Because He is faithful. (looking back at 2012 & forward to 2013)

2012 was the longest year of my life.
For many reasons, really, but mostly because for me, it feels like it started midway through 2011.

In late May of 2011, my precious Grandmother went home to be with Jesus.  That same week we emptied the house she & my Grandpa had called home my entire life.  It was a devastating experience for me that I may never fully recover from.  A week after my Grandma died, the man I thought I’d spend forever with shattered my heart.  All of a sudden, I found myself unbelievably alone, and it hurt.  I was overwhelmed by the reality that my heart would never be the same.  

Entering 2012 a few months later, I was in the midst of the most significant struggle I’d ever faced.  Deeply in it.  Celebrating a new year with all the hopes & excitement that accompany it seemed like a cruel joke.

The year continued to spiral downhill.  I had to walk away from an unhealthy relationship with one of my best friends. My Uncle unexpectedly died.  A few months later (just this past November), my other Grandmother died unexpectedly.  My job was hanging in the midst of uncertainty.  My church in the midst of significant transition.  To say that it has been a hard year seems almost laughable.  Truthfully, it has been brutal.

Yet when I look back on “my” 2012 (June 2011 – now), I can see the faithful hand of a God who knows suffering.  He knew that in the midst of deep suffering,  I needed community.  The friends who have surrounded me over this year are, without a doubt, the sweetest evidence of God’s grace and exactly what my heart needed.  He knew that in the midst of deep suffering, I needed solitude.  He provided this sweet little condo on my meager student ministry salary that gives me room to be alone, but also room to breathe.  He knew that in the midst of deep suffering, I needed to need Him. In so many ways, He removed the security of job, family, relationship, etc. to force me to remember that HE truly is all that I need.

Mostly though?
He knew that in the midst of deep suffering, I was going to blow it.

He knew that I’d question everything.  He knew that I’d act out of grief in unhealthy ways.  He knew that I’d spend so much time wishing I could go back, that I’d forget He is the God who is making all things new.

He knew that in the midst of deep suffering, I’d be faithless.

And so He made a promise, long before death & broken promises ever damaged my fragile heart, that when I am faithless, He WILL remain faithful, because He cannot disown Himself.  (2 Timothy 2:13)

I enter 2013 convinced that unexpected death, broken promises, uncertainty, ending relationships, loneliness, deep grief, sleepless nights, millions of tears, broken hearts, or anything else that may come, could ever separate me from the love of Jesus. (paraphrase, Romans 8:38)  The Love that promises His faithfulness in the midst of every season.  (Lamentations 3:23) The Love that promisess He will not cause pain without allowing something new to be born.  (Isaiah 66:9)  The love that promises He IS making all things new.  (Rev. 21:5) The love that promises He will repay the years the locusts have eaten. (Joel 2:25)

If I have learned anything in my extended 2012, it is simply that HE. IS. FAITHFUL.

2013 will be a year of clinging to these promises, waiting in expectant hope to see Him faithfully fulfill them, in His perfect way and His perfect time.

gratitude anyway.

A couple years ago when I would begin a new text, the first word to pop up in my predictive texts was “grateful”.  I had typed that word so many times that my phone automatically assumed it was coming.  Then my life began to unravel and I stopped being grateful.  Instead, I started being hurt, angry, confused, restless, hurt, hurt, hurt.  And there are seasons for both.  Seasons where grateful overflows out of joy, and seasons where grateful has to be dug out from under all the hurt that’s been piled on top of it.  For me, this is a season of digging.  A season where I choose to say “YES, this hurts, but I choose gratitude anyway.” 

I am grateful for my family.  For the way my Daddy never lets a phone call go by without answering, even if he’s on the golf course or in a meeting.  For my Mom who makes me laugh and makes me angry and buys me expensive girly products like $30 lip gloss.  For my step mom who is my own personal nurse hotline & laughs at all my jokes.  For my sister who can wound me more deeply than nearly any other human being on the planet, and the realization that this is true only because she is more important to me than nearly any other human being on the planet.  For my baby brother who is talented, hilarious, handsome, far cooler than I ever dreamed of being, brings more joy than he could even imagine, and still calls me Sissy. For Grandparents who, although no longer with us, loved me, prayed for me, believed in me, and will forever be one of the best gifts God has ever given to me.

