The Shack

I recently finished reading the book entitled “The Shack”. The setting for most of the book was a secluded cabin in the woods where the title character spent a weekend alone with God. This is probably the part of the book that has drawn the most controversy because God appears to this seeker in the form of a black woman. This challenges the more traditional view of God as Father, but as “God” says in the text of the book, “I am neither male nor female”. So, God chose to appear in the form that He felt would best capture the heart of this man trapped in the midst of “the great sadness”. Nestled in a forest of trees alongside a lake, this “shack” became the setting for the healing of a very wounded heart and the opportunity to begin a passionate relationship of trust with God. It was a retreat of sorts from the distorted perception of the present into a clearer view of the future and a release from the pain of the past.
Daydreaming has provided my own private escape when reality becomes too painful. In this fantasy world of my mind’s creation there exists a home situated on a bluff overlooking a pristine beach somewhere along the coastline of California. I am not going to elaborate because I described this retreat in an earlier post entitled (Psalm 14). Suffice it to say that this not so humble abode is where my mind runs to escape from the painful reality of my present. As I thought about it, I began to realize similarities. In MY dream world the secluded cabin by the lake in the woods is actually a secluded beachfront home with panoramic views of the Pacific Ocean. My lake is an ocean. Ironically, the caretaker of my seaside escape is also a sweet black woman She is my anchor….the one that I most trust with my heart knowing that she loves and accepts me unconditionally. She gives me freedom to pursue my dreams, but is there waiting each time that I return needing to be encouraged and loved. Her warm hugs are like security blankets and her words of wisdom always bring clarity amidst the confusion. She has earned my undivided trust because she has walked every step of my life’s journey and has never forsaken me in the darkest of seasons. When all else and everyone else failed me this was my sanctuary of safety. I desperately wanted to, but I really didn’t believe such a “place” existed except as a figment of my imagination. I desperately wanted to, but I really didn’t believe such a “person” existed except as a figment of my imagination.
Maybe without realizing it, this wasn’t a vision that I created to escape the pain of the present. Maybe, just maybe, it was really God tenderly inviting me into His presence for the purpose of healing my very wounded heart of my own great sadness.

Psalm 28 - Boxes

I haven’t written in awhile….a long while. It hasn’t been that I have been too busy or that I haven’t had things that have been churning inside me. I just haven’t completed the thought. That is what my life has typically been about….living inside a neatly packed box, perfectly wrapped and tied with an equally perfectly coordinated bow. So, my incomplete thoughts I have deemed unworthy of posting. But what am I worried about? It is not like anyone knows about my blog. Because again, why would I want anyone to read and comment on the messy revelations of my soul?
So I decided to write the genesis of these incomplete thoughts. I have decided that not everything always packages itself neatly inside a perfectly wrapped box….or perhaps it just takes time to complete thoughts….like even lifetimes.
Incomplete thought number one….why have I chosen to live inside a box? I have discovered that there is a difference between a boundary and a box. A boundary is protection. It wisely sets limits based on past experiences so that one doesn’t cause damage to one’s heart or soul or very person. Boundaries can even be adjusted based on circumstance or growth. Boundaries are even for the purpose of growth. Boxes on the other hand inhibit growth. They surround on all sides. It feels safe and secure because everything within the little box called my life can be carefully monitored and controlled. The walls become impenetrable. Not only harmful things are kept at bay….but also possibilities. I haven’t often ventured outside my box out of fear of failure, and as a result so many opportunities have been lost. I will never know what may have been if I had only trusted enough to risk venturing beyond the small confines of my boxed world. When is it too late to emerge? Is it ever? And more importantly, what was it that caused me to go inside that box initially? What do I need to let go of to be free of the need to feel the false security of my lifelong residency in this box?
One would have thought that I would have already found answers to these questions and broken down the very walls of the box that I so carefully fashioned. I have actually ventured out of my box twice in my lifetime. The first time I chose to believe God that wherever He would send me I would find joy. I submitted a summer to somewhere that I never thought that I could find joy and that was as a missionary on foreign soil. Alright, so He chose to send me to British Columbia, Canada for a summer….not exactly the armpit of the world. The scenery is beyond breathtaking and His majesty is displayed everywhere you look. But it was more than that. I discovered that there is an amazing heart-bond that is formed when you minister alongside someone for a period of time. We didn’t just become friends; we became family. Plus, pouring your heart into the lives of someone is the best investment of yourself that you can make. I went there as a timid 18 year old little girl and out of survival necessity discovered that God is more than able to provide for our every need and YES the best place that you can ever be is in the center of His will for your life. That is where you find true joy. I would have missed one of the formational foundations of who I am becoming had I not chosen to emerge from my box for that “Summer of 68”. Ironically that experience gave me the courage to venture out one other time….in the “Summer of 69”. I was asked to audition for The New Beginning. I love music. It is my favorite form of communication because you are able to put emotion to your thoughts. Not everyone will listen to a speech or a lecture, not everyone will take the time to read an article or a book……but everyone will listen to music. It is powerful and has the capability of reaching beyond the mind to grab the heart. As strong as my passion was to be able to communicate through this art form, I never was brave enough to risk expressing myself through music outside of my box. But, the little spark of bravery that was ignited that previous summer summoned my courage to respond when I was asked to audition. That didn’t just change my world for a summer; it changed the entire course of my life. I began a journey that gave opportunities that I could have never imagined. I was blessed to spend 8 years living my dream of pursuing my passions….music and Jesus….all over Arizona. His message poured out musically through our hearts changed lives. Whoa….. it still takes my breath away to realize what opportunity I was given. And, those I ministered alongside became more than family. They became everything family should be, but isn’t always. They are my heart family…life long, forever friends.
So, why am I back in my box?

