Fire refines gold.
Believe in hard stuff.
Believe that God meets us there and we lean in to Him.
Believe that HOPE and HARD are best friends.
Believe that His strength is greater; know that leaning into His timing and His plan is the hardest thing we get to continue doing in this world.
In the FULLNESS of time (not now, not tomorrow, but in eternity) we will know what this unclear, hard, hurtful, and messy stuff was for.
My High School P.E. teacher and Cross Country coach died after racing the Chicago Marathon - where she finished with a Boston qualifying time. Her wisdom every single day was to "enjoy the struggle."
Believe that too - because everything worth living for is eventually something you have to fight for.
I look back on 27 years of life and I see a child's finger-painting; it's nothing but blended colors of inanimate shapes and everything messy. I see a girl learning that she can't do it alone. And with time and perspective - it reveals something simple, true and absolutely beautiful.
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| Reach Art Studio. 2009. YL Work Project - Before I knew Lansing had my heart |
- 15 years ago I self-consciously stopped wearing my hearing aids
- 9 years ago cancer was removed from my healthiest & strongest self
- 8 years ago I met these 6th grade girls who taught me about sacrificial love
- 3 years ago I was in the desert - from friends, family, and God
- 2 years ago I heard a tea kettle (with my new hearing aids) for the first time.
- 1 year ago I was baptized (again) in the Holy Spirit
- 7 months ago our family expanded - a beautiful wife for my twin brother and a precious baby girl for my older sister.
- Tomorrow, I visit the same desert I lived in with both of hearing aids and more strength then when I left it. I see God's masterpiece - there is evidence of gold in that mess of paint.
I trust the whatever, the whoever, the wherever and the however this life continues to unfold - I will be committed to painting it boldly with love, passion, and a toughness that is not my own.
This heart & flesh will fail, will hurt/be hurt by others, and be broken a bajillion times;
but this faith is in a God who doesn't quit, enters battles, and endures forever.
And for you?
If you call me thinking you can make diamonds by moving your own tectonic plates - I'll help you try; I'll listen to your struggles; I'll pray like crazy that your eyes will be opened to the freedom that comes from letting go and letting God.
Because as Bob Goff says, that's what love does.
And I promise you, I'll gladly take you up on your offer for a glass of Merlot as we sink into the couch after you are done trying to move that mountain. For all I know your struggle today will be my mountain tomorrow.
I look forward to the moments we sleepily converse about the times we thought we could do hard stuff alone - hope dreaming of the gold and diamonds we'll see in our painting someday - hearts filled with gratitude for the people who chose to stay with us in the mess, in the hurt, in the struggle.
I believe that if finger painting is already always messy, you might as well paint with a friend too.
Because hard stuff becomes hope stuff when you paint together.
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