Out of the Pit

I've seen churches fight and fall apart.
I've seen friendships and families feud and fall to pieces.
I've broken promises that broke relationships.

The pit is a place we can end up together. The darkness hides us from each other. Sometimes we end up in the pit because we've been hiding from each other. Most times we end up in the pit because we've forgotten Jesus lifted us out in the first place.

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."  John 1:5

The work of being in community with one another is hard. The invitation to live life with others is appealing on the surface, but walk with another for very long and you'll start to see their cracks. Worse even, they'll start to see yours.

Jesus was amazing about being in the pit with others. He called to the disciples in the storm. He wept with his friends after Lazarus' death. He saw others in the pit. Instead of pointing fingers He pointed to His Father.

The man in all of history who could have pontificated and laid low his friends didn't. He shone grace into their darkness and eventually illuminated their lives with the pure light of His resurrection and salvation come to fruition.

But in those moments when we've been slighted or betrayed we are quick to forget where we've come from. The pit is where we start. The pit isn't somewhere we end up because we messed up.

The Gospel is about our lives born from the pit. We're born dead and it is the very life of Christ that revives us. Do we forget where we came from?

We were dead. We were separated from God. His wrath placed on us for all eternity.

"But Jesus..." Those words are the sweetest in all the world and we can sing them for all eternity and we can sing them into the depths of each others despair. Because Jesus is the only ladder out of the pit. Jesus is the Light that John the Baptist heralded.

When we are chasing light we're really chasing Jesus and He is waiting to be caught. He is waiting to capture our hearts with His Light.

On a daily basis I am tempted to give others grief, lip and my two cents. Sometimes I falter and forget grace. I forget that the measure I've been given is the measure I am to give.

 Are you awed by how far God brought you from the pit?
{We've plumbed the dark and seen it in our own hearts. Now we take to the chase. I'm excited about where this is headed. The good stuff is yet to come so make plans to join me in the coming days.}

To All Who Mother Motherless

There are a hundred ways to lose a mother. 

Cancer, car accidents, cocaine habits...

Depression, disability, distance...

My mother died when I was twelve. A man crossed the solid yellow lines and crashed her van onto the side of the road. Her loss is as much a part of me as the double helixes of DNA that make me curly headed and fair skinned.

I'm writing to you because I want you to know that you are welcome in this place and you are far from alone in the journey. I hear it from so many of you and I can see the tears that have trailed your cheeks stained. You carry a heavy weight because your mama couldn't bare fully the weight of motherhood. 

If I could see your soul it would likely look hollowed out, malnourished in all the motherless places. Years of living motherless can leave you hungry to know the curve of a mothers love, the way it can wrap itself around the bare places of your heart.

Some of you are like me. You lost your mama to circumstance or illness and you wish with all your heart that she could be here, by your side, a phone call away during those midnight feedings.
 
Others of you have mothers who made the choice to quit when you needed her most. She walked out and kept walking despite your cries and desperate need. I believe it all aches the same. No loss is more or less and the hurt, regardless of how it happened, can debilitate us. The ache can whisper into our hearts and minds that we are lacking in every way.

Let me cup your face in my hands and look deep in your eyes for a moment because there is something you deeply need to hear. It is something that I have deeply needed to hear.

Your ability to mother the children God has given you has nothing to do with how you were or were not mothered. 

I know it feels differently. I know in those moments when the baby is crying, the toddler is wailing, the teen slammed the door (again) and you disagree with your husband that it can seem the world is imploding and you're the one to blame because you weren't mothered well. I know sweet sister. I know that ache and I know the thousands of tears that you've cried because you thought you were getting it ALL wrong.

Let me whisper truth into your soul. That is a lie. 

God says He has given us everything we need for life and Godliness and that He will supply all your needs according to His riches. He is rich in grace for the motherless among us. He says once you were without hope but now He has given you a hope and future. He has placed you in a family.

You get to be the mama and you get to be a part of God's rewriting of the story.

Your past? The generations of women in your family that mothered with a limp? Women who struggled along and gave grief when they should have heaped grace? The cycle ends with you. 

There is a fire that burns bright for those of us who have lived motherless.

Motherless women have a passion unparalleled to mother well.

I know you feel it. You can be at a loss most of the time about the "how-to's" of motherhood but you rarely are at a loss about the gravity of your calling.

We are women who celebrate most bravely the big accomplishments and tiny victories of the everyday. We are mama bears who wrestle cubs into bed and read an extra story because we're utterly convinced it matters.  

In Christ we mother whole even with a hole in our hearts. That's the beauty of redemption. Redemption doesn't erase the scars it simply gives them meaning. It gives their story depth so that when we recount the tale to our sons and daughters we can share a different ending.

Motherhood begins long before the labor pains. We learn the lay of the land from the women before us but when we hold those precious ones to our chest our story takes on a life of it's own. Live that story in confident hope God will meet you in the middle and fill in all the gaps and cracks.

And if you're ever feeling alone in the midnight of motherhood just wave a hand. I'll be there and together we'll remember the truth. We are whole in Christ. Whole to mother fully though our own mothers failed us. Whole to risk failure to change the future.

Are you feeling the ache today? Leave your tears and hurts in the comments and we'll take it to Jesus together.

For Those Walking The Cliff's Edge {How To Balance In a Broken World}

Photo Credit: by Ophelia photos via Compfight cc
 
I don't have all the answers. In fact lately I've felt more full of questions than anything. An accident two weeks ago and news that broke over my heart like a crashing wave just a few days ago have left me heavy hearted.

I only know one thing and it is that I want to have the answers.

These words, as of late, have stuck in my throat just under the surface. I admit that there are times when I wonder if God is asleep at the wheel. I own that I have leveled my questions at God as vehemently as Job ever did and with less cause.

Because how do you live fully alive amidst the sorrow of death and a broken world? How do you believe in fullest life when it is slipping away for those around you?

  "Christians should not be optimists; we know too much about sin. We should also not be pessimists, for we know the living God." ~ Tim Keller

I have that feeling like when you speak up in a quiet room and all eyes turn on you. The eyes are expectant and waiting on me to answer with words that calm and mend the tear. I stumble through because I've never been terribly deft at saying the thing that is just right in the moment and sewing has never been my strong suit.

Time creeps and I listen to the Spirit's groan on my behalf and the words do come. They rise to the top and they aren't accusations against God, but rather they are an indictment on myself and my lack of faith and fearlessness as a child of God. From the end of ourselves we can see the beginning of God's hope and there are more than enough answers to fill eternity.

What do those in the valley need the most from those of us tenuously walking above them on the cliff's edge? Aren't we always just once false step away from the valley? The truth is yes, we are, and regardless of sounding trite I'll say it. Choose joy today because tomorrow is never promised.

Joy is a fountain of hope in a bone dry world. 

Your Bible study sister whose marriage is falling apart and all the best efforts for restoration have failed. The family with the diagnosis so unthinkable it leaves you gut punched in and feeling helpless.

They need you to live the joy today. Because if we don't live joy today then who is to believe us when we say that there is hope tomorrow? 

I don't mean that we feign happiness or put on brave faces and ignore reality.

Fires blaze, tempers flare and prodigals don't come home and there has to be a truth big enough to transcend the pit. Women go in for routine exams and come out cancer patients. Grandparents memories vaporize into thin air and we need a theology that is robust enough to carry the burden. A truth that ascends the mountain and shines light down to the valley, to the darkest places. 

Those trudging through the valley's depths need you to bring meals, cry with them, be angry with them,watch their kids, send texts, give until it hurts, be the Church, but the bigger picture being painted is that they need you to stop living small. 

If you believe a big Gospel then you can live a big life.

I was wide eyed and wrestled long into the night wondering what I could do to put pressure on some of the gushing wounds around me. I kept coming back to the same place- embrace life, hands open, palms up. This isn't a seize-the-day kind of philosophy it is a letting go of anything but God kind of living. It means holding the hand of God tighter and more intentionally than you ever dreamed.

That knot of fear you feel in your stomach is the way you know that something is worth doing. Love bigger. Fight for joy. A little bird told me that scared is the new brave. Which must mean if I'm shaking in my boots then courage abounds. Those in the pit need to know that joy still exists above them in the heavens.

Children die. The best among us fall to illness. My very own parents died. This world is broken off at it's root and the root that is God is beckoning us to find our life in Him. It is the only salvation in a world in desperate need of a rescue plan.

For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

1 Corinthians 2:2-5

The most miraculous thing in all the world is that He stooped to save us. The most miraculous thing is that we weren't all consumed in an instant by a holy God. We are alive and though death is nipping at our heels and we ache as it crashes up against our weak frames we can claim life in Christ.

Those aren't trite platitudes in the face of real life suffering. That isn't a verse-a-day kind of Christian devotion. It is robust Gospel living that is just that a Gospel for the living, a Gospel that lives in the face of death.

That is permission to walk fearless. That is a green light to go to say "Yes!" to God and everything He has given. Even if the whole world breaks and falls our foundation is sure and certain. Might our last words be a battle cry that death never ever wins for those who are in Christ. And let every word from now until then be sure and certain that God is for us.