Run

     I have been struggling to escape this room I am in. I find it familiar and safe, yet confining and dark. It takes all I have not to climb back into my covers of comfort...but something is calling...

     There is a scene in the movie Room, that is one of the most touching scenes I have ever watched. In the movie, there is a mother and son being held captive in a room. This room is all the child has ever known. The scene that I mentioned starts out with the mother deciding to pretend the son has died, so that their captor will carry him out in a rolled up rug, and put him in the back of his truck to be buried somewhere. She tells her son that when the truck starts moving, he will have to unroll himself, and when the truck stops, he will need to make a run for it. The boy is understandably nervous and scared. He is leaving all that he knows, and going out into a world he knows nothing about. He can only trust his mother's plan. As the truck bumps along, the rug unrolls, and we see the little boy staring up at the open sky, a sky that he is now fully seeing for the first time...the biggest choice of his life before him. I felt so much emotion well up inside as I watched. I wanted so much for him to do what his mother had instructed. I was shouting inside for him to run...

     Staring up at the sky is where I find myself now...and have many times in the past...

     I have been told by the One who loves me more than any other that freedom awaits. Like the mother in Room, he has told me to trust Him. But fear and doubt are strong... Is the unknown waiting for me really better than what I already know?

     As I wrestle with this, I can't help but wonder, is Jesus looking down at me with the same emotion that I felt watching the little boy? 

     What if He is there with me as I struggle to either choose freedom...or turn back in fear toward the comfort of the room... 

     What if His heart is swelling up with love for me as I struggle with this choice... 

     What if it is overflowing with the hopes He has for me...

     Is He picturing all of the possibillities He knows are there waiting for me...if I will just make the choice to be free? 

     I think I feel Him there...
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     I think I hear His voice...
    
     He is whispering...whispering for me to run...run toward freedom...freedom from fear...freedom from guilt and shame...freedom to love without limits...freedom to leap into all He has planned for me...freedom from the confines of the room..."RUN TOWARD ME" he whispers..."YOU ARE FREE"...

     I will run...


And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. (John 8:32)

Room. Dir. Lenny Abrahamson. Perf. Brie Larson, Jacob Tremblay, Sean Bridgers. Element Pictures, 2015. DVD.

Behind the Mask

     We all wear masks. Some of us wear ours more than others, but we all wear them. The mask we choose differs depending on who we are with. With certain people or groups we keep it on all the time. With others, we may put it on in the middle of a conversation, usually when we begin to feel that familiar fear creep in. It's the fear that what we really feel, think, believe won't be acceptable to the other person. It's a fear that a true expression of who we are won't match the picture we believe they have of us. 

     These masks provide us with a false sense of security, providing temporary comfort at the expense of authenticity. They are created by the fear and anxiety that the people around us won't love and accept the real us, when the truth is...they are actually the thing that stands in the way. They are the thing that prevents us from truly connecting with those who would love us for who we are, including the good, the bad, and even the weird.

     I have learned that when I ignore the fear, and dare to remove the mask, I free myself to engage with this world in a way that only I was designed to do...uniquely Kendra. Doing this brings me out of the shadows of fear and doubt, because it's not until I take off the mask that I am able to feel the sun on my face...

(Side Note- A great book on living authentically and finding true intamacy in all of our relationships, is Donald Millar's Scary Close, published by Nelson Books.)

I know you are, but what am I?

Lately it seems like the communication in our country has been reduced to the arguments of a couple of elementary school kids on a playground. "I know you are, but what am I?" I'm saddened almost weekly by posts, often times political in nature, that spew hateful messages or ignorant stereotypes. What saddens me most about this, is that many of them come from Christians. 

As Christians shouldn't we be the ones crossing the street, aisle, or line, in an attempt to understand the other side? We definitely shouldn't be the ones making the rifts even wider, fueling the anger and hate, or enforcing misguided stereotypes. Not only is this behavior hurtful and dis-heartening to our fellow Christians, who may be on the other side, but it's teaching our kids to approach their issues with anger, hate, and a lack of understanding.

What the future of our country desperately needs, is for us to be modeling for our kids respect of others, even if we disagree with them. We should be showing them that acting through truth, respect, love and understanding is more important than any political ideologies, personal opinions, or even our own wants and desires.

