God gave me a funny little line today, and I’ve been laughing about it and reflecting on it ever since.

“Blessed are those who internalize conflict, for they shall be the peacemakers.”

#truth #leanin

 

At IF:2016, God asked me if I was more afraid of man or Him. He called to mind that phrase, which I had read long ago on a bookmark. He asked me…if He called me to repent something out loud to someone else would I?

I said yes. And my “yes” was more powerful than I knew. My yes to repentance became a yes to freedom. I realized it then. There is nothing shameful about confessing our sin to God. It confesses our need for Jesus. Oh, I had known it was sin. I tried to change it on my own so I could come to God unashamed. I couldn’t. It turns out, all God really wanted, though, was for me to come to Him to be changed.

Do you know what I love about IF? It’s filled with women who are changed by their honesty to God (not just to their small groups)…and they’re not afraid to share the specifics. Something bold happens when people are specific with their story. You start to see that you’re just like them, and if God could do it for them, couldn’t he do it for you?

I read two to three books a night growing up. From my 8pm bedtime til 3 or 4 in the morning, I was turning pages. God knew my love language was books. He saved me through a bookstore. A bookstore that a church lost $30,000 on, but they started it because they knew God’s voice. I know what it is to have your soul bought for a price you cannot repay. It is a grace.

Because I went to that bookstore, I went to a church. There, I encountered a living God who speaks and loves for the first time. I spent huge portions of my paychecks on that little new and used Christian bookstore and books have played an unimaginable role in my own story. I even found out about IF:Gathering by Author Ann Voskamp.

God woos me through books still. He works through books still. There are new revelations and there are confirmations and there is the being NotAlone in my sin, in my experience, in my understanding, in my revelation.

I would have told you in OT school that I couldn’t have done the project that I completed had I been dating. The endless days of work were incompatible with dating. I would have told you that I would have traded that project in a second for a relationship.

I would have told you after my trips abroad that that’s one of the few perks of being single, and I decided to take advantage of it…but that I would have traded all that in a second for babies.

I would have traded jobs and poems and, yes…I think I would have even traded my call to lean into writing for a relationship. Which basically means I would have traded God for a relationship. Which basically means that God had to wait for 28 years for me to say, “no, God. I wouldn’t trade your call for a relationship. I wouldn’t trade the plans I have for the plans you have. I’m sorry that I’m so slow to learn that being a part of your story will always be worth it.”

Now, if I started dating, one of my early questions would be “Do you believe that there’s a specific call that God has on your life?” And I would desire that a man would ask me that, too. If things were headed towards marriage, I would want to know how I can support him in his calling and development of his giftings. I am believing that God would send me someone who would do the same for me. Mutual sacrifice. Mutual submission to Jesus to be parents leading a family on mission.

Lately, God has been prompting me to pray bigger. Stop limiting Him with my belief that He’ll do a couple small things, and believe instead that He wants me to ask for Him to do big things. He keeps saying the same thing to me that He said in October (God’s heart in creating you). Maybe you can thank [me] for strength, because [I’m tell] you the secret. Men are not the only ones called to dream big dreams.

Right as I started dreaming these dreams, I started feeling the stirring of fear. Would my character be strong enough to withstand all the criticism or all the praise? Would I get so busy that I stopped fixing my eyes on Jesus? Would I become prideful again? Would I start doing it for praise? Would Jesus really use someone who sometimes feels so broken-hearted?

I have just started reading Rebekah Lyon’s book, You Are Free: Be who you already are. Normally I gobble books, but this one has me savoring and chewing slowly. It is the tool that God is using this time to speak to me.

One day I confessed,

Jesus, I am afraid to press into my calling.

I feel ill-equipped on my best days and like an emotional train wreck on my worst.

I’m afraid I won’t have what it takes to carry things out, or I’ll shrink back and avoid what is difficult.

Help me know which assignments are from you and not just thoughts spinning in my head. Don’t let me run ahead of your lead.

Please make it simple and plain.

In his graciousness, God gently responded: Don’t you see. I didn’t choose the wrong girl. I’ve had grace planned for you all along.

And we look up from our nonfat soy chai lattes while we scroll through Instagram, counting the number of hearts on a post, and we say, “Who, me?”

Yes. Yes, you.

You who raise your voice with your kids.

