grace

One day, you will wake up to the shrieking demand of your heart’s need for grace. 

Unmerited, unconditional, always present favor.

It will startle you. 

Then, it will shock you when you become aware that the grace you need will not come from people, not even from the ones who have pledged to love you. It cannot, for Grace is a Person. 

Grace hovers, like a mist above glassy waters. Like a cloud of silk that cannot be grasped. Unattainable. 

Grace delivers Himself, with a smile and palms outstretched. Both of His palms, soft and tangible and pierced.

He is free. Christ, my Lord, in me.

[irregularities]

Two years ago this month, I was preparing to become a wife. Just little over a week away from my wedding day, I was making last minute preparations. The thrill of beginning a new life was simply too much for me to comprehend. I was feeling through every high. I'd make adjustments and process later. I only wanted to smile through it all. 

I haven't experienced that kind of pure joy since then. It seems foreign, unreal to me now.

It hurts how much one can change in a matter of a year or two. 

There are days when I cringe at my twenty-three year old, engaged self. So innocent and naive. 
It wasn't the refining process of marriage, the sharing of a life with another, that scarred me. I was well aware that becoming one with a man would create its own difficulties. Perfectly natural and expected. But little did I realize how surrounding circumstances and outside relationships would tear me down and so easily creep into my marriage. 


The divorce of my parents ten months after the beginning of my own marriage. And all the dysfunctional and messy events and discussions that quickly followed that day. 
 
Moving seven hours away from the only city I knew as home my entire life. It took an entire year of being away from my first home for the realization to slam me in the face that, although I will visit there again, I am never moving back. Ever. Again. 

Job-searching for eight months. Seven interviews. Nothing.
 

Riddled with panic attacks. Failing health. Depression. Thyroid, adrenal, gut, and dental issues. 
 

Unexpected big payments. Trying to make food stretch until the next paycheck. Embittered that food would be plentiful if someplace just hired me and my husband and I became a two-income household.


Failed business and creative endeavors. No fellowship or companions in the new city. Only met with flaky personalities, big talkers, and uncommitted persons.

Constantly feeling unsettled, insecure, unstable. 
Those feelings encompass everything. They linger and hang on me, a weight that I cannot remove. I feel them as sharp hooks in my nervous system, as if they mean to paralyze me. And I let them. 

The tormented experience of feeling forgotten, passed by, and insignificant has broken my heart. I am beaten and bruised inside. My dreaming-self quickly fled, terrified and unable to cope with life in the adult world. And I let her go, because to keep her in this environment would have been cruel. When I am alone and reflecting on these things, I whisper, "I want to dream again." I don't know if it is a prayer or merely a statement. In the moment, the words come dressed in mourning and I send them into the air. There is an ache in my chest every time I voice them.

I want to be bitter. I have wanted so much to be miserable. At least, I think, that is real and I can honestly and freely be miserable.

But my bitterness…
It sends shards into my husband's heart. I realize this bitterness will not just take me down, but him as well. I have wrestled in frustration that I am not free to be a miserable person now that I am one with another. It is a fact that I cannot smile my way through anything. I cannot pretend. I cannot push things aside. I cannot be strong when I feel weak. I cannot force my emotions to not be felt. I cannot hang onto objective truth and ignore what I feel. I cannot. I cannot. The Holy Scriptures and the vast realm of mature Christians cannot make me, cannot tell me, cannot demand me to set aside my deep emotions and just "trust in the Lord," "have faith," "hold onto fact and truth and put experience and feelings aside." No, I cannot. I do not mean that I won't. I mean, I cannot. These emotions are who I am. They are real. They are very much ME. I cannot un-be who I am. My entire life, I have held onto them and, in my solitude, have allowed myself to feel every range of emotion in every season of life. I am truly myself with them. 


One of the most significant pieces of my inner-healing has been confession. 
The honest act of admitting to myself that I am not so that my Abba can then tell me who I am.
I am not mature. Not strong. Not happy. Not wise. Not content. Not pure in heart. Not selfless. Not anything.

