Powerless

I’m discovering freedom from a truth I once feared. That truth is that we are all imperfect. Powerless to our own imperfections. No matter how hard I try I cannot give love perfectly to myself or others. Neither could my parents or anyone else. No one will ever be able to give my heart all that it needs and deserves. This isn’t a truth that sounds life giving. I imagine it doesn’t seem like one that would offer freedom. It didn’t feel completely like freedom when I began unravelling it. However, that’s exactly what this truth is.

 At first realizing this it pierced my heart like a knife and opened up major grief. My heart wanted perfect love. In fact it needed perfect love. Yet, this world can never offer that. With that understanding I’ve grieved. I’ve grieved for all the times I needed to be seen and held and was overlooked and set aside. I’ve grieved for all the times I offered my heart and it was returned with betrayal and rejection. I’ve grieved for all the times my heart was given less than what it was made to receive.

                While holding to the belief that people could offer perfection my heart was left susceptible to the lies this world has to offer. I began to believe that when I was given less than the love I needed it was because I was deserving of that. I would look to my parents for perfection. When their hands grew weak I would attempt to grip my world around me tightly. My shaking hands clenched around what felt like sand that helplessly trickled through the cracks between my fingers.  As I attempted to hold my broken world together, I was fueled with anxiety. I was constantly afraid of the let down and failures that would inevitably occur.

                That fact is, I am created powerless. We were all created powerless. Powerless to our imperfections. Powerless to this fallen world. This realization opens my eyes to the only one who was made to be perfection. It was never my hands that were made to be in control. God gave me a heart to crave and need perfect. Yet, everyone and everything around me falls short. This isn’t a failure; this is freedom. He gave me a heart to crave and need Him.  For so long I was expecting life to give me what it wasn’t capable of fully giving. Yet, I was made to fully need. Freedom comes as I finally allow myself room to break. I am free to allow those around me room to fall short. We can break because we were never meant to be the hands that held it all together.

                In one of my favorite stories in the bible I find another moment where the world displays its brokenness. This story takes place in John 11. In this story, Christ is called to the death of His friend Lazarus. When Lazarus died Christ knew days before hand that Lazarus was dying. Even with this knowledge the death of his friend broke his heart and He wept. This world again offering brokenness our hearts weren’t made for. Yet, Lazarus death was not the end. Christ rose Lazarus from the grave. He breathed new life into what was dead.

                The same truths parallel my life today. Christ knew this world I would enter into and the story I would walk through would bring death. He knew my heart would be shattered long before the shattering ever occurred. However, like the news of Lazarus death, He aches with me. His heart breaks with mine. Grief comes as my heart collides with what it was never made for. Our hearts were made for nothing less than heaven’s hand.  Even in the breaking He knew He would be the remaking. This world shatters my heart and Christ comes to restore it. Life will wound me. It will fall short. I will be weak and those around me will let me down. Knowing full well all of this Christ comes as the restorer who will create life where there once was death.

                The freedom here is I can stop demanding people and this life to be all that I need. I can stop demanding perfection. I can release them. I can finally forgive them. I can release me. This doesn’t mean I settle for my needs to go unmet or unfair behavior. It means I can offer grace knowing we’re fallen. Not expecting them to be perfect means that I can allow them to be who they are and witness them in reality. Nothing more. Nothing less. With eyes wide open I can love all that they are and what they can offer. Because I no longer need to force them to be who they aren’t.  I know who I am. Even more I know whose I am. I am powerless to the powerful.

Limiting the Limitless

I often find myself doubting that there are plans and purpose for my life. I question whether God has good in-store for me. This last year when my relationship with the love of my life ended I found again that same doubt creep in. My thoughts were, “if I am praying to the same God that made the heaven and earth, why wouldn’t he make a way for my relationship?”

The longer I traced the wounds left by my ex, the more I discovered I gave him blame over pains cut long before I knew his name. The wounds ancient in their familiarity came from a first love. The love that paves the way for all other loves to meet the standard. The love of a daddy and daughter. So much wreckage was made in my heart by the man that was meant to be the very protector of that heart.

Looking at my life this last year and seeing all my unresolved hurts that needed healing has been overwhelming. My thought was again, “if I am worshiping the same God who could calm the raging sea, why would He not place me in the hands of a dad who could love me?” With my eyes so set on what God can do but didn’t I had been missing the mark. I have been limiting my limitless God.

In John 11 we find Jesus at the grave of Lazarus. Here he is surrounded by broken hearts. All of whom are facing a pain deeper than one heart should have to hold. Whispers of my same question begin to surface. In verse 37 it reads, “And some of them said, Could not this man, which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?”

In just a few short verses we find Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Verses 43 and 44 read, “And when he thus had spoken he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth! And he that was dead came forth.”

When the people experienced the loss of who they loved they began asking the wrong question. Instead of asking God to raise to life the dead, they asked why he didn’t spare Lazarus from dying.  Being stuck on Jesus not saving Lazarus they almost missed his raising Lazarus. They limited God.

This story moves me. I find myself so much like these people whose hearts are broken and eyes blinded. Wanting the solution that comes with less pain. Instead of seeing how much more God can do with my loss, I tend to limit God. I ask Him why He didn’t spare my heart rather than asking Him to now save my heart.

I no longer want to limit my limitless God. In my life plans I have made have ended, relationships abandoned, and my heart shattered. As I grieve through the loss I want to begin asking God, “What are your plans to raise the dead in me?”

His power is beyond Lazarus grave, beyond the grave of my losses, and far beyond the grave that once held my Savior. My God could have spared my heart. However, now He comes with nail scarred hands that could have spared His own life, and offers to me saving grace.

Soft Summers Breeze

Day Dream under some leafy trees

Take in the moment

With a soft summers breeze

A long awaited ponder

To change my mind

No longer need I wonder

Seeing what I had to find.

Being taught by the past

All that's been left behind

Young

The future comes so fast

Making my present

Into the past

Only ever been young

I'm fearing the unknown

Feels like my life's just begun

And no meaning has shown

Turn back time

For a second glance

Let it all rewind

For a second chance




"Honestly, wont someone stop this train."

Day Dream

Taken away

To endless peace

Captured up by serenity

Where beauty and longing never cease

Endless possibility

Dancing, Love, pure perfection

With never ending tranquility

Slipping away to a world my own

Having no responsibility

Where I can be all alone

In my life of a Day Dream.

Snow

The snow falls in my front yard
Softly as it drifts to the ground
Nothing makes a sound
My heart melts into its freezing beauty
How did this come to be?
Is this powder sugar pouring from the heaven?
Or is my imagination getting the best of me
A walk a long a quite road
The building of a snow man
The drink of cocoa to warm the soul
The purest white
Mine eyes have seen
It covers the earth
With a grace I long to have
It brings for me a warming joy
A smile difficult to fade away
The gentlest of nature’s beauty
How I long for it to stay
snow