an elevator goes up and down, but all of it does really

This past Monday was rough for me. I don't know what it is that makes my anxiety multiply and my ability to think of things rationally and proportionally disappear but it is at times a very real and frightening issue for me.

Grumpiness. A funk. Under a cloud. Call it what you will, sometimes it just feels like nothing is alright and everything is wrong; the ability to appreciate anything good is lost and hope is totally extinguished.

What allows this to happen? Is it multiple elements coming together to form this vortex of sadness or is it a slow piling of straws until one finds they have finally reached one too many? Why does a thought that seems absurd now have seemed so legit before? Where does rationality run to? 

The verse of the day at biblegateway.com is: "If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him." (James 1:5) That's poignant because I could really use some wisdom right now and it being offered without reproach is simply a bonus at this point. God is so generous, so good to be patient, so good to be kind, so good to be constant in His character forever.

Ephesians 4:14 states, "... that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine..." It's a small portion of larger chunk of scripture where Paul is talking about how Jesus has given everyone different spiritual gifts - some to be pastors, some to be teachers, etc.. And whatever the gift He has given you is, it's to be used to build up the Church, the body of Christ, fellow members, one another. Verse 14 is so significant because it comes after describing how we need to be there for each other, be together, ground in the Spirit and knowledge of Jesus Christ. When we are tossed to and fro and carried about by dark winds of thought - we need a friend's encouragement as we wait for the storm to pass. I am so blessed that I found that type of support from another Christian last Monday when I desperately needed it.  

I think it was yesterday morning I got in the elevator with someone finishing a call on their cell phone. They said "I love you" as they hung up. It was nice. Do you ever observe small things like that? A mother holding her child's small mittened hand as they walk along. A person running ahead to get the door for a stranger. A man snow blowing the sidewalk for his elderly mom. The small things are every thing sometimes. Answering a text message. Sending a note of encouragement. Smiling and making eye contact with people you meet. The elevator goes up and down and so do we  - whatever you do today, do it with kindness and love (1 Corinthians 16:14). xo

top down problem

Last week I was looking out my office window to the parking lot below and there was a Volkswagen beetle that looked fine from every angle but the roof. The paint on the roof was badly damaged, maybe from prolonged exposure to some sort of corrosive tree sap or something. I don't know, I'm not sure, but it looked rusted and discolored while the rest of the body looked fine.


It made me think how we can be that way. We can give the appearance that we are doing the right thing and have it all together on the outside but all the while our "roof" aka our inner thoughts are a mess of anger, pride, fill in the blank with your vice. Appearances can be deceiving.


Jesus said in Matthew 23, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness."


Seeing that car made me think how living a holy life is a top down problem. Our thoughts direct our words and ultimately our actions. We can't hope to act righteously when we starve our spirit giving it no Living Word to feed on but a 1000 other lesser things. 


We are fickle fallible mortals and we have to fight alot of things - genetics, hormones, past difficulties - and sometimes it's a tough fight and we can lose our way. I know there are times when I can look back on a part of the past and depending on my mood or mental state, the very same event can be a source of debilitating pain or proof of resiliency that sparks the strength to go on. It's the times of struggle when when we can't find hope or can't see the truth with our own eyes that we need most to see with His eyes. During His life on earth Jesus saw and experienced earthly sorrows but He also had the benefit of the eternal lens. I don't think we think about eternity enough especially in our society and culture of instant gratification. We are quickly fading flowers, here today and gone tomorrow. 


Jesus said, "For where your treasure is there your heart will be also." He doesn't mince words when it comes to telling us mortals that we are most often not honest with ourselves, much less honest with each other. However, there is one thing that will give away the real us every time: it's our heart. “Where our treasure is there our heart will be also.“ I find myself asking, "What am I treasuring?" xo

fearsome maker-gentle whisperer

I have been up early enough to see the sunrise these last couple days. The suns rise is rather repetitive, happening daily and all; you could cynically say that there is nothing special about them but you would be wrong.


Each sunrise is different and never to be repeated or duplicated again. It's guaranteed to no one that they will see tomorrows. All that is contained in the suns trek across the sky - the smiles, the tears, the love, the hate - can't be undone - that's good and bad.


The sun rises and it closes the chapter on the night - some of which are dark not just because light is absent. Lust, loneliness, despair - these are dark emotions and feelings that seem to become more pronounced at night. For some, making it through to the dawns early light is no small victory but a monumental one. (May we try to remember that the next time an unkind thought crosses our minds - we just don't know what or how heavy someone else's burdens are and how small the thread they're holding on to is.)


