lies of being left

I wonder if I sat down in a room of people caught up in the torrent of their twenties and asked for lies to be outlawed what would happen.

I wonder if I asked the questions, nobody wanted to ask, themselves- who if any, would silently nod their head in agreement, or heed the need to let their voice be heard.

How many feel like you're flailing amidst passion and responsibility, fight or flight?

How many feel like you're the battle-scarred and bruised, with no sign of reprieve?

How many feel like you're the leftovers?

Am I the only one?

I stood before the mirror today and I let myself get lost in thought. I reckoned with truth and out came words that needed to be written, immediately. There was no saving this for later, because otherwise I'd be scared to death to own up to it.

My heart feels like it's leftovers, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

These transitional twenties have left you barely breathing, you're weaker than when you were barely crawling.

In your heart, you look about you, friends are mothers and fathers, with sons and daughters. And yes, you'd be the first to admit you aren't ready for parenthood. But sometimes, you have to wonder. Wonder why your hands have to be left and deemed empty, why you can't seem to find someone to share your passion.

And then you think, all the more, and you're the friend that broke the silence, that danced in the rain, but you've become leftovers. The truest of friends have quietly whisked themselves onward and outward, and maybe you are partly to blame, but you are ALONE. They've gone, they come in and out, but it's not the same anymore, is it?

You are fond memories kept and stowed away in vintage cigar boxes, you are the notes that might rise up out of dusty drawers for one last look, you are the past, and all that you've become is leftovers.

And in my heart of hearts, I know this isn't true of me, or you.

But goodness, I'd be lying to tell you my throat didn't catch when the unacknowledged lie reared its ugly head. I'd by lying to tell you that I'm okay, alone. I'd by lying to tell you that I don't hurt sometimes, at how quickly friendships have faded, forever. But even still, I'm socially awkward, it's like I'm paralyzed, longing for friendships, but having forgotten what it means to befriend someone in person. I'm longing for it, but then I'm too tired to fight for it.

Is this any of you?

Maybe it's just me.

But I don't know, I feel like someone else might have needed to hear these words.

What it comes down to is, this, you aren't leftovers. You might have been left, sweet one.
But that means nothing in the grand scheme of things, NOTHING.

God hasn't walked away, child. He hasn't and He won't. I know that rejection hurts and leaves your heart stalling, too afraid to keep beating, but love, YOU. ARE. HIS.

He claimed you. He has you. Wherever you are. Whatever you are doing.

I'm begging you'll stand up with me tonight, let's be honest, it hurts, we're broken, but all is not lost.

Because praise Jesus, we are His redeemed first loves, overcome the lie, you aren't leftovers.

People Move Me

I wonder if I could take away the furrowed brow, that tells me that you're trying to conquer this world with the burdens on your shoulders.

I wonder what I could do.

You're lost in an abyss, fighting the temptations alone, and I'm here on the other side and well, you're barely known to me. But that doesn't mean that I haven't been sleepless, that my pillow hasn't been covered in tears.

There's something about you.

Tears well up in my eyes, because I knew before you told me, that you were struggling.

Sometimes, I'd give anything for intuition not to befriend me, just once.

Cause, there are times when I know you're hurting and I'm powerless to change anything.

For years, it's been this way.

I meet the people behind their names and I'm overcome.

I'm in awe of the love that rises up within me for strangers. I long to know their stories. I long to feel their pain with them.

My fingers caress the keyboard to carry out the emotions I feel and penn the words, meaningless to many, it's all I know. But sometimes, a blank document seems to understand me the best.

The sage ones tell me not to take on the pain of others, to ignore their problems, to think about myself. But the blank document doesn't fight back. The quiet times spent with Jesus, remind me that I'm blessed with this burden for a reason, unknown to myself. That sure, it's heartbreaking, but I shouldn't ignore it.

And so here I sit, and I think of the boys, the survivors of depression, that awakened a sense of love in me, I think of the men, who've lost themselves to loneliness and addiction, and I long to fight for them.

I think of the women, skin-stained and wrinkled from the love of the Sun, and I long to take the burdens off their shoulders. I think of those darling ones, that'd do anything to cover up their scars and hide behind the mantra, all is well.

I long to sit with the bruised and battered, hand clasped in mine, and a cup of coffee in the other.

I long to pour love over their loveless hearts, speak truth over the piles of lies, and guide them out of their messes.

But then I have to reckon with reason and the truth to everything, I'm not the fixer. 

I can't fix that boy-man, lost in a field of loneliness and addiction. I can't stand him up on his feeble, trembling knees, but I can kneel at the throne, with his name on my tongue and surrender.

I can surrender him over to the Fixer of souls, the Keeper of hearts.

