I'm just hangin' out

The other day I drove under a pair of shoes hanging from a wire. They looked so forlorn and useless. I wondered how did they get there, what was the story behind them? It hit me then that I feel like those shoes! I was connecting with a pair of shoes. SHEESH! But, I do feel like them, like I’m hanging on a wire and I’m forlorn. And I feel incredibly useless. No, no, no this isn’t so I get the platitudes and affirmations that usually follow someone saying that. In fact, please DON’T comment! But DO hear me out, mostly because I don’t think I’m the only one who can relate.

C’mon, ‘fess up. You know EXACTLY what I’m talking about. It’s okay, there is safety in numbers. And it’s okay to admit it even though you may profess to be a… (GASP) Christian! Somewhere along the way we were told and we tried to make others believe that if you were a Christian then you never got sad, lonely, depressed, frustrated, angry, etc and if you did then you must not really be a Christian. HOGWASH. We get lonely, we get depressed, we also wonder if we are “useable” (i.e. valuable) to anyone. In fact, it’s harder to be a Christian and admit you are lonely in the middle of a crowded foyer on a Sunday morning. *It’s hard to confess that you feel useless while being used (and let’s be honest, perhaps abused) for your gifts, why do you think there is so much burn out in the church today?

But maybe this doesn’t happen to you, maybe it’s just me. Since that seems to be the case I’ll take one for the team.

I feel flung over a wire. And wires aren’t stable. They move and shift with the wind and with whatever may land on them. They bounce up and down and threaten to displace whatever may be hanging on them. As far as stability and foundations go they aren’t the most reliable resource. I mean, there’s a reason why God said the wise builder builds his house on a rock and not on shifting sands, or for the purposes of my thoughts, shifting wires! (Matthew 7:24-27) I’ve been bouncing up and down for months now. The fear of getting thrown off has me in a death grip with the wire just to have something beneath me. Yet I know the wire offers no real stability. But it’s something, I rationalize, it’s something.

I wonder how those shoes got up there. And then I wonder, well how did I get up here? I’ll never know with the shoes but with myself I have a few ideas. In my imagination the shoes were on solid ground one minute and the next hurtling through the air and landing on that wire. If they were able to speak I am sure their account would be similar to what I have imagined. For anyone who is hanging out on a wire like I am…oh, wait I forgot, I’m the only one…I am sure the story of “how did I get HERE?” is similar. One minute I was on solid ground and the next I was hanging on a wire wondering what had happened! It’s not like I planned, or even wanted, to leave the stability of my foundation but something hurtled me straight up and I caught the wire. What life events act as the launch? It’s going to look different for everyone. What launches me up off of a stable foundation won’t be the same thing that launches you – er, I mean someone else.

So how did I get on the wire? What’s my story anyway?

I love Philippians 1:6, in any version, what God begins he PROMISES to complete. Period. Doesn’t matter if I’m hanging out on a wire or standing on firm ground, he continues to work in me. There’s going to be seasons, he told us that in Ecclesiastes 3:1-14, and some of those seasons might find you hanging on to a wire with a death grip. It’s really okay. Oh I know we are told it’s not okay but TRUST ME…it IS okay. My story is pretty simple. I was walking along on solid ground one day and the next I was hanging upside down on a wire. What got me up there? A season that could not be avoided; losing the comfort zone, busyness, fear, grief, battles, insecurities, lies, disappointments. I suppose that paints a pretty clear picture. You don’t need the details to understand that any one of those will launch you right off your foundation but when you mix all of them together it is quite an explosion! Funny thing about the explosion. I didn’t know anything had lifted me off my foundation. True story. I didn’t know until months later!

For months I could be overheard saying things like:
“This just isn’t me” or
“I don’t feel like myself” or
“My memory stinks, what is the deal?”
and then one day I got it. Suddenly some things started to make sense. But since I was hanging upside down not everything made sense so I began a journey of trying to figure it out and exit gracefully off of the wire. I’m not sure about the gracefully part. It doesn’t feel or look all that graceful as I try to get off the wire without some breaking. Something is going to have to break in order for the wire to release me. Thus the death grip. Maybe I should just stay on the wire and learn how to live while bouncing up and down….

Yeah, God isn’t buying it either.

Ready to ‘fess up? C’mon…

Okay, I’m okay with still taking one for the team.

It’s all good.

The wire is a lonely place. It’s very isolating and while I recognize that there isn’t anything I can do to change it right now. It is what it is. BUT the wire has become a place of education for me. I’m learning up here, hanging upside down. I’m learning about God’s grace, I’m learning about simplicity, I’m learning who my true friends are and who, well, aren’t! I’m learning what David really was saying in some of his Psalms, I’m learning more about my wounds and how God wants to heal them; I’m learning to be okay with the fact that I’m not okay right now. See? I told you, it really IS okay.

Hanging up there on that wire meant the shoes weren’t fulfilling their purpose. They were just hanging there. I feel like that. Just hanging out, not fulfilling the purpose God has planted within me (again, resist any urges or compulsions to affirm or speak platitudes! Really! I am not looking for those, furthest thing from my mind when I’m being honest and trying to take one for the team.). I’ve been around long enough to figure out what God has gifted me with so that I can minister to others. In Ephesians 2:10 he says that we are ALL created for a purpose and since God doesn’t, and can’t, lie then I gotta believe that what I’m good at doing he put in me to touch…someone! It’s not my job to figure out who the someone is; it’s just my job to be obedient to his promptings on my heart. But I have to say that these months of hanging upside down on the wire have interfered in how I like to operate and minister! There have been days where all my energy and strength have been put toward this death grip I have on the wire; where all of my concentration has gone toward trying to stay on the wire and not fall. I haven’t had the energy to do anything but survive. But unlike the shoes God DOES use me despite my precarious position on the wire. He still puts people in my path that need an encouraging word, he still allows me to speak Truth into the lives of others, he still allows me to parent my children, he still gifts me with people to be hands and feet to so that I’m not always focused on me.

So is there hope? Well the shoes are no longer hanging on the wire. I don’t know how they got down. Did the wind finally succeed in blowing them off? Did someone have to come in a cherry picker and manually remove them? All I know is they are no longer there. So that tells me that I won’t be upside down on this wire forever. Someday and in some way I will get off this wire. Will it be graceful? We’ll see! How will I get off? Maybe the wind of God’s Spirit will lift me off and settle me back on solid ground. Maybe God himself will reach up and plant me back on a firm foundation. No matter how it happens I know it will because God has promised that what he begins with me he will finish and he is with me in every step of my journey, especially when I’m hanging upside down on a wire.

Ready? Go ahead, confess it, acknowledge it…I promise you’ll feel so much better once you are honest with yourself!

It’s really okay, TRUST ME!

*Lest anyone think I am referring to myself let me say right here and now that I have 2 Pastor’s that I work with at my church and they are a huge blessing and would never dream of taking advantage of my gifts and myself! In fact, they have told me I have to take a break!