When Ish Gets Heavy

Last week, our family decided it might be a lot of fun to pack a lunch and have a picnic at Buckroe Beach. The new pier has a large picnic shelter, and it's a pretty awesome space.

So, even though babies hadn't had naps, I hadn't showered, and the day just was not going well, we packed like 8 trillion peanut butter and banana sandwiches, chips, apples, and some bottled waters and loaded up the van.

When we arrived, each older kid grabbed a younger sibling, and headed across the field. Since Josiah's back has not been 100% lately, he pushed the youngest in the stroller, and I carried all the food.

To get to the picnic area on the pier, you have to cross a pretty decent sized field, and then, of course, walk the length of the pier itself. It's not a long walk, though, so initially I didn't bat an eye. I just slung the picnic bag across my body, grabbed the bag of bottled waters in one hand and another bag of random goodies in the other.

At first, it felt kind of nice to be carrying all that stuff. Sometimes, when I do things like that, I get an secret sense of pride that my body is capable of carrying heavy loads. It's like it wakes up my inner badass (yes, I said "badass." I couldn't think of another word that carried the same sentiment). I started across the field, back straight, with long, proud strides, rejecting any help offered by the kids. I got this.

Halfway across the field, though, the weight of the strap started to dig in to my shoulder and holding the bags away from my legs made my shoulders and forearms burn. What was an easy load at the outset was getting heavier with every step, and a quick jaunt across a field started to feel like crossing the state.

In that moment, I felt like I heard God say, "This is what it's like to follow My purpose for you carrying baggage you're not supposed to have."

A while back, there was a part of me that I'd come to recognize as extra baggage that I wasn't supposed to be carrying, but it had been with me my whole life. I considered it just "part of who I am." It was damaging, but comfortable, well-worn, and mine.

But when I asked a friend at church to pray for me and told her how I felt, that I just didn't want to let go, she looked at me and said, "Okay, now the next time you go to the gym and get on the treadmill, I want you to strap a ton of chains to your body, and then let's see how you do."

Wise words. (You can read that blog post here).

Here's the catch, like the stuff I was carrying across the field that day, there are some things you're just going to have to carry in life. It's going to get heavy and hard, and you're just going to have to push through, even if you have to stop and rest every now and then to get there. (Or do what I did and go even faster)

But that's all stuff I KNEW I was carrying. This invisible baggage we carry with us has often been handed to us through station or circumstance, and we've carried it so long we don't know it's baggage. Life feels heavy and we trudge through, weighted down, but we can't figure out why or by what. All we know is that it hurts and burns, and we want to go on, but we're Just. So. Tired.

And sometimes, we've identified exactly what needs to be put down, tossed aside, or thrown away, but it just doesn't seem possible. The pain has become part of us. To cast it aside now would be to cast part of ourselves aside, leaving a piece of us behind.

And then again, some of us lay it down, just to pick it back up again. We cast off the chains, claiming fullness and freedom, but pick them right back up again, through coping or custom.

In my life, I can identify the latter two; the former will come with time. Praise God, He accepts us where we are, but won't leave us where He found us. 

My weights are often my "shoulds" (the expectations I or others have put on me that have no business being there), my "ams" (harmful and negative parts of my identity I've long adopted as who I am, but that have no place in my future), and my "am nots" (limits I've placed on myself our of fear and insecurity that don't belong there).

I have been walking with these things for as long as I can remember, letting them slow me down or just gritting my teeth and bearing the pain. But the longer I walk, the heavier they get, and there comes a time when you have to choose: fetters or future, destined or defeated.

The answer is so clear.

Friend, whatever is holding you back and weighing you down, keeping you from the purpose God has for you, I pray you would LAY IT DOWN. Don't wait until tomorrow or Monday or "things get better." Seek God's face and let it go.

Flaunting My Flaws

"I know I'm not supposed to think this way," I mused to Josiah recently, "but reading what she wrote makes me never want to write again. It's so good!"

He gave me a sobering look: "I'd imagine that's how a lot of people would feel about your writing."

The words were just a little sharp, and they cut me - not in a harmful way, but like a skilled surgeon cutting out a malignant growth - painful, yet necessary.

Today, he and I had a conversation about singing. Often, when I'm listing my strengths, skills, or gifts, I list speaking, teaching, and writing. Almost every time, Josiah pops in from the side to add singing to the list.

"Why do you do that?" I asked today. "I sing okay, but I'm just not that great."

