Not Aloneness

One of the most terrifying feelings we can experience as humans is that of loneliness.  There are times where I enjoy being alone for moments at a time but after a while I always crave interaction and intimacy with another.  We’re wired that way.  We were not made to be alone.

 

 

 

Loneliness can be so overwhelming because it carries an accompanying partner that is ruthless and relentless.  That partner is fear.  Show me someone who is lonely and you will also find someone who is scared…ironically enough, scared of being alone.

 

I believe that loneliness is directly associated with the pain, sadness, emptiness, and loss we experience in life.  It comes from the wounds we experience, the failures, and the circumstances that we find ourselves in, and when life just doesn’t turn out the way we expected it to.

 

Let me add as well that you don’t have to be alone to feel lonely.  I know many people that are surrounded by others but have no deep connection with another soul.  Interaction is not the same as intimate contact and community that we crave and thrive on.

 

If I may, let me interject here that I wholeheartedly believe that we are never alone…never, even when we choose to be.  Sure, we may feel lonely but our feelings are not always representative of the truth.  I may feel that I am worthless but the truth is that I don’t determine my worth…God does…and the truth about that is God says that I am very worthy, valuable, and deserving.  So it is with our feelings of loneliness.  I am never alone.  You are never alone.  It is simply impossible.

 

Why?  Because whether you believe it or not, or believe in God or not, they are always with you.  Yes, I said they.  When we talk about God we must not talk about God in singular terms, but plural.  God consist of the three in one, one in three, Father, Son, Spirit.  We call it the Trinity but most of us do not understand this mysterious and beautiful reality of God.  They are never apart.  They are unified in all things.  They are separate from one another yet operate in perfect harmony.    There is no rivalry among them.  They live in community, with a selfless other focused love that consists of endless life and love between them, sharing all things, especially their love for all of creation and have opened up their circle of fellowship for all to live in, dwell in, and enjoy.  God with us does not apply solely to Jesus.  Far too often Jesus is the sole affection of our attention when there would be no Jesus for us to love if it wasn’t for the dream of the Father to reconcile us through the Son by the Spirit.

 

What does this have to do with our loneliness, or not aloneness?  God is everywhere, all the time.  There is nowhere we can run to escape God.  There is no situation, no circumstance, and no event that can separate you from God.  God has always been, God will always be.  Especially in your darkness, your suffering, your abyss.  If you are looking for God, they are always present in your hardships…in your loneliness.  You may not recognize it, you may not feel it, but I promise you it’s true.  This is why we are reminded that there is no fear in love because perfect love drives out fear.  It’s not about your love for God being perfect either, it’s about the perfect love between Father, Spirit, Son that has been opened up and offered freely to you.

 

Wherever you are today, you are not alone.  Wherever you are on this journey, you have companions.  Is it a quick fix?  No, absolutely not.  If you are lonely, if you are scared, if you have been beat down and beaten up by life I am by no means belittling those feelings.  They are real.  I am infusing hope.  I am reminding you that no matter how real the feelings, no matter how scary, that you are not alone.  God IS with you, sharing in your suffering, feeling every bit of pain and loss that you feel, identifying with your brokenness and offering you an all encompassing, unconditional love, and eternal embrace to fall gently into.

 

Hope is real.  Love is real.  Grace is a reality…for you.  May you realize today, no matter what you are facing, that you don’t face it alone.  The one who holds all things together is indeed holding you too.

 

Be Blessed Friends…You Already Are!

Friendship…what I’m learning and why it matters – Part 5

Sharing Your Friends

 

Sometimes in life we have a tendency to hold on to a good thing with a tight grip when we’ve finally found it.  The reason may vary but most often it is connected to a fear that if we don’t keep a close watch then it will slip away like sand slips through the cracks of our fingers.  The culture we live in plays a role in this line of thought as we are taught to look out for number one, protect our possessions, and put our own needs above the needs of our neighbor.

 

In the past I have been this way with my friends.  Good friends are hard to come by and for those of us who don’t make them so easy our tendency is to hold them close, much like our favorite toy that we wouldn’t let others touch or play with when we were children.  What I am learning about friendship is that good friends need to be shared.  We need to consider sharing our friends with others, and opening ourselves up to be shared.

 

I have not stumbled upon this…I have experienced it.  I am a part of a community that is really good at this.  I have never experienced anything like it before…not on a sports team, not in family, and not in church.  I only started to realize how much some of my friends really loved and cared for me when they began to share their friends with me.

