Deborah Spooner
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It’s gold.

It sits on the carpet-squared floor where more dirty feet have tread than I sometimes care to think about.  You see, each unique foot was attached to each unique person with each unique strand of DNA and each unique story from each unique heart that that DNA helped form.

It’s gold and slightly to the left, but it’s reflective.
I can actually see my face as my forehead bumps into the bottom tip of continental Africa.

It’s gold, slightly to the left, and reflecting more than just the face of a student fumbling to make roots in a city unaccustomed.  It’s shows the gold of a laptop case, the neck of a black guitar, and the entire window-poster of another city on a coast nowhere near such current golden reflections.

It’s gold, and it’s reflecting hope.

Hope of a world yet unexplored by this pair of two feet.  Hope of stories yet un-typed by these ten fingers.  Hope of songs yet unsung by this one voice.  Hope of a city yet uninhabited by this one individual with unique strands of DNA.

It’s reflecting hope,
but hope cannot be recognized unless it has a boldly contrasting surface on which to be reflected.

Me.
Maybe it’s being reflected, actually, onto me.

A combination of DNA and genes and spirit and flesh and ideas and hopes and dreams and doubts and confusion and good-intentions and exhaustion and fears and beliefs and frustrations and deep worries and underlying desires.

A combination of a love of words and a despising of words, of addiction to change and terror of discomfort, of a love of revealing and yet an obsession of being hidden and still unknown.

Aha.
(It often comes out through the words, you see).

Of a love of revealing and yet an obsession of being hidden and still unknown.

Me.
The one whose heart sings songs:
songs that sometimes pulse so intently that I cannot discern the exact lyrics
songs that I long to sing out so they reach other hearts
songs I long to sing the message so sweet that the feet start to move and change is unlocked.

Me.
Who watches as much as she longs to do and feels things more deeply than she wishes,
Who knows that feeling things so deeply is a responsibility,
Who sometimes wishes it were a responsibility she could wish away.

Me, who sees her imperfections and tries and tries and thinks and tries not to try anyone.
Me, who feels this song but feels a deep desire to do anything but share this song.
Me, who is fumbling to learn how to live and fumbling to see the reality of the Giver of Life.

Me, who has entered a place, who feels still unknown, and who feels frustrated by this on the inhale and numbly content with it on the exhale (for, sometimes an unknown future is more welcome than an unwanted reality).

You see, it’s comforting to be still unknown because, then, you cannot be rejected for who you are revealed to actually be; you cannot fail because you have not ever stepped into the realm of the known.

You see, that’s selfishness.
That’s a deep form of self-obsession, compulsive control-mongering where joy is dead and life feels like death.

You see, that’s where a death is needed, but not a death of all things that point to and reflect glorious, golden hope; it’s a death of self that is needed.

It’s a death to the fear of being known, rejected, and exposed as lacking and failing.
It’s a death to the laziness and self-obsessive, selfish behaviors, habits, attitudes, and actions that try to stick this fear as glue onto the very mind and heart of humans.

It’s a death to self and an awakening to life.
It’s a trading of being still unknown for a being still to be known.

It’s a death to self and a taking on of humility that comes into the presence (His presence) in a state of surrender and is still.
It’s a coming into the presence and being open to what the King is doing, to listening and obeying moment by moment, breath by breath — realizing that this is enough. 

It’s a stepping into the presence in this open, courageous obedience to go further up and farther in, into the realms of a founded joy, hope, and peace and into the realms where the anti-hope reality of our flawed, broken DNA strand hearts become flooded with reflecting the hope of the King.

For this is life — soaking in the Story so that we may be fueled to fully embrace our stories as we walk along as residents never home but reflecting hope on the canvas of a world dark and needy.

This is death.  But (oh), this is life.
© 2015 Deborah Hope Shining



something new has started for me.

this time in my life has brought a lot of news, and i'm afraid that it's been giving my mind more news than it sometimes can handle.

people say that when you move to a new place, you change. things come at you that you didn't expect.  you are hit with the new - the new of the good and the bad.

this is a new palace where i believe God is going to work in incredible ways and do things that i can't even comprehend.

yet maybe that is where i am getting tripped up.

He's going to move in ways that I can't comprehend.

That means that.. I may not always be certain of where He's moving and how He is going to be moving next.

It means that I must sit and wait; I must sit in the place where I feel (frankly) a little helpless.

I am sitting and seeing so many opportunities, so many things that are open to me.  I am left to wonder, though, at where to go next and what to do next.

I am sitting and becoming a little impatient because I am not seeing the things I wish as fast as I wish.

This wants to lead to discouragement where I ask God why I'm waiting yet again (because sometimes an unknown future is better than an unwelcome reality).

What am I really waiting on, though?

I'm not waiting on myself to shape up and fix my problems.
I'm a weak, flawed human but am graced to be covered in grace.

Maybe it's not so much that I am covered in grace but that I must choose to let myself break into it.

I am feeling helpless to make my life become what I always wished it were, so I must break in my helpless weakness into His grace that is perfected in weakness.

I am feeling impatient as I want to blame God for not giving me what I want as quickly as I desire it, so I must break in my stubborn pride that is always demanding its way into the grace of Him who humbled Himself to become a servant for the flawed humans He loves.

I must choose to see that I cannot see what is ahead, but that is okay; I can see Him who is faithful.

He is faithful to complete what He has shown me, so I must be faithful to staying close to Him.  I must be faithful to let myself break into His grace.  I must be faithful to become a servant who is so in love with the One who is Love.

I must be faithful to wait on the One who made the stars.

He does not forget.

So, dear reader, why not wait on Him? Why not break into His grace?  Why not draw close to Him?

I encourage you, today: do not give up. do not give in to the lies that try to suffocate your joy. cling fast to the truth that will set you free. you can live in the joy that is your strength even as you wait.

Hold on to hope cause He's holding onto you. 

___________
This post was originally seen on Brave Mag.

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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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