SHATTERED - Part 2

I “wrote” a blog not long ago and entitled it “Shattered Glass”. “Wrote” is the operative word because there were no words. I couldn’t seem to find words to describe accurately what I was feeling, so rather than try; I encapsulated my emotions in a pictorial. Then today as I was driving there was a song on the radio and as I listened I realized that he was singing what my heart had been unable to verbalize. He wrote the missing lyric to my blog. Granted, I didn’t completely understand everything that he was communicating through the song, but then again I don’t even really understand what I am trying to communicate! There was one phrase that posed a question that resonated with my soul. I have no answer for it….maybe there is no answer for it….or maybe there is, but I just don’t know how to get there.

How many times can I break till I shatter?

Every broken heart, every lost dream, every bitter disappointment, every loss, every rejection…..every time you wonder…..just how many times can I break till I shatter?

In a way, I need a change
From this burnout scene
Another time, another town
Another everything

Is that what I need? Or, is that running? Will change protect or just be a delusion that eventually leads back to the same result?

How many times can I break till I shatter?
Over the line can't define what I'm after
I always turn the car around
All that I feel is the realness I'm faking
Taking my time but it's time that I'm wasting
Always turn the car around

Where do these words fit? TRUST, FAITH, HOPE, BELIEF; these are amazing words! They illicit peace, confidence, assurance, rest, comfort, and security. Why is it so difficult for me to simply turn the car around and point it towards them instead of being consumed by the fear that the next broken whatever could be that time that I shatter? What would shatter….me, or just my hopes and dream? Or, do my hopes and dreams define me and thus shattering them is shattering me? Does it even matter? Should it even matter? Maybe we are meant to shatter so that Someone can pick up the pieces. The truth is….do I trust what He will do with those pieces? Maybe I can’t turn the car around because I am not meant to drive. Maybe you have to “shatter” to finally figure that out.

