Tattered Trust and Fragile Hope

Just over a year ago, I went through one of the hardest things I've experienced thus far in my life. I've had a pretty easy life, compared to many - most, if we're talking the whole world - but just because it is a "privileged," "easy," or "normal" version of pain and heartache doesn't make it any less painful for me. And so I get to work my way through it just like anyone else.

I'm reading Rising Strong by Brene Brown right now as part of my working through it, and she wrote the following:

"Once we fall in the service of being brave, we can never go back. We can rise up from our failures, screwups, and falls, but we can never go back to where we stood before we were brave or before we fell. Courage transforms the emotional structure of our being. This change often brings a deep sense of loss. During the process of rising, we sometimes find ourselves homesick for a place that no longer exists. We want to go back to that moment before we walked into the arena, but there's nowhere to go back to."

These thoughts resonate with me so deeply that it brings tears to my eyes. I can never go back. The Beth that existed is no more. The Beth that showed up to the table with something to offer will never show up again, or bring the same simply beautiful offering. The Beth who believed wholeheartedly and hoped unwaveringly and obeyed enthusiastically now believes with a bit of trepidation and hopes with a little more desperation and obeys with a little more hesitation. This past year brought death to not only hopes and dreams and innocence, but also to the entire person I used to be.

And I must grieve.

Beth Moody was good. Fallen, yes, but also good. She was quick to see good. She could turn any situation around and see the good in it, and she could look at any person and see the good in her or him. She believed that people were redeemable and that no situation was ever hopeless, that it was never too late nor the work too hard. She was quick to say yes, both to God and to people. Maybe to a fault, Beth would bend over backwards to help someone, even at great cost to herself. And she was quick to say yes to God. Phrases like, "It's not about me" and "Here am I! Send me!" characterized her obedience to her Heavenly Father. She wasn't one to chase the spotlight, but in a crowd of people she could find the one that needed a listening ear. She was innocent and sometimes naive, but there was a beauty in her that drew others, and left them encouraged and hopeful once again. She left behind husband, Steven, and four young children. She served her family sacrificially and spent herself in showing Jesus to them and making her home a place where all could know Christ and He would be glorified.

There is a deep sense of loss when I think about the person I used to be. And still some bitterness that I can never get her back. Homesick, yes, that too. I still get homesick for the place I used to live as my former self. A place of not knowing how hard life could be or how deeply one can hurt. A place where God's goodness was never in question. A place where I possessed the childlike faith that I could trust God, without hesitation, in all things.

Brene goes on to say:

"What makes this more difficult is that now we have a new level of awareness about what it means to be brave. We can't fake it anymore. We now know when we're showing up and when we're hiding out, when we are living our values and when we are not."

 So now it's time to walk into what is next: the next version of Beth and the next place I'm to make my home (both figuratively and literally). The old has gone and the new has come. It's time to walk into it, no matter how hard it might get.

And as I take my first steps, I now have a new level of awareness of what it means to say yes to God - what it means to be brave. Being brave is a lot more scary when you know the taste of dirt in your mouth, when you know the gritty grief of self-death. And as tempting as it will be to show up only half-heartedly as a means of self-protection and self-preservation, I will not fake it. I will not hide. I wish I could introduce you to the new Beth Moody, but I don't actually know her yet. But even still, whoever I am now, I will bring my full yes to God, knowing the price He might ask me to pay. Knowing that I might bring Him my yes - give Him the absolute best of my creativity and energy, choose trust and hope and bravery, step into the arena and fight for these dreams - and find myself face-down in the dirt again with my tattered trust and fragile hopes in shattered pieces all around me.

And it would still be worth it. Even in failure, it is still always worth it.

Living a life of bravery has less to do with final victory and more to do with living the victory of saying yes to every moment, to every battle. To every opportunity to hope and dream and believe and fight alongside and for the person next to you. The victory is not hiding. Not hiding from the fear or the pain - or even the failure, but standing back up and stepping back into the arena and lifting your sword yet again.

I will live this life of victory.

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I could stop right now in this post. It would probably be better if I did. But there's one more place I must go.

One year ago I experienced the death of a dream. And like anyone who has lost someone knows, death is not a one-day event. Stepping from last summer into the school year, I knew it would be a year of death. It sounds morbid, I know, but it was a reality for me. I would spend an entire year mourning the loss of my dream and watching every last vestige of it die and fade away. I would be asked to hand over my dream to another and then walk away.

But sometimes there is a cost to obedience, and this was it, so I walked straight into it. Others may have walked away, but my obedience required walking into it. So in I went.

It was one of the hardest years I've ever walked through, but what completely blindsided me was that it was also a year of some of the most explosive new life I've ever experienced as well. Hand in hand, I walked through the year with excruciating death on one side and brilliant new life on the other.

Isn't that just like Jesus and His upside down Kingdom?

"Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." John 12.24

"Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.'" Matthew 16.24-25

When I am willing to let go of all that I dreamed before, and all that I was before - when I am willing to live through my own death and release all that I had clung to so tightly - it is in that kind of obedience that the Lord works the miracle of new life in, and through, me.

Brene also adds:

"Our new awareness can also be invigorating - it can reignite our sense of purpose and remind us of our commitment to wholeheartedness. Straddling the tension that lies between wanting to go back to the moment before we risked and fell and being pulled forward to even greater courage is an inescapable part of rising strong."

 One day maybe I'll be able to introduce you to the new Beth Moody who I am becoming. I have this sneaking feeling that there might be a lot of similarities between her and the former me. That maybe things like my sense of purpose - my belief that people are worth fighting for, that it's never too late to keep fighting, and that one of the best strategies in the battle is to listen - will not be absent but rather sharpened and honed to greater effectiveness. And one day I will share with you the new dreams that have had new life-giving breath breathed into them.

And, oh by the way, those dreams will be BIG. So get ready.

Because, while my trust is tattered and my hope feels fragile...

"...he [says] to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me." 2 Corinthians 12.9

Jesus, make me brave. Stitch back together my trust and restore my hope. Comfort me as I grieve loss and plant me in a new place of belonging. And as you do these things, help me to keep saying yes. Help me to choose victorious obedience over self-preservation. Let everything die in me that you don't want to remain, and let everything experience new life in me that you don't want to die. Let me choose honest weakness over false strength, and let me boast in my weakness as you show yourself strong. And let my rising strong be a display, not of my strength, but of your incredible power in me. Amen.