Five-Minute Friday – Identity

I’ve been wanting to join Lisa-Jo’s 5-Minute-Friday prompts for a while, and since I’m taking a bit of time to recharge this week, I have the perfect opportunity to participate. Five minutes of free-writing feels pretty appealing right now.

The rules are pretty simple, and pretty easy.

1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.

All right. Here goes.

Identity. Who am I? I’m nobody, and everybody, and crazy wild. I asked God once who I was, and He told me that I am “the righteousness of God.” I used to think that because I’m a woman, I was made to be a wife and a mother, and later that changed to a “helpmeet,” but what in the world was that, anyway? And then I learned that a helpmeet could be a “life saver,” someone who invited those she loved to life, and this is what I do. So maybe I’m not nobody at all, maybe I’m just supposed to live, and that is my identity, just being alive.

I don’t think I’m this or that or the other thing – defining my identity is really hard, because He put eternity in my heart, which makes me inherently really deep like Him – makes who I am able to have a relationship with who He is, makes life meaningful at all. I get to see that in others too; find their identity, love Him in them. Maybe we’re all nobody, and everybody and crazy wild. Because that’s kind of what He is, I think. That is what it means to be – “I Am.”

Wow. Free-writing is interesting. I have NOT done it for a while. Fantastic prompt, Lisa-Jo! I’m so excited to play today!

By kelle | May 11, 2012 | 5-Minute-Friday, scribblings |

Light, Dark, and Goodness

Sometimes, you have to shoot in the dark. You have to let in every bit of light that is there – even the light your eyes don’t see. Photography is like faith that way, uncovering light – even in darkness.

Pete said the other day that God made us to be able to survive without Him, but the price we pay for survival without God is high. Jesus said that we lose our lives trying to keep them. He was right. The more we simply survive, the harder we become. We are the walking dead – always functioning, but never really living the moments that we are given as we try to get to “the other side” of a hard world that is destined to win its war against us.

At 11:30 last night, a dam broke in me. It wasn’t that I’d been trying to keep it intact – I know it has to break sometimes. It’s how we stay alive, allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed, drowning in the “why” and the “it’s not fair.” We have to stop surviving, let ourselves be broken.

Walking humbly with God means bringing that brokenness to Him and letting Him be God in our lives. It means reaching for Him in the dark. It requires that we open our eyes and look as hard as we can for His goodness – not because it fixes the situation or because it’s “the right thing.” We look because the bad is bad, and that is real, but God is good, and that is real too.

As I scrubbed angry tears away last night, succumbing to my helplessness, I sensed His nearness. We’ve been through this a lot, God and I. He insists on being Him; He lets me be me with Him, even if it means shaking my fist at Him when things go south. He knows I know the bad isn’t His fault. He knows about my faltering trust. He remembers – even if I don’t – that I am dust.

“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with His hand.”

– Ps. 37:23-24

Believe it or not, there is still light in the darkness. If you give a camera a high enough ISO, it amplifies that light, just as faith exposes the goodness of God in the midst of our real lives. Risking my ability to survive by holding onto His love for me – and others I care about – is like shooting in the dark, but I risk only one moment at a time. That is, after all, all I am given to live.

I’ve seen His goodness play out before, and I have lost my life in trying to survive. He’s the only one who sees tomorrow. I’ve got to rest in that.

By kelle | May 3, 2012 | from here |

Considering Glory

“But I thought I could detect a moment–a very, very short moment–before this [my duty to please the Creator turned into the deadly poison of self-admiration] happened, during which the satisfaction of having pleased those whom I rightly loved and rightly feared was pure. And that is enough to raise our thoughts to what may happen when the redeemed soul, beyond all hope and nearly beyond belief learns at last that she has pleased Him whom she was created to please. There will be no vanity then. She will be free from the miserable illusion that it is her doing. With no taint of what we should now call self-approval she will most innocently rejoice in the thing that God has made her to be…”

-C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

By kelle | March 22, 2012 | quotes |

Scribblings: I Wish Online Was Real Life Sometimes

“It’s been quite a journey,” she wrote, and I read short bits of her story and somehow became part of it. She had a hard story too, and for just a moment, I was tempted to compare, to feel smaller, to write off my own paltry suffering. But then I realized that her story is her story and my story is mine, and there really is no comparison, because hard is hard, and its definition varies by the individual.