This may seem idealistic, but as Christians that is what we're called to be. We're supposed to be aiming for the greatest ideal, the ideal of a perfect man who lived a life rejecting judgments and stereotypes. One who lived His life crossing lines, spending time with both sides, to not only communicate with, but understand each. Instead of criticizing the misguided, lost and confused, He felt for them.

My hope for us, as Christians, is that before we post another article, picture, meme, or anything else that projects an "us against them" attitude, we stop and consider how WE are "them" in God's eyes. We see, think and act in a way that is different from God...yet He shows us His continuous love and understanding.

Colossians 3:12-15 ESV Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

I'll Be Me & You'll Be You

I am me, you are you, and we were both uniquely created by our Heavenly Father. Why then when I look at you do I try to see me? And when I don't see me, why do I feel less worthy, inadequate, incomplete? Do you do this too when you look at me? Or when you look at her? Or him? Or them? Finding our identity in the secular world is pretty much an impossibility. The world gives such limiting criteria for what is acceptable that it would be a never ending endeavor. But finding our identity in the Christian world can be tough sometimes as well. 

I'll admit, I browse blogs of other Christian women with beautifully styled hair, manicured nails, and kids all in matching outfits, and I question whether I may be from another planet. The funny thing is, deep down I don't desire to be them, but yet I still let the feelings of inadequacy creep in. These same feelings can come on when I'm scrolling through images on facebook of people living different lives than me; whether it's traveling the globe, living off the land, running their own businesses, living in fancy places, cuddling fancy husbands, or just plain being hipper and cooler than me. Why is that not me I ask? Do you ever ask this too?

I'll admit, I can do the reverse as well. I will sometimes ask why you are not me. Why do you care about things that I do not? Why do you feel passionate about things that I don't find important? Why do you dress that way, speak that way, react to the world that way? Why do you pray that way, worship that way, live out God's calling on your life in a way that's different from me? Is it me who's not doing these things right?

What I'm really asking is, did God make a mistake in making me so clearly different from you and you so clearly different from me?  And that is something I have a clear answer on. Psalm 139:14 ESV  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

By always comparing myself to others and trying at times to tweak myself to be a little more like them, I'm telling God he didn't quite get things right. I'm telling Him "Hey, my life is supposed to look like that. Why do you have me doing this?" I'm in essence trying to alter the perfect plan He set out for me before I was even born, to fit my plan. This is living in conflict with Him, and is how things start to fall apart.

So let's make a deal. I'll be me and you'll be you, and together we'll celebrate the extraordinary ways God works through each of us...

Romans 12:4-8 ESV  For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophesy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

The Cardinal

Taking my kids to school this morning we passed a female cardinal sitting in the middle of the road. It was sitting right on the yellow line just waiting for a car to come along and smoosh it. So we made a quick decision to swing around and move it out of harms way. It didn't struggle at all when I picked it up. It seemed to be stunned by whatever caused it to land in the middle of the road. We decided to place it under a tree in someone's yard, hoping it was only temporarily out of sorts and would soon snap out of it and be back to fluttering around looking for food, or fly back to a nest that was waiting.

Although stopping for a hurt and disoriented animal came naturally to me, we had 32 pets at my parent's house when I went off to college, and I'm someone who has actually turned around and stopped traffic so a black snake could safely cross the road, I'm well aware that when it comes to people, it can be a different story. When it comes to people I see who have been hit by life and are sitting there stunned, I sometimes run the other way.

I'm often like all the cars that went wizzing by the bird, too preoccupied with getting to where I need to go and keeping myself on track to turn around. I think sometimes I'm afraid if I decide to help that person who I know has been thrown off track, I may get somehow sucked into the drama myself and be thrown off track too.  Maybe I think they shouldn't have been near the road in the first place. Maybe I'm not sure that helping will even bring any changes in their situation or save them from a certain outcome. But maybe, that person is just a little stunned. Maybe all they need is for someone to give them just a little of their time and they'll be able to find their strength again.

The cardinal may not make it. She may have internal injuries that we weren't able to see. But at least we didn't use that as an excuse not to turn around. At least we gave her a fighting chance. Maybe, we gave her all she needed to be able to return to the sky and fly...

Romans 5:3-4,5 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance.  And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation...When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. 

