Restoration

Here’s another writing by my son. God has been at work in his heart and inspiring him to put pen to paper to share the healing taking place within him. I pray the following words will encourage you on your own journey with Jesus. ~ The Sculptor ~ There is a famous sculptor in our world, but He does not make statues out of marble, clay, or stone. No, He is a special kind of artist, one who can create the most magnificently beautiful things that you can ever lay your eyes on. In your mind, picture a Man who is of average height, but strong and sure of Himself and the quality of His work. He can craft the most awe-inspiring things in the world; the mountains, the seas, the sky in all its wondrous beauty, flitting with countless stars, which He also made. All of these things and more, He has created innumerable quantities of them, displaying His infinite creativity and power. However, these are not His most impressive work. You see the Man, in a workshop of sorts, molding away at a large block of clay. In a matter of moments, you see Him shaping what looks like the shape of another man, who’s countenance looks rather plain to you. Before you even have time to process it, the Sculptor wipes His brow and proudly proclaims that He is done with His masterpiece. It is a man of average appearance formed out of the clay block that was there just moments before. The Sculptor then breathes on the sculpture, and to your astonishment, the clay man comes to life! He begins to move and breathe on his own, where clay once was, flesh and bone are now present. You can tell that the Sculptor loves His creation more than anything else He has ever created, so much so that you cannot even really comprehend it. Immediately, time passes before you, and you see the clay man who was given flesh standing in front of you. He is surrounded by others like him, but they are jeering at the man, calling him all sorts of terrible things. However, the man does not become angry. As he stands there, tears begin to stream down his face, and he says, “Why can no one just accept me for who I am? Am I not handsome enough? Smart enough? Good looking enough?” You see the man in his home, but he does not feel much love or compassion there either. A man who looks like he could be his father, berates him, judges him, calls him unkind things, and even hits him sometimes. Although he looks like he is made of flesh, you see cracks that begin to appear in the man’s skin. In fact, he has been covered in them this whole time, but you only now took notice of them. The man retreats to be by himself and begins to cry to himself, “Why am I not good enough? Why can’t I just be different? Why was I made this way?” Your heart begins to break for this man as he sits alone in his misery. Next, you see the man walking alone in a wasteland of some kind. There are no other signs of life, and the man is covered in even more cracks than before. You hear him say to himself, “I’m never going to be good enough, so what’s the point. I’m a failure and always will be. Dad was right that I have no idea where I am going in life.” After walking some more, the man collapses to his knees, being able to no longer bear his suffering. He clutches his chest so tightly that he begins to think that he is going to die right then and there. However, to his surprise he does not, but he looks down at his hands that are now clutching something. In his hands is a small, ceramic heart, which is also covered in cracks and has pieces missing from its form. The man begins to sob uncontrollably at seeing this. Other parts of him begin to fall off of him as he wails in his anguish. His crying starts to quiet down, and he kneels there, hands clutching the shattered heart as if it was the last and most precious thing that he owned. Amidst the now quiet sobs, you can hear him muttering, “I can’t take this anymore. I’m tired of feeling so lonely and empty inside. I can’t ignore You anymore, even though that is what I have been doing for so many years now…I’m so sorry…please, help me…” In a moment faster than a heartbeat, you see the Great Sculptor from earlier standing in front of the shattered man. The shattered man is completely speechless and in awe of this Artist Supreme. The Sculptor says nothing but begins to pick up the pieces that had fallen off of the man. He takes each of them in His hands and begins to place them back onto the man who was once cracked and shattered. He then looks at the cracked heart still nestled in the man’s palms. For the first time, you hear this Creator speak, and you feel yourself compelled to bow down as low as you can possibly go at the Majesty of His voice. He says, “I AM here with you and have been chasing you all this time. I knew you before you even came into the world. You are the jewel of all of My creation. You are fearfully and wonderfully made, My child, and all of My works are wonderful (Psalm 139:14). I love you more than you can ever truly comprehend or realize.” The Sculptor takes the damaged heart, molds it in His noticeably scarred hands, and it comes out looking brand new and unscathed. He places the renewed heart back into the man’s chest, and at this, the man begins to weep saying, “I’m so

