(Warning, there's a lot of reality below)
I'm not sure why I'm blogging today, or what I'll even write about...
Lately I can't help feeling like my home is falling apart. I'm falling apart with it. I keep reading quote after quote about trusting God, and I desperately want to. But with each passing day I find that my faith isn't as strong as I wanted it to be. Reading my Bible gets harder and harder. I'm journaling more and more. I'm annoyed with sunshine, and only seem to find comfort when it's raining, like today. On the upside, my prayer life has never been so active. Although most of it is just me asking why things aren't changing.
Songs like "Silhouette" by Owl City have become my go-to music of choice. I know everything I'm going through is happening for a reason, but that reason is clouded in many shadows. I know the more depressed and upset I allow myself to get, the more satan gets the upper hand. But I don't know how to change it. I'm in the center of a tornado. I myself am doing alright, but everything around me is chaos. And all I can think to do is write, sleep, and whisper to God for comfort, not necessarily in that order.
I know that this is all happening because my family is heavily involved in ministry. As soon as we started this new project, I knew we were all in for (to replace a more accurate word that I would rather not use) one heck of a trip. I just had no clue how bad it would actually get. All around me walls are falling to the ground; walls that have taken lifetimes to build. It's shattering me.
What's worse is everyone else involved in this project is experiencing the same thing. Everyday I find out about another life that's falling to pieces. Another world that shifting on it's axis, causing earthquakes all around. Another change that's just too much to take.
We're worn. We're damaged. We're barely walking.
And yet God is relying on us to bear the weight of this story? This stream of events and problems that are way beyond our understanding? Or... at least they used to be.
Wow...
Maybe that's it. In this film, this movie we're destroying ourselves to create, we cover a multitude of teenage problems. Anxiety, depression, divorcing parents, self-harm, suicide, bullying, death and loss, addiction, pornography, and more.
Every single one of these topics has been experienced by our cast and crew over the past two months. These are the very topics that are tearing us to shreds. The tools and temptations that the devil has been using to turn our souls. And here we are.
Talk about accurate portrayal.
We relate to these characters more than we realize, I think. In this process, these characters have been our traveling companions. And these characters will end up discovering what we have just been learning ourselves...
We cannot rely on ourselves to heal.
We can't even rely on each other.
The only One we can rely on to remove our tinted goggles, and reveal the true view of grace and love beyond, is the only One who's capable of doing it in the first place.
God.
In the past we've had other awful roads in order to reach positive results. Some of the greatest points of impact this group has ever made were the projects that we "just wanted to get through." Why would God allow this movie to be any different? If the journey didn't carry so much pain, would we come out as close as our cast and crew have become? Isn't it worth it when God is a god who can give our struggles purpose?
And maybe, just maybe, when people leave the theater after seeing this film, they'll come up to us and say we made a difference. And if that happens maybe we'll be able to say, with tears of joy and humble hearts, that nothing in that film was of our own ability. We'll listen to their stories of pain and brokenness, and actually be able to relate. We'll introduce them to the real director of this film, and weep together as they get to know who Jesus is. And maybe, for those who open up to us, they'll find that their night at the movies turned out to feel a lot more like church. And maybe they'll walk to their cars with a weightlessness they've never experienced before.
And maybe, because of our struggles, they'll leave the theater that day bound for Heaven.
Isn't that why we're in this world in the first place?
Or have I forgotten that life isn't about me...
Maybe those walls that have been falling all around me are coming to ruin so that God can plant a garden in its place...
Father, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. When will I ever learn that Your plan is so much bigger than me? When will I stop pretending that my very small knowledge, my three feet of spiritually nearsighted vision, is all that there is? If You're an ocean, I'm a single drop of rain. If You're the sky and the stars, I'm a feeble paper kite, trying my best to reach you but failing all the time. If You're soaked into the depths of the earth, I am a blade of grass growing in your love, here today and gone tomorrow. If You make up everything, I'm nothing at all.
But that's why you sent your Son to die on the cross. I don't have to be nothing anymore. You gave up Your everything so I could have a chance to be a little bit of something.
Knowing that, how could I possibly look at life with anything but wonder and awe?
You see my brokenness. You see me when I'm invisible. You always have. You tell me it's ok to feel the way I do, but that I shouldn't worry. You will never leave me or forsake me.
And the same goes for everyone else.
Omnipresent, eternally loving, unconditionally forgiving, Giver of life and light, Abba, Friend, Lover of my soul. I have no reason to be afraid when you walk beside me. So why do I tremble?
This film has been personally commissioned by the Creator of the universe. Lord, You hold each scene, each crew and cast member, each individual moment in the palm of Your hand. You have seen the end result.
You have already won.
I'm so done with being kicked while I'm down. We're already bruised, bloodied, and struggling to get our lungs to inflate. Then the devil hits us with another wave. But it will not last. The floodwaters will subside as soon as we've been strengthened enough to stand. This is the cocoon; the refining fire that will brush away the ashes and leave us new creation.
You have a plan. At the end of this we will be one step closer to who You are, and all the struggles will make sense. All I ask is that, until then, you hold my hand. Lead me in the way you want me to go. I need a map, Lord. Right now I'm turning every which way, but nothing looks familiar. Show me where to walk, and I will.
Better yet, show all of us so that we can walk together. Unified. One team with one purpose, glorifying the One who gives us breath and revives us every morning. That is our cause.
The prince of evil has no power. His demons will not prevail. YOU alone, Jesus, have victory! And this time will be no different. There's an entire book of stories proving it's true. Every word of the Bible shows us the miraculous power of your mercy.
Keep opening our eyes to the truth.
