The Night I Almost Deleted This Blog

Its funny how after leaving something for a while, when you finally do decide to come back to it, no matter how familiar it once was, there is always a bit of a learning curve. 

That is how I feel about blogging here again.  The last time I visited this blog was one dark Monday night at about 11:30pm, with tear splotched eyes.  I hastily went through and deleted post after post after post and left only those posts that I felt weren’t overly personal.   I was that lethal combination of angry and broken, and I took it all out on this blog.

In order to spare you all the gory details, I will just say that only hours before that night, someone brought to my attention that I was an over-sharer here on this blog.  Folks were starting to worry about me.  I was revealing too many intimate details about my family and about myself, and people were starting to feel concerned that I either was a.) really not okay or b.) doing it for attention.

I wish I could say that I handled it with maturity and was able to really process it logically and really examine the situation, but to say that would be to lie.  No, I flipped out.  I was angry. I was sad. I was broken. I was hurt. I was confused.  How could something that I started in order to help people be something that was in turn hurting me?  Was I just some drama queen looking for attention?  Aren’t we living in a world that yearns for more vulnerability and honesty?  Why was I being rejected for sharing my truth?   What did I do wrong? Why was this wrong?

I had so many questions with no real answers, so in haste, I did the only thing I felt like I could physically do to fix the situation…I attacked my blog with vengeance and deleted more than a dozen posts.

The next few days, I walked around in a fog.  I cried so many tears.  I was still so angry.  I felt cheated and betrayed.  It wasn’t the blog so much as the accusations that I felt were attached to it.  I knew that my blog was not one of those hills that I was going to die on, and yet, I felt so completely humiliated and rejected at the thought of how I was being perceived through my blog.  It was such a weird and hard combination of emotions and feelings.

But I will say this: it sent me to my knees in prayer like never before.  I cried out to God with a voice so loud and strong that I am certain folks that live a kilometer away could probably hear me. I begged God…pleaded with Him to show me if there was any merit at all to what these people were saying to me and about me.  I wanted to understand. I had tried so hard to just use my love for writing to bring light and joy and truth to this world and yet it was this very desire that was under attack.  I felt that I was being stripped of the very identity that I had wanted to give myself.

And there it was…right in plain few. I felt that I was being stripped of the very identity that I had wanted so desperately to give myself.

My identity little by little was getting wrapped up in this blog.  Your likes, your comments, your messages, your shares were like a drug that I couldn’t let go of.   It was like you were saying that you like me…you really, really like me!  What started as a well-intentioned attempt to just give people a glimpse into our lives as missionaries morphed into an addiction and well-disguised plea for your approval. 

Ouch.

This blog.  My posts.  My writing.  My stories.  All of it over time changed into something that made me feel valuable and special.  And the more likes, comments, shares, etc. that I got just fed into that lie.  I realized though as the years passed that the more intimate and vulnerable the post, the more likes, comments, and shares it received.  So each time, I went just a little deeper.

And I was hurting people I love along the way.

Because here is the thing, while I am a big fan of vulnerability and freedom from the lie that we have to hide behind masks and filters in order to be accepted and valued, I also realize that there are so many things that are still quite sacred.  My marriage, my kids, my family, my friends, my life…my innermost thoughts…those things are all still sacred or at least should be.  I should live vulnerably with those that are doing life with me, but the key is doing that with those in my life…not on a blog post that is just sent out into the cyber world. 

So these last few months, I have done the only real thing that I could think to do and that was to just stop writing.  I didn’t stop writing all together.  My journal is fuller than it has been in a very long time.  But I have stopped writing here…or at least I had until tonight. Tonight I finally felt ready to share just a little glimpse into why I stopped blogging and why so many of the pieces you may have read this year and last year are suddenly gone from my site.

I don’t know that I will give up blogging for good.  Once in a while I may have something that I just want to share, but for now at least, I have decided to just be present in my life right where I am.  I have decided to live authentically and vulnerably with my people. 

But more than anything, I have learned that having thousands of followers on my blog or having people applaud me for my well-written pieces will never bring me the joy and even satisfaction that I tend to think it will.   I don’t need to prove my worth as a Christian as a wife as a mother or even as a missionary.  I don’t need to be popular to serve my God well.

And the most amazing thing has happened since I stopped blogging…

I found so much more contentment in my life just as it is.  I stopped believing it was less than or that it was lacking somehow.  I just decided to stop and just be…just be….just be right where I am right now.

