On Confessions and Mending and the No Filter Life

I sit in the small room on the side of the chapel whispering out all my faults and failings and broken things. It is not at all like I thought it would be. The first opportunity to go to confession in English in half a year. I was anxious to wash away the ugliness inside me. To lay it before God and have Him say "forgiven". I thought it would all tumble out easily, my soul eager to push it all out into the light and watch it fade in Christ's love.

Instead, it is slow. My mouth makes words but they seem a shallow imitation of what lies within. I know my eyes are pleading to be really understood, beyond the halting sighs that say more than what I am managing to make mouth speak.

He looks back at me, the bearded friar priest in the patched and faded frock and says, "When are you planning to make a retreat? I think you need some silence and some space to wrestle some things out with God. Maybe even do a little yelling."

I wonder how it is so obvious, how my vague list of ways my tongue has slipped, ways frustration has made me a person neither I nor Jesus like very much, could lead him right to the heart of the deep things I can not seem to say: the long-lying pains and griefs I have held dormant this year, trying to so hard to serve well and to love well and to live well that there has been no time to risk the hard work of falling apart and being put back together again. The work of mending.

I look at his patched up habit, years of a life of prayer and penance and a vision hard fought for. Years of patched up tears and pricks and rips. I tell myself this is a man who knows a thing or two about being mended. 

I confess the biggest mess of all inside me. "I have not done it. I have rejected intimacy with God because I am a competency addict." I am the one who holds it together at all costs. I am the one who can keep her emotions in check for the sake of getting the job done. I am the one who kindly thanks God for His arms wide open in healing embrace and turns away, pointing out the person who needs Him way more than I do.

I am a sinner who thinks it might just be easier to keep things casual with God, to stay in the kitchen and do the dishes and brew resentment and let someone else sit at His feet and be loved and know mercy.

Easier to trip constantly on the torn hem of my soul than stop to stitch it back up. Easier to let my skin prickle with the cold that enters through the rips and tears of my heart than to patch them up with new mercies.

Suddenly I am saying this thing I didn't know I needed to say: "Sometimes I feel like my relationship with God is that marriage that everyone else knows is falling apart while the wife walks around pretending it is perfect." I don't know whether the laugh that follows is because I don't want him to think I am being too dramatic, or because I am terrified by what I have just said.

He gazes long and steady, ignores both my laugh and my discomfort, and asks if I know how serious that is, what I have just said. Asks what my plan is to be honest with myself and with God. Tells me it is time.

Time to take care of myself. Not the grab a friend for coffee and pedicure variety of taking care of myself. More like make life take a hard stop while I meet Him in the wilderness and let Him stare at me at long until He finally says, "So? What's going in there, love?"

And then I answer Him honestly.

And I feel like I have been in a dark room and suddenly stepped into the sun. It feels good and warm but it hurts my eyes and I am squinting in the glare.

And then I am bowing my head and accepting forgiveness for the things I said that were not really the thing at all and trying to breathe through to the other side of the fact that he is right and He is waiting and I won't get off of this one easily.

There are no tears this night, nothing breaks open inside me and brings quick, easy relief the way I wish it would. There is just a quiet, resigned awareness. I have work to do.

The work of laying aside the work to lay myself bare before the Lover of my Soul. Not busy work but eternal work. 

I step out from the small room knowing deep inside that the time has come. I have been willingly walking in the shadows of the cross but afraid to stand in the light of the resurrection. I have made myself busy doing because being is more than I can bear.

I have longed to be KNOWN but only through my own preset filters. It is time to embrace the no filter life of grace. The place where I don't try to tidy up before His arrival, correct the shades and shadows of my soul, make it polished and pretty and publishable.

The months lay ahead of me and I am crafting a plan to find the prescribed space to wrestle and heal. But I know I cannot wait for that moment, that here, now, it is time to begin.

I kneel slowly before Him and sigh long. Then slide to the floor to sit at His feet. I look at myself through the lens of my mind and refuse to try to make the scene prettier.

This is my no filter life and I am going to live it.

© 2010 artethgray, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Linked up at SheLoves Magazine's July Link-Up.

