One More Truth – Reflections on faith, truth, and being human

What would you choose if you had nothing to fear?

February 28, 2020 by michelle 8 Comments

I did something this morning I’ve been looking forward to doing all week – I took the Friday morning classes at my gym.

I haven’t been to the gym on Friday for two months, because work obligations took me other places. I spoke at a women’s prison and met women soon to be released. I represented my organization at the Phoenix Open, attended a planning workshop and a donor relations training. On two separate Fridays I sat in on a support group for moms with substance use disorder who are trying to get (and stay) clean. They meet in a back office of a methadone clinic and I come to introduce my organization and all the ways we can help and support them, but I usually finish what I have to say in a couple minutes. For the other two hours, I sit and listen. That’s my favorite part.

I love my job and the work I get to do. I love the people I meet. I love spending one Friday with nonprofit directors and another with convicted women or addicted women. I love all the things I do in between – writing grant proposals, training people in trauma-informed care, writing content to share and post, and delivering goodies to those who support our work. There’s never a dull week. Perfect for someone like me.

I love what I do, but the truth is, I don’t always feel qualified. And that’s a very real feeling.

At the Friday workshop, the morning icebreaker required each of the attendees to choose a magazine clipping that most resonated with them. I chose the picture of the woman eating an ice cream sundae in the pool. She wore bright red lipstick and large sunglasses, and her head was tilted back in carefree confidence. When it was my turn to explain why I chose the picture I did, I shared that I’ve recently adopted the question, ‘Michelle, what would you choose if you had nothing to fear?’ Some days, especially on a Friday, the best answer to that question is, ‘I’d eat ice cream in the pool.’

There are much bigger fears, of course, and there are variations of the question: ‘What would you choose if you were guaranteed _________? What would you do if you couldn’t fail? What would you try if hesitation didn’t have the first say? ’ These are good questions, the kind that drain confusion from a moment of indecision, so all that’s left is a pile of fears and one crystal clear desire.

‘I’d raise this baby as a single mom.’

‘I’d move across the country.’

‘I’d start a blog and put myself out there.’

‘I’d follow the passion, live in my natural design, and trust the Designer to fill in the gaps.’

One very good question draws out all sorts of answers.

The only question to ask next is, ‘So you gonna do it?’

My word for 2020 is free. (Yes, I have a word for the year, and yes, I feel basic.) I’ve been reflecting on, digesting, and applying truth for five years, and freedom follows truth. I know this well. I love freedom – a whole lot, in fact – but I respect the fact that freedom is not without fear. Freedom is wide open, untucked, uncovered, and usually, a little chilly. I’ve stepped into it before and stopped dead. I had to recalibrate, had to get my bearings. Where was I and where was I going? I’ve asked those questions in freedom – because I’m a normal human being.

A sense of freedom, ironically, comes with a sense of lost – ask Paul. Freedom comes with a sense of weakness – ask Gideon. Freedom comes with a sense of doubt – ask Peter. Freedom comes with an overwhelming awareness of underqualification – ask Moses. Freedom will put you face to face with your mortality – ask Esther.

His permission to live freely is essentially an invitation to step into places where I don’t feel qualified. Why? Because freedom activates the faith relationship. In faith, I create space to depend on Christ more, and in His faithfulness, He meets me there with all the strength, wisdom, power, and grace to finish the work. And then the best part – we celebrate together.

So, I’ll leave you with a challenge: What would you choose if you had nothing to fear? What would freedom invite you to do, try, risk, or believe?

Don’t expect the answer or the action to come easy. Fear is quickly learned and the unlearning process is incredibly slow. I know this well, too.

What would I choose if I had nothing to fear? Maybe ice cream. But mostly, I’d trust Jesus more.

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Shooting Stars and the ‘Just Because’ Wonders of Jesus

October 24, 2019 by michelle 6 Comments

Fall is slow in finding its way to the desert. It shows up one morning on a thermometer that reads in the 60’s, leaves by mid-morning when the sun scorches car interiors and skin, then returns with a bedtime breeze. No colors and no leaves, but after surviving months of three-digit temps, I’ll take it.