 

Can you ever have to many friends?  True Friends?  Friends that show up, share life with you, celebrate with you, and care enough to tell you the truth when they see you stumbling.

 

When we hold our friends so close that we keep them from other possible life-giving relationships, we rob three parties.  We rob our friends the opportunity to make more friends.  We rob others the opportunity to make a new friend, and we rob ourselves the joy of enlarging our circle of friendship.

 

Perhaps this happens because we are afraid that are new friends will like our old friends better than us.  Perhaps we are hesitant to let our new friends introduce their friends because if we offer ourselves up they might resist…and the fear of rejection overtakes the excitement of new possibilities.  Whatever the reason we only end up hurting ourselves when we resist sharing and being shared.  We subject ourselves to the fear, become our own judge and jury, and then carry out our own sentence.

 

Examine your group of friends.  Think about which of your friends might benefit from the opportunity to make more friends.  Arrange some meetings, invite others to coffee, lunch, or have a party.  Open yourself up to possibility, to opportunity, to relationship, friendship, to creating community.  You can sit back and wait for it to happen, or you can create it.

 

To each of my friends I want to say thank you.  That seems very inadequate but it is what my heart feels…lots of gratitude for each of you.  Thanks for being in my life.  Thanks for caring for me and loving me unconditionally.  Thanks for letting me love you back and offer my gifts to you.  Thanks for sharing your friends with me.  I love each of you!

 

Be Blessed Friends…You Already Are!

Friendship…what I’m learning and why it matters: Part 3

“The more able we are to receive the different gifts our friends have to give us, the more able we will be to offer or own unique but limited gifts.  Thus, friendships create a beautiful tapestry of love.” – Henri Nouwen

 

Over the past several months I have made many life changing decisions, but the three that have impacted my life the most are: 1. Choosing to live loved.  2.  Choosing to participate in community.  3.  Choosing to develop and cultivate meaningful friendships. 

 

I have said it before in my posts but it is worth repeating…WE ARE NOT MEANT TO LIVE ALONE!  The very fabric of our DNA cries out for relationship, to know and to be known.  For a long time I thought that meant grow up and get married and share my life with my spouse.  Nothing against spouses, particularly my spouse (who is absolutely amazing and breathtakingly beautiful) but our desire for community must not be contained to the nuclear family dynamic.  We need friends…lots of them.

 

Perhaps you were like me at one point in life.  I struggled mightily with admitting that I needed anything.  I never asked for help and I certainly didn’t admit that I needed other people.  I had my wife, my kids, and a couple of friends who I would occasionally talk with about something deeper than sports or cracking crude jokes.

 

I had to hit rock bottom before I realized that I needed as many solid friends in my life as I could get.  Hopefully your path is different, but just in case…don’t waste the crisis when it comes.

 

My point about friendship today is this:  Why settle for a limited number of really good friends?  What I have learned about living in authentic community is that there is an abundance of friendship to be had on a very meaningful level.  Upon further discovery and putting my feet in slowly to test the water…I realized it was just right and did a cannonball off the diving board into the deep end of relationship!

 

In letting myself be known and seen I have discovered that each friend has their own uniqueness, along with their own story to share.  I don’t have a go-to friend anymore and my wife is not the only one hearing my heart.  I have at least two-dozen people in my life right now that I lean on for encouragement, support, wisdom, insight, and friendship.  These people know me inside and out.  They know my story and they know where I struggle.  They rejoice when I rejoice and mourn when I mourn.  They have seen me at my worst, and they are now seeing me at my best…watching me live into my true self.

 

Each of these people lifts my spirit in a different way and adds color to my life.  Whether I’m in a tough spot, or if I just want to hang out and make memories, I have friends who are open and ready for the same thing.  Together, they have woven a tapestry so beautiful that I can no longer deny the power of friendship and my desire to want as many friends as I can get my hands on.  It is a beautiful thing to share your life freely with others who do the same with you.

 

Here’s to Friendship,

 

Be Blessed Friends…You Already Are!

Friendship…what I’m learning and why it matters

For those of you that know my story well you know that the past year has presented me several opportunities to grow as an individual…the hard way…through numerous crisis situations and lots of stepping into and through fear.