FMF: Release

It comes creeping, slow and quiet at first. I think I should probably recognize it by now but I usually don't at the outset. It seems a small thing: a little pang, a sudden desire.

Coke becomes a need on a hectic afternoon. Snickers bars seems an all too irresistible reward for the trials and sacrifices of this life I live.

Just small things.

Suddenly, I find myself not able to shut my eyes at night and re-reading social media feeds like they might suddenly bear earth-shattering news. Watching my inbox like a hawk for bold black print. Waiting for just one more little red number.

Just a little more.

Then I am spending an hour filling a virtual shopping cart with pretty things I cannot have and cursing at my closet the next morning. I am cringing at my figure in the mirror and thinking it would all be well if I picked up new earrings or had a little time to myself or splurged on a pedicure.

If I got something more than I already have.

If I just consumed more.

And suddenly a not-so-bad need for the warm embrace of something familiar, something comforting, something soothing has bred and warped into the compulsion to consume, to fill.

And I am begging for release from its grips and cursing the weeds that have grown from the very seeds I planted and watered in my own soul.

Release me, Lord. Release from this hunger. Release me from the need. Release me from the want, from the discontent and the not enough and the do I even matter at all. Release me.

And I have to look at it face on and call it once again what it really is: the ugly straying of my wild and wandering heart.

I struggle free once again from its bonds and tether myself back to Him. The only One in whose embrace I am full, and warm, and comfortable and fully known.

Released and free. In His grasp.

Linking up at this week's FMF party.

Top Ten Reasons Empty Hands Are Better Tools

So it's Friday and I woke up this morning wishing I could go to ALL THE PARTIES on the internets and laughing that I would surely have to scale back my expectations. I mean how could I write one single post about hands (Five Minute Friday) that was a top ten list (The Grove at Velvet Ashes), talked about the joy of finding community (incourage link-up), and a topic that has been rumbling loud in my brain this week, how to approach short term missions with the right disposition.

But as I sipped my morning coffee and my gears  got going, I started to think about our hands. And how one of the things that can be an obstacle from us forming authentic community as well as to our approach to short term missions is thinking we have to have full hands, we have to come with something to offer more than ourselves. We need to bring a gift, a supply. a tool, an answer, a solution for our presence to be worth something.

The problem with full hands is this: there is only one possible evolution for the relationships we enter, whether they be with people with whom we are seeking community or brothers and sisters we go to visit at the ends of the earth. We arrive with our hands full of clothes, shoes, sports, equipment, building supplies, solutions, answers, advice, what have you, and we are burdened and encumbered by them. The only solution is to look for an empty, outstretched hand to dump them in. We dump. The person to whom we dump is now full and has to find something to do with the load, so they must turn away. We end up empty-handed, relieved of the gift we carried like a burden, and lonely.

I think the we need to learn to be comfortable approaching missions and community and relationships with empty hands. So here are my top ten reasons empty hands are better tools than full ones.

1. Two empty hands can clasp together to form a link. A link in a chain that leaves another hand free for the inviting. A chain that can stretch and grow. A chain that is stronger in its collective grasp.

2. Empty hands can cup what is poured into them, then pour it out. Cupped hands receive a different kind of gift than the ones that are dumped by burdened, full hands. Cupped hands hold something soft, flowing and sacred. Cupped hands indincate care and slowness and a pouring into.

3. Empty hands can embrace when there is no way of working out an answer. When all there is to do is sit in the hard broken, place with someone and hold them while they shake with the sorrow of it.

4. Empty hands can pat backs. Can acknowledge the contributions of another. Give affirm and uplift.

5. Empty hands can steady the ladder while someone else climbs. What a great gift to enable someone else to climb to the top while we steady the base on which she climbs.

6. Empty hands tell our stories. The wrinkles, the scars, the ring, the nails. The sun-baked glow or hard callouses. They tell our story. There is much we can learn from studying one another's hands. If only we are allowed to see them freely. It is much easier to be KNOWN with empty hands.

7. Empty hands reveal our need. When we stretch out empty hands to another, we let them know that we too are needy, we too do not have it all. We too are beggars of grace and good things.

8. Empty hands don't make the ability to work a prerequisite. Sometimes while we mean for our full hands to be a gift, we don't realize that we are saying to those to whom we offer them, if you want to walk with me, you must be able and willing to help me accomplish my goals. But what if physical, mental, spiritual health make that person unable to do so? Then we have laid a road block where we meant to build a bridge.

9. Empty hands can open doors and hold them while others walk through. Enough said.

10. Empty hands look like Jesus. Extended in blessing. Offering an embrace. Calming the seas. Stretched out on the cross. Empty-handed but with so much to offer.

My life in missions has taught me that is okay to approach thing empty-handed. That often it leads to the very best relatioships and the deepest places. Lately, I've learned to bring that to my own search for community as well. And I am so the better for it. So, friend, lay your burden down today and offer your empty hands to someone. And if you headed out on mission soon, consider what might happen if you did so empty-handed. Share your story insead of your stuff. Stretch out and offer yourself, empty and open. I promise, good things await.

Linking up at The Grove at Velvet Ashes

and Five Minute Friday: Hands

AND

(in)courage!

When Life Seems Too Big For You

I remember well a scenario I experienced a few times in my life. A significant moment as our family faced an important change and transition. In the last weeks of a pregnancy, as I faced the reality that a new baby would soon be here and that our family would forever be changed by his presence, I would get a little scared.

Each time we grew, it worked out well ;-)

I would look at my youngest and ask what the heck I was thinking forcing him out of his position when he was still just a baby. I would look at our home and wonder how we were possibly going to maintain any kind of order with another little person to care for. I would think about the daunting task of birth and recovery ahead of me, and, quite frankly, I would freak out a little.

Suddenly, what I had waited for and hoped for and prayed for was so close. And it loomed too large. It became scary in its significance.

My little tucked away mountain place

I find myself in a similar emotional state these days for a totally different reason. In the next six days, we will pack up the house we have called home for the last year and a half here in Costa Rica. We will bid our neighbors goodbye as we move on to a new phase in our lives and ministry here. We will, the seven us, step on to a plane here and a few short hours later, set our feet down on the ground in the place I call home that is no longer home.

I will feel the embrace of mother and sister and brother and friend. I will watch my boys bask in the joy of reunion. I will eat King Cake and shrimp po-boys and yell "Throw Me Something Mister" with all my might. And I will feel strange doing it. Because a bigger part of me is not the girl from the Big Easy than the part of me who is. And that is hard to process.

Then I'll kiss those boys and hand in hand with my beloved cross the ocean to the continent long dreamed of in my heart. I'm going to Africa. For the first time. I know Africa in my mind the way I knew my babies before they were born. Details dreamed of, scents unknown yet already familiar. A soft halo of light surrounding a face I've longed to know.

And just as my babies have done, I am sure Africa will break me with its cries and its need and its utter longing to be loved.

And then it will be time to gather up the merry band of brothers and return to this place, this land, that is home but not home too. To a new house, in a new city. With a growing ministry and an expanding vision and a shift in responsibilities.

And, friends, what one month ago or even a week ago, seemed just a move to a nearby house and a trip home and with a surreal hint at Africa sandwiched in the middle, now seems so big. So significant.

And every day, my chest hurts a little more because I know God is on the move here. I know this is bigger than the logistics make it seem. Every moment in His Word, every minute in my prayers, every deep conversation with someone I love makes my bones rattle just a little, because I feel the vibration of His movement.

And I find myself grieving just a little in the final days of my little hidden life in a little mountain village where all is familiar and yet quiet and small. And comfortable.

And that is the answer right there. Change comes to us who love God and seek to serve Him so we do not get too comfortable, so that we forever feel the ache and the need and the dependence on Him. So we always walk with the weight not knowing exactly where home is on the earth because we know it is not here at all.

We run our race and we walk toward our purpose with hearts restless to rest in Him. And He moves us. And we get a little scared. Because we cannot imagine how we could be significant to His story. And this, this is good.

