Forgiveness Comes in Layers

Forgiveness comes in layers. Sometimes you forgive and you feel great and you walk a little further down the road and you find you need to forgive again. It doesn’t mean the first time wasn’t real or genuine. It doesn’t mean you’re a fraud or a failure. It doesn’t mean you’re bad at doing this whole forgiving thing. It can’t be commanded or flipped on with a switch. And you might be tempted to feel guilty because it’s not the proper Christian protocol to struggle with forgiveness, but wouldn’t we rather be raw and honest with where we’re at than say it’s easy to forgive and make ourselves to be hypocrites?

Forgiveness is definitely the destination but sometimes people forget to tell you that it can be a long trek up the side of a mountain, not a Star Trek teleportation. That’s where I’m at—somewhere up on the treacherous face, telling myself I’m not angry anymore but discovering my foot rubbed raw, blistered from the continual effort of placing one foot in front of the other. Sometimes the Lord lets forgiveness cost you something. I’m staring cost in the face—the awareness every day that my life has been restricted by the consequences of someone else’s poor decisions. And with it the confusing emotions of feeling unloved, un-provided for, made false promises, used.

And so every day I have the choice to forgive again. Will I let this make me bitter? Will I let it steal my joy? Will I allow it to become an excuse or a reason to be pitied? Or, rather, will I accept this circumstance as sovereign? That beyond what has happened to me, beyond what seems like the fault of another human being, there lies Y’shua’s filter on my life. Here is the truth—that God in His sovereignty has allowed this season of constraint. And so it follows that there is something He wants me to learn from this constraint. Or better yet, some way He wants to make Himself known to me in a way He could not before. What if in the very face of feeling unprovided for, the Lord wants to lavish me with His own provision? What if He wants me in a position of leaning on Him? Instead of succumbing to feeling overwhelmed or outsized by this problem, I stare at the rock face with expectancy. The Lord will show up. He will move. He will make a way out. That is His character, His way. And what if with this coming foothold of provision brings the very grace to forgive and let go of another layer of pain.

What Christ’s Headship Means for me in my Loneliness

Saturday upcoming is my canceled wedding date. And despite all my gratitude for the fact that I’m not getting married and for all the good things and relationships in my life, I still find myself bumping into this muddy sense of loneliness. It’s a buried sense of ache, not for a specific relationship lost but for a dream set aside, a season of partnership pulled out of reach, the face of a man I don’t yet know.

Graham Cooke teaches that every trial is not something to be endured but an opportunity to receive an upgrade from the Lord. He doesn’t want to take something away. He wants to give me something. Here is Graham’s challenge: in every new season or situation, go to the Lord with this question—What do You want to be for me now that You couldn’t be before?

So now in this renewed season of singleness, with more on my plate than I’ve ever had before, with more yearning for partnership than I’ve ever acknowledged before—here and now—what does Y’shua want to be for me?

In my engagement months I visited the passage in Ephesians 5 about marriage in recurring frequency. I read books by Keller and Piper. I explored from multiple angles what headship and submission meant. But this morning these words jumped off the page: This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. I’m not married. I’m not even getting married any more, but I am the church. I am the bride of Christ. And Paul states he isn’t really talking about marriage. He’s talking about me and my relationship with Y’shua. What that means is this passage is for me, now, in my singleness. I re-read it with a lens of what Y’shua wants to be for me and towards me.

He is my Savior. He rescues, delivers, redeems. I don’t have to save myself or anyone else.

He is my head. He is the part of me most readily taken hold of. When people come to me in need of love, comfort, or friendship He is what they will most readily encounter. When I am attacked, He is what the attacker will lay hold of. He is my protection, my filter, my source of life.

He loves me. I am loved with the security of the deliberate choice of His love—unchanging, unaffected by mood swings and offense and the passing of time.

He sanctifies me, makes me holy, sets me apart jealously for Himself.

He cleanses me by the washing of the word. I will be refreshed, fed, made new.

He presents me in splendor.

He makes me flawless, holy, blameless. No accusation against me will stand.

I am a part of Him. When He loves me, He loves Himself. Therefore He will love me as He loves Himself.

He nourishes me. He sustains me, provides for my needs, rears me up to maturity making me complete.

He cherishes me, brooding over me, sacrificing of Himself to bring me life.

He shall make me one flesh with Himself. One day my soul will be utterly renewed and I shall be a partner with Him in His thoughts, His emotions, His imaginings.

In short, He wants to be for me what I want in a husband, and ultimately what a husband could never fully be for me. In my naivety I thought I learned this six years ago when I asked Him to teach me contentment. But now this season isn’t just about allowing Him to be my satisfaction in the presence of a romantic craving. The roots of my dependence must go deeper now, to crave Him to be my partner, my sounding board, my provider, my support system, to give over the burdens too great for my shoulders to lift. In The Path of Loneliness, Elisabeth Elliot writes, “God has promised to supply our needs. What we don’t have now we don’t need now.” In His sovereignty God has declared, I don’t need a husband now. The Lord is going to be my head, to be the lifter of my head, to transform the thoughts within my head to be awake to His presence with me.

New Marching Orders

These days my heart is living with a new awareness of being alone. I’m not talking about a lack of community or relationships. I’m temporarily living in a home with fourteen other people who I love and who love me. I’m surrounded by a community that has my back. I have more relationships than time to fit them all in. But there are moments (coming now in frequency) where I feel alone. A different kind of alone. My heart craves partnership, for the consistency and solidarity of one person who is always aware of what is going on, who has my back, who takes joy in jumping into the trenches of life and faith and ministry right along side me. Someone who will be in my corner for life, who will say ‘I do’ and mean it. Someone to care for me, help put food on the table, notice when I’m pushing it too hard and pull me aside to slow down.

My heart is awake to these desires like never before. Singleness smarts this time around in a way that is new. My life is so full it hardly seems I have margin for something else. I have plenty of things—good things, fabulous things—to keep me busy, productive, about the kingdom business. Yet that doesn’t erase the throb in my heart beating slowly in the background. When I pause to think or take a walk or crawl into bed exhausted at night the awareness comes. The bull-headed, barreling-through side of me has finally realized I don’t want to go this alone. I don’t want to juggle all the bazillion pieces in my two hands like an acrobat. TA-DA. I don’t want to be superwoman. I just want to be a woman.

