Brush off your jeans and get up

 I am in a season where words no longer feel effortless for me. I used to sit down and fill an entire page with confident, concise words. I knew what I wanted to say and I knew my target audience, and I had no doubt that what I had to say would be a blessing to someone.  And it was. 

And then life happened. 

I have fallen on my face many times. Gotten up. Brushed myself off. And then fallen flat again. Sometimes I bounce back up, but more often than not, I have stayed fetal. Curled up. Protected my organs so to speak.  Bruised, peering around, unsure if there's any use to use my words. Decided there wasn't a use and tucked my head, grasped my knees, and stayed down, because there was too much in my head. Too much to sort out. Too much that I was unsure about, so I convinced myself I had nothing worthwhile to say.  A lifetime of bouncing up and not processing what things meant had made me weary. So I stayed down. This became my normal reaction over the past eight years. 

Yesterday, I was on my way to pick up kids from school and pulled up to a stop light. There, being pushed across the busy intersection by two police officers, was a beat-up truck with a board sticking out the back, bungeed in place. They pushed him around the corner and tried to push the truck up a slight incline into a gas station. They stalled. They were straining with all their might, trying their best to make the durn truck move but it wouldn't. Suddenly a lady who had been pumping gas ran over and threw her weight behind the truck also. Almost immediately, someone who was sitting at the red light bailed out and he ran to help also. They got the truck into the gas station, and everyone moved off to their own vehicles. There was no judgement. No yelling. No shaming. Just four strangers helping another stranger. 

Why did this little drama stick out to me? Why did I fight off tears as I witnessed community in progress? 

Because now I know what it feels like to have people run to my aid. I never realized what I was missing until it happened. Until I experienced community from strangers who owed me nothing. 

The Father has placed us in a beautiful place right now. Not easy. But beautiful. We've had to learn how to plug into a church where we didn't have a history. But over and over we've been blown away by the level of love that meets us at this church.  These people understand what it means to tell all people - but they do it with their actions and their love.  

I hesitantly rise to my knees; my head still bowed with the weight of things I'm learning to give over to the Father. The weight of things that there are no words for. And yet here - in a quiet moment on a routine day - He gives me enough words to write this short missive.  

Effortless is overrated. 

Life happens. But that's where we grow. In the hard. It can't keep me down. It can't keep you down, because there is beauty all around, especially after a particularly hard season. We only have to lift our head and take the hand Father always offers His children. 

Standing on the scuffed earth of our downfall. Our hurt. Our confusion. Our questions. Ready to press on, with Him by our side. We don't have to "get it". We don't have to understand everything. We don't have to have our ducks in a row, because have you ever actually tried that with real ducks? It's not possible, so just don't even waste time with that.  

Like Paul said - Jesus Christ and Him crucified. That's all we need. Just Jesus.