Together

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come." 2 Corinthians 5:17

I wake up on a Sunday morning. It's both potluck Sunday and a Sunday that I'm teaching Bible class, and my kitchen is a mixture of coloring pages, green beans, a craft about Jesus, and creamed corn. On many occasions, I worry that I will hand out the green beans and creamed corn to the 4 and 5 year olds and serve the coloring pages at the potluck.

I'm getting ready, and we are getting our boys ready, and nobody wants to put gel in their hair that morning--not even me. I get my daily workout in by simply getting all of the socks and shoes on, and once the last click of the last car seat has been sounded, I hear trumpets and feel like the angels in heaven are rejoicing. We finally get everyone ready and in the car--including the crockpots and the coloring pages--and I realize that I am wearing my Sunday dress with my hot pink house shoes still on. I frantically run in and make the shoe switch just in time. Crisis, narrowly, averted.

My anxiety is flaring, and I feel like I just ran a marathon. Someone is upset that there isn't a certain toy in the car. Someone is upset that they are having to wear a jacket. And it takes the entire 7 minute drive to the church building to get everyone calm and regulated to enter the building at all. We do the perfect juggling act of dropping off the crockpots and the coloring pages and the boys and me while my husband parks the car, and I let out a huge sigh of relief once the crockpots are plugged into the church kitchen plugs and the last coloring page is passed out.

A million things are on my mind. A million things are on my heart. But I'm there and not wearing my hot pink house shoes, which is a major victory. And when I interact with someone as I pass them in the church building hallway and get asked how I am doing, far too often I give my biggest smile and say, "We are doing great! How are you?"

Together.

That's the word. That's the goal. That's how I hope to be perceived. She has it "together."

Great marriage. Well behaved children. Every duck in a row with socks and shoes on. Great relationship with Jesus. Very few struggles. Well-rounded. Successful. Figuring it all out.

Together.

But in recent months I have realized that coming to worship trying to appear "together" is the exact opposite of why I come to worship at all. That I'm not meant to have it all together. That I can't possibly have it all together. I can only pretend.

One of my favorite worship songs sings:

"I come broken to be mended. I come wounded to be healed. I come desperate to be rescued. I come empty to be filled." But do I? Do I really show up broken? Do I really show up to be healed? Or do I show up trying to keep it "together?"

In Japan, there is an art called kintsukuroi, and it is where people take broken pieces of pottery and repair it with gold or silver lacquer with the understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been broken. And it's forever changing the way I define together.

Together.

Broken. Struggling. Relying on God for my daily bread. Hungering. Thirsting. Not sure where the ducks went. Broken. But refined. Repaired. Renewed. Changed. Transformed. With fire. With gold. With Christ.

In Luke 18:9-14, we read of two men who go to the temple to pray. One man is a Pharisee, and he sees himself as superior to the tax collector because he does not "struggle" in the ways that other people, including the tax collector, struggle. He uses his prayer to thank God for his lack of struggling and to commend his own excellent works and behavior. The tax collector, conversely, stands far away and won't even look up as he asks God to be merciful to him, a sinner.

And what is so remarkable to me about this story is that both men are struggling, but one just didn't know it. And the act of believing he didn't struggle was a struggle all on its own.

For a long time, I struggled to share my struggles. It is so hard to be vulnerable and open because we fear that if we share the deepest parts of ourselves that they either won't be accepted or that they will be betrayed. How many of us have had others look down on us for a struggle that we face? How many of us have had someone share something very personal about us in a negative way? It is so hard to be open and honest and vulnerable at the risk of being rejected or negatively portrayed.

But the truth is that we are all struggling with something. We either have learned to be open about it or have learned to pretend. To hide. To mask. And what finally has helped me be able to share my burdens and struggles and insecurities and fears is seeing how God can use them to greater display His power.

God's power is made perfect in weakness. In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul wrote that he had a thorn in the flesh that He repeatedly asked God to remove, but God said to Him, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." God has this magnificent way of using our broken pieces in order to repair us and make us new, making us more beautiful for having been broken. He is able to use the trials and struggles and events in our lives that we absolutely wish we had never had to face to show others His goodness and His power. He can use our weakness and vulnerability to greater show His strength and power by transforming us into something even better than before, and He can cultivate new ministries and greater empathy and works that we would never have been able to do if we hadn't been broken.

Vulnerability isn't a sign of weakness; it's a sign of strength. A lot of times other people try to make us feel weak or silly or inferior for being honest about our struggles. But the truth is that it takes incredible strength to have the courage and confidence to even be aware of our struggles and then to admit them to others. And that absolutely is not for the weak. And then to be able to use our struggles and weaknesses and insecurities to encourage and lift and build others up--how strong! Satan is the master manipulator because he makes us believe that by sharing these things we will be perceived as less, and sometimes the truth is that we will be. But the power that can come from our vulnerability terrifies the devil. He knows that if we use what he meant for evil against us for good that we have the power to totally flip the script on his plans. That we have the power to make others strong when we are "weak."

I can't bring others to Jesus by appearing like I don't actually need Him. I've realized that my lifelong struggle of wanting to appear like I have it "together" defeats the very purpose of my Christianity because people can't see Jesus in me if I act like I can live life without Him. My perceived "goodness" has never been what made another person decide to follow Jesus. People aren't interested in the things that I have done for Jesus. They are interested in what Jesus has done for me. And other people can't know or see just how much He has transformed my life and changed it unless I tell them and show them. And that means being vulnerable and sharing and allowing them to see and know the broken pieces. The ugly parts. The mistakes. The struggles. The hungering. The thirsting. Feeling lost. Feeling alone. And then finding the light.

My struggles are actually opportunities. Every time I have had the privilege of sharing the gospel with another person or a group of people, it has been because of my weaknesses. I spoke at my very first conference in 2011 at 23 years old, and the catalyst was that I had just gotten out of a very toxic dating relationship and didn't want any other teenaged girl to go through what I had just experienced. And I have seen since that time how God has used the darkest, hardest, most challenging, and "weakest" moments of my life as my greatest ministries. When I am weak, then I am strong. It's not I that live but Christ that lives in me.

We rise by lifting others up. We learn from the example of the Pharisee that we don't make ourselves look better by looking down on others. We simply are playing pretend. We rise by lifting others up. By encouraging them. By edifying them to their faces and praying for them behind their backs. By being intentional. By allowing someone else to shine. By working as the body of Christ as different parts. By being willing to support someone else. By being real. By being willing to share our own faults and failures and shortcomings and challenges. By running this race not as competitors but as collaborators. By living every day for the glory of God.

Together.

Do you also struggle with struggling and wanting to appear to have it "together?" Let me share some truth with you right now to encourage you today:

"As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today." Genesis 50:20

"He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." Ecclesiastes 3:11

"But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary." Isaiah 40:31

"But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, 'Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.'" 1 Corinthians 1:27-31

"So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

So Much Love,