In The Path of Loneliness Elisabeth Elliot writes, “It is possible both to accept and to endure loneliness without bitterness when there is a vision of glory beyond. This is a very different thing from the sigh of resignation or defeat, the hopeless abandonment to a malevolent fate which merely ‘sits there and takes it.’ In circumstances for which there is no final answer in the world, we have two choices: accept them as God’s wise and loving choice for our blessing (this is called faith), or resent them as proof of His indifference, His carelessness, even His nonexistence (this is unbelief).”

And it’s true: I am so grateful to be single in this season. I’m grateful not to be getting married in two weeks time. Yes to one thing means no to another, and no to Aaron has meant yes to things I couldn’t have dreamed of before. Because I’m not getting married I’m getting to continue living life with four of my roommates and get a house and do life together. I’m getting to step into ministry of a sort faster than I anticipated. I’m getting to re-engage with my family and partner with my mom in a way that has never happened before. The list could go on. And so I truly am grateful. And content. I’m excited and not afraid of singleness.

But more than one thing can be true at the same time. It’s also true that my radar is up, that I’m ready to be surprised by love whenever God sees fit (sooner rather than later?), that my hands are open and waiting expectantly. God, how are you going to provide? How are you going to surprise me? He’ll do it, in some form or another. Because that's what He does. He crafts seasons and experiences that are better fit for me than anything I could conjure on my own. And in the meantime I’m launching into a new season. I’m not waiting around, holding my breath. I’ve no time for that. God has filled my plate with good things that I am privileged to give my attention. Elliot calls this a new set of marching orders:

“A new set of marching orders. That is what always follows loss of some kind—a mother’s loss of her child, a wife’s of her husband, a lover’s of his beloved, a man’s loss of his job, his health, his self-esteem, his home—if only we have ears to hear those orders, eyes to see the gain God intends to bring out of our loss. Even when trouble stops our ears and clouds our vision, He goes on working in secret and perhaps years later reveals what we had not faith to lay hold of.”

To Control or not control, that is NOT the question

The irony of my life is that four to five months ago I was reading books about marriage. Then I got unengaged. Now—and I just have to laugh—I am reading books about parenting.

Don’t worry. Breathe easy. I’m not pregnant. And the books I’m reading are really more about leadership, discipleship, shepherding, and mentoring. I’m reading to decipher this nearly invisible line between boundaries and control. Because that’s my weak spot—control. And I just came out of an environment where that was the theme song. And I desperately don’t want it to repeat its theme even subtly buried in the score of my own musical performance. Yet sometimes I sit there, trying desperately to puzzle it out and can’t quite figure the most life-giving thing to do. Is this a moment for silence or input, grace or boundary, comfort or feedback? A mentor told me last week (laughing as she did so) that God would continue to put circumstances into my life where I couldn’t control. And He is. In the artistry of His severe mercy that is exactly what He is doing.

I don’t have any children. But I do have these girls—these women—living with me who are mine to love, mine to lay my life down for in friendship, laughter, and midnight bouts of tears. Mine to serve and brainstorm with, to tackle a high school diploma (and party till there’s serious lack of sleep when that sealed document arrives in hand) with, to go down a river with, to set up a house with, to ask questions, and get to do life with.

And when I say mine, you must cancel out all connotations of possession or rights or control. And you must add in the connotations of family, loyalty, and being honored to serve. They are mine and I am theirs because they have made me laugh, and watched me break up with a man I thought I loved, and held my hand as I grieved, and created dance parties where the required attire was donated grandmother-issue purple pants, and tag-teamed the death of a possum in the hen house, and not hated me when I pushed them away, when I forgot to read them bedtime stories or make dinner or help them fix a dress because I was too busy swearing at God. We are each other’s because God saw fit to pull us together from unlikely corners of the country with our threads of broken stories and weave us together into a rag-tag kind of extra-special family.

And I’m not in this family because I deserve it or because I know what I’m doing or because I have something inspirational to offer them. They are mine because—for some crazy reason or another—they have chosen to trust me and want to spend some life with me. And I them. And I am blessed.

Yet with that kind of blessing also comes pain. The pain of the possibility of watching them get hurt. That’s where it becomes easy to control. Because here’s what happens in my brain. There’s this person I love. I live with them. I watch them. I see pain within them. They make a decision or lifestyle choice because of that pain and my brain throws up a red-alert, like a flashing red light attached to an annoyingly loud buzzer that goes off in a factory when there’s danger. And my brain’s first reaction is to try to get that buzzer to shut up. Enter control. Oh wait. STOP. Wrong story. That’s a story where fear gets the upper hand, where I stop loving and start valuing results over people. Been there. Experienced that. No thank you.

REWIND. Enter perfect love. The kind I don’t possess, but the kind God does, the One who has every detail of the universe balanced on the tip of His eyelash. He’s got this. I just get to rest and watch and be myself and let others be their selves. I get to get up every morning and ask Him how He wants me to partner with Him and be surprised at what I receive in return. And yep, we all stumble over our lines and trip across the stage a time or two or twenty. But the stage hasn’t moved and the audience of One still awaits. And every day I have forty-two moments or so when I get to remind myself of all of this, lay down the stress, and keep enjoying life. Because I have some amazing people to enjoy life with.

Absolute control is abuse. But so is absolute freedom. And somewhere in the middle is a perfect cocktail of discipleship, boundaries, and grace. Somewhere in the middle is family and life and a messy finger-painted masterpiece of a mysterious story that has me sitting on the edge of my seat as it unfolds. Somewhere in the middle is a space where I don’t get it perfect, but I grow and people forgive me, and I learn to navigate it a little bit better than the last time. And the hand of God’s severe mercy brings a celebration of joy handed round in goblets fashioned of redemption. Cheers.

