Broken and Beautiful

I have so many thoughts this morning, so much inspiration. I love late mornings where I get the space to just be and think and reflect on life. But first, I have to tell you about this video.

https://youtu.be/W-HHiCy_tlo

You guys know I love worship music. I basically wish I was Kari Jobe and I never feel more at home or more me than when I’m singing to Jesus. My dad has been the worship pastor at my church my whole life so I’ve heard a ton of what’s out there. My brother and I love to analyze all the new worship albums that comes, I like to think that not a lot gets past us!

So this video, it may look a little pretentious at first, with these trendy looking musicians and all the closeups of them singing (that's just what I thought watching the video the first time) but I have probably listened through it  20 times in the past six months, with the first time being through my speakers in my car, on one of my desperate drives home from Visalia. I felt like my whole world was coming crashing down around me and I couldn’t understand what God was doing in my life. I just needed something that could tell me the truth.

This video absolutely wrecked me (basically meaning I broke down and ugly cried for awhile while listening to it), it brought me to a place of seeing God for who He is despite my circumstances. God has spoken so much to me through it. I’ve wanted to share it with everyone I know since hearing it and with that feeling growing over the past three days, I  just decided that I should come as close as I can to that by sharing it here on Facebook.  

Listening through it again (twice now) this morning, it just revealed some truths I’d like to put out there for my own sake and maybe for somebody else who needs to hear them:

— I  underestimate the goodness of God and just what that means. I use good so frequently that it has lost its power. I can’t even really imagine how many times I’ve sung the statement God is good. And honestly, it felt like a weaker thing to say about God and who He is. Like, duh, of course he’s good. Today my eyes were opened to the reality of what that means. GOD IS GOOD! In a world where there is so much evil, even evil parading itself in a “good” costume, to say God is good means that He is pure, true goodness without any bit of evil (the opposite of what is good). This is actually a really powerful truth. God is good. GOOD. fully, wholly, beyond our understanding, good. Better than us, better than the best person we know or the “goodest” thing we have witnessed in our own understanding. He always is, always will be. And that pure, unadulterated goodness is ours to partake in. Even though we ourselves don’t come filled with that same pure goodness He gives it to us freely and we get the opportunity to be transformed by it. 

—Even the best people that I’ve know in my life have let me down. And I have believed that God has let me down before. I probably am still holding onto some things in that arena because the statement “God has never let me down” still feels really vulnerable to say out loud.  I know I was believing God had let me down, was letting me down, when I first heard this video in my car. I felt like I was losing my whole life, that everything I’d built up over the past 8-10 years of my life was disintegrating before my eyes. It felt torturous, it felt like I’d totally misplaced my faith and trust. I felt betrayed.

I just want to say this very gently and very lovingly, because I know there’s a lot of people out there who’ve experienced dark dark things,  but something I’ve learned this year is that if you’re believing God has let you down you probably just haven’t lived through enough life to see past/beyond what you’re going through. Keep fighting and keep your eyes open to what God is doing around you! I know for me I had to let myself live in the lie for awhile before I saw the truth. That’s okay.

And I’m saying this for people like me, wanting to believe that God would never let you down, but not quite there yet. The minute we look past our own circumstances and connect with the truth of who God is, everything we’ve ever gone through just shrinks in comparison. And God has this amazing way of speaking into those awful moments where you felt alone and desperate, revealing himself and His truth in a way only made for you to fully understand. He can shatter brokenness in just a moment of His presence. And that moment doesn’t dissapoint! Seek God and He WILL be faithful to show up in your life! He will NOT let you down.

— All of who God is is available to you. There’s not one bit that He wants to keep hidden from you. I’ve talked about two aspects of who God is: He is good and He will not let you down. There is so much more to know about God and to discover than this! A lifetime’s worth of truths to revel in and experience for yourself.

I know we live in a world where truth is up for interpretation and people want to keep an open mind. To say something like there’s only one way to God or one God is one of the most controversial statements someone can make in the world we live in. I understand that.

But the truth is this: God showed his love for us in that while we were still living as sinners, far away from God and all that is truth,  His son, Jesus,  died on a cross to make every wrong thing right, to give us full access to Himself and who He is. To make us no longer slaves to the things that hold us back and keep us dead and separated from the things of God. He bridged the gap between our imperfect selves and a perfect God so that we could have life and relationship with him.  Not only that, but Jesus didn’t stay dead! He came back to life after 3 days, conquering death so that death and hell didn’t have to be the end of our story. Instead, to those who believe in their hearts and confess with their lips that this radically loving and life-transforming thing happened, He gave the right to be called children of God, opening the door to His house (heaven) so that we could make our home there and live forever with Him.

