Girl on fire, in a smoldering world

"We are all misfits livin' in a world on fire." ~Kelly Clarkson


Well...here we are, another semester over. Education makes my heart leap, truly, I am that girl. I am the certifiable definition of a nerd. One of my strengths in the strengths finder assessment I took my freshman year of college was "learner" and given that I have been in some sort of formal education scenario since I was five (almost 22 years ago), I think perhaps this is accurate.
Today after an honest conversation with someone precious to me, I realized (learned) something about the standards we impose upon ourselves as people (read, the standards I impose upon myself as a person.)
I learned a lesson outside of the classroom. Those, those are my favorite.

We've all done it. We've all set goals for ourselves. "By this moment in time I will be at place A, and three years later, at place D, and of course we respond with some sort of befuddled look(or...something) when we end up in place OMG! instead. C'est la vie. It's kind of like new parents who are told by pediatricians that baby SHOULD speak by this age, or walk by that one, that potty training should be completed by the time the child is this old, and that at 16 the same child should be allowed to drive a car. I'm not sure who made these rules, but I beg to differ, babies are not krispy kreme donuts...not one of them comes down a conveyor belt looking like the one before it. How insulting to the God who made each child with a HEARTBEAT within 22 DAYS of conception to believe that each one has to do things A-B-C and by the time the world says "three." Nope. Sorry.

Granted, I know that some things do need to be done within a certain time frame, and while so many around me are marrying, and having children, I have to admit I find it more difficult than ever to stay the course of purity, obedience, and contentment without finding myself befuddled in place OMG! At this moment, as I type this, I am reminded of a gift God gave me in the form of a sister, one who has been honest with me about certain OMG "detours" and how they brought her to the now. A now I am blessed to share with her.
Without reservation I confess that not every detour is blissful, and some of them aren't even blessed, some of them, by our own doing, endeavor to cripple us and hinder us...But...

We can kick against what is until our shoes are worn thin...we can swallow our pride, or swim in it (I certainly recommend one over the other, but take your pick), the truth is, from where I'm standing ( I'm standing, even though they said I'd never walk...), from where I' m  STANDING, nothing can thwart Him, His plan for us...detours...A-B-C----OMG...Nothing.
I love the people in my life for reminding me of this, all of them, as so many have over the years, 22 of which have been spent in some sort of educational environment that has involved a classroom. I say without reservation, though, that some of my most beautiful educational lessons have come from people like this sister I so love, one who saw me grieve, for a brief moment, in what could have been a crippling detour...but it wasn't, because in the moment of choice, the fork in that road, she met me and confessed that place "OMG!" was not unknown to her. Humility is priceless in a stranger, it is priceless, but all the more in someone you love.

In the weeks since that conversation (which is none of the world's business) I have been mindful that my heart has  sometimes yearned to wallop the detours. Or...are they detours? The...differences between my own plans, and the ones I currently see unfolding bountifully before me. In (almost) 27 years of living I say that I have never experienced such an incredible understanding of truth as I have in the past 3 months...I watched as dishonor, grief, injustice, freedom, transformation, hope...blessings, enveloped my life like a father...The Father, cradles His children. I watched and learned as new understandings changed me forever. I even stood in the midst of glowing waves as they crashed over my head and made my face shimmer... I sometimes yearn to transform those differences...but then...I don't. God doesn't waste a single resource, not one, and He was loving and tender enough to cradle an infant the size of an applesauce jar and bring her to an understanding of love that is incomprehensible...Now, instead of being pained because things weren't/aren't   different, I am inclined to cherish the opportunity in the way things are. I mean, don't read this and think that I am overjoyed that I walk funny, that I wear holes in my shoes, or at other things in my life that were beyond painful...and well past OMG! Read it and know that we've all been there, that place that aches, hurts, makes us wonder where in the world we missed a step, or even terrifies us to take the next one...we've ALL been there...all of us.

