Nothing Wasted - Give Bad Days to the Redeemer

Every so often, you enter a place you've been before and nothing has changed.  The sights, the smells, most of the people, no change.  And every memory is triggered.  ACU Leadership Camps this summer was that place for me.  And so I find myself reflecting.

I remember last summer and how hard it was.  I was so much like an Israelite... refusing to listen because of the broken spirit, because of the bondage.  Oh, and how I wish I could do it over!  Because I have this cry in my heart to spend my one life well.  But some days, I don't. Things aren't clicking and I'm a tired, broken mess.  And on days like that, I tend to cry, "Wasted!"  I made a mistake (or a dozen); I wasted the day (or the whole season!).  

But to spend a life well, does not mean to live a life perfectly, and while that may be painfully obvious to many, I need that reminder to keep me sane.

Bad days happen.  Whether it is our own ineptitude or a series of unfortunate circumstances, we have bad days.  And sometimes it's deeper than that.  We live in a broken world.  We are broken people.  We walk wounded and weary.  We are impaired by the chains that bind us.  And it is bad.    

But then there is this: Jesus redeems.  And to redeem is to do more than make it okay or to forgive.  To redeem is to take something that seems wasted and broken and worthless and make it beautiful.

He makes something not just out of nothing, but out of that which I could call waste!  My mistakes, my bad days.  He declares nothing wasted!  

So I'm learning to stop striving and start trusting.  To show myself a little grace because God shows me grace and who am I to deny what He freely gives?  I choose to trust in His goodness and infinite power and I give bad days to the Redeemer.

Something to It - A Prayer and a Poem for the Weary Beloved

I am weary today.  A chronic fixer who is finding all the things she cannot fix.  A control freak who is facing all the things outside of her control.  And I am committing these words to pixels because it is the only way I can find to embrace you, beloved.  You who, surely, are more weary than I.  And I whisper thanks for you, on your behalf, because thanksgiving precedes the miracle. And, oh, how we need miracles!

Thank you, Father, for sufficient grace, a suffering Savior, an abiding Spirit, and for your words spoken, "So also you will have sorrow, but you will see Me again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you!" (John 16:22)  Thank you for being Comforter, and Healer, and Warrior, and all that we need.  Thank you for the cross and for victory.  Thank you that you are faithful, that you, Jesus, taught me in the Eucharist, and in Eucharisteo, to give thanks for brokenness and pain, and for conquering both.  Thank you, Creator, for the stars that teach me to trust you for all I have yet to see.  For making beautiful things out of the dust of broken hearts... THANK YOU.

Something to It
There is something to it
The way the stars shine
And my life shrinks
I would reach
To touch the beauty
To be all eye
And with Isaiah's angels cry,
"Holy, holy, holy are you Lord God Almighty!"
And the darkness cannot overwhelm me
Like Your glory
The way Holy would reach
To touch a sinner like me
And call me Beloved

I would not run away
If you were to take
One of those stars ablaze
Like hot coals
And cleanse these lips
That I might praise
Your goodness
Even in the darkness

If I white-knuckle grip to your grace,
Will you break the grip of fear on my life?
I break the bread.
You broke Your Body.
The cross could not hold you
Any more than the darkness
Can hold back the stars
You conquer death
You conquer fear
And I can breathe
Because Your power and glory
Take my breath away
Breaking every chain
And all things shrink
In Your Beauty

There's something to it
The way the stars shine
That helps me believe.

Stephanie M. Frakes
(August 4, 2013)  

Five Minute Friday - Story

It's another Five Minute Friday.  This week's word is "Story."

GO

I love telling stories.  Like the time I ran into Beth Moore the day before I flew out on a mission trip to China.  Or the time my roommate and I drove six hours round trip in one evening to meet Ann Voskamp.  Or the way I was in a pit of anxiety and depression because I had graduated from college and had no idea what I was doing with my life and one morning woke up to an e-mail inviting me to apply for what would end up being the best job I could have asked for.