You who are addicted to social media.

You who “retail” your way out of depression.

You who question whether or not you have any real friends.

You who aren’t certain your life really matters.

You with your insecurity, your brokenness, your anxiety, your desperation.

You.

You are the light of the world.

You are the salt of the earth.

You are the city on a hill that cannot be hidden

Dare you believe it?

I’ve also felt a strong stirring to not depend on the local church for my understanding of or experience of the Holy Spirit.

I’ve received a dramatic, scientifically unexplainable healing from God. God has also used me to pray for two patients to receive dramatic, scientifically unexplainable healings from God. Do you know that there are more people inside the church that don’t believe in my testimony than those outside of the church? But if they don’t know the Holy Spirit, how could I fault them.

I could tell you crazy stories of God’s leading in the hospital the last 6 months. His presence has been dense in the hospital rooms where I’ve prayed people through their 11th hour or through their darkness. We’ve prayed through fear and we’ve prayed for guidance. But I feel God calling me to more. I feel Him calling me to begin asking Him, when the spirit leads, for healing again, and believing Him for it. Guess what Rebekah talks about?

One Thursday while praying out loud, I paused mid-sentence and said something out of the ordinary.

“I sense that I’m supposed to ask for the spiritual gift of healing.”

Woah, I thought. Did that just come out of my mouth? My own words surprised me. I’d never felt prompted to specific action right in the middle of prayer. Of all things, a prayer for the gift of healing isn’t high on the list unless you want to be criticized or ostracized. But it kind of made sense. I’d encountered many stories of suffering in my travels, and I was often left unsure how to best respond. Maybe this was a way God wanted to use me. I felt a pull to surrender.

I knelt down and simply obeyed without overthinking it, praying, “Jesus, you tell us to ask for more of the Spirit, so here goes. I’m asking you from the gift of healing if you want me to have it.”

…

“We’re not responsible for the healing but we’re responsible for the asking” -@ The Well

Rebekah struggled with panic disorder. She documents God’s victorious rescue from it in Freefall to fly: A breathtaking journey towards a life of meaning. She observes in You Are Free:

This wasn’t my story of struggle; it was his story of rescue

I’m only three or four chapters in. God, in His loving-kindness, gifted me with this book five days before its release date (today), as some employee of Barnes and Noble unwittingly stocked the shelves with it early. I highly recommend it.

 

He is the way who shows us the way

He is the truth who shows us the truth

He is the life that gives us life

Isn’t that the Christian walk summed up in a few sentences?

There is always this to be grateful for: God, thank you for who you are.

And it broke over me like a baptism anew at that Thursday service, as we sang Name Above All Names into the night. “God, you are the name above all names. Thank you that you are the name above all our suffering. You are the name above all my suffering. You are the name in the midst of our suffering. Thank you.”

Suffering doesn’t overcome God or conquer God. My Jesus draws close in the midst of my suffering. He has always held me closer. He has always demonstrated patience.

It is just a beautiful thing that suffering can’t conquer his name. He conquered suffering for us.

He is not just name above my name or my family name. He’s above all the things I give power. There is no word that conquers Him.

He’s the name in the midst of uncertainty. Certainty can be my god. A desire for certainty and control can impact what I give God.

So many of us would like God to behave like a magic 8 ball. Just tell me yes or no. I just want to know. Ann Voskamp said it once: how we want answers, and God really just wants us to come close.

Will my mom be differently-abled forever? Come close

Will I be broken again? Come close

Will I have what I need financially? Come close

Will I make the right decision? Come close

Am I called to use my gifts in marriage or through and because of my singleness? Come close.

Will a loved one’s sickness kill them? Come close.

Will our society fracture? Come close

Will there be war abroad touching home? Come close

Why did those two patients die this week? Come close

 

I’m thinking I need to start asking different questions.

Over the last year, God has led me down the aisle–slowing down to keep pace with me and my sometimes dragging feet. I have learned the communion union is the marriage of us…my sin to His grace, His tenderness to my anguish, my brokenness to His sufficiency. And head resting on steady heartbeat, He has brought deep comfort into my life, even in the midst of working out identity, resentment, unbelief, anger, resentment, restlessness, and fatigue. It still amazes me that I serve a God who believes in me, despite my unbelief.