Identity –  the distinguishing character or personality of an individual Individuality –  total character peculiar to and distinguishing an individual from others; separate and distinct existence ~ Merriam Webster Dictionary Pretty straight forward, isn’t it? Makes sense. Easy to wrap your mind around, right? For most people anyway. Not so much for others. Those others include me. I always thought I knew who I was. Daughter. Sister. Granddaughter. Aunt. (Ex)Wife. Sister-in-Law. Mom. Mother-in-Law. Nana. Friend. Employee. Sunday School teacher. Writer. Each of these roles describe who I am or was. With each one, I can picture in my mind those they pertain to and how each one is different, distinct, and separate. Even though they’re all part of who I am, each one carries with it a very different purpose. Within the past week, I’ve realized I played another role in the life of an individual to whom the role was never meant to be played. But it makes sense now. Seems like all the pieces have finally fallen into place. Answers to questions I didn’t know I needed have become reality. Before the internet was at our fingertips twenty-four seven/three sixty-five, there was a periodical called a newspaper. I’m old enough to remember it being delivered every morning by a young boy on his bicycle. As he pedaled past the front yard, he’d toss the newspaper towards the house and, hopefully, if he had good aim, it would land someplace near the front porch. The newspaper was full of both local and world events, engagements, weddings, births, deaths, etc. But right in the middle was a huge section called the classifieds or the “want-ads”. If you had something you were interested in buying and/or selling (such as a car, a boat, or a new house) or were in need of a job, you’d peruse the want-ads to see if anyone had the item you wanted to buy or were offering the type of job you were seeking. The want-ads were the perfect source for buying and/or selling tangible merchandise or finding just the right place of employment to meet your needs. Yes, the newspaper truly was a wealth of knowledge and kept us informed of all the goings-on in the world. Oh, how I wish there were a periodical, book, or magazine I could search and find answers for this recent discovery from my past. It would be so much easier if I could search Amazon for a manual entitled “Jennifer ~ How to Heal and Move On From All the Insane & Grievous Things You Had to Deal With While Married to Your Ex”!! Unfortunately, there are some things a newspaper could never help with, even if they were still in circulation. There are some things that cannot be found by diligently perusing words in a book, magazine, or even the internet. There are some things that cannot be found by seeking out worldly answers to questions that are screaming from a broken heart. There are some situations that occur in this life we cannot control nor wrap our mind around nor find answers to no matter how many times we do a google search. There are some things that can only be found by surrendering everything to Almighty God then patiently wait and trust Him to bring the answer…in His time. Two passages of scripture just popped into my mind that help me in the waiting. “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will hear you. You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek Me with all your heart.” ~ Jeremiah 29:12-13 ESV “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose.” ~ Romans 8:26-28 ESV For most people, waiting on God’s timing and trusting Him to work everything out isn’t a popular choice. Most people (and that most includes me) want an easy fix so the problem or situation will go away and life can go back to being “normal” again, if there is such a thing. I have sought out easy fixes to situations in the past and have found them to be a futile endeavor. I am human with a finite mind. I cannot see all nor do I know everything. But my God does. He sees and knows everything. God’s timing is infinitely perfect. So, I completely trust Him when new discoveries are brought into the light. Even when I don’t understand them. It all started with an afternoon counseling session. It never ceases to amaze me how God leads the conversation to exactly what I need to say in order for my counselor to ask all the right questions. We never set an agenda for our sessions. We just start talking and trust the Holy Spirit to lead. And He always does. Besides healing from the grief of divorce itself, there is one thing I have longed for. Closure. I guess you can say it’s been a mission of sorts to put the past behind me and move forward. While I have made great strides toward that end, there has been something holding me back. There has been a missing factor in the equation. That is, up until a few days ago. It was something I already knew but did not realize I had completely missed the context as it has now been presented. It was the missing factor that was holding everything back. When I was finally able to add it to the other things my heart has been grieving over and wrestling with, it all started to make sense. While

“Stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage (slavery).” ~ Galatians 5:1 NKJV ~ “He delivers me from my enemies: You lift me up above those who rise against me; you delivered me from the violent man.” ~ 2 Samuel 22:49 NKJV ~ “He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never sound retreat; He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgement seat; O be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet! Our God is marching on! “Glory! Glory hallelujah! Glory! Glory hallelujah! Glory! Glory hallelujah! Our God is marching on!” ~Battle Hymn of the Republic~ It has been said that freedom isn’t free. There is always a price to pay; a cost to be counted. In this imperfect, sometimes downright evil world, being free means an enemy has to be conquered. So who is the enemy? It could be argued there are many different enemies who show up in our life and the course it follows. And while that’s correct, the rock-bottom truth is there is one enemy of this world and the people that inhabit it. Satan is that enemy and he is called the Prince of Darkness (Eph 6:12), The Enemy (Psalm 89:22), The Adversary (1 Peter 5:8), Father of Lies (John 8:44), Evil One (1 John 5:29), Lawless One (2 Thes 2:9), Devil (Rev 12:9-12), (John 8:44), Deceiver (1 John 3:7), Murderer (John 8:44), Tempter (Matt 4:3), Serpent (Gen 3:14-15), Accuser (Rev 12:9), and Beast (Rev 20:10). I hold to a Biblical worldview, and referenced above is scripture that uses these names and descriptions for Satan. It is not complimentary, by any means! At first glance, in the tedious, routine conduction of our daily lives, we might not recognize his menacing ways: the whispers of self-criticism (or hyper-criticism of others) that creep into our thoughts and often set up camp, or the daily struggles that we all experience that might consume us unless we fight back: low esteem, sickness & disease (including physical, mental and emotional pressures), financial difficulties or job loss, divorce, death of a loved one, domestic abuse, addictions, or homelessness. Any of these and more, while they might be part of what we experience in life, can be made worse by the common enemy we all share. His many names are listed above. He is the enemy. But we have victory in Jesus! We are instructed in 1 Peter 5:8 to “Be sober-minded and watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” Yet just prior, in verse seven, we are told, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for He cares for you.” Friend, you do not have to be a slave to the enemy or captured by his advances. He has the power to try to derail your joy, your success, the good things in your life (or use the inevitable unfortunate circumstances of life to make you feel worse), but the truth is, he has already been defeated. He lost at the cross when Jesus, the perfect sacrifice, shed His blood, died and rose to life again. In that act, that battle, Jesus secured our future once and for all time. This world, this earth, this universe has been in a fallen state since mankind first sinned and allowed evil to be brought into creation’s history. And it will still be in a fallen, cursed state until Jesus comes a second time. He came the first time as a baby, a lamb to be sacrificed. That happened, when as an adult, he hung and died on a cross. But when He comes again, it won’t be as a baby, meek and mild. He’s coming as the Lion of Judah, to rid this world of evil and redeem His creation…all of it: the earth and all that is in it, the galaxies with their stars flung to the far reaches of the Universe, and most prized of all, His people…His beloved children…restored to perfection. In the meantime, the bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” As a teenager in the 1970s, I first memorized this verse the way the Living Bible Paraphrase puts it: “When someone becomes a Christian, he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same anymore. A new life has begun!” Our newness begins in that moment. God no longer sees us as the mish-mash of mistakes that our life has become, but sees us only through the filter of the perfection that is His Son. When we admit we can’t do it on our own, when we put our faith in Jesus and choose Him…to love, to follow, to pattern our very life after…we become brand new in His eyes. We belong to Him; we are His beloved child. We may look the same on the outside, to the physical eye, but we are not the same…we belong to Jesus and that newness of belonging is all that will ever matter. There is freedom in Jesus. The first words in the first sentence of this blog post are “freedom isn’t free.” And it isn’t.  Jesus paid the price with His body and His life. He gave it willingly because He knew that was the cost of freedom…a perfect, sinless sacrifice.  We could never meet that standard of perfection to do it ourselves, even if we wanted to. “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever (you and me) believed in Him would not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)  It cost God His Son, it cost Jesus His life, so that we could have His Holy Spirit save us (rescue us) from tormenting captivity. The Bible says this is the free gift of God, and not something any human could

