Reflections on 2014

I find myself in a contemplative mood tonight.  I suppose it could be that it's the eve of the eve of a New Year.  It kind of makes one reflect on the events of the current year.  As I sit here the words of a song by Plumb come to mind...

"Standing on a road I didn't plan

Wondering how I got to where I am

I'm trying to hear that still small voice

I'm trying to hear above the noise"

It feels like that's been my life this year.  Struggling to hear above the noise of my doubts.  Struggling to hear the still small voice that is God when everyone around me is trying to advise as to what He is or might be saying about me.

I look back on 2014 and I'm nowhere near where I wanted to be.  I should be a semester into a Bachelor's in Biblical Studies.  I'm working the job that I thought for sure God was going to phase me out of this year.  Instead the job that I felt He wanted me in the most is gone.  And so I question, "How did this happen?  What did I hear wrong?  What's wrong with me that You changed the plan?"  

Then I think about all of the thought that went into picking out my word for the year.  To be honest I argued with God over my word.  It was weird.  Everyone else got to pick words like give, fight, love, etc.  Not me, God give me Pieces.  

Pieces....  Kind of what my year seems like.  It feels like the dreams from January are in pieces around me and most of them seem to be lost.  Pieces kind of indicates something is broken, right?  Who wants to go into the year with a word that hints of brokenness?

Of course God also gave me a really awesome song to go along with my word.

Still, it feels like my brokenness gets put on display for anyone to see.  Pieces means vulnerability.  It means that people all around me get to see the messiness of my life.  

As I reflect on the past year though I start to see the truth in the line that says...

"He knows how to make your pieces fit."

See the beauty of the word pieces means that I am broken, I am messy, I'm emotional and I've hurt a lot this year, but God has taken those pieces and is making a mosaic out of them.

A mosaic by definition is a picture or pattern produced by arranging together small colored pieces of hard material, such as stone, tile or glass.  In my case the material is the broken pieces of my hopes and dreams that when God steps in He knows exactly how to take the things that might not have quite worked out the way I had hoped and He makes them something beautiful all the same.  The even better part is that they become something far more beautiful than they would have been otherwise because God designed and redesigned the mosaic of my life.

When I'm in pieces that's when God's work shines through the brightest.  When I'm in pieces I'm not trying to hold myself together so people see the God I think they should see.  They see the God that is designing and redesigning me.  I suppose when I look at it through that lens the painful moments where I was being broken in some way have a new beauty and meaning.  

So..... What do you think God will do with Reckless Abandon for 2015?  Yep, technically it's two words, but it needed the adjective....

Oh, and I have a song for that too...

My Paradigm Shift

The paradigm has shifted and there is no going back to what was before....

We all go through periods of change.  Some moments are easier than others.  A little happier and with change that is something to celebrate.  Other moments are a little less enjoyable, but survivable.  Still others leave us devastated in their wake wondering if life can ever be alright again.  I think the latter ones are the moments when we feel that paradigm shift.   

I don't know about anyone else, but I for one am not overly fond of things that change in a way I can't recognize anymore.  It leaves me feeling off, wondering where I fit in and more often then not if it is a negative experience I find myself trying to find a way to blame myself for the fact that the change happened.  

Often lately I find myself feeling much like Frodo returning to the Shire after his journey with the ring.  He left the Shire an idealistic hobbit thinking very much that he would deliver a ring to the Elves and he would be done.  Little did he know that a long, difficult journey was before him that did not end at Rivendale, but went all the way to Mordor.  When he returns he is so changed he never really finds a way to fit into life in the Shire.  A shift had occurred and he was no longer the same hobbit that everyone remembered.  

I think that is very much how I feel at this moment in my life.  I'm a Mommy, but it's not my sole identity.  I have things I feel very passionate about, but fail to see a way to live them out.  After months of isolation I'm returning to a world where everyone's daily life has continued on, but I'm no longer a part of it.  Where does that leave me?  

I feel like God's been showing me some interesting things about where that leaves me.  It leaves me in a world where I see much better the "what was supposed to have been" rather than the "what happens now".  But I think that's ok.  It leaves me realizing that it's alright to stop pretending things are ok when they aren't.  It leaves me valuing my whitespace moments that provide the opportunity for God to speak to me.  It makes me realize that maybe the well-meaning white noise around me keeps me from hearing what God wants from me right now.  Maybe God blesses me with silence and isolation to bring me closer to Him.  

I look around me and see so many activities going on under the guise of good, Godly activity and I start to understand that we've become so busy doing for God that we've forgotten how to just be with God.  Or did we ever really know that?  Are we afraid of what God will say to us if we stop long enough to hear?  Will He ask us to do something uncomfortable?  Something we don't want to do?  

I'll pretty much guarantee that He will.  How do I know this? Because when I stopped to listen that's exactly what He asked me to do.  To stay in a situation that brings much more pain than joy.  A place that it's impossible to explain to others why I stay except for the simple explanation of God says stay.  But in staying He's asked even more.  He's asked me to stop pretending.  Stop pretending that I'm strong enough to muscle through each moment He asks me to spend there.  To stop pretending that I'm not messy.  

The reality is I'm exactly that.  I'm messy, I'm emotional, I'm not ok all the time and the truth most days I don't want to stay where God has asked me to join Him.  But that's where my paradigm shift has left me, in a place I don't feel I belong, but God says I'm there for a reason.  My paradigm shift has changed the landscape that I'm returning to like an earthquake disrupting the beautiful California countryside.  In its aftermath my home disappeared and I'm left trying to figure out the pieces that are left of that former life.  

Pieces....  My word for 2014....  It begins to make sense of my paradigm shift....  It destroyed the facade of genuine and authentic and makes me see myself differently.  It brings to my attention others that struggle with shattered pieces that belonged to what used to be their reality and in doing so leaves me feeling a little less lonely in my messiness.