Category: faith

Unraveled Identity

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When my husband first told me he wanted to go to seminary I threw up in my mouth a little bit. This was a calling he was sure of for himself but a calling for which I did not yet feel prepared.

I did not grow up in a family that attended church every Sunday or attended VBS in the summers nor did we have family devotions around our dinner table and the only way I knew how to pray was “now I lay me down to sleep.”

I have struggled with a difficult past marked with depression, unhealthy relationships with men, partying and I have experienced great loss through the passing of my mother from cancer as a young teenager.

Back then at twenty-three, in a little four door Camry on my way to St Louis, I did not believe that God could use me in His church.

Back then I did not see myself, this girl with an imperfect past, being able to ever connect with faithful church attenders on Sunday morning serving a perfect God.

This calling felt too big.

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I followed my husband to seminary anyway like a faithful solider not quite ready for battle but on the inside I struggled against the inner voices from my past that whispered I just wasn’t good enough.

It wasn’t like I believed it to be from 2 Corinthians 5:17: if you are in Christ you are a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come.

The new had come, I did have a changed life, but it was also so interwoven with many past experiences and voices. Somehow the old would have to begin to unravel from the new.

Walking through this story has been quite a journey. A journey against myself. A journey so challenging it would fail if God was not in it with me.

I have had some unraveling to do especially when it comes to my identity.

I was being called to the beginning of a journey against myself where I would constantly be required to put off the old and use the new to redefine the woman God was making to be in Christ.

It wasn’t long before the inner voice became coupled with the outer voices from others who were surrounding me.

I will never forget one of my first interactions with another seminary wife, “Wow, I’ve never met anyone like you… someone from total darkness.”

In that moment, whether that woman was joking or not, I stopped putting on what was true about me from the promises of scripture and I put on the scarlet letter of “the girl from total darkness” and I never wanted to step foot on the seminary campus again.

Just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness became the anthem of my season in seminary. I let that moment mark me and this just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness let the inner voices win.

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I spent three years trying to distance myself as far away from seminary as possible. I didn’t want anyone else to know the real me. I chose to mark myself with that just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness scarlet letter.

What happened to me while we lived in St. Louis was painful. I was crippled by my anthem. I wept. I was sick to my stomach almost every day. While my husband was thriving I was dying, carrying this heavy scarlet letter around my neck.

I still appeared to be a good solider on the exterior. But on the inside I was barely breathing.

It wasn’t until one morning on my couch when the words from Matthew 11 appeared on the page of my hot pink Bible in technicolor. “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

I thought about how long I had been carrying the weight of this interwoven old and new. How long I had walked with this just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness scarlet letter around my neck breathless and searching for air?

How long had I carried this burden alone and not shared the yoke with my Risen Lord?

He makes the burden light when I share it with Him.

Matthew 11 helped to let the unraveling of my identity begin.

The thread started to pull and I felt like I could breathe.

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This moment happened in our last weeks in seminary. It took me too long to realize I was not bearing the just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness identity alone. The one sharing the yoke with me was Jesus. The One Who had overcome death itself.

If He could overcome death He could help me overcome the voices.

So the unraveling of my identity in Christ began as I started to put off the old patterns and ways of viewing myself and I began to put on the new.

I started to challenge the just-not-good-enough-girl-from-total-darkness label with the label of the deeply-loved-completely-accepted-image-bearer-of-The-Risen-Lord-girl-from-total-darkness.

(I mean, I need to stay true to my roots, right?)

You can’t appreciate where you are if you forget where you came from- so the girl from total darkness stays…for now.

I know this journey of the unraveling of my identity is Christ is not over. I know the thread is just beginning to unravel.

I can’t say I feel completely equipped even now to serve alongside my husband but I can say the idea now longer causes nausea. This
deeply-loved-completely-accepted-image-bearer-of-The-Risen-Lord-girl-from-total-darkness knows God calls unlikely people in His Great Story Of Redemption.

No matter what the past, the inner voices, or the audible voices might be whispering I can hush them with truth because Christ, the One who ultimately has called me, is walking alongside me sharing this burden.

In Him I am…

Deeply Loved.
Completely Accepted.
Image bearer of the Risen Lord
Girl From Total Darkness

What is your identity? Are you letting the new unravel from the old?

It’s Not Like A Quick Wardrobe Change

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Almost ten years ago I came to know Jesus. This was not an effort to clean up my life nor has it been what some have referred to as a “spiritual awakening.” What happened to me took no effort at all. I wasn’t even looking for Jesus. The only thing that happened to me was I went to coffee with a friend and he challenged me to read the book of John and consider the teachings of Christ.

I had never read the Bible. Never. But at the age of twenty-one when I opened a real Bible for the first time something in me just could not put The Book down. I couldn’t even sleep without thinking about the verses written in it.

