Fridays Are For Writing

Scar

An area of tissue that replaces normal skin after an injury

Result from the process of wound repair 

A natural part of the healing process

 

I’ve been wounded.

 

I have scars. 

 

To be clear, they aren’t wounds any longer, they have become scars. Some wounds can heal without leaving a mark. Those kinds of wounds are superficial. They are the scrapes, cuts, bruises that barely break the skin – the pain is fleeting, the healing swift without leaving evidence that they ever existed. Wounds that leave scars are violent and deep. Wounds that leave scars do not heal quickly. Wounds that leave scars require time for healing. Wounds that leave scars permeate areas around the wound. Wounds that leave scars are unforgettable. 

 

Scars, unforgettable as they are, are what so many pivotal stories are made of and how hard lessons are learned. The scar on your forehead from scratching a chicken pox as a kid even when your mom told you not to. The scar from knee surgery that could have been avoided if you had just taken the trainers advice. The scar on your right shin after surviving a car accident that you should have died in. We all have physical scars to show and stories to tell about them.

 

But the scars that we live with are not only physical. 

 

There are emotional, mental, and spiritual scars that many live with and nobody sees.

No one asks about the scars and stories they cannot see because well, they can’t see them. (Duh moment, right?)

 

Physical scars depend on your body to heal. Many times with surgery, stitches, or intervention but still the brunt of the healing is dependent on the body and not your own effort. Your body produces scar tissue to cover the injury. For scars to form on our emotional, mental, and spiritual wounds, a more complex process is required along with conscious and intentional effort.

 

Because these wounds can’t be seen with the naked eye, they may seem easier to cover up from others. But inevitably they are already seeping into every area of your life: physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. It doesn’t matter where they start because you are now out of order. Many times we are so crippled from the side effects of a wound that we cannot even clearly identify the cause and root of the wound. We know that something is wrong or dysfunctional in our lives but won’t identify it honestly as a wound. Sometimes we do know we’ve been wounded and where it started but we try to pretend like it’s no big deal and we can handle it on our own. 

 

Wow, we’re prideful aren’t we? 

Like it makes us any less of who we are to admit that we need to heal or that we’ve been critically wounded.

 

Because I love to watch all manor of cinematic expression and can find the humor in any conversation, I immediately think of the Black Knight from Monty Python. Weird, right?

(don’t know about it, Google it)

Anyways, King Arthur wants to cross a bridge. The Black Knight is tasked with guarding said bridge. Therefore, King Arthur is forced to sword fight the Knight. Subsequently, the Knight’s arm is severed – blood squirting everywhere, pretty gross. Surely King Arthur may pass now, the Black Knight has lost his fighting arm. Nope, the Knight claims to be fine with the words, “It is only a flesh wound” and continues to challenge the King. Needless to say the Knight loses limb after limb claiming each wound doesn’t affect his ability to fulfill his task of guarding the bridge. It’s insanity!!

 

This is basically how we behave when we are wounded and think we can still lead a successful life (for some of us with deeper wounds, just a normal life). We’re moving around limbless telling people we’re fine – ‘Tis but a scratch’ and ‘I’ve been through worse before.’

Why do we do this???

 

Stay with me.

You have a physical injury. 

You’ve had surgery. You are stitched up and the wound is covered. If you do as you are instructed, over time you will heal. You are instructed to keep it covered but to change the bandage once daily. You are not going to unwrap it, pull on the stitches, rub some mud in it, and attempt to rebandage it. That is only going to irritate the wound AND discourage you because it’s gross and ugly and healing takes time. What, are you gonna poke and stare at it until the process is complete? That’s ridiculous. It’s the same with mental, emotional,and spiritual healing. Healing takes time and effort – so cliche but soo true. 

