For as long as I have pursued my gift of writing, I have been at constant war with a measurable angst in the deepest of my passion. It has been this talk about platform recently that has helped me to understand what my trouble was.
I had been trying to build my platform to fight my own demons, rather than simply building a brand. In doing so, I trapped myself in that platform and lost the essence of all I was.
Let me explain:
My time and my culture convinced me that I could never be what I’m passioned to be, that I could never be a voice in my world. Who am I, the world seemed to be asking, that anyone should listen to me? Once they found that beneath gifted words, I was nothing special, they would scoff at my every word.
So I began “building my platform” by painstakingly poring over every thought that passed through my head. How could I make it beautiful? How could I make it powerful? How could I make it poignant enough that I could be that writer that people started quoting in the halls, whether they could remember where they’d heard the quip or not? That, to me, was the definition of success: to be oft-quoted. To be watched and followed and friended for those little lines that, I hoped, spoke to my credibility.
I became so focused on proving myself as someone to be listened to, as a brilliant writer and a beautiful wordsmith, that I was terrified of saying anything normal. I cringed at the thought of using social media to say anything so mundane as, “Beautiful rain today” or “Watched a fantastic movie last night.” People became accustomed to me living in the philosophical, and I felt myself fading away into the shadows. My “platform” was costing me my humanity.
My writing suffered. My life suffered. Somewhere in the depths of the remnants of my past, I was there, craving a dance with my passion.
There had to be a balance between my platform and my life.
I determined to take my life back, to build my platform but to regain that ability to live outside of it. There was a beauty in the simplicity of simply living that suffocated under my platform, and when I let that break through and sink into my being, my passion lit up.
Since freeing myself to live a human existence and not just my platform, I find that people are more interested in what I have to say because they finally see some authenticity behind my words. Readers respond when they see your humanity beneath your platform, when you connect with them person-to-person.
Here are four tips to help you live authentically beside your platform, rather than under it - practice that will enhance your life, your gift, and yes, even your platform.
1. Read – inside your discipline. A worship minister friend once told me he savored the days when he wasn’t leading worship because they gave him the opportunity to be ministered to rather than doing the ministry. Reading others who share your passion does not threaten your gift; it feeds you.
2. Spend time outdoors. The trees, the sun, and the sky don’t care a lick about your platform. There is no pressure to perform. You don’t have to be the guru. You can simply be a part of a beautiful creation. Dance if you want.
3. Always carry a journal. When a thought hits me that I want to remember, I need to write it down. Otherwise, I’m going to let it run obsessively through my mind until I find a place to do something with it. That way, I won’t forget. But in that time between having the thought and doing something with it, I miss out on everything happening right in front of me. If I can write that thought down right away, it’s somewhere I know to go back to it, and I can live authentically and fully in the present moment.
4. Be Yourself, Not Your Platform. There are some anomalies in all of us, things we enjoy doing but can’t explain why. Things that people might raise an eyebrow at. Do them anyway. Don’t lock yourself into appearances at the cost of something that brings you joy. Authenticity is credibility, and those who follow you will appreciate your realness.
How do you keep balance between your platform and your life?
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Precious Jewels
For a couple of weeks leading up to Christmas, I laid in bed wrestling with the images of special gifts. Those precious trinkets and tokens given from one to another that somehow seal a treasured relationship, a place of honor, or a special love.
In those moments, I could not get my dad out of my head. Dad and I had an awkward relationship, to say the least, and it left a lot to be desired in a little girl's heart, but there was one thing my dad knew how to do: he could convince me I was special. Not to the extent that I felt special, walking around like a proud peacock and spreading my feathers, confident in my place in anything. Just in the way that there was something just under the surface, something secret that made me somehow special to him. And so leading up to the holidays, I was thinking of those special gifts and particularly with the image of precious jewelry...and it absolutely disgusted me.
There was something dirty in that mental image, something less than settling, something that finally had the strength to question a special relationship and the meaning behind a father giving his daughter precious jewels. Maybe it was something about my knowing my relationship with the man, the "secrets" shared, the odd sense of...something. Relationship? I would hesitate to call it love, though I loved him with a daughter's heart. Still do (a ransomed daughter's heart, as my true Father has answered so many of my unspokens), perhaps more now.
And I was thinking about the oddity of a father giving his daughter the jewels or the tokens of a love that he should have reserved for a wife, for a true lover. It was just creepy; it made my skin crawl, and something in my heart pained in those moments before I fell asleep with these images on my mind.
Then, as He is so often to do, my true Father spoke. He spoke in such a way that I could not deny His voice or His presence. He said, "Perhaps it isn't so creepy. Perhaps it isn't absurd. For I...I have these jewels for you, my daughter. And I would be honored if you would wear them."
It wasn't an easy surrender, not by any means. How could I accept a token of a love from a Father when these less than glorious images of a corrupt earthly relationship were holding a death grip on my heart? Literally keeping me up at night in the season of gifting, tormenting something in me that began to see clearly and yet was so enticed by the offering of an honest Father.
How to reconcile the gross with the godly?
For days, He worked on my heart. Mostly in those weak hours before I went to sleep, when my heart was still and the world was quiet and I was able to process, side-by-side or simultaneously, the image of the precious gift of a father with the unspeakable precious gift of my Father. Where love took on a new meaning, a real meaning, and I could see the honor in the gift. Even the gift of precious jewels.
