Surprised Shelley!

Back to the Shack

So I haven’t written in several weeks and considering everything that has occurred in the last few weeks, I am surprised that I am writing now. I am fighting some pretty difficult circumstances that I won’t get into detail, just to let those reading know that these next few months will be a defining time of life whether for the good or the bad.

Recently, I have been rereading the Shack for I think the fifth time, always digging more out of it. In my current findings, my hope that is extracted out of the innumerous details and conversations is a bit broader. For those that haven’t read it, it is about a man, Mack, who lost his little girl to a brutal serial killer, this beat up shack in the wilderness being where they found the last evidence of the girl’s life. Three years later, God supposedly leaves a note in Mack’s mailbox to meet him at the shack for the weekend. Mack hesitantly walks into a weekend of conversation, fellowship and heartache with the God the father, “Papa”, Jesus, and “Sarayu”, the Holy Spirit. A great read for those who have their theology spectacles well intact. It will really help you break God out of that small box you put Him in.

Anyway, God provokes the meeting with a mysterious note for Mack to meet Him at the shack. Mack. not sure if it is a practical joke, the killer leading him away, or God Himself, he packs up and drives straight into the center of all His pain and despair over the last three years. When He does show up, is eyes immediately hit the spot of dried blood that was the last remains of his seven yr. old daughter, Missy. He lies beside it, caresses the strokes of blood as he cries out to a god he felt abandoned Him a long time ago. Even the cold metal of the gun tucked into his back feels like the only escape from his pain. You read on to see that the weekend in the Shack was strategically planned by God to boost Mack out of his past tragedies and to see God for who He really is, someone that wants to be in relationship with His creation.

For me, I am in a place of rock bottom, kind of living out my life as Mack did before the invitation to the Shack. Just dead, staying somewhat faithful enough to go to church and check off the list. The last couple of months, I feel like God has given me an escort back to my personal Shack, where all my pain, anger, and sadness live. Why does God bring us here in order to restore? The center of all my despair for life, for all my anger towards Him, the center of where all my hopelessness is stemmed from; this is where He wants to meet me? Everything around me is that reminder; wouldn’t that be harder for Him? Why doesn’t He bring me off to some mountain top like Moses or Elijah? A beautiful waterfall or still sunny afternoon lying in a hammock? No, let’s go where we can still smell the intensity of the blood and the tears, to dig to bottom of these roots and finally make a garden of weeds, productive. I’m still not that sure what that looks like for me, or what that requires me to do. I do know that is scares me, I don’t want to step foot into that again, just like Mack never wanted to return to the shack his girl was brutally murdered in. God, what kind of healing do you have in store?

I think essentially it is to meet us at the beginning of where the lies begin and we loose sight of how He really is. To realign us away from the distortion, He has to bring us back to where we first started believing the lies. It’s painful because one builds life foundations on his worldviews, so God start rearranging those, that is going to require many other adjustments into the rest of life. That seems to be a lot of trouble and a lot of pain for something we aren’t completely sold onto to begin with. Anyway, I say all this is a realization for myself: He brings us back to the wilderness to heal the pain from where is first began, to heal the hurt from believing falsehoods, and bring us into the reality of the bigger picture of His purpose and Glory. So the question remains…will one stay in the wilderness long enough to see what God is eagerly showing or does he bail out to avoid the discomfort and sometimes immense pain?

The Land of the Living

“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.”
Psalm 27: 13-14

Weeks in and weeks out, I have been aboard the roller coaster of neurotransmitters, memories, and emotions. Not that this has been any different than any other time in my life, but I can say this past week has left me a little more than motion sick. My heart is sick, and once again I loosen my grip on the hoe and hesitate in sow more of the same seeds. I see this verse as my anthem of this last semester and I’m praying that the end, a glorious end is very near. My heart is desperately seeking for God to show Himself true to His Word not just in the Bible but in the words spoken through my companions linked arm in arm. I just latch onto those words that echo over and over. “Kelley, my God is good.” I want to see and experience the goodness of the Lord and live with those you are really alive. So I cling to these words/seeds, throw them into the soil again, before God’s throne and ask for the Lord to bring the rain (Is. 30:23). Otherwise, my heart is blown away with despair like ash in the wind. So wait I will, take a breath and let my heart open its door to courage and hope that I will gaze upon the beauty of the Lord in the land of the living.

