The Good That Comes from the Bad

 

Reading this post from 2015 is one of those moments in hindsight that I can see God gently and lovingly preparing me for what was up ahead.

I couldn't see it then. All I could see then was that I couldn't be with my children. I loved the 10 years I was home with my babies. I struggled hard with resistance to changing that, but I knew God was telling me to get a job outside the home. As soon as I did, I struggled with depression and guilt. It was hard for me to adjust to the new phase of "working mom." It didn't feel like the right choice. 

But God knew…

God knew that later this same year something painful was going to happen that would start a new and even harder shift in my "perfect" home life.
God knew that four years later, I would face the daunting journey of being a SINGLE working mom.
God knew what adjustments and changes and pain and heartaches were waiting around the corner.
And He invited me to step away from my comfort zone, go where I was scared to go, do what I didn’t want to do, because He knew it was the best plan for me AND my kids. He was preparing me for what was ahead.

And I certainly dragged my heels and lamented the change. 

Now I see it differently. I can't even imagine how much harder the divorce process would have been on me if I had to make ALL those changes then. It would have been overwhelming. Even the TYPE of job I ended up in helped me walk through a journey I never would have guessed awaited me. 

Now I see all those times of disappointment and discouragement as wonderful guiding steps from a Father who cares about me.

 
It’s good to look back on your life and acknowledge those areas where you struggled at the time, but now see God’s clear hand of provision and protection within that struggle! I need to remind myself of those truths every day. Because I certainly will have more struggles and more hard times. Hopefully, I will rest in God's great and loving hands in those moments and know He is working out a better plan.

Do You Want to Get Well

If you are spending all your time and effort constantly trying to drag someone else away from the edge of a cliff, trying to rescue them from their poor choices - it’s not healthy. It will only exhaust you and put your life in danger as well. 

You are not responsible for making sure someone else makes good choices. 

You cannot “love someone enough” to change them. They have to decide to change for themselves. 

If they really want to go over the cliff, sooner or later - they will. The only choice you really have is whether you let them take you with them. 

It’s scary and hard to let go. I know. 

I struggled on the edge of that cliff myself several times, clinging tightly to my person, trying to keep them safe, feeling like it was my responsibility, my duty. I know that you physically hurt at the thought of watching them fall. I know you feel like if you let go, it means you’re giving up on them. 

You are not.

Please hear me say that again - letting go doesn’t mean giving up. It means you are giving them over. It means you are surrendering them to the consequences of their choices and finally trusting God with their life and with your own. It means you’ve decided to stop striving; to stop participating in behavior that hurts you. And that surrender will ultimately lead to a place of so much peace and healing for you. 

If they choose to go down into the pit - dear friend, let go. And ask God to help you. 

Did you know that the Hebrew word in the Bible that means “be still” also means “let go?” 

It’s the verb, “raphah.” 

So, in the well-known verse of Psalm 46:10, when it says, “Be still, and know that I am God” it is also essentially saying “Let go, stop striving, surrender - and see that I am God, and I am in control. Not you.” Even more interestingly, the root word of this word is “rapha” (minus the last ‘h’), and it means “to heal.” 

Letting go is a pathway to healing. That’s really beautiful when you think about it. And really hard. We often think holding on and tightly grasping onto control is the way we make something better…safer. But the healing is found when we let go. 

Several months ago, I sat in my therapist’s office, crying on her couch for the umpteenth time because of a broken heart and broken dreams. She told me, “You have to find a way to let go of ____.” At the time, I remember thinking in frustration, “Okay, fine, what is the way to do that? I am so ready to not be this sad messy human!” 

I wish I could tell you I found the exact 3 step method! But the truth is, all of our paths look different. So, the way there is different for each of us. But the key, the first step, is the same! 

The key is where we go to find the way. Do we go to self-help books? Church? Teachers? Friends? Ourselves? 

Or do we truly surrender our healing to Jehovah-Rapha, the Great Healer? Do we let go of our need to figure it out, and just “raphah” to “Rapha?” 

Stop looking for healing in places that cannot heal you. It's like going to a mechanic because YOU are sick! Or taking your car to your family doctor! In their places, in the right context, those things are helpful. But healing is only found in the hands of the Healer.

You also can't heal what you won't reveal. If you go to the doctor because you have a gaping wound on your arm, but you tell them your stomach hurts, your arm is not going to get treatment, and it's probably only going to get worse. Similarly, you can drag someone else to the doctor...but you cannot make them be honest about what is really making them sick if they don't want to heal. They have to choose it for themselves. That's the reason Jesus asked the paralytic man at the pool of Bethesda, "Do you want to get well? Then pick up your bed and walk." The path toward healing was offered, the steps away from the edge of the cliff were made clear, but the man had to actively choose it and participate in it himself. (John 5)

Trying to heal that other person will never, ever heal them or you. Trying to be the perfect spouse will never, ever heal a marriage in which the other person is self-destructing. Trying to heal yourself without giving yourself completely to the Healer will never produce lasting change. 

You cannot change yourself by yourself. And you cannot change someone else. 

You have to let go. You have to be still, quiet your heart, stop trying to control what scares you, and let God be God. He’s so much better at it than we are! Do you want to get well? Listen and obey the Healer.

When God Burns Your Ships...

Have you heard the phrase, "Burn the ships?"  

It dates back to the 1500s when a Spanish explorer sailed to a new land. The story goes that once he hit land, he burned and destroyed all his ships so that he and his crew could not give up and get back on their ships. They had no choice but to press forward in the new place. There’s a story in the Bible that also shows this - when Elisha burnt his plow before he left to follow God. And in Isaiah 43:18-19, God tells the children of Israel, who are longing for Egypt where they were SLAVES, to

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” 

Sometimes, the new means God burns our ships.

I painted this picture last year.  

It's taken me a year to be healthy enough to share it and write about it.

By: Deon Sexton

It was done using a technique called Fumage, which basically means "painting with fire." You use flames and smoke to create depth and dimension, shadows and edges. Then you use different mediums to go back in and add details.  

For my Art class's Master Final last year, we had to pick an artist’s work we had learned about, then recreate it and put our spin on it. I had been drawn to Steven Spazuk’s Fumage technique from the moment we learned about it in class. And as a bonus, Spazuk often incorporates birds into his work! Birds have been special to me since my husband left. God has often filled my heart with hope through birds. I especially felt drawn to cardinals, specifically two female cardinals that would visit my porch every morning. When I researched female cardinals, I smiled to see they are considered to represent hope and healing. I definitely needed some of that! 

 

My painting is based on Spazuk’s untitled piece (below). He showcased a woman rising up out of a Zippo lighter, birds taking flight as though they came from inside her. As soon as I saw it, I knew this was the one. I absolutely needed to recreate this piece and make it mine.

Painting by: Steven Spazuk

And I knew - I would mix real ashes of my broken marriage in with the paint…literally beauty from ashes.

You see, one of the most painful things that happened during my divorce was that my husband burned the book of all of the love notes and emails from before we wed. It was a thick book. And I love - LOVE - words and stories. So good words are like big hugs.

That book was one of my most treasured items. It chronicled the story of our love, of how God brought us together, of our prayers for each other and our journey. It told of our dedication to each other and to God. And after my husband discarded me, he took it and burned it and then he lied about it. Like so many other things at the end of our marriage, it was one more pattern of painful devastation followed by lies and gaslighting. I had to dig through the fire pit with my bare hands and find remnants of it in order to prove he had burned it. Finding those discarded pieces of something precious to me had crushed me completely. Crying beside those ashes is a moment I still consider to be THE moment I truly grieved the loss of the life I had known. But that night, feeling led by God, I had scooped the charred pages and ashes out of the pit and kept them... for two years. 

Now, I would turn them into beauty and hope and healing. 

I would make this picture my own. 

Instead of the Zippo lighter at the bottom of Spazuk’s, which is very detailed and intricate, looks expensive and is more of a focal point, I wanted my bursting forth point to be a dark and damaged cheap cardboard box that didn’t draw the eye. I wanted it to look crumpled. I wanted the girl in my piece to be victoriously raising one arm in praise. And I knew instead of the blackbirds/sparrows Spazuk had in his painting, I absolutely wanted to include my beloved female cardinal in all her muted strength. 

The first step was to prepare the paper. And then begin burning it to make shadows and shapes, using smoke and soot. The second step was to go back and paint in the details. The third step for me was to add the ash. Tears seeped from my eyes as I used my fingers to grind up the ashes from my love story, and mix them in with my paint.

The cardinals are where the ashes are. Not on the girl. Not on her. She had to let them go. They are mixed in with the wings of the cardinals. They are flying away into the sky. They are rising above it all.

 

I love the way it turned out.

God often draws my eye to this painting on days when I forget the truth of my story, when I get focused again on the box. Those birds of hope and healing burst up out of that cheap box, leading the girl to freedom. They are free. Born of fire and pain. But that pain is what opened the box and set her free. And that is what this painting represents to me. Freedom and healing. Coming out of something that I didn’t realize was so small and so painful and so cheap. 

 

As I have gazed at this painting this last year, I realized that I spent a lot of time in life focusing on the box.

Feeling sad that the box was torn and crumpled.

Sad that the box was not the place of safety I thought it would be.

Wishing the box were different.

Trying to fix the box myself.

Trying to convince myself that I missed the box once I was out of it!

Even trying to get back in that broken box.

I lied to myself for a long time about what my marriage really was, what it had become. I thought if I just kept the flaps pulled closed, endured the heat, kept everything inside the box, that it would be okay.  

Sometimes we pick the painful known thing over the scary unknown thing, even if it's burning us.

I didn’t know it, but the old stuff needed to be burned away in order for me to move forward. I NEEDED God to burn that ship.

 

This is what God revealed to me through my painting, and through this process.

  

God knew I was devoted and committed to that love story of mine. God knew I would keep going back to those words and promises in that old book, longing for them and living for them. He knew I would get stuck grieving for what had been. God knew I would stay trapped there in a story that was no longer true.

So, He allowed my husband to burn it so I wouldn’t go back.

God allowed him to destroy it because it was no longer good or healthy for me there. Like Lot’s wife, and like the children of Israel, I would have kept looking back and longing for what God had rescued me out of. He had to burn it. I didn’t need access to it anymore. It was an old chapter. But it wasn’t the whole story. It was just a chapter. And that chapter brought me where I am today. It molded me into who I am today. Satan may have meant it for evil, but God has certainly already used it for good!

God knew I wasn’t strong enough to break free of that box on my own. So, He allowed the box to be set on fire, added heat to force me out, and gave me birds of hope and healing to carry me and sustain me like manna in the wilderness. 

 

Today, when I look at this painting, that dark box is small. Minute. It’s only a part of the painting. The girl and the birds, the beautiful colors, and the freedom there… they are the focal point. They are truly beauty from ashes.

And I like living in that space much, much more.  

 

Today, February 1, would have been my 20th Anniversary. I have struggled on this day the last two years. It was heavy and sad. Suffocating. Grievous. But I realized recently that those feelings only overtake me when I begin to focus again on the broken box. I want to focus instead on lifting my hands in praise and being willing to go wherever the God of hope and healing leads me.

 

When we spend our time trapped in what was, lost in what could have been, we rob ourselves of the beauty of the day.

Today is one more day that I have been out of that box that was killing me, suffocating me, and quenching the Spirit. God brought me out of it. And today, on THIS February 1, I have felt just fine. Today, on this particular day, I finally hung my painting up in my house. I put it on display, owned the truth of it and gave it its own space! It's right outside my bedroom door where I see it every morning and every night, to constantly remind me that...

"He brought me out into a spacious place: He rescued me because He delighted in me." 

Psalm 18:19