Our longings are made for beauty.
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It was the beginning of May, and my husband’s words over the phone left me feeling defensive. While I listened, I looked in the mirror and didn’t like the person looking back at me. Nano asked me to consider something that, in reality, could shape my person. He asked me to think about what my actions may have felt like on the receiving end. My heart raced. My jaw tightened. Restless, I paced around the living room while he spoke. My steps got heavier, more like a march. Trying to listen through the noise of my children, I stepped over toys and stubbed my toe. My chest started feeling tense. My breath came faster. I wanted to spill my anger, and my frustrated words came out. I spoke to defend myself. My anger was real, but Nano didn’t need my anger. My tears came. I didn’t like my response. Why does this make me so angry? Continuing the conversation right then didn’t seem wise. So I said so. We agreed to talk later and said goodbye. Two of my kids rushed up to ask for help with their project. I started to work with them while my thoughts readied to boil over. Then I remembered times when I’ve tried to engage with my children while I felt this way and how it never ended well. I told Liesel and Gideon how I needed a few minutes to calm myself down after the phone conversation. They understood and made their way to the bedroom. I plopped down in the big leather chair, closed my eyes, and breathed deep. I listened to the birds singing outside the window behind me. I heard the breeze blow as my kids played in the next room. I remembered I still belong to a good God. My prior thoughts fell quiet. I remembered some therapy conversations from the year before. Sometimes, fear distorts my reality. I tried to imagine what my therapist would ask. What are the simple facts of what was stated? Did I attribute a meaning to those words that was influenced by fear? Nano simply asked me to consider that my repeated invitations to a friend who clearly didn't have the time for a visit may not be as friendly as I hoped. It’s all he asked me to reflect on, and he was correct. But what I translated those words into…was not at all congruent with what was actually being said. Even while Nano spoke, I heard the story differently in my head. With the phone to my ear, fear spoke to me too. He’s saying you weren’t even trying to be a good friend. He’s accusing you of trying to be hurtful—saying you’re a terrible friend. My fear also began saying this one big, scary thing: When you try to help people the best way you know how...you only hurt people. I had never identified my fear like this. The more I reflected, the more I realized what is true. My fear was telling a story I’ve often believed. It’s a story that feeds my self-pity and shame. In that moment, I realized the person to be angry at was not Nano. His words could help me be a better friend if I could hear beyond the shame and learn. Because it’s true…I honestly wanted to be a good friend. But, my insistent invitation was not so beneficial. One truth doesn’t have to nullify the other. Both can be true. The one to be angry at is the enemy of my soul who loves it when I listen to fear. My soul knew it was time to be angry, and rightly so. But my mind did not know what to do with my anger until I acknowledged what my heart feared. My soul’s enemy wants to rush me forward in anger, or paralyze me with shame. He loves to numb me with shame—where I won’t have ears to hear information about my actions that can help me love better. He wants to show me my husband as an enemy, rather than someone who wants to see me grow. He wants me stuck in fear where I won’t step toward love. This situation was not what the voices in my head played it up to be. On the other side of shame, I felt free, and this story seemed easier to navigate. When I loosened my grip on the scary narratives, I found my footing in the facts. While I tried to be helpful, I did something unhelpful. While I cannot change that, I can hear feedback with an open heart. I can accept the situation, own it, and do my best to carry what I learned into the next step. I’ll do many imperfect things. The more willing I am to accept this reality, the more effectively I can move forward. When I listen to the good news of Jesus’ work for me, the unhelpful and hurtful things I’ve done do not define me. In the security of Christ, I have an identity that is never changed by mistakes I’ve made. I am covered in His life. Love can knit damaged things back together. Not through hands that are experts at knitting, but through hands open to the work Love is forming. We need ears to listen, and hearts open to truths that we don’t like to hear. God, give us grace to recognize the fears that cloud our view. Provide us with ways to clearly see the story beyond the fog of shame. The conversation continued later that day, and our relationship grew…hard, holy, and healing. It’s one of the most sacred gifts for two people to know and be formed by each other. Our God is good. His arms are more than able to carry us through, while He refines us for the Home we’re made for. _________________ This story was originally shared on May 11th, 2021, and has been edited for clarity. This post connects well with chapter four in my book, Stepping Home. Available October 14th!
