Vulnerable. So be it.

Beauty in the Brokenness

Earth shattering days.

And I'm not talking about the good kind.

 I am not overly dramatic, so I should preface the following by saying earth shattering is relative.  But the events that have taken place in my life in the past few months have shaken me to my core.  They say bad things come in threes.  I think my threes must have been building up for a few years, because mine came in many multiples of three.  And all of a sudden I was left standing in the midst of rubble, destruction, pain: looking at my life, feeling as if the mountain top I had been living on had crumbled around me.  The thrill of being at the top exchanged for the despair of being enveloped by the casualties of the fall.  I have lived parts of my life angry at God, hard-hearted and bitter.  The one thing I knew I could not do, can never do again, is go back to that dark place.  And so, what do I do?  I put one foot dutifully in front of the other, checking off the to-do list of a "good Christian girl", and plodded on, all the while trying desperately to find another mountain top, another hill. And yet, here I sit, still in the valley, with mountains still shaken and hills still fallen.  I once told you I never cried, these past few months have made a liar out of me.  I have cried, I have screamed, I have begged, I have cursed (sorry, Mom!), I have run, and oh, how I have prayed.  I have asked God to lead me back up to a mountain top in my life, back to where the view is beautiful and I am no longer surrounded by brokenness.  And how sweetly the Lord asked me to see the beauty in the brokenness. 

I want to know God, every aspect of Him, intimately. Psalms 34:18 says that He is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.  I had never known that God who was near to the brokenhearted, until I became the brokenhearted.  Truly, I have lived a blessed and pain-free life.  Until those (relatively speaking) earth-shattering days.  I can now tell you without a doubt, I know the God that is near to the brokenhearted.  Because that God has wrapped me in His arms and assured me and re-assured me.  The same God who spoke the world into existence knows the number of hairs on my head.  He loves me. Even when my mountains crumble, perhaps ESPECIALLY when my mountains crumble, His love, His promise of peace...it will never end.  I fear that so much of my life I have lived knowing ABOUT God, following His do's and dont's, (self) righteously checking the boxes, rather than truly KNOWING God.  Ann Voskamp says, "The modern-day Pharisees focus on sin avoidance and not firstly on Savior ardency." Trying to do the right thing, or avoid the wrong thing, rather than passionately pursuing an intimate knowledge of the One I love.  A head knowledge of my Savior, book knowledge of my Lord, it wasn't enough when my heart was in shambles.  This brokenness, the crumbling, it forced me to cling ever tighter to my God-and how can you cling to what you don't trust-and how can you trust what you don't know?  It necessitated a search for Him where I had previously only been cognizant of His existence, but never experienced it: in my pain amidst the rubble of a crumbling peak.  And I found Him there, arms opened wide, sovereign, all-knowing, all-powerful, completely trustworthy, near to my broken heart, and absolutely, stunningly, beautiful. 

Endures all things...

Hope...

Anxiety Girl

Yes, unfortunately, very often this is the cape I wear.  When I was little my favorite thing to do was to go to my room and "imaginate."  That vivid imagination has not always served me well.  It allows me to drum up the most awful situations possible and then spend minutes, hours, sometimes days, playing said situations out in my mind..to the point of tears..mourning over things that haven't even happened.  True story.  And, this past week I paired that imagination with prescription pain medication that apparently made me crazy. (As in one morning I was blow drying my hair, innocently sitting there with brush and dryer in hand, and spontaneously combusted into hiccuping sobs.  I am still not sure what I was crying over.)  Also thrown in the equation was the reason for the pain medication, an absessed incredibly painful tooth, and life with twists and turns that I never saw coming.  This was not my best week.  And that was perhaps the biggest understatement I have ever made. I feel like I owe some of those closest to me an apology for my craziness this week...I probably owe them more than that.  Poor things had to hear me cry over these imaginary "what ifs" and pleasantly reassured me, multiple times.  (Well, they appeared pleasant on the outside...heaven only knows what they were thinking on the inside;)  One of my dearest friends did finally tell me to "stop thinking."  Ha.) 