 

I have been wounded mentally, emotionally, and spiritually a few times within my existence on this planet. Unfortunately, I believe most of you have too. From the bottom of my heart I just want to say – I am so sorry that you were hurt. Things were not supposed to be this way. But there is hope. I believe in the healing power of God through his Son, Jesus. I believe in the immediate healing of wounds in a supernatural way. I’ve experienced it myself. I also believe that that is not the only way that God works. I believe many times He does the surgery on our hearts – wakes us up to the fact a wound exists, gives us the courage to find help, supplies us with the hope of living a life outside of coping – and gives us the task of the ‘post-op procedures’. When He does this, we have a choice to grasp hold of freedom once again. To work alongside our heavenly physician and trust Him through the process. It might not be easy, but His character says He will be with us on the journey and on the days we want to give up (and sometimes we do), He won’t. 

 

We need freedom from our wounds. We need to recognize what our wounds are and start the healing process. Yep, I said process. It takes trust and it takes work. It may also take accountability from your community, family, or medical professional. One day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time, and dare I say, one year at a time until that protective scar tissue replaces where the wound once was. 

 

We must remember that scars don’t form on something that has died. There isn’t death in your scars. Only life.

I believe our scars make us more sensitive to fight against that which wounded us before it can harm another. We are no longer vulnerable to the wound but commissioned to make others aware of the vulnerability of where we’ve been wounded. Our scars can help bring others life. 

 

Therefore:

Give yourself time.

Make a consistent, conscientious effort.

Wounds can heal. 

They leave us scars.

Scars tell us where we’ve been.

Scars are our greatest reminder to ourselves and others that we can heal and heal again. 

Freedom

To be free from something

Unhindered, unrestrained, unbound from that which keeps captive 

 

For the latter part of my teen years and into my twenties I was bound. Bound to a disorder, addiction – doesn’t matter what you want to call it, it owned me. It consumed me, my life, who I was, how I thought, how I saw things, my behavior, and my choices. I missed much of what was really going on around me (people, events, things that mattered) because the reality in my head was an obsession with my disorder. It was the nucleus of my entire existence and I needed to stay in control of my addiction. Control. What a joke.

 

It’s a game of control.

Controlling your feelings. (“I don’t want to feel this way.”)

Controlling your thoughts. (“I don’t want to think this way.”)

Controlling your coping mechanism. (“I don’t want to deal with my dysfunction.”)

But you’re not really even in control, are you?

 

If you’ve ever lived with an addiction or psychological disorder, you know exactly what I’m talking about. We think that we’re in control of our choice to go back to the thing that bound us or gave us some temporary relief from the harsh realities of our lives. BUT in all actuality, it’s only a matter of time before it is controlling us again. How we live, how we move, how we make decisions, it’s steering this ship and the ship is heading into the abyss. We aren’t in control of anything anymore. We are soon looking for a safe way to jump ship but not really. Scared but unwilling to walk out on what may seem to be the only consistent force in our lives that will compliment the ‘fix’ we need. Yes, it’s unhealthy. Yes, we all know this.

My struggle was an eating disorder. Bulimia and I were best friends for close to twelve years. The eating disorder Bulimia (Bulimia Nervosa) also brought with it the ugliness of mental and emotional disorders, depression, obsessive compulsive disorders, and all the physical medical issues. I’m not going to go into all the reasons I can come up with as to why I opened the door to an eating disorder because it’s not time to yet. I can tell you that opening the door to addiction was easy and walking through it was even easier. I even enjoyed hanging out with my disorder for a while, it did what I wanted and no one was the wiser. That is, until I didn’t enjoy its company anymore. I was physically and mentally feeling the effects of bondage to my addiction. What I had thought was a place I controlled in my life now controlled me. No one told me that once I walked through the door that it would lock behind me. 

It’s kind of crazy how you can convince yourself that eventually the habits you’ve created will just disappear. That you would ‘age-out’ of your disorder and it’ll just slowly fade away. That when the cosmos and the planets align at just the right time POOF! your world will be perfect – pain and addiction free. Isn’t it crazy?? But I think sometimes we choose to believe things that are obviously ridiculous to just survive. And that’s what I did. Played all the sports, graduated high school, went to college for a bit, had a baby, worked a lot, got married, had more babies, moved and lived with my disorder. We did it all together. Me and my disorder. Best friends, remember? It’s like those abusive, unhealthy friends you hear about. But I had one nobody couldn’t see. So, basically an imaginary friend. An imaginary friend from a horror movie that was infiltrating every area of my life.

