mostly grit
I’ve always said my life is a holy, messy mix of grit and glory.
Mostly grit.
Yes… Mostly grit.
To only share my glories—my few and far-between shining moments of mountaintop victory—would be a disservice. To the world. To me. To God.
To only share my successes—and to leave out my more common stumblings and weaknesses and failures—would paint an untrue, and unrealistic, picture of my life.
To only share challenges in the past tense—once they’ve been redeemed and God’s worked my “all things” into good—would be unauthentic. No matter how authentic I think I’m being.
To only share my resurrections without inviting you to partake in my deaths, to only shine the light without a true portrayal of my darkness, to only let you see my faith while hiding my nagging doubts… to do that is to not share my story well.
There is more redemptive power in my unveiled grit than I will ever realize.
We easily assume our brokenness will drive others away or somehow portray a skewed image of God. But that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Brokenness resonates, for we all face pain and doubt and weakness. Our lives are filled with complementary contradictions. It’s in our honest sharing of that tension that we speak straight into people’s hearts.
We can’t cut out the heartache and pain. We can’t detour around the ugly parts. We can’t leave out the uphill journey. We simply can’t.
I wish we could.
Because while I value this kind of heartwrenching transparency, I also struggle with it. Deep down, I’m afraid of it.
But I can’t avoid the truth that I have to surrender my ashes for Him to make them beautiful.
I’ve never heard that message more poignantly captured and conveyed than at STORY. It was the thread that ran through every session, speaker, song, and moment.
Over and over again, reminding us that our stories are about both death and life.
And as uncomfortable as it is, we are called to show the world both.
Because if we can’t do that, how do we suppose we can share the Gospel—the most unsettlingly paradoxical story of all?
It is the seen and the unseen.
The now and the not yet.
It is darkness and the light that pierces it.
Faith mixed with doubt.
Freedom in surrender.
Wholeness in brokenness.
It is questions and answers.
Believing without seeing.
Pain and healing.
Despair and hope.
It is beautiful ashes.
Death and life.
Our stories—as shared through our very lives—more beautifully and divinely tell His story than any sermon, song, or production ever could.
We are called to paint the whole picture.
To tell the whole story.
To uniquely reflect Him in our unfinishedness.
In embracing the extraordinary tension of our lives, we amplify His voice to the world.
He is writing a masterpiece in us. In you. In me. The least I can do is get out of the way and allow Him to speak through my glory and shout through my grit…
Mostly my grit.
@mandythompson says:
I’m still processing Story. But I also heard that message loud & clear. It’s good to sit down & read through your thoughts… Thank you for being there with me, and for being at arms length most of the time (like vince said.)
@kamriereed says:
Wow I loved this post. It seems like we as Christians are so quick to talk about our past lives before we met Christ and how he saved us that we forget to talk about the present deaths. I have been trying to put this into words for a long time now and you said it perfectly. We need to display our deaths. We need to stop being quiet about our struggles and say that God made us alive but in this area I am still dead. We need to grow together, stop being quiet and pretending everything is okay. We need to talk about death and life rather than just life.
@nateonamission says:
dig that.
@atangie says:
How is it that you can be basically taking about badness and it be very a very good post? You are a fabulous writer marked by transparency, authenticity and truth. Thank you for not hiding the grit. Thank you for hoping for the glory. I am so very proud of you!
Love your heart! You wrote this so truthfully and so well.
I was thinking about how characters in scripture live this out. Reading their stories, reading any story, brings out the process of the real and authentic. As we read stories, we learn about their thoughts, choices that are reflections of something deeper, freak out moments of fear, self-sufficency, doubts, and sin. We also see Passion, love, hope, courage, the hard chosen, surrenders, and sacrifice.
With every story, we know there is an ending, the pages say so. It’s the process that makes a story a story
I can’t shake this idea that the hope, and glimpses of glory in the story make the grit different. Everyone is full of grit. The world is walking grit. People may or may not be aware of things like fear, insecurity, heart breaks, and pain. What do I do with grit without God, without the the redemption of glory? Glory brings in the, “yea but…” to the grit. Glory brings resurrection. Glory speaks faith and freedom to make the in between and authentic question marks real, and ok.
Ashes are presented to beauty and life is breathed into broken lives. What do people without the hope of glory do in their grit?
Sorry, thinking out loud. I love your heart. Thank you for your grit! So cherish all of you.
I’ve been wondering this myself.
Amen. Going to be more bold and outspoken about His Hand in my life. I love you Alece!
@mat2820b says:
I came across a song the other day, the chorus of which I have been mulling over, trying to work it into a post that makes sense. While the verses are nothing to write home about, the chorus was very profound, as was the first two lines of the bridge:
“If you don’t see the real me you won’t see want Grace has done
If you don’t see my weakness you won’t see what Love has won”
“Let the light escape from these holes inside my soul
When I start to break the grace begins to flow”
(Honestly ~Vota)
I thought of you, of Tam, of Jenni, of Sarah… of my friend Becky… All extroardinary women who have let their deepest pain be their biggest ministry and source of healing to countless others.
To totally rip off C.S Lewis… I think God is using you guys as the megaphone to shout to the hurting world.
Keep that switch on.