Wholeheartedness: Working out a Definition

My leaders asked me if I could be wholehearted in the rest of the internship. They doubted my ability to be so under the circumstances. They wanted to know how I was going to make it happen. If I couldn’t be wholehearted then I should leave.

In my history with them I had questioned leadership. I had watched painful dynamics and harbored offense. But I took care of my offense. I let Y’shua cleanse my soul of its anger and pride and control. I released and I went back. I wanted to learn to bless and make things work. So although there had been moments in the past when I was shut down and not fully present, on that day I can say I was wholehearted. I had broken trust. I had remaining questions. But I wanted to find reconciliation. I was there with my honesty trying to work things out. But they interpreted my position as a lack of wholeheartedness.

I was reading again today in Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. I found these words: “When I fully enter time’s swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention, I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment. And when I’m always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter…Giving thanks for one thousand things is ultimately an invitation to slow time down with weight of full attention.” Next to these words in the margin I wrote, being wholehearted. And something in my spirit broke and wept.

I’m not on the farm anymore. It’s been nearly two weeks since I left. The Lord released and moved me on, along with several of the girls in my house. We have pitched a refugee camp at my parent’s for the time being. And I find that Y’shua has rescued and safeguarded my heart for the second time this year. He has brought me to a good place. And yet today I felt a sting at the thought of my leaders’ words and insinuations. You have been not been wholehearted.

But I believe they carried a misperception about the definition of wholeheartedness. Their version of being wholehearted equaled utter compliance, and a cheery countenance as I did so. My questions were unacceptable. They could be infectious, spreading doubt. They made me rebellious. But I wasn’t being rebellious. I wasn’t even demanding answers anymore. I was honestly sharing where I was at, refusing to lie, to put on a fake mask and pretend like everything was okay when it wasn’t. And they thought that wasn’t wholehearted.

But it was. It has to be. There’s this unspoken assumption in Christian culture that being whole means you have all your wounds and messy, broken spots healed, completely resolved, tidily assembled. Then you can be whole. But if that’s true then none of us are whole. Not a human being in the entirety of history—with the exception of the one that was also God. And if none of us are whole then why all this talk and striving towards being whole?

Because being whole is something completely different. A friend shared this perspective with me a few months ago and my mind keeps going back to ponder it over:

Being whole doesn’t mean you’re not broken. It means getting to a point where your brokenness doesn’t hinder your ability to be fully present.

That’s what Voskamp was getting at—slowing down time to be fully present. Being grateful for the present moment so you can actually be in it and enjoy it rather than obsessing over what it is not and missing out completely. She writes, “I have lived the runner, panting ahead in worry, pounding back in regrets, terrified to live in the present, because here-time asks me to do the hardest of all: just open wide and receive.”

Being wholehearted means bringing every piece of yourself to bear on the present moment. Every part. The perfect and the imperfect. So my issues are still over here on the side, those things I keep mulling over and asking the Lord to finish healing—my pride, my wounding, my grasping for control—but I can still bring myself to this moment and be present with you and not completely absorbed in myself. I can still function and thrive and be alive and contribute to the kingdom while the Lord is still renewing what is not yet fully right within me. And that is good news. For all of us.

Being wholehearted includes questions. It has to. If I have them, then I am not being wholehearted to keep those tucked away in preservation of an atmosphere that is neat and tidy and religiously politically correct. So in that moment with my leaders the most wholehearted thing I could do was sit there with my questions, open-handed, and be honest about who I was. Wholeheartedness means we stop pretending and we be real. It means people are more important than appearances or programs. It means performance has to go out the window—sayonara, you’ve been a bad friend to us. When those things aren’t true the setting is ripe for spiritual abuse, legalism, and religion that’s just that—a religion.

There are people that aren’t going to agree with me. They might make assumptions about my heart and my motivations. They may decide I was lacking in willingness, immature, or simply being rebellious. But that’s between them and God. My job is to let their judgments go. Y’shua, you know my heart. You be my judge. I stand before you unashamed, clothed in my Beloved and His righteousness. Before Him I am always wholehearted.

Fullest Salvation

The week after I broke up with Aaron, Y’shua brought up Psalm 34 in a group setting. Our instructions were to read it and focus a phrase or verse the Holy Spirit highlighted. I couldn’t get past the first line: I will bless the Lord at all times. Two words really—all times. ALL times. And that moment was one of those times, right then, when my heart was breaking and I was confused, just beginning to even find words for the swarm of questions. Bless the Lord. I didn’t want to open my mouth and share. I waited until the last possible moment, but I felt I had to. It was a choice of obedience. I was brutally honest. I don’t feel like thanking the Lord right now. I’m hurting. I’m confused. This isn’t fun. But I have to declare His goodness. He is good. And I bless Him.

That Psalm hounded me. It showed up in the church the next morning, in a book I was reading, in a hand-written card from my grandmother. Okay God, I get it. Gratitude will get me out of this mess.

But I didn’t get it. Not fully. Because I slipped into a disorienting mess within my heart—not so much with processing Aaron as everything else hard in my life that followed. I haven’t been grateful. I haven’t willed my eyes to see the good. I’ve focused on the hard until it has consumed my world. And I’ve complained. It’s too much. God, you are crushing me. So aren’t I justified in not being grateful?

Last September I read a book by Ann Voskamp entitled One Thousand Gifts. It’s all about gratitude being the entrance to joy, even in the midst of the hard. I thought I needed it last fall—and I did—but not nearly as much as I need it now. I’m just begun to re-read it slowly, nibbling on its pages. And the idea that is sticking out so boldly now is not just that gratitude is the secret to unlocking joy, but that gratitude is the means of bringing about the fullness of my salvation; it’s the proof that I really have said Yes! to Y’shua and meant it. “Our salvation in Christ is real, yet the completeness of that salvation is not fully realized in a life until the life realizes the need to give thanks” (40).

She points out that ingratitude is not just a product of my sinfulness—it’s the cause of my sin. “Non-eucharisteo, ingratitude, was the fall—humanity’s discontent with all that God freely gives. That is what has scraped me raw: ungratefulness. Then to find Eden, the abundance of Paradise, I’d need to forsake my non-eucharisteo, my bruised and bloodied ungrateful life, and grab hold to eucharisteo, a lifestyle of thanksgiving” (35).