I think there is something we who write ourselves out online know that real life people forget – everybody has a story. We write our stories here, our histories and our sillies – and we’re not trying to offend anyone with what we write. We’re just being who we are where we are.

Sometimes, online is the very best place to meet people, because we write things here that we feel we can’t say to our real life friends. It’s been a good place for me to learn how to be a person, outside of the approval of everyone around me. The best thing I’ve learned is that I have my life and others have theirs – and if I take them where they are and live where I am, there is ever so much to be gained.

The more I think about it, the simpler life seems, that each day does have its own trouble and there is grace enough for each moment – no matter who we are or what we’re going through. I no longer think my troubles are the only troubles – when others share their troubles, I find, in some small way, grace for me too, knowing that grace is there for them. And for me, it is grace to be able to share, to talk through the hard things that don’t seem so hard on the other side of the talking.

Here online, we don’t have the ability to play God in the lives of others the way we do with our real life relationships. But we get to see Him work – in big ways, and in more subtle ways. Even though we write ourselves out, we are part of a bigger story here, traveling together into grace.

By kelle | March 20, 2012 | scribblings |

Shaken

Pete tells me he has never seen me so tired. Ever. And he’s seen me through a lot – a hospital stay, a return to the wheelchair, two pregnancies, two births, his paper route, and the start of a business.

—–

In my second year of college, we talked a lot about paradigms, a person’s basic understanding of the world around him. When I began collapsing during my second semester of school, I found out how quickly a paradigm can shift. I also discovered how desperately important it is for us to have something in our lives that doesn’t change when the paradigm shifts.

Most of that something has to be God – and I’m not just saying that because I feel like I have to. My understanding of Him may change – and has changed! – but He is still the same God He was when I was little. He still IS. When everything else goes down on repeat, He’s all I’ve got.

But some of that unchanging something is the people who surround you. People who grow up in the same town, go to the same church all their lives, have solid established communities – I think they weather changed paradigms better than people who don’t have the same stability.

—–

I’m trying to accept the fact that I don’t still hang out with the same people I knew even five years ago. My very best friend in the world is schizophrenic and unable to have a relationship with me. I have only a few dear heart friends that live states away with whom I can pick up right where I left off last time we talked. And I have my Internet friends, many of whom I was excited to meet over the weekend.

But if you really watch Twitter, you realize that Internet friends have other Internet friends, and if you’re really paying attention, you don’t expect real life relationships with them, because you probably only found them through other Internet friends and they have real lives that don’t include you beyond the computer.

And in some cases, they have Internet friends in real life who aren’t cool with them having or making other Internet friends in real life.

This is where I’m going to say that I dislike women in general, the way we possess and arrange and block and organize our lives and the lives of everyone with whom we come into contact. We even walk into our observations of others with expectations, and before we’ve finished a conversation with another woman, we know whether or not we want them in our lives based on… God knows what.

And I will leave that at that, because there’s a lot of hurt there, and a whole lot of disappointment.

—–

My paradigm shifted this weekend as I was attending sessions, greeting people, exchanging business cards, and trying to engage with people from a heart hungry for real relationship.

The airport pat-down that started my trip shattered my ability to control my body and violated my personhood. I curled up in a corner with a box of tissues and sobbed on the phone to Pete, who offered to come pick me up. I wanted to say yes, to walk out on my commitment, the trip, my very body, but I couldn’t. For the first time in my life, I was a PERSON in an airport. I had a story now, and I wondered if anyone was watching me, the way I watch for others’ stories.

Trying to detach from my shock, I spent my flight to Nashville reading Jasmine Star’s Exposed, and by the time I landed in Tennessee, I knew my approach to my business was going to be changing – not because J* did it, but because what I want to shoot is not what I’ve been feeling I have to shoot. I was a PERSON on the plane, going somewhere, planning to live, not just watching others and wondering about their lives.

