Rejection, Pain, and the Time In-Between

     Rejection has a way of making even the happiest people sorrowful. Its poisonous flow cuts through skin and bone and in seconds it reaches the core of our chests, blocking oxygen and weighing heavy and hollow. Breathing is no longer effortless, but rather becomes as chore. Every breath is intentionally unforgiving as heartache reminds us that love is doubly edged. One side is beautiful and exciting, sparking with potential, while the other is etched with hazardous pain. What is one to do when rejection comes calling? When life is good and things are going your way, it’s easy to acknowledge God’s goodness and omniscience. But when life gives you sour lemons and you’re left bawling your eyes out choking on the seeds of insecurity and doubt, a desperate panic envelops the deepest parts of your heart and you are left in utter confusion. It’s in this pain that a crucial decision must be made. Is this heartbreaking moment going to define me or grow me? Pain is not meant to be ignored. It must be felt in order to bring healing. Pain is not the enemy, but rather reminds us who our enemy is.

     As Ephesians 6:12 says, “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

     Pain is our reminder that our true enemy is trying to bring us down until we are stuck in our broken places. To survive this pain we must look at it as a gift. Yes, I agree that sounds utterly stupid and ridiculous, but God can work good into anything, even pain. Pain is a meeting place for the Lord and His children. When we invite God into the pain, He replaces our faltering strength with His. Even as the pain begins to heal we are left with scars. Scars that are seen and felt when we least expect them. In this in-between time in which chaos is king and life isn’t glamorous, but rather looks more like under our couch with Oreo crumbs, broken tortilla chips, and unidentifiable objects mingled with lint, our pain and the memories of it must be used for good.

      How do we use this piercing feeling for good when it’s hard enough to just function normal? How do we invite God into this time? We invite His nearness with prayer. Even when words fall flat and nonexistent off our lips and empty hurt leaves us quiet, we pray. Sometimes the best thing to pray is simply a passage of scripture. No, it doesn’t take the rejection or pain away, but it helps us to heal and come out better because of it. Let His words of life fill you up with air rich and pure. Allow His mercies to wrap around you and fill up those empty holes with the tender truth that Jesus is right here with you. Through every moment and every struggle He sees, He knows, and He will be your refuge.

Psalm 91 says:

 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
    and from the deadly pestilence.
 He will cover you with his pinions,
    and under his wings you will find refuge;
    his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
 You will not fear the terror of the night,
    nor the arrow that flies by day,
 nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
    nor the destruction that wastes at noonday.

 A thousand may fall at your side,
    ten thousand at your right hand,
    but it will not come near you.
 You will only look with your eyes
    and see the recompense of the wicked.

 Because you have made the Lord your dwelling place—
    the Most High, who is my refuge—
 no evil shall be allowed to befall you,
    no plague come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you
    to guard you in all your ways.
 On their hands they will bear you up,
    lest you strike your foot against a stone.
 You will tread on the lion and the adder;
    the young lion and the serpent you will trample underfoot.

 “Because he holds fast to me in love, I will deliver him;
    I will protect him, because he knows my name.
 When he calls to me, I will answer him;
    I will be with him in trouble;
    I will rescue him and honor him.
 With long life I will satisfy him
    and show him my salvation.”

     We must let Him into our dark hurt of today and He will open the door wide to a much brighter tomorrow. No, the pain still doesn’t feel good and I pray that it ends today, but even if it doesn’t we are whole because of Him. Those scars are no longer seen as hurt and flaw, but rather as evidence that there is healing in God’s grace and victory because of the cross. Pain doesn’t have to define you, it can grow you. From knowing God, to seeing Him. It changes everything.

-Heather Grace

My Testimony: A Story "To Be Continued..."

     On the surface, my story is black and white. My testimony of salvation began when I was five years old, and I barely remember my life before it happened. I can't tell you the specific date fourteen years ago that I surrendered my soul to Christ, but I do know that I had seen some older kids at my church get baptized and it made me curious. I only remember fragments of the night, like feeling God tug on my heart while I was taking a shower and praying with my mom and my twin sister in bed. One might even argue that it isn't my own story at all since my sister and I were saved together with our mom helping us form the prayers from our tiny hearts. I didn't have all the answers, and I still don't, but I knew I was a sinner. I knew I was dirty and that only Jesus could take that away. That night I was saved, but it's only the beginning of the story, the tiny spark that resulted in a testimony of God’s strength in weakness.