Really, Lord? In the midst of this mess you want me to thank you? And of course, the answer is yes. Right now. In this mess. Especially in this mess. And not just me finding something good to thank God for in the midst of the bad—those things we grasp at when we are desperate like sunsets, sisters, cups of tea, air to breathe—but to thank Him for was seems to be so bad. Because it’s not bad. It’s good, because He’s sovereign and He has allowed it to strip me of what is harming myself and bring me into conformity with Himself, to make me beautiful, sanctified, holy. This is my salvation, if I have the will to accept and choose to be grateful and not resent. This is, after all, as Voskamp points out, what Y’shua did in the face of what was bitterly hard.

“’On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces…’ (1 Corinthians 11:23-24). Jesus, on the night before the driving hammer and iron piercing through ligament and sinew, receives what God offers as grace (charis), the germ of His thanksgiving (eucharisteo)? Oh. Facing the abandonment of God Himself (does it get any worse than this?), Jesus offers thanksgiving for even that which will break Him and crush Him and would Him and yield a bounty of joy (chara). The mystery always contains more mysteries. Do I really want this way?” (36).

Her honest question is now mine—do I really want this way? This crushing, crucifying way?

My gratitude is what Y’shua wants most from me. The one who offers Thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God (Psalm 50:23). To give thanks is to put my ways in order. To quell the chaos. Then I will offer in [the Lord’s] tent sacrifices with shouts of joy (Psalm 27:6). And there it is again—the joy. It comes because of the sacrifice, not so much because making the sacrifice is a happy experience.

I’ve been away from the farm this week [sorting out the mess of my heart]. I go back tomorrow. I don’t really want to go. I’d rather find something easier. I’ll go. But the bigger question is will I go with gratitude? Will I be thankful for this chance to submit to something I don’t understand, to learn to love that which is hard, to repent for my wrong, to allow the Lord to finish this lesson of shaping me to its fullest? Will I allow gratitude to bring me to my fullest salvation?

Mirrors

When you are in conflict, the other person is always wrong. At least that’s how it always seems. Or if you’re spiritual enough you’ll admit that you are wrong, but you still believe the other party is more wrong. You are more justified in your anger. You see the situation more clearly than they do. How could they be so blind?

I have been in conflict. And the first hurdle was coming to terms with the darkness within my own heart. What has my portion been? How have I contributed? It wasn’t pretty when I was finally brave enough to look. I judged someone. I decided a whole list of things about her, including things about her character—that she was untrustworthy, hypocritical, incapable, undeserving of her position. I assumed I would do better in her shoes. In short, I attempted to play god. I was angry because a valid need wasn’t met, but I allowed that need to turn into a demand and an expectation that went unfulfilled. And when she didn’t deliver I judged and I punished. I withdrew my relationship and blessing because I was upset that I didn’t get what I wanted. I threw a temper tantrum. Ouch.

The second hurdle has been these words, which someone I trust shared with me: Somehow the actions of the woman who you are offended with are mirroring something within you; otherwise her actions wouldn’t trigger you so deeply.

These words have haunted me for days. I can’t shake them. All the reasons I judged this woman—they are present within my own life. I am violating the same Biblical principle, although perhaps with a different application. Our actions may look different, but somehow they both stem from a similar weak point.

My weak point is control. And that’s just what I’ve hated in this conflict. I have felt controlled, micromanaged, blocked from having information, like she wants me to blindly submit to what I don’t understand. And I’ve hated it. I’ve baulked. I’ve called it unhealthy. I’ve looked for Biblical reasons why she is wrong and I shouldn’t have to submit to her. But the truth is that I also want that kind of control. I withdrew my relationship and refused to communicate because it was my way of grasping for control. I want to be the one making decisions, the one other people listen to. I want to be validated. I want to be right.

But this conflict isn’t about me being right. All this stacked up pressure of first Aaron and then the farm and this conflict, they are all meant to bring me to a breaking point so that something buried deep within me, so engrained in my natural way of thinking that it was hitherto invisible, may be exposed. I thought I came to this ministry to be trained—and I have been—but it hasn’t been the training I expected. It’s been Y’shua’s training ground for my heart to conform me into the image of His son, to make me a student of leadership dynamics and learn to discern healthy from unhealthy, but in the midst of that to forgive, to submit, and to bless an imperfect situation. It hurts like crazy. It downright sucks. And yet it is also wonderful. I know it’s the Lord’s severe mercy to not let this stronghold continue to control my heart. If I can only trust Him enough to stay in this hard place until He’s completely done and He gives me release to leave.

Crushing Kindness

These past few weeks of writing silence have been filled with wrestling. I haven’t trusted my voice not to be filled with resentment or defilement towards others. My heart seems to be mostly settled towards Aaron. Where I’ve hung up has been with God. I’ve surrendered left and right this year, over and over. I’m sleeping in a bunk bed. I’ve given up the right to make most of my decisions about my schedule, my finances, my life. I’ve loved a man and then walked away. And I’ve been willing to trust God and die to self up to a point—but in the stack of hard that has landed since breaking up with Aaron, I’ve hit a wall. My heart said, enough is enough. I got angry.

I hate ministry politics. I’m going to state that loud and clear. I hate politics in general—the separate sides and everybody vying for their own way, no one really stopping to listen to the other. If there’s one place you’d think would be safe from such goings on, it should be the body of Christ. Maybe that’s why, in that context, they feel more painful than all the rest. And I’ve been stuck in it’s web these past weeks—feeling used, speaking up, feeling misheard, invalidation, watching a friend be dishonored and kicked out, confusion, lack of disclosure, questions, silence from leaders, crisis, lack of emotional and spiritual safety, offense, valid needs gone unmet, immature shepherding. This mess has felt more painful that breaking up with Aaron.