I walked into Blissdom with my heart wide open, having absolutely no idea what I was getting into. Conferences meant for networking are evidently designed to allow attendees to cover as much territory as they can in the shortest amount of time. There just isn’t time for relationship, watching, or intimacy on any real level. I should have known that, but I didn’t. I was a PERSON there, but I was surrounded by others who weren’t looking for people.

—–

I’m home today, everything shaken, everything except the knowledge that God said “Go,” and He knows why, even if I don’t know. Shaken or not, I’m ready to live past my broken heart, to keep trying to trust Him again as I go, to be ALIVE again, even if that means I get hurt and hurt and hurt.

I figured something out this weekend, something I’ve needed to know for a long, long time – LIFE HAPPENS, and I have to keep living when it does, because that is what being alive is for. I am not a victim of my circumstances. I can CHOOSE to cry. I can CHOOSE to be alone if that is the thing I need. I can CHOOSE to accept the unique things about myself that God created, even if they aren’t the expected, professional, acceptable things. And I can CHOOSE to believe that God is good, that He cares, and that He still holds tomorrow, even if today has me ready to run for cover and quit living altogether.

This is how I know that I’m not going to be walking out on the life I’ve been building, no matter how tired I am in this moment. This is also how I know that I’m going to be CHOOSING to proceed with my business in a different way than the rest of the world advises.

I’m not just saying it. Spitting the words out like some magic spell is anathema to a prophet like me.

Life isn’t about avoiding pain. It’s about giving one’s heart in spite of it.

By kelle | February 27, 2012 | from here |

Dear God: What in the World?

So when You step in, it becomes apparent that it was You. Because nobody else could have thought of a judge in his seventies with a short fuse and 30 years of experience who would turn down a motion and yet still hand over a win.

I feel vulnerable, a little embarrassed, a little wild. I was looking for You, but an easy win would have seemed coincidental. So You did it up funny, left some suspense, and put Yourself out there to change the entire situation – not just the issue at hand.

I’m still holding my breath, blinking, trying to figure out just what happened, if it happened because I prayed or because You care, or because life is just that way sometimes.

I don’t get You, but it’s kinda fun not getting You. It makes me blush – like a girl with a crush – realizing that You have surprises up Your sleeve, that You’re waiting for me to be open enough to accept You as You are, crazy paradoxical You who are Love and Consuming Fire.

I’m feeling a little shy today, a little giddy, and WAY out of my league. Thank You for that. A girl needs a bit of excitement in her life…

By kelle | February 22, 2012 | Dear God, God n me |

Dear God – I Am a Wife Who Worries About Her Husband

He’s at work today, and there’s a hearing. He said he felt sick about it, sick with fear, worry, shame, that sense of failure and the weight of the world being so heavy on his shoulders. At least I think that’s why he feels sick.

I feel so powerless today, surrounded by messes and things I can’t change or do anything about. I am frustrated with hard, hard hearts and trying to hold onto a little optimism, but the truth is, this life is really messed up, and the people in it, because without You all we have is our own sense of right and wrong to propel us on. Humility and bearing with one another and loving – that only happens in You.

But You held Pharaoh’s heart, and You hold the judge’s heart too. I don’t want to trust You with that when I can do nothing about it and all the decisions keep coming down against the right, when details that get dropped need to be redeemed and the most sympathetic story isn’t the whole story at all.

You said “Go” this year, and You are leading me out and everywhere and, apparently back into You with these things that scare me and make us feel helpless. “Go,” You keep saying, almost like a dare. “Trust Me. Pray. Watch Me work.”

But what if You don’t do what I ask? What if I end up feeling jerked around because I made myself that vulnerable? It’s not like we haven’t been through this before. Sometimes things that just HAVE to happen don’t happen, and praying doesn’t make one bit of difference.

I’m asking You why – You know that. But I can’t just sit here and do nothing, so here I am, laying it out, asking You to step in, figuring that disappointment is on its way, and deciding not to hang my belief in You on the response, one way or the other.

Just, he could use a break today, God. He and his boss need this, and others who need You to come through for them on a very human level. I’m torn up inside over it, over the whole mess and other messes that I can’t be You and fix.

