"Did you close on the house yet?" " How is the house project coming along?" "Have you decided on a paint color?" "When do you think you will be in the house?" These well intended questions swirled around me, threatening to swallow me, as I would exhale a satisfactory answer and move on to something else, anything else. Home ownership and a remodeling project should be celebrated and anticipated after traveling for four years in an RV. But just like our dreamlike travels could cover up a multitude of underlying problems, the house project became another place to hide.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15
According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
(The Message Version: Remember, there is only one foundation, the one already laid: Jesus Christ. Take particular care in picking out your building materials. Eventually there is going to be an inspection. If you use cheap or inferior materials, you’ll be found out. The inspection will be thorough and rigorous. You won’t get by with a thing. If your work passes inspection, fine; if it doesn’t, your part of the building will be torn out and started over. But you won’t be torn out; you’ll survive—but just barely.)
I avoided the time that I knew it would take for me to write this. In effect, avoiding my heart. Writing does not only expose myself in blog form, it also exposes me to me. And that is by far the most difficult. The name of this blog is Living Out of Bounds. That is what we thought we were doing when we sold everything, moved into an RV, and began raising our family on the road. There is a freedom in travel, but there is also a fleeing. You begin to believe that changing the circumstances, the conditions, and the environment will result in changing yourself. Turns out the year of remaining stationary has revealed that standing still can also be transforming.
There are still places that we are bound. Addiction, old habits, and brokeness have plagued our family before. And it is too familiar, too known, too memorably painful, for me to have any desire to participate in it now. But the story is unfolding whether I get up and face each day, whether I pull the covers over my head, or fight in every way to make it not my story. And I have been lovingly directed to my own recovery, my own depravity, and my own need for grace. The journey has not gotten easier. And today, recovery, forgiveness, and grace, are still a struggle.
If I look at my blog posts from the beginning of 2019, I was excited and anticipating a 12 Step Program, examining my own heart, and going deeper with my Savior. I was not prepared for periods of despair, hopelessness, and woundedness that would take place in the process. It takes courage to jump on a spiritual rollercoaster, dive deep to look at problems head on, and fight hard for healing. But when crossroads appear, and it feels like you are alone in a sea of "normal" people, and four littles are a witness to every high and low, it is very tempting to quit, and put the smiling faces on Facebook and slap the mask back on, and replace truth with comfort.
This post has been the hardest to construct. It has been running through my mind. But I have been avoiding putting written words to my thoughts. I have recently misplaced my journal. I have rebelled against starting a new one. That journal became a huge part of me, and something about opening a new book with blank space has me hesitant. And today, that is where I find myself...hesitant, cautious, apprehensive. I am not sure that is an ideal stance for the coming year, but it is where I currently reside. And, I do believe honesty is a great place to begin a new year.
A fellow blogger, and friend, introduced me to the phrase "vulnerability hangover." And I am caught in between wanting to avoid any hint of exposure and fully diving into it. I long for authenticity. But with authenticity also comes the desire to belong. I don't know if I believe that outside of my relationship with Jesus Christ, that authenticity and belonging can occur. I have heard it phrased as "the human condition has a longing to be known and loved." (not sure who to credit with that quote)
In a recovery program, I am challenged to examine my motives. So I naturally had to question my own motive for writing and sharing. I have discovered that my calling is to write. I am not sure if that means books, or blogs, or my own personal journal. But my connection to my soul flows in writing. I am able to be most known, through writing. I am able to understand myself and my God through writing. There are many, many words of realness and openness about how I feel about myself and others. Words and descriptions that would never come out of my mouth. My mind and my heart function best as I write. My prayers are lamented through the written word, and my heart is healed as I write.
But sharing what I write, comes from my best discovery over the past year. People come out of their own self-protective shell, when they see someone delicately removing their own mask. Conversations have taken a complete turn from small talk to those tender places, when I start to uncover myself. I stumble across the right words to express myself, and how far to go, and how much digging I should do to understand others and how to relate. It is messy, and worth it, and I will keep those conversations going.
But there is a freedom in writing that helps my soul to express what I can't accomplish in my spoken words. For one thing, I am a quick thinker and quick talker. I know time is limited and I am watching the clock and just as hurried as the next person. I try to get the most amount said in the least amount of words. I slow down for written words, I chew on and consider written words. I believe written words. My written words are my truth. My spoken words come out at the same time that I am thinking, and those two processes occurring simultaneously, do not always end in me speaking for myself well.
This past year, I have been challenged with these questions:
Am I willing to fail for God?
Does radical grace work?
Can I wash Judas' feet?
Do I believe in resurrection today?
(Side note: It is killing me to write this purely from memory, and not have my journal to review for verses and specifics in real time.)
Each of these questions could have easily been answered with an emphatic no. I would have felt fine being a Christian woman, saved by grace, and answering these questions with a no. This year though has been a relentless invitation to change my heart, and now I answer with a resounding yes.
2 Peter 1: 5-9 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self control, and self control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these are qualities of yours and INCREASING, they keep you from being INEFFECTIVE or UNFRUITFUL in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Yes, this year almost never went the way it was supposed to go. To the outside eye, 2019 could seem like a huge failure. And, I can easily let my heart reside in the failures. But Jesus loves me too much to let me sit there. The truth is...Yes, I can follow Jesus' direction without any change in my circumstances. And it is worth it.
Yes, radical grace works. Did it do what I had hoped? No. But by offering grace, I was transformed. And, I have no idea the generational impact of believing in radical grace. Radical grace does not mean becoming a doormat, or being gullible. It is an act of obedience that requires looking within rather than being controlled by the unpredictable chaos of life. It gives opportunities to someone else to step into grace. And frees me from their decision to accept it or not. My chains are broken through radical grace.
I fought hard against betrayal. I fought hard against letting someone in that had repeatedly lied and mislead me. I wholeheartedly believed that I could protect myself and my family by reverting back to previous attitudes , what seemed logical, and my version of justice. But I could not deny Jesus. I could not deny His word. And I could not deny what he had personally asked me to do. I received a treasure in return. I was given a gift. I am not sure I will ever understand the true magnitude of it all on this side of heaven.
Philippians 3 9-10..and be found in Him, not having righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection..
There is resurrection . I thought resurrection would mean restoration in my most treasured relationship. I thought resurrection would mean healing for my husband and my marriage. There was healing in unexpected places in unexpected ways. That is the undeniable truth. 2020 is the year that I will look for resurrection continually in my own soul, in my own broken places, in the impossible.
Philippians 3:12-13
...but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. Brothers (and sisters and daughters), I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining for forward to what lies ahead
