Known.

She had sent me this message -

             "Do one thing every day that scares you."

                                        ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

I knew immediately this thing that scares me; is simply this.  For no explainable reason, this one word after another; this blinking cursor taunting me, mocking me ~ this is the thing that scares me.  It is bizarre really and yet, quite true.  I was active duty once upon a time ago, a volunteer fire fighter, triathlete and mother of eleven children!!!  Why in the world would anything short of a firing squad scare me?  For let us be real, teenagers can often feel like a firing squad.  I jest, partially.  How can words on a screen scare me?  That blinking, mocking cursor strike terror in my veins?!

Bizarre?  Yes.  And yet, entirely true.

What is it about words strung together on this page that terrify me?  Is it the grammar or the syntax?  The spelling?  It is actually nothing of the sort for I am a lover of the written word - nothing makes my heart go pitter patter quite like the rustling of pages turning.  A coffee shop in conjunction with a bookstore - well, be still my heart.  A library with a coffee shop stops be dead in my tracks every time!  New to Nashville we are and my husband recently asked me what I would like to do downtown but of course ~ what else could there be apart from ~ visit the library?!  His slight eye roll did not go unnoticed.

No.  The words I love.  The fear is rooted deeply not in the words but in the quiet, yet unmistakable fact that they are my words.  And in my writing and your subsequent reading there is a knowing.  It is the knowing I doth detest and the knowing that causes deep knots deep inside.  I struggle to be known.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

What if that one thing causes you to know me and then reject me?  What if that thing leads to you determining I am worthy?

That is my human frailty ~ our human frailty.  What if we are tried and tested and found wanting?  How do we ever come back from that?

Being known.  And then possibly not wanted.  That is what keeps me from hitting publish, that is what keeps words locked away behind prison door.  Maybe you can relate?  Maybe you can not.  My husband can not fathom being known and then rejected, he lives with a core stability that openly and aggressively rejects the idea that he could be found wanting.  He does not fear being known because he can not imagine then being rejected.  I envy him.  He lives as open book.  Solid in who he is, what he has to give and never questioning his ability to be friends with EVERYONE!  I envy him.

True story ~

Almost a decade ago we determined to do something for God.  To attempt to show the love of Christ to some hurting young people.  We charged ahead with the best of intentions and firmly believed that Jesus would meet every need, heal every hurt and that we would be a raging Holy Spirit infused success!

Truer story ~

We failed.  Utterly and colossally.  We failed.  We failed hourly and daily.  We failed in grand fashion and we failed for all the world to see.  Our sin repeatedly got in the way, His way.  We have been attacked from within and from without and from every side and angle!  We have had things said about us, to us and all around us that I never dreamed possible in my life ~ I did not know one could be so despised.  We failed.  And many people do not want us to forget about it.  We failed.  We failed them.  We failed Him.


And so I did what many failures do; I retreated into my own failure cocoon.  I buried my head in the sands of failure and cried myself to sleep and avoided anyone whom may want to remind me of my failures (as if I could ever forget).  And I nursed my wounds and apologized to God for having embarrassed Him and thanked Him repeatedly for salvation.  What else could I do?  But hide.  I had so deeply wanted to bless Him but yet, I had shamed Him.  But, I knew salvation is surely for the shamed.  That was the point of the cross, correct?  That is why He bled and died and rose again, for such a failure as me.  I clung to that Truth in a new and profoundly painful way.  And I hid.

And how can I explain what I found in my hiding?  In my failure?  I can not rightly tell this telling ~ I am entirely insufficient to detail these moments, this space of my failure cocoon but I must try.

Into the isolation of my failure cocoon Someone slipped in ~ only He could gently make His way into the emptiness and darkness and meet with me there.  In truth He entered so peacefully and quietly that I did not at first notice Him.  I was certain I was alone in the failings and the shame ~ why would anyone enter that?  Many had found us unworthy of the most benign friendships, determining not to even enter a common room with us; now here I find Someone not only reaching out in an act of basic friendship but He was willingly climbing into the failure cocoon with me.

At first I could not speak.  What could I say to the One whom I had shamed and disappointed, Who now entered into the pain and extended a hand of deep knowing towards me.  What could I say?

For months I said nothing.  We just sat.  Slowly He made His way closer to me.  Day by day, inch by inch He closed the gap.  For I was as a wounded animal and fight or flight was always just a moment away.  And He did not want to fight and He did not appear to want me to flee.  I sat quietly, confused. And day by day, inch by inch He made His way.

One morning I so desperately wanted to reach out and grab the Hand of Knowing but how could I hold that hand?  The hand that I had shamed and failed?  If He touched me then He would surely know what I was and in that knowing He may reject me.  I knew I could not survive His rejection so I stayed on quietly, immobile.

Knowing.  Be known.  And then found wanting.  I was wanting.

I could not survive His rejection.

And in this space of failure He would do a thing I can never quite tell.  But, I must.