As I sit here typing this I realize that EVERY SINGLE "detour" (I still think that's the wrong word) has been, even if I missed it at the time, a HUGE blessing to me. HUGE. See, without even one of them, there's no telling where I'd be right now. If any one of them had turned out differently, I would've missed something, and let me tell you, what I got is so much more precious than anything I "think" I lost. Sure, I wear holes in my shoes when I walk, but when I walk, I often do it hand in hand with someone I love. Sure, I sometimes need a hand, but, when I walk I can swing arms and have conversation...some of which  I remember word for word though it was years ago. Sure, I am almost 27 and I don't drive a car (yet), but I have NEVER been down a road alone...ever.  Sure, I have never done a cartwheel, but I give people rides on my scooter all the time. And, ok, I am yet to be a wife, or a parent, but in the last four years at least a dozen girls have used my couch to pour out their hearts, some of them with tears, others with smiles, and some, just before falling fast asleep on my lap. The "detour" of singleness has allowed me to pour out and receive in ways that I'm sure few law/MA students are ever afforded...I praise the Lord for every day of that.

I grew up wanting certain things, wanting an understanding of why things were the way they were, and why I didn't have a life like so many I knew, but today I know that as I grieved, God had a higher plan for me, and if even ONE STEP had been different, I would not have the growth, the life, the family, the understanding that I have been so lavishly blessed and humbled to receive.
I don't think I would understand how much God loves us just because. Not because somebody wanted us, or didn't, or because we made a high score, or didn't, because we won a medal, or...you get it.
That's what happens though...in a world like ours it's commonplace to believe we are "less" if we don't have this many accolades by this age, or if we haven't walked certain soil by the time XYZ happens...that we haven't worked hard enough until we've almost literally forfeited part of our noses to the all too familiar hypothetical grindstone. To this I say: Give me a break.

Hold on...don't see this and think "ok, let's all do nothing." Negative. I only mean that it's frustrating to me when people (read: predominately GOD'S PEOPLE) confuse HIS standard for us with our standards for ourselves. Often, they are NOT one in the same, and I daresay, they aren't even measured with the same cup. We (typically) want to do things, to strive for better, to strive for more, to do this, that and the other thing, because it's "normal progression." The will of God is different, it doesn't follow a progression on a temporal level, and it doesn't always take us down the smooth, paved, marked, roads. Sometimes we end up in a forest of brambles that crack and startle us in the dark, they sting our cheeks, trip us so we skin our knees, tear our jeans, leave holes in our boots, and leave our faces caked with blood, sweat, tears, and dirt. Sometimes, we rise, aching and bruised, from the ground beneath us and swallow that lump rising in our throats, thirsty, and unaware where we'll find our next drink. Sometimes our lips are bleeding and dry, and the only noise we hear is the sound of hunger, hunger that says we yearn to be filled with all that He is, even if it means that at the moment, all we taste is dirt and tears. Hunger.
Hunger that makes us get up. Get up when we've done so much wrong we aren't sure how to fix it, or get up when we feel so defeated we aren't sure how to win anymore, get up, when we have been so afraid, we have forgotten how to be brave...but we're hungry...and because we know Him, we know starvation is never an option. We know that we were not appointed for ashes...we just weren't. So we gather the embers we feel reduced to, and we blow on them, wearily, and painfully, and by His grace, He restores them to fervor.
Detours and dirt roads, He sees it...and if we're hungry, we'll be fed...and the noise...the yearning for chapstick, water, paved roads, and boots without holes cease after a time. This is the part where I thank God for people I love, and have been loved by, like my sister...who reminded me of the testimony written by my holey shoes is greater than any grief the holes may cause, and that perfection, along any road, is not only unnecessary, but impossible. We're not called to be flawless...just willing. So, we rise up covered in dirt and tears, and we come to the end of this path cut up and bruised, but we lay our ash heap on the altar, and before we can breathe again, we are renewed with an incendiary power, we have again been set ablaze, with the power to restore, refresh, to start fires.

Jesus, when He walked the earth, did not stoop to the level of culture where it disobeyed His law, and He did not condemn those who were broken and transgressed, those who yearned on the dusty, bramble filled roads. He did what He has done for me, and for all of us. He gave us light, fire, while the world rained ashes on our heads.

I don't want to be perfect, and I don't want to live for an accomplishment, or an accolade, I don't want to follow a "mortal progression." I want to be hungry, I want to relish the crack of the sticks on my path here and there, I want to gather the ashes the world wants to see me reduced to, and I want Him to light them up when it seems as though I can't burn anymore...I just want to be a girl on fire, in a smoldering world...

Sometimes, all it takes to set things into perspective is a loved one who reminds us that God specializes in redeeming us in the places where we believe we have "gone out" and that He loves every moment of watching us burn for Him, no matter how many times we have to be reignited.

Beauty for ashes,
Courtney