Beauty In The Forgotten

"I will not photoshop the Truth. As a means to appease the uncomfortability of truth truthfully speaking. I will not crop out what others prefer to go unsaid or resize truth for the purposes of fitting in your frame. I will not resize or rotate or flip it so when you first hear it, it feels less offensive. I believe scars are lessons learned so I won't even fix any blemishes. I won't adjust the contrast to make the message a little bit brighter. I won't add any special effects so the image looks more like me as opposed to Christ. See beauty in what you may see as ugly because Christ somehow saw beauty in me."

Those are lines from a poetry reading I watched online today. Pieces of me jumped hearing her tell her story, Beauty amongst the damages and scars and wounds. There is hope and strength in believing that to be true. All of us have wounds, we all have scars from our past. Some are deeper and more shameful than others. The enemy is a deciever. He likes to tell us that those wounds are dirty, that they should be hidden. The beauty of Christ is that exposes the rawness of those wounds and breathes God's breathe on them to heal and show others, "Look, this is what Christ has done."

When I was in college, I did a photography piece on Beauty in the Forgotten. The concept of Beauty amongst the Forgotten really resonates with me. I never realized the repercussions of a divorced family tangled with abuse and abandonment until I was an adult. I grew up between two budding families, never really being a part of either. Like a lost child looking through the windows at loving family, I grew up desperately desiring to be loved and apart of something deeper and bigger than me. Relationships were something I learned to separate myself from. I mistook numbness for healing.

Those scars and wounds are now a part of my story. I may broken, but I still see Christ's face. I DO ask myself "why?" Why God, was I not more protected? Why God, have I had to walk through that and stand helplessly as my sisters and brothers were bruised and scarred with me? I'm not sure I will ever know all the answers to my questions. But I take comfort in this; God sent his SON, his Son who was perfect and blameless to be bruised and abandoned, rejected and ultimately killed. God sent his Son to bear the burden of my sin. And God looks down on me, in love and says that this is not what he intended. This is not who he created me to be.

God shows me the beauty that is within me. God does not Photoshop the truth. He sees the scars, the wounds and damages and embraces them. He helps me disrobe my fears and stand before you and say as a testimony before you that it was worth it. Some of us won't hear it unless it's from somebody that went through. It was worth every single ounce of mental, physical and spiritual pain and I would go through it again if you would allow me stand before you and encourage you to allow Him to give Glory. Because like Paul, I reckon that the present circumstances are just. Not worthy to be compared with the Glory that shall be revealed in us.

Grace in Hardship

A lot of times in my life, and in the life of my community, it seems like God works in themes. In my small group last week, we talked a lot about hardship, and it is most definitely a concept that I have been walking through. A lot of times, I feel like hardship is unfair and nothing but difficult. But I'm learning to understand that God sees it differently. Scripture says that God works all things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28) and the further I press into God the more I see that to be true.

Take hardship. We all have it, we all experience it. It is not something that we experience once and then never again. Hardship will weave in and out of our lives in different intensities with different circumstances. And God allows it. I don't believe that God allows it because He is cruel, or because we are unprotected even; I think God allows it because we are flawed and there are lessons to be learned from it.

Have you ever met an adult that grew up in a wealthy distant family, who had no struggles, nothing he had to work for, no cares in the world. Now how many of those people, who raised that way, have you met that were loving, kind and giving? Not many. Check this out:

"You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus...Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving as a soldier gets involved in civilian affairs - he wants to please his commanding officer. Similarly, if anyone competes as an athelete, he does not receive the victors crown unless he competes according to the rules. The hardworking farmer should be the first to receive a share of the crops. Reflect on what I am saying, for the Lord will give you insight into this." (2nd Timothy 2:1-7)

What does this say to you? To me, it says 4 things:

1.) God gives us grace. There is a special grace that is available to us in the midst of hardship! God wants us to lean into Him and receive this from Him. He loves us and will see us through.

2.) Hardship clarifies our mission. We are soldiers of Christ, and our mission is to serve Him. Whatever our commander wants us to do, wherever He wants us to be, that's where we're at. Something about going through difficulty sobers us. Helps us snap back to reality that we are here to serve Christ and to love others.

3.) Hardship develops personal & spiritual discipline. Whenever I'm going through something difficult, that's when I lean into God the most. It's when I grow the most. God uses these times to draw us close to Him, because that's where we find freedom and grace. Embrace it :)

4.) There are rewards. Think back in this past year of your life. What were some of the best parts and the worst parts? It was funny to me how some of the most troubling times led to some of the best things. We work hard, we receive a share of the crops.

GOD IS GOOD.