For years, I had felt mature and ready for a relationship. I felt I had a lot to offer. I was level-headed and sturdy, fun, family-oriented and joyful–except for “grump week (or two)”, which occurred once every 9 months to a year. That seemed an acceptable length of time for someone to have to put up with. That strength I now recognize was, to a large extent, hard-heartedness. I didn’t know God. I recognize the virtue to God of a heart that knows its need, but I can’t help but sometimes feel that the hard-hearted strength was a more virtuous thing to offer in a relationship than BigFeelings.

This past year was my first experience with feeling deep internal brokenness, instead of that produced by circumstance. Some nights, waves of it still hit. And do you know what thought I’ve rolled over in my head for months now? That maybe I’m too broken for love.

Right now, this brokenness only breaks me, and I don’t want it to break anyone else. It seems selfish for me to allow it. If I hardly understand the complexity of my brokenness, hardly identify the reasons for it myself (or can’t fix it, like the state of the world), how can I expect someone else to deal with it or understand it or be exhausted by it? I’ve been known deep by friends, but I can shut the door to my room without them being any the wiser.

I know I wrote the post on vision and I saw the vision, and it looked beautiful to me, but how would it feel for TheOtherOne? Hedging myself in a tower seems safer and more noble for his sake, and who wants to be the short end of the stick?

But

Tonight Christa Wells, one of my favorite Christian singer-songwriters, posted 4 songs that she wrote about her husband that I had never heard before. And when I heard them, I heard hope. Because she sounds like me. Her suffering art ministered to my suffering heart. Because it was a picture of a good man loving a deep well of a woman. Her lyrics are intricate and honest stories of finding irrepressible light in dark, raw places.

A picture that someone similar to me can be loved was the picture that I needed to see. It shows what happens when art runs towards hard and honest places. Her suffering produced the story and the story produced the song and the song brought healing.

 

Other Christa Wells favorites: Everything Moves But You, Held, Visible Invisible, Even Though

I’ve felt a gentle but deliberate nudging towards a particular question lately when fear climbs in and tries to nestle deep in the central sulcus. Fear always shows up as a big bully with hypertrophied muscles. His tactics are usually the same. He plays a movie of cost. He plays a movie of loss. He plays a movie that says “you’re better off without this” to keep me living contained. He plays the audio of the silent thoughts others are thinking. That movie replays on an endless loop…unless I press the “stop” button.

But here’s the kicker: pressing the stop button just returns me to a blank screen. Stare at it long enough, and I’ll get bored. I’ll stay living right where I am. Turning off fear is a good first step, but it has to be followed by other steps. That’s something that I’ve struggled with.

Iyanla Vanzant once said something along the lines of “Get a vision. A dream will keep you in. A vision will pull you out.”

God’s been showing me the importance of seeking His vision.

When I press the “stop” button, I’ve started asking myself this one key thing: “God, what does freedom from [this fear of _____] look like to you?” I want the picture he plays. He shows me some joy that’s unattainable when I live in fear. And don’t I know it through life already? That obedience’s cost is always gain.

God doesn’t want me to give up my people or my dreams. He wants to live in the tension. Ultimately, both will be better off for my doing so. The vision of that has started pulling me out. I don’t want to live a shadow-joy when I could have the real thing. And the real thing always requires dismantling of idols.

Sometimes battling a sin seems like a lost cause until we believe that we were made for more and have a vision of that more. We were made for deep relationship, shared joy, and kingdom work. We were made for overcoming grief through Christ. The space that was filled by fear flees when a vision of faith moves in. Ann Voskamp says it: “Worry is belief gone wrong, because you don’t believe that God will get it right. Peace is belief that exhales, because you believe God’s provision is everywhere- like air.”

It doesn’t mean that we won’t struggle with sin, depression, distraction, performance, approval, or addiction. But God didn’t make a single person who He didn’t intend to manifest His glory through in world-altering ways. We were created for more than just a struggle. Sometimes seeing and trusting a vision of that more is a good next step. I keep saying it back these days when temptation whispers or I feel a bit broken: “I was made for more.”