     Talking about sharing my testimony has always made me feel a bit uncomfortable. I used to think it was because I didn’t want to mess up and miscommunicate something important, and while that is still a slight issue, I know now that the main reason is because there's always been a part of me that doesn't want to come to shed light on my own vulnerability. Some of my earliest memories are feelings of uncontrollable weakness. When I was a child, I had extreme sensitivities to loud noises and certain textures, and this caused years of pain and embarrassment. I wanted desperately to feel like a normal kid, and I felt a sense of shame that made me do things to hide my problems, like telling my elementary school teachers every year that I got hurt on the bouncy castles at PTA night because I didn't have the words to describe my sensory overload outbursts and didn't want people to think I was acting like a baby. I didn't know it then, but looking back, I know that I felt broken, like there was something wrong with me and the other kids were somehow better than I was because they didn't have the same problem that I did. Eventually God brought music into my life, and being able to feel and control sound for myself greatly diminished my sensory issues to the point that no one could even tell I ever had them. I finally felt normal and I knew that I had God to thank, but my sin nature coupled with my independent streak caused me to build up walls around myself and around my heart. I told myself and everyone else that nothing bothered me and that I didn't need anyone’s help. I felt invincible, and even though I thought I was still surrendering to God every day, I was only holding Him at arm’s length. I had promised myself that I would do everything in my power to never have to feel vulnerable again, but I was forgetting that vulnerability was the very reason I needed salvation in the first place. I was saved, but I was still surrendering in shame instead of basking in the joy of my Savior.

   2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you and my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly in my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” In my struggle to suppress my weaknesses, I was forgetting that God’s plans are made perfect in weakness. God never chooses the strongest people to show His power because then those who saw what happened would think that the power came from man. Instead he uses the opposite of what is expected; Saul the persecutor became Paul the defender of the faith, and Moses the stutterer became the voice of his people. God is using me, the little girl who felt confusion and anguish in noise, to make a joyful noise for Him. Not only that, but He has also given me a mind that can sort through the roaring chaos inside to find the words to communicate in writing what my spoken words fail to convey. I know that it's a part of His plan for me as the girl who tried to be invincible to show others that ultimate joy is found in embracing a weakness that is wrapped in the stronghold of the Father’s arms. 

   I cannot tell you the ending of my testimony, because it hasn’t happened yet. A testimony of salvation is something witnessed that can be shared as evidence for God’s grace, and every day of my life is another part of the showering of love that God has given me to share with others. Until I get to heaven, my testimony will continue to grow and change, but I pray that it will be everything it needs to be so that others will come to Christ and form testimonies of their own. Every part of my life so far fits together perfectly to demonstrate to me what God has in store for eternity, and in the good and the bad I will strive to seek His presence and feel His plans in motion. For now, by the grace of God, this story is “to be continued,” and I hope to let Him use my weaknesses in making something beautiful and eternal unfold.

Hello My Name is Fearful

     Ahhh…… trust, my absolute least favorite word in the English language. No other word has such power over me. This crippling, agonizingly painful, five letter word encompasses my heart and drains me of all my energy. Oh, trust, you really get on my nerves. You see… I don’t naturally trust. I’m one of those people who, when someone in Walmart follows you down more than one aisle, takes off in a panic with that squeaky buggy that won’t turn corners praying, “Dear Lord, protect me!” I take caution to extreme measures, always watching my back for that lurking figure in old horror movies just around the corner. The thing is, I’m not just a cautious, Negative Nellie, I’m fearful. This fear snatches away any peace that starts to rest in me and reminds me that people are fickle and forgetful and cannot be trusted. It’s a paralyzing fear that floods my soul with uncertainty and hesitancy that looks for the worst in every situation. It’s a fear that limits my ability to love like Christ. I’m not alone in this state of insecurity though. Even David, “a man after God’s own heart”, trembled at times. Psalm 23 gives us a glimpse of this:

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.

He makes me lie down in green pastures,

He leads me beside quiet waters, He refreshes my soul.

He guides me along the right paths for His name sake.

Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil,

for you are with me; your rod and staff they comfort me.

