Freedom in Embracing Failure

The more I delve into this whole feeling worthy thing, the more I embrace who God says I am, the more I believe I am enough (despite all the imperfections I could spend hours detailing for you), the more I see freedom in embracing failure.

I'm not talking about wantonly doing a terrible job at something or being dispassionate, or lacking compassion and how my actions affect someone else. I'm talking about the fact that I will fail, despite at times my best efforts, but even in that place of failure I don't cease being enough or loved. In that place of failure (which often accompanied by pain) I experience God's grace deeply, I learn lessons about dark areas in my heart that need Jesus' healing, and I learn how very dependent I am on Jesus for everything (which I conveniently forget when things are easy or I'm successful).

I used to fear failure, so I never took real chances. Okay, I need to be real here - I was terrified in a phobic way of failure. If I couldn't be successful I often didn't try. Or if I did try, I threw everything I had at it, including my identity, and when it didn't work out I took a huge hit and was wounded deeply. And this was a cycle to end all cycles that just kept happening over and over and over again. I was seriously failure averse. The quest for perfectionism was sapping me of the relationships I needed, sapping me of joy, and sapping me of God's grace. I was so afraid if I was known I'd be rejected and that any love for me was predicated on what I could accomplish. It was a one-way ticket to bondage.

Now, I'm learning that failure is both inevitable and beautiful. Which is slightly terrifying. I'd be lying if I said I like failure. Of course I don't! But it will happen and if I embrace it and bring it to Jesus (who already knows anyway) I have great freedom there. I'm free to make mistakes and grow. I'm free to let people love me even when I've been a dork. I'm free to feel God's incredible grace wash over me. I'm just plain free.

So the more I grow, the more I trust, the more I am embracing failure. It's a little scary at times, but it's also the best way to live. At least that's how I feel!

Revisiting my Need for a Lesson in Botany

On 22 November 2010 I posted the following note on Facebook. I had no idea what a blog was exactly nor why I would ever create one. What I did know was that God was speaking to my heart and I wanted to share it. This is that post in its entirety. Years have now passed and I have seen God fulfill this in my life. At the time I wrote this I was barely able to believe this was possible - barely able to personalize this for myself. More than two years later not only do I know it's possible, but I rejoice in the work God has done, and I am learning to embrace who I am. I hope that this blesses whoever chooses to read it.

So last night God gave me this scripture in Isaiah - 55:13 - "Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow. Where nettles grew, myrtles will sprout up. These events will bring great honor to the Lord’s name; they will be an everlasting sign of his power and love."

There are a lot of plants in this one verse.  So since Jesus doesn't add detail that is meaningless, I hit the Google search engine this morning to learn more about the mentioned items.  Here is what I found:

Thorns - Well, nothing new Googling here.  Thorns are pointy things that grow on trees and bushes.  They help deter predators and they hurt like a booger if you run into them. The Bible uses thorns as a metaphor for people who will give you grief (see the Old Testament where God is telling the Israelites to drive out the people in the land or they'll be thorns in their sides).  How many times have I  been a thorn?  How many times have I used my thorns to keep people away from me?  As a way to self protect?

Thorns are contrasted with Cypress trees...

Cypress trees - Cypress trees are  pretty sturdy things.  They can be very drought tolerant.  They are evergreens (the African cypress) and easily resists decay.  It's also aromatic.  One of the things I thought was way cool is that, according to Wikipedia, the cones containing the seeds don't open until they are scorched by fire.  Huh.  Sound like any other descriptions of things in the Bible?  Like maybe fiery trials?  How often has God used a fiery trial of some sort to get me to open up and, from that, He uses it to plant His seeds in me and around me?

Then there are nettles. Did you know that they are toxic?  They are pretty, flowering plants, but utterly toxic.  They've been known to kill animals and even a human or two.  Some cultures have used them in weird folk concoctions, but anything that can kill a horse is something I'd rather not tangle with, thank you very much.  They also have stinging leaves - little hairs with the chemicals on them.  Imagine running into them.  If this scripture can be applied to my life - how often have I been toxic?  How often has a run in with me been devastating to someone else?  How often has a run in with me been devastating to me?

Nettles are contrasted with myrtles...

I think this was the one that spoke the most powerfully to me.  Myrtles are also really hearty.  Not only can they be small bush-like things, but they can grow into pretty sizable trees (up to 5 meters).  They are beautiful.  I'm actually familiar with the Crepe Myrtle (same family as the ones in Israel) - which are all over NC.  Those trees are gorgeous when they flower.  And they are also ridiculously hearty.  When I lived in my apartment each year during pruning season the landscapers would come and darn near chop down the trees outside my second-story bedroom window.  The poor things looked pathetic and barren.  It never failed, though, that by mid summer they were again as tall as the second-story window and had the most beautiful fiery pink flowers on them.  They were struck down but not destroyed.  Does that sound anything you might have read in the Bible? (See 2 Corinthians 4:9).