I can't carry that skin-stained woman home and erase the abuse that's left her forever changed. But I can  quietly give her over to her Maker, and remember that He alone, can save her.

I can't feed every hunger child and house all of the homeless, but I can fall to my knees and pray for the nameless. I can pray for their stomachs to be filled, their souls to be housed, and the lost to be found.

God's the fixer.

And for some crazed reason, He's given me eyes to see people in a different light. A light that sometimes means, I can't stop thinking of people, unknown or known to me. A light that means, I feel their hurt in ways unfathomable to me.

And so, today. The boy-men are on my heart, that they might conquer addiction, once and for all. For the women, with their little girl dreams, that they might feel worth and love to the core of their being and the corners of their souls. My prayers go out to the nameless that I've seen on the street corners. My prayers are with those that I have stumbled upon on Twitter, the hearts that I've yet to meet in person.

Because God made me to love people.

So I will love people.

I will hurt with them, and for them.

I will love them until there's nothing left of me.

Rejected, but Rising...

I was trembling.

Inside and out.

Shaken to the core, that something I had merely given a chance had all but collapsed in front of me.

I didn’t even ever claim it to be a dream of mine, but it had just come down to what do I do?

SO I threw myself into something and heaved upon it great expectations.

But rejection came in the form of three paragraphs, with no personal explanation.

It came on a day, when I was working and unashamedly refreshing my email for the 6:00 EST time of arrival.

A day, when I had already surrendered the outcome on my morning commute, but even still, to say the pangs of rejection weren’t felt in the depths of my heart and soul, would be a lie.

And so two little women walked me up the stairs and sat me down, and began to speak their truth. They refused the rejection and buried it into the ground with the hope for better things, newer things. They sang of future triumph and joy, all wasn’t lost.

I sat in my heap of tears. I sat and listened. I longed for reprieve.

I muttered to myself that I was a walking contradiction.

How could I surrender the outcome just a few hours ago and still be torn to pieces?

But even so, the tears wouldn’t let up.

The sobs wouldn’t escape into oblivion.

Those two had to leave and so I continued to sit in silence. Until another woman unlocked the office door and before she could say anything, she just came up and held me. She held me with all of her might.

She painted a picture of hope rising and instilled within me that this just wasn’t a part of His plan. She reminded me with the twill of her British accent, that I was still needed here. That for some reason, things weren’t coming, progress wasn’t being made, because I needed to wait. I needed to rest. I needed to hope.

She walked me through the pain with her soft-spoken, beautifully blunt words and all but refused the power this lie of rejection had over me.

I saw Jesus that day. I heard Jesus that day.

He didn’t come in the form of a burning bush telling me what to do next, nor where to go.

He came in the form of a British woman going out of her way to avoid work for thirty minutes and just hold me.

He spoke through her in that tiny office and he went out of His way to remind me that it was okay to hurt for a time, but I couldn’t hold onto to it in the days to come.

He used her to tell me to rise.

To rise and refuse, that this was all there would be.

Jesus came to me that day in the form of three women customers, who I’ve known for years, wrapping me up in words of wisdom and offering their hope to take the place of my hopelessness.

Jesus came to me in the form of strangers, huddled in prayer, acknowledging the pain of something lost, and the beginning of stumbling onto more to be found.

I saw Jesus. I heard Jesus.

And on that day, when I thought, talks of moving somewhere in the states would begin; I stumbled onto something even more beautiful.

I felt rejection, but I felt hope rising.

I felt alone, but I was held in the arms of many.

On that day, rejection came to me in the form of a letter, but Jesus came to me in the form of His people.

I don’t know where you are as you read this, but I have a feeling rejection has come to you. It’s been received in the form of paragraphs or implied by friendships faded. It’s been the unrequited love that has kept you up at night.

Whatever it’s been, I know I haven’t been the only one dealt it.

Maybe depression has stolen someone close to you, left them to be but an empty shell- and all of you has cried out for truth to take its hold. Maybe you’ve longed to be the fixer of all that is broken, and you’re just now figuring out that that is entirely impossible, improbable.

Darling, you may have the best intentions, but you can’t fix souls. You can’t revive empty shells. You just can’t.

But you have access to the fixer. You have access to the Keeper of Souls, the Guarder of Hearts. You have access to the Bearer of all Baggage. You have access to the Healer of all Sickness.

Your Maker has power over depression. He calls people out of death, TO RISE.

Do you know that?

Do you know Him?

Do you know that He has set out to build a home, one where sadness cannot touch you, where depression cannot taint you, and where brokenness must avoid you?

He built you a home.

And He waits to eliminate the traces of rejection in whatever form they came to you, with His truth.

You can overcome, because He overcame.

So little one, RISE, and lose yourself in prayers for the hearts of those dear to you that they will find the courage to RISE, TOO.