I am sometimes amazed at which blog post people tend to gravitate towards... there is this one that is simply called, "the next posting of story," or something like that... it isn't even the posting of the story... and yet it gets read more often than most... I have felt called back to my story... called back to think upon it and realize how in the years and in the year and months and days what it has been that has truly brought healing.... What one thing has been more fundamentally life changing than all else.... This is that... this is the realization that it has taken more than an event but a people... it has taken time and persistence... it has taken the willingness to stay with something and see it through........
I sat at a table and listened to them…. They know each other… really really know each other… as I listened to them I saw something…. A bond that time has tested… a belief that today’s weaknesses or failures don’t dictate love… an acknowledgement that there is a calling to be together and it isn’t about convenience or ease…. It is about love….. and that which God desires to do within a people…
Dear friends who read this and see your stories within these words I must tell you ahead of time that you have so filled my life with treasures that I could never ever convey the fullness of my gratitude… I am who I am today because of how you have loved me….
Staying put and being held.. my feet to the proverbial fires and not being allowed to retreat has fundamentally changed my life…. Thank you… thank you dearest friends for at times even risking our friendship to speak truth… to love me enough to challenge me to see differently and grow …
There are many stories to be told today…. I begin with this one….
It was a year ago this time that my shame and the stigma of being healed from mental illness fell off me…. It was a year ago when a friend looked at me and told me from the very heart of God that MPD and dissociative identity disorder was just the counterfeit to truly finding my hiding place in God….
As a child I had learned how to survive by breaking away mentally… creating safe refuges for myself within myself…. Transforming the world of my inner being, my mind, my life into broken up sections… where some places existed to the ignorance of others……
Eight years prior I had gone through a season of nine months when the Lord and a community of people transformed my life from a pile of dry bones to one who could walk with the very breath of God within.
….. I was healed .. I was whole… and yet most portions of that story I would not tell…. Glad to be through the valley of the shadow of death and in awe of living a life I never thought possible I wanted to put distance now between me and that life…. That life of inconsistencies… of craziness… of disconnection.. of fear of what would or could possibly trigger me… that life… it was gone and I wanted it to be gone…
But don’t you know that skeletons never stay in closets and the whispers of shame that haunt us in the dark linger…. Shame and embarrassment and stigma laid heavy upon my heart as did the memories of what my family had been through…
It would take a gathering of people to bring God’s healing to me…. Not an event…. Not a conference… a life being lived together… it would take a woman willing to risk her emotions to sit in front of me and confront me with truth and love…. It would take a husband not willing to accept anything less than who I was to be in God… we learned together… we cried together… we walked upon a path together… a path of trust.. a path with no guarantees but a path of hope…
Community isn’t convenience…. Commitment isn’t about what feels good today… we aren’t transformed when we hop around from place to place and people to people because as in a marriage there are times where we walk through the worst of for “better or for worse..” we walk through the poorer in the “for richer or for poorer,” we walk through the sickness in the “in sickness and in health..”
I have friends who share their stories with me as they have walked almost two decades with each other… couples in ministry together… they have had sickness and health… they have rejoiced and they have cried… they have been weak and they have been strong… they have known better and they have known worse….
These friends .. these marvelous .. amazing… beautiful .. incredible … stunning human beings… they change my life and challenge me to see things in a different way… to know that there are really seasons… seasons to plant and seasons to reap…. And if we don’t risk living the in between together … after we have planted and before we have reaped… I know we miss out…
if we lack commitment and we lack stick to itness.. and we make it only about ourselves and comfort and our needs then we don’t ever really grow… and I do believe we end up missing out on the most precious aspects of living life together…. And that which God would really do amongst us….. At times we lose out on seeing a season come because we weren’t willing to notice it wasn’t yet Spring even though we wanted it to be … we were still in the middle of December and winter wasn’t close to being over…
We take our lives and our loyalties and we go to the next great thing… guess what I have learned about the “next great thing” … it really isn’t ever different and the season of leaving gets repeated within months if not sooner or maybe a tad longer … but it happens…. It happens until we as a people resolve that if I am a part of this… then I am a part and I won’t leave haphazardly and I won’t leave because it isn’t easy or perfect… what truly ever is… nothing….
It takes commitment to walk with a community.. that idea that this isn’t just about me and my needs or my wants… but that this about all of us… this is about the body… this body…. And sometimes it has more to do with the other arm or the leg not me the hand … and if I commit to that… if I commit to that process of being a part and realizing that the whole isn’t just all about me but it is about growing together… than I really do believe we will see the most beautiful movements of our Lord….. within our lives and within our communities and we will see a growth in ourselves and a richness within ourselves when we allow ourselves to stay rooted and grounded… we will be transformed as we allow ourselves to take root and endure the winter seasons and await the spring together….
It takes that … it take that level of commitment to each other… that understanding that we are going to live life together and not hop in and out …. I’m done with my hopping days…. I have seen the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living as I have committed to the land and I’m willing to walk through December together so that the Mays and the Junes will come….
1 comment:
I'm not saying that there aren't times we are being genuinely called forward I am truly just sharing my heart that in living life together through all seasons we are blessed and grow and that all too often I think we cut off the process because it can get hard....
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