I became a walking zombie, trying to physically fulfill the expectations people had of me but my heart completely checked out and screaming. I couldn’t find the Lord. He felt so far from me. I needed to hear his voice so badly. I didn’t know what to do or how to navigate this mess. I wanted relief. I had to pull away for a week to process. And in the midst of sharing with a mentor she asked me, do you want His presence or do you want rest?

That’s the rub. I wanted His presence, but I wanted it on my terms. I wanted it with benefits. What I really wanted is rest, relief, for the whole mess to right itself, for God to come storming in and vindicate me, take my side. But God isn’t into politics. He’s not about sides. He’s about refinement. And even though I’ve surrendered a lot in the past ten months, it’s not enough. He wants another layer. I have to lay aside my anger and acknowledge that He’s God. I’m not. His ways are right. No matter how wrong the others involved may be (and of course my perspective on that is biased), where I partnered with the enemy and slipped into offense, that is mine to own and take care of. I didn’t want that to be true. I banged on the wall of the shower one morning and swore, yelling at God. I didn’t want the mess of my heart to be my fault. I was the one getting hit with a sledgehammer over and over and I was the one that has to do the hard heart work to fix it? It didn’t seem fair. But I knew He was right. I had to own what was mine. I had to find a way to forgive.

So that’s what I’ve been fighting to do. But first I had to find His presence. I needed to understand that He was with me in this web in a tangible way. Which meant that I had to lay aside my indignation that what He’s chosen to give me is hard. Okay God, I give up. I miss you. I want your presence in my life more than I want you to fix everything.

But God, you’re crushing me, I cry out in protest. And He gently replies, I AM crushing you. To save you from yourself. I have been very kind to you.

Will I accept that? Will I believe that this whole painful ordeal is meant for my good, to teach me something I’m going to need, to crucify another layer of my fleshly nature? Even though I may not understand why for years? Can I look at this mess and know that the Lord is kind—not just generally, but specifically, to me? I hope so. I think I’m even beginning to.

Life & Death, Blessing & Curse

As I stated in my last post, Y’shua is in the processing of stripping me down and stripping me down and stripping me down—almost like He’s systematically going after each area of my life so I’ll be forced to turn to Him and only Him. And when I can peel back the pain and look at things from my spirit (rather than my mind, will or emotions), I remember that Y’shua told me this is all His kindness, His tenderness, His goodness towards me. And I believe Him. I really do believe Him. But a friend challenged me last week—I have a love/hate relationship with the things that come out of this woman’s mouth—to consider whether or not I’m walking out what I believe.

My first instinct was to say that’s not fair. I’m dealing with all this hard stuff and I’m not running away, I’m not turning my back on God, I’m tired beyond measure. Isn’t this enough until my heart feels better and my life attempts to right itself? It’s more than most would do, right? And aren’t others my standard of comparison? Oh wait, that last sentence should be delivered dripping in sarcasm.

My second reaction was, Oh crap. I’m exhausted. I want to give up. But I’m stubborn. I’m sticking it out because I’m not a quitter and because I know I’ll be miserable if I do anything other than what God wants me to do. But that’s not enough. It’s not the full package to simply dole out the actions of obedience with a miserable heart. If my belief is that God is good—what’s more, is that He’s been good to me—then my life should reflect that belief. What does that mean? If Y’shua has been good, tender, and kind, then my heart should be full of gratitude. I shouldn’t be drowning in sorrow, walking around wanting people to pity me, thinking I deserve special treatment because I’ve been through so much. If Y’shua has dealt bountifully with me then I should feel loved, and a loved woman would get out of bed every morning motivated to fight for the one she loves.

I’m not talking about fake happiness. I’m not talking about ignoring the grief and living in self-denial. But I do have a choice to make each morning I get up—a choice that presents itself to me over and over again one thousand and one times throughout a single day. Will I dwell in the negative or will I dwell in the bounty of God’s goodness? Will I complain or will I be grateful? Will I agree with Y’shua, or will I agree with the enemy and act on the belief that I’ve been robbed? Will I focus on being lonely, or will I focus on the awareness of Y’shua’s presence in my life? I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life…

It seems an exhausting goal to set, to do this over and over and over every day, like I’m going to fail before I even begin. And yes, if I try to do this, it will be exhausting and I will fail. In order to live as if I’m loved, I need to know that I’m loved. And that “knowing” has to be a knowing of intimacy and experience, not just the head knowledge that the Lord is good. I need to reconnect with being His beloved. I need to be able to trust His love for me even when it feels harsh and know that it’s tender. And that’s something I can’t do for myself.

So I’m left in the oxymoronic position of needing to choose life and yet knowing that it’s a choice I can’t make on my own without the awareness of being loved by the One who wants me to choose it. It’s in my control and it’s not in my control. Figure that one out. 

Hope Does Not Disappoint

In honor of moving on, no more numbers, no more counting the days since my life (as I had it planned) fell in pieces. I’m moving towards something, not away from Aaron. Towards what isn’t quite as clear, but God knows.

Y’shua and I have been talking about hope lately. Correction—He’s been talking about it. He wants to give it to me, but I’m resistant. I find it scary. Hoping hurts, and I’ve had all the hurt I can handle right now. Moving on from Aaron is only one kind of hard that’s in my life currently. I have a list of others that aren’t really material for this blog. But it feels like Y’shua is stripping me down and stripping me down and stripping me down. Crushing me. He might not stop until there’s nothing left but my raw weakness and Himself.

But in the midst of all this hard He keeps prodding me that I can’t put my hope in anything other than Him. He’s the only one that will not disappoint. My hope cannot be in my internship. My hope cannot be in leaders on the farm. My hope cannot be in marriage. My hope cannot be in starting a ministry someday. My hope cannot be in certain friendships. My hope cannot be in getting certain results. My hope cannot be in being at peace with my family or spiritual authorities. My hope cannot be in being perfectly healed. But I have hoped in these things, at least to some extent or another. I like results. I like to see progress. And right now Y’shua keeps leading me tenderly back to the mess and asking me to sit in it. Learn to be okay with things not being okay. Look at Me. Hope in Me.

