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health & wellness the whole & simple gospel

Shame doesn’t belong to me.

In addition to fear of failure, I’ve also carried a lot of shame around for weird, twisty unknown reasons. I’m one of those annoyingly-quick-to-apologize types, even when something isn’t my fault. I must have asked Jesus to come into my heart forty or so times before I hit puberty. I even dealt with some obsessive-compulsive behaviors in middle school, showering multiple times a day and washing my hands until they bled. My parents almost didn’t know what to do with me. They’d done everything right and kept me safe. Why did I fret like this?

I naturally mellowed out as I grew up, but the painful awareness of sin and the feelings of shame still lingered. It didn’t matter that Jesus had died for me on the cross, apparently, because I lived life like a slave to my emotional baggage. I became obsessed with what people thought of me, in real life and online. I’d chase people down if I thought I’d been misunderstood or given someone a wrong impression. I’d rehash situations and scenarios in my head and in conversation with my people.

But after babies, when all hell broke loose and I hit rock bottom, I learned a little something about shame. I learned that as a follower of Jesus, shame actually doesn’t have to apply to me anymore. My best friend Jessi sent me a text during a particularly rough spell that really got my wheels turning. You can’t be found out. There is nothing that Jesus doesn’t already know about me, nothing that he didn’t already take with him to the cross. There are no skeletons, no dirty laundry. There is nothing that the world can find out about me that changes the fact that I am in Christ. To get to me, they have to come to Jesus. And that’s actually quite exhilarating.

Most people agree on the difference between shame and guilt, and that it’s the shame addresses identity where guilt addresses behavior. So if shame deals with who I am, then who I am is a daughter of the Most High and absolutely nothing can change that. I am free to experience guilt when I do something wrong. Guilt serves a purpose, to remind me of God’s kindness that leads to repentance. But shame? Shame doesn’t belong to me anymore. Because I belong to Jesus.

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health & wellness the whole & simple gospel

Freedom in failure.

Some days I blame it on my daddy issues, and some days I blame it on being a firstborn, and every day I blame it on my nature. It is in my nature to work hard and be successful. Not the best, but successful. I will finish, and I will finish strong. It is in my nature to please people and make them proud of me. I will not make them regret choosing me for ____. None of those desires are wrong, but somewhere along the way growing up, I placed them a little too high on my priority list. Like, higher than people and their feelings and my emotional and spiritual well being.

I’ve spent the last couple of decades living in fear of failure, and the last couple of years doing something about it. First things first, I acknowledged it on a counselor’s couch. He’s the one who slid that sheet across the desk and showed me the power I had allowed that fear in my life. Next, I began speaking about it to my husband. I brought it up all of the time, in all of the little examples that flew by without him noticing. This is why I don’t want to work out with you or sing with you. This is why I overreact when dinner is late, or when a homework assignment gets missed. This is why I’m so easily embarrassed when you and the boys pick on me. Being scared of being a bad wife, a bad mom, a bad friend, a bad leader… it paralyzed me. And then it made me bitter.

But over the last year or so, I’ve begun to heal and accept things for what they are. Regardless of the path my life takes, there will be failures along the way. It sounds silly to say that I had to practice acknowledging that, but it’s true. I’ve spent a lot of my life so far compensating, which is quite hilarious when you think about the work that Jesus did for me. Nothing I could ever do would be great enough to earn my way into a “right standing” with Him and the Father. Jesus took care of that on the cross. He paid for my salvation and then he gave it to me freely. So I’m not sure why I’ve tended to lean that way, feeling like I can overcome the negatives with a whole lot of positives. I will let my husband and kids down. I will screw up at work and in friendships. And every single time I do, I get to plead the blood of Jesus. I get to confess, repent, and move on. With this perspective, there is total freedom.

From now on, I want to really learn what it means to walk by the Spirit. I know that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And I know from experience that where freedom is found, there is hope and there is joy. I am free to live a life without fear because I know the truth and the hope and the joy that lies on the other side of failure, thanks to Jesus.

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life lately the whole & simple gospel

God doesn’t want you to be happy.

Okay, that was a bit of a clickbait title. But…

1. I don’t make money off of this blog.

2. I think it might actually be true.

For real, this idea has been running through my mind for over a week now.

What I heard: A whole lot of people, myself included, have somehow convinced ourselves that God wants us to be happy. This idea allows us to bend rules or take shortcuts or make poor decisions that we think might result in our own happiness. After all, if God wants us to be happy, shouldn’t He be okay with us doing what it takes to get there?