I am grateful for my friends. For the way the deep grief of the past year has served as a catalyst for deepening of relationships.  For my VCG girls, who pray & encourage consistently. For my “people” in my church family who have truly become family, I wouldn’t make it through this season of ministry without the way the Lord has used them to impart wisdom & encouragement! For my best friends, there aren’t enough words to explain what a precious gift these women are.  Jody & Janna(&Scott)  have been the sweetest gift of this season.  There are no other friends I’d rather laugh with, cry with, cuss with & simply do life with than you!

Finally, I am grateful for this season.  If the things I loved most hadn’t been ripped away, I couldn’t have said this and meant it as wholeheartedly as I do:  I am most grateful, above all other things, for Jesus and the way He is making all things new.  I am grateful that He refuses to let me go, even if it means wrecking my life so that there is no one competing for my time & affection.  What a sweet gift it was to love another person with my entire heart, but I am realizing more & more that this season (that has often felt like a curse) is actually a gift.  A season for my heart to be wholly focused on the One who loves perfectly, is completely faithful & will never leave has been healing balm for this tired & broken heart.

Yes, this year has held much pain, but I choose gratitude anyway.

When ministry feels like work

At my Grandma’s funeral nearly a year and a half ago my cousin leaned over to hug me and whispered in my ear, “They were so proud of you for doing the Lord’s work.”

For whatever reason, that phrase and the context in which it was spoken stuck with me ever since.  On days like today I wonder if this is the “Lord’s work” my Grandparents would be proud of.

Today I’ve spent my time sitting in my office in the church earning the salary paid to me by the people who give to fund the “Lord’s work”, and my day has consisted of:

returning emails
scheduling a catered dinner
scheduling worship services in planning center
reminding parents about payment & permission forms for an event
following up with a contracted speaker for an event
planning a volunteer leader meeting
etc. etc. etc.

And if we’re being honest?
None of that feels like the Lord’s work.

Yet I’m reminded that He must be in the details as much as He is in the moments where ministry feels like ministry.  When people have needs and I get to be part of meeting them.  When I get to teach truth and see students grasp it for the first time.  When I orchestrate an activity like a silly beauty pageant at Girls Retreat and see it’s purpose fulfilled right before my eyes as an insecure, shy middle school girl walks confidently down a red carpet in front of her peers and flashes a huge smile as she spins in the spotlight.  Those are the moments I feel like I’m doing the Lord’s work.

Yet far too often, I find myself:
1. Drudging through the details just to get to the next “important” moment
2. Being consumed by the details so that I can hold up my “busy” trophy and feel important and needed.
3. A combination of the two (most often).

Today, I’m reminded that details and programs, emails and small groups, catering and orchestrating events – all of them belong to the Lord.  The plethora of emails I sent to parents today are as much the Lord’s work as the late nights I’ll spend talking about Jesus with high school girls next weekend at Disciple Now.  The time spent scheduling catering and planning to host contracted staff and volunteer servants is as much the Lord’s work as the effort I put into carefully orchestrated events that demonstrate to girls that their worth comes from being a daughter of the King of the universe.

Grateful for the opportunity to redirect my heart to the One who works in me as I send emails & teach small groups & everything in between.

All of this for and because of Him.

breathing & laughing.

I don’t blog much anymore because I fear sounding like a broken record.  Most often over the past thirteen long months, all my heart has wanted to say is “This is too hard!  This isn’t fair!  I give up!”

Because when life is falling apart around us, it’s far too easy to miss what is also being put together. 

Last week on Twitter I read something that stopped me in my tracks and resonated so deeply that I’ve been unable to shake it.  Beth Moore said

Life’s hard enough. Believer, if you get a moment’s levity, laugh for crying out loud. Laugh by faith like it’s all gonna be alright someday.

