to begin again

It has been a long time since I have written, but it feels clear that I must begin again.  Recently I've been reading a book entitled Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist.  It's a book I've had forever and have picked up and put down, reading a little hear and there for several years.  There is so much to write about, so much that has happened in the years since I have written.  Mario and I have been married for almost six years, we've had two babies, and there have been too many ups and downs to recount! But I must try. The Lord has made it clear that I must tell my story...for me and for others, whether I see how it helps people or not.  That is where the book comes in.  Shauna Niequist writes the way I think, in a very artistic, conversational style. So it speaks to my soul.  At the end of her book, she encourages her readers to tell their story.  Because you never know how God could use it to help someone else.  And as I read that, I heard God whisper.  I heard it faintly down in my soul, but my heart was open just enough to hear it.  Just enough, when my heart has been so wounded and shut down for some time now.  It was open just enough.

My first step of obedience in this was one that left me very vulnerable.  I wrote my story to a group of women, a community I am a part of, to make a desperate cry for help.  I was afraid.  So much has happened both long ago and in present history to make this a big risk, one that could likely end up with me being hurt and still feeling very, very alone.  But I was at a point where I just didn't know what else to do, and this community - I had seen glimpses of people who were genuine in their care and who were suffering in their own ways too.  So it seemed like it could be safe.  It seemed like maybe it could be a soft place to land, a place where I might find a warm embrace, so that maybe, I could feel the warm embrace of my Heavenly Father again, too.

So I did. I wrote and I made my heart and my hurt and my struggle known. And I am so thankful to know now that what I sensed about this community is true.  These women, they are struggling like me, but more than that, they do know the Lord, and they are being His hands and his feet.

As I look back, I can see how God has been weaving together little things hear and there that allowed my heart to open just enough to begin to hear and obey his voice for the first time in months.

The first piece was God's graciousness in having someone in my life who could help me recognize that I was struggling with Post Partum Depression.  And then the journey to beginning medication to help.  And then realizing that the medication is only part of it.  That there were still things to wrestle through and figure out, and the medication made it possible to have a clear head.  Then I piccked up the book, just so I had something to read before bed instead of staring at a screen.  And in the book I heard another person's story of struggle, and how they wrestled with God and how he leaned in.  And then how God is showing me that it is not my job to try hard to be something to people so that they see him...it is simply my job to be obedient, to depend on Him.  He will do the work, and I just need to rest in Him, trust in His plan, and allow Him to work.

In just this past couple of days after telling my story and asking for help, God has shown how being vulnerable...how being in this place where I am feeling so broken and so alone...is helping others.  It's not my favorite.  In my head, I am this super together woman swooping in and doing all these things for others, etc, etc, etc...but how many times do I have to be brought low to learn the lesson that all he wants is for me to be me, not some version of me that is trying to be someone or something else that I think is the best version of me.  When will I learn that one of the greatest gifts I have to offer is my vulnerability, is the story of working through the struggle, is depending on Him.  He has even had people telling me that recently, but I was just too in the depths of the despair to really be able to hear it.  And that's okay.  Because I hear it now.  I am learning the lesson again.  He is restoring me again, healing me from my own sin and brokenness.  Help me to hear your voice, Abba.  Help me to rest in you and who I am in you.   I choose today to lay down my earthly tools that I want to use to build myself into something I am not. And I ask for you to fill my hands with what you have to give.  I surrender.  Wrap me up in your tender love and speak to my broken heart.  Heal me from the inside out.  Amen.

Simple

Over Thanksgiving I received an amazing gift. A gift I didn't expect, but one that fundamentally changes things. A gift from Jesus. A gift of truth.

3 years ago, God invited me into a process. He called me out of hiding & denying. He invited me to share my whole heart with Him and to receive healing & freedom from bondage. The process has been painful but I wouldn't go back. Somewhere along the way though, the Deceiver slithered his way in and baited me with a lie...which I bit, hook, line & sinker. The lie was this: You can't escape your past. It defines who you are.

It's a common belief that we are products of our past, and in part, it's true that our past influences us, but that's not the whole truth. In Christ it doesn't matter what our past was like: what we did or what others did to us. It doesn't matter because in Christ we are forgiven & set free. If we want to know how to define ourselves, there is a truth that hasn't changed for thousands of years found in Scripture. It's the truth of who God is and who we are because of who He is.

How do I know I don't have to be defined by my past anymore? That I don't have to dredge it up to try and figure out why I did x,y, or z? Because He told me so:

"My lover spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land. The fig tree forms its early fruit; the blossoming vines spread their fragrance. Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me." (Song of Solomon 2:11-13)

How many times have I read this scripture and never did I see it the way Jesus spoke to me just the other day. He was saying to me, Morgan, look! The past is over, I am calling you out to be with me. Stop trying to stay in the winter. It's over and gone. Come with me into spring-time, into freedom from the winter.

The gospel is so profoundly simple: I am dark because of sin. I am lovely because of Him. Though darkness is a fact, it doesn't define me. He does & in Him I have victory over the darkness.

Jesus, thank you that in you I am set free from the law of sin and death. Let nothing define me but you. As I seek you, help me to come into the knowledge of the truth of who you are and who you say I am. I pray this for all of those who call on your name, that they might come to understand this truth and live in the freedom that is already theirs in you. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Thought of the day #2

I need to stop striving to be significant and realize that I am apart from anything I ever do.

