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

 

 

 

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. 

Because I love this book so much, I am offering a chance to win a free copy to one of my readers.

To enter a chance to win, simply like my Facebook page and then come back and enter a comment saying you did. Entries will close on Friday at midnight PST and a winner will be announced on Saturday. Good luck. 

This giveaway is now closed. 

 

I also linked up with

Decluttering Part Five: I’m Failing My Kids

I can hear the soft rustle of her feet as she pads sleepily down the hall. I see tiny hands with chipped pink polish, lifting the blankets edge and then the softest wisp of a breathe on the side of my cheek as she nestles into the curve of my arm and settles where my heart beats. She is so beautiful to me. Her soft hair flowing over the pillow.

Kaia is beautiful

He pulls up on the bed, grasping with tiny fingers, a bounding cable of boy energy stretched long and flying toward us. He flops his head onto my shoulder and lets out a howl of chuckles, not like a girl but a deep thing floating from his lungs. He is all boy. This little man in my arms. I pull his body to mine. I feel his heart race with excitement as he jumps free and springs across the bed like a bounding creature. 

Nehemiah swinging

And then there’s my oldest, on the cusp of manhood but still so much a boy. He doesn’t bound in like he used to.  He sits more tentatively on the edge of the bed. Still wanting to join in but more reserved. He is finding his boundaries, his space. He’s not so quick to hug or snuggle. He carries his adolescent awkwardness with him at this age.  I have to chase him down for affection but he is always ready for attention. For my time and praise.

Judah

 He’s hurting. I can see it. He feels trapped and lost and is waiting for me to take the lead, after all, I’m his mom. I’ve taught him everything else from the time he was potty training with Thomas the Train undies to writing a persuasive essay in grammar.

But this, this I can’t teach. Haven’t learned.

I’m failing them. And I know that there is only so much we can do as moms. But then again, there is so much we can do as moms!

I see the areas where I am weak, where I struggle, and oh how it slices through me to see those same struggles and strongholds in my children’s lives. Food addiction and gluttony. Seeing it as comfort and overindulging. Piling my plate high when I should be turning to God for those empty and broken places which food never fills.

I don’t know how to change it.

How do you deal with flesh and need in your children’s lives when you haven’t even begun to deal with it in your own?

How do you set boundaries and help without it seeming like you are always judging or policing everything that goes into their mouths? Without making them feel worse than they already do?

How do you set an example when you are so weak? When you’ve tried and failed more times than you can count? When you can’t see your own worth and you hide behind your fat suit and hold people at a distance?

I watched my dad battle these demons all of his life and  I know now, he wasn’t judging me as my weight ballooned as I made poor choices and he saw my health declining. He felt just as inadequate to help me as I do now as a mom watching my children imitate me.

I’m failing, guys. I know it.   I am stripped bare and exposed. And all I can do is admit I am failing and I need help.

 

SomeGirlsWebsite.com

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