Where I landed: I cannot find anything in the Bible that says God wants us to be happy. I cannot find any wise counsel that says God wants us to be happy. I think Andy was right on in that message. I think we might have made it up.

It might be true! Maybe He does want us to be happy. And I think it’s certainly true God doesn’t want us to live unhappy lives. But in the end, I think we might have missed the mark a bit. I don’t think God necessarily cares about our happiness like we want Him to or like we think He does.

If I have learned anything over the last few years, it’s that God is out for one thing and one thing alone – His glory. I think it’s hard for us to swallow and digest that fully, because we associate glory with things like pride and selfishness. I think it’s also hard because we’ve never seen a perfect love lived out in an earthly person. But it doesn’t make the characteristics of the Father any less true.

God pursues us with a wild, relentless, miraculous, gracious love because it brings Him glory. He wants our hearts all to Himself because it brings Him glory. He wants us whole and healthy and wise because it brings Him glory. He wants us to love well and generously because it brings Him glory.

And y’all? When God gets His glory, His people reap the benefits. We stay healthy and whole, in our bodies and in our relationships with people. We make wise decisions, in our families and friendships and workplaces. We remain humble and honest, in our conversations and in our lifestyles. As a result, we live content and happy lives. We get happy when God gets His glory. And maybe, just maybe, that was His goal all along. Because He knows better.

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community the whole & simple gospel

Raise your voice about someone else, for a change.

Part 3 of DEFENSELESS, a collection of thoughts for 2015.

I was raised in a two-parent home where we ate dinner together several nights per week. My mom never had to work and my dad never missed a dance recital or a play or a sporting event. I went to private school and drove my dream car at age sixteen and got to hand-pick my college. At my wedding, my mom helped me get ready and my little brother played a song and my dad walked me down the aisle before paying for it all. I’m embarrassed to say it took me more than twenty years to look that life in the face and acknowledge how blessed and privileged it was.

You may have already heard this spiel recently, but get used to it. I’m going to get mouthy about it this year. I’ve felt some serious freedom from the Lord to open up about my privilege and my desire to listen for the cry in the night. This is way bigger than race, too. This is about proclaiming freedom for people other than myself.

You’re already free, Rach. I set you free a long time ago. You just keep forgetting. Raise your voice about someone else, for a change.

Everyday I meet women locked up in their own fear and insecurity. Everyday I meet people living in the shadows of shame and regret from their own pasts. Everyday I meet someone who’s been burnt by the Church. Those people are worth my volume. If we all spent a little more time proclaiming freedom for others, imagine how much space that would leave in our own lives for God to break chains.

I want to take a good hard look at the way Jesus loved people, and then ask Him to help me walk in that direction. When tense conversations arise and people start getting loud about politics and religion and morality, I want to be found standing on the “wrong” side of the line, arms outstretched with Jesus’ name on my lips. Those stones will have to go through me first.

If you feel like your voice has been shut down or locked up or drowned out, you are my freedom bell. I’m about to do my best to let it ring. Privilege acknowledged. I want to stand for the defenseless.

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health & wellness life lately the whole & simple gospel

You can be strong and soft.

Part 2 of DEFENSELESS, a collection of thoughts for 2015.

Recently someone told me I had a strong personality, and y’all… it totally hurt my feelings. I listen and read and ask a lot of questions, but I talk a lot too. I try to keep it to invite-only, but when someone asks how I feel about something, I’d like to think there’s freedom to share it. So why did it sting to hear my personality referred to as strong? Without getting into politics and discussing feminism, can I say I felt hurt because of my perception of womanhood?

I’ve always had a fear of being “too much.” I don’t think men could ever understand this, but you women know what I’m talking about. I fully acknowledge that I lead a very privileged life, and don’t worry. I’m discussing that tomorrow. Privilege aside, there’s still a lot of stigma out there with women and their roles. In some conversations, I feel like I can’t say the same thing as my husband without receiving judgment. In some conversations, I feel like my opinions are unwelcome or regarded as out of place. Even if those things aren’t actually true, I feel the weight of my womanhood as a burden when it comes to my voice.