I guess what I’m asking is if You can please just be God today, please care for his heart and this case – geez. I can’t phrase it because I feel like a dumb human with just my perspective, but I guess that is kinda what I am, and I’m really, really wanting the judge to side with my husband’s argument. I’m really wanting You to weigh in on our side because of the gross injustice that is being done to someone who wanted to help others, because it’s so far out of my control I feel sick inside thinking of it all.

So there it is, and I can’t be spiritual enough to even caveat this prayer and be okay with You not answering how I want. Except if You don’t answer how I want, then I’m still stuck because I can’t not believe in You and in spite of the fact that I want proof of You acting on our dust, I want You to be You more than I want a perfect life.

I’m talking to You about it, and that’s something. It’s me not holding out and waiting all cautious, and me saying, “Okay, I’m not You, and I’m pretty much not anything, so I need somebody who is God to step in with a better plan and some peace, please.”

You know how I want to promise You that I’ll pray and praise and pay You back for being You and helping out, but of course, we both know I can’t do that and You’re not much into trading anyway. It’s days and situations like this that I’m left wondering about You doing anything, when that next moment, day, week, year, decade hangs in the balance and I can’t care for the future. You say tomorrow has enough worry for itself, but You were here. You know how HARD it is for us to believe that. You know how HARD today can be, because we die every day and it’s not all Easter Sunday for us here.

It’s the pain that keeps me homesick for You, the awkward helpless praying about the dust-stuff that isn’t ever guaranteed and shouldn’t ever be taken for granted. I’ve seen You work before, and I know You listen to me, to my heart, and You’ve said to cast all my cares on You, so this is it today. I’m throwing all this weight at You and asking You to take care of earth-things I can’t handle.

You said “go,” so here. Your turn. You know what You’re doing. I’m going to believe that today, regardless of what I want.

By kelle | February 21, 2012 | Dear God, God n me, pray |

Blessing and Idle Words

Yesterday, I put a comment on my Facebook wall noting that if someone uses the word “blessing,” I automatically tune them out. I was smiling as I left the comment, but I was aware that my annoyance with the cliché runs deep, and I thought I might perhaps flesh out my thoughts here.

I grew up Christian. For as long as I can remember, everyone around me talked “God-talk.” They used words like “blessing,” “standards,” “principles,” and “Gospel” until I knew them inside out and backward and exactly which nuance of which sermon they referred to. But after a year in Bible college with “God” on the lips and the brain and the tests and the obligation – and rarely in the LIVES of the people who surrounded me – I entered the “teenage years” of my faith. It was time for me to discover Him for myself, to see if He would be my own, if what I’d grown up being taught to believe was really worth believing.

From the time I was a little kid, my dad told me not to use words whose meanings I didn’t know, and as annoyed as I was with him at the time, it is a rule that has stood me in good stead.

As I dug deep into Scripture and discovered the truth behind the clichés I knew inside-out and backward, I also discovered a lot about Christian languaging that had nothing at all to do with God, Christ, or the truth of the Gospel that people had boiled down to a “sinner’s prayer” and a life that could only be reformed by taking certain steps. There were words and phrases and spiritual ideas I had used and believed that weren’t even CONCEPTUALLY found in Scripture.

The standardized vocabulary I grew up with had made faith into little more than religion – and completely rerouted my focus from the righteousness of Christ to my own performance.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a lot of people who mean well, whose hearts are in the right place, and who truly do know God who use God-talk every day and mean it from the depths of their souls with the Truth alive in them. But there are others who drop those words idly – to sound spiritual, to maintain their “testimony,” to paste God onto their own ideas of right and wrong. These are the people who don’t know what grace is – and who need it so very desperately.

But for myself, I made a commitment not to let God-talk fall idly from my lips, or from my fingers. I firmly, deeply believe that my life is my testimony. Jesus Christ dying for me, a sinner – He is my testimony. The only thing that makes me any different from Jane Non-Christian is the fact that I believe He is all I need.

Christianity isn’t a cloak I put on after I put in my “sinner’s prayer” ticket into eternity. It’s not a set of standards and principles, or a brand new language. It’s not going to church or going to the mission field. Christianity – or eternal life – is “knowing God and Jesus Christ whom He sent.”