When I saw autumn on the thermometer a few Saturdays ago, I carried my coffee outside and watched the sky brighten. The open sky has an effect on me. I see stars, or the sun, or the horizon for miles, and prayer is my Pavlovian response. I have a theory about this response, that it’s biologically wired through the vagus nerve, a long and complex nerve that connects the brain to the body. The vagus nerve begins in the roof of the mouth, flows down the length of the torso, stretches little fingers along the vital organs, and ends in the gut. Relax the tongue from the roof of the mouth and you’ve relaxed the sensory nerve associated with performance jitters and common anxiety. My mouth naturally opens when I look up, relaxing the vagus nerve, and the signal between brain and heart – my gut instinct – is prayer. God’s creative design is the coolest.

I talk to God all day long, but truth be told, I don’t always listen for what He has to say. I typically go from activity to activity with my prayers, drifting into different lanes of thought or remembering something I’m supposed to do, abandoning prayer altogether. Sometimes I pray a list of things while I’m driving, ending when I arrive, never once getting quiet with the Lord. The vagus nerve was named for the Latin word ‘wandering’. Appropriate description of my prayer life.

While watching the sun rise that Saturday morning, I jumped into praying a few days’ worth of stuff. God said, ‘Whoa, Michelle. One at a time.’ I knew it was His idea because one at a time is a God practice. My ideas run fast and tangled, and seventeen at a time is my ineffective approach. I liked His idea better.

I prayed one request, pausing to ask God what He thought of the matter, allowing Him to cool my confusion, hurt, or need. I’d forgotten how reflective prayer feels like rest and I shifted easily into the slower pace. It was so peaceful, I committed the next two weeks to morning prayer, first thing – no phone, no Bible, no exercise, just me and Jesus. And coffee. Sorry, I’m basic.

Two weeks under the stars of early morning required some adjustments, but not many. I hadn’t laid under the stars as if there was nothing else to do for years and I awoke ready for prayer and the quiet rustle of palm trees. The moon filled and then emptied, carrying me a week past my two week challenge. My challenge has become a practice. It’s too good to quit.

I’d prayed for one thing at the beginning of the prayer challenge – to see a shooting star. I’ve seen at least six so far. It wasn’t a prayer with utility or importance, just a prayer to witness the wonder and smile. I can’t explain why God would grant my request with such extravagance, other than to reflect His generous nature. He’s reminding me that as much as I need prayer time with Him, He delights in time with me. He wants my prayers, and I’m glad, because I have a lot of them.

The first recorded miracle of Jesus happened at a wedding celebration. The wine ran out – an embarrassment, yes, but certainly not the end of the world – and Mary told her son about it in such a way, He understood she was asking for a miracle. Mary had never seen Jesus perform a miracle, but she’d experienced the miracle of having Him drop into her womb in the most perplexing fashion. She’d witnessed the miracle of watching her son grow in distinction, beyond human limits, yet fully attune to the cry of humanity. She believed the God who had sent her a son had indeed sent His own Son, and as He grew, her faith grew with Him, moving from head to heart to lifestyle.

Jesus answered his mother’s request with, ‘It’s not my time.’ He could have left it at that. But Mary’s response to the wedding workers, ‘Do whatever He tells you,’ communicates wild faith. She believed Jesus was capable of every impossibility and she boldly and humbly trusted He would act – not because He had to, but because He loved her, because He cared, because He’s the giver of all good things. Just because.

Jesus looked at his mom, felt her faith, and knew – His time had come early. He turns water into wine that night. I like to imagine Jesus smiling to Himself, thinking, ‘She’s going to be so tickled about this.’ I don’t doubt He delighted in watching Mary taste the goodness and look His way, completely overwhelmed by the miracle, completely thankful she’d been there to ask, and by doing so, experience the wonder.

Stars streak the sky all the time; I only notice them when I’m watching. So I’m making space in my life to sit under the sky and look up. Prayers are answered all the time, but how often do I notice? I’m making space in my heart for bigger faith, the kind that asks for simple joy as well as the kind that releases those deep-down gut prayers. And when I’m too tired to talk or make sense of my own thoughts, I don’t say anything. I just watch for His wonder.

Every once in awhile, one of my kind readers asks, ‘Is it ok that I shared your post?’ For heaven’s sake, YES!! Yes you can! Any time, my friends. And thank you!