I want to explore the idea of true friendship and what I have learned on the subject as the events of the past year have unfolded.  I can say without hesitation that I am alive today for 4 reasons:  1.  I made the decision to live, to do the work of dealing with my brokenness and shame.  2.  I truly met Jesus in the darkness.  He was waiting for me at rock bottom.  When I reached the end of myself Jesus introduced me to His Father, His Spirit, and embraced me in the warmth of the life of the Trinity and walked me toward the light and wholeness.  3.  My wife.  She fully entered into my hopelessness and loved me with a pure love that kept no record of wrongs.  She defined grace and loved me when I couldn’t love myself.  4.  My friends.  Healing happens best in community and I have never experienced love, acceptance, and friendship like I have over the past year.

There is an old country song by Tracy Lawrence that comes to mind:

Everybody wants to slap your back

wants to shake your hand when you’re up on top of that mountain

But let one of those rocks give way then you slide back down

look up and see who’s around then

 

This ain’t where the road comes to an end

This ain’t where the bandwagon stops

This is just one of those times when

A lot of folks jump off

 

When the water’s high

When the weather’s not so fair

When the well runs dry

Who’s gonna be there?

 

You find out who your friends are

Somebody’s gonna drop everything

Never stop to think ‘what’s in it for me?’ or ‘it’s way too far’

They just show on up with their big old heart

You find out who your friends are

 

Throughout my life I have always had what I’ve considered to be lots of friends.  What I am learning is that there is a big difference between acquaintances and a true friend.  True friends are the ones in your life who don’t run when they see you at your worst.  They are the ones that show up at the hospital after you have overdosed and tell you, “I’m not going anywhere, and no shame brother, and I’ll be here however you need me to be.”  True friends are the ones that show up with you in the darkness.  They answer their phones at 6 AM and enter into your darkness, pack you down flights of stairs, rush you to the emergency room, and sit with your wife when she is scared beyond belief.  They sit, wait, watch, hold your hand, and nurse you back to health.  True friends are the ones that are brave enough to tell you the truth in love even when you don’t want to hear it.  True friends are the ones that share their own brokenness with you, letting you know that you are not alone.  True friends are the ones that restore you back to community, become God with skin on, and embody the grace of the Father when they run to meet you, extend their arms and give instructions to place a robe on you, put a ring on your finger, and prepare for a grand feast to celebrate that you’ve returned.  True friends aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty.  They touch your wounds, risk infection, apply ointment by shedding tears, and heal wounds with a tight embrace.  True friends are the ones who don’t let you flounder.  They share their heart, their life, and let you borrow hope when you have none for yourself.  This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends.”

 

When I was clothed in shame, believing every lie that could possibly come my way, depressed, in despair, and without hope I found out who my friends were.  Each one of them in their own way, have played a major part in my healing process. They have offered their shoulders to cry on, their ears to listen, their words to heal, their wisdom to inspire, and their feedback to help me see the truth about myself that I was blinded to.

If you have friends like this in your life…give thanks for them.  Add them to your gratitude list.  Stop what you are doing today and send them a message to say, “Thanks for being my friend, thanks for being you.”  Life is short.  The true measure of a life well lived are the friends we have surrounded ourselves with.  We were never meant to live alone.  This life, this journey, it is meant to be shared, and our lives become increasingly more beautiful and full of joy when we share it with true friends.

Be Blessed Friends…You Already Are!

Breakthrough???

Over the past year I have had the opportunity to share my story of healing with many of you.  I have also chosen to use this blog as an opportunity to relay many of the things I have learned a long the way.  Through being vulnerable in speaking opportunities and in my writing many have asked me the same two questions over and over.

 

How did you do this?  How do I do this?

 

I wish that I had an easy answer for you…lightning in a battle, a magic pill, an equation or formula, or a 12-step process to follow.  I don’t.  The truth is that healing begins with a choice…a choice that only you can make.   My journey has been multi-faceted and filled with many great people who helped me along the way, including counseling professionals and mental health experts.  It also included an eight-day stay at a retreat center in Colorado.  But by far the most impactful process that still changes my life each and every day is the seminar I attended here in Kansas City called Breakthrough.

 

Breakthrough is a training experience in spiritual formation and personal effectiveness that is put on by Heart Connexion Ministries.  For more information from their website please click HERE.

 

Breakthrough continues to be the best choice I’ve ever made for myself.  It has completely changed my life in every aspect.  It has been one year since I attended the seminar and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t use one of the tools that I gained from attending Breakthrough.

 

Since I could type for days about what Breakthrough taught me let me just give you a quick summary.