Okay, so what's the point?  The point is that this is something God will absolutely do in and through us.  In and through me.  He can take all the rough, toxic parts of us and make us strong, resistant to the crap this world throws at us, and beautiful.  How many women who are reading this need to know that God can AND WILL make them beautiful?  In fact, if 2 Corinthians 5:17 is true and this work is done and we are new creations, then WE ALREADY ARE BEAUTIFUL.  WE ALREADY ARE STRONG.  WE ALREADY ARE ABLE TO WITHSTAND THE CRAP OF THIS WORLD.

I know, maybe better than some, how hard this is to believe for yourself.  But in Ephesians 3:19-20 says, "May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." (NLT, emphasis added)

I can't do this in myself.  I just can't.  I can't even imagine what God might wish to accomplish in my life.  But He can and He is.  I've been told recently that I'm not big enough to wreck God's plans for my life.  In Isaiah 55, right before verse 13, He talks about how He wants us to come to Him - those who are thirsty and burdened.  He says that His word never returns void, that it ALWAYS accomplishes the purpose He has for it.  If He came to set us free (which He says frequently in His word), then we can bank on the fact that He will accomplish this in us.

I don't know about you, but I want people to look at my life and think, "I can't believe God did that in her. Wow, He's powerful. I want to meet that Guy."  So all I have to say is - BRING IT, JESUS. Let's do this thing.

Fear of Authenticity

Have you ever gone back and re-read a journal? Or a blog post from time past? I have and it can be a really interesting little excursion down memory lane. God set me off on a journey of knowing Him more deeply about 12 years ago. It's been an incredibly wild ride, to be sure - one filled with incredible highs, gut-wrenching lows, and times of "normalcy" (if there really is such a thing). The past three years have been exceptionally interesting as the foundation He laid in knowledge became my functional reality. I never thought that I would be able to comfortably say "I have worth and value, and I'm enough right now, even with all the flaws I can see and the ones I can't but know are there." Believing that I'm okay, that I'm enough, gives me freedom to be who God created me to be without apology and to explore all that He might have for me.

And even in that, there is still a fear of authenticity. I'm able to feel how different I am from years past. Oh, don't get me wrong I'm still me, but my way of processing and seeing things is much more mature. But even knowing that I'm free to be me, that who I am is enough, there is still a nagging fear deep down that who I am really might prove to be problematic. What if people don't like who I really am? I don't mean the random Joe off the street. I could care less if people I don't know like me. It's the people I love the deepest that I get scared of losing. As I continue to embrace who God made me to be and explore things more fully, what if the people I love most don't really like who I am and drop me like a hot potato?

Talk about a mind job from the enemy, right?! Fear is such a rate limiter in my life. I've let fear of the unknown, the "what if," control me on many occasions. Honestly, some fears do happen, but many don't. And those that have come to fruition have all been handled by a loving God. I'm still here, still standing, still growing. I do not want to let fear dictate what I will/will not do. Will I fail at times? Good gracious, of course. Do I need to fear failure? No. God's grace is sufficient. And hopefully those in my life who do truly love me will extend grace and keep on loving me anyway. So I take a deep breath and I walk forward, trusting Jesus more than anything and staying the course of following Him in all that I do.

What about you? What do you fear that causes you to struggle with walking forward? With embracing who God created you to be and wholly seeking His face?

Let me know redemption wins...

Today I cried myself to work, all nine miles of my commute. This morning I dropped my sobbing son off at school, kissed him goodbye, and watched the principal escort him to his class. I won't see him again until Wednesday - he'll be at his dad's for Christmas.

This isn't the first Christmas I've spent without him. In fact, other than his first two Christmases, this has been our life. Once his dad and I separated we had to share the day. Because of Isaiah's disability when the day falls near his dad's weekend and too many transitions would be more harmful than good He stays at his dad's. That's been the past two years.

There are far worse things that could be happening in my life. I know that so many people are suffering with a first Christmas where a lost child will not be seen again this side of heaven. I know that the odds are that on Wednesday morning he'll come home and we'll have our Christmas a day late. We'll have fun and laugh and today's pain will be forgotten.

What I also know is that it's okay to feel how I feel. A wise counselor once told me that just because someone else has a broken leg doesn't mean that my broken arm doesn't hurt. I don't use this pain as an entitlement for selfishness, but I surely do acknowledge that it's here and cry out to God for comfort, for myself and for my sweet son who would much rather mom and dad had stayed married and going between two very different places wasn't part of his life.