The other night I was headed to the kitchen to try and figure out what my crew was going to eat for dinner. On the way to the kitchen, though, I had to step over 5 different bodies sprawled out all over my living room. There were crayons and markers scattered everywhere.  Beautiful coloring pictures of elaborate cakes and butterflies were in the making.  And I just got teary as I watched them.  All I could think to say was,  “God thank you for this.  Thank you for all of this.  I am so grateful that this is my life.  Thank you for ordinary Thursday evenings when I get to just be in my home with the ones that I loved.  You are enough.  This is enough.  My life is enough.”

No one may ever remember a single thing I ever wrote.  No one may ever even remember my name long after I am gone.  But if my kids and my people here in my everyday life, remember the way we loved each other and fought for each other and chose each other and pointed each other towards Christ, then that is enough…it is more than enough. 

It is and always will be a hundred times better than thousands of likes, comments, and shares on social media.  Every Single Time!

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Why I Always Want More

There have been moments in time that I have wished…no I have yearned for someone to say out loud the words that I desperately thought I needed to hear.  Inwardly I begged, pleaded with the person to just say them.  I thought that if he/she finally said these words, then they would be true. 

I had one of those moments today. I desperately needed to be told something.  Once again, my insides secretly pleaded with that person to say the words.  Somehow I believed that this person knew how much I needed to hear them but was just not saying them out of spite or selfishness.  I think deep down I knew that wasn’t really true, but I struggled anyway.

I tried taking my plea to God.  I didn’t have the guts to actually ask God to make this person say the words, but throughout the day, I sure thought it. Then suddenly, this evening, I felt as if I was transported back to the bedroom I had grown up in.  I was 15 years old again, and I was lying on my bed reading my Bible.  I was really reading it for the first time on my own, and I had just stumbled upon Galatians 1:10.  “Am I saying this now to win the approval of people or God? Am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be Christ’s servant.”

I remember stopping to read it again and again…almost 10 times I read it that afternoon.  I quickly scribbled it into my journal and before the day was over, I had it memorized.  Even then I knew that my greatest struggle was my inherent need for man’s approval.  My identity was tied to what I thought others believed me to be.

Now here I was almost 20 years later, still caught up in the same struggle.  Sure I now KNOW that my identity can only be found in Christ.  Sure, I don’t quite care about EVERYONE’s approval like I once did.  But I still battle.  I still want certain people in my life to believe and think and SAY certain things about me and to me.  Deep down I still wrestle with the belief that these things are only true about me if someone else says it and believes it too. 

But clearly God’s Word says that I am to seek God’s approval.  I am His servant not man’s.  So why do I long for man’s words to make me feel like I am enough…like I am beautiful or skinny or wanted or talented or creative or whatever else I am struggling with on that particular day?

Recently I spoke with a friend about the significance of our names.  We were discussing about the fact that in Biblical times and for many generations following, parents chose the name for their children based on their identity and destiny.  Names were completely tied up with purpose. 

I have always had a love/hate relationship with my particular name.  I like my name, but I hated that I was always one of many Sara’s.  It just reinforced my complex of feeling completely and totally ordinary.  I even joked when we were talking about names and their meanings about how the name “Sara” signified “princess.”  I sarcastically said, “Oh yes my destiny is to be a princess!” and then I let out a laugh like it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard.

My friend quietly but poignantly asked, “But what if you did live like you were a princess?  What if you lived your life truly as if you were the daughter of the King?  Because isn’t that what you are?”

Why had I never thought of it before then?  I am a princess because I am a daughter of the One True King. 

I can try and will man to say what I need to hear all day long. I can inwardly plead and beg him to say aloud what I desperately think I need to hear, so I can feel worthy and wanted and a plethora of other things.  Or I can start believing today what God says to be true about me.  I can live my life as if I am chosen and called and ordained and loved and beautiful and holy and wanted. 

We can spend our whole lives waiting for people to treat us like we think we should be treated or tell us what we think we deserve to hear or love us the way our hearts long to be loved…

Or we can chose today…right in this moment to start living and walking and BELIEVING that God has given us grace when we deserved condemnation.  We have a God that lavishly loves us and chooses us. 

When I wait for man to do what only God can do, I am saying really that I do care more about man than I care about God. I am saying that I value man’s thoughts and opinions of me more than I value God’s.  I am saying that my identity rests in man rather than in God, and I will always come up disappointed. I will never measure up to man’s yardstick because I was never meant to.   