But what does hope look like when it’s in the Lord and nothing else? I’m still trying to figure that one out. The practicality of it doesn’t quite compute in my brain because the intangibility of hoping in the Lord has to translate into some kind of physical hope on this earth at some point, right? I know it’s not healthy to sit in my room and not want anything. That’s called apathy. Been there. Done that (maybe some days still sampling it). Not life-giving. But how do I want something (hope for it) and not want something (only hope in the Lord) at the same time? How do I be aggressive in taking territory back from the enemy, going after the kingdom, and not settling for second best while not putting my hope in seeing any of those things actually come about?

Romans 5:3-5

Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Sufferings? Check.

Endurance? If endurance means not quitting, then I guess check, although some days the only reason I don’t is that the Lord won’t let me (dang it).

Character? I sure hope He’s giving me some in all of this.

And then after all that hard comes hope—hope that will not put to shame, that will not disappoint, that will not deceive, that will not cause me to suffer a repulse. Hope in the fact that while I was still weak, Y’shua died for the ungodly, for me (v.6).

If hope does not disappoint, then I must not have had hope—not the kind the Word describes. Because I have felt disappointment rip through my heart on nearly all fronts of my life in the past two months. So maybe I’m afraid of something I think I know but have really never experienced. And I’m still left with the question, what does it mean to hope? Y’shua is going to have to answer this one for me, because all my degrees and trying to rationalize this one out are failing. Impossibility my head and heart scream. And Y’shua laughs as if He knows He’s the God of the impossible.

Day 46: Bonfire

This past week something happened where I live to make me feel betrayed, misheard, invalidated, unsafe. My heart shut down and I stopped talking to leadership and the girls in my house for days. After everything I’ve fought and sacrificed for the past nine months, I finally wanted to give up and run away. God says he won’t give us more than we can handle. This time, I shouted at Y’shua, on top of everything else, you’ve given me more than I handle. I quit (and my language may not have been that nice).

Y’shua responded by sitting with me and crying.

You can’t always access all your pain, He said, but I always feel it.

It was like He knew something I didn’t.

You feel betrayed, He said.

Duh. And I proceeded to tell Him how hurt I had been this week.

You’re hypersensitive to this right now because of Aaron.

Stunning clarity. And with it arrived a truckload of grief driven by sobs.

My current pain was valid. But it was exaggerated by the pain of feeling betrayed by Aaron. He lied to me. Maybe not outright, but he omitted the truth, and to my heart that carries the same emotional pain as a falsehood. He failed to show me his true self—he hid it. And I believed him. I loved him. I put my whole heart into our relationship. I gave it everything I had and then he betrayed my trust. After it ended, I haven’t known what to believe. I kept finding things he hadn’t told me, and it throws me. Can I trust anything he said? Was any of it true? How much was an act? In my darkest moments of doubt I even have to wonder, did he really love me? In my mind you don’t lie to someone you love. That’s not okay.

So Y’shua sat with me while the pain came out—and the anger. We laid it all out on the table. Then He startled me.

You hate Him, He said.

But I loved him, Y’shua.

I know. And now more than one thing can be true at the same time. You need to be real. You need to admit it.

I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to look and find that depth of anger within myself. I didn’t want to be a hateful person. But that was my pride trying to protect me. It’s not shameful to admit the hate, Y’shua whispered. It’s okay. Just pull it out, look at it, and give it to me. I had to loose my pride and bind myself to His grace [the picture of grace God has given me lately is when I am so weak I can’t even stand, the Lord carries me. And He doesn’t just carry me, but he walks me through the throne room of heaven in my weakened state and shows me off. Here she is, my beloved. Isn’t she beautiful?]. Even then my body tensed and groaned until I could bring myself to spit out the words.

I hate you.

And that’s all it took to loose the power of that hatred. I had been betrayed. And now I had been honest. I got over my religious self and took a hard look at the loathing in my heart. Then I could let it go, hand it over to Y’shua, watch him breathe on it until it melted away. I could forgive and release and bless. It was more wrong to live in denial of the hate than to let it surface in whatever ugliness it contained for the sake of resolution.

I’ve had a box of things sitting in my room for the past six weeks. When I was done forgiving, Y’shua told me it was time to burn them. So one of my roommates helped me build a bonfire last night and I watched letters, pictures, bridal registries, dried roses, and save-the-date postcards turn to ash. But it wasn’t hateful. It felt right. It was time for closure. My roommate and I even managed to laugh a bit. I think it means I’m ready to move on.

And so Aaron I release you. You don’t owe my heart anything. I chose to love you and offer myself to you. That was a choice I made willingly. You don’t owe me for that.

And I bless you.

I bless you to find Y’shua’s goodness, to really know Him, to let Him meet you in your pain and give you what you need.

I bless you to find closure, to discover community, and to move on.

I bless you to find love and unconditional acceptance in the context of being fully known—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I bless you to someday realize your desires and get to minister like you want.

And I bless you—if necessary—to hate me for the way it must’ve felt I rejected you and walked away so you can find a way out of the pain to something better.

Day 42

“While it is impossible not to wonder whether God could have done all this some other way—without allowing all the misery and grief—the cross assures us that, whatever the unfathomable counsels and purposes behind the course of history, they are motivated by love for us and absolute commitment to our joy and glory.” –Timothy Keller from Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering

It takes me a long time to recognize and admit when I’m angry. I don’t like feeling angry. I run away from it, shove it, explain it away. I’m not angry; I’m hurt. I’m not angry; I’m sad. I’m not angry; I’m confused. Anything but anger. Yet it creeps in, slowly. It weighs on my spirit until Y’shua has to shake me to attention. You’re angry. Admit it. He can’t deal with it until I admit it.

Y’shua told me a week ago that I was angry. And I still haven’t fully come around to looking that anger in the eyes and owning it. I don’t want to be angry. But writing this out is a first step, a small victory. The tears and wailing at God will come later, but I’m always relieved when I get to that stage. Let’s be honest folks—a good hard cry is like therapy. And when I get to that stage it means I understand something enough to grieve it, one more piece of the puzzle interlocked with the rest of me. But back to the fact that I’m angry (see even here I am avoidance driven).