I spent years [mentally] preparing for trials and suffering. I even told my Lord I would never forsake Him when the day came. Then, the day came, and I was not [could not be] emotionally prepared for trials on any level. I have cried out, “I don’t know how to survive real life! I never learned and no one ever taught me! I am not a survivalist by nature, just an ignorant dead-end dreamer!” So, last year, I did what I thought I would never do. I closed up my heart to my Lord. I felt that He came to lecture me, to tell me what I should have done and should be doing. What I should have thought and what I should be thinking. Like people. People do that, right? Christians, though well-meaning, do it to each other all the time. Something in me wants to utter curse words when I think about. It is not who I am to want to utter curse words, but I am on the verge of it when I think of Christians I have known, met, heard, and even who I used to be. We lecture one another with the Bible. With the Word. With Jesus' precious words. Why? Just to correct behavior? To correct thoughts? Yes, "take every thought captive," just like Paul wrote. But correcting thoughts only comes when we are given a different response, an unexpected response. The response of Love, which does not demand, berate, or shout. The eyes of Love, God Himself, fierce and unrelenting. One might think Him gazing with such deep hatred and anger towards if it wasn’t for His actions. The way He quietly walked to the slaughter. The way He willingly submitted to the nails in His hands and feet and allowed Himself to bleed dry. All of a sudden, I no longer see anger or frustration in His eyes as I once thought I saw. It was Love. Love so full, so perfect. The intensity of His love makes us think He is angry or frustrated with us because we are not accustomed to such a fierce quality intermingling with Love. But never is He meaning to lecture, berate, demand, or shout at us with wrath of any kind. He determines not only that we should know about His love, but that we receive and experience it for ourselves. The human heart, He knows well. We will not be convinced without a severe, unrelenting, long-suffering Love, affirming us as the Beloved, every single waking moment. 


Genuine, whole-hearted repentance will not come in the flaunting and shouting of Truth. Repentance comes in the still, quiet, modest, humble, and always-present Truth. He, the Word, the abiding Truth, that declares us His Beloved, clothed with His Righteousness, therefore we are Righteous, Favored, Holy. God knows it will take a lifetime for us to take hold of that and to live in the freedom of such a heavenly reality. 


When I wrote that I want to utter curse words when I think of the way we Christians lecture one another with the Word, I do not mean it against the people and Christianity itself. I mean that the way we treat each other is such in direct opposition to the heart of God that I feel a strong vehemence against it! I want to curse that attitude! I am sick to the stomach every time I think of the way I have used (and probably still continue to) the precious words of Jesus to get someone to correct their behavior and thinking. Their heart is what He is after! I am well aware that rebuke [through love and grace in the Holy Spirit] is profitable when done in accordance with the Holy Scriptures. However, I believe that the rebuke spoken of in Scripture is altogether an entirely different matter when compared to the type of pious, self-righteous lecturing attitude that we adopt as rebuke within the Body of Christ. That is a topic for a different post, however.

How long will it take for me or that person to finally open up to Christ and receive that we are Loved and Favored unconditionally, always and forever? As long as His love is long-suffering. As long as it must be. Love has no limits. Love will wait ten thousand lifetimes and more if that is how long it takes for my frail heart to unfurl, to open and receive Him. Through ten trillion million selfish mistakes that I make and more. Love will wait. Love will suffer long forever and always to see me return to Him, battered and bruised but humble and open. To receive that I am loved by Loved, that I am pure and holy in His sight because not for a millisecond does He see me as separate from Christ.

Insanity sets in during my days of isolation and the hum-drum of each passing day. In moments, I experience a guttural cry within me, as if I am imprisoned and yearning to break free. I am breaking free. Breaking free from everything that bound me. Lies about myself that I’ve repeated to myself for years. Lies that pastors and Christian authors have taught and I have received. Lies that I perceive my circumstances are telling me about God, myself, and others.

I am unstable most days. I can hardly tolerate myself. Then, through a gentle, unexpected reminder, I sense I can hear Him whispering to me, “Don’t push yourself away, Erika. I will not abuse your heart. Don’t hurt your own heart. It is healing. Do you hear its beat? It may be irregular, but it is living. I don’t just tolerate you, I desire more than anything to sit here with you in this moment and listen to your heart’s irregularities. Will you listen with Me?”

I listen and learn. To be honest in everything. I am learning that it is safe to be honest with the Lord. In that transparency and vulnerability, I am beginning to heal.