Praying, following, listening to my Lord, I began shopping. Browsing for that fine jewelry that was too good for me, that made me feel too special, that stood and questioned that lingering part of me conflicted between filth and love, between brokenness and humility, between being convinced and being cherished. It was tough. Really tough. There were a few things I was drawn to immediately as my heart cried out, "This is beautiful!" then followed with "...too beautiful for you." Those questions of purity and wholeness that have long lingered in my heart were far from silent, screaming for answers and demanding I take a step back from what I knew God was calling me forward to.
What I knew was of Him.
And I put those jewels down, left them behind, and went home to think on it. To pray on it. To consider...
To consider a life where His love speaks louder. Where His grace answers. Where His mercy shows. To consider a life of being His, marked by a gift of treasured jewels, of something beyond beautiful that does not, in fact, contradict anything in me. It only contradicts the pain and the lies that have too long held me back.
It speaks in truth, and it is an honor to wear His gem.
So with God by my side, I found that jewel He chose to honor me, at least in this moment. I wear it around my neck, knowing as I run my fingers over it that we share a pure love, without need for convincing or for secrets or for questioning. We share something wonderful and blessed, as my Father has answered the heart of His daughter and shown worth, wonder, and beauty within. And without.
With this token, Lord, I am honored to be marked as yours, to know this as a sign of something incredible that is not tainted in the least. To embrace your grace, your mercy, and your love without question of my worthiness, my purity, or my place as your beloved daughter.
So this is what love is.
Maybe it's not really creepy for a Father to gift His daughter precious jewels. At least, not in this case.
In those moments, I could not get my dad out of my head. Dad and I had an awkward relationship, to say the least, and it left a lot to be desired in a little girl's heart, but there was one thing my dad knew how to do: he could convince me I was special. Not to the extent that I felt special, walking around like a proud peacock and spreading my feathers, confident in my place in anything. Just in the way that there was something just under the surface, something secret that made me somehow special to him. And so leading up to the holidays, I was thinking of those special gifts and particularly with the image of precious jewelry...and it absolutely disgusted me.
There was something dirty in that mental image, something less than settling, something that finally had the strength to question a special relationship and the meaning behind a father giving his daughter precious jewels. Maybe it was something about my knowing my relationship with the man, the "secrets" shared, the odd sense of...something. Relationship? I would hesitate to call it love, though I loved him with a daughter's heart. Still do (a ransomed daughter's heart, as my true Father has answered so many of my unspokens), perhaps more now.
And I was thinking about the oddity of a father giving his daughter the jewels or the tokens of a love that he should have reserved for a wife, for a true lover. It was just creepy; it made my skin crawl, and something in my heart pained in those moments before I fell asleep with these images on my mind.
Then, as He is so often to do, my true Father spoke. He spoke in such a way that I could not deny His voice or His presence. He said, "Perhaps it isn't so creepy. Perhaps it isn't absurd. For I...I have these jewels for you, my daughter. And I would be honored if you would wear them."
It wasn't an easy surrender, not by any means. How could I accept a token of a love from a Father when these less than glorious images of a corrupt earthly relationship were holding a death grip on my heart? Literally keeping me up at night in the season of gifting, tormenting something in me that began to see clearly and yet was so enticed by the offering of an honest Father.
How to reconcile the gross with the godly?
For days, He worked on my heart. Mostly in those weak hours before I went to sleep, when my heart was still and the world was quiet and I was able to process, side-by-side or simultaneously, the image of the precious gift of a father with the unspeakable precious gift of my Father. Where love took on a new meaning, a real meaning, and I could see the honor in the gift. Even the gift of precious jewels.
Praying, following, listening to my Lord, I began shopping. Browsing for that fine jewelry that was too good for me, that made me feel too special, that stood and questioned that lingering part of me conflicted between filth and love, between brokenness and humility, between being convinced and being cherished. It was tough. Really tough. There were a few things I was drawn to immediately as my heart cried out, "This is beautiful!" then followed with "...too beautiful for you." Those questions of purity and wholeness that have long lingered in my heart were far from silent, screaming for answers and demanding I take a step back from what I knew God was calling me forward to.
What I knew was of Him.
And I put those jewels down, left them behind, and went home to think on it. To pray on it. To consider...
To consider a life where His love speaks louder. Where His grace answers. Where His mercy shows. To consider a life of being His, marked by a gift of treasured jewels, of something beyond beautiful that does not, in fact, contradict anything in me. It only contradicts the pain and the lies that have too long held me back.
It speaks in truth, and it is an honor to wear His gem.
So with God by my side, I found that jewel He chose to honor me, at least in this moment. I wear it around my neck, knowing as I run my fingers over it that we share a pure love, without need for convincing or for secrets or for questioning. We share something wonderful and blessed, as my Father has answered the heart of His daughter and shown worth, wonder, and beauty within. And without.
With this token, Lord, I am honored to be marked as yours, to know this as a sign of something incredible that is not tainted in the least. To embrace your grace, your mercy, and your love without question of my worthiness, my purity, or my place as your beloved daughter.
So this is what love is.
Maybe it's not really creepy for a Father to gift His daughter precious jewels. At least, not in this case.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Shut Up
Do you ever find yourself talking your way into a bigger and bigger hole? It happens more often than I’d like to admit, but it is something God is working on in me. And you know what? I am content to be quiet.