One morning last school year, I pulled my van of kids into the school drop-off and noticed someone I hadn’t seen in a while. As I attempted to wave, I missed the fact that my foot had not fully engaged the brake. I crashed into a pole that helps support the awning in front of the school. I scanned the area and let out a breath. Minimal damage. Everyone’s okay. From the passenger seat, my daughter gave a flat stare. Then she broke into a smile and informed me she’d be giving Daddy a full report. After I waved off Amayah’s remark, backed up and double-checked that the van was in park, I stepped out to apologize to the school principal who witnessed my mishap. He assured me everything was fine. He just wanted to know if I was okay. Thankfully, everybody was safe and the pole was not bent out of shape. I couldn’t say the same for the bumper on my van. In the words of Amayah, it has a black eye now. Compared to other incidents in my van, I knew this didn’t amount to more than a blip. Leaving the school that day, I did my best to drive with more care. I also wasn’t surprised it happened. While I drove, I imagined what the conversation might be like at dinner and half-smiled. Doesn’t it sound like something I would do? I recalled other driving mistakes I’ve made. My worst blunders happened on days when everything else was going wrong already. Shame piled on shame. I try not to repeat those days. For weeks after my incident in the school drop-off, I got plenty of reminders from Amayah. “Watch out for poles, Mom!” Friends and teachers have asked her about that day, so she has more than one reason to keep an eye on my driving. Several months and a summer break have passed since then. School is back in swing. The second day of the school year, I turned into the school drop-off and managed to keep things peaceful between me and the pole. I pulled up beside it and stopped in line. Within seconds, the van in front of me started backing up in my direction. While I racked my brain for how to respond, he crashed into me. Amayah tapped my arm and spoke with amazement. “I’ll tell Daddy…this one is not your fault!” The man parked and stepped out of the car with drooped shoulders. He looked defeated. With a mess of hair partly hidden by his ballcap, his outfit looked as thrown together as mine. He was deeply apologetic. He wanted to make sure I knew he wasn’t going anywhere, and intended to take care of the damages. His voice wavered and cracked. His eyes looked heavy—like the eyes of someone who could barely hold it together with the one-more-thing to go wrong. While he spoke, I felt deeply conscious of the pole just a few feet away. I told him how I’d already damaged my van. He expressed more concern and eventually gratitude. Coming away from the interaction, I felt less alone in my flawed humanity. I thought of times when I’ve beat myself up over mistakes, feeling like the only one in the world who could be so dumb. When I feel burdened by the weight of my inadequacies, people like the dad at the school drop-off may feel the same heavy load. It struck me how, as imperfect as it may be, we serve each other best when we show up to life. When I feel like a failure, I tend to want to hide away from life. The purpose of sharing myself with others becomes something hard to imagine. I become convinced I’ll be a bother. But on this specific day, I felt encouraged in meeting a man who crashed his car into mine. I saw his humanity and it widened my hope… I am not the only one who is human. This confounds every reason I give for retreating from life when doubts flood me. On my drive away from school, I knew I wanted to go forward with trust in God's all-knowing plan. I’ll keep doing my best to watch out for poles. However, even if I accidentally crash along the way, there is more to the story. God’s love is bigger than any human mistake and is able to use each flaw to share the goodness of His grace. ******* This post coincides with point number two in the guide available below. It also connects with the theme of chapter two in my new book, Stepping Home. Available October 14th!