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In the Trembling, the Path is Revealed

September 10, 2019 by michelle 10 Comments

While getting ready for work last Wednesday, I came across a small note in one of my shoe boxes. I knew why the note was there, buried under a pair of shoes I rarely wear, and I remember the night I shoved it there, out of my sight. It was note from my daughter, written during a dark time in her life.

I knew healing, growth, and restoration bridged the two years between then and now, and I knew the daughter sleeping down the hall was safe, and her thoughts were safe, by God’s grace. And in my present reality, her joy and peace are visible and real, but reading the thoughts of her dark season again made the depths of me tremble. My body and mind knew the truth of ‘now’, but they also remembered the truth of ‘then’.

I stayed on the floor of my closet, rolling my neck and shoulders, breathing. I’ve studied trauma and secondary trauma, compassion fatigue, professional resiliency, and trauma healing. The remedy for triggers and stress, trauma and panic is simple – release the tension. In the complexity of crisis, when vigilance was necessary, ‘release the tension’ was a hard pill to swallow. With practice, I’ve come to appreciate the simple solution. Release has become a reflex, a medicine with quick results.

But in my calm body, I wondered why I hadn’t ripped that note to pieces and thrown it away, sent it off to a landfill far from my home so I wouldn’t have to remember. And I wondered why I was closing the shoe box with the note still in it, preserving it for another discovery.

I didn’t want to remember; but I didn’t want to forget.

Yes, I remembered the frantic months of recovery and finding help, but I couldn’t forget how God had led me to good people and proper care. Yes, I remembered praying exhausting prayers for healing and hope, but I couldn’t forget the peace that had guarded my mind and filled our home. I couldn’t forget how that peace had completely overwhelmed my understanding.

I remembered conversations no mama wants to have, but I couldn’t forget the relief of lies and shame and destructive beliefs being dug up by the roots during those conversations. I couldn’t forget how truth and grace had settled like seeds on the fresh, messy furrows of my daughter’s heart and mind. I couldn’t forget the moments and days and conversations to come when I saw evidence of those seeds flourishing, when I heard truth and health in my daughter’s tone. She could articulate what was once confusion. She could locate the truth in the noise, and she knew how to hold it – she believed it.

In remembering, I trembled in fear. In reconciling the experience with my present situation, I trembled in gratitude. We’d made it to the other side, and I couldn’t forget the wonder of a God who loved us, saw us, and carried us through.

In Psalms, slaves on their exodus come to the Red Sea. They see an impassable barrier of water; God sees a dry path underneath the sea. In the poetic retelling, the Red Sea trembles at the sight of God, and in the shaking, a path is revealed, a path no one knew was there. God had created a way through, long before it was needed – and in the trembling the path to freedom is brought to light.

Man, I’ve trembled. I don’t love it, but I’ve learned not to run from it. Because in the shake up, the truth is revealed – about God, about me, about what He’s created deep within me. He’s always provided a way through, He’s always led me across impossible waters, safe and dry – and forever changed. I may remember the fear, but I won’t forget His faithfulness. I may remember my weakness, but I won’t forget the wonder of His power. I may remember the darkness, but I sure as heck haven’t forgotten the breaking of light. Freedom was on the other side of what seemed an impossible journey, but I had to walk through it to get there.

Later that day, I help a woman in the throes of crisis and trauma. She’s wondering if she has what it takes to walk the long road ahead, and I remember wondering the same thing many times before. I remember to encourage her one step further.

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Love, pendulums, and the Author of grace

August 5, 2019 by michelle 4 Comments

Last week a CNN article announced a prominent Christian author and former pastor was walking away from both his marriage and the Christian faith. Newsweek had covered the story, as had USA Today, NPR, and Fox News, making it apparent the mainstream public cared just as much about the story as Christian circles. That doesn’t happen very often.

But a pendulum swing is always big news, I suppose, making Joshua Harris’ story a journalistic feast.

‘I Kissed Dating Goodbye‘ hit bookshelves in January of 1997. Harris was young, but his book – essentially the teen guidebook for Christian purity – would launch him into Christian stardom. It sold 1 million copies, and although it was written with good intentions, it quickly became a legalistic handbook on fear rather than love.

Fear constructs ideals and judgements and calls them religion. Fear develops formulas and sorts people into categories of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. Fear gets puffy and ugly and raises hate flags.

