Busted

            First on my agenda is to talk about my husband’s awesome-ness. Last week he got to speak at Chapel at his old middle school, and tomorrow (Sunday) he will be speaking at Teen Challenge in Watsonville. Wow! I always love it when Matt gets the opportunity to speak because, #1 he takes it very seriously, whether it’s jr. highers, recovering addicts, or packed out stadiums. (Ok he hasn’t done the stadium one yet, but it’s clearly the logical next step in my head…)And my #2 reason, which is by no means lesser in importance—I just thought of it second—is that he prays about it, but really barely prepares. I love that. It is so important to him that the Lord’s words be spoken, that he reads Scripture and prays and asks the Lord to do it, but usually does little more than jot down a few references. So please join us in praying that the Lord will use Matt’s mouth to speak life-giving words of encouragement and hope tomorrow at Teen Challenge, and please also pray for the seeds that were sown last Wednesday at Baymonte’s Chapel service.

            Ok moving right along.

            I only have a very vague idea of what I want to write today, but I do feel like I should write something, so please bear with me as I muddle through.

            Rebecca and I go lots of places together in the car, so there has been a lot of radio going on lately. Is that just sooo 90’s of me or what? Generally I just “check” the Christian radio stations on my way to something else, but given that she is in that “parrot” stage, and given that her two current favorite songs are “Moves like Jagger” and “Tonight, tonight” by Maroon 5 and Hot Chelle Rae respectively, I have recognized my mom-fail, and have been trying to reacquaint her with Christian music. And since Air 1 has like 5 songs that they just play in rotation right now, I’ve been listening more closely to the words because, well, I’m a captive audience.

            This is one that caught my attention; it’s by For King & Country:

Winter has come back again
Feels like the season won't end
My faith is dying tonight
And I won't try to pretend

I've got it all figured out
That I don't have any doubts
I've got a busted heart, I need You now
Yeah, I need You now

Hold on to me, hold on to me
Don't let me lose my way, hold on to me

I am the wandering son
Your love is never enough
I keep chasing the wind
Instead of chasing Your love

I'm screaming out Your name
Don't let me fall on my face
I've got a busted heart
I'm in need of a change, yeah, I'm desperate for grace

Chorus

Broke Your heart a thousand times
But You've never left my side, you have always been here for me
You never let me go, You never let me go
Don't ever let me go

Chorus 2x

Until it comes to an end
Soon this season will end
I'll surrender tonight
You meet me right where I am

You know how when you sit down to work on a project, you keep discovering other projects that need to happen before you can do that one? Or how if you actually get that one done, you just realize that it requires three more projects? Or how if you move one piece of furniture in a room then suddenly you have to move them all? And then you get sidetracked by all the cool stuff you find under the couch? Yes, well, I have been realizing lately just how un-Feng-Shui the living room of my heart is. There is a lot of rearranging to do. I have a busted heart.

When we were kids, every so often mom would open our closet to put something away, take a step back and say something along the lines of: This is absurd, how did it get like this? You will now clean this.

But that was also a problem, ‘cause three girls trying to A. share a closet and B. clean it together and C. not kill each other was, perhaps, simply more than we could handle. Sometime later, after fights and lots of distractions (HOW do we divide the space evenly? WHO gets stuck with the random no-man’s-land behind where the two sliding doors overlap? Hint: Corrie)…Where was I? Oh, sometime that afternoon mom would walk back in to find that EVERYTHING was OUT of the closet and now in the middle of the room. Then she would really lose it. We tried telling her that it had to get worse before it could get better but that didn’t seem to work for her.

What I’m saying is this: As I struggle to “clean” out all the bitter, judgmental, critical, lazy parts of my life, I just keep finding more crap back there. The last two lines of that song say “I’ll surrender tonight, You meet me right where I am” and I just see myself standing in the middle of all my piles, dropping my hands and surrendering.

I’m a fighter. And I’ll fight my battles to the bitter end… “we may die! But we will die gloriously!” or something like that. Here’s me, fighting with both hands, swashbuckling over here, and karate chopping over there, and here is the Lord, standing right by me, waiting for me to turn it over to Him. “Are you quite finished trying?”

This doesn’t mean that we don’t work on it at all, or that our lives magically change. This also doesn’t mean that you don’t have to clean your closet when your mom says to, or better yet, just keep it clean. (Dang, there’s one more thing on my to-do list) But it does mean, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”  And it does mean, “the battle belongs to the Lord.” As we keep walking in line with where He leads us, (And it will be crazy, filled with moments of surrender. Think of Gideon defeating an army with…wait for it…lamps. You think they thought THAT was a good idea?) then He will show us where those unorganized piles of life-junk can be put away…for good…and stay there.