Deborah Spooner
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The fan's blades are swirling as my eyes try to follow their circular motion.
It's finally summer, and I now remember heat once again after too many winter months.

Stopping.  Breathing.  Staring.  Reading.  Watching.  Observing.  Feeling.
Thinking so much that I try to stop thinking at all.

My hand rests on the red polka-dot journal that eleven-year-old Deborah clung too like a third lung impossible to live without.
Under it rests the tan, flowered journal fourteen-year-old Deborah doodled and dreamed in to her heart's delight.
Now, the plain chocolate brown journal with gold-edged pages lies open to the next blank page.

It feels that it's more than just another page to fill with words, though.

I feel like my life really is opened to the next new page,
yet I find myself paralyzed.

This should be exciting.
It should feel like freedom.
You should be loving to live.

Instead I feel immobilized, afraid to do anything in fear of not doing the right thing.
I am devoid of all will-power.  Where my strength evaporated to, I may never know.

Yet, as I skim the jaunty eleven-year-old's handwriting, I am enveloped by a world very similar to mine currently: a world haunted by brutal self-standards, a constant need to do more and not waste my God-given time, and a deep desire to just be myself.

As words stare from both the filled page and the new blank one, I cannot help but think:

What if we truly learn to live?

The self-standards.  The fear of failure.  The obsession to be right and do right.  The mental knots we create that keep us from moving in any direction because we've imagined terrors and failures that will devour us if we move one step.

Why are we living like this?

Afraid.  Obsessed.  Unsure.  Insecure.  Doubting.

What would our lives look like if we learn to let go of all that's entangling  us -
if we, in fact, let go of anything except God himself.

What if we threw off everything- our own personal desires and dreams, our own rationalization and reasoning, our own goals and ambitions, our own doubts and fears, our own frustrations and self-condemnation - and only grasped to God and His truth?

What if we took one day at a time and just loved loving God and loved living like it?

What if we said goodbye to the past as well as to slavery to the future and just followed Him in the present?

What if we learn to live,
stopped focusing so much on what we wish we had or what we wish we were,
but focused on being all we can because He is all we need?

As I sit next to my blank journal page, I face two questions:
God, how much do I really love you?  (cause that should give me all the confidence to really live)
God, are you enough for me? (cause why, then, would I need to grasp anything else?)

Because what if we learn to live like life is good, that the sun is shining, and that we can laugh because our Abba loves us?

Life is going to continue to be good, complicatedly beautiful, and beautifully messy whether we choose to enjoy the sun even though it burns and to feel the wind even though it stings or not.

We can love.  laugh.  learn to let go - because we are loved, delighted in, and have our ultimate burden -sin- lifted from us by the cross.

Why not, then, learn to live?
© 2014 Deborah Hope Shining

I'm searching.

I want to know why I am
                         who I am
                         where I fit
                         what I should do.

I feel lost.  empty.  exhausted to the bone.

So much swirls within my head.
Questions, principles, doubts, fears, dreams being birthed and dreams dying, purpose, pain.

I keep playing in my mind: "no, you can't do that because _____" or "that will never be right because _____"

I bind myself inside my head.

Don't waste time.
Don't slack off.
Don't be rude.

You are against unholiness.
You are against living anything else than God's purpose.
You are against giving up.

I don't ...
I'm against ...
I won't ...

There's healthy boundaries in these things.  There's even a degree of freedom.

But I can't help wondering: shouldn't there be more in life than only what we're against?

What are we for?
What gives us purpose? drives us?

Instead of making lists of what we're against, what would happen if we made lists of what we're for?  Things that give us life.  Things that make us smile.  Things that we are willing to fight for, to cry over, to work, and work, and work towards?

What if we stopped playing our mantras of that which we will not do
and started living in the freedom and thriving in all that we can?

What if we actually stepped out and purposed for the good?

For there is so much left worth fighting for.

I'm for -
dreams coming true
the voiceless finding their voices
friends finding support
early morning laughter
pain become ground for growth
the wounded being healed
the broken finding new life.

I'm for Jesus.

And maybe, at the end of the day, it is not what we are for or what we are against
but who we are for.