Life doesn't run a clear course
It flows through from within
It's suppose to take you places
And leave markings on your skin
And those marks are just a sign of something true
You witnessed in your time
Of something new, like the start of something fine
Like morning dew,
Love will come again to you
Like morning dew, morning dew
And your tears have been worthwhile
They got you through to a different place
And time where all is new
To the start of something fine
Like morning dew, your love will come again to you
Like morning dew
// Love Will Come to You by Poets of the Fall //

[This song has inspired me the moment I first heard of it. So, I took out my camera and began playing around with lighting and ideas to capture what I felt whenever I listen to this moving piece of music. The image at the beginning of my post was the result. I experienced a taste of freedom in listening to this gorgeous track and capturing an image of what it means to me.]

a year crowned with goodness

I have spent almost an entire year rejecting my God.

Many days with my Bible closed, untouched. I refused to pray. I refused His presence although He remained near.

This year, the Lord has worked in me such a different, more foundational, understanding of what it means to be His. Having been raised Christian and having been a part of several different churches over the course of my teenager and adult years, somehow it gets drilled into your senses that to be Christian means you must do __ and __. To be __ and __. American Christianity loves to fill in the blanks. Yep, we're really good at having all the answers and doing and being. But God spoke to me a surprising word this year. 

I am His. Even when I don't act like it. 
I am His. Even when I refuse every Christian discipline and practice of devotion.
I am His. Even when I tell Him how much He has disappointed me and how unhappy He has made me. Even when, like I child, I utter the words I hate You, breaking His heart over and over.
I am His. Even when I don't talk to Him for weeks. 
I am His. Even when I renounce every Christian act, prayer, word, church or denomination. 
I am His. Even when I am so broken, so calloused, so bitter, so unlike Him in every thought, word, and deed.
I am His. Even when I am too hurting and bruised to love again.

He says, I bought you with a price. You are Mine. You are My daughter. You can't undo what I have completed. You cannot un-be who you are, the you that I have made alive through my Son. Your identity is tied to me and I will never allow you to fall away, ever. Your identity is not dependent on what you do, think, say, and act like. Your identity is dependent on Me. Many may be the days when you resemble nothing of Me. You are growing and the pain of being stretched will seem to mar who you are. But you are forever and always My child and I will get you to glory, no matter what it takes, no matter what it looks like. I am walking you to glory and I am already delighting in you, all that you presently are and all that you are becoming. And I am so patient with you. I am with you, moment by moment. I will walk you through every step from here to glory and I will not rush you or berate you. You are my precious, dearest daughter. You are my treasure.

I wanted to tell myself that I had fallen away. That I was a backslider. A lesser-Christian. You know, those little labels that I have heard Christians place on other Christians who seem to have rejected Christ. Yeah. That.

I can hear my Father laughing. Not mocking. Just the laugh of a Father who can hardly believe that His daughter would ever buy that tripe.

I throw my rags at Him. Look at me! I am hideous! I cannot even bear living with my own self. 

He walks me through this day by day, thought by thought, emotion after emotion. My self-hatred, self-flagellation. Pent-up anger, rage, and intense grief and sorrow. Broken dreams. Bitter, cynical thoughts. Burning jealousy and despairing fear. He asks me to talk it all out to Him, every disgusting thought and feeling.

I think, I probably need counseling. I am probably like bipolar, manic depressant, or something.

He says, no, my Spirit counsels you. Don't fear your human propensity to border on the edge of a little mental insanity some days. You are coming loose, every fiber of your being unraveling at what you have had to face about life on earth. But I am holding you so close to Me now. This moment, I have waited for. Every way you thought that I should work and act. Every way that you thought prayer, life in the Spirit, and Christianity should work, look, and be like has crumbled before your eyes. I have waited for this day so that I can show you how much I favor you.
  
I feel stiff around Him, like He is still expecting something from me. I want grace, but I don't want to have to change. Looks like I just want cheap-grace. Guess I am one of those "Christians" now.

Father laughs again. Again, not mocking. Just warmly amused at my childishness. 