In that morning that I so desperately wanted, needed to hold His Hand of Knowing, He picked me up and cradled me in His arms.  We never spoke, we just quietly rocked.  Day by day, moment by moment.  I stayed there, in His arms.  Quiet.  Immobile.  We did not speak.  Day by day, month by month.  He held me.  As Father cradles brand new babe with absolute devotion and love, He held me.  Day by day, month by month, year by year.  He held me.  We never spoke.  We did not need to.  I just needed to be held.

In my failure cocoon, when the world had rightly found me wanting ~ He climbed inside and held me.  And as the days turned into weeks and the weeks quietly passed into months all the words He did not speak would tell me a tale I had not yet really known ~ He loves me unconditionally.

He met me there in the failings and the shame and He held me as His new born babe, and His eyes showed nothing but oceans of love.

Knowing.  Be known.  It does not carry quite the sting it once did ~ for I am known and yet still so deeply loved and cherished.  As new born babe.  He loves me.

To the Weird Kid in the Corner

He had said that thing ~ early one morning.  In the still of the quiet.  Maybe in the stillness I could really hear.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

But, that thing he had said, it would not leave me.  Maybe the stillness of sleeping babies and the quiet of slumbering teens would allow me to really hear, to really know.  Maybe.  Maybe not.

Oh, why do I falter so?

To him, I had been lamenting as to my silence.  Lamenting my own lack of voice, my own inability to speak.  Speak and be heard, speak and be known and understand.  I feel the silence.  Muzzled, I have been.  A gag order.  At times it has felt as if it were God ~ hushing me.  Humbling me.  At other times ~ I have wondered ~ a nefarious silencing?  But, the silence, my silence has been deafening.  The lack has been suffocating ~ to me.  I lamented.  He listened.  And then he said this thing ~

"Your voice is writing, you will not be able to speak until you write."

The words hung there, suspended, they grasped at something right before me.  Dangling.  Clinging to something.  Right before me and all around ~ I felt his words there daring me to really see, to really hear, as those brave words desperately clung to something all about me.

What was that grasping his words were doing?  What were they clinging to right before my very eyes?

In the stillness, in the quiet of my heart, I knew then in that moment that they clung to one simple, yet magnificent thing.

Hope.

His words clung to Hope.  Dancing before me, daring me to believe ~ He had given me a voice, if only I could, I would obey His way.  The way He has given me to tell the Truth.

I had to reach out and grab them, take a hold of those words ~ those words ~ dancing before me, daring me to believe in Hope.  A Hope that knows me, a Hope that loves me, a Hope that values me and will always listen to me.  He had not set a gag order, He had only asked that I know His way, His specific way for me.

It is slightly different for us all you know?  The Truth is unchanging but our unique voice, our particular blue print on how we show forth His Truth is all so simply different.  That is how intricately He knows, how desperately He delights in me ~ that He craves a specific way of showing forth His Truth in me.

No other can tell my story of my Truth in Him.  Only I can do that telling and He oh so wants to hear from me!  He wants to hear His Truth from my mouth, my hand.

I am not part of the masses to Him.  I am not another face in the crowd.  Oh no, I am so much more then the masses and He ALWAYS spots my face in that heaping crowd!  And so He set before me ~ a way, His way, our way ~ to communicate.  I am special to Him, the apple of His eye and because I am a stand out (to Him) He has this particular way of our doings.

And there it is ~ those words tantalizing real, clinging to that Hope that is ever before me.  That Hope that I am special to Him ~ so special in fact that He foreordained a way for me!  Before the beginning of time He set down this special way He desires to speak to me.  That is how special I am!

And to the weird kid in the corner, who could just never quite fit in . . . well that Truth, that I am special to Him, that He has a particular way, a unique only to me, way of speaking to me . . . well to the kid become woman who could just never get it right . . . that Truth changes everything.

I am not a number, a face in the crowd, just another statistic.  I. AM. SPECIAL. TO. HIM.

He and I ~ we have our own, private morse code.

Maybe today another weird kid in the corner is reading this, the one who can never quite do enough ~ to you I say ~ GO FIND IT!  Go find it right now ~ your own private morse code with Him!  Your specific way of talking with Him and your own unique voice.

Because beloved, you were NEVER  just another face in the crowd, you were ALWAYS the face in the crowd.  The face He was always looking to see ~ always looking to and fro to look into your eyes, to tell you you were always loved in such a special and unique way.

If you too were that weird kid in the corner ~ please know, He was always hanging out in the corner with you.  When you were certain no one saw you, and certainly no one could be bothered to hear you ~ He saw and He heard.  You.  As if you were the only one in that room.

So, go find it now ~ go find that way ~ that oh so special to you and only you way,  that He is speaking to you through.  And then stand on the hilltop and scream from the rooftops that He sees you and He hears you and you are oh so deeply loved.  And known.



And there they were, those words dancing before our eyes, clinging to the Hope all about.  WE just have to reach out and grab them.