To be clear, the comment was made in a conversation full of love and encouragement. But there were several similar conversations over the span of a few months, and the culmination of it all got my wheels turning. I went on this quest to prove that I wasn’t strong. I remember raising my voice at my husband in my kitchen one night about it. I told him I felt like I was ringing a bell that sang,  “I am meek! I am mild! I am a listener! I follow directions!” and that I felt like nobody was listening to me. I remember raising my voice. Being defensive.

And then I began to see. I might actually have a strong personality. There’s nothing wrong with that. God made me fearfully and wonderfully, and He designed me to communicate to people. He created me strong.

But He also created me to be soft, to listen and choose to stay quiet sometimes. He created me to meet people where they’re at, to sit on opinions and work through them. He created me to filter my perspective through the gospel of Jesus and how fiercely He loves people. Just watch Me, Rach. Watch Me and learn. You can be strong and soft.

Strength celebrated and leveraged. Eyes and ears and heart open. I stand defenseless.

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the whole & simple gospel

Your stuff stinks, too.

Part 1 of DEFENSELESS, a collection of thoughts for 2015.

I got saved in preschool and galloped through years of Christian school on a high horse, writing papers with titles like “Statement of Faith” and skipping out on a semester of college to travel the world with a missions organization. Several years later I married a man who had also grown up with Jesus but carried some baggage. I passionately played the role of savior. I was determined to pull him out of his miry depths and give him hope. Looking back, I’m just grateful the Lord did those things in spite of me.

And it wasn’t just my husband. Now that I’m acutely, painfully aware of it, I can see this playing itself out in many relationships and environments growing up. Give me all of the problems! Come to me, all you weary! You make me feel so much better about myself! I guess deep down, I felt like God would be more pleased with me or something? I don’t know. I’ve always felt secure in my salvation but I’ve also always battled an obsession with approval. Maybe I craved that with the Lord. When I felt conviction about something, I’d give myself a pep talk about all of the things I’d done right in life. When I felt the burden of sin, I’d try to deflect it. I’d commiserate with friends to make myself feel less icky, or I’d downplay it or flat-out ignore it.  Ignoring my own pride and focusing on others’ problems might have been a subconscious strategy to get that pat on the back I’ve been living for all of these years. God would be pleased with me, right?

Wrong. Not just wrong, but horribly wrong. Like, better off dead with a millstone around my neck in the depths of the ocean wrong. Not only had I been prideful for years in other areas of my life, I had brought it into my marriage and my life as a mother in such a destructive way. And instead of patting me on the back, God recently smacked me in the mouth.

Hey, Rach? Your stuff stinks, too. I died on the cross for you, too. You might’ve given your life to me at a young age and had a pretty easy life so far, but you don’t stand clean
without Me. In fact, you can’t do much of anything right without Me. You are pretty much a mess most days.

He asked me to sit down for awhile, on one of those uncomfortable chairs in my heart that makes me squirm and tempts me to people-please my way out of it. And God kept telling me nope. He told me that it was for my good, that I wouldn’t be able to please my way out of it anyway and I might actually die trying. He told me he wants to give me life abundantly, but that sort of freedom involves humility and confession and repentance.

Walls torn down, accolades cast aside. I stand defenseless.

 

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household management motherhood the whole & simple gospel

Ready or not.

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an adapted excerpt from a letter to some of my Influence women

I picked a piece of dead Christmas tree off of the bottom of my foot this morning. I’d been fighting off a cold all weekend and therefore slathering Thieves oil on my feet, and therefore walking around on tiptoes, and therefore not as nimble as usual, and therefore stepping on dead Christmas tree twigs. We cut down down beautiful trees at a nearby farm, and they have since betrayed us and died – a full week before Christmas. As I pulled the greenery off of my foot, I grumbled a bit.

Here’s the thing, women of mine. Christmas is coming, ready or not. In sickness and in health, dead trees or live, presents wrapped or not. Baby Jesus came, ready or not. To borrow an Andy Stanley phrase from a recent favorite talk, about the years leading up to Jesus’ birth…

God told Israel over and over, “Listen, I’m gonna do something with you. You can either work with Me, or step back and watch Me work.”

He’s pretty much down for whatever. It’s either, or. We can choose to be a part of God’s story or not but when He’s ready to move, He moves. Let’s be the ones who are ready for Him to move. Open hands, open eyes, open hearts, all of the time. Especially this week. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to celebrate His move towards earth, towards me. I’m standing here with my heart as wide open as I can get it, whispering thanks that God loved me enough to send me His son one Christmas night.

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