While I am hopeful, I still don't know how this particular life situation with its twists and turns will turn out.  But, I think that's the point.  I can never know the future.  God doesn't give me grace for tomorrow.  He gives me grace for today.  I am not even guaranteed tomorrow, so why allow the enemy to steal my joy from today?  He did come to steal, kill, and destroy-and by focusing on the worry and the crazy thoughts, I am allowing him to do just that.  However, if my joy is dependent on the future, and the future occuring just as I hope, well its misplaced anyway.  My joy comes from the hope I have in Christ.  I am incredibly thankful for the gifts the Lord has blessed me with...incredibly thankful.  But, God isn't good because of those gifts...and God would still be good if He took those gifts away.  So, today I took off my anxiety girl cape.  I am done being a super worrier.  Today I chose to trust that I have a hope and a future, because I have a real relationship with a real Savior who loved me enough to give His very life for me to ensure that hope and future.  Oh, I still ask the Lord for those earthly gifts He has given me to not go anywhere, after all the Lord already knows the desires of my heart...but, I will not mourn over the "what-ifs" (those gifts should go somewhere).  I will stop thinking.  I will stop "imaginating."  I will trust.  Because He is good.

Missing the Silver Lining

My.Sentiments.Exactly.

And just for good measure...

Don't worry.  There are no plans to move to Australia.  But, I may or may not have considered it a few times this past week. 

On the upside...next week can only get better.  I think.

Answered Prayers.Ugh.

I am always surprised when I receive direct answers to prayer. I know-I shouldn't be, but time after time the Lord answers my prayers and I sit back and think "Wow, that really just happened." I would like to believe it is more of an awe or amazement at His goodness and faithfulness and His love for me rather than a shock that He really is all-powerful and really does care about my life. Either way, I am continually amazed by His answers. These past few months have brought specific answers to prayers which I have been praying for years...prayers I had all but given up on believing God's answer may just be a resounding "no." And as hard as that would have been, it would have been okay. Because I know His ways are higher than mine. And after all, just a few months ago I blogged on my gratitude for unanswered prayers. However, this week I am not struggling with the "no" answers or even the seemingly "unanswered prayers." Quite the opposite actually, this week I am struggling because of answered prayers.


You see, my greatest desire is to be made more like Christ, to be a reflection of His love, grace, and goodness to the world. I have been told I am quite self-aware...which most likely is a nice way of saying I am a "what you see is what you get" kind of girl. I don't put up pre-tenses and I am honest, maybe to a fault. That honesty can carry over into the way I view myself. I am keenly aware of some (no, not all!) of the areas in which I struggle. And I spend time asking the Lord to change those areas, to make me more like Him and less like impatient, stubborn, selfish, anxious, me. I guess I just never realized quite how painful that refining process would be. Nor did I realize that one event would reveal my weaknesses in EVERY one of those areas. Yes, I am once again amazed at the Lord's direct answer to my prayers. But the jury is still out on whether this is a "good" amazed.


For years I have prayed that the Lord would teach me to become more patient. After all, this is a fruit of the Spirit, and one I would never possess in my own strength. I am incredibly impatient. I hate to wait. I am an instant gratification kind of girl. I see the newest thing and I have to have it..yesterday. When I was little, money burnt a hole in my pocket. I had to spend it...immediately. I thought becoming a teacher was God's way of teaching me patience. After all, you try dealing with fifty-one 9 yearn olds on a daily basis and see if it doesn't stretch...errr increase....your patience. I thought being single at the age of 30 was God's way of teaching me patience. Especially after I have watched several of my old campers (yes, I spent a few summers as a teen camp counselor) grow up, get married, and have their own children. Oh, I am certain the Lord is using those things to increase my patience, but apparently I am a really slow learner or (thank the Lord) He isn't finished working on me yet, because this week He placed a HUGE "hurry up and wait" situation in my life. Though not necessarily Scriptural, I am sure it was still a wise person who said, "Good things come to those who wait." Dear me, I hope so. Check back in a few months and I'll let you know for sure. I do know that the Lord will not waste this opportunity. If I allow Him to, He will increase my patience in this storm whether or not I get what I am hoping for at the end of it. By the way, I texted a friend this weekend and asked her to pray that I would EXERCISE patience...not LEARN patience. I would be ever so grateful if the rest of you praying friends would do the same. I don't think I can handle many more "opportunities" to learn it right about now.