Breakthrough taught me:

 

·that I could not heal what I would not acknowledge

·that I was worthy of love

·that I was not terminally unique or alone in my pain

·the value and beauty of true community

·how to let invite others into my life and ask for help

·how to communicate deeply and effectively

·what true grace looks like

·how to rediscover my true self

·to see the world with new eyes and a shift in perspective

 

The next Breakthrough training for the Kansas City area starts next Friday, April 19^th.

 

How do you know if Breakthrough is right for you?  If you are breathing, alive, and able to read this right now…then Breakthrough is right for you!  I am convinced after being out for one year and having met hundreds of people who have been through and hearing their stories, that Breakthrough is for everyone…because we all experience to some extent the same pain as a result of our human condition.  What has or still causes us pain may not be the same, but in our suffering we all carry a similar need…Healing.  There is no need for you to go at it alone, and there is no need for you to carry around unnecessary baggage from life’s journey.

 

Breakthrough is not about religious jargon, it does not matter what kind of faith background you have, or if you have none at all.  Breakthrough cares not what kind of social or economic status you fall into, what race you are, or your sexual orientation.

 

Breakthrough is about people.  The amazing people who make breakthrough happen have a caring hearts, intense passion, and lots of wisdom to share for those who seek to heal and lead more effective lives. You will not be learning from people who have knowledge but no experience.  These people do what they do because they have experienced the same healing that I have and they are eager to help you too.

 

Breakthrough is by far the safest, most accepting atmosphere I have even been in…period.

 

If you are stuck, if you are tired of settling, if you believe that life is just life and we have to learn to deal with it…I strongly encourage you to sign up for this training.  You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  A whole new world is waiting for you!

 

Please let me know if you have further questions about Breakthrough.

 

Be Blessed Friends…You Already Are!

Jesus…All I Need?

 

 

I have grown up in the church…a pastor’s kid…a church rat.  My journey has included rebellion, hatred of church, refusal of all things God, an embracing of God, jumping back in the church, building my life around the church, and then hating the church again, the church and me…we have a love/hate relationship.  I hate what it has become, I love what it was meant to be and despite the numerous hurts I’ve endured…I still believe and still have a dream that what is in my heart about the church can exist.

 

 

 

 

For as long as I can remember though one particular phrase has stood out to me that I have never felt comfortable with.  The phrase…JESUS IS ALL I NEED.  I’ve heard it in sermons, in the songs we sing, in books I’ve read, in Bible College classes, and from numerous individuals.  I’m not writing to offend anyone, I’m simply conveying my own thoughts and raising questions that have resonated within me for so long and I’ve kept them to myself instead of voicing them.  Let me tell you why I have a problem with this saying and the line of thought behind it.

 

First of all, I must admit that for a season I accepted this line of thought to be true even though I didn’t really believe it.  After all if the preacher or professor said it, it must be true.  However, recently I have been doing some serious study on the life of Jesus, and specifically his relationship with the Father and Spirit, we call this the trinity.  I have discovered for myself that Jesus’ goal was not to keep us all to himself.  In fact, by his own words his desire was to reveal to us the love of the Father, for they are one, so by being in Jesus we might also be in and with the Father with the help of the Spirit.  Jesus never had any intention for us to only know him.  The invitation he gave to share his life came with an invitation to share in the life and relationship that he enjoyed with his Father, and with the Spirit.

 

Secondly, I am convinced that the church as we know is not the dream that God envisioned.  We have organized, institutionalized, and ritualized what was intended to be a living, breathing, community comprised of ALL God’s children, which is to say the world.  Instead, the church has become an exclusive place of membership, it reminds me of a country club…where you are invited to participate as long as you meet the membership requirements.  I honestly believe that if Jesus were to come back, just for a quick visit to hang out in the world today…the last place we would find him would be in any of our church buildings.  God is about relationship…period…relationship with Father, Spirit, Son, and relationship with creation and all human beings who have ever lived.  God is not interested in our rules, our liturgy, our practices, and certainly not our religion.  Jesus was not sent to start Christianity, or a new religion, in fact the Son was sent to end all religion and all religious practices, his goal was to invite us into relationship.  He came to bring a revolution of the heart and a renewal of the mind, to cure our blindness and allow us to see the love of His Father so that we may grow to love him and come face to face with unconditional love and live in the embrace and dance of the Trinity.  God knew we would need help to continue with this truth so the gift of the Spirit and the church was given to help us in this journey.  While the Son is appointed as the head of that living body, we comprise the parts…and as hard as it may be for us to accept…it is not all about Jesus.  It is about relationship, which Jesus came to reveal and sent the Spirit to continually reveal and disclose all truth to all people that death has been swallowed up in victory and all creation has already been reconciled when God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself before the foundation of the world.

