the benefit of brokenness.

In our society, if you don't have your act together, people don't seem to want much to do with you.

[have you noticed that?]

A well-intentioned friend once said to me, "When you're feeling sad, all you have to do to make yourself feel better is smile. Even if it's a fake smile, it still releases the same endorphins that real smiles release, and before you know it, your fake smile will become a real smile."

And while the science nerd in me finds that to be fascinating, can it possibly be healthy?

To cure sadness, we should simply fake happiness until we start actually feeling happy?
If that's the case, we should probably inform every counseling center in America that they're no longer needed. And heck, while we're at it, we should tell people not to give hugs when people are down: It unnecessarily spreads germs.



Of course this isn't true.
(well, i mean, maybe the endorphins thing is accurate. i haven't fact-checked that.)
But to emerge from a state of sadness | brokenness | disappointment  --it'll take a lot more than releasing good vibes from your facial muscles.

The deeper question remains, though:
Why are we so desperate to move away from this state of brokenness?
Has our culture taught us so unilaterally that brokenness is bad, that we can't bear to accept the emotions we're genuinely feeling? That we need to quickly bandage up any wounds we suffer in order to become a "whole person"? That brokenness is a sign that there's something wrong with us?

But. What if that wounded state is the place that helps us grow the most?



Over the past couple weeks, I've been stuck on this concept.
It seems to me that when I'm the most broken, I'm also the most myself: I don't have mental or emotional energy to smooth off the rough edges, my personality has no choice but to come out in its rawest form.

When I'm feeling broken, I'm more desperate for wisdom and truth.
And that feeling of desperateness leads me to seek out the only true constant in my life: I lean on God so heavily in these broken hours.

It's in my brokenness that I live a life of unabashed dependency on God. The life that creates the archetype for how I should always be living.

To be strong all the time is perhaps the most unhealthy goal one can have.
The power of Christ is made perfect in our weakness [2 Corinthians 12:9]; our marriage to the world is exemplified in our desire to fix our own brokenness.




This morning I was sitting in church, the notion of brokenness tumbling around in my head. The worship band began to play a well-worn praise chorus written by Brooke Fraser called Hosanna.
I absently sang the lyrics of the first couple verses and choruses, so familiar that they came out of my mouth almost automatically.
As I found myself singing along with the bridge, though, the words' juxtaposition grabbed my attention:

heal my heart and make it clean

followed almost immediately by,

break my heart for what breaks Yours


I stopped singing as I realized the two things the song asked for were healing and brokenness.
Are they one and the same?
Is it only through acknowledging brokenness that true healing can occur?

After all, sometimes when things seem to be falling apart, they may actually be falling into place.
If we've already placed a bandage over what is broken, we aren't allowing the broken pieces to fall where they need to.


When we "put on a happy face" despite our brokenness, we resist the promise made to us:
I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. [Ezekiel 36:26]

We aren't the ones who create that new heart. We aren't a people who have the power to form renewed spirits.

This new heart and new spirit is the one that begins to form only after our existing heart and spirit break.
In our brokenness, we are made whole, and He is made perfect.




All the walls you've built up are just glass on the outside 
So let them fall down. 
There's freedom waiting in the sound when you let your walls fall down. 
This is where the healing begins.

[Healing Begins, Tenth Avenue North]

i am a person.

The past few months have changed my definition of "summer vacation".

One of my favorite quotes is by Anton Chekhov, who said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it's the day-to-day living that wears you out."

That's certainly proven itself to me.


This past May, I became particularly ill with what I thought was a Crohn's Disease flareup. I went to my doctor and was told that no, my health concerns were unrelated to having Crohn's; instead I'd contracted a bacteria called Clostridium difficile, or C.dif.

The only cool thing about C.dif is that it has a period in the middle of it like a rapper. Everything else about it sucks: This little bacteria was eating my internal organs, specifically my intestines.