We sat for three hours yesterday and shared stories.  And grace was so evident.  And there are things in my life I've always thought I'd like to be different.  Ways that the world may not view me as successful.  Mistakes that I've made. But hindsight 20/20, I realize how I have seen the face of God in those times and I wouldn't change a thing.

So my goal these days is to practice seeing my story as it unfolds NOW.  Practicing Eucharisteo, this discipline of thanksgiving that ties itself so intimately to joy and grace, is teaching me to see what God is doing right this instant.  I pray that it will take me less and less time to see how all of these detail are valuable in a story that brings glory to God.  It's not always a fairy tale.  Sometimes it's not a book I would think to pick up myself, but it is good because God is good and I will white-knuckle grip to that.  God is good.  My story is now.

STOP

Even Here, Even Now - One at a Time

So I am packing my bag, preparing for a week of camp.  I'm reading updates on Ann's Uganda trip.  #FarmgirlsinAfrica  I've got China spinning in the brain and beating in the heart.  And these cries to pour out this one life and live selflessly.  And the weight of this next week is not lost on me.  Loaves and fishes for such a time as this.  And yes.  I would like to live big, to write a book, for thousands to know my name, to fly across the globe and have people say I am reshaping culture.  Who doesn't dream of fame? Of being noticed and known?  Who hasn't, at least for a moment, thought that would just be so cool to sign books and speak truth in front of thousands and shape history? (Or maybe it really is just me....)

But as loud as the dreams may call, there is the call to live small.  So I am humbled, deeply humbled tonight as I consider that maybe... maybe God might choose me to be a vessel.  Such an honor!  A vessel for the week to love high school students.  Training me over the next three weeks to become a better teacher to serve children, and by doing that, to glorify Him.  She wrote it in her card to me, soon after I had said my goodbyes at my first school, "By serving students, you glorify God."  Ah.  Yes.

By serving _______, you glorify God! Right where you are.  For such a time as this.

One at a time.  One child.  One person.  One day.  One task.  One moment at a time, I could be an instrument of Grace... Now.

I am blessed.  I can bless.  One at a time.

When I am overwhelmed by dreams I wish I could accomplish and by the reality of all that I must do, I can only live One. At. A. Time.

The delusions of grandeur fade quickly, and my one wild life grows small in His hands.  And it is small things with great love.  Yes, even here, even now, my life can mean something.  If I listen and live one at a time.

Five Minute Friday - Broken

I'm joining a sort of writing flash mob today.  Apparently it's been going on for over a year and I just heard about it and couldn't resist giving it a try and this is why: "It started because I’d been thinking about writing and how often our perfectionism gets in the way of our words. And I figured, why not take 5 minutes and see what comes out: not a perfect post, not a profound post, just five minutes of focused writing."  Yeah.  Perfectionism gets in the way of a lot.  So here it goes... This weeks prompt is "broken."

GO

The word automatically brings tears to my eyes.  I read it and this solemnity falls over me.  BROKEN.  How do I write about that in five minutes?  It's a word that I use so often.  Broken.  This world is broken.  My heart has been broken.  If it is broken again, will I recover?  Should I spend my one wild life in safety to avoid being broken?  And my mind is flashing back now...

I took the bread.  I was at a new church.  Usually they had the wafers ready for you.  Little bite-sized nuggets of the Body.  At this church, though, they passed the plate and I had to break off a piece of the unleavened bread for myself.  Oh and how that moved me!  "My body, broken for you," He said.  "Broken so that you might be made whole.  Broken so that you never have to fear the brokenness you face.  Broken to save and to redeem and to promise you new Life.  My body, broken so that you might remember that I am all about making broken things whole.  I am all about restoring this world.  I am all about saving and loving and healing and comforting.  Do this in remembrance of Me!  Break this bread and remember that you don't need to protect yourself because I will protect you."

And I take the bread and I remember.  And I don't fear being broken.