That reality doesn’t start when you die, it starts the minute you say yes to God, through this cool guy the Holy Spirit who moves into your heart and reminds you of this truth and many others, prompting you sometimes to share it.

Every day, every moment, every second we have the opportunity to affirm this and say yes to it. It’s not just something you say yes to once. It’s an everyday thing, and that yes is easy to say sometimes and really hard to say sometimes, but it’s always worth it. It’s always true. And I’d just say if you’ve made it this far with what I’m saying, (and if you have, gold star to you I’m writing a freakin BOOK here) if there’s any bit of this that’s ringing true in your heart and it hasn’t rung true before, please don’t dismiss it. 

Please, reach out to God in the way you know how and start talking to Him about all this. Heck, if you’re past all that and just want to say Yes to it just say yes!! It’ll be the best yes you’ve ever said in your life. I know that’s definitely the case for me.

Feeling so much love in my heart and so much peace right now! Thankful for Facebook, my computer and some fingers to type so I can shout this from the mountaintops today.

//WHEN A STATUS UPDATE JUST ISN’T ENOUGH//

THIS is who I am. I am a woman who relies on God's strength and counts every victory as God's too because I know that it's His strength making it possible in me.

In my hardest times, God has come through and made it completely apparent to me that He is with me, for me, sees me, hears me. I have never once faced the challenges I have faced (loneliness, nursing school, going against the flow) by myself. I never will!

I know that He will empower me and supply me with all I need both now and in the days to come.

He is faithful. He never changes. He is all that He is all of the time. How refreshing are those words to hear? :)

I was taking a walk the other day on a country road and noticed how the apple blossoms were disappearing from the apple trees. I commented to my mom that it made me sad to see them go because they were so beautiful.

She agreed, then said, "But if the blossoms didn't leave, there wouldn't be any fruit."

In the quiet after those words were spoken, I heard in my spirit "You have blossomed, and the fruit of your labor is right around the corner."

Graduating Nursing School was a huge blossoming moment for me. It was me achieving more than I ever thought I could on many different levels (I know now that I was totally underestimating myself and God!). It was me completing a journey I'd started with a mustard seed of faith, and through it I learned the faithfulness of God.

But as any Nursing major will tell you, the diploma isn't what gets you the job, it's the license. Getting that license is really what gaining the fruit of your labor looks like.

So I can't begin to tell you how much those words God spoke meant to me and I'm not for a minute longer going to allow myself to forget about them. He who began a good work in me is able to complete it. He who brought me this far will not abandon me.

  He whispers tenderly to me. My ear, a faithful apprentice listens intently and my pen jots down tear-stained words illuminated in golden candlelight. These words are just for me. This time is just for us. I want to share the words of God with others as often as I can. But today, right here in this moment, the holy union of this single human spirit and God is all that matters.

 Intimate as a husband and wife, Studious as a student and teacher, Loving as a mother and her child. Each of these scenarios wrapped up together form the present of what the presence of God is like to me. More than anything, more than any other feeling that has been described by the human tongue, what I feel when my Lord comes and draws near to me is the reality of unfulfilled longing being filled.

I’m going to try to describe it but I’m going to fail. Imagine how it feels to ache for one drop of water to hit your dried out tongue, then after giving up on asking for it, a whole glass full of perfectly chilled water is put in your hand to drink. That is what it feels like.  Relief and joy and the ache that can accompany relief. Gratitude flowing as freely as the tears down my face.

These are not tears of sorrow. Although they do contain many emotions, sorrow is not one of them. Sometimes I think that just as there are colors that we cannot see with the naked human eye, there are feelings we can’t distinguish with the human spirit. I feel those kind of feelings in the presence of God. Awe, joy, humility, wonder, vulnerability, fear. All of those feelings smushed together aren’t enough to describe it really.

And the Lord, who knows every bit of our inner workings, looks at me reassuringly and says “This is normal.” He smiles a simple smile and puts his hand on my shoulder, then I take a deep breath and calm down realizing the reality of the gravity of who is in the room with me. Realizing that God is actively doulaing me through this moment.  

The minute even the possibility of shame enters in the room, Love that abounds and nearly knocks me over comes to meet me. Love that can’t adequately be expressed so I won’t (really) try.  There’s this enoughness that I am blanketed in. This enoughness that wipes out the possibility of shame. It isn’t my own enoughness. It is as if someone has offered me their warmest finely crafted, quality jacket in the middle of a blizzard.  I realize that what I am actually being fitted into is the sacrifice of Christ. As creepy and weird as it sounds to say the blood of Jesus is covering me in that moment, that’s really what is happening. I am being made enough by the one who is enough. He is taking on my shame and turning it into gladness. He is the price paid, sacrifice made, and for me, just for me, this moment of guilt-free interaction (when I know without Him I'd be feeling the opposite) is a gift from him. TOTALLY 100% free. And Free, (and to be free) is beautiful. Really really beautiful. And that is what I am!

