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leaving the pool, unhindered

i like words.  i like to speak them.  i like to think them.  i like to hear them.  i like to study them.  i like being able to name something.  each and everything should have a name.  and when i couldn't put a name to the emotion wrestling in my heart over all i had lost, over all i was feeling, over what hurt deep, i was lost.  i needed to name it.  but, for a lot of months i just couldn't.  so i wrestled.  wrestled with God.  just like jacob. and just like jacob, my wrestling match with God left me limp. limp and sitting at the pool of:

{rejection}

for that was it.  that was the emotion.  it now had a name:  rejection.

it came completely out of the blue.  it hit me like a crashing wave one afternoon.  i shouldn't be surprised by God, but this caught me off guard.

it's hard to share my story.  i still live surrounded by it.  and all of the various truths and falsehoods associated with it.  i can't escape it really.  it is, and will forever be, a part of me.  and i'm having to live in the midst of it.  but the reality is i haven't been really living.  i've been waking up and doing life with one foot tethered to my story. the story i can't tell.  the one i can't share. one foot held so firmly to all that it was that i replayed words, letters, comments almost daily.  ones that stung.  i believed that replaying those words would somehow make me suddenly become better.  the person everyone seemed to want me to be.  or at least what a few thought i should be.

so, the day it hit me i was sitting in a pastors office.  he had brought me in to talk about my new job and ask how their church could partner with the center.  he knows most of my story, although there are pieces i keep to myself.  but in the midst of our conversation about something i can't remember at all today, he looked right at me and said, "i believe in you!  i believe in your heart.  i believe in your ministry.  i believe in you."  then he kept right on talking about something i have yet to remember.

i sat there stunned and kept right on nodding and talking.  but in my heart something had stirred.  why on earth would this man, this pastor, the one who knows most of my ugly story actually believe in me?  there is no way.  yet, for some reason, i believed him.

i continued to process that conversation and by the time i got home it had hit me.  God had clearly helped me name my emotion.  we had wrestled and wrestled and wrestled and now i had the name:

rejected:  to dismiss as inadequate, inappropriate

yep.  that was it.  i felt rejected, dismissed.  rejected by leadership.  rejected by my church.  dismissed even by family.  i'm not in this to cast blame.  but one is allowed to feel. and once it had a name it felt like maybe i could begin to heal.  i was spilling this all out in my journal and wrote, "it's like i'm sitting at a pool of rejection."   i was like that man in the book of John, chapter 5.  the one who had sat for 38 years at the pool waiting to be healed.  rejected by society. alone on his mat.  who knows what all he felt or even why no one had ever helped him into the healing waters.  he sat there.  daily.  and when Jesus asked him if he wanted to be healed he gave an excuse.  yes, but.  and i am just like that.  Jesus asked me if i wanted to be healed and my answer was yes, but.  and so we wrestled and then one day he sat me limp at the pool of rejection.  BUT  JESUS.  there, at that pool, Jesus again asked me if i wanted to be healed.  and yes, but.  yes, but i hurt.  yes, but i feel wronged. yes, but....

and as i sat on my porch that evening reading this story i was struck.  even in this man's excuses.  even in my excuses, Jesus' words were the same to him as to me,

"pick up your mat and walk."

i sat with that phrase in my heart.  i wasn't exactly sure where to walk to.  i wasn't exactly sure how to do it, but i believe God started healing my heart with that phrase.  it was a simple, yet very complex command.  i can't imagine what that man must have felt like trying to stand for the first time in 38 years.  but the Bible tells me he did just that. he got up.  took his mat and walked on.

as i struggled to process just how to walk and what the mat was that i was sitting on, (and honestly, why did Jesus tell him to pick up the mat anyways?  why not just leave it there?)  i kept coming back to my word of the year:  unhindered

i had chosen that word as a way to live.  a way to love.  a way to serve.  to give.  it was all the ways i wanted to be.  but what if God had given me that word for another reason.  those were all great goals.  perfect ideals to seek.  but was there something deeper God had in this word for me?

so i asked Him. honestly yelled it out loud (i was driving alone in the car).  what do you want me to know about unhindered?  why this word?  and why on earth do i feel like i can't live it out!?!?!??!

unhindered:  not obstructed

i have felt so tangled up in my own web of emotions and wrestling of my faith that i was, i am hindered.  there are obstacles in my way.  emotional ones.  physical ones.  mental ones.  spiritual ones.  and that is why i sat by that pool of rejection.  i was tied to my mat.  full of excuses.  full of just wanting to be seen in my rejection.  BUT JESUS.  but Jesus says screw the obstacles. get up girl.  pick up your mat.  start walking.

what if choosing unhindered was more about letting Jesus cut me loose from the ropes that hold me back?  the pain i feel.  the rejection i fell.  the sadness of saying good bye.  the part of me that now feels incomplete.  what if those ropes are simply holding me back and keeping my soul hindered from soaring. keeping me from finding completion in Him again?

my biggest sadness is the loss of community.  a community i had honestly grown up in.  raised my kids in.  grew my marriage in.  learned about epic failure and watched God work miracles.  a community of people i had laughed with, cried with, celebrated with, and grieved with.  i would guess that man took a look around that pool and was probably a little scared to leave his community too.  i am confident that while they were all waiting by the pool, rejected by society, they had found themselves sharing life together.  yet,  he picked up his mat and walked.

so i started.  i started walking.  i am not sure where i am going.  and each step feels unsafe.  like i am on shifting rocks in a rushing river.  yet, i'm noticing with each step of obedience i feel a little more safe.  a little more me again.  a little more alive.  a little less rejected by my King.  i took a few steps this week to sever those ties.  to cut the ropes.  to stop holding on.  it was hard.  i'm not going to lie.  yet, it felt like it was time.  it was very much time.

this morning i sat in church listening to that pastor preach with such passion.  he spoke of not living as a slave to the law, but as a free child of God.  that my heart's desire should be to follow Jesus.  i wanted to cry.  it was like being beckoned yet again to pick up my mat and walk.  it's all about Jesus.  He heals.

i am starting to feel it.

starting to believe that God actually just might believe in me.

starting to feel unhindered.

ready to pick up my mat.

          move on.

               go forward.

                        be free.

                            unhindered.



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