How I Met Your Stepdad

   As some of you may know, the season finale of How I Met Your Mother aired this week. In the episode we finally got to see the woman who Ted, the protagonist in the show, has been on an eight season journey to find. My kids, their aunt and I like to play a game where we match each of the characters of one of our favorite TV shows with each one of us. With HIMYM I was unanimously voted Ted. I don't know that it was really so much that they saw me as a hopeless romantic like Ted. My thoughts are maybe it was more the fact that sometimes I believe myself to be a little smarter than I really am, I can be both indecisive and on the flip side impulsive, and like Ted, even though I can be possibly a little too self-absorbed with my own story at times, I always have a heart that cares deeply about, and will do anything for the people who are a part of it. Really though, it's probably because they've experienced years of me going in and out of different relationships, never finding "The One". After considering the comparisons between me and Ted, I decided that like his character, who starts off every episode talking to his future kids, I'd talk to my kids, in letter form, imagining it is the future and I've found their future stepdad...



Dear Kids,

   I know you had begun to think maybe the day was never going to come. You watched me date for several years, ending one relationship and entering another one with barely a month's lapse in between. Neither of us was ever happy with things this way though. You all hated having to get used to someone new hanging around in your lives, while at the same time having to  pretend to like them. This was especially annoying when, as you would often say to me, "You're only going to dump them at some point anyway." Haha...had you observed some sort of pattern??


 And then, I just stopped dating all together and this confused you. You didn't think I should stop dating completely. How would I find someone? You saw that there was still a desire in me to have someone in my life, and you would remind me of the benefits to this for all of us. We could finally live in a house again. We could maybe even get a dog. There wouldn't be as many burdens and pressures on me, and so in turn it would be easier for me to balance my time with the three of you. And of course, there was the obvious fact that our home was desperately in need of a little testosterone!



As you may have noticed, for many years I paid very little attention to much more than basic attraction, and maybe a few other things, in determining whether I would give a relationship a go with someone.  I'm sure we can all agree there were definitely some "interesting" fellas along the way. And I know I've always preached about loving everyone and showing all people equal respect, but I can admit, maybe some of them I should have chosen to love from afar. 


Over recent years I had gained a lot more insight into what I wanted and needed in someone, and so I created some guidelines and standards for who I dated. I made my "have to" list; they had to be a Christian and live out Christian standards, they had to be ACTUALLY divorced, not in some crazy limbo place that I am not interested in ever being in the middle of again..., they had to be between such and such age, they couldn't make too little, they couldn't make so much that I believed material wealth was too important to them, they had to have kids so they would "get" kids(that one you guys pushed), they had to be a certain height, and the list went on and on...


So we tried to put this list in to practical use with online dating. Scanning through profiles, like cops looking through mug shots, matching our details with each perp's, I mean potential "match's". I know we all had hope in this method, but something never felt right with it. Although I'm aware it's possible to find someone, and a good someone this way, for me I always got this overwhelming feeling of desperation, urgency, and misdirection when I attempted it. All it ever seemed to bring was short-lived relationships that usually lingered around for a lot longer than they had actually lasted. In other words, for me, dating in this way just seemed to add more baggage and chaos to the mix of our lives. Two things we definitely needed less, not more of. I do believe me having certain standards and expectations was a good thing, and especially for me as a Christian this was very important, but I found out this list couldn't be the only thing that was leading me, and trying to stick to it too strictly somehow made the whole thing seem a little cold and mechanical.


So how did I finally find the man you call stepdad, and who just so happens to have Han Solo's swagger and good looks? Simple, I stopped looking. I got rid of all the noise that came from trying too hard to figure out a formula on dating sites, lingering past relationships, and the earnest thoughts of a possible future with every single, Christian man I came across, and I shifted my focus. I shifted my focus to One who could silence the noise and fill the void. I decided the only way I was going to find the man God already had planned for me, was to find a deeper relationship with His son...the most perfect man who ever walked on the earth. 


See kids, I'd been focused on finding the perfect relationship with a guy my whole life. No really, my whole life. Your grandmom can attest to this. From the moment I first got playfully teased over the fence by the next door neighbor boy at age 3, I made experiencing that interaction with the male species my life's goal. Growing up it was the only thing that made me feel complete, whole, appreciated. I worked very hard at figuring out how to be what I believed guys were looking for. Thankfully, you girls have been much smarter in this area, and seem to be aware that boys are definitely not needed to sustain your happiness. I've raised much stronger, more self-aware girls than I myself was growing up. I am very proud of that!