What makes that so so so good is the fact that I’m experiencing a reality made available to everyone. And that reality is documented, it’s actually a present thought that is being acted out in my life at this minute. And not just in mine. 

In that moment, and many other moments that have come before and will come after, my shame is being covered by Jesus’ perfect, sinless, blood. That, my friends, is the gospel.  And that is really what I am experiencing when I’m in the presence of God.

 I would do anything tonight

To walk down the halls of a labor ward

Looking and re-looking at picture books of babies

Wondering with a sweet family what theirs will look like.

To listen to the same stories over and over, and join them in their excitement over a new arrival

  To just get to sit by a woman laboring in a tub

Nodding off to sleep together between contractions

Then startling awake with her as a new one surges through her.

  To walk the halls, and show her husband how to rock her back and forth when a contraction comes

Watching him as he falls in love with her all over again

  To show her how to sit on a birthing ball and

Rock, rock, rock the baby lower

  To press on her back until my hands are numb

To put a cool washcloth on her forehead

Praying for her silently before my hand leaves her

  To look her in the eyes as fear tries to stream in

As she cries out, with loud sobs, “BUT I JUST CAN’T!”

To be strong and solid, and with unshakeable faith say

“Yes you can! You are right now.”

To have her believe me, digging deeper within herself, finding out I was right.

  To just have that moment where I can watch with wonder

As new life emerges

Without shame, just watching it enter.

Holding back my breath and

Just taking in and maintaining the space and the moment

  This baby

Doused with holiness

(And a few other bodily fluids)

A Living. Breathing. Miracle.

Crying and pink, squawking, maybe looking a little angry

Just to witness that moment it is placed into her arms

  To hear, as she beams at her child

Radiating joy

“I can’t believe I did it.”

  For her to realize all along that she could,

That she can,

that there is a lot of other things she can do.

  Sensing that victorious pride rushing out of her.

Rejoicing and celebrating with her

Now that it's summer, I actually have a chance to read books for fun. Reading? Fun? What a concept! :)

 A book I flew through this week, called, "Spoken For: Embracing Who You Are and Whose You Are" by Alyssa Bethke and Robin Jones Gunn, comes across initially as a light, fluffy read. I began to read it, thinking most of the time "What an awesome book for little middle schooler girls." The book deals with our identity in Christ, covering foundational aspects of His character, and using those to exhibit who we are through who He is (Ex: I am Set Free, I am Beloved, I am Chosen, etc.) I loved the messages, but felt like I'd already heard them enough to understand them. I was one of those people reading the book thinking to myself "I wish _______ was reading this instead of me, she'd gain so much from this!"

Just a hint: when that's your thinking, you are definitely missing the point. Every message can be made applicable to you if you listen hard enough (at least, I believe that to be true). The more I read the book, the more I realized the messages within it were something that I didn't have heart-knowlege of even though I did have head-knowlege. I was able through this book, to adopt a heart-level understanding of these truths and made them my own this week. Pretty cool, huh? :) I thought so too. 

I wanted to share one statement from the book that caught my attention because I think for some, it can be a key to freedom.  Robin and her sister used this little sentence as a way to remind them not to beat themselves up for things they've done, choosing to believe and accept the idea that they are forgiven instead of living within the confines of shame.  Their statement, something they told each other when they needed to hear it, was this one: 

"Shame off you, Grace on you." 

Robin reminded her readers in a very sweet way, that these words aren't just a positive statement or nice thought, but they are the reality for us when we don't line up with God's standards for us. 

Shame is not of the Lord. Shame is something that keeps us stuck and hidden from Him. Jesus died so we wouldn't have to live in continual shame and shame is the greatest weapon the enemy can wield against us. 

On our own, there is no way for us to fight shame. And even in everyday life I don't think there's a person who doesn't struggle somewhat with feelings of shame. But when Jesus died, He wasn't the only thing that died. For those who believe, their old selves, governed by sin and shame, died too. And what came in to take the place of the shame we'd heaped on ourselves? GRACE. 

God's grace, or "the free and unmerited favor of God" (as defined by Google) is what we gained , what was made available to us in Christ's death on the cross and resurrection after 3 days. With Jesus, Shame can't stick to us like it used to. There is something much more powerful in play that easily overpowers shame once we accept that it's there and that it is (completely) for us: GRACE. Isn't that cool? 

So, my (imaginary) friends, have you done things you regret? Are you beating yourself up for that thing that happened last night, last week, last month, last year? Here's what I have to say to you: 

Shame off you, Grace on you! 