Happily Ever After

“…and they lived happily ever after.” So many stories that I read as a child ended with that phrase “and they lived happily ever after”. Much of my DVD collection is filled with movies that take me through the emotionally exhausting journey of relationships that eventually end with the blissfully satisfying “happily ever after”. Unrealistic as it may be, I think that I am not alone in harboring the desire to want to secretly believe that such a state of being exists. As one who believes in the promises that God has for us in His Word and the truth that He exposes about the earthly existence in this world in which we live, I logically understand that this “happily ever after” is meant for a future time. Yet there is something about the dream that beckons my thoughts to the possibility of this unrealistic “Garden of Eden”. Last night, in the most unexpected way, I was brought back to reality. I love the Olympics. I have watched them every four years….winter and summer….and imagined what it would be like to achieve that amazing goal of standing on the podium having reached the pinnacle of achievement. I have competed as a track athlete. I ran sprints and relays and as I watched them, I lived vicariously through their stories of triumph over tragedy. Okay, so my “career” as a track athlete ended after Junior High, but was it really my fault that there were no competitive girl’s sports in High School at that time? Well, realistically even if there had been that whole “big fish in a little pond”, “little fish in a big pond” thing probably would have been the rest of my story. But, since it wasn’t, I can still dream of what might have been…that “happily ever after”. So, I settle into my comfortable chaise each evening to watch the trials as they select the team that will represent our country in the upcoming 2008 Olympics. I was doing just that when two of my worlds collided and in the wake, lying exposed, was the dashed hope of “happily ever after”. I mentioned in an earlier blog that one of my favorite songs of this past year was the sweetly simple Plain White T’s song “Hey There, Delilah”.



This acoustic baring of the soul where he lays his heart on the line in an expression of undying commitment to this “soul mate” named Delilah made my heart melt. How lucky this “Delilah” must be to have someone care that deeply. It was the perfect expression of “happily ever after” in musical form. Then suddenly, in the finals of the 3000 meter steeplechase for women was the intersection of my musical world with my world of sport. Lining up at the beginning of the race to determine the team for the first ever 3000 meter steeplechase competition for women in the Olympics was “Delilah”….the real “Delilah”, Delilah DiCrescenzo, a Columbia University graduate, and steeplechase runner who had trained and was now trying out for the 2008 Olympics.

Tom Higgenson of the Plain White T’s had met this exotic beauty, who he described as the most beautiful girl in the world, through a mutual friend and in an attempt to win her affection he said that he would write a song for her. It took him a year but he finished the song. There was one catch, her heart belonged to another and he had to write the song expressing what he would want to say to her if he actually was with her. After 5 years of playing it in clubs and bars on tours the song became a hit and was nominated for "Song of the Year" and Delilah agreed, with the blessing of her boyfriend, to accompany him to the Grammys.



The song didn’t win a Grammy, he didn’t win her heart and in the Olympic trials Delilah came in dead last. There on the finish line lay my dashed dream of “happily ever after”. But then again maybe it wasn’t “happily ever after” that was dashed, but only my unrealistic perception of “happily ever after”.

Psalm 25 - The Dance

They didn’t get the highest scores, but there was that special something that drew me in to their dance even more than those that the judges rewarded with higher scores. They were dancing in front of a crowd on national TV, but it was if they were the only two people in the room. They were lost in each other and the music of the moment. The chemistry, the look in her eyes as she caught his, the tenderness with which he led, the beautiful lines that were created as they moved across the floor in unison; it captivated me. The intimacy that had been created through the hours spent together perfecting the dance appeared even more beautiful than the dance itself. She could have never known what this journey held when it first began. There had to have been that moment when she let go and trustingly followed his lead knowing that he would guide and protect her every step. He was the expert and yet you could see his desire to see her shine. He designed the dance to bring out the best in her. He held her close as the judges critiqued her every move as if to say, “I’m here with you and no matter what anyone else says, I am so proud of you. Above all others, you are the one with whom I choose to share the dance.” The judges were scoring the technique, the steps; but my heart was drawn to the beauty of the relationship between two people who had once been strangers but whose hearts were now beating as one through the rhythm of the dance he had created just for her.

My life has felt spiritually dry recently. God has spoken to me in the past in the most interesting of ways and this night was no different. I began to see the parallels. My life is a dance and the One who has chosen me, the One who will tenderly guide and protect my every step, the One who has crafted the perfect dance just for me…is patiently waiting for me to allow Him to lead and my heart is being drawn back to the rhythm of the dance for which I was created. Time spent practicing the steps would seemingly perfect the dance, but perfection is not really the goal. Time spent in relationship with the Creator of the dance allows it to effortlessly evolve into the intimate rhythmic steps and movement that are in perfect synchronization to the melody for which my life was intended.