How did finding a closer relationship with Jesus help me find your stepdad you're wondering? Well, the closer I got to Him and the better I understood Him, the clearer a picture I got of myself and who I really was. From God I was able to experience a true love of me for me. With Him I don't have to try to be any certain way. He loves me in my simplest form...ME. I'm His creation, and he designed me as me for a purpose that was uniquely mine. Through this relationship, I was also able to let go of pride and ego that is so intertwined with the dating process. In seeing, feeling and understanding all of this, I was given the freedom to not only stop trying to fit any particular model of what a man was looking for in me, but to open myself up to finding that man who had discovered his perfect "him" through a relationship with God as well. 

You see, by always trusting God in our own relationships with Him, He brought me and your stepdad together because this was His plan...not just His plan for the two of us, but for the five of us. And that's...How I Met Your Stepdad.

-Mom

Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (NIV)

I Take Pleasure In My Weakness

Being a single mom and also being someone who finds it almost impossible to show others your weakness and vulnerability, mix very badly together. I usually do a decent job balancing this conundrum of daily existence...until last night....when honestly, I just completely lost it. It had all been building up from a roller coaster of a month filled with fist fights between kids, confusion and tension with a close friend, the end of a semester of school and some other discontentment brewing inside. This was contrasted with the excitement of finally starting my first blog, continuing the amazing growth God had been working in my life, and trying to see where it was all leading. 


The fact is, I don't share much of this daily struggle with anyone, and if I do, I'm not honest about the real pain I'm feeling. I've always had this trouble with letting people see my more personal, intimate side. Even going through a redemption story that would rival a Tyler Perry movie, I could easily tell it to people with a straight face like it wasn't me I was speaking about, like it didn't have any real effect on my core. Maybe this is part of the reason I actually felt even more like I had to keep up this facade of, "Look at me. I'm a perfect example of God's grace and goodness. I no longer want to cry in the middle of my day or feel lost and helpless." I had been through such an incredibly difficult and crazy fall to the bottom that I didn't want to ever give someone the impression I could be headed there again.



And then I found myself in the front row of The Good News Cafe again on Saturday. This is a monthly worship event that a friend introduced me to last month. On the way to the event, I received a call from a member of my church who had found himself in a very dark place over the week. He was feeling very low, and I'm guessing a little hopeless. I related so much to him and gave him the most encouraging words that I could. As I got off the phone I thought to myself, "I really need to be even more of an example of what God can do in someones life who has fallen. I need to show everyone the strength He's given me and the new person I now am. I have to show that I'm not weak anymore." 



As I sat in my chair at the cafe, I immediately felt something was stirring inside of me. The restlessness that I'd felt building up over the weeks leading up to that night was getting hard to push down. The words being spoken and sung on the stage were like arrows to my soul. At the end of the night, I was trying to hold in my emotions so tightly that I almost couldn't breathe. I was pleading with the Holy Spirit to just help me let my walls down, while fighting to keep them up at the same time. I cried out to Him about how tired I was, how tired of being a single mom and doing it all alone I was, how tired of trying to figure out what direction to take my life I was, and how tired I was of trying to be the wise Christian friend who always had all the answers.  I had a tight knot stuck in my throat as the worship leader asked people not to leave with anything that they were still holding on to. Of course as soon as he was done I bolted.  I felt like I had a war going on inside of me.



When I got home I had one of THOSE meltdowns.  It had been a long time.  I just fell on my face and cried for God to help me. I let Him know that I was just plain tired. And this I believe was His answer...Show people your weaknesses. You will be even more of an example if you don't try to play it cool all the time, if you let people see that you are struggling too. You don't have to be perfect to be an example. 



Most of the moments in my life now really are filled with peace. I've found a contentment beyond understanding. Most days I feel blessed and happy with whatever God brings my way. But even when I'm not feeling this way about life, I now have the understanding that it's not only ok, but it's good. This means that God is working on something in me. It's ok to let others know that there's renovation going on in here!



So, to my friend from church, and to all my friends out there who may have most of it together, but are still struggling inside a little. SO AM I.



Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said,"My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness." So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. That's why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:8-10