 

What I have realized is that Jesus is not all I need, and that statement does not offend him.  I desire to have a relationship with Jesus, and I do, but Jesus desires for all of humanity to have a relationship with not only him, but also his Father, and the Spirit has all kinds of ways of reminding us that this is true.  I have also realized that I need people, that God never intended us to walk this journey alone.  I have tried and that way has failed.  I haven taken the view of Just give me Jesus, He is all I need…I don’t need this world or anything it has to offer.  My friends I believe this is a lie that many have bought and believed to be true…for the world, this broken world, this fallen place, has plenty to offer because it is comprised of human beings that God intended for us to live in relationship with.  This has been true from the beginning by the way, with Adam not needing to be alone, with Israel, with the Jews, and in Jesus the whole world.  I love this world, I believe all things have been made new, I believe in people and while I am not of this world I desire to be fully in it.  I love Jesus’ creation, all of it, and need and desire to be in relationship with as many of his children that I can.  We need each other, not just Jesus.

 

Why I do I believe this?  Because I have finally experienced it, I had given up on this dream and then I found true and authentic community and it was not in the church.  It was in a group of people who were honestly seeking life, belonging, truth, and doing so by the sharing of life together.  It is beautiful, I have found it, and I am never going back.  I am living in relationship with people who know me inside and out, who accept me and have shown me more about the love of Jesus than any book I’ve ever read, any scripture I’ve tried to interpret, or any class I’ve ever taken.  They have shown it in action, by speaking the truth in love, by picking me up when I couldn’t walk, by being a picture of the body living and moving together in ways I never imagined actually existed.

 

Do we need Jesus?  Absolutely, we certainly do.  Do we need to know His Father?  Absolutely, if we desire to fully know Jesus we must come to fully know the Father.  Do we need each other?  Absolutely, the answer is a resounding yes…we NEED each other.  God has gifted us with the invitation to live fully in relationship in the dance of the Trinity, and with each other.  It is beautiful; it has nothing to with buildings, with membership, with attendance, or giving.  It has to do with love, for love is the greatest of all and as we love ourselves for who God has made us to be, we love God back, and we learn to love each other…and that is the desire and dream of the Father’s heart.  At least, this is how I see it, what I choose to embrace, and what I desire to live into.

 

Let it be.

 

Be Blesssed Friends…You Already Are!

 

 

Messy Community

The more time I spend in relationship with people the more I am reminded that human beings are built for relationship.  Literally, it is in our DNA for God is love and dwells eternally in perfect relationship.  The evangelical world has drastically missed the beauty and mystery of the trinity.  The trinity is not a concept, a notion, or a shape that we draw to help us make sense of it all.  The trinity is God…Father, Spirit, and Son, who have always existed in perfect relationship and always will.  I believe their relationship was so beautiful, so pure, so other centered and selfless that it inspired the dream of creation that God made a reality, and the motive behind the dream…to share their relationship with all of creation, including us.  Therefore, we have an innate desire to know and be known, to love and be loved.  We were not designed for isolation, to go at life on our own, we were made for relationship…with God, and with others.

 

While the relationship that the Father, Son, and Spirit enjoy is perfect and without fault, our relationships aren’t.  In fact, sometimes they get very messy.  Living in community, sharing our lives with one another, BEING in relationship with other human beings is extremely hard work.  We are not perfect; we are not completely selfless or other-centered.  When we enter into relationship with others we bring into the dynamics our own brokenness, and others bring their baggage too.  It is for this reason that I believe many choose to not enter into authentic community.  True community and relationship requires something that is not easy for us to do, it requires vulnerability, it requires us to trust, it requires us to be willing to take a risk at loving while knowing full well that the offer might be rejected, and for many the reward is not worth the risk.

 

I have recently thrown myself into community on many different levels.  My desire and search to be involved in community has been a long one.  I have found it in bits and pieces but never like I have in the past year.  What I have discovered is that I absolutely come alive when I share my life and heart with others.  Something magical, supernatural happens when we are able to trust people enough to take the leap to place our hearts in the hands of others and let them hold it.  I am fortunate that I have been presented an opportunity through the BREAKTHROUGH community to learn how to do that healthily.  Now I know what I am looking for, what my heart longs for, and I’ve started cultivating relationships that are like food for my soul.  I couldn’t imagine going back to the old way of life I had known for so long, we were meant for relationship and the more I develop them the more I want them.  It is scary to put yourself out there enough to put your life in the hands of others, but the return on the investment is huge!