Psalm 24 - March 5th

All day today I had this strange feeling that today should mean something to me. It was like I was supposed to be somewhere, or something was supposed to be happening, but I couldn’t remember. It just hit me. I glanced at my clock as I was getting ready to go to bed and it was 10:42….and then I saw the date….3-05….March 5th….my brother died today. Well, not today, but on this date. It was Monday, March 5, 2001. It was exactly 7 years ago today. They say that “time heals all wounds”. I don’t know that that is true….or maybe the operative word is “time”. How much time? I can honestly say that there are still wounds and not all of them are healed. But, as the years pass, the date seems to be slipping by unnoticed. Is that the way it works? Do you just forget? The first couple of years the date was met with tears and sadness. There was so much that was unfinished with our relationship, never a chance to say goodbye…..quite honestly never really a chance to even get to know one another. How is it that families can grow up together in the close proximity of the same house and yet have so much distance relationally? My brother was 44 years old when he died and I had to learn from his hospital report after his death that he had been a 2 pack a day smoker for the past 20 years. How is it possible to be around a person for that many years and never once detect the scent of smoke or see a pack of cigarettes? I have no idea. I just know it is possible because that was my reality. It seems pathetically sad to learn more about someone on the occasion of their death than in the previous 44 years of their life. One thing I do know. The date may be starting to slip by unnoticed, but the hole that is left in a heart is impossible to ignore. As I look back over the last 7 years, the gaping wound that was exposed on this date…March 5, 2001…is being healed. Not in the way that I would have expected within the context of my birth family. God removed that and replaced it with the gift of another. I guess sometimes we have to lose something to actually find what we had been looking for in the first place. I am finally finding me. Not the one that my family defined….but the “me” that I was created to be.

Psalm 23 - ONCE again, HOPE

I was moved to write last night. That hasn’t happened in awhile. It came in the strangest way…one totally unexpected. The Oscars were on my TV mostly as background noise while I mindlessly played Spider Solitaire on my computer. I didn’t have vested interest in who won or lost because I really hadn’t seen any of the nominated movies. Or at least, I didn’t think that I had. Then at one point my attention was grabbed as they introduced one of the nominated songs. Wait a minute…..I did see that movie. It was a low budget, yet critically acclaimed, movie from Ireland that I saw on DVD last fall entitled “Once”. It’s sort of a musical…but not. It follows the passions and dreams of two musicians from complicated lives whose paths cross as their journey is played out in song. Music, after all, was the connecting force. It isn’t your typical let’s interrupt this scene with a song and dance number. The songs flow naturally as part of their dialogue. There they were last night, on stage at the Oscars, singing my favorite song from the movie....“Falling Slowly”. It is a hauntingly beautiful song of hope and possibilities. I loved that this “little movie that could” had been recognized in the big budget world of Hollywood. I love that it was performed in such a simplistically understated way by its composers…the very ones that had brought it to life on screen. Who better to convey the message than the one from whose heart it was born. One of my favorite things was something that maybe no one really noticed…his guitar.




It displayed his passion. The face of the guitar bore the scars of life on the road. It was the visible evidence of many hours of being the instrument that conveyed the melody that gave life to the lyrics of the story being told. I LOVED that this guitar hadn’t been replaced by a perfect, shiny new model for this “special occasion”. Everything about the Oscars is about glitz and glamour and yet here center stage was this aged, worn, road-weary guitar that had cosmetically seen better days proudly proclaiming melodically….

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can't go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I'm painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It's time that you won


Take this sinking boat and point it home
We've still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice
You've made it now


I loved that this guitar had its well deserved moment.
AND I love that this song of hope…of possibilities…WON!

Check out the song at:
http://video.music.yahoo.com/up/music/music/?rn=1301797&vid=57088007