In the next few weeks something in me changed. The God of the Universe changed me for real.

I don’t know why.

God changed me when I wasn’t even seeking Him.

Adapted from Ephesians 2

In the past I was spiritually dead because of my sins. Yes, in the past my life was full of those sins. I lived the way the world lives. That same spirit is now working in those who refuse to follow God. In the past all of us lived like that, trying to please ourselves. We did all the things our bodies and minds wanted. Like everyone else in the world, we deserved to suffer God’s anger just because of the way we were. But God is rich in mercy, and he loved me very much He gave me new life together with Christ.
it is because I am a part of Christ Jesus that God raised me from death and seated me together with him in the heavenly places. God did this so that his kindness to me and my belonging to Christ Jesus would clearly show for all time to come the amazing richness of his grace. I mean that I have been saved by grace because I believed. I did not save yourselves; it was a gift from God. I am not saved by the things you have done, so there is nothing to boast about. God has made me what I am. In Christ Jesus, God made me new  so that I would spend my life doing the good things he had already planned for me to do.

As I was changing in the back of our car in Atlanta traffic out of my yucky road trip clothes and into my cute party dress I thought about how quickly and easily you can switch from one outfit to another.

It’s easy to put on the Christian look and even talk the Christian talk however, the Christian life is not at all like a quick wardrobe change.

The Christian life is more like an unraveling of yourself. Little by little your life gets turned upside-down and inside out.

I’m still the same Rachel I have always been. Kinda awkwardly funny, super bossy, intense, first on the dance floor and last to leave. But as I continue to walk with Christ all of the parts of me are constantly being unraveled as I recognize old patterns of responding to life without any thought of what God thinks and pursue new patterns as I seek to please a merciful God who changed me when I was not even looking for Him at all.

Marriage becomes unraveled. Being in Christ is not a one time magic formula for becoming the best supportive wife in the world. Constantly I am working to identify old patterns of responding to situations and praying God would redeem them.

Parenting becomes unraveled. As you seek The Lord in His Word, the Christian life helps turn past hurts and harmful patterns into redeeming, new, life giving ways to grow up a new family heritage in Christ.

Friendship becomes unraveled. For me little by little I unravel and discover how to be a better listener, question asker and more thankful for the friends God has given me.

My sisterhood unravels. I have decades under my belt of responding to my siblings in a way that does not honor Christ and slowly… very slowly… those previous patterns are unraveling and becoming new.

You don’t run to the altar on Sunday morning after a nice sermon and walk back up the aisle with a magic formula to now be perfect.

God’s Word does not say, just as you received Christ now be absolutely perfect in Him.

The Word says, now walk in Him. (Colossians 2:6)

It’s not a quick clean up or a wardrobe change.

Knowing Jesus and walking with Him is a lifetime of unraveling.

Ephesians 4
assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

So ten years later I am committed to this constant upside-down and inside out way of unlearning and relearning.

I know I didn’t get quick clean up when The God of the Universe called me into relationship with Him.

I get to walk in Him and unravel as I go.

I’d love to write more about this unraveling story and share personal stories of unraveled patterns. Please leave feedback if you’d like to hear more about this.

Here is a link to that first study I did ten years ago when my friend asked me to just consider the teachings of Christ.

Click to access libook1xpress1.pdf

The Tremor Of Her

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I miss her.

Every day.

Every moment.

When I see my sons holding my baby daughter’s face in their little toddler hands – When I am holding a grudge against my husband and digging my heels in the sand because I am right about where that couch should go and he is wrong- I miss her.

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Recently I have noticed little ways of how I seem to be becoming more and more like her. How even though she is gone I can feel the tremor of her in my moments. Every day.

Lately I have found myself saying and doing things the same way she used to. When you are younger you never think you will become your mother. But you do.

Her voice tremors through mine even when I least expect it.

Even though I miss her, I believe she lives on in me and I am thankful to be able to share her wise and crazy quirks with my sons and my daughter with hopes they will someday feel the tremor of her in their stories as well.

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That secret stash of chocolates I have in my pantry reminds me of her. She used to hide snickers bars in the freezer.

She used to sing “another one bites the dust” when one of my siblings fell asleep. When I was a child I thought this was a cruel way to respond to your babes falling asleep but now I find myself bom-bom-bomming along to that same tune as my children nod off in the evening.

The words, “I’ll give you something to cry about” have come out of my mouth when my children are crying because they can’t find their eyebrows or their bath time is too wet. Again, cruel words I swore I would never say now make a completely acceptable and appropriate phrase to pass on to my children.

I have dinner on the table almost every night at 6pm on the dot. This annoyed me as a child but now it is a part of the rhythm and routine of my daily life.

I feel the tremor of her when I make her poppyseed bread at Christmas.