It used to be that I put my identity in things I could be accepted or recognized for. I wanted to be good at something...I wanted someone to notice.

I don't put my identity in that anymore on a consistent basis, but I am a forgetful creature. I still stumble, I still struggle because I'm not yet fully renewed, but am being renewed day by day. I still struggle with wanting to be known, wanting to be speical. I search and strive for it still sometimes and become defensive when someone tries to take it away...

Until the offer is better, and the True offer is better. Because the True offer, when taken, gives me acceptance apart from anything I could ever do. I am significant because He created me. I have purpose because He created me.

He holds my life in His hands, and that brings a comfort it never used to. It stills my striving & worrisome heart, bringing it to rest & to peace. Amen.

Thought of the day...

I need to stop apologizing for being me.

what image am I bearing?

For months now I've felt empty. On the outside I've been doing all the right thing and saying the things that I think I'm supposed to, but on the inside, I've just been...empty. I know that part of this is because I spent 6 weeks trying to be someone I wasn't. I was trying to be my head's version of a "good staff worker" instead of being a staff worker out of who God has created me to be.

"My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." (Psalm 139:15-16)

Before God created the world, he had me in mind. He knew what I would look like down to the number of hairs on my head, who my parents would be, that I would be born 1,985 years after Christ's birth, and that I would have the heart of an artist. He had a plan in mind for my life before I was a figment in anyone's imagination but His. And part of His plan was that I would be an InterVarsity staff worker at Coe College in Cedar Rapids, IA.

At this point, you might be asking, "why did she just say all that?" Here's why. 1 Corinthians 12:21 says, " The eye cannot say tot he hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!" God designed each one of us uniquely, but even more amazingly, He created us so that we would all complement each other. We all need each other's gifts at any given time or in any given place. This is something I had forgotten.

I struggle with wanting approval. For the longest time in my life I would become whatever I thought I needed to be in order to get approval. Occasionally (and more frequently) I find places where I am able to be my true self (the self God intended me to be), whether because that is what is called for by those around me, or when people call it out of me. The thing is, all that time I was trying to be something I wasn't, I was actually sinning against God. Why?

Well, God created us in His image and to bring glory to himself. I am created in some unique way to be an image bearer of God. Some of that I learn from sanctification, but some of it is inherently a part of me. I can't ever be exactly the same as someone else. It's impossible (trust me, I've tried. It's excruciating). When we try, we lose life God intended for us. We're living a lie. We also fail to bring glory to God because we're not being or doing the very thing(s) God created us for that bring glory to Him.

Today someone said to me, "When you smile & have joy, you radiate. I saw that today, but lately I haven't seen it in you. Has something been going on in your life?"

The answer is, yes. I've forsaken myself and my God. Why? Because I let myself believe that who I am isn't good. And I want so desparately to be good!...to be approved. In the process life leaked out of me in great measures and what I offered to those around me was an empty shell instead of radiant life.

I will return to You my God. And find my life once again in You. Fill me up. Give me a drink only You can give: one of living water. Fill me up so that I can overflow Your life to those around me and feel again what everlasting life and joy is like. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Moving Forward

Initially I started this blog as a statement of entering a new phase with the Lord and considered the title an appropriate tag for that new phase, but as I sat here looking at it tonight, I realized it's more than that. This next phase is about moving forward, too. It's about running to the edge, jumping off, and diving headlong into the deep water below, knowing full well the risks it will entail...

It makes me think of a quote from C.S. Lewis,

"He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still, . . . to the very roots and seabed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him.

[He is like a] diver, first reducing himself to nakedness, then glancing in mid-air, then gone with a splash, vanished, rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water, down through increasing pressure into the death-like region of ooze and slime and old decay; then up again, back to colour and light, his lungs almost bursting, till suddenly he breaks surface again, holding in his hand the dripping, precious thing that he went down to recover."

Jesus, let me not lose courage as I leep from the cliff or as I dive deeper & deeper fearing loss of breath. You are my breath of life, the true vine. And as I go deeper, help me to bring others along with me, into the depths of life with you...and when the time comes, let us surface with the very precious thing you sent us down for: life.

Security

A picture of security is not one of holding tight-fisted and white-knuckled to the air, nor is it clutching for things that are just out of reach. Security, instead is contentment that comes from standing open-handed before the Living and faithful God, putting my trust and faith in Him.

"Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today...The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

Exodus 14:13,14

Our posture before God is critical. In so many ways I've been standing before God with fists closed to what He wants to give, clutching tightly to things that have as much substance as the air. They are insubstantial because they aren't the only One who is substantial. The One who is the source of all substance. There's a song that has the lyrics, "He gives and takes away", and previous to now my posture before God was one of often refusing the things He has wanted give or trying to hold onto the things He has taken away.

Francesca Batistelli had a song I've listened to on my ipod many times and the lyrics ring true, "I'm letting go...to live what I believe." As a Christian, God calls us to trust Him whole-heartedly, to trust in His provision, guidance, timing...and in order to really do that, I must let go of trying to secure my own life.

Security....is contentment that comes from standing open-handed before the living and faithful God, putting my faith & trust in Him.