If our lives are to make any kind of lasting imprint and impact on this ever-darkening world, then we are going to have to buck up a little.  We are going to have to get tougher skins.  This doesn’t mean that we have cold and hardened hearts.  It means that we stop allowing the enemy to use even the ones closest to us as daggers to our hearts.  We set ourselves up for defeat when we constantly ask our loved ones and friends and bosses and neighbors and even our children to be what only God can be for us. 

You don’t need man’s approval if you already have God’s.  Your worth is not found in man’s opinion of you. 

You are loved.  You are chosen.  You are beautiful.  You are known.  You are wanted.  You are lovely.  You are called. 

You are all of these things single, married, skinny, fat, employed, unemployed, successful, unsuccessful, young, old.  You are these things because God says you are.  Those of us that have surrendered our lives to Christ have everything we need in Him already.  Let’s stop asking man to give us more.

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Be All that You Can Be

If there is one thing my generation has heard over and over again, it’s that we need to “reach for the stars.” Anything is possible for us, and “we need to be all that we can be.” Born to the mega generation of Baby Boomers, our parents made the effort from the early days in our cribs to make sure we knew that we could achieve big things in life.  Being a primarily “working class” generation, many of our parents started setting aside college funds before they even began setting aside money for their 401ks. They wanted big things for us, and they worked hard to do their part in setting us up for success. 

I can still remember my 5^th grade graduation party.  A local newscaster came and gave us our classic “you can do anything” speech.  We all felt so privileged because not only was this pretty broadcaster giving us the speech, but also throughout it, she reminded us, no less than a dozen times, that we were “the” graduating class.  We were going to graduate high school in the year 2000, and that somehow made us even more special than any class before us or after us. 

I am reluctant to admit that I sucked up every one of those motivational speeches like they were each meant for me and me alone.  I believed every single time my parents told me that I was special and unique and that I was going to do big things in this world. 

In the deepest crevices of my heart, I believed that I was going to do something extraordinary in this life.  My name may be ordinary but I sure wasn’t going to be!

And that is what I was constantly on a mission to do.

Somehow, though, along the way, I equated doing something extraordinary with being extraordinary.  And the only way I was possibly ever going to BE extraordinary was to either be the very best at something or do something no one else had done before me.

I certainly didn’t feel like I was the prettiest so that was out of the running (Refer to Baring It All to read more about that journey).  I played both softball and basketball competitively from an early age, but once I got to high school, I realized that while I had talent, I was never going to be the best at that either.  I was active in theater but I couldn’t sing and my acting abilities were sub-par at best, so I wasn’t going to be any kind of star there.  I graduated with a perfect 4.0 from high school but once I got to college I realized that while I probably had above-average intelligence, I certainly wasn’t the smartest girl in my school let alone in any one of my given classes even.  I am embarrassed to admit that I even tried desperately to be in the “in” group of Christians…the ones leading all the chapels and discipleship groups.  I thought surely I could be of use there.  But, I always found myself on the sidelines.

Once I graduated from college and moved to Guatemala, deep down I thought I maybe had found that one elusive thing that would make me extraordinary finally…I was going to make a difference in this world and “save” the lives of these poor, orphaned children.

While this most certainly wasn’t the reason I moved to Guatemala, I am ashamed to admit that there was a part of me that wanted to believe this would make me special. 

Unfortunately as with everything else, I quickly discovered that I wasn’t any kind of superstar “missionary.”  I struggled with the language (and still do at times).  I often times felt weary and didn’t spend regular time in prayer and fellowship with the Lord.  I am WAY more introverted than I ever realized so I get stressed after a long day with people and there are weeks every now and again that I sometimes don’t even want to leave my house. 

My job most often consists of administrative work, and while I am organized and like administrative stuff to a certain extent, it’s not like I am overwhelmed with passion for it.

Over the years, I stood back and watched as some of my other co-laborers here in Guatemala were achieving incredible, almost impossible feats, and I was and am utterly amazed by what they have done and continue to do.  I have one friend that is on the front lines of getting international and national laws changed on behalf of children and their families.  Another friend works daily with families whose children have been removed from their homes and helps them take steps towards restoration and reconciliation.    Others are working with the terminally ill and providing comfort for children in their last hours on earth.

I watch these folks, and I stand there with my mouth open. I feel proud to call them friends.

But, I want to tell you something honestly.

As the years have gone by, I have felt like a failure too.  I have believed the lies that say I am not enough and what I contribute daily is so incredibly insignificant.  Added to these lies, I have watched as my generation has now lifted up bible teachers and writers and even bloggers to new heights.  We say we don’t adore them or even worship them, but we certainly at times use them as our bar for measuring our own successes.