There are things I have prayed for my whole life, things I would never know how to go after myself or how to achieve. Relationships restored. Wounds healed. They are things I never thought would happen because as much I was talking, trying to speak them into existence, the gap between what I experienced and what I longed for only seemed to grow wider.
I have always been that way. I have always been under the impression that if I could string the right words together, if I could keep talking until someone actually heard me, and if it was as eloquent, pointed, and quippy as possible, words would fix everything. But for all my talking, I never got one step closer to the reconciliation, the restoration, or the peace I was praying for.
So I started talking more to God and less to the objects of my obsession. Tell me what to do, Lord. Tell me what to say. Tell me how to heal this and how to demonstrate, how to show (because I believed I could show by words and it would be faster than by actions) that my words match my heart, that something is different now, that the world should see me in a new way, that the past should be forgiven and healed, that we should all move on. That I should be respected as the new woman You have made me in my heart and that my life speaks a new story now, according to Your grace. Tell me what to say, Lord. Tell me!
And then He answers. Cleary, concisely, honestly.
“Shut up.”
Shut up? But if I shut up, how will I ever tell them? How will they ever know the tremendous blessings You have poured out into my life? How will they know that I’ve connected with You in a new, real way and that You’ve completely turned me upside down? How will they know that what I do now, what I say, and everything I am breathes only for You? How will anyone know, how will anything change, if I don’t tell them, Lord? If they don’t hear me?
“No, seriously. Shut. Up.”
In those still moments when I try to figure out what all this means, how to speak a message without words when it feels like the very people I want to share a new story with are hardly looking my way, would hardly notice the subtle quietness and the small yet radical shifts in my manner, my posture, my being. In those still moments, I notice that they are noticing.
The calmness of a once tumultuous sea invites someone to turn their head. To see where the storm disappeared to, to look out over the calm, and to simply notice the way that what seemed devastated, destroyed, violent, defeated is simply still. The loudest voice in the world could not turn heads the way the stillness does. The most carefully crafted, beautifully elegant words could not make an impact the way a posture of grace, of humility, and of stillness reaches beyond the cognitive and creates an unspoken dynamic.
God, in His mercy and His grace, has stilled my storm. I have known that; He has done it again and again as I’ve fought against my own currents to keep the trouble going, having feared the stillness myself. And when what He was doing in me sank into my heart, really sank in, I saw how I was changing. I saw how I was seeing the world differently. How my heart responded in a new way. How everything changed in less than the blink of an eye. By simple surrender.
Then, I did the only logical thing I could think of: I have been trying to tell everyone about it. Loudly. Forcefully. Demanding attention for the beautiful stillness, for the awesome power of His mercy, for the redeeming power of His grace. Demanding that everyone’s eyes be opened not by His work reflected in me but by my words, which – if we were honest – you would struggle to trust if you had known me before, if you could not see the faithfulness behind them. If I’m trying to get you to see me in a new way by doing exactly the same things I would have done years ago as a form of manipulation, then of course your response will be timid.
But I’ve learned to shut up. I’ve learned to stay quiet. And I understand more of what Mary knew – that there are stories of God that you hold quietly in your heart and treasure them. These are your stories, your moments, but all the words in the world would never capture exactly what it means to carry Jesus inside of you. It is your smile, your radiance, the way you live your life before the world. It is walking along beside Him, making the journeys He asks you to make, trusting His word, knowing that He is somewhere, even when you don’t see Him right away. It is the song you sing with your life: magnificat.
For the record, the more I learn to shut up, the more I watch Him work in my life and the more I see Him answering my prayers. Wounds healing, relationships restoring. It takes more time than I’m used to, more time than I would like to give. I have to stop myself, pull back, and embrace the stillness millions of little times every day because when I see those small inklings that things are going in the way of peace, it’s still in me to jump all over it and start talking, trying to capitalize on the moment and force my way through the patience to the end result. It doesn’t work; it only results in increased tension, mild to moderate setbacks, and that painful conviction of knowing I have spoken against the work of God in my life despite using all the words of His love.
So I am content to be quiet, teaching myself to be still. To listen to the still, small voice inside of me that reminds me of my place. To fall on my knees. To hold my moments with God close to my heart and know that it is my smile, my song that tells His story; not my contrived and strained words. And to breathe – just to breathe – the small beauties of a blessed existence, like this morning’s thick fog. Then to smile, to worship, and to thank Him for His little gifts and His big ones…and the answered prayers I see unfolding every moment when I answer Him and simply shut. up.
There are things I have prayed for my whole life, things I would never know how to go after myself or how to achieve. Relationships restored. Wounds healed. They are things I never thought would happen because as much I was talking, trying to speak them into existence, the gap between what I experienced and what I longed for only seemed to grow wider.
I have always been that way. I have always been under the impression that if I could string the right words together, if I could keep talking until someone actually heard me, and if it was as eloquent, pointed, and quippy as possible, words would fix everything. But for all my talking, I never got one step closer to the reconciliation, the restoration, or the peace I was praying for.
So I started talking more to God and less to the objects of my obsession. Tell me what to do, Lord. Tell me what to say. Tell me how to heal this and how to demonstrate, how to show (because I believed I could show by words and it would be faster than by actions) that my words match my heart, that something is different now, that the world should see me in a new way, that the past should be forgiven and healed, that we should all move on. That I should be respected as the new woman You have made me in my heart and that my life speaks a new story now, according to Your grace. Tell me what to say, Lord. Tell me!
