing mine when I sat down on that porch that night. As far as I was concerned, it was more about him and his confession. I was ready to be his accountability but not ready to be held accountable.

His confession stung deep within my own soul, piercing a similar part of my heart that seemed to still be decreped from all the years of running from God. I said very few words that night; in fact, I’m pretty sure they were not even my words. Instead, I did more thinking. I had been hurt and let down by his own shortcomings because, somehow, I felt responsible for him. I felt like I had failed him in his recovery. I had failed God in being that safe guard here on earth.

A part of me knew there was nothing I could ever do to stop him from his struggles just as he could not control me. And while, God revealed deep meaning to him about his situation, God pulled hard at my heart strings wanting me to let go of my own junk.

But I couldn’t.

It was impossible for me to admit one of the few deep dark secrets I had left. I sat there staring at my fists that were sweating and I felt my heart beating rapidly from anger and my stomach churning from physical sickness of all this was causing.I wanted to throw up. I was hoping I would because that would be my excuse to get up and go to bed.

But I didn’t

My friend finished his final prayer and turned to me and asked if I was ok. I’m pretty sure I didn’t look ok at that point, but part of me had been praying along with him that he would ask me the very thing he asked me so that I could confess. I figured it would be  a sign from God, figuring-hoping that He wouldn’t do it. But He did.

Having looked down at my fists in sickness for over thirty minutes realizing God was waiting to remove the chains that were bound to me, I began to confess one of my deepest and my guarded secrets. I was truly expecting him to get up walk inside and slam the door and not speak to me for a few days, but instead I found compassion and understanding. It was quite a relief off my chest and we stayed up all night until it was time to go to church.

Before each service, the praise team gathers in one of the empty sunday school rooms and prays before each service. Having been up all night and newly freed from one of my dark secrets, I was somewhat delirious, or so I figured. As we began to pray, I felt a strong emotion of brokeness come over me. I wept as others prayed and I felt the chains falling to the floor.

I finally felt release and a renewal taking place. For the first time, I finally felt like I didn’t need my sin anymore.

I still feel that today, but my old sin has been offering itself up to me-for me to pick the chains back up. Even though I honestly do not want to go back to it, I feel like I need to. It feels like such a habit that I have no identity without. It’s as though I would just be doing it to do it. It would no longer have the emotional connection like it once did.

I’m honestly at a crossroads of falling into grace or standing firm in my faith. While I will be in good hands in either way, I’m still torn whether to fall to spite someone or myself or to stand firm and show them how it’s supposed to be done. I know that these are not virtuous means nor a plausible justification of the situation, but I can’t help feel like this.

I know all the textbook, bible school answers, but they don’t seem to be holding much credibility in today’s world. Not that I am disqualifying God’s word, but man’s interpretation of it.

Pray for me brother’s and sisters. A darkness has fallen over my life and a decision must be made alone.

Today, I had to go to the doctor’s office. I hate going. I almost didn’t go, but I knew I needed to. I hadn’t been in over two years and I was definitely due a check up. I hadn’t setup an appointment but thankfully I have a friend who works the desk and she squeezed me in.

As I waited in the lobby, I was watching Obama sign the new tobaccoo legislature and this elderly woman came up to me and two other people who were sitting next to me. She started with the man two seats down from me. She pointed at him and said “You are pretty.” Next she moved to the woman next to me. “You are so pretty!”

The woman next to me quietly replied a quiet ‘thank you’ as we all realized she was not quite right in her mind.

Next she moved to me. Her eyes lit up and she took a step back.

“And look at you, You are really pretty!” I grinned and told her thank you. I talked with her about simple things for a few minutes before her loving husband came over to fetch her.

It brought tears to my eyes as she walked away. In her own little way, she encouraged me more than my close friends had! She was a complete and total stranger who went out of her way to compliment someone. Not only that, due to her illness, she had no ‘filter’ as far as social ques so she said whatever came to her mind regardless of how odd it may have made someone feel. She was Real. Raw. Uncensored.

It was sad to see her in the condition she was in, but the fact that it gave her a sort of free will was refreshing. I was somewhat jealous.

I freeze up when people talk to me so it is very far from my mind to be open, raw, and real with those around me. In this woman’s weakness and frailties, this woman showed more strength than any “regular” person ever would. It reminds me of when Paul talks about his own thorn of the flesh and how he had asked for it to be removed three times. Even then, God did not remove it saying,” My grace is sufficient for you.”(2Cor 12:9)

I struggle with my own thorns. alot of times, they twist into my side, getting in between my ribs and distract me from the grace that is right in front of me. We’ve all been given grace regardless of our circumstances, but I still struggle with walking in that grace.