STOP

Above the Noise - Sing Out Loud

I struggle so much to believe some days.  To believe that all the things I long to hear, God is speaking over me.  That I am loved and desirable and enough and beautiful. That who I am is worthy and I needn't be afraid of losing.  I. Am. The beloved.  And that is enough.

How hard it is to believe and live in that!  To really walk in that security.  And I feel like I need a break through, like I am trapped by my own thoughts and the voices in my head.  The voices that say "It's only a matter of time before you mess this up."  "You'll never be good enough."  "You'll never be wanted."  "Your heart will be broken again... and you will never recover."  SO MANY LIES!

And I know the Truth.  And it's a part of my morning routine.  Coffee in the cup holder, key in the ignition, radio on.  And I sing all my favorite songs on the way to work.  And when I hit that left hand exit that takes me off I20, I turn the radio down and I start quoting those Scriptures one by one by one.  And I have found it to be the best way to prepare for the day.  But it's so easy to forget.  The Sanity Manifesto tends to go out the window when the noise is so insane, and it's so easy to stop rehearsing the refrain when you're struggling to believe... when the route and the routine have changed.  And I have a choice to make.

Will I let the voices drown out the song?  Will I choose fear?  Will I let anxiety sweep me off my feet?

Or will I choose Truth and Life and Joy? I have this Song - will sing it?

YES!  I will sing.  Right here, right now, out loud. Because the enemy is vanquished by a hymn.  And when it is hardest, that is when we sing loudest.  If we are to rise above the noise in victory, we must sing out loud! So I pull out the journal, and I scrawl it in ink right under where I've written about the lies that haunt me... and I read it over and over out loud:

I am complete in Christ.  I have been made whole.  His grace makes my loaves and fishes life enough.  He is in control and redeems even my failures.  He holds my heart, even when it breaks.  He is a comforter and a healer.  I. AM. LOVED!  The Cross screams it across time and history.  He sings it over me as He rejoices.  I will allow this God, so mighty to save, to quiet me with His love, and I will believe that He delights in me.  ALWAYS.  

And I breathe Grace in deep, open the hands to Peace, as I opened the mouth to speak Victory Truth out loud.  Because to rise above the noise, I must sing out loud.

Tissues, Tears, and Altar Moments - Given up, Given Over

So I have this package of tissues that I keep in my purse at all times.

They're from China.  Given to me by a friend as a "just in case" as I ran out the door of her flat to explore The Forbidden City.

I never opened them... That is until the day I left and my heart broke.  The day I sat in the back seat of an old car, windows rolled all the way down, and listened to the cries of "Zàijiàn, stef-ah-nyay! Wǒ ài nǐ!" I don't know much Chinese, but those are two phrases I never have forgotten: Goodbye and I love you!  And the tears fell freely, even as I laughed at those precious little bodies stuck half way out the second story windows, arms waving wildly.

Those tissues have lasted me this long because that's the only time I use them: when tears fall and my heart breaks.  I only use them during the "I give up" moments.  The "I'd like to plan my own way, thanks, but I am called to be a follower, not a planner" moments.  The wrestling with God moments.  The "Peniel - I have seen God face-to-face" moments.  They only come out in those moments when I realize in a deep way that the cost of love is grief, but love is always worth the price.

And there are moments - altar moments - when the call of God and the weight of His glory make it all too clear how much of a failure I am.  How weak and deeply human.  How prone to fear and idolatry, especially the idol of control.  And it doesn't get me very far.  And in those altar moments, the grace-filled call to surrender all is so clear, yet so painful to heed because, while I want the Lord to have all of me fully given over, the Lord does give and take away and to bless His name can be hard.  But I need to get to that heart-place daily.  Because "He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also graciously give us all things?"  (Romans 8:32)

All.  Things.  Maybe it won't look exactly like I imagine, but He will not withhold the desires of my heart.  This good God who loves me so deeply will hold nothing back.  So moment by moment, I need to practice giving up this trying to make things happen and giving over my heart and my life to Him to refine and reshape my desires and dreams.

And that is so. much. harder. than it sounds.  But I long to live that way... Given up and given over.