One of my greatest prayers for 2012 was that I would truly allow the Lord to be Lord of ALL in my life: that I would wholly surrender to His Lordship. If you know me you know I prefer...control. Allowing the LORD to control every area, to be completely obedient to whatever He asks of me, that is my prayer. I didn't realize just how quickly that would be tested. Here I sit being given the opportunity to truly surrender, to be completely obedient to a situation that I would have never chosen for myself, and honestly a situation I do not
understand, and may not even be in agreement with. Yet, nowhere in Scripture do I see where
understanding or agreement are pre-requisites for obedience. I am certain Abraham did not understand or agree with the sacrifice of his son, and yet he was willing to obey. And so I decided to obey. And I wish that was the end of it...that I had simply said "Your way, Lord, I surrender. I will be obedient." But there was a song we used to sing about obedience being, "doing exactly what the Lord commands and doing it happily." Oh, I am doing the exactly, but honestly, I am struggling with the happily. I will wrestle with God for a bit (if Jacob did, can't I?), pray for perspective, contentment, and true joy, and hopefully, prayerfully, completely surrender. Of course, that prayer for complete surrender got me here in the first place...


Deuteronomy 6:5 instructs us to love the Lord our God With ALL of our heart, soul, and
strength. My church urged us to pray this verse in February...you know Valentine's Day and all of that lovey dovey garbage. Anyway, I did. I prayed that the Lord would help me to love Him,
which I do, with my ALL, which I don't-at least not always. Oh, how I want to, but it is obvious to me today, yesterday, the day before, more than ever that there are people and things which have taken His rightful place of being my First Love. A.W. Tozer puts it this way, "Sin has introduced complications and has made those very gifts of God a potential source of ruin to the soul." When I prayed that the Lord would teach me to love Him with my all He had to root out whatever gifts He had given me that I loved and cherished more than Him. Of course He did! And logically if I loved it and cherished it that much, it hurt when it was taken away. Why didn't I think of that at the beginning of February? Or avoid it all together by never letting anyone or anything else take the rightful place of the Lord? Enter frustration.


Perhaps my fear and anxiety of the "what if" goes hand in hand with my control issues. But I always try to determine the possible outcome of every situation so that I will have a plan of attack should that possibility become a reality. Come on, that doesn't sound all THAT controlling does it? I pray that the Lord will teach me to trust Him completely. One of my very favorite verses, which ironically I often ignore, is JeremIah 29:11. "For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you; plans for a hope and a future." If I truly believe this is a promise of my God and not just beautifully written words I should stop living in the fear and anxiety of what if the end of this trial turns out nothing like I had pictured? What if everything changes? What if, what if, what if...worry, worry, worry...Eugenia Ginsburg, a Russian woman imprisoned for 13 years for being a teacher wrote in her book Journey into the Whirlwind that the most anxious she felt was before she was ever arrested. The weeks leading up to her imprisonment were worse, "Perhaps because waiting for an inevitable disaster is worse than the disaster itself." Waiting for my "what if" which isn't even inevitable in my case leads to absolute torture of my heart, soul, and mind. Corrie ten Boom puts it like this, "Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength." And as I lay in my bed crying and fretting over a future I don't control anyway, I realize how weak I am. How's this for a what if...what if I would truly learn to trust my Savior, the One who really does have a hope and a future for me...even if it doesn't look anything like the future I am so hopeful for.


Lesson learned here friends: don't pray for what you don't want answered. And while I have your attention: those of you who know me well enough to know my weaknesses and pray that the Lord would work in those areas of my life....could you maybe take a few days, weeks, months even, off...seriously;) All joking aside, I am so thankful He promises to never give me more than I can handle, and thankful that He is not through working on me, molding me, and making me more like Him. I would have given up on me years ago!!

The Lost Art of Being Modest

I should warn you…I am climbing on a soap box…possible rant ahead.

