1000 Strands

Everything is connected

Archive for April, 2013

A Genesis Week from the Chaos of Life – Psalm 51

Posted by Nicole on April 18, 2013

The Psalms are the sample journal – the diary example – from the Bible… honest and full of encouragement to just be REAL. Sometimes they sound like teenage angst. Sometimes they are full of wisdom and perspective. The Bible says that David (most likely the author of the Psalms) was a “man after God’s own heart.” Well, what the Psalms teach me then is that the Creator of the Universe’s heart is BIG and Honest and Complicated.

 

“God, make a fresh start in me,

shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life.

Don’t throw me out with the trash,

or fail to breathe holiness in me.

Bring me back from gray exile,

put a fresh wind in my sails!”
–Psalm 51

 

”A Genesis week from the chaos of my life.”

I can have a Genesis week from the chaos of my life?

Almost every day I wonder…

What if this whole God / Jesus story is really true?

Because it truly takes faith to believe in Jesus when life goes upside down.

***** ***** ***** *****

We are all on a roller coaster called Life, but some of us are not buckled up.  Are you?

Have you ever had the roller coaster nightmare? The one where the roller coaster starts clicking up the steep hill but your safety harness doesn’t work? It’s loose or totally broken and you know you are about to die – you know you are about to fall to your death on the sidewalk, or worse, on the tracks, or worse, on the ice cream cart and children below.

You hold onto the harness as best you can, linking your arm in and through the bars, muscles already shaking, knowing full-well that only your feeble hands might save you now. And your grip is not going to be enough…

 

I kinda feel like that in my life right now. Do you ever feel like this? Feel like life is just not safe and you’re about to be thrown?

(And, can I be honest? Can I let my complexity show?… )

My safety-harness-Jesus is broken. I no longer push up on the bars and feel the familiar, reassuring, locked push-back. I push up on my harness and it moves freely. Jesus is giving me too much space. I wish I could pull Him tighter.  I cannot hold on tight enough and I know I won’t make it through the ride. I am going to fall to an ugly, newspaper-headline-worthy, chaotic demise.

Jesus is no longer my safety harness; keeping me firmly in my seat until the ride comes to a full and complete stop.

 

And yet, this Psalm…

This psalm keeps telling me it’s going to be okay even if I lose my grip.

We are all going to be okay.

 

This Psalm somehow makes it sound like we are safe; that the gravitational pull of God is stronger than any of our fears or struggles or emergencies. He is stronger than the free falls. Stronger than the loops. Stronger than the hairpin turns.  He is stronger and He is Good.

From the chaos of life, we can pray for a Genesis week.

.i love this idea.

.a Genesis week from the chaos of life.

 

What is a Genesis week?

The CREATION OF NEW, GOOD THINGS.

The creation of good things from the chaos of our personal roller coasters.

 “God looked over everything he had made;

it was so good, so very good!”

From the chaos and void and emptiness of infinite nothing, God made everything. Out of love.

God is not about to let a technical malfunction or a scary free fall ruin a good thing. 
Good Creation began against all odds and will continue against all odds in our own lives.

 

In this Psalm, number 51, King David is working out the chaos of his life after committing a couple of the worst mistakes a person can make: adultery and a murderous cover-up. And yet, he has the audacity to pray that God make a Genesis week of his life? Put wind back in his sails?

This is what it looks like to be a person after God’s heart, I suppose.  The Bible describes King David as, “a man after God’s own heart.” In the face of disappointment in yourself, complete and total chaos, and sheer terror about what to do next… At the moments you are surely going to fall out of the ride and your own strength will not save you … we are invited to pray for New Good Things from a God who still cares.

I know I, for one, continue to focus on the harness not the hope.  The last few months have been full of freaking out about my unsafe harness. “The harness is not tight enough. The harness is broken. I don’t feel safe.”  I’m still dragging around feeling frustrated and sorry for myself that my house is a mess and I didn’t accomplish enough at work today – I’m not really asking God to make all kinds of beautiful creations from my chaos.  I’m demanding safety checks instead of enjoying the ride.

 

Faith. Hope. Love.

At the moment we fear we will be “thrown out with the trash” or thrown from the roller coaster … THIS is the exact moment we get to cling to God — or more correctly — God shows how He’s the one holding onto us.

Faith. Hope. Love.