What if I told you, He whispers to me, that there is no such thing as cheap grace? There is only grace or no grace. And My grace abounds, to the heathen, to the proud, to the humble, to the broken, to the ungrateful. My question is, will you receive it? Many don't. Even many of those who I have called My own do not receive it very well or very often. Will You allow me to love you? My heart breaks that many won't let Me in, to woo them, to delight in them, to speak into them their new identity with Me. But will you let Me? Will you let Me love you before you sin, when you sin, after you sin? Will you let Me love you and speak My favor over you even after you've spit in My face and pushed Me away? Will you let Me love you to glory no matter what? Will you let My love change you? Not your best efforts or actions or willpower. No, this is on Me. Will you let Me do this in you through the riches of My grace and love through My Son Jesus Christ?

And I think I might let Him love and delight in me. I think, I might try this amazing grace out, as if for the very first time.

How is this year, probably the most painful year of my life to date, crowned with any goodness at all?

Because this was the year my Lord set me free. Not in regards to salvation, which He did years ago when I was just a little girl. This year, He set me free in regards to my sanctification. It was easy to receive the free gift of salvation when it was terribly obvious that I couldn't ever merit it on my own. But sanctification, mmm! For most of my Christian walk, I have been trying to do it, to work for it, to merit it. It is free and guaranteed, just like justification. But I started laying down elaborate standards and expectations like the Law. I put myself (and others) on different levels of maturity and on time-tables with an allotted amount of time to get their act together (even to myself!). Instead of living Free all these years, I put myself underneath the Law and it distorted my view of self, others, and God. I built an entire foundation on preconceived ideas of what the Christian walk and life should look like for myself and others. Even preconceived ideas of how God works or acts, as if I could place expectations on my Creator! He has come in to strip it all away, to announce my freedom boldly and triumphantly. He wants me to know it every single moment I breathe. I am free. I am free. For Christ has set me Free.

In my refusals to acknowledge Him, He is my only Good. He went before me to crown the harsh, painful year of 2014 with the goodness of Himself. He knew of my hurt, my loss, my tears, my disillusionment with life, people, Christianity, and even myself. But in all this, in all this abounding mess, He fervently desires me, seeking to show Himself as good, gracious, and loving to me.


He is more than everything I have ever lost, coming back to my arms. All He is, slowly filling the raw ache of my naked heart.

You Are My Only Good // Misty Edwards //

reflections on human sensitivity

I cannot understand.

My mind has developed the habit of twirling and skating around life's mysteries. I want to see the big picture. Where does all this pain fit in? I want to see the threads of pain woven into a beautiful tapestry, but I am too dependent on when I will be able to view it.

Every single day is the same old story. It's so dull that I have no desire to put it into text.

I ran across this graphic of words on Pinterest. It clicked with me and fit into a space that I've been too afraid to name. I think have an allergy to my fellow humans. I laugh, but it's a hard reality to me at the moment. I have an emotional allergy, a sensitivity, to humanity - the good, the bad, and all that is in-between. Everything about humanity, even my own self, drains me for everything that I once had. I feel it every single day. It's a tiredness. It's a constant wanting to escape everything and everyone.

Since moving 7 hours away from my home-state last year and then deleting my personal Facebook account late this past summer, I have been reevaluating my life and my friendships. It hurt too much to maintain the Facebook-connection when most of those who were on my "friends" list were merely acquaintances years ago, distant relatives, or friends who wouldn't understand even the slightest of what I've been going through this past year. I felt hurt by the lack of pursuing friendships. All of a sudden, I was bitter and angry at people who didn't even know what they had done to "wrong" me.  I realized this happens to even the best of us. Sorrow, loss, and grieving separates us from the "normal" people sometimes. There is the daily temptation to victimize yourself and demand things from others. I felt it rise up in me and it made me abhor my own self. The thoughts and emotions were so unlike me. So, I did what I had to do. Get rid of unnecessary outlets like Facebook. I didn't even want to give myself a platform to continue feeling those emotions and thinking those unhealthy thoughts again. Nor did I want to see people that I've known and loved through that distorted lens. The longer I remained in that state, I fell into a spiral of self-hatred. The only way that I knew best how to deal with that was to cut ties.

