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Five Minute Friday: Identity

It’s Friday. You know what that means. Five minutes fast and furious and uncut. This week’s word: Identity

“Define yourself radically as one beloved by God. This is the true self. Every other identity is illusion.” – Brennan Manning

The letters are slanted slashing violently across the page. All sharp edges and fury. I’ve kept boxes full of journals stacking year upon year. So many pages of why, scribbled in rants all pointing at a God I could not trust. A God who never gave me a tidy answer to the wounds I bore in shame.

Why didn’t I get a chance at innocence? Why did that get robbed from me at such a tender age, behind closed doors? Would I ever be clean?

And when I could find no fair answer as to why the image in the mirror looked back at me defiled and filthy, guilty and wretched, I raged all the more. This war with God, this heart turned hard and phobic.

How could He not protect me? Why if all they say is true, do these scars remain? Why does this world suffer and groan and tremble with pain? Doesn’t He claim to be a God who heals? Who redeems?

But this mess that I am, how can there be beauty in that?

Where is the glory of the frail and broken?

And when nothing smoked, drank, bought, or accomplished would quell the pain, I fell to my knees in years of alter call pleadings for salvation that never seemed to come. For a redemption moment that never took hold. I could convince my mind to believe but my heart still beat out that I did not belong. That I didn’t feel any different.

I dug in and worked this Christianity harder. I would pray prayers with big theological words and scripture, I would check off the list of bible reading and journaling happy God thoughts, I would behave. I would try hard to make God love me. I would join small groups and even lead them, spout theology and witness, all while silently repeating salvation prayers like a transaction that kept getting denied.

I still don’t have a moment. There was no one prayer that finally took hold. No lightbulb came on or foreign language burst from my lips.

Instead, my story is one of minute moments strung together over my life, each drawing me further out. Years being stacked, not orderly or linear but beautiful as a masterpiece chiseled rough but worn smooth as cool marble. Steps ascending to the heavens, not attempted by my feet, which so often fall but a staircase for Jesus to come low and touch me.

To give me a new identity. To call my name, beloved.

On Fridays over at The Gypsy Mama, a group of people who love to throw caution to the wind and just write gather to share what five minutes buys them. Just five minutes. Unscripted. Unedited. Real.

Your words. This shared feast. Hop over and share your five minutes on Identity

Comments: 15 Comments Category: Blogging, Faith, Suffering Tags: blogging, faith, five minute Fridays, God, hurt, stripped

Five Minute Friday: Real

It’s that time of the week again, when we let our words fly and take shape for the fun of it.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking

2. Link back to The Gypsy Mama and invite others to join in.

3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.

OK, are you ready? Give me your best five minutes on:

Real…

God never place us in any position in which we can not grow. We may fancy that He does. We may fear we are so impeded by fretting, petty cares that we are gaining nothing; but when we are not sending any branches upward, we may be sending roots downward. Perhaps in the time of our humiliation, when everything seems a failure, we are making the best kind of progress.- Elizabeth Prentiss

Sometimes I feel stuck. The days seem to repeat endlessly and each trial continues and each step feels as though I am retracing a path with tracks from my drifting heart . Sometimes I find myself in familiar surroundings and I wonder at how I have allowed myself to come back here. To this place that I thought I had moved beyond.

We talk of getting real. Of letting each other lean in close and see us as we are, the no makeup greasy ponytail girl staring into a full closet of clothes that no longer fit and deciding it’s not worth going out today.

The weight watchers name tag, Hello My Name is Alia sticker you found on the back of your jeans when you undressed at night and you realize you ran all of your errands since your meeting that morning with it stuck to your butt. And that one of those errands was buying ice cream and cake mix because you weighed in and the scale was mocking your hard work and you give up so easily.

Your toddler saying “Put me down you idiot,” at a homeschool ceremony while he struggles to get free of your grasp and you know he learned that word from you and your road rage. And you wonder how these kids of yours will ever turn out alright when they copy you so readily. And the worst parts always seem to come out.

And you feel like a failure. Again.

Some days you feel the draw of depression pulling you down. The invitation to stop caring. To stop trying and just close your eyes and your bed is calling you, it is pleading for you to stay. It would be so much easier. And you find yourself there again. In this place you’ve moved beyond and you know you don’t want to stay here. You know that this is where your heart goes to die. To be alone.

