That Dress Tells a Story...

Someone recently commented on how much they loved my wedding dress and it got me thinking...

That dress. There's a story there. There was a reason I HAD to have red on my wedding dress and it had nothing to do with fashion.

When Greg and I began to talk marriage my heart and mind began to process the story that God was telling in all of this.

There is always a story.

Every day, each sticky situation, delightful moment, beautiful sky, flash of anger or aggravation, restful breath, predicament of hilarity, gentle breeze and every Aweha moment are part of a larger story.

Approximately 2 years into my widowed/single momming life I took a trip, on my own, to the majestic mountains of Colorado for the Ransomed Heart Captivating Retreat. I was seeking some refreshment and renewal for my hungry, weary being and while God certainly granted me that, a zinger shot me straight through during one of the teaching sessions and left me a quite shaken. Loud and clearly, I'd received the message of just how sloppy, complicated, hard-headed, imperfect and ill-spoken I was. (Still am, really.)

And because I'd surrendered my life to Him...

He was gonna use it...

Use me.

*gulp*

It wasn't the first time I'd heard that, but for some reason it really hit me hard in that moment. I suddenly understood just how little this earthly journey had to do with me and all my own sinfulness, silliness and inadequacy and how much more it was about Him and what He had to say in the story He desired to tell with my life.

He's telling the story. I have a role to play in my daily living and breathing. It's the role of Redeemed.

This role doesn't call for a perfect body or a perfect face. It allows me to be a regular girl with all my faults and beauty. I don't need to be someone important or to be known by many or to accomplish herculean things. I'm free to encourage or be encouraged by a coffee chat or morning walk and to invite others into my messy home to do life with me. I'm free to be a hard worker at a regular job where I love on the people around me as God allows because He's the biggest boss of all. I can move in and out of opportunities to serve as God calls me and don't need to worry that I don't know my defined purpose or path beyond the dirt my feet are on right now. I can step away from the press of "I should..." and into the freedom of "I'm called to..." without care for what others think. I can ask questions without needing an answer and I can offer an answer when asked "why?" about my experience in this role and the story I'm in, but I also don't need to have every single answer.

And He uses me all the time. When I misspeak and misstep. When I have to apologize for either of those. When I'm less than thrilled about it. And when I'm undeniably inspired and led by the Spirit.

And that wedding dress tells the story beyond the wedding day and the marriage, the children and life's challenges.

The story of an average girl that desperately searched for HER purpose in life. A broken girl that was tossed about by the usual challenges of growing into womanhood in a broken world. A goody-two-shoes, rule-following girl that couldn't follow the rules well enough to make her life go as she wanted it to go and then began to accept that it wouldn't even if she could!  A girl that loved the idea of Jesus but didn't understand just who and how much He was until she gave all of her plans and efforts to Him.

The story of continuing second chances at becoming who I was called to be. Free. Abandoned, abundant, alive.

The Story brought me to that wedding celebration and that's the story the dress tells. That's the story my life tells, I hope. The Story of Redemption.

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.

I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly."

John 10:10

Beauty Being Born

    I've visited some beautiful places. Avalanche Lake at Montana's Glacier National Park and Alaska's Denali National Park when it was clear and sunny enough to see the mountain! Minnesota's Itasca, birthplace of the Mississippi River. I've wondered at aged fountains and cathedrals across Italy, viewed the Nepali Coast of Kawaii from the water, trekked a living volcano in Guatemala (some of it on a horse that wanted to bolt), and studied Mexico's sandy beaches and sparkling, ocean water. Those glimpses of breathtaking beauty and the vibrant stories they tell speak to deep spaces in my humanness as one fashioned by the same creator. They call deeply enough to cast off any duty or still any abiding restlessness and proclaim who I am. Free. Redeemed. The beauty calls to an aliveness in my soul. Beauty calls to beauty, I've heard.

    By contrast, I've journeyed some really ugly places as well. 

    I was belittled repeatedly throughout my first year of school by my kindergarten teacher. (Evidently there is a proper way to color the apple red and it is not "roundly"...and don't get me started on the fact that she made me throw out the Leprechaun with moving arms and legs because I did not follow directions and color him green. He seemed happy and green alone just wasn't happy enough in my mind. Yes, I did not see my kindergarten report card until I was an adult because she wrote on it that I was SLOW...as in mentally.)

    Wrestling through the teen years was hard work. The mixed messages from adults about where I should be in my spiritual walk and how it should look. Numerous "unrequited loves". My inability to shake my splendid averageness. Body image *shudder*. I was a serious teen and even now am a somewhat serious adult. Come to find out that most of my peers thought my serious, shy demeanor was actually stuck-upness!

