Sprinting for the finish line...

Just to catch you up fast, no this is not about being a runner. So what do I mean? Let me tell you. I am a sprinter and this is a problem. No, not a sprinter in the literally sense but in a metaphorical one. The Christian faith is laid out to be a marathon. The comparison to a race is consistent through scripture. We are admonished to “lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). We are told to run in such a way as to obtain the prize (1 Corinthians 9:24). It is not the analogy most often referred to but it is common for most and I have found a problem in my own life with running this race. I am not a marathon runner. When you read the verses, that I encourage you to look up on your own, don’t you get the feeling that these verses are talking about a long journey? Finding the word endurance implies anything but a short sprint to the finish line and I am a sprinter. Maybe you are too. Still confused? Let me expand.

I have found a pattern in my own Christian walk. There are these burst of energy, passion, desire where I run whole heartedly towards the goal. I chase fervently and recklessly towards the prize. I trip, I fall, I crawl, I walk. The intensity changes but I am constantly moving forward. I am looking at my beloved creator and singing his name as I chase his heart. Then suddenly, almost violently, I stop. I can hear a few of you breath a sigh of relief as clarity settles in and your mind whispers, “Oh, well, that is normal.” It may be normal but I take issue with it. I don’t mean I am crawling forward on bruised knees. It’s like my mind, heart, soul, call it whatever you will goes, “Okay, that’s enough for now. I think I am going to sit on this rock for a while. I’ll catch you later God.” What?! Excuse me?! This is not the reaction you have to an Almighty God. This is not how you react to a lover. This is not a marathon runner. Sprinters stop running. Marathoners keep going long after the sprinter has given out. I am a sprinter, and I take serious issue with myself.

Guess where I am today. I am sitting on that rock. I don’t know why. I couldn’t explain it if I tried, if my life (or soul) depended on it. I can hear my Saviour calling. I can feel him poking. I know he is wooing but still I sit. I can’t help but laugh at myself and I can’t help but cry for myself either. I know who I am. I know who calls me loved. I know who’s arms I belong in. I know who orchestrates my life. There is no confusion for me who my King is, though how accurately I know Him can be examined later. There is no time for that tonight. Tonight I wrestle with how to become a marathon runner. How to pursue Him everyday without stopping. What does it say about me if I do not chase after Him? What does it say I believe? I have an inkling these questions fall under the trust category and the ever present be still and wait for Him category.

In all my searching of races, running, and persevering I found this verse and perhaps it holds the answers to my questions. Isaiah 40: 30-31 “Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Wait on the Lord. Wait on the Lord. Wait on the Lord. It reminds me of Exodus 14:14 a verse dear to my heart as of late. It says “The Lord will fight for you, you need only be still.” So I tell myself, be still, he will come for you. He will fight for you. He is after all the lover of your soul, and lovers rescue. Lovers fight for the beloved. I don’t have an answer to my question. No solution to my problem has been found. However, of this I am certain. I am sure that my King will not abandon me. I know He won’t throw up His hands and walk away. I know He is certain of my love for Him and His love for me even when I don’t get it, even when I can’t see it. So for tonight I will sit on this rock and I will wait for my Lover to return and when He does my heart will again be filled. My legs will again find strength and again I will try to be a marathon runner. Who knows maybe I will get the hang of it this time.

Dancing with skeletons

If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet you'd best take it out and teach it to dance. ~George Bernard Shaw


I am a counselor by trade, a therapist at heart so reading this quote for the first time I was taken aback and even scoffed at it. (As much as anyone can scoff at something a great writer says.) However, something about this quote pulled me in. There was something beautiful about it. The image of a skeleton in a bow tie and top hit flitted gracefully across my mind. SO I read it again, again and again and it made sense. Why wouldn’t we do this? Of course I thought this solves so many problems. Let me explain.

As a therapist I have purported the need to “empty your closet”. Bones are useless and no good so throw them out with the rest of the trash you have stored from your life of pain and disgrace. Clean out your closet until it is empty and bare, but if we clean out our closets until they are bare why do we even have closets in the first place? What if closets are made to keep our dancing bones? You see skeletons are not all bad. It is often the wounds in our life that help us help others. It is often our wounds that are encased in the visage of a skeleton and our wounds are beautiful. Do I sound crazy to you? I promise I am anything but. It is through hurt and pain that the most beautiful of characters are formed, it is through the hurt and pain that we are sanctified and made more perfect, more whole. It is through working through those wounds and, to honor Mr. Shaw, teaching our skeletons to dance that we become beautiful.