The more we come know God in Christ, the more we are transformed as He renews our minds – but I think Christians are scared to believe that He will actually do the work He says He will do in us. We want to “make God smile,” show ourselves approved unto Him, so we lay our very person-hood aside for a standardized ideal that has very little to do with God and everything to do with what other Christians think of us and our walk with Him.

We can mean well all day long, but the fact remains that God still wants our hearts, not merely our duty – and He’s willing to suspend duty (see Jesus’ response about breaking the Sabbath) to get to the root of our deepest need. Whether we acknowledge it now or when we meet Him face to face, we’ve got NOTHING to offer Him. Period. This is why He meets us where we are.

I think Christians – and Church people – invest more in worldly thinking and conversation than most non-Christians. It scares me to death that I think this. Because I know exactly what I would have thought of me thinking that ten years ago. And I know that I have a LOT of healing still to do from wounds I received from other Christians who attempted to make me conform to their standardized words and doctrine.

I’m not mad at God anymore because I’ve learned it wasn’t him. I’m not even mad at the Christians who hurt me anymore. I have good relationships with many Christians who DO use “God-talk” and mean it with all their hearts, knowing Him true and real.

But I still can’t willingly participate in or subject myself to it. These harmless, spiritual words are deeply offensive to me because I have so often seen them misused and abused and used as a front for pride, condemnation, and a super-spirituality that has nothing at all to do with God.

I am slowly learning to give grace and bear with others, but I shy away from God-talk because there is nothing in this world that will cause me to judge someone more quickly than overused Christian clichés. I’m willing to say that it is not them; it is my own sin I’m fleeing by keeping boundaries in this area, and I’m laying full claim to God-grace for all parties involved, recognizing that only He knows the hearts and He died – and lives – for all of us.

Even words of grace must be seasoned with salt, but there is too much salt that has no savor. Tell me what you really mean – not just what you’re supposed to say. There is more of Him in the truth than in the same words everybody is allowed to say. If you’re talking Him in you, I’m wide-open to your heart.

By kelle | February 17, 2012 | opinion |

Either/Or???

WARNING: Thorough rant and uncomfortably-directed God stuff ahead…

I ran across an article yesterday that purported to give a young woman advice about marrying a man who had a porn addiction.

The well-meaning author took a sagely-spiritual, egotistical approach and told her that she needed to be sure she married a man who was “deeply aware of his sin and his potential for it.” THAT I liked. What I didn’t like was the fact that the author compared this man to a werewolf, chaining himself in a basement and warning all that he loved that he would turn into a werewolf if he were released.

I ASK YOU?!?!?!?!!!!

He spent the bulk of his article talking about how the man needs to be aware of his temptation to the sin and to be capable of strongly subverting himself when the temptation came up. I pretty nearly threw up. I am not even kidding.

There are way too many men – way too many CHRISTIANS – who are still living in complete and total bondage, trying to be like that werewolf, subverting themselves for good and missing God entirely.

We take one passage from Jeremiah about our hearts being sick, wicked, whatever-word-is-used in your translation, and we IGNORE THE REST OF THE PASSAGE WHEN GOD PROMISES HEALING. We know that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” but we ignore the rest of Paul’s explanation of how Christ FILLED THAT HUGE GAP AND RECONCILED US TO GOD.

There is absolutely no way around this. It is “the narrow way” of which Jesus spoke, something so stunningly simple and NON-spiritual that my downsie sister-in-law can understand it. My children can understand it.

Every single one of us is a WHO. We are not a WHAT. And God meets us “who’s” right where we are, whether we are collecting taxes, catching fish, or sneaking onto a rooftop at night to ask Him about Himself.

The plot is simple: Being His is not about WHAT WE DO. It is about WHO WE ARE. But Satan has this trick that makes me want to scream, because he uses it on a regular basis with people I care deeply about. He says to the Christian, “You are a sinner. Never forget that. Never, EVER forget that. You will always be tempted. You will always struggle with this sin. And you will never win.”

And the Christian thinks, “I am a sinner. I must never forget that. I can never, EVER forget that. I will always be tempted. I will always struggle with this sin. And I will never win unless I struggle against it with Christ’s help.”

That is ALL WELL AND GOOD TO SAY.

BUT.