Because just like the nearing of the coming of a new little one feels significant and draws us to our littlest ones and draws them to cling mightily to the safety and security of us, so this moment of life feeling a little too big for me draws me to God, clinging and crying out for Him to hold me. And Him? He runs to me, grateful for the chance to hold me.

The earth is pregnant with His plan for its salvation. The time draws near. His children cry out to be held and know that they are loved. It feels big because it is big. But nothing is too big for His love.

It's so simple in the moment. Just love. This one. Right here. Right now. That is His grand purpose for us.

So I will bid goodbye to the geographical place I have found myself hidden and comfortable in the next week. But I will not say goodbye to my hidden life, the life I have in His arms. Because it is my only chance to walk in the bigness and the realness and the significance of life with the Most High God and not be paralyzed by the reality.

I will labor well, I hope, because I will rest in Him. And I can rest easy, because I am known and in His arms, I am home.

Linking up at The Grove at Velvet Ashes today.

KNOWN 2014: Finding My Brave

So part of my commitment to living KNOWN in 2014 was to admit not to hide behind the excuse, "People think I am brave (or whatever other complimentary word you might want to put there -- or derogatory one, for that matter), but that is because they do not really know me." And instead to be brave about letting myself be known.

I took a big step today in finding a bit of that brave. My beautiful friend Cristi, from my college days in New Orleans, has a stunning blog called Motherhood Unadorned where she gets real about motherhood, life and mental health.

I have commended her bravery. And I have proclaimed over and over again that mental health is something we have to get comfortable talking about. And today, I accepted the challenge myself.

So I'm over at her place today finding my brave and talking about mental health after infant loss and miscarriage. Would you pop and over and thank Cristi for taking on this aspect of blogging, for being so courageous, and for letting me do the same?

Thanks. You're the best.

KNOWN 2014: The Word WAS

                                      

This has just chased me down all week. A new reading of a familiar verse.

He WAS. Just always. From the beginning. My Jesus. WAS. 

                           

It is a familiar yet earth-shaking reality. My Salvation always WAS, with God. In God's mind, in the beginning, was saving me from myself with the Word that is Him. 

Just can't seem to digest that crazy wild reality this week. But have found it such a buoy to my days. It has made my heart sing with gratitude. 

                             

                                             

In Spanish it reads, "In the beginning, the Word existed. And the Word was (form of be that indicates something changeable) with God, and the Word was (form of be that indicates something unchangeable).

He WAS the unchangeable God who comes to change, who exists in time and outside of it, in all that is eternal and all that is temporal. In all that is glorious and all that is ordinary.

                             

And what He was was the Word that Love spoke into the world, the Spirit being His voice. 

And the three who always were, they have always KNOWN me. 

                              

And that, friends, that is carrying me on eagle's wings and bringing me unbounded joy this week. Which was only amplified when I read this. You too, friend?

What great comfort are you finding in the Word this week, friends?

#oneword364 #memoryproject2014 #TheJesusProject

Letter To Self: You Shall Not Perish

Dear You,

 Yeah, you. You with the brave word KNOWN tattooed on your heart for the year. You with the new commitment to sink deep into the Word and speak in tongues not your own. You who thought maybe John 3:16 might be an easy place to start.

I watched you this week. I know you found out it wasn't. You found out that familiar isn't the same thing as easy with the Word of God. I watched Love pierce deep in a dark place. Say a hard thing to you.

Because you, daughter of the King, child of Light, lover of Love, you've had a pretty messy year. A good one in so many ways. You counted more than 1000 gifts. Marked them out in pen. But even still, you were dogged by the darkness of anxiety more than ever before, felt the pain of loss open fresh old wounds, trusted and mistrusted yourself for the trusting then felt the guilt of unfounded mistrust. In the Word this week, you heard it. The hard word from Love itself. You have been living like you are perishing. Instead of living this:

You who lay down your life to help others believe, you have forgotten to believe yourself. Forgotten to live knowing no one is relying on your heroics to save the day, and that the dark villain chasing you has already been defeated by the only Superpower. You forgot that at the beginning of it all He WAS. And at the end, He will be. And right now, He is.