You want to be real but you also want to be loved. And sometimes you don’t feel the real is lovable. Sometimes the real is messy and pitiful or weak and broken.

Sometimes your real feels whiny and complaining and you know you should choose joy but what comes out sounds fake and syrupy and you don’t want to be that girl. The one who never seems real, with the platitudes and life lessons wrapped up neatly. The one who never lets the messy bits show.

So you choose to keep silent and alone and settle into this familiar place. Or you may choose to tell it all. To let the messy bits show and hope for the best, to set out on the path even if you’re not sure where you’ll end up.

Sometimes it is enough to say that I am a failing in these areas. And that God is at work. And that is good enough. The best, really. God knows our real, our ruts in the road from life’s ordeals, why would we try to hide them from the ones He’s put in our lives to help us find the way back? Our friends.

To all of my friends who cover my messy parts and still love me, I’m so blessed by each of you.

Comments: 14 Comments Category: Blogging, Decluttering, Depression, Relationship Tags: blogging, fat, five minute Fridays, friends, God, mom fail, self image

A Book That Changed My Life

As a semi-crazed book lover who gets euphoric over stacks of beautifully shelved rows of word filled pages, I was immediately drawn to my friend Anne’s Book Carnival.

Write about a book that changed your life.

I knew immediately which book I would pick. It has truly changed my life and helped shape who I am, even down to the direction and vision for portions of this blog.

I was sixteen, bitter and angry at my parents for moving us to what I considered the 2nd circle of hell, the first being church functions. I wanted nothing to do with Christians and church. I had been hurt too much. We had moved from Albuquerque to Hawaii and while most would think it a dream, I resented everything about being pulled away from my friends and life during the middle of my junior year in high school.

I spent high school in total rebellion against God. I was angry and bitter, and could not fathom a loving God allowing so much hurt into my life. My rational mind never doubted that God existed but I interpreted everything I had grown up with in the church to reveal a mean judging God awaiting my next mistake so he could crush me. To me, he was a power hungry being that was full of himself all the while being impotent to help alleviate any actual pain or suffering.

He was a remote, cruel master and I wanted nothing to do with him. But I don’t always get what I want.

God brought about repentance in my heart but I still struggled with the nagging questions of His goodness.

I found hope and comfort about the goodness of God in an unlikely place, a book about suffering and martyrdom.

A Distant Grief by F. Kefa Sempangi chronicles the true story behind the martyrdom of Christians in Uganda under the rule of Idi Amin during the early 70′s when over 300,000 people were killed in brutal and terrible ways. Sempangi’s story weaves his own personal tale of ministry and persecution while seeing thousands come to saving grace by God’s demonstrative power.

This book does not tone it down and make it pretty. The causes for suffering remain and are not explained away in neat sound bites. But the joy that can only come from God shines through. God doesn’t always eliminate the evil and injustice in the world. But we know we are not made for this world and our hope and actions remain.

Kefa’s own humanity is seen in his struggles yet we also see a man who was obedient and faithful. What is seen throughout this story is how God shows up, in the midst of the worst kinds of evil. In the midst of pain and suffering beyond my imaginations.

This story was not an intellectual response to suffering and evil in the world but a telling of God’s presence in Uganda. I didn’t want to read someone’s philosophical comeback to why he allows the horrific and brutal and wrong. I wanted to see His hand move and know that He is not only powerful but compassionate.

Along the way, there are insights into poverty, giving, and missions but they don’t hold the preachy tones that some books on these subjects tend towards.

I lay in my bed sobbing through the chapters as God worked in me. I had made the commitment to follow Christ but I still had so much hurt and confusion. This book made me realize the power of prayer, the power of a body, the power of my own brokenness, and my heart for missions. For the first time, I wanted to lose my life, not out of despair or depression but out of hope.

My heart for Africa was birthed by the words of this book and although I have never stepped foot on African soil, my heart stirs at the mention. I believe I will minister there whether it’s through the ministries I champion from this computer screen, the kids I sponsor, or the crossing of oceans to call it my home.

My heart resonates with it and it all started here in the pages of this book that changed my life.

If you love books and are looking for some great ones to add to your reading list be sure to check out the link above to see which books have affected others. I have hundreds, from picture books to fiction to autobiographies and I’m looking forward to sharing them here with you on an ongoing basis.