 

Then freedom came.

A neighbor invited me to church. 

I went. 

 

And that began my relationship with God. An exchange was made – through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus. My dysfunction for His freedom. My disorder for His truth. My addiction for His promise. He held the key that unlocked the door. And He unlocked it. I just needed to walk out of the room. That freedom, truth, and promise were mine but I had choices to make. My mind, will, and emotions had been working together with my disorder for so long that there was some work I needed to do. I needed to believe I was free, know the truth, and hold onto the promise. Every moment of every day of every week. I had to choose freedom over and over again. I read books. I asked questions. I studied – my addiction AND myself. I learned what to do when my addiction came calling. I learned to anticipate when the insecurity crept in to give way to my disorder. It was work. A lot of work. It took a whole lot of time. Old habits really do die hard.  

I am no longer bound to my eating disorder but I most certainly can go back to it. I most certainly can. Occasionally I hear it calling. Occasionally it even seems to be knocking at my front door. I have a choice whether I’ll answer or not. It’s a choice. To be presented with a choice to choose freedom or to choose bondage sounds like insanity to anyone who hasn’t struggled in this way. It seems like an easy choice, it seems like the obvious choice – choose freedom, duh. Well, freedom can be really freakin’ hard. Choosing freedom is exhausting. It means work, and denying our physical longings, and shutting down the shouting voices in our heads. Anxiety, worry, exhaustion, expectations, confusion, fear, and the pressures of life have your addiction and disorder on speed dial and it takes everything you’ve got to silent the call before it’s answered. It’s hard stuff. I won’t make light of how hard the decision is. But here it is.

 

I believe freedom is a decision.

I choose the freedom that Jesus gives.

It works for me.

And I believe it works for everyone.

Some days it’s harder than others.

But I still choose Him.

And I have yet to regret it.

 

The other night my husband was listening patiently as I unloaded some thoughts on a very passionate topic we were discussing. I was struggling with how to communicate the thoughts in my head and the words coming out of my mouth. And I said, like I’ve said many times, “I just don’t know how to go about saying any of that to them.” Usually, he wouldn’t respond (or if he had wanted to, I had probably interrupted him before he’d had the chance.) but this time he did. He said, “you should say it like you just did.” And I stood there dumbfounded.

I sat there in a strange moment of epiphany. What have i been doing? And how long have i been doing it? My mind was trying to catch up with the truth that was already very clear in my spirit.

YOU ARE GOING HALF CAFF.

YOU WERE NEVER MEANT TO BE THAT WAY.

STOP DILUTING YOUR VOICE.

Dilute: make (something) weaker in force, content, or value by modifying it or adding other elements to it

What the heck?? In a sheer moment of honesty, I knew it was true. I was indeed modifying the way I choose to speak and in retrospect I was weakening the power behind my words. Now I needed to figure out why I’d been diluting my voice (and for that matter, my life). I need to find the source, dissect it, and then murder it. Yes, i said ‘murder it’. I imagine it as a Walking Dead style, Michonne sword, zombie herd approaching, SLAUGHTER.

But diluting something is much easier than attempting to un-dilute it. This is gonna take some time.

While I’m walking all of this out (and swinging my sword left and right) I’m remembering who I was created to be – who God called me to be. Where He called me from and what He called me to. Why He called me to live, and move, and breathe. And while I may know the ‘who’ and the ‘what’ and the ‘why’, the ‘when’ and the ‘how’ still awaits. And that is okay. He is un-diluting my life again and I need to go through the process.

 

We want our kids to hate losing.

Not wanting to lose is what keeps you fighting.

God set us up to win, so we refuse to accept defeat.

We are competitive because generations of lives are at stake.

 

“It’s not about having to win, it’s about hating losing.”

“Have you ever met a good leader who isn’t competitive?”

– Brian Houston

 

We are building leaders.

Leadership is not a genetic trait. It is not hereditary. No one is born with an inherent skill to lead. Leadership is learned. Leadership is taught. Leadership is embraced. Leadership is sustained. Vince Lombardi said, ‘Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. They are made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.’