We often look for the salvation from our thorns instead of walking in the grace that they bring.

The reason? Such grace forces me to be open, real, and raw with the people around me. Such grace brings a new view to the world around me. It takes me out of my comfort zone and into a world where relying on my faith is a necessity.

Today, a woman that the world considers ill, just helped guide me deeper into a place of healing through Christ. Leave it up to God to do things out of the norm.

I’m finding that God is still doing a great work in me. Even when I fail to realize it, his plan remains for my life. And the ever flowing Spirit is still being poured into my life, like that of a rare treasure found in a fragile jar of clay- I am still used.

Regardless of my condition and my wear and tear of years of misuse, this fragile vessel finds his maker still picking him up, pouring him out onto the world and refilling him. And in the between times of being full and being poured out, I find myself empty.

Everything is quiet.

There is no exciting rush of annointing that fills me or an overflowing  out of the Spirit in my life.

There is just silence.

And I begin to wonder if I am just sitting on a shelf. And my worst enemy begins to speak doubt of my existence. As a fragile being, I can’t help but question it all. I don’t feel full, I don’t feel used, I feel forgotten.

My withered spirit and exterior begin to deteriorate in the sea of doubt.

But then I stop questioning myself, and I begin to question my maker.

And Something moves.

I move.

I am not being poured out or filled up, but I am being carried by my maker. I am not sitting on a shelf collecting dust as I had thought, but instead I am being carried from glory to glory-from well to well of living water. The dry, rotting desert in between rips and tears at my imperfect shell. The road is long, difficult,and hard to see. There is so much dust in my eyes. But I know what lies ahead, for my maker carries me from well to well, from glory to glory, using me to pour out his living Spirit upon His people.

The harsh cool wind rips past me and I hear a rumble upon the horizon. I hear the rain in the distance. And the storm comes. And instead of being torn apart by a storm that is so much larger than this little jar of clay, I find myself being held even tighter. His fingers wrap tightly to me and He holds me out from Himself. He holds me high into the air. Bare and naked, I am exposed to the storm. I shake and rattle, scared I am about to be lost in the torrent. The rain begins to fall. The storm has come. The lighting chases after me across the sky. I am weak. And then I feel it.

The rain.

It is falling. And as it falls, the stinging drops of the storm drip into me.

It hurts. I have never had such a fierce, unforgiving water in me. And as the rain fills me to the top, my maker brings me back to Him.

He lovingly looks down into me and He sees the reflection of Himself shining in me. He lowers me and I feel myself being emptied out into the world- the dry, parched, dying world around me. And this new, different, water now flows deep into the cracks of the rock and the world breathes with the relief that has come from the Father.

My storm has come and He is still using me in the midst of it all.

Finding Grace in My Shortcomings

I struggle with feeling inadequate.

Alot.

And when I get frustrated with my inadequacy, in whatever form it chooses to manifest, I get depressed, then angry, then I cry. Tonight is one of those nights. As I look around me, all I can see is how great my friends are and all their great talents and abilities. For some reason I can look past their faults. Why can’t I look past mine?

Tonight God is wrecking me, disturbing my calm waters. He doesn’t want to leave me this way, or does he? I find myself conflicted with what God wants out of this recurring situation. I’m sure that it is not for it to keep reoccurring or for me to at least not react the same way. On my ride home, the Spirit reminded me of a few scriptures I’vd currently read.

John 15

2 Corinthians 12:9

I’m not quoting them here because I believe you need to go read them for yourself. But he reminds me that I can do nothing without Him. Nothing.

And then He says that his glory is shown through my shortcomings, my weakness, my failures, my inadequacies, all of that glorifies Him.

While these tell me what He thinks about it all, I still can’t get past my human flesh of feeling pity for my own self. And again he reminds me it is not about me. In fact, He just now reminds me that I recently prayed for humility and brokenness and as much as my spirit wants it, I don’t. I want to fight having to go through the pain of looking at myself in a mirror, but I want the glory on the other side.

I am greatly pained by this.

I find it suprising that he uses my close friends to humble me whether they are aware of it or not. Though I shouldn’t be suprised, I am.  it is times like these that I feel Him encouraging me to come lay into Him, to press in deeper and know Him, but I am still fighting. I act like a three year old who wants to do it His way. I want to bring glory to the Father my way! But He hasn’t called me to do that. He has called me to do higher things by nothing that I can do.

Pray for me.