I was immediately placed on a crazy dose of antibiotics, and I immediately felt better. Not only did the medicine make the C.dif inactive; it also gave me a reprieve from Crohn's Disease.


Since May I've been on these antibiotics.
Since May I've been able to live life as though I don't have Crohn's Disease.
Since May I've been on a true summer vacation.

I finished the antibiotics ten days ago, but yesterday afternoon, my body confirmed that the medicine was certainly out of my system: My Crohn's Disease came back with a vengeance.


As I sit here writing, in more pain than I remembered being possible, I can't help but think of a friend of mine.


Yesterday, I had lunch with this friend [who will remain nameless for her own privacy] who was diagnosed with colon cancer on July 20. She's in her thirties and has two young kids, lives a very active and healthy life, and is one of those people who warmly and unassumingly shows you her beautiful soul the moment you meet her.

She'll be having a foot of her colon removed tomorrow morning, a mere 15 days after her diagnosis.

As we discussed the nitty-gritty of the surgery over lunch (These are the lunchtime conversations I have with people. Appetizing, no? ...Anyone up for Panera next Monday?), she referenced having Multiple Sclerosis, likening her cancer to her MS in some ways.

It caught me off guard for a moment. Despite having known her just shy of three years, I'd completely forgotten that she had any sort of health problem. How is it that Crohn's Disease is so prominent in my mind, yet she handles MS with such grace that I'd entirely forgotten it was even a part of her body?

When I posed this question, her response was simple:
She doesn't view herself as a sick person.

No, instead, she views herself as a person. Yes, a person who happens to be sick, and a person who happens to have a cancerous tumor she's been unwittingly carrying around with her, but she views herself exactly as I've come to view her: simply as a person.

When I turned this perspective around to myself, I reluctantly realized that I've come to think of myself as a sick person. I'm a patient. A victim. A broken body in a broken world.

Why is this my identity? Why isn't my identity more along the lines of, a person who laughs? Who loves? Who lives life with abandon?


Why do I carry the burden of a broken body in my mind, when I only have to carry it in my body?





Since May, I've gotten a summer vacation from the day-to-day living that Chekhov insists (and rightly so) will wear you out.
That should give me a reenergized jumpstart on learning to view myself as what I am: a person.

learning to be.

If you know me at all, you know that I love language.

Words, grammar, foreign language, sociolinguistics… I find it all fascinating and wonderful.

I was looking on the bookshelf in my living room a few weeks back, and a book title grabbed my attention:

i am not, but i know I AM.

Ah! Not only was it a masterfully worded title, it's also a concept that I, as an ESFP, often struggle with.

I've had the opportunity to hear the book's author, Louie Giglio, speak a handful of times, and the simplicity with which he presents God is energizing.

So of course, I took the book off the shelf and have been reading it, slowly but surely {my self-discipline when it comes to reading is lacking}, ever since.

Last week, I read a chapter in which the author relayed an experience he had while meditating on the phrase, "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us."

He took the phrase word by word, and spent a day on each word.

My inner word nerd got jazzed at the idea of getting to spend an entire day thinking about a single word, so I resolved to address a phrase in a similar way. As I continued to read the chapter, I felt Psalm 46:10 worm its way into my consciousness:

Be still and know that I am God.

Such a cliche churchy phrase, yes.

A couple years back, though, this concept hit me in a big way, and ever since then, it's held a special place in my heart.

So I set out to do my word-a-day meditation on this phrase.

Be.

My first word was "be".

Two letters.

B-E.

Be.

What the heck was I supposed to get out of those two letters?

Be is an irregular verb, so I started by making a conjugation chart:

I looked at my conjugation chart, and couldn't get past the thought of, "Gosh, Kelsi, you're so lame. Why are you making conjugation charts for a verb in your native language?"

But I continued to look at my chart, determined to get something out of this.

Suddenly, something clicked in my mind, and the top left corner jumped at me: I AM.

The simple state of being is congruent with the very name God gives Himself.