Seriously? You really want to subject yourself to that kind of bondage, just to be good and fix the problem? You really think that is freedom in Christ? I have to tell you something. You’re off your NUT. You’re flat-out suicidal. YOU WANT TO BE THE WEREWOLF.

I have news for you. Being a Christian is not like being an American. In Christ, our freedom is already won. There is no legislature, no court system, nothing but His righteousness. PERIOD.

Paul instructed the Romans to “reconcile yourself dead to sin and alive to God.”

CHRISTIANS HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THIS CONCEPT. Because we would much rather DO than BE. Because we still think like the world thinks, that we know the difference between right and wrong – and we know it better than anybody else.

I’m sorry? Did you just say you buy into the temptation Satan handed Adam and Eve? To be like God, knowing good and evil?

Let me build a construct for you here, one that I shouldn’t have to build because Paul already laid this out in Romans.

We are born under Adam. Who bought into Satan’s temptation to understand right and wrong. Who traded in relationship with God to be like Him. WE BECAME SIN. THIS IS OUR IDENTITY OUTSIDE OF CHRIST.

But when we are born again by faith into Christ, WE BECOME THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD IN HIM. WE ARE NO LONGER BOUND TO SIN. (Good night, all these caps are making me sound like a revival preacher!!!)

Christians, Church, Body of Christ – we have GOT to stop making sin our identity. We MUST make Christ’s righteousness our identity. THIS IS WHAT GRACE IS FOR.

My salvation and sanctification is NOT ABOUT DOING THE RIGHT THING. It is about HAVING MY MIND RENEWED from the old Adam-speak that goes, “I just want to do the right thing!”

Do I still sin in Christ? HECK YES. But I AM NOT SIN any longer. I am free to stop justifying it, stop trying to quit it, stop hiding behind the flipping fig leaves. I AM ALREADY JUSTIFIED BEFORE GOD IN CHRIST JESUS. My real identity is the righteousness of Christ, and my sin can be left at the foot of the cross. Every single time.

There is no spiritual hierarchy in Christ. I had a pastor once who used to preach that “the ground is level at the foot of the cross.” My fit with my kids is every bit as bad as the porn addiction that guy is fighting. But I will not accede to Satan’s lie that I am “my fit with my kids.” That “I am wrong.” Sorry dude. You lose.

Jesus Christ died once for all, took the weight of the sin of every one of us on His shoulders and took it into the grave with Him, giving us back our lives the way God meant us to live them. I am CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST and yet I LIVE. His life is my life.

Accept it. Grow in grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ – not in spiritual superiority and works-based sin-focused requirements that keep you chained in the basement trying with all your futile human might not to disappoint God and hurt others.

BE a PERSON. Not a werewolf. BE beloved, not ashamed. BE the righteousness of Christ, not the sin. BE FREE. Or don’t. He’s already done the work. Get over yourself. Live from who He says you are.

Freedom isn’t an understood. Gospel isn’t fire insurance or church attendance. It’s LIFE. Anybody who tells you any different isn’t right. And they really may not be His.

By kelle | January 27, 2012 | God n me, grace |

you have to leave the shore

His love is a deep, deep ocean, and I know this, but I sometimes pretend I don’t because I prefer the shore, because the view is better from here. but really, I’m not moving because I prefer the warm sand between my toes and I never really learned how to swim.

with love, you have to take the risk. you’ll never know everything about a person, never know them through and through because you can’t see that far into their hearts. eternity leaves a lot of room for wonder, and begs trust that goes beyond logic and evidence. so faith itself is the evidence, and faith itself is a gift, given to those least likely to have earned it by their management skills and all of the doing that makes for safety.

so here it is, the choice to leave the shore and see if He is so deep as He says he is, and perhaps He’ll be my lifeboat, or perhaps He’ll teach me to swim, as if there are lessons for learning things like that once you are in the middle of the sea with nothing but sun and water and salt and wind and love to sustain you.

He-who-is-Love is the adventure; being loved IS the ocean, and who wants to stand on the shore watching the waves come in when you could be drowning in it all? And when your one word is “Go,” what is stopping you, anyway?

By kelle | January 26, 2012 | from here, God n me, love |