I’m angry at Aaron. Sure. But the bigger portion of the anger is directed at God. Last week Y’shua was telling me how much I delight His heart, and my heart was filled with a question.

Me: What about Aaron? What about the way you love him?

Y’shua: What about it?

Me: It doesn’t feel like he deserves it.

Y’shua: Aw, the truth comes out.

Me: He doesn’t deserve the pain you put me through.

Y’shua: You’re angry. At both of us. But you’re angry that I love Him that much when he doesn’t seem trustworthy of my love.

The ugly truth is that I want God to have a double standard. I want His unconditional love for myself and conditional love for Aaron. Which means I’m trying to be the judge. I’m trying to be God. That’s called PRIDE, IDOLATRY, CONTROL. Admitting this doesn’t make me look pretty. But it’s an honest confession of my heart. And my perspective is biased. Of course I’m going to think I’m right and he’s wrong. That’s default human nature.

So I’m left to grapple with letting God be God—and not resenting Him for acting in a way that is honorable and just and in-line with His character—even though I can’t see the outcome. Y’shua loves who He chooses to love. Like that parable of the workers in the vineyard. Some worked all day; some only part. Yet the owner rewarded all the same. I have no right to be indignant at God over the way He loves Aaron. If He loved Aaron conditionally, He’d have to love me conditionally and that’s not somewhere I want to go. I’m in love with a God who equally loves—the sinful, the undeserving, the rebellious, the angry, the prideful, the repentant—He can’t help Himself. It’s who He is. And that’s good news. I know it is. It just doesn’t always seem that way in the immediate future when we are hit with life and wrestle through injustice and suffering, grief and pain, betrayal and confusion.

And then there’s the factor of how I gave God permission to do whatever He wanted with my life years ago. And then I get angry when I don’t like His choice. Kind of smacks of being hypocritical. God be God. Oh wait, except when I want to be God. I definitely haven’t arrived. If you take anything about from this post, it should probably be that. I’ve got plenty of more processing to do.

Day 39

For the past day and a half I’ve felt heavy. But I couldn’t find words for what it was. It could’ve been a number of things—grief, perhaps, over the childhood memory I’d processed the day before; sorrow over Aaron, or even indignation; not knowing how to respond to a roommate. But tonight, standing in worship at the International House of Prayer, I found a word to describe it.

Loneliness.

The message tonight was on confessing the truth and resisting lies. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering…He is faithful (Hebrews 10:23). The truth needs to get into my mouth to be fully activated. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation [complete deliverance]. (Romans 10:10) My confession is what I say to the indwelling Spirit about who I am in Christ. So I stood there confessing truth, not wanting to sit in whatever oppression I felt, and one phrase kept coming out of my mouth over and over again.

I am not alone. I am not alone. I am not alone.

Which meant that I felt alone. Maybe that should seem obvious for to a recently un-engaged woman to feel, but somehow it wasn’t. I live in a home with ten other women. It would seem there isn’t time or space to feel alone. Yet this newfound hole in my heart is of a different shape than the friendships I have with these women. It’s the ache to have one person who will consistently drop everything and be there if I need it because I’m his priority. It’s companionship and partnership, the feeling of not having to do everything on my own. It’s having someone who understands the little daily things and wants to hear about my day at night. It’s someone to dream together with about what life and ministry may look like with the commitment of knowing they will actually be there when the dream materializes. It's envisioning your life with someone else and then finding yourself left alone to sort out which pieces of that vision are yours to keep and which are to be laid down. Back to the drawing board.

It’s a blow to my pride, in a way, to admit that I’m lonely. Pre-Aaron, loneliness wasn’t something I focused on. I liked to think I was above that—secure without a man. But here it is, staring me in the face. Awakened desires left unresolved. The lies can come so easily. And the moment I believe them my spirit is constrained. So here are the truths I confessed tonight, the ones I have to fight for. Proclaim to believe.

I am not alone. I am not alone. I am not alone.

I have not been robbed.

I have been given an unfathomable inheritance.

I am BELOVED.

I am worth the death and life of Y’shua.

I have succeeded. God is proud of me.

I bring the Lord pleasure.

I have access to joy.

I am enveloped in Y’shua’s kindness, goodness, & tenderness.

Y’shua has dealt bountifully with me.

I am fully righteous.

I am not alone. I have divine partnership with the Father, Y’shua, & the Holy Spirit.
I belong.

Day 36

All my life I’ve struggled against the lie that I’m not worth pursuing. Don’t get me wrong. People have sung my praises, exclaimed what I wonderful wife and mother I’ll make someday. But let’s face it. Usually those words get spoken in the context of my domesticity—canning, cooking, sewing, the art of corralling children. What a woman really wants to know is—all my practical skills aside, is my heart worth fighting for, knowing, and loving? And even if those affirming voices weren’t referring to my industrious skill set, they’ve never been the right voices. Fathers and mothers and girlfriends are supposed to say those things. Even young married men noting how lucky some guy will be to have me as a wife feels a little hollow. If I was that worth pursuing, what kept you from trying? All the affirming men I know chose somebody else. Not me. So what does that say?

I feel like I’m intimidating, especially to men. I have vision for my life. When I know that I want something, I go for it. I don’t sit around putting my life on hold waiting for some honorable man to get his act together and work up the courage to ask me out. So I probably come across as a bulldozer. Stay out of her way. Someone once told me I needed to work on my come hither look. And as the Lord has worked healing in my heart I’m softening. But I also want someone man enough to not be intimidated by me. To swallow his fear, to show up at my doorstep with a two-by-four, thunk me (gentlemanly of course) on the head and say, hey, can I bulldoze alongside of you?

Aaron told me over and over that I was worth pursuing. Maybe that’s why I thought he felt safe. Our first phone conversation lasted 2 ½ hours and I remember getting off and thinking, wow, he wasn’t intimidated by who I was even though I was up front and honest about some potentially dicey subjects. And he loved my vision of what I was called to do. I honestly didn’t know if it was possible for any man to fit those two things. But now the only man who has ever been brave enough to tell me (and show me) I’m worth it, turned out to not be worthy of that pursuit. So what does that mean?