To be is to commune with God.

To be is to explore God.

To be is to realize the essence of the One who was, is, and always will be.

i am not, but i know I AM.

I got so excited about these two small letters.

B-E.

As I continued to meditate on this tiny word, it became a huge word.

Its eleven definitions on dictionary.com scarcely scratch the surface of its meaning.

How can I learn to be?

I want to rest on my laurels and let God take His role as the I AM.

I want to stop worrying.

I want to relinquish control.

I want to simply be.

Easter rantings and some humbling Easter lessons.

Yes, I know Easter is supposed to be the most jubilant holiday of the Christian calendar.
Yes, I realize it's the day that changed everything.
But, more often than not, I view it as an annoyance.

Why?
Because I'm selfish and it messes up my routine.


See, lots of non-churchgoers come to church on Easter because "it's the right thing to do".
Well I can't handle that. It makes it difficult to find parking and seating at church.
The sanctuary is stuffy with the extra body heat.
The line for the bathroom is exorbitantly long.

And the worst part of all is that the church feels a need to create an especially showy production to entertain all these guests in hopes that they'll come back.
I just want my normal church service!



But yesterday.

Yesterday was Easter.
I went to my [overcrowded] church, keenly aware of my penchant toward a sour Easter attitude.
I prayed that I'd be able to see beyond my own discomfort in a way that would allow me to experience Easter in a real way.


And you know what?
Yesterday, for the first time, I was able to truly focus my attention on the beauties of Easter.

And so, dear friends, I'd like to share with you what I learned:




Defeat is the only way to truly find release.

Most of the time, Christian doctrine preaches that Jesus died for our sins.
Well, yes, that's true. But what's even more important (and often omitted) is that Jesus rose from the dead for our sins.

The Bible isn't abundantly clear about what Jesus knew in advance in regards to His crucifixion and resurrection.
He clearly knew that something terrible was about to go down; otherwise He wouldn't have spent such an agonizing night in the Garden of Gethsemane praying for the Lord to take the cup from Him (Luke 22:42).
But what exactly did He know? Did He know He would be living again three days later?



Just before He died, He uttered the words, "'It is finished.' With that, He bowed His head and gave up His spirit" (John 19:30, NIV).

It is finished.

Those are words of finality.
Everything was over.
Jesus had admitted defeat.

And through that defeat,
through Jesus relinquishing His control,
through His giving up,
that is where we gained the greatest freedom we can ever know.


Even after Jesus proclaimed, "It is finished," He still provided the greatest redemption.


It was once He saw that He couldn't do it on His own.
It was once He acknowledged the power of the Trinity.
It was once He gave up His spirit.

That was when God was able to complete the work.
That was when God was able turn something that was beyond repair into something beautiful.
That was when God fulfilled what His plan had been all along.

After it was finished.
After it was hopeless.
After it was beyond repair.



The concept of defeat is one I've wrestled with on and off for years now.
In a culture that encourages people to pull themselves up by the bootstraps, I've learned that it can be indescribably difficult to release my situations and to give God permission to intervene.
But I've also learned that sometimes God allows us to hit rock bottom in order to give us no choice but to look up.


And that's when we see that we can't do it on our own.
That's when we acknowledge the power of the Trinity.
That's when we give up our spirits.



The beauty of the Cross is the most ugly form of beauty in the history of humanity.

The beauty of the resurrection, though,
that was the day that
Sin lost,
Hope soared,
Love won,
And we were changed forever.

choosing freedom.

I am healed.
I am whole.
I am free.


Those were the words that kept echoing in my head today.


They're unusual words for this time in my life.
See, although I was diagnosed with Crohn's disease almost eleven years ago, the past 21 days have arguably contained the most discouraging hours of my journey with Crohn's.

It started with a sharp abdominal pain one evening, and it all went from there.
I ended up being hospitalized for the first time ever. They couldn't find anything wrong with me, and sent me on my merry way.
Since they discharged me from the hospital 12 days ago, though, I've been consistently exhausted, in pain, and unable to resume my normal activity level.