You prepare a table before my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,

 and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

David’s life wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. He trudged through some pretty crappy situations and met many a crossroad. Yet he starts this Psalm with the bold statement; I lack nothing. David is saying that no human addition or subtraction makes him incomplete or whole, but rather that His fullness comes from the Lord. David is saying, I lack nothing, because He is my everything.

      I like order and clean lines and the thing is, life and relationships are incredibly messy. No matter how many times I try to control my surroundings or the people around me, I can’t. People mess up and make mistakes hourly, but I can’t just write them off to protect my feelings. Rejection is inevitable, but in the Lord’s eyes I am not forgettable. Despite my performance, I am loved so deeply by the Father. Every day is just another chapter in the love story He has so intimately created between He and I.  Just because I know this doesn’t mean that I will trust like He has called me to do. Living from a place of fullness in God is an everyday sort of thing. It’s waking up and pushing down that Negative Nellie with a burst of Jesus’ reminder,

“The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?” –Psalm 27:1

“Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” –Psalm 23:6

We are so very loved!! Living from a full heart is knowing that yesterday, today, and forever though life may change, He NEVER changes! That is how we trust. We love others so boldly and passionately that it hurts and that hurt develops into humility and that humility drives us to bow broken and bloody with the weight of our fears before the cross and say, “Father I can’t do this alone.” It’s a daily surrender, an offering of a wounded soul to one who has felt the same pain we experience. That five-letter word that makes me die a little inside every time I think about it is actually a life source, a peace giver, a joy maker, and my ticket to spreading the gospel like the one who created me. I gottta give you a chance, trust. One day at a time..

--Heather Grace

"Open My Mind, Lord"

     Sometimes I sit and think, “Will I ever be smart enough or spiritual enough to understand the Bible?” It's a pretty long book, sixty-six books in one actually, not to mention that every page has two columns of tiny print marching across the page in intimidating neatness. I'm no scholar, no theologian with my hands and mind wrapped around the original Hebrew and Greek translations. I'm easily distracted, not very consistent, and everyone who's ever met me knows that when I say “intimidating neatness” it's because (for some unfortunate reason) my mind naturally rejects organization and order. As you may be able to tell, I don't exactly sound like someone who would be able to fully internalize and respond to anything, especially something as sacred and unchangeable as God-inspired Scripture. I mean, I love Jesus and all, so isn't that enough? Don't I have every right to give up, to toss reading the Bible out on the street along with roller skating, sports, ballet dancing, and all the other mountains of hobbies I've tried and failed at? But the Bible isn't just a hobby; the Bible is the Word and the Word is Jesus. The Bible isn't a book club; the reading isn't just to prepare for a discussion every once in a while but to keep in our hearts every minute of every day. So how can I do that if I can barely make myself sit down and read it, much less take it in and let it pour over my soul? Alone I'm a hopeless case, but thankfully I'm not alone.

   Luke 24:49 says, “And then He opened their minds so that they could understand the Scriptures.” The disciples had been following Jesus a long time. They had helped perform miracles and seen Jesus do incredible things, and they joined Him in His private time, seeking to learn and know the Scriptures as He taught them. But a part of them never understood. All that time He was trying to tell them what was to come, and of the glorious work He would soon finish. But their minds were closed, and they never fully grasped His power. To save one man from blindness or leprosy is one thing, but to save an entire world from the crushing weight of their sins? Now that's a whole new level of mercy entirely. Jesus had died and risen from the dead, but at first they just couldn't believe it. They knew that He was God, but they'd seen the soldiers take Him away, and knew that there was no escaping death on the cross. But it never occurred to them that it wasn't the end because even though He’d tried to tell them all along, there was still a lot about Him that they didn't know. 

    They had seen the Jesus on the surface, but even though they were with Him constantly for all that time, they never saw the truth of what was on the inside. And if they couldn't get it seeing Him face to face, then what makes us think we can get it just by listening to a preacher on a Sunday? When it comes to reading and understanding His Word, I often fall very short, but every time I do, I feel the impact of distancing myself from those daily reminders that I am free and forgiven. I see it in my attitude, in the way I treat others, and in the way I struggle with forgiving both the people around me and myself. I know I will never be perfectly disciplined in studying the Bible; life and my forever-scattered mind will always get in the way. But every day is a new chance to read His Word, feel His touch, and run into the grip of His nail-scarred hands. All I have to say is, “Open my mind, Lord.”