And then He answers. Cleary, concisely, honestly.
“Shut up.”
Shut up? But if I shut up, how will I ever tell them? How will they ever know the tremendous blessings You have poured out into my life? How will they know that I’ve connected with You in a new, real way and that You’ve completely turned me upside down? How will they know that what I do now, what I say, and everything I am breathes only for You? How will anyone know, how will anything change, if I don’t tell them, Lord? If they don’t hear me?
“No, seriously. Shut. Up.”
In those still moments when I try to figure out what all this means, how to speak a message without words when it feels like the very people I want to share a new story with are hardly looking my way, would hardly notice the subtle quietness and the small yet radical shifts in my manner, my posture, my being. In those still moments, I notice that they are noticing.
The calmness of a once tumultuous sea invites someone to turn their head. To see where the storm disappeared to, to look out over the calm, and to simply notice the way that what seemed devastated, destroyed, violent, defeated is simply still. The loudest voice in the world could not turn heads the way the stillness does. The most carefully crafted, beautifully elegant words could not make an impact the way a posture of grace, of humility, and of stillness reaches beyond the cognitive and creates an unspoken dynamic.
God, in His mercy and His grace, has stilled my storm. I have known that; He has done it again and again as I’ve fought against my own currents to keep the trouble going, having feared the stillness myself. And when what He was doing in me sank into my heart, really sank in, I saw how I was changing. I saw how I was seeing the world differently. How my heart responded in a new way. How everything changed in less than the blink of an eye. By simple surrender.
Then, I did the only logical thing I could think of: I have been trying to tell everyone about it. Loudly. Forcefully. Demanding attention for the beautiful stillness, for the awesome power of His mercy, for the redeeming power of His grace. Demanding that everyone’s eyes be opened not by His work reflected in me but by my words, which – if we were honest – you would struggle to trust if you had known me before, if you could not see the faithfulness behind them. If I’m trying to get you to see me in a new way by doing exactly the same things I would have done years ago as a form of manipulation, then of course your response will be timid.
But I’ve learned to shut up. I’ve learned to stay quiet. And I understand more of what Mary knew – that there are stories of God that you hold quietly in your heart and treasure them. These are your stories, your moments, but all the words in the world would never capture exactly what it means to carry Jesus inside of you. It is your smile, your radiance, the way you live your life before the world. It is walking along beside Him, making the journeys He asks you to make, trusting His word, knowing that He is somewhere, even when you don’t see Him right away. It is the song you sing with your life: magnificat.
For the record, the more I learn to shut up, the more I watch Him work in my life and the more I see Him answering my prayers. Wounds healing, relationships restoring. It takes more time than I’m used to, more time than I would like to give. I have to stop myself, pull back, and embrace the stillness millions of little times every day because when I see those small inklings that things are going in the way of peace, it’s still in me to jump all over it and start talking, trying to capitalize on the moment and force my way through the patience to the end result. It doesn’t work; it only results in increased tension, mild to moderate setbacks, and that painful conviction of knowing I have spoken against the work of God in my life despite using all the words of His love.
So I am content to be quiet, teaching myself to be still. To listen to the still, small voice inside of me that reminds me of my place. To fall on my knees. To hold my moments with God close to my heart and know that it is my smile, my song that tells His story; not my contrived and strained words. And to breathe – just to breathe – the small beauties of a blessed existence, like this morning’s thick fog. Then to smile, to worship, and to thank Him for His little gifts and His big ones…and the answered prayers I see unfolding every moment when I answer Him and simply shut. up.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Transformation
It’s hard to stand here and talk about how God is working in my life. Because it’s not one big, life-altering “aha.” It’s a million little things that take longer to explain than enjoy and wouldn’t matter much to anyone but me, but they are my world.
What I can tell you is that everything is different. Everything. My heart responds from a new place, and I want to tell you that it feels weird, but it doesn’t. It is radically different but at perfect peace. That is, it feels so natural that I wonder what I was doing all those years.
The way God’s been working in me has been an agonizingly slow process, but it is such an incredible journey. I turned around in my darkness and saw just a reflection of light dimly off His presence and I said, “What are you doing here?” He was about to show me.
I had prayed so long for Him to heal my brokenness. I’d thought it would be easy, just putting the pieces back together. What I didn’t realize was that my brokenness had become my wholeness, so my brokenness, too, had to be broken. It gets kind of messy from there.
I remember the first time I realized I wasn’t scared. It was scary! And the many times I worried that I wasn’t worried enough.
If you had told me my darkness didn’t have to define me, I would have asked you how could it not? Even if God were to work in me, my story would always have been my darkness first, God’s redemption second.
But as He sets me free, I am astonished at what a tiny, miniscule part of ANYTHING that darkness is or ever was. It was always fact, but it was never Truth. Truth is what God is doing, has done, and continues to do in me. It is the wholeness with which He created me, which I am tapping into and coming to know. It is more real, more authentic, and more SIMPLE than anything I’ve ever known.
He keeps me engaged, moving forward by keeping my heart stirred, thirsty and anxious for more of what He’s doing. For His continued presence. The world prefers me shaken, knowing I’ll run for shelter wherever I can find it if the ground trembles hard enough. But God keeps me stirred, keeps my heart moving, and invites me to gently blend myself into this grander thing He is doing. You get that mountaintop experience that you know will never last. You know you’ve got to come down. But I feel like I’m soaring and yet this is the most grounded I have ever been.
