Live Your Broken Story

He plays on the playground in the unseasonable February sun, undeterred by his doubly infected ears, painful sinuses, and chewed-up Crocs {compliments of the dog.} He does not ask to stay in bed and wait to get better. He's four years old and he refuses to let his impaired body or gnawed-up rubber shoes keep him from living life in a way that’s joyful, resilient, and beautiful.

He knows this one thing: to live full no matter what. He is living the story of this day, plowing through the playground with both pain and exuberance.

I’d be wise to take a clue from this tiny teacher that I love so much. My jaded, grown-up self has a default tendency to want to feel better and untangle all of the messes before I really give myself permission to live.

Fix this.

Resolve that.

Reconcile.

Heal.

Accept.

Learn how to receive love.

Forgive and be forgiven.

Make sense of that.

Learn how to love.

I want to untangle the massive ball of rough, knotted twine known as my life until it’s a lovely linear line from here to the moon. Then I’ll wipe my chapped hands across my faded jeans, take a deep breath, and get about the business of living full and unrestrained. Finally.

I tend to see my problems and preoccupations--the big, messy ones--as a to-do list. Because I’m the sort of person who struggles to truly rest until most of the list is checked off, I tend to put off living until there's resolution. But I’m learning that these things on the list, they’re going to be with me for a while.

Recovery and healing cannot be rushed, manipulated, or checked off a list.

Though I complain about the laundry and the dishes, I wish that the messy, complicated stuff on the "list" was as easy as soaking and scraping off day-old marinara sauce or sorting through the sea of unmatched socks.

But it's not that simple. In fact, it is ridiculously complicated, lengthy, and layered.

So how do you live full in the midst of broken? {I’ve written about this before. I think it’s a recurring theme.} How do you find peace when there’s still turmoil? How do you rest when that monstrous ball of twine is mocking you in all of it’s knotted-up bigness?

You pick it up and hand it to Him, the ultimate untangler of knots. 

You do it every single day. Maybe many times a day. Every time you feel tempted to find a loose end and start tugging, just stop and hand it over. He loves you and it breaks His heart to see you struggling over the mess, trying to figure it all out yourself.

He won’t be as rushed to untangle it as you are. It may seem as though He’s set it aside for a while and forgotten about your knots altogether. But He hasn’t. I promise you He hasn’t.

Though we see an unfortunate, crazy, knotty mess, He sees a redemptive story. 

Though we don’t have answers and may not even know where any of this is going, He sees it all, from beginning to end, and He loves us with an everlasting love through every twist and turn, hill and valley.

I find sweet comfort these days when I consider Jesus as the author and finisher of our faith.

Maybe it's because I like stories. I’m therefore inspired when I imagine Him as an author who loves His children in such a way that they become braver, wiser, and lovelier as the chapters unfold. The miracle of it all is that we don’t become braver, wiser, and lovelier to Him. He already sees that glorified potential. It’s how He’s always seen us.

He simply invites us to step into who we already are, to "get into character," so to speak.

Don’t you wish we could see ourselves the way He sees us? We can’t, of course, in our human finiteness, but He does give us glimpses, signposts along the way that we’re not who we once were. I don't know about you, but that gives me hope and spurs me on in the midst of a lot that is still broken.

It’s like we spend our life getting into character, becoming who He's created us to be, living a story that He's written just for us.

And that makes me want to get out there and really live, not in a blasé, head-in-the-clouds sort of way, but in a trusting, there-is-purpose-in-all-of-this sort of way.

Maybe you’re stuck in your story. Believe me, I’ve been there. {In fact, I've only recently become unstuck.} But you don’t have to stay there. Table that list, hand Him the tangled twine, meet me at the playground, and let’s get into character.

We’ve got some stories to live.

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Linked up with The Nester's "Celebrate the Imperfections" linky party.