I received a work email today from a pastor who runs a feeding ministry a few counties over.  Since he and his volunteers are not able to visit with clients, they have a leaflet that is included in all food boxes.  On the leaflet is a prayer that included the phrases “instrument of peace” and “ambassador of love.”  Those simple three-word phrases stopped me in my tracks.  I want to be THAT!!  I want to be an instrument of peace.  I want to be an ambassador of love.

The phrase “instrument of peace” may be best known as part of the Prayer of Francis of Assisi.  It’s a beautiful prayer.  One worth looking up if you aren’t familiar.

Dr. Wayne W Dyer wrote a book titled Instrument of Peace.  In it, he beautifully explains “When you are an instrument of peace, you are not seeking anything, you are a peace provider. You do not seek peace by looking into the lives of others and wishing that they would change so that you could become more peaceful. Rather, you bring your own sense of calm to everyone you encounter.”  THIS is ownership.  THIS is adulting at it’s best.  An instrument of peace doesn’t need someone else to be or do or say or anything.  An instrument of peace has peace to spare and spreads it on thick wherever it is lacking.  Therefore, an instrument of peace must be able to discern that lack.  God, make me an instrument of your peace!

Ambassador of love.  An ambassador is an official representative.  It is expected he/she will represent their home country with the highest of integrity.  Lots of eyes are on ambassadors.  They are under scrutiny as the embodiment of the best (and worst) of their homeland.

What is it to be an ambassador of love? I think that one is pretty straight forward.  God is love. We are God’s.  We are beholden to represent him well.   Sounds lovely doesn’t it?  Not complicated at all.  Until, of course, we try to love the unlovely, the selfish, the addict, the abuser, the racist, the bully, the person with two carts of toilet paper leaving none for the grandmother who needs a small pack.  God, make me an ambassador of your love!

I’ve thought a lot about germs lately.  I’m not a germophobe, but the ability of a virus to proliferate is pretty impressive. Doorknob to pants to chair to the next person’s pants to their hand to their face…viruses are strong and fast moving.  I want my peace and my love to move and grow as strong and as fast as a virus.  I want to be known for my love.  I want to bring peace with me into every situation.

Years ago, I was watching Bible teacher, Joyce Meyer, teach on the Fruit of The Spirit.  Do all my church peeps remember the song?  Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.  Joyce said she (paraphrase) wants to bear so much fruit that someone who lacks can simply pick it right off of her.  It has probably been 12 years since I heard that teaching and it never left me.  I’m going to spend some time meditating on those words, once again.  I’m going to dig deeper.  I want to be an instrument of peace.  I want to be an ambassador of love.

I’m kind of a type A personality.  For instance, my greatest joy of the last month was the arrival of my new calendar. From 7am to 9pm, each weekday it’s broken down into 15-minute increments.  Y’all don’t even know.  I bought special pens for this calendar.  There are colors for various activities. It’s darn near sexy.  The weekends are represented as well, but they have fewer lines which makes sense, since weekends tend to be less regimented.

This year, my kids are in different schools, in different counties.  They have different start and stop times, and different fall and spring breaks. My son plays soccer and is on the academic team.  My daughter is signing up for after school activities.  When she gets into a routine, she’ll likely get a job…cause momma’s not made of money.

My situation is not unique.  Many of you have two or more kids in multiple activities.  So you may have found yourself in the same situation I was in last week.  I had the “bring on Friday” mindset, and it started on Monday.  “Lord, just let me get to Friday.”  And “We’ll regroup over the weekend.” And “Just wait until Friday.”  Basically, I found myself spending Monday through Thursday waiting for Friday through Sunday.

I’ve spent a lot of my life “working for the weekend.”  However this weekend, as I was filling out my AMAZING new calendar and noticing how busy the week ahead looked, I heard my inner voice say “One day at a time, it’ll be Friday before you know it.”  While I believe “one day at a time” is a very healthy practice, longing for Friday is surely not.

First, tolerating 4 days a week so I can enjoy 3 days a week is no way to live.  Mondays make up 1/7 of my lifetime.  I better plan to enjoy them.  Second, and this is the big one for me, I have a Junior in high school.  Life is moving very quickly and that girl is going to fly before I know it.  I will be darned if I’m simply going to tolerate the NINETY-TWO Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays between today and the day she is handed her high school diploma.

It looks like this is going to be the busiest year of my 16 year parenting career.  Additionally, work has presented some not-so-fun challenges, taking up more time each week.  There are going to be a lot of opportunities to wish the days away and pray for the weekend.