 

Having said that, relationships are tough and living in community is not easy.  It is hard work.  Living in relationship is always risky business and there is always a possibility of being hurt.  As mentioned earlier I’ve developed several different circles of relationship and community but there is one main group of people that I share life with.  We have been meeting and doing life together for close to a year and the joy that these people have brought to my life is immeasurable.  They have wept with me, held me up when I couldn’t stand, prayed for me when I couldn’t pray, mourned with me, and rejoiced with me.  In a few short months I have developed deeper and more meaningful relationships with these people than I have my own flesh and blood family.  It’s not always perfect, but it is always beautiful, even when conflicts arise.  But when you love someone for who they are and not what they can do for you, there exists the possibility to not see conflict or arguments as a personal attack.  Instead, compassion wells up inside me and because I love these people I choose to engage them where normally I would turn and run because they are important to me and I’m important to them, so we push through the muddy waters and reach even deeper levels of love for one another after we do.

 

If you are waiting for perfect community and relationship before you jump in…keep looking!  That only exists within the circle of love between the Trinity.  Seeking for perfect relationship with people is kind of like looking for a perfect church…there is no such thing, because people are a part of both and we humans are just plain jacked up!  Anywhere you find people brokenness, pain, selfishness, past experience, and walls that need to be torn down are present.  As we build relationship though these pieces are slowly torn down piece by piece and behind the walls of insecurity lie beauty, a perfect creation, sons and daughters, the Beloved children of a Father who made them to be loved and to love, to be known and to know.  By BEING in relationship we live out the dream of creation and experience just a taste of what the Father, Spirit, and Son enjoy with each other.  If you don’t like being in relationship I’m not sure you will like Heaven very much.  Whatever your concept of that place is, whatever it turns out to look like, and wherever that happens, I am 100% sure of one thing…Relationship will be the driving force of our existence there for God in Christ reconciled the whole of creation to himself and has swallowed us up in relationship.

 

What about you?  How do you experience relationship?  What keeps you from relationship?  Does the thought of sharing your life with others scare you or excite you?  These are questions worth considering, our heart is begging for us to consider them.  I can only speak for myself and as I have considered these questions I am left with one resounding answer…I want relationship and everything that comes with it.  I desire to BE in relationship with God, and to continually learn how to be in relationship with others.  I want to share this journey called life with anyone willing to be real enough for me to see his or her heart, and allow me to share mine, even if it gets a little messy sometimes!

 

BE BLESSED FRIENDS…YOU ALREADY ARE!

 

Reflection & Remembrance

 This week I got to participate in an amazing time of genuine, authentic community.  I am a part of a community connected with Breakthrough, a seminar that turns into family that is put on by HeartConnexion Ministries.  This is one of three amazing communities I have the privilege of being involved in.  It’s amazing how much extended family and community can impact your life.  I don’t know how I’ve lived without it all these years.  You really should try it!

 

Okay so back to the point.  When was the last time you allowed yourself to reflect and remember?  May I suggest that this is the perfect time of year to do such?  2012 is almost gone.  A lot has happened.  In your life and in mine we have had experiences that have changed our lives forever.  Some of them were good, some of them bad, and some of them making the change from what started out bad but are turning into good moments.  It’s amazing how God and time can make that happen.

 

So this night that I participated in this week was all about reflecting and remembering.  The entire night was themed this way.  For some of us reflecting and remembering is scary.  Our pasts are filled with so much hurt, pain, and loss that an honest look back is really hard.  May I suggest that this is exactly when you want to remember and reflect?  This process when done honestly can lead us to different conclusions about our lives that we have already come up with in our mind.  It can lead us to a place where our stories can be written differently if we so desire.  Reflection and remembrance can allow gratitude to slip up on us and we can find ourselves surprised by hope!

 

Will you try something for me?

 

Allow yourself to get completely still. and completely silent.  As much as you can empty your head of its many thoughts, worries, and struggles.