This morning I was looking at the sunrise and thinking of God's kindness and gentleness. The sunrise was a brilliant, fierce, sorbet colored delight. It made me feel small for a lot of reasons. One, a sunrise like that is certainly a sign of God's goodwill and great character because there is certainly nothing we have done to deserve such a beautiful gift. Two, it isn't something man can make. We can't make the sunrise, literally. Let yourself feel the beautiful smallness of that fact.


But it also occurred to me that on other places on this expansive marble we live on others aren't waking to this sight. A hurricane is barring down upon a sandy shoreline somewhere now. A lightening bolt is striking the ground and a booming crack of thunder is drowning out all else. A snowstorm is creating an avalanche of crushing ice and rock miles long.


God is a gentle whisper and a fearsome maker. Whatever box we try to put Him in or whatever frame we use to define Him is too small. We just don't and we just can't see all that He is. "Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying: "'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,' who was, and is, and is to come." (Revelation 4:8).

accept/except

Have you ever accepted something with your head but your heart wouldn't listen? Or have you ever known something to be true in your gut before there was "evidence" to prove it was true? How do you finally stop excepting and accept?

Some things are hard to accept. I don't know why I have such a difficult time accepting certain things but I have to remind myself over and over to not go there. I don't know if it's a lack of closure. I don't know if it's because of severe trauma, like PTSD. I don't know. 

I read something that was profound to me, "Hearts weren’t built to be borrowed."

Maybe that's part of the issue for me. I feel a sense of something unsettled, something very wrong, and something that makes me very very sad... 

"When one prize is stripped away, we can graciously be reminded of how little we have apart from Christ and the fortune he’s purchased for us with his blood. He has become for us wisdom for the foolish, righteousness for sinners, sanctification for the broken, and redemption for the lost and afraid (1 Corinthians 1:30) — and affection and security and identity for the lonely man or woman reeling after the end of a relationship. So even in the aftermath of a breakup we have reason to boast, as long as our boast is in everything Christ is for us (1 Corinthians 1:31)."

I try to talk to my soul. To preach to myself. To say why are you downcast oh my soul hope in the Lord (Psalm 42:11). I look up solid council but it's hard to believe it.

I guess all any of us can do is turn to God under the cover Jesus' love and say, "I believe! But help my unbelief! You know every hurt, every trauma I've endured, every intentional cruel word uttered to me not to mention those I don't know, every pain I've internalized for better or worse. Help me. Heal me. Show me Your love and that it's for me. Amen."

Heartbreaks - Jesus knows

Jesus knows heartbreak. To those who were grieving a love lost, He was never flippant towards them, He never demeaned their suffering as a waste. Even though He knew it was going to be ok, the dead will rise, and even though He had "come to destroy the works of the devil" forever, He still grieved, wept, was overwhelmed in His soul with "sorrow to the point of death."

I take comfort in that this new years night.

There was a boy/man I loved once. He was broken and damaged, but I was/am far from whole myself. I adored him. Flaws and all. I have come to think of this ill-fated unrequited love as my Isaiah, my Moses in the basket, my sacrifice. The thing I loved that I couldn't keep because it wasn't mine, it had always been God's. I had to give it back to God, my love.

I forgot things about myself along the way. Wisdom was my gift as a girl. I never wanted to be just another name in someone's little black book, a dopamine bandaid. I never wanted to be with someone just for the sake of being with someone. "I'd rather have nothing than settle for less" are words that are chissled deep inside my heart. I had seen too much to be naive, so I once thought. I had witnessed the toll lies, lust, and selfishness could have on a relationship. I didn't want that for myself. I wanted to "love with a love that was more than love", I wanted to dwell in a mutual treasuring of all things small and large with someone else. From being fascinated by his fingerprint - its singularity and depth - to being the one there bedside when all seems to be ending. As a nurse I got to see real love; oh it would be a joy and honor to share that with someone someday.

Jesus knows heartbreak in all its forms and makes a vow, "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26 And this living heart is too much to handle, it must be entrusted back to and dwelt in by the Maker. Help us receive Your unfailing love. Amen. xo

make YOUR desires our joy

God, make your desires our joy today... remind us that You alone give us the strength and power to follow your will.

So tempting to put something else at the center of one's life. Whether it is a relationship, a desire, or an addiction - sometimes the call of the idol is unbearably and painfully enticing.