    Then I moved into young adulthood more at loose ends than ever. I did not understand how a relationship with God was supposed to work. What was the "right path" for me. Didn't want to be on the wrong one. I'd been raised in church, but all of the dos and don'ts did not seem very practical to the deeper things I was trying to sort through in life. Wasn't mature enough to manage finances. Couldn't figure out how to get traction into college or career or meaningful relationships. Did I mention body image? Well, it was still a thing in young adulthood. Then I thought that enlightenment and adulthood would arrive with the decision to have sex. *Insert eye roll here* It didn't.

    Lots of joy and fun happened over those many growing up years too, but the fun and happy wasn't what drove me to my faith and to redemption and the very greatest beauty there is to be found on this earth.

    Anguish did.

    Pain in a strained marriage and my own inability to make it better did. Trying repeatedly without success to make life and relationships"right" did. The harsh judgement and thoughtless words of others while I was treading stormy waters did. Grief over my first husband's suicide, all that preceded it and the agony of raising 2 precious girls as a single mamma did. 

    The brokenness of the world inflicted on me and by me did.

    I just wanted God to make life different. Make it easier, more peaceful, less grueling and conflicted. No matter what I did or how I said things or planned carefully my actions I couldn't get it right.

     I was exhausted.

    And that spiritual and emotional exhaustion, that brought surrender. After surrender and over seasons, a new life dawned. A life that isn't all on me. A life cradled in the grace and mercy and love of my Heavenly Father. I can trust the heavy lifting to Him. Living a life of abundance and knowing it's abundant even when the waves are crashing over the side of the boat. Even when the lightning strikes and splits the mast in two!

    In the last handful of years, however, I found myself in a familiar conversation with the Lord as I watched the carefully curated lives of both of my daughters twist and sway in ways that I was not prepared for and did not want to face.  None of the prayer was new, but I poured it all out before him at once. I had been a good mom, hadn't I? I prayed with and for the girls and had deep, authentic, difficult conversations with them. I invited them into faith, didn't force it on them and trusted God's leading in decisions for how we invested our time. I was intentional and devoted to equipping them for adulthood, but they were headed for hurting and I was desperate to keep them from that. Spare them, please spare them. I can't, you can. Please smooth the way. 

And then, when I ran out of words, I was still and listened...

"Jesaca, do you trust me?"

"Yes, Lord, you know me."

"What do you desire for these girls?"

Silence. The tears began to come. "To know you. To know Beauty and Abundance." My spirit shouted because my mouth couldn't.

"How did you come to beauty? Was the way smooth? Do you think I desire any less for them?"

"No. I know you don't."

"Rest. Trust me. They must walk their own walk with me and nothing you do can spare them from the pain or the beauty. All of it comes from me."

    I had become spiritually and emotionally exhausted again with playing the part of rescuer and trying to smooth their way. Now I rest. Well, I pray and rest. He's shifted my focus back to Him and to walking as He calls me to walk and stepping into spaces where the gifts He's given me can minister for Him.

And there are moments when I get a peek at beauty being born.

No You Didn't

Over time, my perspective on the movement of one's soul toward Christ and how and when that happens, has evolved.

When I was about 11 years old I got to head to summer camp for the first time. My parents trekked us out to Wisconsin to a good Baptist camp and we were excited to spend an entire week there. I remember lots of wholesome camp fun from that week: new friends, swimming in the lake, trips to the canteen, trying new things like archery and various crafts, staying up long into the night chattering with cabin mates and singing around the campfire while enjoying various treats. I also remember lots of chapel services, skits, speakers, cabin contests and altar calls.

Yep, alter calls. Every. Single. Night.

Now, I wasn't surprised with the alter call routine. It was a standard in any Sunday service at a Baptist church when I was growing up. What was different was the emphasis that you better know the time, the date and the place that you made your declaration of faith in order for it to be authentic and ensure your place for eternity. You should remember who was there too! I'd heard that all before, but it was passionately proclaimed at summer camp as often as the altar call was offered. By the end of the week, I was feeling a little unsure about my own status. I couldn't remember the time, date or place that I made my declaration of faith. I certainly couldn't remember who was with me when I did or I would've comfortably expected to speak to that person upon my return home and get that information from them. Then, of course, I'd be sure to write it down.

By the end of the week I'd gone forward during an altar call. There was a tremendous emphasis on being certain, but being "certain" seemed to mean you better know time, date, place and person and I didn't have those. I figured I should nail that down.

Fast forward to my first morning home after returning from camp. We'd also been told we should tell people we'd "been saved" right away. So, I told my parents, "Guess what? I got saved at camp!"

After a bit of a pause, one of them and I don't remember which (I just remember they were in agreement) said, "No you didn't."

Well, that was not the response I was expecting!

We had a short discussion then, my parents and I, about who I was and what my life said about me. My fruit, they called it. I remember something like this: "Jesaca, we have watched your life. We don't know when you proclaimed faith in Jesus, but you love him. You point others to him, you live to honor him and you are growing to know him more and more."

I doubt my parents recognized at the time how important that conversation would be for my future. I didn't. But they expressed to me an idea that was probably not popular in their denomination and it stayed with me. The principle that ultimately my faith walk could only be walked out by me in the way I partnered with God to walk it. Another human being or organization couldn't tell me how that should look. This is different than truth. Truth doesn't change, of course, but God makes us each very unique and the path of that journey and the way someone walks it out can look vastly different.

I have revisited this principle on several occasions when my faith journey didn't look anything like the journeys of the people around me. I examined it after high school when everyone seemed to know what they were doing and I had no clue and I didn't understand "God's plan for my life". I looked at it when my first marriage was imploding and everyone had Biblical reasons for all the different things they thought I should do to resolve it. I had to surrender my concerns to God about not "looking like the other Christians I know", in grieving, in parenting, in homemaking, in remarrying and so many other "ings"!

I was asked to share my story with a group I participated in. While thinking on it I had a flash of remembrance. I was the early riser in our family. Always up before everyone else. I would typically flip on the TV and sit there in my pajamas until the house began to stir. I was often up before 7 am. Do you know what's on before 7 am? NOT cartoons. However, The 700 Club WAS! Church wasn't part of my earlier years as my parents weren't yet at that place in their journeys. I didn't know about who Pat Robertson was or what the gospel message said. I just knew that other than boring news or an old program of some sort this was what was available to watch.

Many, many years after that conversation with my parents I remembered my first faith encounter, praying with Pat Robertson as a young girl. Probably somewhere around 8 years old. Not because I felt I needed saving, not because I needed to secure my eternity or fit in with a particular church culture, but because the Jesus walk he talked about seemed right and true to my young spirit and I wanted to be in that space. For decades I did not consciously remember the time, the date, or the place of that moment and the only person I remembered from it was Jesus. Thank goodness! After all, isn't He the One that matters?!

So began my faith journey and He's been with me ever since.

"The Lord says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.

I will advise you and watch over you."

Psalm 32:8

Hiking

I went for a hike yesterday out at a local state park.

The thing about hiking is, I'm not naturally a hiker. I mean, I enjoy it. I'm so glad that my sister asked me to go and that I made it part of my plan for the weekend. But, I wouldn't have been making that MY plan. "Hey, I wanna go for a 3+ hour ramble through the woods and prairie, hiking around the trails while being careful to avoid animal scat and chugging up gravel embankments!", is not typically the first thing I say when I have some free time to fill up.

Yes, I enjoy beauty and nature is life-giving. I'm an endurance event gal and the physical exertion fills the"challenge successfully met" tank for sure. Even though the day was gray, the air was fresh and just the right amount of pungent scent wafted up from the damp earth on the occasional gust of wind. It was wonderful.

I came home joy-filled and revived.

But it certainly got me thinking. Why does it often take such effort to build momentum that moves me into the activities that leave me joy-filled and revived? What are the mental hurdles that I don't seem to clear and why?

The process goes something like this:
Me: "You've got some free time this weekend, what would you like to do?"
Also me: "Well I could x, y, or z..."
Me: "Maybe."
Also me: "What would I wear? Do I want to do that by myself? Who would go with me? How far is it? Is it worth that long of a drive? I really can't spend all day doing it because I have a, b, and c to accomplish too. I don't think it will be too expensive, but the weather could interfere. What about lunch? Who will get the kiddo to work? Shoot. Those pants don't fit anymore!"
Me: "Yeah, just stay home. Maybe next weekend it will work out..."

I thanked my sister for asking me to go this weekend because that alone was enough to clear the hurdle. "You want to go. What time? I'll be ready!" I threw on 3 layers of comfortable clothes, plunked a hat on my head, asked my husband if he could get the kiddo to work and grabbed a bottle of water as I headed out the door. But when it's just me I'm thinking about, I allow the internal dialogue to rob me of beautiful, life-giving, joy-filled activities.

Enough is enough. Thinking it through brought me back to a familiar space. A fight has been going on in that space for as long as I can remember. It's a fight to remain present in my walk with the One that loves me best. I'm not even kidding, there is an MMA ring in that space! I win a few rounds in the ring and then I loose a few rounds. The wrestling, kicking and punching leaves me utterly exhausted. Then I forget that the ring exists altogether and I wonder why my heart is listless and discontent and quiet.

I tend to look to the "care and feeding" of everyone around me. I'm good at it. Efficient even and I can do it for a lot of people. God wired me that way and it genuinely brings me great joy, but man does my attitude sour and my perspective warp if I don't look after the tending of my own heart.

That's the season I've been in. I forgot about that fight. God in His grace gave me a walk in the woods to remind me.

So what does it look to move into the momentum I need to tend my heart and clear those mental hurdles without another person inviting me into a life-giving activity?

The process looks something like this:
Me: "You've got some free time this weekend, what would you like to do?"
Then I pause long enough to be present and wait for the Spirit's whisper...
Also me (without hesitation or question): "Get on Ziva (my bike) and go for a long ride."
the whisper comes..."Let's do it."

That's it. No more questions.


"And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart."
Ezekiel 36:26 NLT