Every Wednesday night a group of my girlfriends (all teachers) and I hit the town for a rousing ladies’ night.  Okay, truthfully most Wednesdays we end up at Cracker Barrel-yea, not all that rousing.  And, we used to meet at 6:30-7:00, but lately we have moved the time back to 5:30-6:00 in order to be done earlier so we can go to bed earlier-translated: we are getting old.  However, one time we did cause a couple at Applebees to ask for a different table because apparently we were having too much fun for them.  (Sidenote: I don’t think Applebees is the place to go if you expect a quiet, intimate, romantic dinner-but then, that’s just my opinion.)  Well, last night we got adventurous and headed downtown for a trendy restaurant.  (And I am not ashamed to admit a few of us even donned sweatpants to celebrate the event-and by a few of us, I mean the other girls.)  Okay, when I say trendy restaurant picture industrial space, brick walls, exposed ducts, big bar, limited seating, etc.  But, I live in a small, conservative, southern town, so even our trendy restaurants that attract local singles (young and old…currently I am picturing the old, loud, drunk lady at the bar next to our table), the environment remains family friendly.  At least, I always thought so.  One negative of the downtown hotspot is that there is typically a LONG wait…a seriously LONG wait.  I am not very good at waiting in any aspect of my life.  However, I have discovered when the waiting is only for minutes (or almost an hour as may be the case) rather than say, years, I can survive by people watching.  So, last night as we waited for a table, I observed the other parties who came in to dine.  Apparently we were not the only ones who had the idea for a “ladies’ night.”  About five minutes after we arrived a group of what I would assume were college girls (heaven forbid they were any younger), entered wearing minimal clothing.  Might I add, it IS January for crying out loud?  Anyway, it was a rather large group, say 6 girls, and so it was hard to take them all in at once.  Most were in short, black skirts and or dresses, and by short I mean above mid-thigh, lacey tights, thigh-high boots, tank tops, I think you get the point.  I even looked around to see if somehow we had inadvertently made our way into a downtown night club instead of an eatery.  Well, out of the midst of the pack emerged the leader.  She sauntered up to the hostess stand, slightly bent over (I would assume in order to be heard over the before mentioned old, loud, drunk lady at the bar) and again assuming here, gave the hostess her name.  Actually, I can’t be sure what she said, or even that she was having a conversation, because when she slightly leaned her SWEATER that she somehow mistook as a DRESS inched up even further (as if it really had anywhere to go) and I had to bite my tongue so as not to embarrass my friends by breaking out in, “I see London, I see France…”  Unfortunately, the underpants were so minimalistic I am not even sure I would have been justified in singing that rhyme.  I was absolutely, completely, totally, horribly mortified.  Especially when the 7 year-old sitting next to us with her obviously appalled mother and father leaned over to tell her mom that she also could see “Victoria’s Secret.”  Okay, let’s face it, everyone around this girl was staring and whispering.  And yes, it was probably judgmental, and yes, she has the right to dress how she chooses, but then she had no right to get upset when others began to stare and whisper.  I am sorry, but I am of the opinion that the ONLY reason you dress that way is to get attention.  You don’t put on a long sweater, pretend it is a dress, and go out thinking “Boy, I hope no one notices that my rear end almost hangs out in this.  I really would hate to get any extra attention.” (I am prepared to argue this point, judgmental or not.)  However, regardless of “rights” my point (and my soap box) is much larger than all of this.  I have to ask myself why.  Why, when I take my little nine-year-old sister shopping, do I feel like the clothes options are less for a nine-year-old and more for a nine-year-old version of a 21 year-old (and an inappropriate 21 year-old at that)?  Why, when I drive down the road with my brother or dad or guy friends do I feel like I should have to cover their eyes because of the billboards lining the road?  Why do we as a society have absolutely no concept of modesty anymore??

And now as I climb on my soap box, I should preface this rant with a statement: 

I love fashion.  And I would like to think that I am a reasonably well-dressed, somewhat fashionable, teacher (yes, that may be an oxy-moron).  However, one of the best compliments I have ever received is that I don’t look like a teacher;)  I do not believe you have to sacrifice fashion and looking nicely put-together for modesty.  (As a matter of fact, I think if you walk around in sweat pants, yoga pants, and especially pajama pants in public on a fairly consistent basis, we probably need to have a talk also.  But, at least those pants cover what needs to be covered.)  Anyway, there are creative, fashionable, and even cute ways to dress in the latest trends without looking…let’s say inappropriate (for lack of a better term…well, I have better terms-I’m just not sure I should use those terms in print.;) 

So, where has modesty gone? 

Society tells us that in order to attract a man women not only have to look a certain way, they must also dress a certain way-and typically that way is to “show-off” the certain way that you look.  Let me ask you a question, ladies.  What kind of man are you hoping to attract (or if you already have your man, what kind of man are you hoping your daughters/sisters/friends will attract)?  I would guess the majority of you who read my blog are hoping to attract a Godly man whose main desire in life is to love and serve God with his whole heart.  If this is the case, chances are he is looking for the same kind of woman.  And, that sweater “dress” (or whatever immodest piece of clothing you may wear) does not scream “Proverbs 31” woman over here.  I want to be pursued.  I am worth being pursued.  For heaven’s sakes, Christ left heaven, came to earth, suffered and died, and pursued me because He loved me.  I am worth a man having to do a little work to win me.  But, if we walk around exposing too much why would a man pursue us?  We have destroyed part of the mystery of the pursuit. 