“Blessed be the Lord, my Rock, who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle.” ~Psalm 144:1 “Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord; He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored; He hath loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword; His truth is marching on… Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!  Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!  Glory! Glory! Hallelujah! His truth is marching on.”                                                           ~Battle Hymn of the Republic During this month of celebrating our nation’s independence, I can’t help but ponder the words of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, by Julia Ward Howe.  The anthem, not written during the Revolutionary War, but during the American Civil War of 1861-1865, is a call to arms and a cry for freedom for those still enslaved, regardless of race or creed. The author exhorts those who are willing, to fight for freedom, to the death if necessary, but without complacency as an option. Human beings…family, neighbors, loved ones…were being exploited, abused and enslaved for the gain of certain others who weren’t willing to change. Her heart cried out for an end to this abomination resulting in the penning of this sacred hymn. America was a nation split in two over an evil that was being tolerated, and it was time for that abhorrence to end. In the years just prior to his presidency, in a speech during his bid for the U.S. Senate in 1858, Abraham Lincoln quoted from Scripture, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” In a modern biblical translation, the New Living Translation, it reads, “A kingdom divided by civil war will collapse; similarly, a family splintered by feuding will fall apart.” This was our country in the mid-nineteenth century; fast forward to modern times and this was my home-life for longer than I care to admit. As a young bride, I wrongly believed my complete love and devotion could heal, even reverse, the wounds of the past that manifested in my then-husband. He’d had a difficult upbringing, for sure. But I believed with my whole heart that my love could, and would, stem the tide of his brokenness and set his life—our life together—on a steady course. Smooth sailing was to be had for those who believe that love conquers all. But there were more than a few inherent problems with that line of thinking, the first being that of the two of us, I was the only one who believed it. As it was, I suppose that served to motivate me to try all the more. I was young and naïve but I would soon learn that one-way love is not a recipe for wedded bliss. Problems two and three weren’t any small challenge either. I had married someone with an addiction who was also incapable of humility or returning love—a narcissist. When I married in 1985 I didn’t even know what those things were, not by definition anyway, but I quickly learned their meaning by sharing life with a person who was plagued by these disorders. There is a lot of information available now on these topics, but not so much 40 years ago. Nor was access to information easy in those days. I’m not going to belabor the clinical aspects of these disorders with their deep, gnarly, life-choking roots, but I will share my experience in the hopes of dissuading others from following a similar path, or to encourage you if you are reading this and find yourself in need of hope. I unfortunately realized when I married at age 23 that like The Wizard of Oz’ Dorothy, I’d been “caught up in the cyclone.” That’s really the most concise way to describe the whirlwind that quickly became my life. You see, I came from a family of stability and my childhood was relatively uneventful in terms of trauma or chaos. My parents both held down steady jobs. Their work ethic was strong, and the first thing done with money from their paychecks was the paying of bills; there was a roof over my head, food on the table, and clothes on my back. Whatever was left-over after meeting financial obligations went toward other life necessities, and then, perhaps, a few “wants” on the side. My sisters and I had bicycles and games, toys and books, and if truth be told, we were probably the envy of the neighborhood. That neighborhood was filled with families of modest means, including mine. It was far from affluent, not even close, but we were blessed. Blessed with parents that worked hard, knew how to budget, and knew how to make the most of what they had. They were both children of the Great Depression and my life was blessed, in part, because of their knack for “making something out of nothing.”  I think this is a long-winded way of saying my sisters and I were loved and cared for, our needs met, and we were blessed with a fair amount of extras, as well. This is not to say my family was perfect because all families have some amount of challenging dynamics, but it is fair to say we were closer to The Cleaver’s than The Hatfield’s and McCoy’s. (Now that I think about it, there might have been a tad bit of Hatfield and McCoy thrown into the mix, or closer still, the occasional Beverly Hillbillies…but mostly Cleaver by the time it got to my generation). Anyway, families like my family of origin do not just happen out of thin air. The reason we benefitted was because the adults in the home were, in fact, adults. They lived responsible lives because first, it’s who they were, and second, because they understood what it meant to “train up a child in the way he should go” so that