@PrudyChick says:
My friend I there is more glory in you than you realize. To see you and see God’s grace radiating in you – His slowly taking those ashes and redeeming them. Making them beautiful. You are beautiful and you are loved.
I love how our story tells His story. There are so many beautiful facets to it.
@Nomadstacey says:
And you say you’ve lost your write-ability. I’m thinking it’s baaaaaaaaack!
Seriously challenging post for me. I hate being vulnerable. I hate showing i need help. I hate shwoing my mess. I’m too scared people will leave, walk away, not know what to say, belittle…all because it’s happened before. I think my brokenness can stay just between God and me (or, more often than not, just with me). I’ve been trying to risk my heart more this year and I’m not sure how well I’ve done it, how many times I’ve chosen to risk, how many opportunities I’ve missed…But this reminds me the beauty in brokenness…HIS beauty in brokenness. And the paradoxes you reminded me of…just shows me that God is bigger than my brokenness. He is bigger than this or that..He is a ‘yes this AND that’ God. I am broken AND whole. I am accepted AND hurt. I am messy AND clean. It’s not always black and white.
Love you, Mer!
I really needed to hear this…more than anyone in this entire world knows!
you’re awesome. i love you. the end.
@JewelzSightings says:
Alece, the beauty of your story unfolding is a mosaic for the world to see. I see the pieces of your life being sweetly broken to fit in this beautiful identity that was bestowed on you before you took your first breath.
I needed to be reminded of this today… as today I feel stuck in my story… as if I am a stagnant pond… yet even in a pond that is still and unmoving, life is hidden inside….
Have a blessed day!
“To only share challenges in the past tense—once they’ve been redeemed and God’s worked my “all things” into good—would be unauthentic. No matter how authentic I think I’m being.”
I’m with Mandy…I’m still processing Story. But, this was beautiful. And this truth of only sharing challenges in the past tense is tough to read – mainly because I know this is something I struggle with the most.
Thanks for challenging me, Alece. :) Even though I got the message loud & clear last week, I still wrestle with vulnerability and weakness. Even though, trust me…I’m incredibly vulnerable and weak. Yeah. Really need to hear this – once again, God used your authenticity. :)
This is an important post.
I enjoyed reading it. And I will read it again.
I hope I can live it, too.
this is my favortie post EVER! {{hugs}}
Mmm. This was so good for me to read. I think God is using your story (the grit and the glory) in ways you’ll never know this side of eternity and that is pure beauty.
“we uniquely reflect Him in our unfinishedness”. I love that line. Beautiful gospel-ly writing my friend. Only an other-worldly Love would have put this amazing gritty plan in place… so different than the way it works here on the earth soil. Completely loved and enjoyed dispite our unfinished state? Only God.
Very thought-provoking and challenging! Thank you for sharing!
i could not agree more.
thanks for sharing you grit.
you will never know how it encourages me.
@idelette says:
Love your post! I find it really challenging to share my grit, I’ll be honest … Appreciating it as a Divine kick in the perfection pants. Keep it coming.
This is your best post yet.
@pa3cia says:
Love your heart my friend :)
@larainec says:
Thats good stuff! Sometimes when you read about people in the Bible and all the amazing things they did and God did thru them you think wow what a perfect life, if i could only be like them! But then you think of all the stuff they went thru day to day….and how we are so human, yet God chooses to use us?!
I am humbled eveyday to know that i dont deserve Him, but He makes me deserving! and while i think my life could be so insignificant, and try to live up to this standard and not let anyone know my struggles…He often meets me so much more when im on my face and knees than on top of the world!
I am in a season where he is continually putting in those postions, i keep falling short, yet He is so good thru me!
Thank you for always sharing your heart and being so open with your struggles. You have more courage than ill ever have with speaking about your struggles and weakness, you’re so real, and because of that God uses you to touch so many people, including me! Thank you for being an inspiration and causing me to seek God more and more.
Love you!
@bahava says:
mmmm, thank you for encouraging me to share my story including all of the grit amidst the glory. sometimes i just want to wait until my story has that happy fairytale ending…and it’s hard to push past the fear that people will just walk away or tell me that they’ll walk through the grit with me…even still, i expect them to be too busy or that i’m too much. often silence or a yes without follow-through speaks more than a no. but then i’m reminded that even that is part of the grit that god is working out and working in me to work toward glory. mmmhmmm
I understand what you’re saying in this post. We need to express the light and shade of our lives for ourselves and also to communicate honestly. It is difficult to do this but if you really want to connect with people this is the way.
nailed it.
embrace the beauty and the pain
@TomMartinATL says:
Awesome, and so timely for me as my story could easily be edited to present an image that it is not.
To edit in your case means to limit and the story your life is writing is too powerful not to share…..stumblings and all.
I think Randy Pausch had it right when he said: “Don’t tell people how to lead their lives, just tell them stories and they’ll figure out how the stories apply to them.”
Oh how you bless me because I too am a holy, messy mix!
I’m checking in after a couple weeks hiatus. One, I’m thankful that you’re writing again.
Two, I’m reading your posts and feeling the pull that I had been feeling recently get stronger. The pull between the honesty I have with myself and Jesus about where I am, and the story I have yet to share with one group of people in my life. Its mostly grit, but I haven’t even shared many of the glories.
just here to say thank you….
I love your grit.
:)