packing

if you’re anything like me (which i hope you aren’t bc wow, i’m a lot) you like to think that you can muscle through anything.
mind over matter.
you’d finish a marathon with 2 broken ankles + appendicitis.
the same goes for my heart, i like to think that i can push through just about anything if i simply keep my eyes on the prize. my nature pulls heavy towards the destination at the expense of the journey.
and i live in a world that tells me that this mindset, this blind determination, this tunnel vision, is strength and power and value.

but the still small voice within me, the one that gets ignored far more often than i would be proud to admit, constantly pulls my rebel heart in a different direction.

it’s like being on a hike and having someone put rocks in your backpack. at first you don’t notice, the weight feels virtually unchanged. but little by little, as the miles drag on and the rocks pile up, the weight begins to slow you down. you feel the pains of a load that you never planned on carrying, but the stubbornness of your pride tells you to
just.
keep.
moving.
until you lift your foot and suddenly you’re not moving. not forward at least.
eventually the weight defeats you. it has to. in that moment you remember that if you could carry it all, you’d have no need for more.
no need for a Savior.

i’ve been thinking a lot about my own backpack of rocks recently.
how funny it is that no matter how far i’ve come, or how much i grow, i still forget that i don’t have to carry that backpack as it slowly takes me down under it’s weight.
you see, my pride says that the backpack is my responsibility. it’s my duty. it’s just part of life.
that the hard things or the sad things or the disappointments or unmet expectations or injustices don’t matter in light of the big picture.
that really in the scheme of things it’s not that bad, not that hard, not that important.
i should be stronger than the sum of the things that make life hard.
but time after time, i still find myself facedown, bruised + broken, desperate for help.

and yet.
i’m reminded that there is another way.
that the real question is, why am i even carrying the backpack in the first place?
i don’t have to wait till my face is in the dirt to cry out for someone to come and take the rocks out of my pack and put me on my feet again.
the truth is that my Savior. my Jesus. is more than just a shoulder to cry on, but a refuge from the very storm that brought the tears.
in His perfect grace He lets me fall, then binds my wounds every time. but all along this rocky trail He is whispering that His love is strong enough to carry my pack. all i have to do is hand it over.

you see, i don’t want to live a life that constantly forgets His faithfulness. that lives blind to His strength.
i want to be the kind of person who walks with passion and purpose, knowing that a perfect protector is carrying the weight.

i want to trust that my trail guide can bear the weight better than i.

you're not what i asked for

i always liked to think that i had the power of mind control. 
that my mind had unbelievable and perfect control over all forms and functions of my body. 
i liked to think that my mind was the ultimate authority and that i would never feel, say, or do anything without it's permission. without my brain's seal of approval. 

but over time i've  come to realize that this perceived power would be better classified as a "fatal flaw". 
that this freakish gift of mental control is really just a paralyzing fear of weakness.  

for as long as i can remember,  my life has been propelled by the need to appear competent, capable, strong, and controlled. perfect isn't the word, but "perfectly able" is a good way to describe it. 
i have always been terrified of anyone being able to look at me and see any inability. any imperfection. 
i've always wanted to appear as if i have every piece of my life perfectly under control. not a hair or word or movement out of place. perfectly right.

then 7 years ago i got really sick. 
my body was out of control and there was nothing i could do about it. 
but i quickly realized that no one could see the struggle. all they could see was my reaction, so i  chose to take what little control i could find and turn a negative into a positive.
i just kept rolling along, wearing a face of calm and composure. 

i think the Lord was trying to teach me to let go, to be ok with not being ok, to be human. but i am stubborn. i refused to let this minor (read: "major") health inconvenience alter my image. 

yet, if you know the Lord, you know He is relentless in His pursuit of our sanctification. 
so He couldn't leave it there. He couldn't leave me at "good enough".  
if he left me there it would be like getting a mole removed when you already have stage 3 skin cancer.
pointless. 
you have to get rid of the disease. 
so instead of entertaining my selfish desires for image, vanity and deception, the Lord dug deeper into a gaping wound. 

He let me be pushed to my end. 

when the memory of my assault returned to me, a single refrain echoed in my mind for months on end. 
"I didn't ask for this" 
i couldn't comprehend that my life, my story, my heart were all forever altered by an action that i had no control over, no power in. i was marked by a moment of voicelessness. my life was changed in a moment where my weakness, my inability to protect myself, had been exploited and abused. 
my greatest fear had been proved and affirmed by the actions of one man, in one moment of unbelievable selfishness. 

i thought myself irreparably damaged and marked. 
my weakness was all at once on display, and i saw myself as nothing but a constant reminder of my own inability, weakness, imperfection.
and in this regard i felt nothing but crippling shame. 
i looked at myself and saw a person whom i did not recognize. i saw a broken down version of myself that i didn't ask for. i never aspired to be out of control emotionally. never dreamt of spending winter of 2013 numb to the world. i never imagined that anxiety and depression would become buzzwords which categorized a season of my life.   
i would cry out to the Lord in anger and confusion, wondering why He would allow me to experience something that targeted my most base fear and insecurity. 
i felt betrayed. forgotten. overlooked. abandoned. 

People say that time heals all wounds.
though i disagree with that sentiment nearly wholeheartedly , i do believe that time + Jesus creates a pretty fertile ground for healing and growth. 

i believe we have this expectation that God exists to protect us from any harm, that as long as we are trying to follow Him, then His Godly role in our lives is to save us from any situation that hurts or touches our fears. 
over the last five years i've come to realize that the opposite is true.
His grace, His strength, His kindness, His love, is found in the darkest of nights and the deepest of pits. 
I think He shows His love, His power, His grace by meeting us in the depths and proving to us over and over again that when we couldn't climb our way back to safety, He could throw us on His back and carry us back to the surface. 
even when i trusted Him the least, He still came to hold my hand and clean my wound. 
if you need evidence that God is good and restores what is lost and hurt and broken, then look no further. 
where i saw a story of immeasurable lacking and brokenness, i now see a banner marked "weakness" which flies proudly over the threshold of my heart. declaring that i am indeed, not enough. 
the truth is that an uncaring God would have left me. would have delighted in my weakness. the God i know did just the opposite of that, He chose me at my lowest.
and  i have never been more thankful to be "out of control". 

thousands of days have piled up between my past and my present. 
and as i look to the person that the Lord has refined me into, the person who stands before me in the mirror, i say, "you're not what i asked for..." 
"...you're better"

i'd be a fool

here's something that i was just thinking about:

the Lord says that He searches us and knows us. 
deeply. 
intimately. 
He knows us. 
for some, this truth is disconcerting. 
for others, it brings peace. 
for me it has always been a confusing mixture of the two. 
spanning the extremes of "if God knows me then i don't need to tell Him anything...He already knows" to feeling like God betrayed me and withheld from me for all of my years of living in the dark about my abuse. 
still, after years of dealing with hurt, getting help, letting go, etc. i still think at best i have been landing in the middle of feeling known by and knowing God. i know this sounds r e a l l y bad, but i think i felt somewhat indifferent. (tbh i feel ugly even saying that. but it's honest.)

but today something changed. 
i was praying through all the ups and downs of the last few years. really i was thinking how far i've come and feeling so thankful to the Lord for the way He has pulled me out of a painful place and restored so much of my life and my joy. really it's the way that He has given abundance where there seemed to be nothing but deficit. 
as i was thinking about all this i was thanking Him for knowing me. 
and then something clicked. 
like i said, for years i've struggled with God's purposes in allowing me to block the memory of my abuse and why He saw it fit for me to spend (at the time) half of my life in the dark. eventually i came to a place of knowing that i needed to choose trust rather than understanding. which is good, but still leaves a nagging in the back of your mind. the sting of the unknown.
but, as it often happens, from thankfulness came joy. 
i don't think i've ever really thanked God for knowing me, probably because i've never thought about it as anything other than either an entitlement or a fear. (us being entitled to His attention or being absolutely terrified of His omniscience)
but here's the thing:
God really knowing me, knowing my heart, means that even when I had no idea who I really was, 
had no idea the pain that my past harbored or that my future would face, someone knew. He knew. 
He saw it all. 
even when i was arrogant and entitled and my very most prideful, He knew all the brokenness that was underneath the surface and He delighted in me anyway. 
He chose me anyway. 

there is an excruciating beauty in knowing that He loved me through it all. that He protected me from the hurt until He knew that the time was right. it makes me want to cry even as i write because for all my anger over His "withholding", i never acknowledged His tender mercy, never truly believed or accepted that mine is not just a story of my hiding, but His care and protection. 
it all became so much more than being thankful that He knows me, but being thankful that He has known me. before i knew me, He knew me. 
i still don't even fully know myself, but He does. 
and even more joyful, in a lot of ways He let me get to know Him, before He let me get to know me. 
because then, by the time i saw all of the mess, even if i didn't want to believe it, i knew who He was. i knew that the lies were just that, they were lies. i knew He wasn't vengeful or punishing or cruel. i knew He wasn't cold or distant or uninterested or uncaring. not to say i didn't choose those sentiments often, but i knew that they were not His character. 

anyway, i guess i'm just feeling thankful and joyful and undeserving that He knows us.
even when we don't know us. 
at the end of the day, i just think that's really beautiful and restful. 
no matter who you are, you are seen and known and chosen. 
rest in that with me, cause it's really something else. 
and more so, He chose us first. when no one else chooses us, when all fail, He still does. 
what????? 
i'd be a fool to say no.