The Heart

This saying was posted to Facebook:

here’s to the girls:

whose fathers broke their

hearts before any boy could.

Parents, by nature, are going to make mistakes.  They are human, they have emotion, and they don’t know everything. That is part of this journey called life.  I’m extremely tired of blaming parents for life’s hardships.  We live in a world where people desire to be the victim and will do anything to live in that role.

My parents were never married.  I am an illegitimate child.  My father took off when he found out my mom was pregnant.  My mother, being an outcast even in the 70’s for being a single mother, didn’t list him on my birth certificate for fear that she would lose me.  There was no parenting plan.  There was no child support.  There was nothing.  He preferred that because then he didn’t have any responsibility for a child he didn’t want.  When I was 10, my grandpa died and I was a young girl desperate for a male influence in my life.  I reached out to my father.

If I was lucky, I got one phone call or letter a year.  When I was 15 he admitted that he never thought about me, he never remembered my birthday, he didn’t care about me, and he didn’t want to be my dad (he had a son that he was a dad to).  It was then that I realized the treasured birthday cards from him, weren’t actually signed by him.   It was at this critical moment in a girl’s life that I believed the lie that I was unlovable.  For the next decade of my life this lie would be the foundation of all my self-worth. 

I share all of this not for sympathy, but instead to show that I understand what that statement means.  I can tell you, my father, despite his choices, did not break my heart.  My father, through his actions, molded my heart. 

As a 15 year old girl, he stripped it of immaturity and wrapped it up during a time of life where most girls are willing to give their hearts away. 

As a 16 year old girl, his actions made me understand what it means to forgive and to be willing to allow forgiveness to enter my heart and heal it.

As an 18 year old girl off to college, his actions made me know my heart couldn’t handle rejection, so instead I guarded it and was protected from many poor choices I could’ve made.

As a 25 year old girl, my father’s actions molded it into a heart that was founded not on what men told me, but what God told me about myself.  It wasn’t easily swayed into love by compliments or wooing.  It was guarded because I realized it was precious. 

As a 27 year old girl, my father’s actions helped me to see a man who was willing to love that heart, despite its scars, and hold it, cherish it, and help it to grow.

As a 37 year old woman, my father’s actions helped me to see how much my husband loves with all his heart and how he freely gives love, patience and guidance to me and his daughters. 

To the girl who posted that Facebook picture, I say this:

Every single choice you make will have a consequence in your life.  I realize, since you are a teen, you do not fully understand how long consequences can last or even how deep they can take root.

It is your choice whether you accept both your parents as the ones God gave you and love them, in spite of how many of your expectations go unmet. 

It is your choice whether you will be the victim or the survivor of any situation life throws at you.

It is your choice whether your words will be used like a light that shines in the darkness or like dynamite that will destroy everything around it.

It is your choice whether you will work on a relationship or let it go.

It is your choice if you walk away from a man who desperately loves you and replace him with other men in your life.

The reality is, that man, your father, will love you until he has no more breath in him, despite how many times you make a choice to tear him down.

It is your choice.  Make sure you are ready to live with the consequences.

Happy Father's Day

The older I get, the more I realize there are many moments in life that take my breath away.  Today I want to focus on one person that takes my breath away on a daily basis.

This man God had for me is amazing.

The more I spend this life with him, the more amazing I realize he is.  He is, quite simply, perfect.  I’m not saying he is without mistake, because that would just be unreal.  In our family, we only do real.  He is everything I prayed for and all the things only God could know I would need.

He is Godly, always striving to follow God’s plan rather than his own.

He is patient when the situation is oozing with frustration.

He is resilient, strong, and brave.

He is free from chains of sin that used to hold him down.

He is an example to our girls of what a man should be, how they should be treated, and of unconditional love.

He is an example to me of perseverance and unconditional love.

He is my teammate and a rock in this life.

He is smart, thoughtful, and kind.

He is funny, charming, and completely beguiling. 

He is in need of grace and mercy, which he knows and in turn shows grace and mercy to others.

When life hits him with difficulties, he prays and then faces it head-on.

N thank you for making this life interesting.  Thank you for encouraging me, holding my hand, and showing unconditional love.  Thank you for showing our girls what a Godly man is and all the grace, mercy, and love you bestow upon them.  You have given all of us a safe place to land.  You are amazing and each day you take my breath away. 

Happy Father’s Day my love. 

The Stomach Baby

Here’s a funny story that made N and I laugh.  Last night, I wasn’t feeling too great.  My stomach was in knots from stress and I just needed to lie down for a bit.  Zoe came up, snuggled into me and leaned down to kiss my tummy to make it feel better.  That’s the exact moment my stomach decided to make a noise.  Zoe looked up at me, wide eyed and obviously thinking something very important.

Zoe:  Oh my goodness!  Maybe you’re getting pregnant right now!

Me:  I don’t think that’s what is happening.

How do you know?  Didn’t your tummy hurt when you got pregnant with me?

Not really.  Sweetie, I can’t have more babies.

Are you sure?  Like, did a doctor tell you that?

Yes, a doctor told me that.

Oh man!  I was really hoping for an older brother!  Or I guess a younger brother would be okay.

N and I laughed so hard at her innocence and what she was willing to settle for. 

Perspective

Perspective is a funny thing.  From Hitler’s perspective, he was doing exactly what he was supposed to do for a “pure race” that he believed was absolutely necessary.  The rest of the world’s perspective saw him as the highest form of evil.  Both perspectives were/are convicted they are right.  Obviously, I cannot ever share Hilter’s perspective and I’m not sure I know anyone who can.