And God is merciful. When I hurt this much and the tears flow unabated I've learned to worship. For me, I can let out the pain and let the words of truth settle over me, and let my Father hold me. Worn by Tenth Avenue North played and I cried.

"Let me know redemption wins, let me know the struggle ends, that you can mend a heart that's frail and torn. I want to know a song can rise from the ashes of a broken life and all that's dead inside can be reborn... 'Cause I'm worn."

The end the song to me today really was a prayer; "Heaven come and flood my eyes." And God, who is merciful, turned my tear-streaked face to Him. The next song was Lamb of God, a statement of who God is and my freedom to come before Him.

"So I'll come broken through
The blood of Your son
And I'll kneel before You

You are holy
You are worthy
You are holy
You're the Lamb of God"

I pulled into the office parking lot, dried my tears, and went in to start my day. Though my heart is sad I'm comforted that God knows and cares. My sadness may be insignificant to other people who are dealing with far worse things, but it's not insignificant to God. He is holy, He is worthy. He is the Lamb of God.

Learning to Live In the Tension

I've had such a dramatic shift in the past two years that seems to have suddenly solidified in this strange way about two months ago. One season so completely ended and another so completely began that the line of demarcation is absolutely stark in my mind. I've been wondering what to call this new season into which God has ushered me - and all He's said is that it's called "transition."

More than at any other time in my life I know I'm going somewhere. I just have a limited idea with regard to where. I'm continuing to walk where He has me, but it's a struggle to both focus on being present and remembering to rest. I'm naturally a future thinker and a planner so being in the moment can be exponentially hard when I know God is leading me somewhere. It's probably why He only reveals bits and pieces at a time to me. If He did it any other way I'd run headlong toward wherever He said I was going and then completely miss the beauty of the process along the way.

Which also means I'd miss rest. Rest, I've noticed, is the first thing to go. Well, actually, I only notice after it's gone and I suddenly start feeling stressed, exhausted, and (if I'm being honest) kinda crazy. Most people exposed to me only casually wouldn't notice, but those who are close... Well, I do wonder if anyone's been planning an intervention the past couple weeks. Thankfully, God decided tonight was a good night for one, and here I am blogging as He presses things into my heart.

The Catalyst Atlanta conference was an interesting experience for a bunch of reasons. One of the most notable is that it happened at a time when I had margin in my life. In a place where I had space to think I was bombarded with a call to creativity. I haven't had that area of my brain pressed on in a long, long time. The combination of margin and stimulation sent my poor little brain into overdrive.

God, in His mercy, kept pressing into my heart that I needed to be careful not to take too much on. You see, when I get really inspired I feel like I can conquer the world (or at least make a lasting impression on it) - and that invariably ends up with me in a place God hasn't asked me to be, doing more than God has asked me to do, and I fall into the addictive (and deadly) cycle of "doing." Doing when not asked to by God always equals burnout for me. So God kept pressing on me to watch it, that I was starting to get ahead of where He wanted me to be.

And I sorta suck at listening. Until tonight when God pretty much slapped me upside the head and was like, "SLOW DOWN." Tonight I picked up my notes from Catalyst and looked at what I had written down on the front cover of the booklet. At the end of the conference the emcee asked us to write down three things. One was a statement and the other two were essentially questions.

1. "God has given me a creative gift and He wants me to use it more and allow Him to refine it."
2. "Allow the Spirit to fill in the blank with the one thing He is telling me to do: ________"
3. What one thing do I need to respond to that I learned during the conference: __________"

The immediate answer I got for #2 was "wait." So, I'm supposed to use whatever creative gift God has given me and I'm supposed to wait. Anyone want to tell me how the heck that works before my Type-A-figure-it-out-and-take-action brain spontaneously combusts?

Oh, yes, that would be God who intends to explain. I get to learn to live in the tension. Yes, He's taking me somewhere very purposeful.  Yes, I'm supposed to use the creativity He's given me and allow Him to refine it. And yes, I have to wait. I have to sit in the tension of the longing to do whatever and to go wherever He has for me. And that's a hard tension for me to allow. Everything in me is screaming GO and the Holy Spirit is whispering WAIT.

What a beautiful dilemma. It's beautiful because I am going to learn to live in a tension I've never lived in before - and still put into practice all that God has painstakingly been teaching me for two years. I get to be present and I get to rest in Him and in His plan for this process. I get to sit in "transition" as He reveals to me bit by bit whatever that means. So I'll allow the tension to remain and trust the goodness of my Father as He walks me down a new path that, right now, involves standing still.

Musings on Prayer

I'm a pray-er. I wouldn't say my prayers have always been pretty or selfless by any means, but I've always talked to God a lot. I've never really been one to worry about whether it was King James English and I've always just talked to Jesus like I talk to anyone. There are prayers filled with passion and longing and others that are more like, "Hey, I don't even want to talk to You today. I feel nothing. I can't fix that, so You wanna do something about that for me?" I know it sounds irreverent, but it is honest. And it's in my heart so I figure why hide it from God? Throw it on the table, and let Him address it. If I'm hiding it I'm only lying to myself.

I hate (and yes, I intended to use that strong a term) formulas for prayer. There are tools people can use and they can be helpful, but I'm always leery of books that do the step-by-step "if you pray this way God will eventually answer you" books. First of all, who in the world am I that I would presume to be able to make God do anything. Seriously? Like He said to Job - where exactly were you when I formed the earth and all the stuff in it? Oh yeah, you weren't even a thought yet."

Second, God is not a "genie in a Bible" (yeah, that was a Christina Aguilera play on words, I'm a heathen). I don't ask a certain way, with a certain heart to get God to do my bidding - even if that bidding is noble (like healing for a loved one). If I'm a vapor here (and the Bible says I am) then how on earth can I possible have a full eternal perspective? I can't.

Now all that being said - do I ask boldly and ask big things? Do I ask God for the impossible? If God isn't a genie in a Bible and He's not an "If I do this, then God will do that" God, then what's the point?

Simply put, the point is so much more than we could dream. God delights in us as believers and He desires to give us good things. Go take a look at Jeremiah 29:11-13 for proof on that. If you look at the entire context of that chapter, the Israelites were just dragged into captivity for idolatry and general rampant sinning. And God tells them - I have plans for you to give you a future and a hope when you seek me with all your heart. WHAT?! He still pursues relationship with His people.

As I consider all this, I think that - like so many other things - a good theology of prayer is a theology of trust. Trusting in who God is, what He says about Himself, what He says about me, and what He says about others. When I see Him and me rightly - in the context of the Word - then my prayers are honest, raw, real, conversational, bold, and in His will.

What would happen if all the Christians were bold and completely raw and honest? Going boldly before the throne of grace, asking big and small, or asking nothing at all? What would our lives be like, what would our relationship with God be like?

What are your thoughts (assuming you made it through what is a very long post)?

Seasons Change

Here I am on the cusp of a new season, about to step out into a new endeavor while also learning a new endeavor through graduate school. There are also changes in other aspects of my life happening right now. Nothing like doing it all at once, eh?

As I stand here on that precipice of change, I've noticed that I'm grieving a bit and that initially surprised me. The changes are good changes - they show how God has matured and refined me in the past two years (and will continue through my lifetime), they show my willingness to trust God even when I can't see the exact path (again, due to His refining and maturing), and they show that God still has plans and a path for me. Nothing bad there at all!

Yet they are all change. We people don't like change. We like things to stay comfortable and we don't like to be stretched. It was enlightening to me to learn in my crisis counseling class that there are both good and bad crises. Bad crises are the ones we think of first - like natural disasters or tragic shootings. Good crises also happen - the birth of a child or a change in jobs, just to name a couple. It's a moving on and a momentary, transient destabilization of what was previously known - a crisis.

When seasons change it is a passing away of the old and a welcoming of the new. It is still loss, despite being mixed with gain. Losses should be grieved and we have to let ourselves go through the grief process. It is completely okay to feel mixed emotions. It's okay to feel in general. It's not the same type of grief as the loss of a loved one, but it it is still grief. I will use myself as an example.

I'm very excited for the change that is coming for me. I like a good challenge and I know that I'll be getting one. I love people, and this opportunity will allow me to pour into the lives of others and help them be the best at their role they can be. But I'm also losing people I love dearly. No, those relationships will not end but they will change. People I see every day and talk to multiple times a day and have supported in various ways for years will be seen less frequently. Conversations will have to be different because we can't share all of the same information and experiences any more. These are people I really like. To not be as close to them is a loss. It causes me to feel sad. It causes me to have a bittersweetness about moving on. It's also a loss of comfort. Even when the situation is stressful as all get out, it's comfortable because it's known. Moving away from the known to the unknown makes me anxious.

I'm learning that we need to let ourselves grieve when it's appropriate. A life change, even a good life change, means the loss of the way it was, the way it used to be. We will adapt to our new season, and it's yet another opportunity to throw ourselves at the mercy of our God and let Him support us through it.

In all that I'm more convinced than ever that being authentic means being honest about everything. Yes, of course I'll be just fine. I'll move through this temporary destabilization and settle in. I won't dwell on the past and I'll keep all my fond memories.

But I will be present in this moment. I will allow myself to feel the sadness of change and loss and the excitement of new things. I'll cherish all the moments right now and not miss out on the beauty of God that is in them.

Anyone got anything to say - input, feedback, thoughts, cute pictures? Then comment!