This year can be a hurried blur of trying to keep up or it can be a series of accomplishments and time well spent.  My calendar, broken up into its exquisite 15-minute increments can run me, if I don’t run it.  The thing that stands between steady intentionality and (what my girl loves to call) complete chaos, is a choice.  It’s going to be a daily choice.  I may have to make it three times before breakfast.  I choose to love my Mondays through my Thursdays. I hope you do too.

Crushing pressure.  That’s what I feel.  A situation in my personal life has me wound so tight that it’s taking much of my emotional and psychological energy to hold steady.  I’m tired, and it’s when I’m tired that I have to be vigilant about not becoming negative, hurtful, and selfish.  But that takes energy too, and I don’t have the energy to be positive or uplifting.  And so a vicious cycle tries to take hold of me. Rendering me useless to those around me and useless to God.

I’m a fairly strong person.  Give me a grueling task with a near impossible deadline and I’m at my very best.  But in life, in the things that really matter, we don’t have the benefit of instruction manuals.  There are no guarantees.  There’s no date out in the future that I can point to and say “on THIS DATE, this problem will be resolved.”  Nope…my type A, deadline driven, take control self is left sitting on my hands wondering what’s next.  I feel defeated…but not hopeless.

I’ve always clung closer to God in times of trouble.  I never understood people who turn from their faith when things get hard.  This time though, I get it.  Clinging to God means clinging to His Word, His promises, His will…ugh His will.  His will may be for this storm to end tomorrow (that’s my vote) or His will may be that we weather this storm for a lifetime.  Friends and family say “Oh no, Julie…it’s not going to last forever.”  Let’s be honest folks, some storms do.  Some diseases kill.  Some addicts never find their way out of addiction.  Some people die having never known Jesus, despite all the prayers of his or her saved family members.  (Remember I started by saying I didn’t have the energy to be positive.  Here’s your proof.)

So it comes down to one of the most basic choices we have in life: fight or flight?

Do I have another fight in me? Cause it feels like I’ve been fighting a lot in this life.   I know in my heart and mind that life without God is not an option.  When I dedicated myself to Him it was a lifelong deal.  So here I am, reading His Word, remembering His promises, and asking for His will.

I pray.  I ask for this storm to end.  I ask for lessons to be learned with as little pain as possible.  I ask for God to restore what’s been broken.  I dig through the ashes, knowing there’s beauty in there somewhere.  And I end my prayer in these gut wrenching words “but even if You don’t, You’re still good.”  One of the most fundamental pillars of Christian faith is this: God doesn’t change.  His goodness doesn’t ebb and flow with the situations in my life.  He’s not good when life is good and bad when life is bad.  God, quite simply, is good all the time.

We learned that in church when we were kids, didn’t we?  Everyone all together now: God is good.  All the time.  All the time.  God is good.

So I will stand in this storm, arms raised and tears streaming.  On the outside I’m singing.  On the inside I’m screaming with everything in me.  Faith is a beautiful thing, but it isn’t always pretty.  Faith can be a messy business.  When God made me, He knew what he was getting. So He’s not the least bit surprised when I kick and scream. I’d like to think He smiles at my spunk, shakes His head and says “Julie, would you please just give it to me and know that I’ve got this?”  So here it is God, again.  Here’s my hurt and my scars, my fears and my exhaustion.  Here are my tears…the ones Your Word says you’ve collected.  I choose faith. I choose You.

To my friends who are in the thick of pain and are clinging to their faith, God sees you.  To my friends who are so tired that keeping faith seems too exhausting, God sees you.  To my friends who don’t know if their storm will ever end, God sees you.  I promise you He is good.  He is good all the time.

I don’t know if I was naïve or a dreamer, but things sure didn’t turn out the way I had planned.  I was going to be a lawyer, and I probably would have been a good one.  Then I went through a nasty breakup around the time I needed to apply to law school and it never happened.

I was going to work in Corporate America and climb the ladder of success.  Then I got downsized out of my job, went to work at my church and now I can’t imagine working outside of ministry.

I was going to grow old with my husband, travel, raise the kids, and enjoy our golden years.  He had other plans.  When you’re 37 with young kids and your best friend decides he doesn’t want to be your best friend any more life, as you know it, is over.

Blank slates can be a great place to start new and exciting things, but my slate wasn’t blank.  It had two kids, two jobs, a mortgage and lots of emotional baggage on it.  The slate was so full there was very little space to build a new life.

“So this is how this happens” I thought to myself.  This is how people with plans and dreams, and abilities never realize any of them.  This is how potential dies.  This is where momentum stops.  This is where I get forced into survival mode.  Well crap…this sucks.