With piercing gentleness, He is answering the questions of my heart. Questions I have asked a million times, questions I didn’t know I was asking until His answer imploded some hard place in my heart that I never had the words fo, and questions I wouldn’t have dared ask. He is answering me, and I am hearing Him.
I am constantly speechless because it’s so beautiful and I…I never knew…
He’s inviting me to live from this profoundly stilled place within me. It is that authenticity I have been looking for, that place where something is real. Everything is real. It is a place where I feel like I don’t have to fight any more. It makes perfect sense to be there; it is that place where I make sense. It is beautiful and a mess…and a million little things…
I want to share quickly one of the ways He is using you right now in all this. You show me something that all the prayer and devotion in the world could never get across. God has richly blessed me, and He has gifted me. I knew how my gifts could bless me. I knew sort of how they could bless God. But watching you…soaking in your gifts…has shown me how I pray His gift in me can bless you.
What I can tell you is that everything is different. Everything. My heart responds from a new place, and I want to tell you that it feels weird, but it doesn’t. It is radically different but at perfect peace. That is, it feels so natural that I wonder what I was doing all those years.
The way God’s been working in me has been an agonizingly slow process, but it is such an incredible journey. I turned around in my darkness and saw just a reflection of light dimly off His presence and I said, “What are you doing here?” He was about to show me.
I had prayed so long for Him to heal my brokenness. I’d thought it would be easy, just putting the pieces back together. What I didn’t realize was that my brokenness had become my wholeness, so my brokenness, too, had to be broken. It gets kind of messy from there.
I remember the first time I realized I wasn’t scared. It was scary! And the many times I worried that I wasn’t worried enough.
If you had told me my darkness didn’t have to define me, I would have asked you how could it not? Even if God were to work in me, my story would always have been my darkness first, God’s redemption second.
But as He sets me free, I am astonished at what a tiny, miniscule part of ANYTHING that darkness is or ever was. It was always fact, but it was never Truth. Truth is what God is doing, has done, and continues to do in me. It is the wholeness with which He created me, which I am tapping into and coming to know. It is more real, more authentic, and more SIMPLE than anything I’ve ever known.
He keeps me engaged, moving forward by keeping my heart stirred, thirsty and anxious for more of what He’s doing. For His continued presence. The world prefers me shaken, knowing I’ll run for shelter wherever I can find it if the ground trembles hard enough. But God keeps me stirred, keeps my heart moving, and invites me to gently blend myself into this grander thing He is doing. You get that mountaintop experience that you know will never last. You know you’ve got to come down. But I feel like I’m soaring and yet this is the most grounded I have ever been.
With piercing gentleness, He is answering the questions of my heart. Questions I have asked a million times, questions I didn’t know I was asking until His answer imploded some hard place in my heart that I never had the words fo, and questions I wouldn’t have dared ask. He is answering me, and I am hearing Him.
I am constantly speechless because it’s so beautiful and I…I never knew…
He’s inviting me to live from this profoundly stilled place within me. It is that authenticity I have been looking for, that place where something is real. Everything is real. It is a place where I feel like I don’t have to fight any more. It makes perfect sense to be there; it is that place where I make sense. It is beautiful and a mess…and a million little things…
I want to share quickly one of the ways He is using you right now in all this. You show me something that all the prayer and devotion in the world could never get across. God has richly blessed me, and He has gifted me. I knew how my gifts could bless me. I knew sort of how they could bless God. But watching you…soaking in your gifts…has shown me how I pray His gift in me can bless you.
Monday, September 12, 2011
Growing Up Girl
As I let these thoughts mull over in my heart, it’s tempting to want to start with the excuses. The whys and the hows and the reasons for things the way they are; and it’s easy to get stuck in the excuses to the tragedy of missing the point, missing the message, and having a deaf ear for what God is really whispering.
So I’m done trying to explain myself. Or the myself behind myself. Or whatever it is we want to call it that stands in the way of the heart of the matter.
For my heart is heavy with the burden of God and a higher calling.
I have lived, for lack of a better term, a tumultuous existence. It’s my own doing but not a conscious effort. It’s the struggle and the battle that exists in me that is working itself out through God’s grace, albeit not really fast enough for my liking. I’m a girl who likes to move, who likes to be on the go and always working. Always speeding ahead. Always having something to show for something. The patience of God, while trying to find a home in me, is still overrun by that drive that keeps me from myself, keeps me from God, keeps me from the life He has called me to.
And often, I think of it and sorrow fills my heart. What a horrid day it would be if someone looked back on my life and remembered, “She struggled hard against nearly everything; her every day was a battle. And somehow, she just never got going. She had so much in her and she missed it all because she couldn’t see through the darkness.”
It feels like that’s the story that has been my story, but it is such a small part of my actuality. It stings to think that’s the role I have played, though I know to some extent it has been. For so many years, as God was working in my darkness, I wondered how it could ever not define me. As He has broken through and loved me well, changed my story, turned my entire heart around, and given me the greatest gifts I have ever known…I can’t see how it ever did. I mean, I let it. I know that I let it. But what a waste! Now, it’s been so long since my darkness has been my driving force that it seems almost unreal. Not that it couldn’t have happened but that I ever gave it as much control as I did.
And grief over the time lost, the love lost, the God abandoned, and the life on hold. I’m living now a life in motion. It’s kind of torn between the grief over the wastedness and the exhilaration of the moment. It’s weird, but I love it.
I spend a lot of time looking around, soaking in the things I wouldn’t have noticed before and feeling the itch. I’m antsy, anxious to move in and take full hold of the life God has put in me, the one He has called me to, and the one that has been my true story even when I couldn’t have fathomed telling it. I find myself in this horrid middle ground where His goodness is tangible and His promise is waiting but there’s still this pain to sort through. It seems like cheating to let there be good when there’s residual mess to deal with.
It’s not like it’s even big mess. It’s just…mess.
We’ve been singing “The Stand” at church. The words keep spinning around in my heart and my head, but when I’m singing it alone, the words aren’t right. There’s one phrase I keep messing up, and it is the one that slaps me in the face. The one that stings and hits me where I’m wrestling, I guess. We sing, “I’ll stand with arms high and heart abandoned in awe of the One Who gave it all. I’ll stand, my soul, Lord, to You surrendered. All I am is Yours.” But I have to focus on that “am.” Because it’s all too easy to keep singing, “All I have is Yours” instead.
I’ve gotten pretty good at giving God all I have…but all I am? It smacks at my unworthiness, stings at that deepest question my heart has always asked – am I enough? I have never thought that I was.
Most of the time, I feel like I don’t have a lot to offer. Then there are times, especially lately as God whispers in me, that I understand what I do have. Then I feel unworthy to approach it. Unworthy to offer it. Like perhaps God has given me this, but there’s still a thousand people better at it than I am. I’ve spent my whole life trying to prove myself – with family, with friends, with peers, with relationships. Even at night when I count down and rehash my day to figure out if I was good enough, if I mattered that day. To anyone. To myself. It is an exhausting labor, but it is, as God has shown me, the way I have lived. Always trying to prove myself. And always taking a back seat. Always relating to people like something lesser, not in the way that makes myself least but in the way that acknowledges my unworthiness.
I’ve finally come around to the place where God is enough, where I’ve stopped trying to be my own god and work the world for my good. I’ve finally come around to that place that is pure and not manipulative, that is humbled in God and anxious for Him. But that deep-seated unworthiness is still a block for me. And so He’s working on me in His whisper…
“You are enough.”
Those words pierce me. They just absolutely pierce me. They bring me to the tears of a humbled rebel, and I look to Him to answer the thousand questions that just trying to accept those words brings up in my heart. He answers, and His tenderness demands more brokenness. It demands more grief. It demands that sting that pains me but draws me into Him.
They sting because, and I know this sounds stupid, I can’t prove them. I can’t earn them. I can’t justify them. I know the past of my heart and the strongholds where darkness lies in wait…and it’s not enough. And yet in His whisper, I find the thirst and hunger of my heart that is yearning for Him, longing for the fullness of what He’s offering here.
That I could be enough.
And so I have this tumultuous, tormentous existence of saying I believe Him and wanting to believe Him and understand His presence and His promise and His mercy…and still trying to live like it might be a mirror trick. Thinking stupid thoughts like how much better I could feel if I felt just a little more worthy. If I could prove it. Earn it. Justify it.
And then there’s grief because it is this thought process, of which I become more keenly aware every day, that keeps me yoked to lesser things. That keeps me burdened and weighed down. Asking the same question I asked for so many years – how could this darkness not define me? – while knowing the answer is that it does not. Were I to live out of my heart…
Let me tell you something. I still feel like a kid, a teenager at best. Thinking I have a lot to prove. Wondering if I even have a place in this world. A little scared at the thought of going to find it.
Yet there is this deeply settled place in me. This settled spirit that hears God’s promise, knows His work, listens to His whisper, and understands. This settled soul that rests in knowing she is enough and hears God’s call on her life.
I’ve been wrestling with the call, hoping it would come in one of those places I know I would succeed. One of those outward, tangible tasks He has blessed me to do. Something I could DO for God, a gift to give back to Him. He has certainly blessed me richly. Then that haunting whisper that shatters that place where, only when sifting through the pieces, I find still too much ego, still too much question, still too much wondering of worthiness and desperation to prove myself. Enough that He could use but too much that stands in the way.
That haunting whisper…
“Just BE for me.”
Just be. Just be you. Just be the beautiful, wonderful, competent, humbled, gentle, stilled woman I have created you to be. That I created in you from the start. Grieve your rebellion. Grieve your darkness. Grieve your bondage. But let it go. For Christ’s sake (and I should know), JUST BE FOR ME.
So I find that my call right now, casting aside my own thoughts and plans and manipulations, is to love well. To be and to love. That is what He whispers.
It’s cool. I mean, it’s really cool because I tap into this stilled place He’s put inside me, the one He keeps calling me to, the one where His whisper echoes over and over, the one where His peace reigns and His presence stands…and I see what I have longed to be: a woman of God. Not a girl, not a teenager. Not angsty or restless. Broken, sure, and anxious for Him, thirsty and hungry, but stilled. Content. Peaceful. Gentle. Loving. Simple.
Enough.
I remember that moment I realized I wanted more from God than His DOING for me, when my heart sought His presence to know He just IS for me. It was beautiful; it still is. His every day with me is unspeakable. It is a gift I want to turn back to Him, that I could just BE for Him.
At the same time He calls me out of this tumultuous conflict, this tearing between wanting what He is and battling the old questions, He calls me not only to grow into a woman of God but to shrink into a child. To be not needy or demanding, helpless or immature. But to be His. To stop living like an orphan who has to make her own way, who charges through the world because the only way she thinks she can make it is to take her life in her own hands. It is the other lingering, deep question of my heart: Is there anywhere I belong? Is there anywhere I make sense?
He’s been answering that for me, too. Showing me those places where I make sense, where what He is in me and what He’s done in me and what He’s blessed and called and created in me isn’t an anomaly; it is Truth. It is real. Something authentic. It takes a lot of that pressure off.
But then that other whisper…
“Daughter.”
Daughter. His daughter. His child, to run joyfully into His arms and greet Him with a hug. To linger in His lap and enjoy His presence. To feel His love radiating through me, an experience beyond words. Who He can train and teach and discipline, all while loving purely and wholly for simply her presence. Her eagerness. Her earnestnees. Her honestness.
You never realize how powerfully the orphan story line is in your own heart until you hear that word daughter and risk to let it mean something.
His daughter, who He loves dearly, because simply she is. And she is enough.
Lord, I humble myself before you. You have answered when I have asked and when I have dared not speak, and You are enough. Come and meet me here in this place, where I know You already are and waiting; give me the strength and the courage and the heart to meet You. To not back down but to surrender. Come and break me, Lord. Shatter whatever has a hold on me that stands between our love. Teach me to live from the stilled, quiet place You have created in me and Your call to be a woman of God, but let me never forget to let You love me. Let me rest in Your arms and know those two words You whisper continually in the empty space in me, those words that echo even through the darkness: Enough and Daughter. Lord, let me grieve hard those things that need grieved, but let me be strengthened in Your love. Let me live in You and know what it is simply to BE. To be enough. To be Yours. All I am is Yours. Amen.
So I’m done trying to explain myself. Or the myself behind myself. Or whatever it is we want to call it that stands in the way of the heart of the matter.
For my heart is heavy with the burden of God and a higher calling.
I have lived, for lack of a better term, a tumultuous existence. It’s my own doing but not a conscious effort. It’s the struggle and the battle that exists in me that is working itself out through God’s grace, albeit not really fast enough for my liking. I’m a girl who likes to move, who likes to be on the go and always working. Always speeding ahead. Always having something to show for something. The patience of God, while trying to find a home in me, is still overrun by that drive that keeps me from myself, keeps me from God, keeps me from the life He has called me to.
And often, I think of it and sorrow fills my heart. What a horrid day it would be if someone looked back on my life and remembered, “She struggled hard against nearly everything; her every day was a battle. And somehow, she just never got going. She had so much in her and she missed it all because she couldn’t see through the darkness.”
It feels like that’s the story that has been my story, but it is such a small part of my actuality. It stings to think that’s the role I have played, though I know to some extent it has been. For so many years, as God was working in my darkness, I wondered how it could ever not define me. As He has broken through and loved me well, changed my story, turned my entire heart around, and given me the greatest gifts I have ever known…I can’t see how it ever did. I mean, I let it. I know that I let it. But what a waste! Now, it’s been so long since my darkness has been my driving force that it seems almost unreal. Not that it couldn’t have happened but that I ever gave it as much control as I did.
And grief over the time lost, the love lost, the God abandoned, and the life on hold. I’m living now a life in motion. It’s kind of torn between the grief over the wastedness and the exhilaration of the moment. It’s weird, but I love it.
I spend a lot of time looking around, soaking in the things I wouldn’t have noticed before and feeling the itch. I’m antsy, anxious to move in and take full hold of the life God has put in me, the one He has called me to, and the one that has been my true story even when I couldn’t have fathomed telling it. I find myself in this horrid middle ground where His goodness is tangible and His promise is waiting but there’s still this pain to sort through. It seems like cheating to let there be good when there’s residual mess to deal with.
It’s not like it’s even big mess. It’s just…mess.
We’ve been singing “The Stand” at church. The words keep spinning around in my heart and my head, but when I’m singing it alone, the words aren’t right. There’s one phrase I keep messing up, and it is the one that slaps me in the face. The one that stings and hits me where I’m wrestling, I guess. We sing, “I’ll stand with arms high and heart abandoned in awe of the One Who gave it all. I’ll stand, my soul, Lord, to You surrendered. All I am is Yours.” But I have to focus on that “am.” Because it’s all too easy to keep singing, “All I have is Yours” instead.
I’ve gotten pretty good at giving God all I have…but all I am? It smacks at my unworthiness, stings at that deepest question my heart has always asked – am I enough? I have never thought that I was.
Most of the time, I feel like I don’t have a lot to offer. Then there are times, especially lately as God whispers in me, that I understand what I do have. Then I feel unworthy to approach it. Unworthy to offer it. Like perhaps God has given me this, but there’s still a thousand people better at it than I am. I’ve spent my whole life trying to prove myself – with family, with friends, with peers, with relationships. Even at night when I count down and rehash my day to figure out if I was good enough, if I mattered that day. To anyone. To myself. It is an exhausting labor, but it is, as God has shown me, the way I have lived. Always trying to prove myself. And always taking a back seat. Always relating to people like something lesser, not in the way that makes myself least but in the way that acknowledges my unworthiness.