We are working hard at creating a culture of leadership in our home. A huge part of leadership is being competitive. Competitive against complacency, against being average, against injustice. So we speak it often. We KNOW it is getting old to them. We KNOW that the more we say it, the more likely we’ll encounter an eye roll or two. We KNOW that sometimes it is frustrating to hear. We KNOW kids, we KNOW…

But here it is again:

 

• Work your hardest, then work harder.
• Don’t ever quit. Quitting isn’t an option. (Best example: Jesus)
• Pain is weakness leaving the body. It’s gonna hurt. Fight through. One, two, three, four United States Marine Corps!!
• No one ever said it would be easy. Roosevelt stated: “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.”
• With great power comes great responsibility. Use it wisely. (Shout out to Uncle Ben and Voltaire.)
• Discipline. You have to train yourself – body and mind – to keep going and keep growing even when you don’t want to.
• Lead by example. Don’t just talk about, live it.
• Do what is right. Look out for the little guy. Encourage the weak and weary. Give what you can. Integrity matters.
• You CAN do it. Convince your mind and everything else will follow.
• Be great. Always. Because you are.

 

We want our children to be competitive. We want our children to hate losing. We want our children (and their children and their children’s children) to be great leaders. This world needs great leaders. It needs leaders who are not afraid to cultivate even better leaders. Leadership is never about self-influence, power, or gain. Leadership is staying the course and clearing it for others.

So we tell them these things. Over and over and over until they are sick of hearing it and then we’ll say it again like a delayed echo. The goal is for our children to hear our voices now, so that when we are gone, they will still hear the echo.

 

We’re not waging war against enemies of flesh and blood alone. No, this fight is against tyrants, against authorities, against supernatural powers and demon princes that slither in the darkness of this world, and against wicked spiritual armies that lurk about in heavenly places.

Ephesians 6:12 

I am an athlete. I have played on a lot of sporting teams in my life. I have competed in a lot of games and tournaments. I have coached numerous talents and ages. I have never felt alone on a team. That’s kind of the point of teams. Teams are groups of people working together to accomplish a goal. Each person knows their position as a part of the team. Each person knows what they’re supposed to do as a part of the team. Each person is trying as hard as they can because the rest of the team depends on them to do their job as a part of the team. You train together, you fight together, you hurt together, you build together. And my favorites… you win together and you lose together. The celebration of the win and the agony of defeat is shared. If given the choice, I would always choose to be on a team. I LOVE being a part of a team.

There have been seasons in life that being a part of an athletic team wasn’t an option for me. In those seasons I learned to fight alone. I learned to motivate myself. I learned to hold myself accountable. I learned how to create and achieve goals on my own. I learned to glean where I could from watching others and then apply what I could through trial and error. When I hurt, I hurt alone. When I built, I built alone. When I won, I won alone. When I lost… and those days really sucked… I lost alone. Perseverance was a hard and necessary battle. Discipline was not just a physical challenge but a mental game I needed to win day in and day out. What I learned in those seasons of life have been vital to every area of my life since. I learned (and continue to learn) what I was capable of when forced to go it alone.

These lessons have transferred into every area of life, especially the God dream. There have been numerous times I’ve had to navigate things alone and had to learn how to come out on top. Remind myself what the God dream is and ‘get my crap together’. That perseverance in the journey always leads to a win. And when it comes to fulfilling the God dream, losing is never an option.

There will be days, weeks, seasons where we’ll have a team of people on the journey with us who motivate, fight, and work with us toward the God dream we’re called to. But there will also be days, weeks, and even seasons where we may have none of that and have to go it alone with God. Sometimes it’ll be hard and it won’t make sense. Sometimes we’ll want to quit. Friend, we must remind ourselves that all of this might be necessary to achieve the God dream.

Keep going. Dig deeper. You’ve got this.

 

(Bonus:  What I learned in seasons of alone made me a better teammate in the seasons I have been a part of a team. Helping someone else achieve their goals is a win for you too 😉   Selah.)

 

Joseph had God dreams.

Like REAL God dreams.