Deep in my heart my 2 greatest dreams for my life were to write and to teach.  And as I used others’ success as my measuring stick, I came up short every single time.

My own self-absorption coupled with years of being told that “anything was possible” and that I had “to be the best I could be” turned me into a woman who constantly believed she wasn’t enough and hadn’t achieved enough.  Sure I had mostly overcome the battle of believing my worth was found in my physical appearance, but really as I stood back examining my life up close, I realized that I just replaced that battle with a new one. I believed that my value, my worth, and my purpose even was found and measured by how much I had accomplished and how “extraordinary” my life was. 

I saw others doing mighty, big, amazing, life-altering things, and while I did applaud them and cheer them on, I also allowed the enemy to use these things to twist my own thinking.  My life suddenly seemed too small.  My contributions were way too insignificant. 

It’s maddening really.

And it makes me angry.

I feel furor inside that I let the enemy poison me with these lies.

Our parents didn’t work themselves ill so that we could just pout and sit on the sidelines saying, “Poor me.  I am not enough.  My life isn’t enough.” 

That’s ridiculous.  While I don’t think they believed our worth was found in what we accomplished, they did believe that we should have every opportunity to dream.  They did push us to think outside of the box and to want more than maybe they even wanted for themselves.  And we dishonor their efforts every time we say that the life we are living isn’t enough.

Let me tell you something friend.  You are enough because God says you are.  He made you.  He created you. He loves you.  Your life is enough because He gave you life. 

I believe in a BIG, MIGHTY God that calls us over and over to put our feet into the Jordan River and trust that He will part the waters.  I believe that He can and does use us to do impossible things for Him and His Kingdom.

But I refuse to believe that He uses the same measuring stick that we use with ourselves and with one another. 

He wants our OBEDIENCE. He wants our hearts.  He wants to be enough for us.

My life is extraordinary because an extraordinary God lavishly loves me. 

And I am extraordinary because that extraordinary God has called me and set me apart for His kingdom and for His purposes. 

It has to stop.  All of this comparing. All of this measuring.  All of this stuff that says we aren’t enough.

Do not give into that lie one more moment of one more day.  Because every time you do, you waste that moment.  You waste it. 

There are real people out there in this world with real hurts that need someone that is willing to forgo the platform and willing to wash their feet.  This world doesn’t need more microphones; it needs more dirty hands.  It needs folks that no longer care if they are remembered or if they were even extraordinary.  It needs people that will stop looking for the spotlight and start looking for ways to be a good neighbor and friend. 

God won’t love you more because you did something bigger or better than everyone else.  There isn’t some sort of prize for the biggest stage.

He just wants us to be all in wherever we are and whatever He asks of us today, tomorrow, and every day that He decides to give us breath after that.

And lastly, I want to leave you with this one little nugget…

We are all meant for fellowship and community.  God wired us to need one another.  You won’t find community under the heat of a spotlight.  You will find it at your dinner table.  You will find it sitting in your lawn chairs with your neighbors in front of your house.  You will find it cleaning up a scrap and kissing an ouchie.  You will find it when you decide that your life is enough because God gave it to you.

Let’s let loving each other well be what makes us extraordinary and enough for once.

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When We Realize They Aren't Our Own

It happened the first time just over a year ago.  I didn’t think too much about it at the time. I just thought it was sweet and that it was one of those moments in time that I would always look back on with fondness.

It had been three straight days of rain in a time that was technically not considered “rainy season” yet.  While opening her curtains that morning, her daddy said, “How strange to be having all this rain right now.  Something weird must be going on.  I bet Jesus is coming soon.”

He then kind of smiled and left the room to wake up her brother.

She however shot straight up and looked me in the eye with glee and excitement written all over her face, “Jesus is coming today! Oh I am so excited Jesus is coming today!”

She hopped out of bed and rushed to change her clothes.

I quietly followed her and tried to think of the best way to explain what her Papi was trying to say. 

“You mean he isn’t going to come today then?” she whispered. I could see the tears starting to puddle.

“I don’t know sweet girl.  None of us know when He is coming again.  We just have to be ready when He does. Papi just meant that since we don’t usually have this much rain this time of year that maybe it is a sign that He is coming soon,” I tried to explain.

“Well I really wish he could come today.  I really would love to show him my room and have him play with my dolls with me.”