I’ve finally come around to the place where God is enough, where I’ve stopped trying to be my own god and work the world for my good. I’ve finally come around to that place that is pure and not manipulative, that is humbled in God and anxious for Him. But that deep-seated unworthiness is still a block for me. And so He’s working on me in His whisper…
“You are enough.”
Those words pierce me. They just absolutely pierce me. They bring me to the tears of a humbled rebel, and I look to Him to answer the thousand questions that just trying to accept those words brings up in my heart. He answers, and His tenderness demands more brokenness. It demands more grief. It demands that sting that pains me but draws me into Him.
They sting because, and I know this sounds stupid, I can’t prove them. I can’t earn them. I can’t justify them. I know the past of my heart and the strongholds where darkness lies in wait…and it’s not enough. And yet in His whisper, I find the thirst and hunger of my heart that is yearning for Him, longing for the fullness of what He’s offering here.
That I could be enough.
And so I have this tumultuous, tormentous existence of saying I believe Him and wanting to believe Him and understand His presence and His promise and His mercy…and still trying to live like it might be a mirror trick. Thinking stupid thoughts like how much better I could feel if I felt just a little more worthy. If I could prove it. Earn it. Justify it.
And then there’s grief because it is this thought process, of which I become more keenly aware every day, that keeps me yoked to lesser things. That keeps me burdened and weighed down. Asking the same question I asked for so many years – how could this darkness not define me? – while knowing the answer is that it does not. Were I to live out of my heart…
Let me tell you something. I still feel like a kid, a teenager at best. Thinking I have a lot to prove. Wondering if I even have a place in this world. A little scared at the thought of going to find it.
Yet there is this deeply settled place in me. This settled spirit that hears God’s promise, knows His work, listens to His whisper, and understands. This settled soul that rests in knowing she is enough and hears God’s call on her life.
I’ve been wrestling with the call, hoping it would come in one of those places I know I would succeed. One of those outward, tangible tasks He has blessed me to do. Something I could DO for God, a gift to give back to Him. He has certainly blessed me richly. Then that haunting whisper that shatters that place where, only when sifting through the pieces, I find still too much ego, still too much question, still too much wondering of worthiness and desperation to prove myself. Enough that He could use but too much that stands in the way.
That haunting whisper…
“Just BE for me.”
Just be. Just be you. Just be the beautiful, wonderful, competent, humbled, gentle, stilled woman I have created you to be. That I created in you from the start. Grieve your rebellion. Grieve your darkness. Grieve your bondage. But let it go. For Christ’s sake (and I should know), JUST BE FOR ME.
So I find that my call right now, casting aside my own thoughts and plans and manipulations, is to love well. To be and to love. That is what He whispers.
It’s cool. I mean, it’s really cool because I tap into this stilled place He’s put inside me, the one He keeps calling me to, the one where His whisper echoes over and over, the one where His peace reigns and His presence stands…and I see what I have longed to be: a woman of God. Not a girl, not a teenager. Not angsty or restless. Broken, sure, and anxious for Him, thirsty and hungry, but stilled. Content. Peaceful. Gentle. Loving. Simple.
Enough.
I remember that moment I realized I wanted more from God than His DOING for me, when my heart sought His presence to know He just IS for me. It was beautiful; it still is. His every day with me is unspeakable. It is a gift I want to turn back to Him, that I could just BE for Him.
At the same time He calls me out of this tumultuous conflict, this tearing between wanting what He is and battling the old questions, He calls me not only to grow into a woman of God but to shrink into a child. To be not needy or demanding, helpless or immature. But to be His. To stop living like an orphan who has to make her own way, who charges through the world because the only way she thinks she can make it is to take her life in her own hands. It is the other lingering, deep question of my heart: Is there anywhere I belong? Is there anywhere I make sense?
He’s been answering that for me, too. Showing me those places where I make sense, where what He is in me and what He’s done in me and what He’s blessed and called and created in me isn’t an anomaly; it is Truth. It is real. Something authentic. It takes a lot of that pressure off.
But then that other whisper…
“Daughter.”
Daughter. His daughter. His child, to run joyfully into His arms and greet Him with a hug. To linger in His lap and enjoy His presence. To feel His love radiating through me, an experience beyond words. Who He can train and teach and discipline, all while loving purely and wholly for simply her presence. Her eagerness. Her earnestnees. Her honestness.
You never realize how powerfully the orphan story line is in your own heart until you hear that word daughter and risk to let it mean something.
His daughter, who He loves dearly, because simply she is. And she is enough.
Lord, I humble myself before you. You have answered when I have asked and when I have dared not speak, and You are enough. Come and meet me here in this place, where I know You already are and waiting; give me the strength and the courage and the heart to meet You. To not back down but to surrender. Come and break me, Lord. Shatter whatever has a hold on me that stands between our love. Teach me to live from the stilled, quiet place You have created in me and Your call to be a woman of God, but let me never forget to let You love me. Let me rest in Your arms and know those two words You whisper continually in the empty space in me, those words that echo even through the darkness: Enough and Daughter. Lord, let me grieve hard those things that need grieved, but let me be strengthened in Your love. Let me live in You and know what it is simply to BE. To be enough. To be Yours. All I am is Yours. Amen.
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