Can I tell y’all how much my aching heart needed that reminder?  Almost as though I needed permission that even in the midst of uncertainty and a seemingly endless ache in the deepest depths of my heart, this girl can still “laugh by faith like it’s all gonna be alright someday”.

A few days after I read that tweet, I clicked a link that led me to this blog   telling the story of another young woman’s worst year ever.  After bravely sharing her story of unthinkable pain, she comes to this conclusion:

There’s no absolution in healing. There is never going to be a time when I’ll sit in the sun in July and not think about Harrison or Evelyn. Or smell that awful bar soap and not think of Harrison or Evelyn. Or hear Alexi Murdoch’s song Something Beautiful, or play with my nephew Frank, or make coffee or see a pregnancy test or do a thousand other things and not think of Harrison or Evelyn… And there shouldn’t be.  To me, healing doesn’t mean I won’t hurt anymore. Healing means being able to breathe when I make a pot of coffee. Being able to play with my nephew, with a heart bursting with thankfulness for him.

“There’s no absolution in healing.”

There may never be a time I can listen to Keith Urban without tears or drive through Georgia without feeling nauseated.  There may never be a morning when I don’t miss those text messages or that voice or those songs.  There may never be a day when I’ll willingly delete those numbers from my cell phone or drive down the country road toward my Grandparents old house without feeling the unbearable weight of grief.

Yet “healing doesn’t mean I won’t hurt anymore.  Healing means being able to breathe when I make a pot of coffee.”

YES.

Healing means continuing to pick up my Bible in the early mornings even though sweet text messages no longer accompany that time.  Healing means drinking Starbucks coffee instead of Jittery Joes out of my Grandpa’s mug while listening to his favorite music and singing along instead of sobbing into my cup.  It means waking up this morning and tripping over extra blankets stacked in the dining room and unloading a sink full of dishes, both proof that my home was filled with high school girls this weekend.  Because yes, there may be wedding plans in the works in north Georgia, but eternity is being worked out in south Florida and if that isn’t a great reason for unquenchable joy I don’t know what is. 

And so I’ll keep breathing when I make coffee, and though there may be tears there will also be laughter, because He is faithful and it’s all gonna be alright someday. 

glitter & grief

This time last year I had no idea that in just a few short days my life was about to unravel.  The very best way I know how to sum up the past 358 days?

“what. the. hell.”

I didn’t know then how to deal with grief.  The kind of grief that leaves you sleepless and makes your bones ache and your jaw involuntarily clench.  I had no desire to learn how to grieve, but the Lord knows what we need and so I did.  I learned.  I failed.  I resisted.  I screamed and cried and have functioned with less sleep than I thought humanly possible for months.  I have begged and pleaded and worried and felt the ache of regret more deeply than I have ever known.

Although time moves on, grief remains.
It feels a lot like cleaning up glitter.

I love glitter.  Really, really love glitter.
But cleaning it up?  No thank you.

The funny thing about glitter is that you work so hard to confine it, yet somehow it ends up everywhere.  You find traces of it for days.  Maybe even weeks.  The slightest breeze has blown it all over your house and even when you’re doing something silly like dancing in your kitchen  you see it reflecting in the light on your stove and it hits you.  The glitter is still there.  In places you didn’t put it.  In places you didn’t want it.  In places you didn’t expect it.

So it is with grief.
In the unexpected moments of picking up your phone to text something funny then realizing you can’t.  In the drive through Georgia that all but rips your heart out while the tears sting your eyes at the sight of the Atlanta skyline.  In the quiet mornings with the Lord when the silence is deafening because everything is so, so different.  It’s there when you rearrange your bookshelves and come across that book that’s not supposed to be yours yet remains on your shelf.  In the phone numbers you pass by in your contact list that you can’t bring yourself to delete.  So many places and moments you don’t expect tears to show up.  Yet somehow the breeze has blown those people, those memories, those thoughts into these places and there it is.  Undeniable, breathtaking, heart racing grief.

Just like glitter, grief remains.
Also like glitter?
Grief shines.