You have spent your days swirled in the dark mist of discontent, the bitter sting of hope dashed. And you have refused to believe in eternal life. Day after day, you lived like you were perishing, like any minute now, it was all going to fall apart.

You lived, dear one, in fear. In that unspoken and lonely fear of failure who is your worst enemy yet long-time companion. You courted her a bit this year, invited her in for coffee one too many times. And she wooed with quiet accusation. Made you believe you not only needed to fear the possibility of failing but that you had already failed, that you were a failure.

That the dishes left in the sink overnight said more about you that a God who put on skin to save you. That lack of routine and continuity and kids who went to bed too late and didn't do as much school as they should have said more about you than the miraculous fact that the God of the Universe trusted you enough to put eternity in your hands in the form of people who are His. That your body's betrayal, its inability to cup life safely in its womb, its bleeding out of hope said more about you than the Blood He shed so that your pain matters for something.

That the to-do list without the check marks and the so many days you made no lists whatsoever because you didn't care any more mattered more than the fact that it is done in eternity. That what people thought about you and their approval of your work made you who you were more than the knitting He did in your mother's womb.

You ran and raced within from the menacing threats, from mortal peril, from perishing, so many days. And more often than not, you still felt you had not run fast enough, that the darkness had caught you. But:

And as you have dug back in over the last month, heard Him say, "I know. Come out of hiding, sweet one. You are known. You are loved. Even with, even if, and even when. You are loved. And there is mercy and there is grace and there is light enough for all your dark battles. I put on skin for just this reason. So you would know. I laid my head in the meanness and cold of your cruel world so you would know. I held out my hands and embraced the tears of the woman who wept at my feet and the one who his at the well and the one who banged pots and pans in the kitchen in frustration so that you would know. I became incarnate in the womb of a woman that you would know. From the inside from forever until never-ending glory shines, I have known you. In the beginning, I WAS. And because I lived, I live in you. And you do not have to perish, only believe."

I hear the question forming before you ask. And I know that you know that you already know. All you have to believe is this one little thing: it doesn't matter if you are enough because He is. It doesn't matter what you know because you are known. It does't matter what you do, because it has already been done. So just live and breathe grateful. Keep counting. Live in the embrace of His Word.

You have chosen well, sweet soul sister. This is your year to remember that you are known. And to believe. And to live like you have eternal life in you. Because you are not in peril. You shall not perish, dear. So live in the light. Let it shine on your darkest places and let them be known. Because you cannot fail at what has already been won. And you cannot perish when you know you will live forever. So live lavishly and love long and let it go. He's got you. 

Come link up with us at the Grove at Velvet Ashes  this week.
You don't want to miss the opportunity to be part of this space.

KNOWN 2014: The Word

One of the ways I am going to seek intimacy with the Lord this year, seek to be KNOWN by the Lover of my soul, is to dig into His love letter to us, His Word.

I have been longing to engage more with the Lord in His word. To make it a habit. To make it as valuable to me as my very breath. And to know the Word well so I can make it known.

Then the beautiful Ann Voskamp posts this today. A scripture memory program I can tailor to my own needs yet walk along side sisters. And the verses, from the very book on the Word made Flesh, from he who named God Love. A perfect fit.

And then I remembered that tucked away awaiting use, in addition to my bilingual Bible with verses in English alongside verse in Spanish, I have the Gospel of John, translated by a faithful pastor who has served here many years. You can hear some of the verses from John here.

And a crazy idea popped into my head which at first sounded like a fun brainstorm but soon become a weighty conviction from the One who most knows me. A challenge of obedience to memorize the Word in all three languages. To risk the humiliation of going a lot slower than everyone else. To risk the humiliation of not getting it right. To risk having to ask for help.

Because this is being known. The Lover of my soul knows where my fears lie, where my striving takes the place of true intimacy with His Word, where I make a game of what I should make a commitment, where I draw entertainment from what I should draw breath.

And He wants me to let that be known because He wants to transform. And I do so want to drop the facade of the over achiever and the participator and the one who can do it all. And just be known by Him and know Him in His Word.