Walls

I love the story of Nehemiah. A humble cupbearer for the king goes and rebuilds the walls of Jerusalem, a defeated city of the once great kingdom of Judah, while fighting off Sanballat and Tobiah, enemies of Isreal. There’s something so heroic about someone who can stand in front of rubbles and destruction of something that once was great and see that it can be great once again. Also, not only convincing others to help build it back but also to fight while building. I mean how talented could these people be? They know they meaning of multi-tasking. Each builder had materials in one hand rebuilding the wall and a sword to fight off the Ammonites and Horonites with the other. I can barely rub my belly and scratch my head at the same time! You think that would turn out to be one crooked wall! Unfortunately, rebuilding the wall was only half Nehemiah’s problem; read the rest of Nehemiah if you want to appreciate a persevering leader. Anyway, Nehemiah has always stuck with me because I feel like everything that I have gained has been by building with one hand and fighting off enemies with the other. However, in my case I constructed a lot of walls that I am frantically trying to tear back down. I have built mazes of fortresses around my heart that I haven’t let anyone near in years. Walls with concrete and mortar, having to be crushed down when I have little strength to obliterate them by. Thankfully, I take heart in Nehemiah’s words, “Our God will fight for us!” (4:20) Well, if God wants this heart, He is going to have to, because I have closed Him off in a small cell in the corner of all these walls, I can’t find Him at all. I will continue to fight off the demons, Lord, you knock down the walls, and somewhere we will reunite in the middle. Let’s rebuild this temple that once was completely yours to inhabit

Home is where the Heart is

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” ~ Ps 90:1

A friend once gave me this verse that I feel continues to stay with me. As being a wanderer as I have been for the last few years jumping from state to state with new experiences and lives. Within the last year I have lived in three different states with families and communities in each. In the last week I went home to visit my family for my sister’s and my birthday, continuing to develop relationships in my current state of residence of Texas and I am now visiting Arkansas where I have lived the last 4 years of my life. I have had the privilege of growing and being apart of these different communities filled with God-filled people. There just comes times when my heart just seems to feel the void that is left every time I leave to go to a new place. With each new life I develop, another part of me is discovered to learn and grow but then another part of my heart runs missing when I leave that place. It can be a lonely place to not know where you belong. We can all picture some knit-pillow with the flowery designs with a quote: “Home is where the Heart is”. Well, if that is the case, I am just as homeless as ever. To have all these people that you love and all these people that have impacted your life is truly a blessing, but I still have no place I can go to feel truly connected and at home. The Lord is to be my dwelling place, where my home is, but I have yet to feel safe there but it changes slowly. What does it mean to dwell in Christ? How can I be at home when I have no place to go? It makes me wonder what Jesus meant when He said, “The foxes have holes and the birds have nests but the Son of Man has no place to rest His head.” (Luke 9:58) Is this a lifestyle I’m called to follow?

Warrior

They call me Warrior. Defender. Down a walkway. This is what I am called, and who I am formed to be. Its interesting because in the new revelations of myself, my gift is sensitivity and compassion with a big heart to hold it all in. It seems that my name and my nature is very contradicting. A compassionate warrior. A soft defender. Tends to a be necessity for explanation. Over and over, I have been told of God’s goodness and that He is Love. It is not an action, it is His entire being. And if He loves you, He has destined good for you. In contradiction, my experience has cast me into a dramatic play where one of my greatest attributes is the poison used to destroy me. Kelley’s heart, so tender and passionate is the gateway for the abusive to trounce on. Isn’t that the inherent downfall of irony. The one thing to treasure and to be denounced by. But there is goodness to come for I am loved by Him. My unbalanced equation will be correctly computed into a whole and perfect solution. My gifts and my defeats will be weaved into one oxymoron. Like the God of the Universe, the Lion and the Lamb, the righteous and the merciful, the living water and consuming fire. I am compassionate warrior. I am soft defender. I am Kelley Alexis.