All I could do was hug her close. I didn’t want to break her excitement, and truly I didn’t know what else to say anyway.  The tears were at the brink of my own eyes as they were.

I hadn’t really thought about that today too much until recently.  Like many beautiful moments in life, as time passes, these moments get muddled in with all the new ones.  We don’t really forget. They just don’t sit right there in the front like they do when they have just happened.

But last night as I tucked my sweet girl into her bed, the tears stung my eyes once again as I stroked her hair and prayed softly over her.  I remembered that moment again, but this time a new emotion was raging war in my heart….an emotion that has been waging often over the last few weeks.

We have a nighttime routine of reading the Jesus Story Bible together and praying as a family every night before the kids go to bed.  Papi and I take turns reading in Spanish and English and the kids each pick different people to pray over and for each evening.  It is a special time, sometimes very reverent and other times filled with my youngest talking incessantly about poop (a side-effect of life spent potty training these days).

Lately, my sweet girl often leans over to me as she listens to her Papi read and asks gently when she is finally going to get to see Jesus.  She tells me how desperate she is to see His face and spend time with Him.  Usually, I just kiss her cheek and tell her that someday we will all get to see Him in heaven and that we can be so thankful that He lives in our hearts and that we can speak to Him at any time or day.

But then the requests have gotten more frequent.

And last night I felt almost broken over it.  This morning my tear-stung eyes aren’t much better.

I pleaded with God last night. 

“Oh Father please don’t let this mean you are going to take her soon.  Please don’t take her.  I don’t want to face life without my girl.  I am so thankful for her heart for you but please give me more years with her.  Please let me get to watch her grow.”

I have been begging Him really.  I have watched far too many families grieve the loss of their children, and selfishly, I don’t want to be one of those families.  But for some reason knowing my daughter yearns so greatly to be with Jesus makes me feel like I am going to lose her.

I confessed to the Lord my brokenness.  I know I am wrong in my heart to want my child to want to be here rather than with Him.  But, I can’t help it.  I am a mama, and I love my girl.

But as always God is faithful.  He is so gentle with me. He knows my fragile state.  I can almost feel His whispers today.

“My sweet daughter, Sara, I know you love your girl.  I do too.  You can trust me with her life. You can trust me.”

And then I was reminded of a prayer I prayed for this beautiful, sassy, spirited, gentle, loving girl of mine on her 5^th birthday.  I was on my way to church to share with a group about our work here in Guatemala.  I was eager to get there and get back home as we had a full afternoon planned of a Frozen extravaganza for the birthday girl. 

I started praying for her.  I asked the Lord for lots of things but after I uttered the words, “Heavenly Father I ask you for her health and protection and for many years for her life. I ask you to keep her safe.” I just stopped. I had much more I wanted to say but after I spoke those particular phrases, I couldn’t go on.  Tears started to stream down my face, I confessed to the Lord, “God she is yours.  You have given her to me, and I am so ever grateful. I love being her mama so very much. I want many, many more years with her. I want you to grant her good health. I want you to keep her safe and protected and free from pain and harm.  But more than I want all of those things for her, I want her to love you with all of her heart. I want her life to be surrendered to You. I want her to love You and want You more than she wants anything this world has to offer.”

I don’t know what God has planned for my sweet daughter. I have no idea what her future holds. I have no idea if she will live to be an old lady much like my great-grandmother or not.  And as much as sometimes I feel that squeeze around my heart thinking about what life would ever look like without that girl of mine, I know that those words I prayed for her on her 5^th birthday are still true today.

I want my girl to love Jesus more than anything this world has to offer…and even more than she loves her life.

God is challenging me to pray big things for my kids.  And I don’t mean big things as in things relating to prosperity here on earth. I am referring to praying big heavenly things.  I don’t want to settle for my kids having much here on earth when it is what they are storing up for eternity that matters.  I don’t want my kids to have everything in the world except for the thing that counts most. 

I want my kids to passionately and fully love God with their whole hearts. I want them to be a light in this ever-growing dark world.  I want them to be like that cool breeze on a hot summer’s day or the glowing sun on a cold, blistery morning. 

That means I have to surrender them.  I have to trust my Jesus with their lives and their futures.  I can’t hold too tight. I have to love them with all I have and lead them well…and cherish every moment, but I must never forget to Whom they belong.

And lastly I must confess that my daughter’s excitement for Jesus has convicted me that I so often choose this world over my Lord.  I want what this world offers more than what He does. 

May I too never forget to Whom I belong….

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