No More

The call to transparency.  Do we all have it?  I'm not sure, to be honest. I know that when I mess up or fall short, the Lord often prompts me to write about it - transparently.  On the other hand, I know of others who don't feel led to go international with the innermost details of their lives or to even divulge the intimacies with family and friends, but instead find solace in the arms of Jesus - privately. Sometimes, I wish that was my allotment, but once again, I find myself called to share - publicly.  If you've read some of my recent posts, it's no secret that difficult times have arisen and the descent of the valley has been low.  And steep.  With jagged rocks and ominous boulders.  I've fallen more than once and was even bitten by a dog along the way.  It hurt.  So has the venom of various snakes that have spit words of hatred my way in recent weeks, but the most painful thing wasn't the bite or venom; it was the revelation of my own sin in an area I had completely overlooked throughout the last several years. When God pulled back the veil and I saw the reflection staring back at me, I began to sob.  I didn't know until He showed me just how badly I had grieved the heart of not only God, but also some of the people I love most.  The revelation was painfully clear, and even though it was delivered through arms of grace and love and necessary correction (Hebrews 12:6), His Spirit felt far from me as I lamented my behavior.  So, what do we do when God places a spiritual mirror in front of us to illuminate our own sin? We "go, and sin no more." (John 8:11).  

Outrageous Love

I've been under fire lately for what is normally a celebrated and blissful occasion, but only three people in my life have stood hand in hand with me and shown unconditional expressions of the love, mercy, and grace of God.  What I'm about to share publicly for the first time will generate mixed responses. Of this, I am sure, but I've grown weary from being gripped by judgmental claws of professing Christians, or men and women of faith in God.  They have boldly declared that the love of Jesus is vast, but what they're really saying is it extends only as far as their own arm can reach.   Or, more accurately, as deeply as their finite minds can understand.  When I look at it that way, my anger dissipates as I come to terms with the reality that what we don't understand, we fear.  And fear is not only a terrible leader when it's rooted in ignorance of a person or subject matter, but it's also potentially the most destructive weapon in the hand of the enemy.  Couple it with hatred, the venomous step-sister of fear, and ruin awaits.  The antidote? Love, but not the religious love many are accustomed to demonstrating, and I know because I've been that demonstrator and I've been the one judgmentally gripping another.  I've seen what that looks like recently too as I've witnessed self-proclaimed Jesus followers turn against me.  I wonder how many times I've done that in my past to another individual simply because I didn't understand something and feared what I didn't know.  It grieves me now to think about my own hypocrisy played out on someone else's life scene, but I know with certainty that I have been that Pharisee.  May God help us all, but as we patiently wait, I want to lay down a challenge to look into your own spiritual mirror.   What do you see?  Are you loving others religiously or outrageously?

The Price of Panic

The blood under my toenail.  $120.00 to visit a dermatologist. Frantic messages to my primary care doctor. "Blood." "It's just blood," she said calmly in a matter of fact tone.  "It's not melanoma?" I questioned with eyes wide.  "Nope, it's just blood." Given the circumstances of my life over the last two weeks, it only made sense to me that the black spot under my toenail would be melanoma.  It was fitting for how everything else was falling apart.  "It could be a bruise" my friend Dawn replied when I sent her an image.  "I have to go see a dermatologist STAT! It COULD be melanoma" I stated, and with that I hurried out the door and went to the first one I called that said they had an opening.  I was with the doctor five minutes and casually informed that it was, in fact, a bruise.  "Have you injured your foot or toe recently," she appropriately inquired.  "No," I shot back, "are you sure it couldn't be melanoma?  Why don't you look again? Perhaps you don't have enough light. Here, let me twist my foot so you can see better."  Good grief, was I trying to walk out with a cancer diagnosis?  I certainly was pushing for her to change her professional opinion, but let me backtrack some.  It started two weeks ago, and the domino chips haven't stopped falling, but so far it looks something like this -  I lost my job, my new husband and I are currently having to live in separate residences, my daughter's biological father is working overtime to keep my daughter away from me, I found out I would likely be losing my apartment (jobs, it turns out, are essential to remaining in one), I still haven't found a new job, the money has dwindled to almost nothing, my car was towed which cost almost 300.00 to have released, and the depression was so thick today, I swear I could have cut it with a knife.  Oh, and there's a man in my apartment community who has essentially been stalking me for over a month.  I barely eat, I rarely sleep, and in the midst of it all, I'm working to carve out an entirely new identity apart from everything I've known for the last 15 years. Existential crisis times a hundred.  I think that covers most of it. I could go on, but I'm feeling tired again just from writing it out.  While things are looking pretty grim in a number of significant life domains, and have been for a couple of weeks now, here's what I'm finding.  When storms hit, and they inevitably will, we can either pay the price of panic or walk in the peace of simple prayer.

Truth Fearlessly

It doesn't always get you a lot of friends. Truth, that is.  In fact, the truth will sometimes cost you everyone and everything you thought mattered the most (Luke 14:25-27).  Walking in it demands a level of courage that many have yet to discover, and I know, because I recently had to make the choice to either walk in it or remain hidden in my feelings, relationships, and overall life script.  I don't do well with relational deception and spurious living.  If I'm not free to be me as I am, then I find that life becomes a distressing game of charades and the authentic self gets lost in the perpetual guessing. In my own situation, the truth cost me everything, but here's what I know.  To own your life narrative, to walk in raw, unfiltered and unadulterated authenticity, despite the cost, is never the wrong choice. The fallout may be painful, but Jesus said in Luke 17:33 that "whoever tries to save their life (life as they know it) will lose it, but he who loses his life for My sake will find it." Personally, I think that sounds like a terrible way to invite sinners to follow Him, but who am I to tell Jesus that He should have sugar coated His message?  I certainly made suggestions to Him in prayer, but the Bible remains unchanged, so I digress.  He also states in John 8:32 that "the truth will set you free," but allow me to add that it might first punch you in the gut, have you fired, locked up, or standing completely alone, and most of the time you aren't even really sure what you're now "free" to do.  I'll save you some painful soul searching by just telling you, it's less about what you do and more about who you become.  Some days lately, I haven't been able to do anything, but in the silence of prayer, I am becoming.  The "doing" is an inevitable by-product of that process.  When you make the decision to walk courageously into the unknown via the portal of truth and honest introspection, you really are free to be.  You may lose your security, but it was never supposed to  be founded upon anything other than God anyway. Your circle of friends may shrink, but Proverbs 18:24 says "there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother," and my friend Dawn is the embodiment of this verse.  Moreover, Proverbs 17:17 says "a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for a time of adversity," and though my circle is small, it is powerful (Matthew 18:20).  James 5:16 says "the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective," and between my mom, sister, and several extremely close prayer warriors for my best friends, I am safe in the arms of both Ultimate Love (1 John 4:7) and the love of my friends and family.  Truth hurts, but it also heals.  Be bold enough to own your truth unapologetically, to walk in your truth authentically, to live in your truth transparently, and most of all, to love in truth fearlessly.