Skip to main content

Useful

There are times when I feel like my own crap is just too much. My mind is too analytical, my obsessive nature clings to too many thoughts, my relationship with the Lord is too mucked up with fear and anxiety to be of any use to others.

And then I have mornings like I had today, when I meet with a student with a mind just like mine, and my experiences actually become useful. The ways I have been comforted by Grace become a means for me to comfort another. My junk is no longer junk; it is a redeemed treasure, an experience that lets another know that they are not alone, that not only have I been in the same spot, but the Lord has also been there with me. And he is right there with her, just like he was (and is) with me. And he has redeemed my moments, my anxieties, my fears and turned them into a testimony of His grace.

I am thankful today for the quaint little town of Sierra Madre, hidden next to the Mountains, removed from the graffiti and grime of Los Angeles. I'm thankful for a park bench next to a Starbucks and a girl named Natalie who is working through the stuff of faith* and, though it feels like she is stuck, is moving beautifully through her wreckage as she grapples for truth and grace.

Thank you, Jesus, for using us when we feel useless, for giving us purpose when we feel purposeless, for being our hope when we feel hopeless.

*the "stuff of faith" was coined by my dear friend Stephanie Hough and has been my favorite phrase of late thanks to a coffee date with her a few weeks back :)

Comments

  1. StephanieJune 2, 2011 at 2:24 PM

    I really, really like this post. It is so true and hopeful, and in its own way, happy. (And thanks for the shout out too! I'm so glad we were able to get coffee together. I love talking to you - wish we could do it much, much more often!)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Olivia Marilyn Rich

Hi friends! Looks like I blogged in 2018 a total of...zero times. I did start a lot of drafts, but none made it to publishing. I'm hoping to maybe get back into blogging (like, at least more than zero times in 2019), but I realized that until I can give any life updates, I need to post SOMETHING about baby #2's arrival. According to my blog, I'm still 9 weeks pregnant with her, but she is now 15 months old. So here is the completed version of her birth story that I attempted to write last year. In order to tell Livvie's birth story, I need to record her pregnancy. It was hard to write about during it, harder to write about it after it. I'm feeling less connected to it now- it is a hazy memory of misery in my mind. I know it was awful, but I can't quite remember just how awful. I guess this is how people have more babies, as the memories are slowly swallowed up by the heavenliness of the baby outside of the womb. The most difficult part of my pregnancies is...
Post a Comment
Read more

'Til We Finally Meet

When we awoke you were not to be You never swam in our blue sea Now you’ve gone to different oceans Than the one we floated our hopes in When we lost our baby, I did not know how to grieve. So I didn't. I treated it like a failed cycle and put my hand to the plow, pulling my heart and body toward the next thing. We will get pregnant again, I told myself. That will make it all better. Lets pretend this never happened. You were a breaking in the clouds We barely said these things aloud There was a question you were the answer We heard music you were the dancer But in the in-between time, waiting for my body to recover so we could begin treatment again, it eventually became too much to ignore that we had a child. Two children, I guess, though my mind can't possibly comprehend the existence of that other one, the empty sac that never grew beyond four or five weeks. But that beautiful miracle on the ultrasound scream, the sound of the doctor exclaiming "There's a baby with ...
5 comments
Read more

Miscarriage

... For we were so utterly, unbearably crushed that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death so that we would rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He who rescued us from so deadly a peril will continue to rescue us; on him we have set our hope that he will rescue us again, as you also join in helping us by your prayers , so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many. 2 Corinthians 1:8-11 Three weeks ago, we got this: Yesterday, we found out that our baby does not have a heartbeat. Our hearts have been crushed to a million pieces, and the pain feels unbearable. And so I'm writing this to ask for prayer. Prayer unites us with the comfort of Jesus, the one well acquainted with grief, giving way to peace.  Peace for ourselves, and peace for others. But it's something we can not do alone. I do not understand why prayer did not make my baby live. But I do know that wh...
16 comments
Read more