Fear wasn’t what Joshua Harris intended to communicate. He asked the publisher to stop printing his book and made an apology for his words and any destruction they’d caused. But I wonder if he forgave himself, because I know – painfully – making apologies doesn’t indicate anything about a personal understanding of forgiveness. Two decades after becoming Christian famous, Harris wrote new words – he was leaving faith. He was kissing the Christian circle goodbye.

I was truly sad about it, not because I always love the Christian circle, because I’ll be honest, sometimes I don’t. Not because I’d been a fan of Harris’ book. I never read it, but in a way, it shaped me.

I was a senior in high school working at the Family Christian Store the day the book came out, and I was eight months pregnant. Joshua Harris was the poster child for doing everything right as a Christian teen, and I was the poster child for doing everything wrong as a Christian teen, and for the final month of my pregnancy, I carried an illegitimate child while also carrying stacks of the purity guidebook, lining them up on empty shelves, all neat and tidy. I grew a thick skin during that month, for a lot of reasons.

I’d work at the bookstore for several more years and countless pastors, youth leaders, and other kids my age would continue gushing about the book, asking, ‘Have you read it yet and don’t you think it’s wonderful and isn’t it about time we go back to the days of not kissing anyone until your wedding day?’

I was feeding a baby every couple hours. I was trying to make it to graduation. At any given moment I was thinking about buying diapers or worrying my abusive ex would show up and threaten to take my greatest treasure. I didn’t have the energy to agree or disagree with one man’s opinion written in a book. I didn’t have time to take sides, or explain the dangers of creating polarized sides on an issue in the first place. And any idealized dreams I’d formed about relationships, marriage, sexuality, or womanhood had been deconstructed in less than a year, so I wasn’t aiming for perfect – I was grappling for grace.

And the beautiful part of my story is, I found it.

Becoming a teen mom in the height of purity culture taught me a lot about grace – that I didn’t need a formula for Christianity, I just needed Christ. I needed the good form of both humility and dignity, because without them, I couldn’t love or be loved. I learned how to live on the outer fringes of the Christian circle of ‘acceptable’, but I never felt like I had to leave the circle. I knew Who had invited me; I knew I belonged.

Grace doesn’t swing on the pendulum of our understanding, on the pendulum of our culture, on the pendulum of fear or pain or disillusionment. Grace doesn’t swing away from mistakes or swing closer when we get it right. We can’t explain it, we have to experience it from the source: Jesus.

So it makes me very sad when Harris, or anyone, walks away from faith in Christ, because they will not find grace apart from Him. I’ve tried to brute force my way through pain, questions, suffering, and failure without the gift of grace – and it broke me. Brute force always breaks.

The day after reading the announcement, I did as I always do on Tuesday and volunteered at Hope, a center for women in crisis. I sat in a circle with my women and facilitated the discussion. We didn’t talk about the news, we talked about things that mattered, about challenges and suffering, about joy and goodness. We were honest with each other and we listened. We asked questions we wouldn’t dare ask in church. We spoke truth without defending it, and we didn’t rush to give answers.

I have a very good circle. Yes, it is still on the fringes of the Christian circle, and yes, I like it that way, but here’s the deal: the people in my circle – at Hope and elsewhere – are living like their God is as big and as loving as He says He is. They don’t pretend to know it all or do it all right, and no matter what is going on in their mind, body, circumstance, emotions, relationships, or in the world around them, they keep following Christ. I need that. We all do. (Note to reader: Get a good circle!)

We discussed strength and its many forms, deciding on these:

The best strength is agile trust in a good God – regardless.

The best strength is resolute faith that endures – even though.

The best strength is resilient hope that refocuses and responds, ‘Maybe today.’

And above all else, in all things, our greatest strength is knowing and believing we have a God who is right here, unchanged by our understanding, unafraid of our questions and doubts, and completely unwilling to be stingy with grace.

So my friends, let’s live like we believe that. Let’s pray for each other and encourage each other. Let’s continue following the One who loved us first, extending and reflecting His love to those who don’t believe, to those who have walked away, to those who are seeking, and to those who are wandering, because there is still Good News and it hasn’t changed.

As always, feel free to share. Thanks for reading.

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