Please understand: I'm not the type of person to let anything hold me back from living my life.
The fact that I'm sick to the point of it compromising my life is frustrating beyond explanation.

And the fact that I don't know when [or if] it will subside is more discouraging than I know how to articulate.

Yet,

I am healed.

I am whole.

I am free.

In the present tense.

I am healed.
I am whole.
I am free.


…but I'm not.
My body is broken. My soul is discouraged. My mind is burdened.
I might be inclined to believe these words if I perceived them to be true, but I can't think of anything like that in the present tense when I'm so affected by my current physical state.

I read a book last summer called "Heaven is for Real".
One of the concepts in the book that made the most lasting impact on me is about the way time works:
Our earthly perception is that time is linear. Things happen chronologically. In order.
On the other hand, time, to God, is on an X, Y, and Z axis. More than one thing can occur simultaneously.

My earthly body can feel broken to me, but still be healed, whole, and free.

I am healed.

I am whole.

I am free.

I've been learning a lot about spiritual warfare through this, and how Satan can manifest his evil in the physical realm.
We're in a fallen world, and God wouldn't choose this brokenness I'm feeling: On the contrary, He has plans to prosper me and not to harm me.
But while I'm on this earth, God's plans will be sabotaged by the devil.

Still, I am free.
Free from the bondage of this world.
Free from the clutches of Satan.
And free from this body in which I live.

I am healed.

I am whole.

I am free.

I often think of the story in the Bible of the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, but touched the hem of Jesus' robe and was immediately healed. [Mark 5:24-34]
I can relate to her in so many ways. Chronic illness wears at you in a unique way: It whittles away at the essence of who you are, until finally you're little more than a gray skeleton of a person who was once vibrant.

Anton Chekhov once said, "Any idiot can face a crisis; it is this day-to-day living that wears you out."

For twelve years this woman bled.
Every single day.
She was weak. She was weary. She was worn down.
Yet she still had faith that she was healed | whole | free in Christ.

What a beautiful assurance.
She came to Christ with the confidence that she would be restored in full.
And through her faith, she was renewed in His strength.

She knew that all she needed to do was to touch the hem of the robe of the Healer, and to believe that He would cast out the illness. the brokenness. the physical manifestations of an imperfect world's spiritual battles.
And, just as she believed would happen, she was healed, she was made whole, and she was freed.


I am healed.
I am whole.
I am free.

And I'm going to cling to the hem of the robe of the One who is mighty to save.

admitting defeat.

I've always struggled with asking people for help.
I was raised that if you don't know how to do something, you figure it out and you do it yourself.

(within reason, of course. if your liver suddenly fails, there's absolutely no shame in having a surgeon perform an operation rather than doing a liver transplant on yourself.)


For the past week, I've been sick.


It's a weird kind of sick, though:

• At some point each day, I have a fever. It doesn't last for more than a couple hours, and it hasn't gotten above 101*. 
• Any time I eat anything, I get really nauseated / sick to my stomach for the next few hours.
• My intestines (which are always a wreck due to my Crohn's Disease) have been bleeding and throbbing and just hating me overall.
• I can't sleep soundly.
• I've been so weak (likely from the amount of blood I'm losing, thanks to my intestines) that almost every time I stand up, I get dizzy.

But have I told anyone? No.
Have I asked for help? Of course not.

Today, I finally admitted that it would be in my (and my students') best interest for me to leave work early. It only made sense; I was leaving every lesson at least once to go get sick.
So I cancelled out my last 3 students of the day, and I went home.

As I was driving home, I reached my breaking point: I knew I needed help.

Matthew 7:7 came to mind: "Ask, and it shall be given to you." [KJV]
And right on its heels came Matthew 21:22, "If you have faith when you pray, you will be given whatever you ask for." [CEV]

That's it? Ask and believe?
Why didn't I do this sooner?
Why is asking God my last resort rather than my first line of defense?