 

And we feel your Truth sinking in

This wasn’t about a one-time pursuit of us

This is a lifelong-wooing of us

Spirit of God moving to show a Father’s love for us

Because You created us individually

You rejoice over each personality

Created us to walk from glory to glory

And by grace, all becomes glory in His story

And we believe it

That we were made for more

We were made for more than that sin

More than that depression

More than distraction

More than performance

More than listening to lies

We were made for communion with the Son

So that thing that feels too big to ever be free of? Lets start circling it like Jericho. Lets borrow God’s vision. Lets declare that we were made for such a time and such events as this. Lets pray it crumbling to the ground. We were made for more than slavery to that sin, that thought pattern, that numbing, than wishing to be free of tension. I can see it.

Vision goes by another name: hope. I claim it for my own.

It was a prayer I prayed for years, whether I gave it words or not. I knew I felt it. “You can have everything, God, unless you call me to be single forever. I’ll do whatever you say, but if it comes to choosing between you and marriage…” I knew that I’d choose to follow Him, but I also knew I’d resent Him all the while.

The Holy Spirit is God’s power and presence on earth. He is the goosebumps and words sinking deep, words whispering in the quiet, carrying out impossible signs and wonders. I have seen the signs and wonders. The Spirit is real. It’s not just the stuff of the early church. The Holy Spirit is such a joyful part of God, and I experienced Him worshipping at church during that time, and I experienced Him at home. But the minute I stopped worship in the evening, grief crept in.

I experienced the deep longing to know what my story would contain. I made following God conditional. I thought if I gave Him everything else, that would be enough.

But what do you do when Sunday is the hardest day of the week? What do you do when you make an idol out of something the church seems to idolize? What do you do with the desire to be a mom? What do you do when you’re tired of the clichés and dismissal in sermons from people who haven’t had many soul-level friendships from Christian singles–instead of practical advice from someone with empathy.

The answer is, you wait until you can bear it no longer. You can’t bear swinging between the joy of God’s presence on Sunday morning and your anger Sunday night, so you cry-shout it out from a raw place: “Do what you want, God. Do what you want. If you want me to be single forever, I accept it. Just take away the pain.”

And just like the tide in a gentle receding, He did. He did what I couldn’t do in my own strength.

God honored my surrender. I’ve encountered so much tenderness from God–Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It was little things this year. Wrestling through what Jesus really means to me in a spoken word piece. Understanding that as a bridegroom rejoices over His bride, so he rejoices over me. Feeling Him tell me to “sit with it” when I protested that it felt “wrong” to have my head on His chest listening to His heart beat on some more challenging nights. One (of three ever…doesn’t happen often) vision of Jesus. There were times when it felt like all I had was Jesus. When things were on the rocks with people I was closest to because of Jesus. And He held me close. And I followed His example, and told Satan to get behind me while curled fetal.

Last week, it finally hit me. This past year, between IF:Gathering 2016 and 2017, was all about me learning to be the Bride of Christ. This was the year of learning about Jesus coming, Jesus staying, Jesus choosing me each day. I’ve learned that while I’d like other hands to help me through life, His scarred hands are the only ones I need to lead me through life. I learned how to be the Bride of Christ in a way that I might not have gotten to otherwise.

“Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child;
Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed;
For the sons of the desolate one will be more numerous
Than the sons of the married woman,” says the LORD.

2“Enlarge the place of your tent;
Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings, spare not;
Lengthen your cords
And strengthen your pegs.

3“For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left.
And your descendants will possess nations
And will resettle the desolate cities.

4“Fear not, for you will not be put to shame;
And do not feel humiliated, for you will not be disgraced;
But you will forget the shame of your youth,
And the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no more.

5“For your husband is your Maker,
            Whose name is the LORD of hosts;
            And your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel,
Who is called the God of all the earth.

6“For the LORD has called you,
Like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit,
Even like a wife of one’s youth when she is rejected,”
Says your God.

7“For a brief moment I forsook you,
But with great compassion I will gather you.”   Isaiah 54

“…for the Lord will take delight in you, and your land will be married. 5As a young man marries a young woman, so will your Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God rejoice over you.“

As I walk into this new IF: year, I know what God is asking me to learn. He wants me to learn at a deep level what it means to be a Daughter of God. He wants me to learn what it means to be guided through wilderness, to have an identity and a name that are unshakeable, and an eternal inheritance. I need to learn what freedom looks like from an idol of anyone else’s approval if God calls me to some unconventional things. I need to learn how to be steadfast in loving and trusting a Father over anyone or anything else.