You can’t go through big life change without being changed yourself.  We are the product of our life experiences, good or bad.  That made me so angry.  I liked who I was before my marriage ended.  Then, with no say in the matter, I had to go through a traumatic life experience that was going to change me forever.  Everything was going to change no matter how I felt or fought.  Every. Single. Thing.  Once the anger subsided, I determined it was better to ride the wave of change than to swim against it.  Get better or get bitter, right? This would not end me.  Something new would come from all this hurt.

Unfortunately, healing is a long process, and the first step for me was to accept where I was.  It wasn’t pretty.  I was in a house I could barely afford, but I couldn’t stand the idea of taking the kids out of their home.  I had debt that would take years to clean up if I stuck to minimum payments.  I had a job I really enjoyed, but it didn’t allow for any financial breathing room.  I had two young kids who deserved the very best of me, but often got what was left of me.

And somewhere, underneath all the weight of the world, I still had a dream for my own life.  It was hard to make out with tired eyes.  Hard to find it in the midst of homework and housework and work work, but there it was…my purpose and the reason God saw fit to put me here.  It didn’t change with my marital status, my number of kids or jobs.  His purpose for my life was established long before all of that.

I was born to love – plain and simple.  I believe that’s the case for every one of us.  I also believe that God makes each of us tender to different segments of the population.  God made me to love the unlovely.  I am tender to broken people who need someone to see under the layers of bad choices and life circumstances.  God made me to love the messy.  As it turns out, all of my heart aches, life storms, and mistakes were not in vain.  The lessons I learned from all of life’s twists and turns weren’t meant to stay with me.  I am free from those things and one of the greatest rewards of freedom is being able to share the regrets and mistakes of my past without shame.  So I choose to share not only the things that have happened to me, but also the bone-headed, stubborn choices I made that kept me in the wilderness far longer than I needed to stay there.

Sometimes I wish I were one of those meek, obedient Christians.  You know the ones…they read the Word or hear a sermon and automatically apply it to their lives because it’s the right thing to do.  Then there’s me…type A with moderate (ummm sure) control issues.  I apply what I learn too…after I test it, kick and scream about it, and then lose sleep as I argue with God about it.

Still, if it weren’t for people like me, who have to learn lessons the hard way and who had to walk away from what life was “supposed” to be, there would be fewer people to say “I’ve been there.  I’m sorry you’re hurting.  You’re going to make it.” Cause isn’t that what it’s all about?

Today I bought a new hair dryer.  This likely holds very little meaning to you…it’s a hair dryer.  But to me, there’s great significance in this purchase.

In 2012, my (now ex) husband left.  There was very little explanation, very little build up to the bomb drop that he was done and I needed to make arrangements to live my life and raise our children without him in the home.  At the time, I worked a part time job.  I was getting ready to return to full time employment and we had started looking at lots with plans to build our next home.  Needless to say, being told he was leaving was a bit of a shock.

About the time my ex left, my hair dryer died.  I was in a whole new (much lower) income bracket at this time and wasn’t about to spend money on a hair dryer if I didn’t have to.  So in  March of that year, I grabbed my backup hair dryer.  I don’t know about you, but I keep a backup hair dryer in my linen closet.  It’s the one that hasn’t died yet, but is on its way out and is replaced by a newer model. It’s on hand in case my current hair dryer dies.

I’m what they call a “deep thinker.”  So while staring at myself in the mirror each morning, drying my hair, there were lots of conversations going on in my head.  Thoughts like “What’s going to be for dinner?” and “Am I going to grow old alone?” and “Will I be able to afford a new AC unit for the upstairs?” and “I wonder how this is going to affect the kids’ ability to form and maintain healthy relationships in adulthood.”  You get the picture.  Those internal conversations had me drying my hair with tears rolling down my face for at least a couple of years.

When I first grabbed the hair dryer out of the linen closet, I was concerned it would die on me.  I needed it to last a while longer.  A decent hair dryer isn’t cheap and I had other things I needed to spend money on.  Whether it was paying bills or saving for vacation, this hair dryer had somehow become a symbol of my need to eeek out every last bit of utility from every single thing I bought and owned.

Fast forward to today, May 14, 2018, 6 years after I grabbed that old, used hairdryer from the linen closet, praying it would last long enough for me to get a few paychecks under my belt.  Today was the last day I used that old hairdryer.  I no longer have tears rolling down my face each morning.  Two new AC units were installed this spring (thanks to a generous Christmas gift from multiple family members) and the kids and I have our flights and lodging reserved for the Hawaii vacation we have dreamed of and saved for.

So crazy as it sounds, as I place my old hair dryer in the garbage, I again have tears rolling down my face.  Not because of a faithful hair dryer, but because of a faithful God who pulled me and my kids through a whole mess of pain and dysfunction.  Who showed Himself to be patient and kind in the big things and the little things…like a hair dryer.