Laced With Grace

Today’s Guest writer is Lindsey Hartz. Lindsey writes about her new-found faith on her blog, A New Life. Her hope and prayer is to reach other women with a message of God’s grace, love, and mercy.

I sit at the keyboard, thoughts swirling in my mind. They are being stubborn, words that usually come so easy to me. Steadfastly refusing to drip their way onto the blank pages with any semblance of heart or soul. It’s been like this awhile; even halting the flow of praise, worship, and seeking normally found in my journals.

This is the last straw, the thing that sends me into a clinging to the Lord like never before, as I feel like the very air I breathe has become suffocating and life has lost its luster.

I so wanted to be used in ministry, wanted to reach others with my words and story and heart. So many things have been lost this year~ building a sense of personal rejection in my heart that has been hard to shake. Relationships fading, ministry plans falling apart, a fire for my God threatening to fade to a dim spark as I try to cope with the loss of how I thought He wanted me to serve all these years.

I start de-cluttering my heart, my mind, my home–to keep myself busy, to allow me time to think and pray. I set aside my bible studies and reading plans and research and commitments and instead just talk to Him. Begging for my eyes to be opened to what I am missing, what He needs me to learn through this.

One day, I find an older journal hidden in the back of a closet. I open to the first page, see my first entry to Him years ago.

I’m so alone, Lord. I don’t know where to go or where to turn in this mess I’ve made of my life. I do know that I want to be known by you, to be used by you. I feel like so many others seem so much more worthy of your love than I am, more in love with you, more on fire for you. And I’m just stumbling along trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure out if I even believe or deserve that love. And in the back of mind, I keep thinking, please, won’t you pick me anyway? So I can see what it’s like to be chosen?
~March, 2007

I realize that after this entry I had made my own plans on how to get Him to pick me. I tried to earn my worthiness in ways that made sense to me. And those plans had turned into unrealistic expectations of family and church and friendships and ministry, while also leaving me busy, distracted, and drained.

The millions of ways I want to change the world and reach others for Him~ they don’t mean anything if I am not remembering this…

He had already picked me. I was already chosen. I was already known. And I didn’t have to do a thing except ask.

In the midst of this, I start to see that this past year has not been a season of rejection at all. Instead, God has been removing my crutches, smashing my idols, and drawing me ever near to Him.

This time around He’s been asking ME to pick HIM.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” ~John 15:5 (NIV)

God has put a ribbon around my finger.

He is whispering, ever so softly, in my ear: Remember.

Lately, I have led a charmed life. Just in little things, mind you, like traffic lights and sunny walks and scheduling. It seems all I have to do is think a thing, a little thing, and it comes to me.

He is tying the ribbon.

Perhaps these little happenings are mere coincidences. Perhaps I am making too much of small things. Forgive me for taking simple delight in tiny pleasures that have often eluded me. I have never been the lucky one. I learned at an early age that people and circumstances were not to be trusted. As a child I was mislaid, like an extra pair of reading glasses, never thought of until a need to see more clearly arose.

This did not happen by accident, for the Lord ordained this time to draw me to Him, using my emptiness to demonstrate His great comfort. I learned that when this world fails, He is ever present. He delivered me from that time of brokenness and artfully transformed my pain into strength and compassion.

Lately, however, I have been that mislaid little girl once again. My heart has been feeling the pull of the past. My emotions have returned to that time of brokenness. For, there are some big changes taking place in my life right now. Changes that require trust and confidence. Two things that my past assured I would have difficulty mastering.

I am the child I was back then: vulnerable and needy, longing in vain to feel comforting arms around me. My heart is tremulous and easily bruised, my steps tentative. Do I dare to trust?

There comes a time when we must leave our pasts behind us. A time when we must choose to believe the Great Love that is spoken of in the Bible. For me, this time happens over and over again, and I often need reminded that I am a new creation.

And so He has been busy tying the ribbon around my finger. He has gifted me with these little reminders. My child, He tenderly whispers, have I ever let you down before? With each little incidence of fortune, He has breathed over me a memory of a larger past deliverance. In the sweetest of ways He shows me that I can trust Him: by taking care of even the smallest detail. And with each detail He carefully and lovingly attends to, I am reminded of His faithfulness.

When human hands fail, there is One who can be trusted. He dwelleth not in temples made with hands. When my heart is broken, he covers me with His wings. Scripture tells me He knows the number of hairs on my head; He catches my tears in His wineskin. When my trust in man is disappointed, I can trust the author of my life to write the end of the story.

And with Him, there is always a happy ending.

photo by lyacadajar, flickr creative commons

…it will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky.

–Psalm 89:37

I once had a dream that carried me back to my childhood. My two brothers and my sister were there. The baby was missing—having not yet been born. We were riding in the old yellow school bus. So much of our lives happened on that school bus it seemed. The trip up the winding “holler” seemed hours long. Lifelong friendships were established on that bus…pecking order rules created…first kisses given and taken…secret crushes revealed…

But none of these things were present on the bus in my dream. Only my brothers and sister and I. We were sitting close and smiling. I knew from the easy way we were with one another that this bus ride was before my parents’ divorce. This was from the time when our hearts were still the hearts of children, from the happy innocent time before our home was torn apart. We were laughing and though I could not tell what we were saying, I knew that this is how it should be with brothers and sisters: open and trusting, believing that our thoughts and words were safe to hand one another. And in the dream I was happy.

When I awoke the feeling remained with me for a time. But there was something else there as well: grief.

The brokenness between us all began not too long after that school bus ride. And though the years have plodded on and we love each other very much, we are all missing something. The dream served to remind me of the tenderhearted trust that we once shared. The trust that came from bearing one another’s burdens through anything. How my heart still grieves that loss at times.

We used to all four pick a star on our way home from church. We would lay in the back of the family station wagon, side by side and follow the bright light of our chosen beacon home. Invariably–when we arrived at our destination, past bedtime, longing for the clean sheets to slide between–invariably, we would find that we had followed the very same star home. All four of us.

That was how I wanted it to stay forever: so that even our chosen stars would be the same. I still wonder at times how it would be if we were still following the same stars instead of looking out from different universes. For that is how it is now. We all grew up and apart, carefully guarding our hearts from further damage. In the process we lost one another somehow.

When I find my thoughts settling too much on melancholy times, I try to remember the faithful witness in the sky. No, I am not talking about the moon, but of The One who sees and knows all. Psalm 56:8 tells us He catches our tears in his wineskin; that He records our laments in His scroll. He witnessed my wounded heart during that time and in the broken years that followed. Indeed, when I look back in faithfulness, I see how He used that sorrow to draw me close to Him.

There are some things we will never understand, Beloved. But when you look back, look back in faith. Consider how He worked in you. When you look for Him, Dear One, you will find Him. He was always there, catching your tears before they could fall to the ground.

photo by Talke Photography, flickr creative commons.