What fascinates me is the conviction people have for their perspective.  It is usually stems from a personal experience, so that conviction makes sense.  However, we live in a world where tolerance is idolized and yet, when it comes to perspective, there is little tolerance. 

There are many times where I am narrow-sighted in my perspective.  Life is hard.  Trials and struggles can be consuming.  It can be easy to have a limited view from being marred down.  I admit that I struggle to see God when I’m in the trenches.  Make no mistake, we are in the trenches. 

I know I’ve mentioned it recently that we are in a spiritual battle.  N and I are in the trench together, on the front line, waging war against the world.  We are fighting for our children’s hearts, their morality and their mind.  I don’t use the term war as an analogy.  We are fighting on many fronts for them and it feels like battle.

If that wasn’t enough, while in the trenches with that topic, we were hit with another missile, from a different front:  Satan has also waged war on marriage.  Not our marriage, but one very close to us.  He’s using division as his assault.  Not only are we fighting for our children from the world, but we now have this new attack that has already caused division among our people.

Yesterday, if I had written this, you would’ve seen my perspective as wholly worn down, overwhelmed and defeated.  Being in a war, only to learn that you have to spread out your resources and fight with reduced energy, while wholly overwhelmed with current stressors…let’s just say I wanted to throw down my fight and give up.  I couldn’t see how God was working.

Never in my life have I been so weak, so tired and in such a desperate need of God.

All the energy I had was directed to crying out to Him with the demand of “SHOW ME A GLIMPSE OF YOU!  I NEED YOUR STRENGTH IF I’M TO CONTINUE THIS FIGHT!”

Yes, I used shouty capitals with God.  My perspective was limited to what I could see and what I could see didn’t include Him.  I needed Him to direct me, to motivate me. 

Do you want to know what God did?

He didn’t fix things.  He didn’t get rid of this war.  He didn’t bring in a replacement for me. 

He gave me a mustard seed of His perspective. 

He showed me, in a small way what He’s doing.  I know God, He can move in mighty ways.  That’s not His plan for our war.  He increased our battle.  Yet, in the ugliness of this, He took a moment to show us His light. 

That mustard seed of His light was so bright it stopped me in my tracks. 

I saw, from His perspective, that this battle is much bigger than I realized.  He’s not just going to use me and N, he’s using other people, some I know and some I don’t. 

This war we’re engaged in isn’t just about winning my children for Him, it goes far beyond that.  My perspective was limited.

Isaiah 55:8 – “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the Lord, “and my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.”

His perspective is limitless.

Gonna Be Startin' Somethin'

The one of you who reads this blog is probably completely and utterly shocked that I am actually posting.  To be honest, I thought I was done blogging.  Then something happened.  Something so big, so earth shattering that my desire to write things down came back with a huge force.  Do you wanna know what that big thing is? 

God 

I know that may sound cliché or even a little ridiculous, but there is no other way to say it.  In the last year God has been bringing me to a place where I’m broken and completely without a thought as to what to do. 

With the move from Spokane in the winter, I was brought into a situation where I completely had to rely on Him for answers to my 612 questions and anxieties about moving to the unknown.  It was through that experience I learned that God is in control of every detail, even before I realize it’s a detail.  His answers to those details far outperform my expectations. 

Then the new routine happened.  While I was prepared to trust Him for the answers to the unknown, I was unprepared to trust Him with life in the unknown.  If you can talk about things that stress a marriage, things like moving, finances, and new jobs top the list.  We had all of those in one month.  The stress of all that brought health issues, which brought our marriage into the eye of the storm.  For the first time since Zoe was born, N and I were in the storm together, trying to determine what the plan was.  You know what we did? 

We tried to control

We worshipped idols that put things in our lives ahead of God

We became critical, negative and irritable

We lashed out and blamed each other

We wallowed in self-pity

We began our cycle:  trust God, go in His path, get stressed, put God in a small corner of your life, wreck havoc….

Here’s the best part of this cycle.  Instead of continuing to try to do this on our own, we became part of a community that isn’t afraid to hold you accountable, isn’t afraid to show you your faults and isn’t afraid to guide you back to God.

For the first time in our marriage, N and I broke.  We both lay there completely and utterly broken.  We were shattered without any kind of idea what this meant.  We both had to acknowledge the things we were doing that were sin in our lives.  We had to get real and intimate and because we were broken, we didn’t have the energy to continue to hide. 

For me, I struggle with feeling unlovable.  I sometimes feel that if I don’t do something absolutely perfect, people will see the real me and they’ll find me lacking. 

I also struggle with being submissive.  I’m not good at it.  It contradicts me being able to prove that I’m lovable. 

Do you know what God tells me to do?  Submit to Him.  Submit to N. 

Do you know what else He tells me?  His love is sufficient.

I’ve been a Christian since I was 8.  I’ve been in church, Sunday School, Bible studies, theology classes at my Christian college and I own 3 Bibles, I’ve read the Bible cover to cover.  Yet Satan had such a hold on my thoughts that I felt unworthy, unlovable and was driven to control so that I could prove people wrong. 

I was allowing sin to have a stronghold in my life and I was totally unaware I was doing it.  I had a fear that if I didn’t continue doing it, life would crumble, people would leave me and I would be alone.

That is how incredibly talented Satan is.  How incredibly manipulative he is.  We can sin and not even be aware we’re doing it.  The world tells us the same thing.  Because of our insecurities or struggles, we believe the lie. 

For the first time in my life, those feelings of needing to control, of needing to prove my worth are dying.  Our marriage is on a level that it has never been.  We have an intimacy that I’ve longed for.  We had to break in order for God to come in. 

This is the beginning of my personal revival. 

This is God.