Consider for a moment that secret you hold in your closet? Think long and hard about the skeleton that lurks there. It has probably been a while since you have touched it. It is covered in dust and cob webs. Spiders have made their home in the eye sockets and the whole being lays crumpled in a mess of bones that is indiscernible to anyone but you. Now imagine taking that secret out of the closet. Dust it off, clean it up and dress it out then the dancing lessons begin. Find a hanger for your newly dressed skeleton because no doubt in the beginning pulling him out of the closet for a waltz or fox trot will be painful. The skeleton will be clumsy and lost in the motions of elegant, graceful movement. The long years being shoved, mangled and bundled in the back of the cold dark closet have taught it everything but grace. You have learned to do anything but touch this wound but slowly it begins to feel normal in your grasp. Slowly he learns to move his feet in time and that his lack of ligaments do not keep him from being able to spin and twirl with the slightest gesture. Am I still not making sense? Does dancing with your skeleton (or skeletons) seem ludicrous. Don’t run yet, it is just the fear and panic talking.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who COMFORTS US in all our TROUBLES so that WE MAY BE ABLE TO COMFORT those experiencing any trouble with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” If we never have wounds, if we never teach our bones to dance how are we to be comforted? How are we then supposed to know how to comfort other people? Yes, we can. In a limited sense. I don’t have to experience great pain to understand the loss of a child. I can empathize and I can ache with a grieving parent. But pair two sets of parents in a room who have lost a child and the compassion and the comfort that they experience is ten fold. Now think about what happens if one of those parents have never dealt with that loss. What if they have never taught their skeleton to dance? They run from the situation and they miss out on the comfort available to them.

So don’t back down. Open your closet wide. Dust off your skeleton. Turn on the record player and teach your skeletons to dance. Then dance your way around your world. Show others what you have come through and let them take heart in knowing that it can be done. Let them be in awe of the beauty that has come from a ghastly situation. Teach your skeletons to dance.

Happy Birthday to me.

I don't know that I have the words to write this but something deeper compels me. Ernest Hemingway wrote "There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a type writer and bleed." I suppose that is what you are about to witness.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I will be 27 years old and tonight I sat with my little sister and a few friends as we talked about who we would be if we had never come to know Christ. If we had no faith what would our lives look like. It was an interesting and heavy conversation to have on my birthday. A day that begs me to evaluate my life and consider what I am. We each slowly realized that the mistakes that we made in life would have continued and potentially left far deeper impacts on our lives. We agreed that none of us would be here and above all else we all agreed that our lives would be full of despair and hopelessness. I was labeled "a force to be reckoned with" and I can only imagine what that means in the minds of the girls that surrounded me tonight. For me it meant all the cruelty and malice that I have in my heart would surface. All the evil that hides in the dark corners of my heart would find reason to come alive. For me it meant that I would be less kind, less considerate and far to certain of myself. For me it is not a reality I wish to see for myself. It is not who I ever want to be. However, something else happened with this conversation.

I found gratitude. The truth is I am 27 years old and have little to show for myself. Granted I am harsh on myself with what I have expected of myself up till now. If I were to show you the list of expectations I had for myself by age 27 you would stare in wonder at why I ever thought that was reasonable. You most likely would consider me insane and that is okay. I am single, I have no "prospects" I work a job where I attempt to help people and doubt constantly my effectiveness at it. I don't make much money and I am attempting to buy a home, which daily is a struggle that I am just as likely to fail at as I am to succeed. I am not doing what I always planned to do. For all intents and purposes I have failed. Yet that is not what my hope is grounded in. Worldly standards and accomplishments as well as my own list of wildly ridiculous standards mean nothing in life of my hope. Certainly someone else could be better at my job but I have the joy and privilege to walk along side lives as they heal and grow. It is beautiful to see. I get to see those created from clay find wholeness (though it breaks my heart daily when they do not understand the wholeness they can have) I have friends that love me dearly and I would give all of my life's blood for. I have family that can never be replaced and are worth more than my very breath to me. I have hope.

Beyond all of that I have the hope of a world beyond this one. My citizenship is in heaven and this world is not my home. I have the hope of a savior who gave his life blood for me so that this hope can be everlasting. So yes I have lived 27 years of my short life and I don't have near what I thought to show for those years but the hope I have out weighs my standard for accomplishments. I have walked along side a King and have been loved by him daily. I have followed him the very best I know how and I get to delight in the love that he lavishes on me. My life is beautiful and precious. It is a mystery that unfolds day by day, it is a journey that is simple and mundane but epic in its complexities. I am delighted with my life because of the hope I have.

So no I am not a force to be reckoned with. I am sure that I am that girl somewhere in my soul and I do not doubt the cruelty that hides in the darkest parts of my soul. I catch glimpses of that girl from time to time and my fear is that others see her as well. That part of me is twisted from a long, hard, dark fall from beauty forgiveness and grace. A fall I was never present for but bear the consequences of. That part of me is most often referred to by others as "my flesh". She is a sad girl that doesn't understand the light that loves her. She is a lost girl that longs for that same light even though it denies her so many of her desires. Even those darkest parts of me understand that something is not right and longs for the pure warm light of day. All that I am even the parts weak, sick and wounded by the fall cry for my saviour and he does not disappoint. He is not impressed by my accomplishments. He cares little about degrees, travels or income. He longs only for my heart and my heart is wholly his. At least I long for it to be. That too is a daily battle but the longing remains. "And I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ" Phil 1:6 so "let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10:23