God's gift of grace is available to you and its crazy awesome once we accept it. His grace covers us completely, and there's nothing we can do to change that once we accept it into our lives. I don't quite know if there are sweeter words that can be said than those. 

You know the saying, "I've got a lot on my plate right now?" 

Well, I am having a hard time remembering when a lot wasn't on my plate. Currently, my plate is overflowing and has been the past two or three weeks. 

It's been such a huge task to keep going. God has really been transforming my life through this busy time. With Him, I have faced every obstacle, and I am a living example of the verse I've been chewing on for awhile that says, "…With my God's help, I can scale a wall" (Ps. 18:29). 

Anyone who knows me knows that I am NOT athletic, actually, it is probably the area I identify as my weakest (both physically and emotionally). But here I am,  slowly and steadily scaling this wall made up of finals week, nursing school, packing up, heading home, facing fears, believing the truth. It's been a constant process of digging deep, surrendering and humbling myself before the Lord.

This "scaling the wall process" isn't something that is exciting really. Most of the time, I feel like a hot sweaty mess huffing and puffing, clinging to the rocks jutting out of the wall, losing my footing sometimes, clinging for dear life as my heart pounds in my ears. I'm that person getting leg cramps, shaking with every step as I make my way to the top, feeling like I could puke at any second. I am making it, in my weakness God is my strength, but the journey through it all is hecka hard. 

I knew when I  came into church today that I was on the brink of just losing it, being an emotional wreck, throwing in the towel, whatever you want to call it. I was just SO OVER the scaling the wall today. 

I felt a tap on my shoulder midway into the church service  and it was my friend Joey, holding his new precious daughter Reese. She was recently adopted by him and his wife, Tori, (who is pregnant right now with what will be Reeses' "twin" sibling!).

I saw her teensy delicate body curled up in his arms, and I was like, "Oh my goodness, I was praying she'd be here today!!" (I love baby gazing at church, it's my favorite thing ever!).

Then he said, "Would you like to hold her?" 

And I was like, "I was praying you'd let me hold her too!" :)

Holding the weight of this precious little vulnerable baby in my hands brought out my own vulnerability and I heard myself say as a tear or two escaped my eyes, "I've had such a hard week, holding her helps so much." 

Then it was like Joey knew what to do and he just said "You can hold her for the whole song if you want to," and he went off to the side and just let me have moment with her. 

I stared at her as she slept, singing the worship song being sung by the congregation over her, my voice warbling with emotion as I looked at her.

God used her to speak to me. He reminded me why I am doing what I am doing and that it isn't just for the pregnant women that I love so much, but it's also for all the little Reeses'; these tiny precious children that the Lord loved and created. He wants me to be there for the least of these, the most defenseless lives out there. He wants me to defend them, to delight in them and to help people see God through their existence and life. 

The devil wants you to believe that when you are at your weakest, all hope is lost and your relationship with God is in shambles.

As someone coming out of a weak period, let me just tell you right now that that is a LIE. Spent some time reading over my prayer journal and I am FLOORED by how my prayers paved the way for right now, this moment of freedom and victory and overcoming. 

Just to share snippets of my prayers these past weeks: 

"You are my salvation, stronghold, defender, King, my portion, my prize, my Father, my friend. You are the Lover of my Soul. I am Yours and You are Mine. You are God and I am not…I have been chosen, I am secure in Christ and He is who I am found in! He is where my hope comes from." 

"Thank you for wooing me this morning over coffee and Your word. Help me to heal like you healed: with my words, my touch and a heart that desires everyone to be free from suffering. Increase my faith everyday." 

"I love having a relationship with You. You are that place my heart longs for, my home. Getting to just sit here and tell you these things brings me such joy." 

These snippets of prayers are all prayed during the eye of the storm in my most recent HUGE trial. During a time of questioning whether or not I could really trust God. A time where I felt far from God. A time that has been the last three or so months.  

And you know what the devil was trying to convince me of tonight? Right after an amazing time with God, a time in which I feel chains were broken and I was freed, he tried to get me again by whispering: You never once believed God could do this for you. You never once prayed a prayer that wasn't a complaint to God during this time. Sure you're out of this time now, but you were ungrateful during the whole time you were going through it. You are a bad follower of Jesus and because of that, in the morning, you're going to be right where you were yesterday with no way out. You aren't really free. Nothing has changed. You are ungrateful and selfish there is nothing that is going to get you back to a right place with God.

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT SATAN? I wrote my prayers down! And while I can say with full confidence that I don't deserve a single bit of the beautiful gift my Abba gave me tonight, I can say, with confidence, that I prayed in faith and I praised God during this trial despite the fact that I wasn't seeing any change in my situation up until tonight.