His answer, again, surprised me and changed my perspective. He didn't tell me I was the next American Idol or contender on The Voice. He didn't applaud my skill.

Instead, he said, "When you sing, it connects with people. You connect with people. So, it's not just a talent, it's a gift. I think God wants you to use it. It may not look like what you think or hope it will, but I think God will use it." 

Oh my prideful heart.

Later, I was talking with a friend about our writing. We talked about the editing process and how we go about it.

We also both admitted to secretly being relieved or happy when we find the typos of incredibly gifted writers, not because we applaud a perceived failure, but because it makes us see those people as a little more human. It gives us hope that maybe, just maybe, it's okay not to be perfect.

And then it made sense.

This picture of perfection we're all striving for - whether it be the cleanest house, the most brilliant blog post, or the voice of an angel - is completely pointless.

I've got news for you: there's always someone better, and if there isn't, give it a minute - there will be.

However, there's also someone looking up to you, a person just behind you or who's just starting out. And maybe, just maybe, if you're willing to lay it all on the line and show your human frailties and imperfections, then you're inspiring that next better person.

And by doing that, you might just change the world, one inspiring typo or flat note at a time. 

After all, God didn't say His power was perfected in our strengths, but in our weaknesses.

So now, I'm flaunting my flaws. God doesn't need perfection; He's already got that. God needs my willingness to try my best and be authentically the person He made me. I'll leave the rest to Him.

But He said to me,

"My grace is sufficient for you,

for my power is made perfect in weakness."

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,

so that Christ's power may rest on me.

2 Corinthians 12:9

Metamorphosis

I have a secret for you.

Shhhhhh...come in really close so I can whisper. Closer.

Change is hard.

Actually, that's not a huge revelation, but at least I have your attention.

Change is hard. Anytime you're dealing with change, there's going to be difficulty, but transforming the way we think can be the most trying.

For though we live in the body, 

we do not wage war in an unspiritual way,

since the weapons of our warfare are not worldly,

but are powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds.

We demolish arguments and every high-minded thing

that is raised up against the knowledge of God,

taking every thought captive.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

Recently, I wrote about a moment in a dressing room, and the resulting realization that I had given up hope of ever being at a semi-healthy weight. I was depending upon my own strength, forgetting that my God is El Gibbor, the Mighty Warrior. 

If I'll get out of His way, He will fight with me and for me, going before me in battle. In order to do this, though, I'm going to have to be transformed by the renewing of my mind, taking every thought captive.

God's word says our weapons of warfare are spiritual and powerful through God for the demolition of strongholds. I looked up the exact definition of stronghold:

1. a place that has been fortified so as to protect it from attack 

2. a place where a particular word or belief is strongly defended or upheld.

Throughout our lives, Satan and our own sinful natures have created strongholds in our minds: fortresses built with steel beams of intense hurt and the bricks of repetition. These are places where our beliefs about ourselves are strongly defended and upheld.

But if these beliefs are counter to God's word and His will for us, they must come down.

Winning wars is about demolishing strongholds again and again.

But how exactly do we take every thought captive? How do we know if it's against God's will? 

Through the transformation that comes from the renewal of our minds.

Therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God,

I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice

 holy and pleasing to God;

this is your spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this age,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind,

so that you may discern what is the

good, pleasing and perfect will of God.

Romans 12:1-2

These are the verses I think about anytime I think about my body because it talks about presenting our bodies as living sacrifices. However, through study and a lot of prayer, God opened this verse up even more, and printed it in a brand new way on my heart.

I was not only made BY God, I was made FOR God, and for His purposes. He wants me to lay my entire being - my love for food, my imperfections, my abusive mind - down at his feet. He wants me to give it to Him, so He can transform me, so HE can renew my mind and show me His will for me. He wants to demonstrate how, though His great compassion and mercy, He can provide, when I lay myself down as a sacrifice.

In the Greek, the word for transformed is metamorphoo (with a thing over the last o that I don't know how to type). It is where we get the word metamorphosis.

The Greek word for renewing is anakainosis, and it means renovation, a complete change for the better.

Metamorphosis into the women and men God wants us to become can only happen with a complete renovation of our minds - our thoughts, feelings, and desires - so that God's good, pleasing, and perfect desire for our lives can be discerned.

And renovation can't happen without demolition...the strongholds must come down.

A caterpillar has the makings of a butterfly within him in a drastically simplified form. He can eat and eat and eat, and grow and grow and grow. But he can't just change into a butterfly. He doesn't just sprout wings and begin to fly.

He has to be transformed.

Within the chrysalis, his body literally demolishes itself so that the old can be used to give life to the new. All the energy that was once used to sustain the caterpillar is now used to compound what was within all along. Only by doing this can he grow wings, emerge, and take flight.

Metamorphosis.

It's time, my friends. It's time to give it over to God, let him demolish and destroy the bad, so the energy that was formerly used to keep us crawling on the ground can be diverted into developing those things He placed in us so long ago. It's time to sprout wings, and eventually, we will fly.

Marriage Renovations : Series Intro

Photo credit: mikeg1968 Etsy Shop

Have you ever seen the show Fixer Upper? We love that show.

I have actually considered moving to Plano, Texas just so Chip and Joanna Gaines can find us a FABULOUS deal on a beautiful, old Victorian, and I can walk in with that sucker painted, decorated, and amazing. Done deal.

However, in real life, it's never that simple. Once you choose a house and make that commitment, the investment doesn't just stop. Perpetual maintenance is necessary in order to keep the house in good condition: cleaning, yard work, painting. It's unending.

If you want to improve the property, then sometimes, you need to renovate - NOT for the faint of heart. 

Renovations are often dirty, tricky, difficult projects. The end result is beautiful, but most of the time you just want to give up in the middle. I can't wait for my new kitchen! becomes I don't really need plumbing, right? At some point, people lived without plumbing, with dirt floors. It'll be good for the kids to experience that. 

Nevertheless, if you trudge on and do the job right, the result is quite often breathtaking, completely worth the effort.

Recently, Josiah and I underwent a renovation stage in our marriage. It was dirty, I cried a lot, and most of the time, I just didn't understand the plan, but when it was over...MAN. I love our new "space." 

I am so indescribably grateful for the pain because the new wisdom and peace we have, about one another and just, in general, is priceless. 

Thus, in true Life Under Construction form, we've decided to take you step-by-step through our marriage renovation.

Yes, I said we. 

Josiah has very graciously volunteered to share his perspective of the renovations, as well because, as non-PC as it may be, men are different. They see differently. They feel differently. And that's okay. MORE than okay, actually; it's how God designed us.

So, over the next week, we will be bringing you a blog series on Marriage Renovations: how ours went down, what we learned, and some tips on navigating your own. Each phase (Demolition, Blueprints, and Rebuilding) will have TWO posts...one from me and one from Josiah.

Stay tuned!

The Wonder Years

Do you remember that show? The Wonder Years? 

I loved that show. I think the whole world did. Watching to see how Kevin would evolve. Would he ever get with Winnie Cooper? When he finally did, would they stay together? Would she ever stop whining? Would he embrace the quirks of his sweet, Jewish friend (whose name I don't remember), or would he cave to peer pressure?

Oh, the angst!!

If I remember correctly (and google says I do), then the show was narrated by an older, wiser Kevin. It was him looking back on The Wonder Years of his life.

The Wonder Years.

The other night, we got together with my friend, Chad, and his wife, Brandi. He and I graduated from high school together, although we didn't actually know one another in high school. We became friends only in recent years. 

That evening, he was preparing to play sax with our old high school band for their homecoming game the next night. The alumni musicians were invited to take part in the homecoming festivities, and you could tell he was really stoked about going to play with them (his brother also directs the band now, which is pretty cool).

"Come cheer on your old alma mater!" he said.

Instantly, I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach. It rose up quickly and unexpectedly, so of course, I tried to force it back down to the depths from whence it came. And of course, everything I feel is almost immediately discernible on my face, so he quickly amended his statement to, "Or, come cheer on that place you went to school for a little while."

I was so grateful I couldn't go. I had plans with my oldest daughter last night. "Sorry. Can't make it!" I was relieved. 

The feeling crept back up last night as I went to pick up our other daughter from a youth S'mores night event. 

I drove the back way from Josiah's parents' house to the youth pastor's house, which passes somewhere behind the old stadium. I couldn't see it from where I was, but the sound of the crowd and the band erupted while I was at an intersection. And for a second my heart stopped. 

I crammed that feeling back down, said a prayer, and moved on.

It was only after talking to my sweet, younger daughter in our driveway, almost a teenager herself, that I figured out why I couldn't get rid of that feeling.

Emily is hurt and angry by a situation in her life, and rightfully so, but I begged her to try to give that over to God. I begged her to continue to pray about it, to pray that God would allow her to forgive because, if she didn't, that anger would become bitterness.

It leaves a hole.

And then I told her. I told her all about my hole.

I told her about the hole I had inside me in high school. Mine was caused by hurt and loneliness, not anger, but it was a hole all the same.

In that moment, I saw myself back in high school. Smiling, radiant...broken.

I was an awkward kid, especially once I hit middle school. I was chunky and weird. I was a year younger than everyone else, and I desperately sought approval in the weirdest ways possible, which of course, made me the easiest target for any bully. My years in middle school in Lynchburg were scarring, and I was more than happy when we finally moved to Amherst, VA in my 8th grade year.

I got to leave my past behind.

In Amherst, things were a little better. I was still a little chunky and desperately wanted approval, but it was a chance to reinvent myself. I made new friends, but I still got teased by the popular kids. Some things don't change.

I moved up to Amherst High and made even more new friends. I was getting involved in Theater and became a member of the Thespians' Honor Society. Then, it was time to move again. This time the move crushed me more. I was really getting attached. Nevertheless, it was another chance to reinvent. To become new.

I got to leave my past behind.

Coral Springs, FL was great. I met one of the best friends I've ever had there...one of those friends that teaches you that you can be completely opposite and still find common ground. My grades slipped a little because my social life took an upward swing. I had a great church. I had my first kiss (which was AWFUL). I dated for the first times in my life. Boys liked me...and I desperately needed boys to like me.

It was in Coral Springs that I was baptized. I had known Jesus my whole life, but I decided to dedicate my life to him...though I didn't know what that meant at the time. 

But then I came home from Mission Tour with our youth group one summer night, and my mom told me we were leaving. She and my dad were separating, and we were moving to Virginia. I had been part of the drama department and show choir, and had a lot of friends...but they all got left behind. My youth group quickly set up a goodbye party for me, and I was gone within a couple days. 

Once again, I left my past behind.

I came into Denbigh High School the first day of my Junior year. The only person I knew was the lifeguard from our apartment complex: a boy who was nice to me over the summer, but pretended like he didn't know me when he walked into the first period English class we shared.

Like my other schools, I made Denbigh my own...sort of. I became a part of the telecommunications crew, and I cheered my senior year (and lost my virginity somewhere in between). No matter where I went, I seemed to be kind of an outcast. I was the new cheerleader in a crew that had known one another since the beginning of time (or so it seemed). By telecom friends were close, but even they seemed to alternately accept and reject me.

I had a hole...deep in me. I knew Jesus, but I didn't understand having a relationship with him, so in one hand I held him, while I tried to stuff other things in the hole, which consequently, grew larger and larger.

I was a hurting little girl just trying to feel loved. I felt constantly rejected, and I just wanted so much to be loved, so I tried to cram the hole in my soul with people who might love me instead of the one man who has ever walked this earth who could love me perfectly: my savior.

High school, for me, holds a lot of fond memories of a lot of people I still love. But it also holds a dumpster-ful of hurt, rejection, and emptiness. 

And as I looked at that beautiful girl last night, sitting next to me in the car, eyes brimming with tears, I saw my teenage self and I begged God to let her see her true value. I begged Him to let her find her value in who she was in Him. And I begged her to pour all her hurts onto her Savior because He's the only one who can heal them fully.

My heart cries out to God for her, but also, I think, for me. Apparently, there are some holes left in me that I haven't filled yet. Some places where I still hurt and have room for healing. 

I am not the little girl I once was. God has healed me and forgiven me of so much. I've learned, as I find those holes that still exist, to open them up to Jesus by pouring my hurt, anger, and loneliness out to Him, and then He comes in and fills my holes in the way only He can.

God knew I needed this run-in with The Wonder Years. I needed to see my old self again. Sometimes, I mourn lost youth and beauty. I see the girl in these pictures and part of me longs to be that girl again, especially to look like her.

But, as wrinkles and white hair begin to show, I'm reminded that these may not be the beautiful marks of youth, but they can be the beautiful marks of wisdom and knowledge.

I wouldn't trade the gift of the wisdom I've gained in the last nineteen years (or, particularly, the last five) for anything - not even to look like this again. 

My body and face are aging, but my heart is new and clean because I've learned to embrace the love of my Savior. Praise God, His mercies are new each morning (Lamentations 3:23).

