Breaking Boxes

I love when my little box explodes.

The boxes I build out of the things I've seen, touched, been exposed to, and then use the little fragments to create a box that I can understand. A box I can hold.

The problem with this box is that it's never very big. The previous box is always smaller than the newer box but ultimately they're all small compared to the grander schemes of life.

I believe I've said this before but I'll say it again. I hate my boxes. I absolutely despise them.

But yet, time and time again I find myself building them. I always find myself going back, picking up the pieces of knowledge I can grab and building another box. Box after box after box.

I'm not a 100% sure why I do this. I mostly think it's just out of habit. Even though I hate the box, I'm comfortable with them. I've found comfort in the smallness they bring me and despite the fact that I want to shred them to pieces, they make me feel safe.

Because to be in the bigness of this life, to live without holding onto something you can see, touch, feel, means being uncomfortable. It means you have to be okay with the unknown and I'm not always okay with that. It means trusting that there is something bigger than you, something greater that loves you with a love so deep and wide that it will never give you more than you can handle, and I'm not always good at believing that.

So I've been in the process of shutting down the boxing business. I finally was honest with myself and chose to believe that I was made to live in the excitement and the adventures of the unknown. I decided to leave the box making business, that I despise, and live in the openness of the great unknown.

But here's the small problem. When you've been making boxes your whole life and that's all you know to do, it's hard to shut it down. You find yourself making boxes without thinking about it, it just comes so natural. Also, when you've been making boxes your whole life, you find boxes in corners of your life you never realized existed. So not only are you trying to stop making boxes but you're also having to find and destroy ones you've already made.

Today, as I was laying on the beach. God destroyed a huge box. I heard the explosion. It was amazing.

I was laying out enjoying the weather and reading Cheryl Strayed's book "Tiny Beautiful Things" which is a book full of letters written to her advice column Dear Sugar and her responses to them. I was reading a letter from a woman who was questioning God due to a tumor that was found in her 6 month old child. She was asking Sugar her advice on God and believing him.

Knowing that Cheryl Strayed is not a Christian, I was hesitant, yet intrigued to read her response.

I'll be honest, I didn't have high expectations on it. She's extremely blunt and knowing she doesn't believe in God, I expected a response that either redirected her from God or something along the lines that would influence more along the lines against God.

I was wrong. I was so wrong.

Box explodes.

Her response was amazing. My jaw literally dropped at some moments. I couldn't help but think, "this woman doesn't even believe in God, yet, she seems to see Him and understand him better than I do at times. And I'm the one that claims to know Him!"

How little of me to think God doesn't speak through someone, even if they do not believe in Him. How ignorant of me to think that she wouldn't have anything good to say.

I have to admit. I was a bit embarrassed after reading her response. Her response was beautiful. If I had been in that woman's shoes, the one questioning God, she would have sold me in the direction to God. This woman, who claims to not believe in God, would have led me a step closer.

Why? Because God doesn't just use believers. He doesn't just speak to people who know him, he does not live in a box. He's everywhere. He loves us and uses us, even if we do not know it. He still uses us.

I'm so thankful God doesn't live in a box and I'm beyond thankful that he uses everything and everyone to help mold me and unleash me into the depths of his presence.

These are a few quotes from her response that I really loved:
"To use our individual good or bad luck as a litmus test to determine whether or not God exist constructs an illogical dichotomy that reduces our capacity for true compassion. It implies a pious quid pro quo that defies history, reality, ethics,and reason. It fails to acknowledge that the other half of rising- the very half that makes rising necessary- is having first been nailed to the cross."

"Perhaps the good that can come from this terrifying experience is a more complex understanding of what God means to you so the next time you need spiritual solace you'll have something sturdier to lean on than the rickety I'll- believe- he- exist- only- if-he-gives-me-what-I-want fence."

"What if the greatest beauty of the day is the shaft of sunlight through your window? What if the worst thing happened and you rose anyway? What if you trusted in the human scale? What if you listened harder to the story of the man on the cross who found a way to endure his suffering than to the one about the impossible magic of the Messiah? Would you see the miracle in that?"