It was the glare of the sun off the icy surface of the pond that held my fancy. My eldest girl and little boy were pushing their toes against the edge to test the strength of the ice. Melting as it was, none of us had ever seen the pond out back of the house sit so frozen. It was new and delightful. Their giggles and awe were the soundtrack, with the glare of the sun freezing the moment too, like a dream. A hand reaching for mine. A question that remembers me, as if the Author of the story stepped in to tap a shoulder, show a smile, invite a heart like a dare - do you trust me? When so much in life feels bleak, that’s when my imagination can feel most eager to come alive , to catch the light and dream of what it’s saying. Lately, it’s a wondering question that keeps bringing itself back to my attention. Is this design on purpose? Maybe the imagination knows that it is a gift that was God-intended to help us hold onto hope for whatever it is that God is doing with the story? And when we’re most discouraged, is that where the imagination knows it has a role to play in helping us to imagine why we could still be hopeful? Perhaps imagination is most deeply intended as a beautiful gift meant to help a heart find hope. Maybe it’s a place longing to point to a God who is able to do more than all we could ask or think. For how would we think to ask for anything, if we could not first imagine the idea that God hears our asking and longs to meet us? And yet I know how much deceit likes to befriend my imagination, as if God’s own enemy wants to possess and distort his good creation. For my heart knows the path to be excruciating, when the story of life is imagined in a way that keeps one deceived about reality, not seeing what is really true inside of actual life. Imagining away the truth of what is real, has kept this heart stuck for seasons too long, exhausting itself for false kinds of hopes. And too, this heart has imagined away such good and real gifts, when its attention was most drawn to the gifts it didn’t have. It was a kind soul who first helped me see how I had imagined away the reality of so many different kinds of love in my life. How much beauty in the world can be imagined away for the sake of what we’re afraid to lose. Arresting is the lure to imagine the worst inside another if it can keep us in the comfort of the self-protections we know. In all the ways deceit longs to befriend our creative minds, perhaps all along what it’s most wanting is to interfere with the way we meet God. At its worst, my imagination would love for me to leave this present moment - the very place where God is waiting to meet me. And at its deepest root, deceit loves to tempt me to imagine God to be someone other than who He truly is… even if it’s in the most subtle of ways. For if I trust that God is as good a Shepherd as He promises to be, why would I need false hopes, false narratives, or preoccupation with what is missing? If I can trust God to be the God who provides, why would I need to imagine away the places in my heart that need care and support and healing for broken things? If I can trust that God is the same Love He says He is, who desires good for me, and is a safe place for all of me to come just as I am, why would I need to pretend away the worst in me, or imagine the worst inside my neighbor? Perhaps we are human with imaginations that are broken. Perhaps we all know this plight. We forget, and again we forget, how to imagine hope and beauty in light of our true God. And perhaps a shared humanity is the best gift we have to help imagine a tender world inside each other beyond what we can see. Maybe Love Himself knows each of us in the place where we are all children in need of the most tender Love. Perhaps a shared humanity is where He longs to meet us, a Love in flesh who lovingly wore this skin, grew into it, and cared for it as He cares for us. Imagine Him. See the truth of how He came for sinners (Luke 5:32), feel the truth of how He loved in flesh, and imagine how He looks at us. Maybe a broken imagination renews with healing hope every time it imagines the truth of Who He is. Maybe in the light of a loving Father who restores what things were made for, a broken imagination could rest so deep that it longs to hold rhythms of renewing in all of who He is. I’d dare believe it’s true, that imagination is a beautiful gift meant to help a heart find hope. So glare of Light, catch us up. A hand reaching out. A question that remembers us like a compassionate Author. Do you trust me? “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Eph. 3:20-21. A prayer : Father, give us the grace to turn our imaginations into all of the Light of Who you are. Surprise us with the beauty of the glory of Christ and with it's imperfect, yet lovely reflection in Your beloved church. Practice : Read the stories of the Gospels and let yourself imagine that you are one who Jesus befriends and heals. Imagine how He looks at you, speaks to you, cares for you. Practice using your imagination to connect with your Savior. Consider ways deceit may be wanting to distort what is good and beautiful in your imagination recently. How does the truth of who your Jesus is, change the narrative?