So, my prayer today - for me, for you, for sweet Emily - is this:

I pray that [God] may grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, and that the Messiah may dwell in your hearts through faith. [I pray that] you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend, with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God's love, and to know the Messiah's love that surpasses knowledge, so you may be FILLED with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)

I know how insanely long this post is today. If you've made it this far, I both thank you and applaud you. If you have holes to fill today, I pray that you'll run into His arms and let his love fill them. If you have questions on how to do that, let me know...we'll walk through it together.

Bad Posture

How's your posture?

Mine is pretty terrible. My kids are constantly reminding me to sit up straight, so it's definitely something I'm trying to work on.

However, until recently, I never gave a thought to my spiritual posture, and as it turns out, that could use some help, too. 

My daughter, Destiny, and I went to a Women's Tea at our church, and they played an older, recorded simulcast Women of Faith's Unwrap the Bible. Lisa Harper was the second speaker, and she talked about the healing of the woman in Luke 13 who was bent over double.

Lisa said we, too, are often bent over double. Jesus has already healed us, but we continue to stay bent over, listening to the lies of the enemy...stuck...defeated.

The entire time she spoke my heart was filled with an urge to share this message with a friend of mine, a sweet friend who struggles to accept God's love and grace in her life...who struggles to stand up straight and open her arms to Jesus.

When I got home, I HAD to send her the message. I felt the Holy Spirit's hand pushing me, so much so that I felt like I couldn't even eat lunch until I sent her the message.

It said this:

I have a word to you from God. We had a women's tea today at church today and they played videos by Lisa Harper and Christine Caine. God spoke to me and told me to pass it to you.... 

Like the woman in Luke 13:10, you are still bent. You are saved, but sometimes you are still bent and doubled over in a posture that can only see the floor. You are focusing on your wickedness (aka foolishness) and thinking maybe you're destined to stay there, but this is false humility and it's a lie - you are concentrating on your badness instead of God's great goodness. 

None of us is worthy. Not one...by ourselves. The ONLY thing that makes us worthy is our GOD and the sacrifice HE made in sending His son to save us. That means you are MIGHTY worthy because we serve a MIGHTY God.  

He formed you in your mother's womb and He knew every day of your life before you were born. He KNEW you would have problems as a teen and doubt your own value and try to find it everywhere that was wrong. He knew you would find HIM, and He KNEW you would struggle with ever feeling like He could love you, much less like you. 

But I'm here to tell you HE LOVES YOU and has loved you from the beginning of time itself. So now it's time to take the REAL posture of a child of God, which is not bent over looking at your feet, but is STRONG and STEADY and STANDING WITH THE ARMOR OF GOD COVERING YOU LIKE THE SOLDIER YOU ARE. 

The enemy has been defeated already my friend...it's time to claim the victory you already have and stop giving credence to the lies of the one who wants nothing more than to devour your joy in Christ Jesus. 

I'm writing this for you instead of calling you because I want you to read it over and over and over until you FEEL it deep within and you open your arms wide open to the sky and say: PRAISE GOD!! I AM CLEAN! I AM HEALED! I AM WORTHY BECAUSE I AM YOURS. 

I love you sooooooo much!!

I sent her the message, and felt SO blessed to have been used by the Holy Spirit! However, when that wore off, I realized my sweet friend wasn't the only one bent...SO AM I!

As a divorced and remarried woman who, with my husband, has recently started a marriage ministry, I often feel the ache of an unhealthy spiritual posture. Searing pain sears my consciousness as the enemy tosses the names of my past at me:

Failure

Stupid

Adulteress

Dirty

Fool 

I take the blows, and instead of taking up my armor, I crouch and crumble, bent double under the weight of my past.

But that's not how our God works. He is full of GRACE and LOVE, and the only time he wants us bent is in reverence to HIM.

Then, He wants us to look up, embrace Him, and accept the beautiful, amazing grace His son's sacrifice gave us.

So today, I'm working on standing up straight...and so should you. Take up your armor.

Put on your helmet of salvation, and make sure it covers your ears nice and tight so you can't hear the lies of the Deceiver.

Walk bravely out into this wide-world with feet shod with the peace of Jesus Christ, which surpasses ALL understanding (Philippians 4:6-7).

Take up your sword of Truth, which is God's word, and accept that now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1).

Warriors who have donned their armor cannot stoop. They stand straight..ready to do battle, ready to take orders from their leader.

So today, let's take up that armor; put it on; stand up straight and say: 

PRAISE GOD!! I AM CLEAN! I AM HEALED! I AM WORTHY BECAUSE I AM YOURS.