I feel the tremor of her when I huddle all my kids and my husband together for a “hunga bunga” which is a completely embarrassing group hug where the whole family jumps up and down while chanting “hunga bunga.”

I play rummy like her and taught my husband. I despise cooking and do anything I can to make it as easy as possible.

Every birthday party is special for my kids just like she made birthdays special for me.

I am grateful for a season where I can move beyond the feelings of sadness and anger that go along with my grief. In the seasons of sadness and anger it is too hard to find the simple and joyful ways how the fourteen years I had with her have impacted me for a lifetime.

I know through the years the Lord will continue to reveal more ways of how she is a significant part of my story.

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I am thankful my children can experience their grandmother through the simple ways she lives on through me and I pray even though they never knew her my kids will feel the tremor of her in their stories for years to come and maybe years from now they will bom bom bom along as their own children “bite the dust” for the evening.

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My mom lost her seven year battle with breast cancer sixteen years ago this week. If you have a memory of her please share it here in the comments. I know it would bless my siblings and I greatly to hear about more joyful memories of her and you might help us discover more ways we can feel the tremor of her in our lives as adults.

 

How Saying No Is Leading Me To More Yes

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If you have happened to cross my path in the last ten years you might have seen a whirling tornado of lists and calendars and book studies swoop by you. For the past decade I have immersed myself in busyness; being involved help me feel in control and together.

The more involved I was in activities on campus, at work or in the church the more I felt in control of my moment by moment. If I planned out every second there were no surprises and I kind of like it that way.

My involvement in just about everything not only gave me control of my moment by moment but it also gave me significance.

“Doing” has become a god for me and little by little I have found myself finding my ultimate significance in my successes and failures.

Just to give you a small picture of what this tornado of lists and calendars and books studies looks like- here are a few of the things I said yes to last year.

My God
My marriage
My three sons aged 3, 2 and 1
Women’s bible study
A mentoring opportunity with an older woman
Leading a discipleship group of 15 faithful and godly young women
One on one discipleship with a sweet friend
Teaching Sunday School to preschoolers
Classroom Coordinator at Preschool
Women’s Retreat Planning Leadership Team
Trained for a half marathon
Started a blog

Okay, seriously, right? I know it looks crazy but once you sit down and write all the things down that you commit yourself to in a year it can look overwhelming.

I know you probably do just as much as I do.

So what?

Well, I have a distorted view of myself and my gospel. I have made my involvement big and my God small. My pendulum swings too hard when I rise and fall.

I want to be steady when the waves come and still be steady even if the waves don’t come at all.

This year I am saying no to all of it- obviously with the exception of the first three: My God, my marriage and my sons.

This was so hard especially when there was a ministry fair at our church and I could see myself walking down to the rows of tables and writing my name on every sign up sheet.

Or when I am not really sure if there will be someone to step in and lead this group of fifteen faithful young women and I love them and want them to continue to grow in the knowledge of God.

It is tempting for me to get involved. To be in control. To have my hands holding up the world instead of letting go and trusting that it is God who holds up the world.

Saying No

So I am saying no.

So I am going to stop doing.

I am going to make myself small so God can be big.

It seems both insane and lazy to me but I really think believing the gospel for me this year requires me to let go of everything and trust in the One Who is before all things and in Whom (not in Rachel) all things hold together. (Colossians 1:16)

Saying no will be a step of faith- to trust that I don’t keep my world from spinning around and I am not in control of my moment by moment.

Saying no will help me see that I do not begin and end any ministry. It is only the Alpha and Omega Who is the beginning and the end.

This year I hope saying no will allow me to say yes.

Yes to my big God who is pleased with me when my name isn’t on any sign up sheets.

Yes to my husband who is most likely tired of receiving leftovers from me because I am giving my best to everyone else and yes to more date nights.

Yes to my sons. Less putting them to bed early so I can lead a bible study or dragging them to nursery care so I can be involved in women’s bible study. Yes to their spiritual health and family devotional times around our kitchen table. Yes to discipline that is consistent and loving instead of exhausted and impatient.

Yes to my daughter arriving in December and yes to enjoying my last round of late nights feeding her and caring for her.

Yes to being available to be a better friend.

This year I feel a call to be still. (Psalm 46:10)

I am making myself small and trying to break the cistern.

I can already hear a loud exhale as I stop trying to hold up my world. Stopping everything is leading me to see Christ more clearly and giving me freedom to say yes to the most important things God has given to me.

My sweet family

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You can pray for me as I take on this “year of just saying no.” Sneaky and tempting opportunities to get involved will be coming my way like wolves in sheep’s clothing.

You can also make a list of all the things you say yes to in a calendar year. Where is God calling you to make yourself small so you can see that He is big?

Please share this on Facebook and Twitter with your friends. Maybe someone else out there needs to hear that God is pleased with them even when their name is not on a sign up sheet.

He holds up the world- not us.