Trust

Trust requires letting go.

Trust starts with believing you can live without and still be perfectly fine.

Trust means you have to let go of your safety net, there is no safety net in real, full on trust.

Trust means you don't know what tomorrow brings and you're ok with that.

Trust means you are not holding onto the reins of your life, you've let go.

Let go, let go, let go, let go.

Letting go means you've stripped yourself of your comfort zone.

Letting go means discomfort and lots of it.

But what no one tells you, what everyone forgets to say in the discomfort, the screams, in the tears, in the heart ache that takes place in the act of trusting, letting go.

They forget to tell you the most important part, the part that makes it all worth while.

What's the real punch line in the act of trusting, in the pursuit of letting go?

FREEDOM.

You're not broken because of the change, you're FREE.

It's worth it.

The pain will become a memory, a memory of the process. The heartache will always show it's brutal scars but you won't care. You won't care at all.

Because for the first time in your life, you can be whoever the hell you want to be.

Because you're free.

FREE.

Good Fight

I was laying in bed last night absolutely exhausted.

I had been looking forward to curling up and falling asleep all day.

I finally reached the moment I had been waiting for and guess what.... my mind had other plans.

I'm all like "Yay! Sleep time!" and my brain goes, "Wait, I need to think about a million things before we fall asleep."

Miserable. It's the worst.

So here I am. Laying in bed. Desperately wanting to fall asleep but I can't.

I learned a long time ago to just not fight it, to go ahead and entertain some of the thoughts.

But these weren't good thoughts. These particular thoughts last night were thoughts of fear. In my exhaustion from a wonderful week in Atlanta, my mind decided to worry about whether I'll ever be able to trust again and how that will look.

As most know, when trust has been betrayed in your life, it's really hard to stand back up and do again. It becomes a battle. A battle to stubble through the mess and learn to trust again.

This morning I woke up and a sweet friend of mine had sent me an article that said this, "Get rooted in love and comprehend in greater detail all God has planned for your life. You will know what fight to fight and what fight to skip. Based on Paul's testimony, we know he said "I have fought a good fight." He referred to it as a "good fight of faith." What's a good fight? A fight you have faith sufficient to win. That's the one God will set up for you."

A good fight, that's what my struggle with trust is. For true love requires trust, it's apart of the foundation. I'm wanting my foundation to be smooth, to have nothing outside of who God is and who He has created me to be, trust has to be apart of it. Without it, nothing solid can ever be built.

The fight for trust, it's a good fight. And it's a fight he has set up for me to win. 

Hmmmmm..... I love that so much.

What's are you fighting for?

It's good to be back

My heart has been bubbling since last night.

I was able to enjoy the Fourth of July with a few close friends of mine. We laughed, played games, and enjoyed each others company through out the night.

After I left, I was overwhelmed. I was overwhelmed to be able to enjoy the company with friends again and to feel like myself.

That was the best. To feel like myself again. To laugh from the pit of my stomach. To allow my joy to rise to the surface and to express it in my overly energetic way.

It felt so good to be in my own skin again. To not have extra weight weighing on my heart. To have the worry of trying to make something work that isn't suppose to work. To not be hiding anything.

That's been the best part. Not hiding anything anymore.

My brother got really mad at me when I went off to college. He was mad because when I was in high school I told my mom exactly where I was going, who I was hanging out with, and exactly what we planned to do. I was always completely honest in this, I never had anything to hide. He hated it because my mom expected him to do the same for her. My brother is a lot more private than me and hates telling people what he's doing. Not that he ever did anything he wasn't suppose to either, he just likes his privacy.

I, on the other hand, have always loved being honest. I have always preferred to wear my heart on my sleeve and not hide anything from people.

I had been hiding so much and it was weighing me down. I hated it. I hated every minute of it.

But now, it's out and I feel so much better. I feel like I've lost 100 pounds if guilt and shame.

It feels so good to be back. So good.