"The power that made the body will heal the body."


I see that on the wall of my chiropractor's office every single week.
Why haven't I internalized it?

I suppose it all comes down to trust.
I've become a worrier.

"What if I pray and God chooses not to heal me?"

"What if I try and it doesn't work how I want it to?"

"What if I take a risk and it backfires?"

The one the wind and waves obey is strong enough to save you.  --Tenth Avenue North, Strong Enough to Save


"If you ask anything in My name, I will do it." --John 14:14 [NKJV]

It doesn't get much plainer than that.

Why is such a simple concept so hard for me to wrap my mind around?





"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of Him." --1 John 5:14-15 [NIV]

Heaven and children and the like.

The current Christian “it” book is called “Heaven is for Real”.

Now, I’m the kind of person who will avoid reading a book / watching a movie / listening to a band / eating at a restaurant / wearing a certain style for the sole reason that it’s popular. But. Last week, I found myself on a cruise ship in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico reading “Heaven is for Real”.

The premise of the book {in the event you’ve been floating through a cave in an inner tube or something. Not that I’ve done that in the past week… well ok, I have. But that’s another story for another blog post.} is that a 3-year-old boy was in surgery and was close to death. He “visited” Heaven during this time, and the book talks about the discussions he’s had with his parents since that experience. It outlines the things he saw, learned, and experienced in the 3 minutes he was there.

He spoke of Heaven in detail, and as concretely as if he were telling about a playground he played on, or a swimming pool he visited. There’s no way he was making this stuff up. Kids speak matter-of-factly and they have no filter. They say what’s on their mind. And the details of his story remained consistent over the course of 2 years. That’s hard to do for even an adult. Unless it’s true.

This boy didn’t question anything he saw. He didn’t think twice about the fact that people had wings. He didn’t bat an eye at the fact that God is “kind of blue”, as he put it. He didn’t argue the fact that Jesus has a horse that’s all the colors ever, plus millions of other colors.

Instead, he embraced it. He remembered fondly everything he experienced. He allowed that 3 minutes to infiltrate who he was as a person. And most importantly, he communicated the messages Jesus told him to bring back to his family.

Why do we doubt?

It’s so easy to become complacent, to view God as a faraway being. A concept rather than an entity.

But that’s not the case: God has an active and direct hand in our lives. The kid in the book said that he saw God shooting down power to his dad when he preached.

Active.

Direct.

Personal.

Real.

There’s a chapter in this book called “Jesus Really, Really Loves the Children”. Apparently that love was so evident to the kid that he wouldn’t shut up about it. His parents eventually got so annoyed with it that they told him, “Ok, we get it. You don’t need to keep reminding us about how much Jesus loves the children.”

What is it about the children? What makes them favored in the eyes of God?

I learned a lot about childlike faith over the past week.

When you have Crohn’s disease, it’s absolutely 100% foolish to put yourself in a situation in which you won’t have quick easy bathroom access. But I chose to zipline in the rainforest of Belize anyway. For over an hour, there was no possible way I could use the bathroom. I had been feeling sick that day, but I didn’t want that to stop me from taking advantage of the day I had in Belize, and the incredible opportunity that presented itself to me there.

So I ziplined.

Before I started, I asked God to help me not have to be sick while I was up in the trees.

See, my big problem is that I ask God these things, but then I doubt so thickly that I make myself sick anyway.

“Ask, and it shall be given you.” —Matthew 7:7

Why don’t I believe that?
Sure, I believe it. But I don’t believe it.
You know, the kind of belief that requires trust. Belief that necessitates faith.

Faith.

Childlike faith.

Is it the literal children who Jesus favors?
Or does He simply want our reckless, unabashed faith and trust?

I can’t become a child again. I’m not Benjamin Button.
But I can up the ante when it comes to trusting like a child does.

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” —Matthew 18:3