Two of them to be exact. And his dreams pissed some people off enough that he was sold into slavery, lied about, and thrown into prison for years. (Joseph’s full story can be found in Genesis 37-50)

 

Why was Joseph able to endure? Because he trusted the God dream.

When a dream comes from God, it’s stands with you. It reminds you it’s there. It creeps up on you while you are driving your car, taking a shower, or tying your shoes. It never leaves you.

 

Now…

You CAN pretend you don’t hear it. You CAN tell yourself it’s not real.  You CAN run from it.

It is totally and completely your choice. Embrace the dream or don’t. Lean into God or don’t. Be afraid but keep moving forward anyway… or don’t.

 

There isn’t a lot of dialog in Joseph’s story giving us insight to how he was feeling.

We don’t get to hear what He was thinking or saying (or possibly screaming) when he was hated by his family members, stuck in the bottom of a pit, being sold into slavery, being accused of rape, thrown into prison, or forgotten in the jail cell. But what DOES speak is what Joseph did. He didn’t embrace his misfortune (yes, a serious understatement, I know). I’m sure he wasn’t excited about any of it. BUT Joseph continued to rise to the occasion – in his character, integrity, and resilience. I believe the only way he was able to do this was that he trusted that the dreams that God gave him were legit. Now, I probably would have had a serious attitude and honestly probably would have tried to kill someone – let’s be real – everyone that was doing me wrong if I were in Joseph’s shoes. But here he is with the fortitude to stay in whatever situation he found himself in and whether right or wrong he stuck with the promises of God. When God shows you His dreams, they become promises of what is it come. And my man Joseph knew that. 

Joseph made a choice. Even though he had no control over the events that conspired to destroy him (and whether you believe it or not, when bad things happen to you it IS an assigned mission of your destruction), he did have control over how he chose to go through them. He chose to work hard where he was placed. He chose to lead well where he could. He chose to help others if given the opportunity. And eventually that led him to the second highest position in all of Egypt. God took him through a process that looked cruel, and messy, and limited, to get him to where the dream was.

 

I want the dream God showed me ten years ago.

I am currently choosing to trust the God dream again.

No matter what it looks like along the way, I’m in it to win it.

It is my dream to….

How would you finish that sentence? It is my dream to…

Now we must ask ourselves – what are the motives behind our dreams?

Where do our dreams come from? Selfish gain? Popularity? Fame? Money? Followers? Insecurity?

Whatever the motive, we constantly find ourselves feeling unsatisfied in our attempts to complete our own dreams because at some point if we reach ‘the goal’, it’s still not enough. It’s a temporary fix. It’s like we are competing with ourselves and there is never a finish line or a winner. We complete one project and feel momentary victory but something is missing.

We’re left feeling unfulfilled and empty. Striving, striving, striving for something we cannot seem to grasp. Wondering why it’s not enough. Tired. Worn out. Ready to quit everything.

WE MUST SHIFT OUR FOCUS and take a minute to realign our perspective and be truly honest with ourselves. WHAT ARE WE DOING? Are we trying to make eternity fit into our plans because we’ve put soo much work into them already and we don’t want to admit we missed it? It’s a humbling moment when we can see things for what they are.

BUT hold tight my friend all is not lost – this is where God meets and extends his hand to say:

I SEE YOU.

I see you and how you’ve been doing things and who you think you are supposed to be but I am here now to show you what I have for you. It is beyond anything you could have ever dreamed or imagined. Let go of what you had planned and let me step in. Let me pick up the broken pieces. Let me take your imperfections, your inadequacies, your biggest fears and use them. In time you will understand everything. Trust me. Trust my voice. Trust my leading.

And there, when God speaks, we are ready to listen. We find ourselves in a place to hear what He has to say and remind us why He called us in the first place. The God dream is planted (or replanted) into our hearts and minds. It’s enormity can be overwhelming. It so it reminds us to take one step at a time. To hold onto faith, hope, and trust in our Creator. With brief glimpses along the way of what will be if we just stay the path. Anchored in His glory not our own. His fame not ours. His reveal not our limelight.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton