I’ve never felt comfortable in my own skin. My hips are too wide, but not wide enough to deliver a baby (I’ve had 3 c-sections). My belly is too saggy. My brain gets foggy at times and I’m frequently temperamental. And all my life I’ve felt as if I don’t really fit in anywhere. But somehow, I knew the love of God was bigger than all my flaws. My body is just the temporal habitation for a soul that is traveling to a greater plane of existence. But in the interim, this world can be an awfully painful and lonely place.
“I feel broken. The only thing that makes me feel good is not pretending otherwise.” – Rich Mullins
Rich Mullins
I’ve just finished watching Ragamuffin, the Rich Mullins story. His music has moved me in recent years, though I never heard any of it when he was alive. His cd, “Songs” has been on replay in my car for a few months and I never seem to get tired of hearing buffalo hooves resound early in the morning on my way to work. Not that there are actual buffalo hooves on the album, but I can almost feel them when he sings about them. But there is another one of the turns of phrase he uses never ceases to move me to tears.
“There’s people been friendly, but they’d never be your friend. Sometimes this has bent me to the ground.” – Rich Mullins, Elijah
The thing is, I stopped trusting church people a few years back. And lately when I go to church, and people are friendly, I think, “These people may be nice, but they are not my friends.” They have never invited me to their house, or called me, or cared one whit for me really. I don’t hold it against them. I haven’t invited them either. Part of that is fear. Another part is that sometimes I’m in so much emotional pain as I deal with my difficult life that I just don’t have capacity for anything else. There was a time in my life I spent a lot of time in house churches and in relationships with church people. And I am sad that I’ve given up on the church. I don’t think that’s right. And I want to keep trying.
Today is Sunday and I had the argument with myself again. Do I try to go one more time or do I just give up and stay at home? So, I went to the park and ran 7 miles around the lake and listened to one of my favorite (dead) pastors preach. Martin Lloyd Jones. He’s done a lot for my soul and I’m grateful his sermons were recorded for lay people like me. And then, I sucked it up and took my granddaughter to church.
It never stops being painful that my husband won’t go with me. And now, my 15-year-old won’t go either. And he gives me all kinds of lip when I ask him to. So, I drive there feeling yet again that ache in my heart that I don’t really fit at this church I’ve been attending, where most of the people have spouses and children and there’s me, the misfit.
It was Palm Sunday after all. And it seemed right to be in church, no matter how wrong it felt.
I guess that is why I found myself weeping while watching Ragamuffin. Rich Mullins gave me words for the brokenness I feel with resounding reassurance of the love God has for me in my brokenness. All of this guilt and shame I feel for sin no one can see, and all of the wrongs I do that bother the people I live with. I get to feeling like I really can’t do anything right. I mean, have you ever felt that way? And then there’s the love of Jesus that’s so much bigger than all that. And He’s just waiting to take me in His arms and remind me that no matter how “wrong” I feel at any given moment, I belong to Him.
There were tears dripping down my chin and I just kept wiping them with the sleeve of my holey t-shirt. And each tear was like a prayer saying, “I accept your love, God. I surrender.”
Because I’m pretty stubborn. And the older I get, the more stubborn I get. Which is why Rich’s lyrics reach me when nothing else does.
“Surrender don’t come natural to me
I’d rather fight You for something I don’t really want
Than to take what you give that I need
And I’ve beat my head against so many walls
Now I’m falling down, I’m falling on my knees” – Rich Mullins – Hold me Jesus
It seems crazy I’ve lost all this weight and I’m living a healthy lifestyle and I’m still rather mixed up inside my head. I honestly thought losing the weight would make me normal. Or at least more like the people around me. And I guess in some ways it does. I can have a conversation about exercise and eating healthy foods with the best of them. But then I go home to my disordered eating and I’m so glad nobody can see. Because I’ll always struggle with food addiction. I know that now. But for the love of God, I would go mad. His mercies are new every morning. Great is his faithfulness.
I was running at the park this morning and grieving my life the way I often do when no one can see. When the sadness piles up like a scratchy wool blanket and starts to smother me, I reach for music to help me breathe again. And I heard the most beautiful song by Sarah Groves and just worshipped. And I’ll end there. Because it’s true, He’s always been faithful.
🙏☮️💕