It lies,
"This is happiness or a shortcut way to it."

It falsely compares,
"Others get away with it, why not you."

It sedates the spirit with seductive half truths,
"Who does it really hurt. What's wrong with it. The Bible is about forgiveness so what's one more mistake."

Satan is the parasite that wants to paralyze your spiritual life. He wants to stop your faith in it's tracks. He is the tempter and the deceiver. All too quick to help you justify reasons to act sinfully and after all too quick to point the finger of shame and disgrace once you have. He's not an adversary to be taken lightly but nor should he be feared as unconquerable for Jesus conquered him forever for us.

Colossians 2:8-15 "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. For in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily, and you have been filled in him, who is the head of all rule and authority. In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.  He disarmed the rulers and authorities^[b] and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him."

Revelation 12:11 "And they have conquered him (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death."

God, make Your desires our joy. Help our unbelief! Amen. xo

the claws I cut myself on

Do broken hearts ever mend? I have broken my own heart a few times, but not counting family - my heart has been broken only once by someone else.

Once was enough.

I remember an article I read a long time ago that said a “broken heart” could actually occur medically – broken heart syndrome. John’s Hopkins website explains, “Stress cardiomyopathy, also referred to as the “broken heart syndrome,” is a condition in which intense emotional or physical stress can cause rapid and severe heart muscle weakness (cardiomyopathy).” I would believe this for myself.

There was an interview Kid Rock gave a few years ago on CBS Sunday Morning and he was discussing a relationship that ended in divorce. He equated the toxic relationship to holding on to a hot stove with both hands for an hour – not merely touching it but being perilously enamored and burned by it. When you are burned by a hot stove you learn to stop touching it. To put it in my own words, a big lesson in life is learning that sometimes what you love doesn’t love you back. I wonder if this lesson is something everyone experiences or just some.

I have been in a nostalgic sort of melancholy mood at times these past days. Even though the past can’t be changed the scars it leaves sometimes twinge, burn, and sting. It’s an unpleasant reminder of a previous injury. The thing is I inflicted a majority of the scars I carry myself. He was the razor I cut myself on emotionally, his claws caused pain that was so raw, familiar somehow, and yet absolutely new. I was driven to a level of madness as I worked out the puzzle – Question: “Why doesn’t he seem to care about me?” Answer: “Because he doesn't care.” Question: “What’s really going on here?” Answer: “He wants to be with someone else. Remember that person he spoke of oddly that time and with whom there was that odd exchange that night – yeah he wants to nail her. A-ha. Well that explains it.” Not so complicated after all. How boring. What a cliché. All things I never wanted to be. Twenty-nine years old and still a virgin that's got to show some sort of commitment to nonconformity. Pity I was ashamed by that difference instead of proud. What stings me most is that I had hopes that I never should have had. I abhor false hope and those who give it. By lack of forethought or by direct intention. Such a waste. 

“I guess I have a weakness for lost causes once they’re really lost.” I don’t think I suffer from that affliction; Some causes are clearly lost and should be.
 

“You never give up, do you?”

 “Only when I’m absolutely forced to. But I’m a very good loser…”

“Better than I am.”

“Well, I’ve had… more practice.”

Someone told me that everyone has heartbreaks and therefore mine isn’t special. I am sure everyone does have heartbreaks, BUT not everyone processes heartbreak the same way. Heartbreaks are personal and individual, they have layers and tunnels. There are different kinds of heartbreak - those imposed upon us and those we cause ourselves. There are times in life where we have our eyes wide shut, seeking out repeatedly the broken cisterns that hold no water hoping for our thirst to be quenched (Jeremiah 2:13).

"How do you pick up the threads of an old life? How do you go on, when in your heart, you begin to understand: there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend, some hurts that go too deep… that have taken hold."  

My mistakes haunt me. I am not without sin of the deepest scarlet crimson. I am the whitewashed tomb harboring all kinds of decay inside (Matthew 23:27). At least I know that is what I am without Jesus. Everything and anything good comes from Him. What is your motive? If Jesus isn't the center, it's vainity. 

“So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.  For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” Romans 7:21-26; 8:1-4

““Then the lion said — but I don’t know if it spoke — You will have to let me undress you. I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off.  You know — if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place.  It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off – just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt – and there it was lying on the grass, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me – I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on — and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again…”

CS Lewis – The Voyage of the Dawntreader

The claws I cut myself on now are for my good and not my peril. To the glory of Jesus. Make it so for all of us. Amen. xo