 

Now take your hand and place it firmly over your heart.  Be completely silent.  What do you feel?  What do you hear?  The feeling is the beat of a beautiful heart that beats just for you because of God.  God created your heart, sustains your heart, and seeks to fill your heart and soul with so many good things.  The sound is a solid thump of your heart.  Change your breathing up.  Breathe deeper, harder, and faster.  Feel the thump change; listen to its intensity increase as your activity does, recognizing that God made your heart to function this way.  Our hearts increase as our activity does to allow more blood and oxygen to flow so we can sustain that energy.  Isn’t that amazing?  Isn’t He amazing?  When was the last time you were this in touch with your heart?  You should do it more often.

 

In that place of captivation by the feel and sound of your heart, allow your mind to drift back to memories.  Look over the past year and seek out things you are grateful for.  If we search hard enough we all have things to be grateful for and we seek gratitude we allow joy to enter into the picture.  If you can’t find anything else, be thankful for the beat of your heart…can you still feel it?

 

With that memory settled in your mind and still connected to your heart, let yourself think of moments of success this year.  We all define success differently.  Maybe say it differently; what are you proud of?  Reflect on some proud moments.  It’s okay.  Be selfish for a moment and pat yourself on the back for a second.  Many times we seek so much approval from others that we don’t take time to appreciate and love ourselves.  The truth is that you are worth it.  Breathe in and out, remembering the moments where you rocked it.  Where you put your mind to something and delivered.  Big or small, it doesn’t matter, if you did it then celebrate it.  We need to do this more often.

 

Now we are grateful, and we are proud, and that is okay!  Joy is showing up and warming our souls as we are in touch with our hearts.  Final thing…think of a really hysterical moment from the past year.  Don’t take yourself too seriously.  I firmly believe that we adults need to spend more time laughing.  And not just a smirk or a little chuckle, I’m talking about a deep, hearty, gut-busting laughter!  The kind of laughter, which makes you spit out your drink, or makes food funnel through your nose because it is so intense.   When was the last time you laughed and tears of joy started to run down.  Go to that moment and as you recall it just allow yourself to laugh.  Laugh at yourself, your children, your co-workers, whatever that moment was and whatever was involved, remember it and just laugh.

 

Now, we’ve done some good reflecting.  What is your heart telling you?  What emotions do you feel?  What was it like to reach back in the past year and dig out moments that were full or pride, joy, and laughter?  These are the moments that quite often get stolen from us as we live in the past and worry about the future.  We remember the past and we reflect on it, but we don’t live there.  We must learn to live in the present.  I know how hard this is btw.  Living 24 hours at a time is one of the hardest things you will ever set out to do, especially if you are consumed with worry or overwhelmed with guilt and shame.  In fact it’s next to impossible.  I think Jesus may have had something to say about both of those things.   We may be better served to start off with a more attainable goal.  What about one hour at a time?  Is that still difficult?  Then try one minute at a time.  The point is living in the moment, moment by moment.  It takes practice.  However, like most things the more we practice it the more present it becomes in our lives.  We begin to distance ourselves from worry, fear, and the doom and gloom attitude that dominates our minds so often.  Soon you will start to notice that entire days go by where you were present and in the moment the whole day!  Those days can turn into weeks, and the weeks can turn into a month, and so on.

 

It’s not that those days don’t still present challenges.  It’s that we learn to look and process them differently.  We learn to let them go.  We learn to live in the moment by continually being surprised by hope, reassured of our immense worth and value as the Beloved, and finding gratitude even in unwanted circumstances.  This is the kind of life that regular remembrance and reflection can help produce.  When we allow ourselves to get still and quiet, to feel the rhythm of our heartbeat, we are reminded that we are loved and that our lives are much more than past hurts and bad memories.

 

This holiday season I pray that you and I can use the practice of solitude in such a way that we remember we have much to rejoice and celebrate.  In doing so I hope we reflect that life is worth living, love is worth embracing, and joy is worth fighting for.

 

Be blessed friends…You already are!

 

 

The Healing Process – Part II Community

Confession is a great start to the healing toward wholeness.  In my opinion it is the first piece of the puzzle.  The straight edges if you will that allow a framework for the rest of the puzzle to be put together.  Now, it’s time for those jagged pieces to be in some sort of order so they can be fit together.  Here is what I have learned about those pieces:

Part II – The absolutely essential piece of Community

While confession is an important piece, community is the catalyst for it.  Have you ever tried to confess on your own?  Especially if the lies of our fallen mind are in full effect, confessing to an angry dis-approving God is nearly impossible.  When we fail to see the unconditional love of the Father we need others in our lives who can help us not only see it, but who can make it a reality in the ugliest of circumstances.