I have often heard it said that whatever you had to do to attract your man, you will have to do to keep him.  Don’t get me wrong, I want to be physically attractive to the man I marry.  However, if all I have going for me in his eyes is the way I look, I am in trouble!  The Bible tells us that beauty is fleeting.  I WILL get old, I MAY get wrinkles;)  Chances are I won’t be running marathons 20 years from now, which may mean my body will…ummm…change.  But, if my man falls in love with my heart, with my desire to know the Lord, to love the Lord, to serve the Lord, hopefully those things will only increase in my life over the years.  I pray I will only grow to become MORE like Christ as the years go by.  His love, His beauty, His grace shining through me…causing my countenance to glow-I want THAT to be the attracting factor for my man-NOT my body and the clothes I wear to flaunt it.

I am a teacher.  I teach 4^th grade, nine-year-old girls.  Every year I am more and more astounded by the amount of time these girls spend talking about their weight and the way they appear.  It saddens me as I know most of these girls haven’t even reached puberty yet, they still have their little girl faces and some little girl chubbiness, and yet they are worried about the nutritional value of their granola bar for snack because they think they are, “SOO fat.”  Who has made these girls think that way?  Surely most nine-year-olds aren’t born to eventually believe they are fat.  To what are they comparing themselves?  Or perhaps we should be asking the better question-what kind of role models are we giving them for a comparison?  I think (and I could be a bit prideful in this thinking), but I think my little sister looks up to me.  I think that (most days) she thinks I hung the moon.  Knowing that she is watching me and wants to be like me should make me question how I dress, how I talk, how I act in front of her.  Most of us would never use inappropriate language in front of younger kids.  And yet, many of us have no problem (or just don't think about) talking about  how “fat we are” or how much “weight we have gained, ugh,” in front of our sisters, daughters, etc.  Please know, I am preaching to the choir here.  And it really hit home when over Christmas vacation my little sister said to me (after stepping on the scale), “Oh that is ridiculous.  No nine- year-old should ever weigh THAT much.”  And here-in lies the problem: when we put all of the emphasis on our bodies and the way our bodies look, we only confirm the message that society sends…your worth lies in how you look.  You are only valuable to (fill-in-the-blank) if you wear a certain size, have certain measurements, etc.  And indeed, the only way to attract someone is if you flaunt said measurements.  Inadvertently, and I am certain quite unintentionally, our focus on our weight, our bodies, may be leading our younger generation right into that store in the mall that I mentioned earlier where 9 year-olds can purchase mini-versions of a 21 year-old's clubbing clothes.

I am a fixer.  When I see a problem, I want to solve it.  I am also a rule follower.  I would love nothing better than to give you a list of “modesty rules.”  Ay, but there’s the rub.  There are good intentioned people with the personal conviction that no man or woman should ever show his/her thigh.  While this is not my personal conviction, I would rather err on the side of caution and being overly modest than the other side.  The Bible doesn’t specifically tell me that a higher than mid-thigh black mini is inappropriate (at least not in those exact words).  However, the Bible does tell me that every aspect of my life should be lived to bring honor and glory to my Lord and Savior.  I am His poem to the world.  And what I wear reflects significantly about who I am and whose I am.  Think about it, you identify referees in ball games due to their stripes.  When I cannot find my favorite coffee at Wal-Mart I immediately search for a blue-vested, smiling employee.  Their clothing gives them an identity and identifies what they do.  I want my clothing to identify me as a princess of the King, as one that wholeheartedly follows Him.  I don’t necessarily want my clothing to draw attention to ME and MY body, but to draw attention to the One IN me.  For those of you who are still looking for a bit more guidance, or more practical “rules” check out Dannah Gresh’s Six Ways to Keep the “Little” in your Girl.  She gives modesty “tests” for clothing and even accompanies each test with a picture (for all of you visual learners).  (By the way, great book and great resource anyway-even if you feel like you already have a handle on the modesty issue!  And she has a website http://www.secretkeepergirl.com/ which contains a modesty project.)  For those of you who aren’t currently raising/influencing the lives of young ladies, check out Nancy Leigh DeMoss’s The Look: Does God Really Care What I Wear for yourself.  Another great resource that will likely challenge the way you think about and answer the age old, “What will I wear tomorrow?” dilemma.

Okay, climbing off of my soap box.  I am going to go put on some sweat pants and curl up with a book-on my couch.  By the way, as far as I am concerned, sweat pants are perfectly acceptable “curl-up-on-the-couch” attire…(but don’t let me catch you at the grocery store with them on!)