Can not all the purpose we need be found in Him?
© 2014 Deborah Hope Shining

Under the murky gray sky in the frigid night air, it lingers.   The past is swirling in the wind like the aroma of freshly baked bread invading a kitchen’s air.  The wind gusts against the brittle, decaying rose petals like the tingling sting from a slap.  The past is full.  The din from the store where the rose was purchased still seems audible; the memory of careful preparation as it was set in a vase beside a card still lurks; the laughter as heavenly as the moonlit sky when the rose found its recipient still wafts about; the warm touch of sun from the days spent on the windowsill still lingers.  Words of hope, tears of joy, looks of affection – all the rose’s experiences added more vibrancy to the beauty that flowed out of its delicacy. 
The rose was alive.
Yet, the rich past swirling in the wind is like the tingling sting from a slap as the days that were are no more.  The ground is cold, hard.  The dusk’s darkness is creeping in and surrounding like a thick, wool blanket that separates life from the very ones that need it.  Next to the trash bin from where the wind blew the decaying rose, its forgotten petals droop to the floor like the rose’s tears became too heavy to hold itself up any longer.
The rose is broken.
.    .    .    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  
The touch of fingers, fingers pulsing with blood coursing through veins, is at once a gush of hopeful relief and bitter nostalgia.  The rose – breakable and devoid of vibrancy – has been selected again and is cradled in the crook of an arm.  Carried at this new vantage point, the rose still feels the wind’s bite, but the wind is no longer all that’s felt; the snug embrace of the sun seeps into the weary petals.  Up large, cement steps, through the paint-peeled door, down the well-lit hallway, into the tarnished doorknobed room marked twenty-three, the rose journeys.  The touch of something cold – the smooth counter-top as white as fresh snow – releases fears of the forgotten and forsaken.  The coat is unbuttoned, the faucet’s fizzling water is unleashed, and the arctic substance sprays up against the vase’s side.  The pulsing fingers are latching on, and the rose finds its stem’s dirt being gingerly washed away as its murky green again appears.  The rose is lost amid the towel’s fleecy folds as the cold is wiped away.  By the balmy, pulsing fingers, the rose is once more placed in a vase and set up high on a windowsill.
The rose has not been made new.  It has not regained its vibrant life.  It is still broken, but the isolation of the discarded no longer haunts.  It’s delicately beautiful; it’s beautifully broken, freed to radiate the beauty from its petals onto others.
All it took was one.
She who saw the rose and picked it up is ordinary.  Her heart aches with pain.  Her blood courses with passion, and her mind ponders life’s questions.  She lives in an ordinary apartment; the white paint from hardware is flaking onto the counter; the faded fabric is visible on the sagging couch; the bathroom faucet’s unremitting drip is a constant rhythm.  Each breath she draws is from a common existence.
Yet, she is wonderfully unique and has made an uncommon choice.  From her own tattered, imperfect, scarred existence, she chose to see beauty in the broken.  In the crumpled, dry petals of a dying rose, she saw a beautiful delicateness and potential.  The forsaken rose has not lost its purpose; its purpose has simply changed.  No longer will its boldly red, soft petals be exchanged in life-giving love, but its deeply dark color will exude a different vibe, a vibe which only the broken can ever hope to give: nothing is ever so crumpled and crushed to be useless; there is beauty in the broken.
Breakable is not discard-able.  Crumpled is not unusable.  Imperfect is not unlovable.
Brokenness has beauty.
.    .    .    .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .   .  
Under the murky gray sky, the rose is ensconced in the windowsill with a new purpose.  From the deep, dark red petals now flow a beauty tattered and reverent.  The laughter in the room is evidence of an atmosphere thick with warmth.  The girl smiles.  Her eyes dance.  The faded couch is holding the weight of friendship. 
                             The breakable rose radiates on, no longer forgotten, no longer discarded.
Oftentimes, what the broken really need is to be seen, to be picked up, and dusted off.  They need to hear the whisper: have courage.  They need to be reminded that they are not disregarded; they are not overlooked.  There is power in the delicately beautiful, power in the beautifully broken.
All it takes is one.

© 2014 Deborah Hope Shining

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About Me

Deborah Spooner is an analytical creative enamored by ideas and addicted to dripping words in candor. Serving as a Marketing Strategist for LifeWay’s Adults Ministry, she loves all things big-dreaming, difference-making, and Jesus-pointing. A pastor’s daughter with a background in communications and theology, you can find her at her local church with her students (and probably way too excited about the color yellow) as she seeks to know Christ more and make Him known.

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