The journey toward wholeness in my opinion must include a healthy community and family.  It is one of the unique characteristics of our DNA, part of God’s design in creation.  He never meant for life to be lived alone.  The islands of our western world and way of existence go against God’s original plan for us to live in circles of extended family and community.  I absolutely hate it when Christians say really uneducated things like, “Jesus is all I need.”  It’s simply not true.  Many books have been written from this position and numerous songs of worship composed around this thinking.  It’s not only untrue, it’s not even Biblical.

Community has always been God’s intention for the human race.  The early church is a great example of this as they absolutely depended on each other both spiritually and physically for their needs.  The church for them was a collection of human souls deeply desperate for the need of not only the supernatural but also the physical touch and support of each other.  This is not just a New Testament concept.  Community was a huge part of the Old Testament as well.  The children of Israel may have wandered for 40 years, but they didn’t wander alone.  They were led not only by a cloud and fire, but with each other.  They understood the concept of community, family, and their need to accept and give love and support to one another.

Unfortunately, this concept is almost non existent in our American, Western understanding of faith and view of the world.  No where in the world does the “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality exist like it does in the US.  We live isolated in our neighborhoods and suburbs, hardly  knowing the people who live right around us.  Our faith communities are no different.  Sure we go to church and attend worship but that is hardly community the way God intended it.  It has become way too easy for a person to just be a number in a service.  Our churches are silos where people who suffer sit alone in their darkness, instead of hospitals where the sick are loved and cherished for who they are.  Unfortunately our  past experience says church is no place to share pain, hurt, loss, and struggle.  After all Christians are supposed to have it all together right?  And when we have tried to confess in those faith communities the outcome is often tragic.  Often we are shamed by the very ones who should be extending grace.  The church is the only community I know that is good at devouring its own.

Confession is a great way to start to healing.  Community is the catalyst and I believe healing happens best in community.  So how do we find it?  Community is hard work, plain and simple.  Not only does it require us to be completely open and honest with our struggles, it also requires us to gracefully receive others and all their junk as well.  Families are messy and community is all about building extended family.  Don’t be dismayed though, there are communities out there that exist and thrive like this.  I have found two of them.  There is no doubt that I would not be where I am at today if it weren’t for the healthy communities I have found.

1.  While it seems like I have bagged on the faith communities (trust me it’s for good reason and past experience) there are healthy communities of faith that do exist.  What to look for?  A church that is solidly grace based.  Way to much shame is thrown around the church.  This is mostly due to awful theological interpretations and a misunderstanding of the triune God of love, mercy, and grace.  Look for a leader of a church that displays and promotes this kind of acceptance and grace publicly.  It it is not happening in public, it is not happening in private either.

2.  Don’t limit your search to churches.  When the church (the institution) fails, seek it elsewhere.  The church isn’t the organized system of religion we’ve come to know it as anyway.  The church is the body, the people.  Find a support group, talk to others who you know have gone through hard times, communities are out there.  If you live in the KC area I highly recommend researching the BT community I have grown to love and know as family.

I also happen to be a part of a faith community that functions in this way.  For KC folks Kaw Prairie Community Church is the most grace filled church I have ever seen much less been a part of.

3.  Build your own.  Starting and maintaining healthy community is not rocket science.  It requires a few key essentials and starting your own can be difficult, but it can be done.  I have done this as well.  Here a few things I looked for in starting my own extended family.

• People I could trust.
• Environments of safety.  It’s hard to open up when we don’t feel safe.  If we are to share our stories we have to trust our listeners with our hearts.  Don’t share your heart with people you don’t trust.
• Fellow sufferers.  Nobody offers love, grace, and support better than people who have been there and done that

The road to wholeness is not an easy one.  We cannot do it alone and you are not alone.  You would be amazed at the people you rub shoulders with everyday who suffer alone.  It doesn’t have to be this way.  Confession is a great start and community, extended family, is a beautiful gift from the Father.  Together, as we learn to be in relationship and receive blessing from Father, Son, Spirit; we naturally want to give that gift and affirmation to others.

This is a major part of the ugly beautiful.  In community our ugliness is not alone.  It is shared, cared for, and turned into a beautiful story of redemption and wholeness.

Be blessed friends, you already are, and you are not alone.

For a good listen and truthful reminder I love this song.