I know the logical truth. I can recite it in my brain as the correct answer. I’m still worth it. Y’shua was the one who defined my worth and proved I was worth pursuing long before the idea of Aaron even existed. Yet, I’d be a liar to say those words don’t feel a bit empty now. I’m faced with the truth that the only man who ever bothered to pursue me wasn’t as honorable as he seemed. He was second string. Am I a second string woman? Of course I know I’m not, but tell that to my heart, not my brain.

I’m not a pessimist, and I’m not bitter. I don’t even have a desire to point any fingers at the honorable men I’ve been privileged to know and be invested in my life [this post is not a personal jab at any of you]. But these are the raw questions running through my mind that I’m forced to filter, the questions I’m sure a lot of women think but feel they are never allowed to speak. So here’s to speaking them. Here’s to not pretending everything’s okay when it’s not, so I can get to a place where it eventually will be. 

Day 35

Sifting aside the pile of grief, being single again has come as a relief. The tension between Aaron and my internship has been released. It’s freeing to be more single-minded and focused on what I know God has called me to. Living with ten other women, my time is never fully my own, but the way I spend it feels more right. My budget is tight, but I can make my own decisions about how to spend what I have. In retrospect I can see that being with Aaron was never fully healthy because parts of myself felt constrained. Now I’m finding myself again and rediscovering things I love to do that bring life to my spirit. [Note to self: while laying my life down for another will be a part of marriage, the man I marry should not make me feel I have to hold parts of myself back.]

I lived large portions of my life before Aaron absolutely content with my singleness. It was something I fought for long and hard, and something I relished when the fruit of that contentment came. I can get on a soapbox and preach for a long time about how singleness does not mean you’ve been robbed of God’s goodness. Marriage isn’t needed to encounter the fullness of God’s kingdom, despite the way Christian church culture seems to believe otherwise (see Redeeming Singleness by Barry Danylak). So I’m not afraid of singleness. But there’s a flip side to that coin.

Singleness was comfortable for me. It felt safe. Dating Aaron was scary, but I felt the Lord drawing me out to become vulnerable and trust Him with my heart in a way I never had before. I didn’t want to say no to His goodness for my life. So I took a deep breath and jumped off the cliff, not knowing what the bottom would look like. Landing hurt. But here’s the miracle in all this. I would’ve expected my heart to shut down. Well I tried the relationship thing. Look what it gave me. I’m just going to stay single. It’s safer and easier. I’m not trusting you again God. I expected my heart to shut back up like a clam. But it hasn’t.

Being with Aaron awakened something in me that wasn’t there before. He wasn’t the end result. But he gave me a taste of what partnership could look like. Despite his brokenness, I can glimpse further ahead to what marriage might contain. And my heart wants it. Singleness is not going to be the same this time.

So here I am just a month out from a broken engagement and I know that I’ll be willing to try this whole love thing again. Not yet. I have some more grieving to do. But more than one thing can be true at the same time. My heart aches and doesn’t want to have anything to do with another man right now; yet it wants to know the right one is out there. I can tell by the twinge of wordless grief that throbs when I least expect it—overhearing an honorable man be affirming towards his wife, the growing belly of a friend who is expecting, being around children, registry notifications I no longer need. They are echoes of what I thought my life was forming into, but now that’s no longer true. Perhaps, one day, that dream will get to reform. But for now, those things are out of reach. And that’s harder to grapple with this time around, because now I understand I want them.

So I’m back to the age old question—how do I can keep my heart honest, tender, and alive to good, God-given desires while sustaining the pain of having those desires go unfulfilled in the here and now? I’ve walked too far into both ditches on either side of this narrow line in the past. Neither one is life-giving. So this time will I be able to find a better balance?

Day 33

Can I measure the worth of one soul? Can I put a price tag on what is worthwhile to let them know they are loved, to be a part of their journey to the Lord?

I wrote in my journal on September 7 as I was expressing my fears to Y’shua about being able to make a decision to choose one man and no other when there is no going back: When I told Y’shua it was scary He pulled my face up gently to look at His. Look at me, He said. You’re not afraid of Me. He said He’s giving me Aaron, and I don’t think that’s me hearing from my soul. I’m still unsure, but His voice was confident, repeating it several times. That doesn’t mean marriage. It just means that now in this moment, this season, He’s giving me Aaron.

Someone told me this week that I may never know the full reason for why things happened the way they did, but she said the Lord found me trustworthy. Aaron needed something from this season, from the farm. And the Lord entrusted me to love him, to be the connecting piece. It seems a steep price to pay. I gave him so much of my time the past eight months, time that could’ve gone to my roommates, my family, my friends. I gave him my affection. I believed in him. I prayed for him, encouraged him. I sacrificed financially. I laid down my personal preferences. I told him I love you, something I’ve never done for any other man.

Some moments I’m tempted to think it was all a waste, that it robbed me. Would my relationships with my roommates be better if Aaron hadn’t been in the picture? Did he distract me from other things I could’ve or should’ve been learning or doing? Did my love for him steal from what I can give my husband someday? I could follow that rabbit hole a long ways…but I don’t want to. If I’m honest, my questions really translate to: was Aaron worth my love? Did he deserve all that sacrifice? From a human perspective—no. He wasn’t transparent and honest. He wasn’t worthy of stewarding my heart. And that’s where the boundary of the Lord’s protection stepped in to separate us. But from a kingdom perspective, was he worth it? The answer has to be yes. Was it worth surrendering my life to love a man for seven months because Y’shua wanted me to? I can’t put a price tag on that.

Part of me wants to know what Aaron is choosing to do with his life now. Did my sacrifice and love change him? Will he make stronger decisions now? Will he get out of debt? Will he know the Lord in a deeper way? Will he be more humble and teachable? I hope so. But I can’t measure the worth of what I gave based on how Aaron chooses to use it. I gave because Y’shua asked. That has to be enough. And Y’shua says Aaron is worth it. I was worth it to Y’shua, so Aaron must be worth it to me.