Even still, there are friends I haven't called or written in many months. I scribble their names on a to-do list. A to-do list? So, that's how I am treating them? It isn't fair so I crumple up the list and let the memory of them drift in and out of my mind. There are days when I so long to fall away from my life, to be remade, and then to return as the person I always hoped I could be. But I am just me, changing slowly through a long series of love and loss. Yet, the change isn't happening fast enough to my liking.

I commit to releasing my grip on pursing people. At least, for however long this season of my life remains. There are very few select individuals that I keep in relatively consistent contact, but even then I need some time and distance. My anxiety levels sky-rocket with too much contact with others and it scares me. I have recognized it and learn to name it for what it is: heightened sensitivity. It's not the person that troubles me, but rather the way that I relate to them. The problem is at the root of my thoughts in relation to God, myself, life, the universe, and everything. A tangled web that I am only beginning to untangle.

In this season, I cannot honestly be happy for anyone who is experiencing a fruitful and successful time in their life. I am undone by the shame I feel about this; they who were once joyful with me in my joy, can I not even smile for them? I simply cannot, though I may find the ability to genuinely express a little from time to time.

In this season, I cannot bear to hear the people I love go through more difficult experiences after years of ongoing trials and heartache. I am undone by guilt that I cannot be enough, do enough, or say enough for them.

I am even overwhelmed by the thought of sharing my own struggles with others. It's all too much. Some days, I don't even want to be asked or talked to. I want to come out and have human contact whenever I choose to do so. I want normal again. Whatever normal may be.

In this season, I really cannot bear to hear national or global events. Ferguson. Persecuted souls in the Middle-East. Our crumbling economy. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to read about it. I don't want to feel for anyone or anything. I'm all dried up.

In moments, I feel the urge to cry. And I do. But most days I do not want to weep and languish in sorrow, nor do I want the cruel and fleeting experience of happiness. I exist in both highs and lows when all I truly desire is freedom from myself. My Maker, Lord of the heavens and earth, tells me that such freedom is free. All I have to do is receive it. But receiving can bring so much panic and dread, especially when you're still holding onto so much.

That's okay, He whispers to me, receive it when you're ready. You will not be one moment too late or too soon when you fully open your hands to this freedom. You will be right on time, My dear. I am so proud of you, that you are learning to be patient with yourself as I am with you. In this time, your awareness of human pain is heightened and you are tempted to continually choose anxiety, even your physical health will fail you in this time because of the heat and pressure you are undergoing. It makes you distrust any shred of happiness or sense of joy, as those have been fleeting in your experiences with them. It also makes you want to close your heart at the first hint of sorrow in any of its forms. I will help you keep your heart open even though you will be terrified of the excessive bleeding. Do not fear this. When you touch joy again, it will be more real to you than anything you've known before. And, in that day, it will not depart from you, but you will experience the joy as having been there all along, just as it is now. Do not be anxious that you have yet to experience this. Trust that it will come, just as I always bring the rains to fields parched from drought. Each moment of this season must be taken slowly. It cannot be rushed because I am not rushing you. I cherish all that you are and all that you have yet to become. One day you will truly receive how much I have loved you through this season, how much My heart as yearned for you, how much you are always on My mind.

And I keep trusting my Jesus, stumbling through each passing day.

 My senses have taken to poetry this year. Mary Oliver. Tyler Knott Gregson. Jane Hirshfield. David Whyte. I speak their poems and suddenly their words are my very own. In poetry and music, I find the bits and pieces of who I am becoming.

It is possible for a heart to be exhausted?
can it still be worn
when locked tight
in its cage?
My heart's beat
Is a drum too loose,
a dull thud
where it once
was triumphant.
~Tyler Knott Gregson 

I wanted the past to go away, I wanted
to leave it, like another country; I wanted
my life to close, and open
like a hinge, like a wing, like the part of the song
where it falls
down over the rocks: an explosion, a discovery;
I wanted
to hurry into the work of my life; I wanted to know,

whoever I was, I was

alive
for a little while.
~ Mary Oliver, Dogfish

 I was walking again
in the woods,
a yellow light
was sifting all I saw.

Willfully,
with a cold heart,
I took a stick,
lifted it to the opposite side
of the path.

There, I said to myself,
that's done now.
Brushing one hand against the other,
to clean them
of the tiny fragments of bark. 
~ Jane Hirshfield, Changing Everything