one word 2011
I’ve never been a New Year’s resolutions girl.
I just can’t bring myself to do it. I think I tried once. And a few months later when I couldn’t even remember what my resolutions were — or where my list was — I felt like a miserable failure.
And I’ve never resolutioned again.
But last year I decided to choose one word to focus on. My own personal non-resolution resolution.
No list. No specifics. No goals. Just one word.
Risk.
And I stayed mindful of it all year.
It helped me make decisions. Take steps. Share my heart. It spurred me on. Challenged me. Inspired me. I loved it and I hated it, but I didn’t forget it.
It was just one word.
But it made a huge difference in my year. In my life.
Many of you joined me in the one word challenge. All year, I journeyed with you through your blog posts, twitter statuses, and conversations. I watched as you embraced your word. As you allowed it to lead you through your year. As God used it to mold and shape you.
One word.
One simple, powerful word.
It’s time to choose a new one for the new year.
I finally settled on mine. It felt like a difficult decision. I had lists of options. All good words. All things I want to be, or live, or do. But ultimately, I needed to choose just one.
And in line with the rest of 2010, I had to risk even in this.
Which, after the year I’ve had, feels like no small thing.
But I felt like God was drawing me to this word. Like it was less about me choosing it and more about it choosing me.
So I held my breath, shut my welly eyes tight, and committed to it.
Will you consider one-wording it with us this year?
Maybe a solitary word grabs your heart right this moment. Maybe, like me, you need to make a list and then ask Him to guide you from there.
And then let’s walk this road together. As a community. As a family.
What do you want to focus on in 2011?
Who do you want to be?
You can do this.
We can do this.
Together.
One Word 2011.
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the forsaken God
For months now, I can’t seem to shake this thought:
Only a forsaken God could understand my forsaken heart.
I have felt the suffocating feeling of abandonment. I’ve been discarded. Forgotten. Invisible.
I have known the despair of a shattered heart, the pieces too small to ever put back together. I’ve failed even at simply picking them all up.
I have been wounded, sometimes even deliberately, by those who claim to love me. And worse, to love Him. Almost nothing hurts more.
I have walked through the valley of the shadow of death. And I’ve teetered very close to the edge, in that darkest of places.
But, if I allow my heart to wander there, I know… So has He.
I think about Jesus in the garden, wanting desperately to find another way. I think of His heart, shattered by the abandonment of those He loves deeply. I think about Him on the cross, broken and in agony. And I think…
He gets it.
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?”
In that moment, Jesus—God with skin on—felt forsaken by God.
God abandoned Himself. And while there’s no way on earth I’ll ever comprehend that, I can’t help but turn that thought over and over in my heart.
Only a God who’s experienced the wretched pain of forsakenness could reach through the darkness of my pit and pull me out.
Only a forsaken God could understand my forsaken heart.
And if by His wounds I am healed, then maybe by His forsakenness I am found.
Desired.
Treasured.
Adopted.
Loved. Forever.
It’s because He was forsaken, it’s because of His suffering, that the brokenness of my heart finds solace in Him.
As Alfred North Whitehead said,
“God is the fellow-sufferer who understands.”
a Christmas give-list
Everybody has a Christmas wish-list.
Some written… Some spoken… Some that you never say out loud, but secretly hope for.
So I know you’ve got a wish-list.
But forget about that for a moment.
What’s on your give-list?
Not what you want to get, but what you’d love to give.
What’s a big-dream gift you wish you could give someone?
I’m not talking about world peace or heart healing or contentment. Nothing intangible.
Real gifts. For real people.
What? Who? Why?
Go.
healing in the storm
Africa has the greatest storms.
The rainy season finally comes after months of drought. By the time the first drop falls, the earth is cracked and parched. Lakes and ponds have all but dried up. The tall savannah grass is brown and brittle.
The earth is thirsty. Ready. Waiting.
And then, out of nowhere one day, the storm clouds roll in.
The blackened sky sobs heavy tears. You can feel the thunder deep in your bones as it echoes through the plains. The lightning makes you jump with fear and paralyzes you with awe all in the same loud, bright instant. The wind reminds you that only God could tie the trees down tightly enough.
Africa’s storms are altogether wonderful.
And altogether terrible.
Water rushes into homes, through the cracks in mud hut walls and the gaps in old thatch roofs and the seams in tin shack ceilings. Gusts of wind blow right through bedrooms and marble-sized hail destroys gardens. Those with only their feet for transportation run for any cover they can find—the bus stop, the liquor store, the first home they can reach in the village.
The storms are harsh. And unrelenting. And inconvenient.
And yet, they are welcomed.
There is a joy about the rainy season. “We need it,” is what you’ll hear.
“We need it.”
They find it easy to say. Easy to see. Easy to recognize and acknowledge that as challenging as the storm may be, good will come of it. It is, after all, an answer to countless prayers for the sun-scorched ground of Africa.
They know that the thirst can’t be quenched without the storm.
Spring can’t come without the rain.
New life can’t bud deep beneath the surface of the dry, crusty ground until the heavens unleash their fury.
The drought doesn’t end until the storms start.
We need it.
I need it.
I need this storm in my life. Not as punishment or discipline or as some cruel cosmic joke that has God chuckling to Himself. I need it because of what’s waiting on the other side, that I can’t see yet.
I need it because my cracked, dry heart doesn’t remember anymore what it feels like to be filled to overflowing.
I need it because everything in my life has turned the bare, barren brown of winter. And I’m despearte for the life-awakening green of spring.
I need it.
Even when I hate it.
Africa reminds me to take joy in the downpour.
For there is healing in this storm…
Originally a guest post at Mary DeMuth’s…
my love/hate relationship with risk
Risk.
I say it under my breath as though it’s a a four-letter word.
Well it is a four-letter word, but sometimes it really does feel like a curse.
When I decided to make risk my one word focus for 2010, I knew it would be hard. I knew I might even regret it. I had no idea it would challenge literally ever fiber of my being.
My heart has been stretched threadbare this year.
And in ways no one will ever comprehend, simply waking up some mornings has felt like a painful risk.
Never mind my health issues. Or the ongoing pain of my divorce. Or a long, grueling fundraising trip, only to have to close the ministry because of a lack of funds.
My heart can only take so much.
And I seemingly kept inviting more with my commitment to risk.
I don’t necessarily think the year would’ve been easier had I not made that choice. That’s not at all what I’m saying. But I do know that I willfully leaned into hardship because of it. I stared the fiery furnace in the eye and said “But even if He does not…”
Risk.
Oh how I hate you.
And yet, somehow, with tears in my eyes… Oh how I love you.
I may have been stretched to my limits, but I discovered my limits went further than I ever anticipated. I may have hurt more deeply than I imagined possible, but the plumb line of pain showed me just how deep my heart runs.
I may have tentatively opened my heart a bit at a time, but I’ve experienced the matchless gift of being loved well. I may have trusted again only to have it stolen or abused at times, but I learned that I haven’t lost that skill entirely.
I may have held my breath as I stepped into potentially joy-filled moments, only to realize I still have laughter in me. I may have doubted more than I believed, but I’ve seen what a mustard-seed-sized dollop of faith in a mind-blowingly big God can do.
Oh risk… You’ve been worth it.
I’ve been worth it.
:::
Tell me about your word… your year… your heart.
And start thinking about your one word for 2011,
but don’t tell us what it is yet!
we interrupt our programming
My life is seriously stranger than fiction.
I think if everything that’s happened in the past few years was written up as a movie script, Hollywood would say it sounds too far-fetched.
I’m telling you, you couldn’t make this stuff up.
In fact, a couple months ago I was contacted by a TV show producer. They were interested in my story — in my life — and wanted to make it the basis of a reality television show.
What the what?!
Don’t worry. I declined. But seriously?
My life is a reality tv show.
And I’m so ready for a commercial break.
So… Tell me the strangest thing that’s happened to you lately. Or that you’ve heard about.
Ya know, just for kicks.
don’t miss Him
I love the story of Esther. From start to finish, it’s one of the most compelling books of the Bible.
But sit down and actually read it all from the first verse to the last one, and you’ll notice something intriguing.
If you notice it at all.
The word “God” isn’t found in the entire book of Esther. Not even once.
Don’t believe me? Read all ten chapters and see for yourself.
“God” isn’t in there.
And yet, He is unmistakably all over it.
A timely reminder for me to read between the lines of my own life for Him.
Because He is clearly all over it.
Even when I don’t see Him.
a thousand deafening decibles
I don’t have words for so much of what I’m dealing with and attempting to process through. I know some will misinterpret my silence on certain things to mean a lack of feeling or caring (I know, because some already have). And to that all I can say is… Usually the hardest, most deeply-felt things, are those I simply cannot talk about.
Do with that what you will.
I went to South Africa last month for a couple weeks. I was there for our final week of ministry. I packed up my home. I said heart-wrenching goodbyes.
And in between all of those things, the greatest heartache I’ve ever known steadily grew.
Even now, I can’t even just think about that time in Africa without tears overflowing down my face. It’s just too hard. It’s just too much.
I don’t think I will ever be able to explain to a solitary soul all the layers of hard that were in those two weeks. Or anything that’s taken place since then.
It makes my breath catch painfully in my throat. It feels as though someone is sitting on my chest. I can hear my heart pouding in my own ears.
Breaking hearts are anything but quiet. Under the surface at least…
Every shatter, every crack, piercingly resounds, echoing over and over again.
So know that for every second of my silence, there are a thousand deafening decibles resonating from my broken heart.
And because it’s trapped inside, it reverberates around the hollow shell of me.
It’s crazy-making.
And I wish I could deaden the sound…
The sound that only I can hear.
