It's Been a Good Year

The last year of my life has been anything but idyllic to say the least, but in hindsight, neither has it been so terrible. I say this with tongue in cheek, knowing those of you who read this will probably slap your foreheads in frustration. Let me qualify by saying, everything looks better in a rear view mirror, but still, for what I have learned, it was.... worth it.

For years I was a loud and proud proponent of authenticity. Be authentic! I would yell from my pulpit. Get to know yourselves! I shouted in a touch of pride. It's easy to say when life is fun and tribulation is far. When there is no need for God, it is easy to tell someone to find Him.

In all of His graciousness though, he didn't allow me to stay there. He knew I wanted to love Him out of desire and truth, not 'shoulds' and angst.

It's frustrating isn't it? We journey our whole lives in seeking the safe covering of denial, pulling the corners down around us, stretching it to make sure nothing peaks out. Then He comes along and shatters the glass wall that has kept all we don't want to think about, or remember, or see, at bay and every fear, doubt, anger, memory, wound, sin, arrogant attitude, hateful word, jealous moment, insecure days and shameful acts come tumbling out in a deluge we can't stop. The corners of denial start fraying and tearing under the strain and eventually it can no longer cover what we don't want seen. Casually, He walks by and snaps the final strap and we watch the wind whip it away finding suddenly we are suddenly exposed. The illusion is over.

Some are able to hold on as long as they can, refusing to admit to the purposed humbling, and some are unable to stand under it. Some pull themselves up by their bootstraps refusing help, thus prolonging the inevitable need for another wall to be shattered later, after they return to the safety of another glass wall. Some become victims, perpetually replaying every fear and tear, hoping it will earn them a moment of grace based on victim manipulation and some fold like a house of cards, falling into a pile of emotions waiting to be rescued.

I'm not sure which is the best answer, I know God works with them all, but I was definitely a mix of the two last categories. I broke. I guess I knew deep down, I was meant to break. So I watched helplessly as He came and broke every bone. As though it was without anesthesia, I watched as He came and poked every wound, prodded every insecurity and proved out my greatest fears. He aired out all my arrogance, my pride and made me face the shame of it existing. He turned me to face every hidden doubt I never wanted to admit to, every fearful thought of mine and His weakness. He blew the top off my weak faith and shattered it along with my heart.

I was so angry. I had no idea how angry. It had all been seething there for years, nurtured by arrogance and self-righteousness. When I no longer had those to protect me, the rage and bitterness had nothing to stop it from rising to the surface, my glass wall had shattered. As the anger melted, the insecurity came raging to the surface, popping up in new and creative ways. My usual way of handling it was gone. There was no one to comfort me, no love to bandage an infected heart. I couldn't be rescued. My facade had been ripped off, I was exposed. I wasn't the strong, faithful woman I thought I was. I was an adolescent child in an overgrown woman's body. My denial had been doing me no good.

All the props I had been using were no good anymore. The relationships that made me feel accepted were gone, the sanctuary I could hide in was stripped and the faith I had was proved to be anemic and false, only there to give me comfort, rather than an avenue to really relate to a mysterious God. I was, as David so aptly put it, a wasteland.

There had been too much death in me. Too much denial of the death and too many props keeping me looking alive. How could I relate to a living, dynamic God while working so hard to keep everyone, even myself, from seeing what was really going on in my heart. I needed Him to come reveal it. He knew I needed a beautiful rescue.

I guess that's the catch though. We never can see what He already knows. He had already walked the path with me, but I couldn't know that. He couldn't even let me see that. If I had, somehow, it would have been another prop. It would have been another way to keep sustaining a weak faith that was built on my efforts rather than His. Everything had to go. So He turned off the lights and threw me down a long and deep well, breaking every bone along the way. Oh how I hated Him. Oh how angry I was. And He knew. He knew how ugly it would get, but never once did He stop. Never once did my rage, my doubt or my fear stop Him. He kept coming and kept coming and wouldn't rest. He wouldn't let me rest. It was hit after hit after hit. Loss after loss, greatest fear realized after greatest fear realized. He broke everything and left nothing behind in His destruction. It reminded me of how the Israelites would completely destroy a city when they had won.

I couldn't understand, why would He let me fall like that? Why would He let me question? He used my A personality as the tool in His hand. I got angry, I wanted answers and if He was as good and big as He said He was, then He should be able to provide them. He set me up beautifully. Ah, the wisdom. I guess it doesn't surprise that the one Who created me would know the best way to use me against myself. Sneaky.

He never gave up on me. He could see what I couldn't; that He really was bigger and better and I was really, a lot stronger than I thought. He took what He had given me innately from birth, those character traits I had used for my own selfish gain, and turned them into His tools of trade to destroy me, then He handed them back to me, ready for me to use now for His purposes. My fight, my energy, my passion, my black and white mentality, my emotionalism, my need for truth, they became those perfect instruments for Him to turn against me. I got angry, ashamed, but I fought. I fought against Him, against myself, against anyone that challenged me. I wanted and needed to know, to understand. I never really did, but I wanted to. Only now, after the battle is over, after the dust has settled, after I have already surrendered am I getting a faint glimpse.

But He knew all of that. He knew I would want to understand, but that He couldn't tell me. He knew I would rage and scream and cry and sob and He knew He couldn't rescue me in the way I wanted. He knew He had to actively wound me in His infinite wisdom. I wonder how hard that must have been for Him, watching me cry out and not be able to come rescue me yet. Sometimes I feel His own pain over it. The Father watching His Son die, the Father watching His daughter die, knowing He could take them off their prospective cross', but knowing also, He would be doing neither any justice. And as I wrote my fears and struggles, as I spoke about my pain and doubts, I am humbled by His decision to let me air my grievances, risking His reputation for my soul. He had no fear I would not eventually see Him and His ways. He had no concerns I would "lose my faith" or "walk away." His love, His belief in me was consistent, unshakable and profound. Somewhere deep in me, I knew that. I knew He was the wall I was running into, as blind as I was, it was Him I was learning to bend to. His love was so passionate and true, so unguarded by selfish desires, it let me have all the freedom in the world to choose. It gave me protected space to let the Niagara Falls of pain and anger and selfishness come forth until only a drip remained.

See His desire has been the same from the beginning of time: relationship. That cannot happen between Him and I when I am more worried about holding it all together, or creating an image, or keeping myself from feeling insecure, left out, rejected or abandoned. I've spent a lifetime focusing in how to avoid those things only to either make them happen, or to find, focusing on them will only breed the insecurity, not heal it. I was broken long before He broke me, He just pointed it out in beautiful irony. He held the mirror up forcing me to finally admit I had already was, what I feared most. I was alone, and I was abandoned and I was rejected and for good reason.

In those moments, when I was face to face with all that I had been running from, when everything around me seemed to be mocking and pointing out the very wounds and fears I had been trying to hard to protect myself against, that's when His love became real. No one ever wants to be left because of their defects, it's what we all fear most, and yet here I was, facing that very reality. I had been rejected for the very reasons I was most afraid of being rejected. He created a circumstance where my worst fears blossomed into full blown reality and there was no getting around it. He was brutal and efficient in His breaking of me.

I was what I was, and He was still standing there waiting for me to realize none of it mattered, since He was with me. "Let everyone leave you," He seemed to say, "Let everyone see how arrogant and selfish you are. I already know, and I am here. I see more than everyone and I am pressing in, running towards you, fighting for you asking you to not care what they say, what even you are, and to let me love you. Let ME be all that you and everyone else can't be. Let ME love you to perfection. Let ME build your life around that which is permanent and good and real and hopeful and beautiful and blessed and lovely. Let me build it around us."

That's when the doubts started to become shallow arguments and excuses. That's when the anger started to subside and I stopped being a victim and instead, owned up to a mess I had created. That's the funny thing about desperation, it isn't always so desperate. Sometimes its fairly simple. When I could no longer make the image work, or hold up my own faith, or prop up justifications for actions and emotions, when all the arguments were exhausted and I couldn't convince anyone or anything that "it shouldn't be this way" but it just was, that's when my faith moved from something I read in a book, to watching Jesus change my life.

I don't know what happened, I don't know how it happened, I don't know where it happened, I just know it did. The pieces started falling into place and as I look back, I realize, He had always been in control. It was never about losing someone, or something, it was never about "fighting a good fight." It wasn't even about how bad things were and how sometimes bad things happen to good people. None of that mattered. What mattered was, it was all about Him and me. It was always, from beginning to end, totally and completely, only about Him and I. Losing friends and lovers and families breaking up, dogs dying and homes moved away from, those are terrible things to go through, but none of it was ever about one thing. It was never all my fault, or someone else's wrong, it was never about forging ahead onto some unknown path and staking out my individuality. No, it was nothing so dramatic and cinematic. Simply, it was about Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit doing some serious house cleaning. It was about asking me to love Him for Him and never because He blesses me. It was about asking me if I believed because I knew, or because I was told to. It was about helping a little girl with a little faith get on the path of becoming a grown woman with a lot of heart. It was about finding out how small but strong I really am, and how precious and loved while being so ugly and childish. I don't get everything I want, and mostly because I shouldn't. I don't deserve to be loved, but it sure does make me smile when I am. I am not worthy of much, but I was chosen for a lot. I am capable of creating much pain and destruction, but also on a journey of learning real empathy and sacrifice. I am oh so human, but an inheritor of so much supernatural blessing.

It will never stop, this up and down, merry-go-round life. Bad things will happen... and so will good. But none of that is the point. Wounds are inevitable, some purposed by Him, some just the collateral damage of this world, but all of it is intentioned, purposed and used by Him. The ups and downs will happen, but He remains the same. The hope is, eventually the motion, the carousel of emotions, will become less and less powerful in the face of His crushing presence and peace. The hope is, patience will outweigh turmoil as I wait for Him to redeem over and over. Every death, wound, evil in me, or in the world is just another opportunity for Him to prove His love, His ability to save and His desire to bring me closer. All the bad will become just as easily tools in His hand as blessing, in acting out His wisdom and love.

I will admit, this is a hard place to live. I get distracted by fears, hurts, words of others and TV; not to mention IPads and phones and even more so, Facebook. I know I will never stop needing Him to break me over and over again, but I am starting to fear it less. I am starting to trust Him with every future event, need and desire of my heart. If He can melt my heart of stone, nothing is impossible for Him. If He can take was what the worst year of my life and make me thankful for it, that is a sort of miracle that ranks with the parting of the Red Sea.... well at least to me it is. But I guess that's the miracle I was waiting for all along, one that couldn't be rusted by time, stolen by thieves, or eaten away at by others. It is the miracle that only Him and I know and that makes it all the more sweet. It makes it all the more real.

I will always walk with a limp, or have the thorn in my side, or have the memory of the cock crowing at midnight. I flinch when I don't get a call back right away from the man I love, or when a girlfriend says she can't hang out. I over analyze and under trust, I have mini-panic attacks over made up conversations and imagined slights. I worry about getting fat and when I get in an argument with someone, especially those I love, I want to apologize over and over, still insecure about whether or not they will want to see me again. Those are the evidences of being human, wounded and battling insecurity. Those are the scars that remind me start everyday in the presence of the One that loved me unconditionally. Those are the reminders that I will have to learn to trust again, and while I do, patience and grace will be needed. They are also wonderful places to learn again the freedom I have, the peace He has for me, and the beauty He has provided through the people that surround me now. It's slow and steady work, with much stumbling along the way, but I know without compromise, that He is with me every step. I know without a shadow of a doubt how purposed my life is, how big and wonderful He is and how His grace will cover everything. He holds my hand as I step out to love others with a different heart, one that has been marked and scarred, tattered and torn, and healed with skilled fingers and true love. At once I am less confident, but more sure of who I am and I know deep in my heart, He has already gone before me into the next phase, creating a wise path that will only lead to more of Him and that makes everything worth it all.