It shines a light on “the idolatry of self reliance.” {Jesus Calling, May 10}
Each of these glittery reminders that sparkle grief in the most unlikely places remind me that I need Jesus. They remind me that there is a plan at work that is far greater than what I thought I deserved.  They remind me of His faithfulness.  They remind me of the fact that I feel deep grief because for a season of my life I had really great things that were hard to lose.  He is both the giver and the One who takes away.  And both are good.

but God.

Last weekend I moved into a sweet two bedroom condo.  I have enough space to spread out and breathe, yet it’s small enough to be cozy and feel like home.

As I sit at my desk and look around I finally see, after a three year hiatus, all my earthly possessions in one place.  It is simultaneously comfortable and unsettling.  Strange and overwhelming.  So normal to move and live and rest among the things I enjoy.  So strange to be here, in this place, at this stage of life, so far from where I thought I’d be.

It’s easy to focus on the latter.  How I’d rather be there than here.  How I’d rather go back than forward.  How I’d rather be doing that than this.  All those days spent working toward something that disappeared in an instant have resulted in this – an adorable apartment with the coziest couch, an endless supply of hot coffee, friends to fill these spaces, the presence of Jesus in each and every breath – yet in the midst of all that is there is a steady ache that reminds me of all that isn’t.

And so I sit, holding this pretty pink mug full of decaf, reminding my heart that there is much, much more to this story.  Right here, in the midst of a painful chapter, the Lord interjects “Yes, this is painful.  But…“

“My heart & my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart & my portion forever.”  Psalm 73:26

My heart?  Failing.
My flesh?  Failing.

But God? Strength for my heart.  Enough for me.   Forever.

“He shows up” and other thoughts from the first month of 2012.

A few days ago I sat next to a dear friend at a dinner party who listened patiently as I explained the details of a painful situation currently going on in my life.  In her incredibly kind, yet matter-of-fact way she reminded me firmly – “You have a Biblical responsibility to do ______, and when you do you absolutely must remember that He shows up.  He always, always shows up.”

a glimpse of one of the many ways He has "showed up" lately

A couple weeks ago I snuggled up against a pile of pillows with a cup of decaf coffee next to another sweet friend in a ginormous bed.  This fairly new friend (who feels like an old friend) has an uncanny way of reading between the lines and seeing through to the depths of the heart.  While tears overflowed from my aching heart she said “I would not wish one thousand of ______ in place of what the Lord has for you.  You are worth so much more than that!  I believe for you {because she knew that in that moment, I couldn’t believe it for myself} that HE has something so much better.”

Earlier in the month I stood in my kitchen across from my boss after a planning meeting telling him of all the frustrations and aches that come along with this life of full time ministry.  The uncertainty that can so easily overwhelm had taken a toll on my already fragile heart.  With the sensitivity & wisdom that He offers so freely (and for which I am so very ,very grateful) he shared his own struggle with the question “What does it look like to trust the Lord in the midst of all this?”  That question continues to direct my heart back to the only One who makes sense of all the chaos that surrounds me these days.

This morning after church I stood in a small circle of a few sweet friends who again listened to my heart while one of them remarked about a certain situation “I knew you were on the verge of tears because I know what you do with your mouth before you cry!”

Recalling that moment along with many others, I see it — I am known.  It is both a terrifying and absolutely beautiful realization.   In this season of the greatest pain I have ever known I have lost all energy to hide or pretend.  As a result this pain has acted as a catalyst for sweet, encouraging, honest relationships.

Truly, He has been faithful to show up.

He shows up through decaf coffee and tears, He shows up at a dinner party with precious women, He shows up after church on a Sunday when you compliment a friend’s earrings and she takes them out of her ears and gives them to you (then brings you the matching necklace a few days later),  He shows up in long conversations over margaritas with a dear friend, He shows up in the friend who gives the best hugs, He shows up in Sunday morning snuggles with Gracie,  He shows up in a text message from a friend sharing the specific scripture she is praying over you, He shows up in laughter with coworkers, He shows up in teary conversations over red wine, He shows up in emails traded back and forth throughout the work day with my best friend, He shows up in early mornings in His Word…

Life continues to be chaotic & uncertain, but He continues to show up.
He always, always shows up.