So, I will take #TheJesusProject 2014 journey, and make God's Word a habit.




But I will likely limp along in embarrassment, way behind the crowd. I'm ready to fly, not is speed, but with wings not weighed down by expectation, by pretending, by trying to be more than I need to be. I'm ready to fly into the arms of the God who knows me and sit with Him in long, quiet stretches lumbering over His Word pronounced slowly and uncertainly in tongues that are not my own, but that I have been given to speak.



This is how KNOWN will be lived in the Word this year.

So this week, it is this week (and probably many more after) I will start in Scripture memorization preschool, with the all familiar John 3:16. A cop out for me in English, yes, but in Spanish and Cabecar? A challenge, I assure you.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him Should not perish, but have eternal life." John 3:16

"Porque de tal manera amo Dios al mundo que dio su Hijo unigenito para que todo aquel que cree en El no se pierda mas tenga vida eterna." Juan 3:16

"Sakeklawa kajiskawa shkal bai s i. Jenek i ka ite iyaba eklaba patkate kajiska, yite ijeba biketsa jewa bena ka weikanachaklawa kuna, ata jewa senakla jekjeye." 

So here I go, friends. Come along on your own journey? How are you digging into the Word this year? How are finding intimacy with God in your life right now? What are your Scripture goals for the year ahead?

Known. 2014.

That's it. That's the word. My One Word 365. There have been a thousand choices clamoring in my head. I kept kicking them around, tumbling layers of meaning. What spoke to me where I was now? What spoke to my hopes for this new year? What do I need this year.

Be.
Bless.
Blossom.
Authenticity.
Love.
New.

They all wiggled their way in and out of my head and my heart over the last couple of weeks. I have itched for time to get to these questions and really think about them. I had hoped to have time to journal. To reflect. Life didn't allow it in these busy days of Christmas, a monumental baptism, house guests, the arrival of new missionaries, a birthday and the celebration of a new year.

But I have found this one word practice helpful in the past and I really wanted to play. Finally, known made its way to the front of the line to be examined. And it only took a quick turn around it to know this was my word. It could be applied to so many of the thoughts I've had over the last week.

I want to make Christ known by loving the people He has called to love.

I want His word to be known more in my heart. Not just heard. But known. Deeply. Owned and rooted in my heart.

I would love if He would make His will for us a little bit more known.

But most of all, I long to be known. 

I want to spend the year digging into my relationship with the Lord and being known by Him. And by others. So many times, I find the notion of being loved by God, and even by others, a little, I don't know, false? Like I always want to respond, "Yeah, that's because they don't really know me."

Of course, I know that is not true, especially as it applies to God. But I live and I pray and I breathe like it's true a lot of the time. Like I have to pretty myself up before I come to God. Like our relationship is more about what I do for Him than who I am. Like if I hide the ugly, He'll love me more.

And then there is just this whole issue of time. It times time to really get to know someone. To build intimacy. To build trust. And it takes consistency. And being alone with that person.

I have not done a good job of letting myself sit with my Lord very much lately. It's a chicken or egg kind of dilemma. Not sure if I gave in to the temptations mentioned above and so began to distance myself or if those temptations began to win more and more because I wasn't making time to be known.

Either way, it really doesn't matter.

What matters is that He does know me. And He wants to know me. And I am built with an innate need to be known by Him. 

And I have not tended to it as I should lately. And I am banking 2014 on it. On building intimacy with my God, and on letting that intimacy spill over into a few relationships I have picked to intentionally invest in, and into knowing His word and into making Him known.

But first and foremost, it is about me and Him. About laying myself bare before Him and knowing the one thing that matters most, that I am not only loved, but known.

I'd love to know what word you are clinging to in 2014, and I hope you'll join me on my journey as well.

This weekend baby Sabrina was baptized in our parish with my husband and I serving as godparents.
She was the first baby born to a St. Francis Emmaus Center mom and the first baby of an indigenous family baptized in the central church under our newly structured parish. It was beautiful, humbling, profound.