If this whole Jesus story is actually true… if the Psalms are to be trusted… then there may really, truly be nothing to fear.  If your harness is broken; if Jesus does not feel close or click into place for you right now, you will still be okay.  Jesus is not always a locked safety harness (sometimes He can be, and when He is enjoy the HECK out of that).

Jesus is always a daring Love artist and the gravity of His Love pulls us closer to Him even as we ride the roller coaster – eyes full of tears and lungs burning.

Love,
Nicole

Prayer: Lord, I want to see the world from your perspective: always safe, always free, always hopeful. Thank you for the ride that is my life and thank you for being stronger than all the free falls and loops I’ll ever experience. You are my love artist. Please bring the full force of your gravity to my life so that you are the strongest pull I ever know. Amen.

*****

This post is part of a linkup at Everyday Awe going through the book of Psalms – one every week.
A bunch of us are reflecting on Psalm 51.

 

 

 

Posted in Free Flying Faith | 1 Comment »

Friendship Rugburns

Posted by Nicole on April 3, 2013

Through the big glass window, I watched my daughter in her first dance class. It’s like going to the aquarium, except the fish are more beautiful and they smile at you as they swim by.

On that very first day she made a friend. They danced and held hands and made each other laugh.  Tiny girls in tights and pink shoes and smiles.

Watching your kid make a friend is one of the best experiences in life.

We were excited to go back the next week and see her new friend. This second week, though, a new girl came. My daughter’s friend and the new girl hit it off.

So now I watch, through that giant window I wished would shrink to pinhole-size, as my daughter’s friend and this new girl clasp their four hands together, spin around and dance. They have a great time; truly enjoying each other. And I watched my daughter watch. From the side, she sees their joy and friendship bloom. I witness her move forward, asking so politely to join in the dance. Again. Again. Again, she asks, “Can I dance too?” Can I please hold hands and join in your circle?

The two other girls look at each other, because they are connecting and they don’t want to let anyone else in. They dance around some more and they see out of the corner of their eyes, my daughter still watching them… she’s too new to this friendship game. She doesn’t know how to hide her desire – to look busy or confident or just-fine-being-by-myself-thanks.

I hold my breath. Wishing. Praying. Not just praying that they would include her, but for her heart’s confidence and courage.

And eventually they did let her enter their circle. Eventually they decided it could be fun.

But as women, especially women, we have to be so aware. We value connection so deeply. We value being seen and known and making friends. We value it and we need it so much – that when we make a friend, we don’t see anything else. We just see that new friend and are so excited!  We forget that when you make a really beautiful, great connection with someone…

I can guarantee you, there is at least one if not five other women in the room whose gaping hole for connection is getting ripped open again. I can guarantee you that there are women in that room who just got punched in the gut seeing your connection with someone else.

Because we want deep friendship so much and it just points out again that we don’t have it. We don’t have it. And it hurts. Everytime.

This is just one of the reasons we suffer at each others’ hands.  This is one of the reasons so many women say they are not into women’s stuff – an event or group just for women. The push and pull of relational desire can be claustrophobic, for sure. And, it feels much more modern and cool to say we are just not into all that women’s stuff – men are simpler, etc etc… I’m beyond that.

Maybe you are… or maybe, like me, it just rubs you raw to be in a room of people and watch others connect. Avoiding those situations sounds better than enduring the burns.

The desire for connection will always be with us. It won’t serve me to pretend it’s not important.

*****

I continue to sit here, trying to find an answer… trying to find a simple, heart-felt, insightful way for us to all renew female friendships… but there is not one. Not in my head.

Because I will go to a meeting today and watch people connect. Later someone will watch me run into an old friend and receive a great hug and connection.

Jealousy will grip me and grip her. And we will each have to wrestle it to the floor – each of us, each time.

I guess all I can do is recognize my true enemies are not the other women, but the thoughts of bitterness, jealousy and fear.  I can have the courage to attack the scarier enemies of doubt and loneliness, and not the other human beings doing the best they can.

and I can speak words of courage to my daughters to try again and realize that we are all the same.

Try again to find hands to clasp and when you see someone on the outside, invite them in.

-Nicole

Prayer: God, you know my heart and the longings, desires, hopes I carry around each day. Would you please help me use those things to help others? I don’t want to be a black-hole-of-need all the time. I want to be the opposite – a light with the courage to give love and hope. God, be with my daughters as they navigate these very difficult friendship years. They are your daughters too and I trust them with you. Please take care of their hearts and show me how to speak words of courage to them as they make and lose and make friends. Thank you.

Posted in Honest Home | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »