Taking My Life Back

 I'm sure you've all noticed that I haven't been on here writing as much lately. The words have mostly stopped. I've actually considered shutting down the blog for awhile due to the fact that the message has ceased to flow out of me. But I'm seeing that it's because I lost the message. I lost me...
 Recently, I've become aware of how much wasted time I have spent trying to fit my life into a mold that I was never meant to fit. I have tried to figure out how an inspired writer from Alaska could fit into a world that all about career, money, achievement, position, and the like...but it's never worked. And I'm coming to the conclusion that it never will. Because God never meant me to. 
 I have lost sight of the beauty of set-apart because I've gotten too consumed with average. I've settled for less when God calls me to more. I've let critics (and there have been many) determine my purpose when I ought to have been so consumed in it's pursuit that their opinion couldn't stop me. I have chosen doubt when faith should have driven me to continue down the path of journeying to grace. Somehow I got off the path. I questioned. I began to feel like what I do doesn't matter when it's perhaps the thing that matters most. 

Maybe it's the unseen things - the hidden experiences - that most shape a person and end up mattering the most? Could it be that what most do not see is actually what is most needed in this broken world?

I fully accept that my path has been unconventional: I'm a writer with no college degree or training; I have spent my life in mostly volunteer positions when many were establishing careers and chasing financial gain; I chose to give my life to ministry and causes that did not produce much (if any) monetary gain so that treasures could be gained in Heaven; I sacrificed my own dreams for what matters to God. When many were finding their life-work in a college classroom or the workforce, I was finding mine in hospital rooms, watching my father struggle to survive. I was finding mine in the lost, hurting faces of military veterans whom the VA system had ignored and failed; I was finding mine in the dark days of my own battle with depression. 

No amount of higher education can account for a heart of compassion, a soul that knows how to beat with love and hope for the broken. Life is it's own teacher. Those resound with the deepest "yes" to the hurting who have had their own lives shattered. Just maybe a life-purpose doesn't come with a piece of paper that screams "highly qualified" but rather with a heart that admits "ill-qualified, but joyfully willing?" 

As a society, we continue to push for higher achievement, yet we leave the broken ones behind. And the school shootings, the skyrocketing suicide rates, etc prove that we are failing while we still attempt to succeed. We may climb the corporate ladder, but we are becoming increasingly unhappy as a culture. We are losing what matters most. Even the most accomplished among us in business, sports, and the like are shown to be depressed, unfulfilled, and empty. Spent with chasing acceptance but missing what matters most in life. I made the choice several years ago not to live this way. I knew it would mean I didn't have lots of money. I knew it wouldn't give me an office job with a position-ladder to climb. It wouldn't give me prestige and notoriety. But it would give me peace and joy in what is most important. It would mean I would gain my life because I was willing to lose it in the eyes of what the world deems valuable. 

The choices we make either drive us closer to joy or away from it. They either put us in favor with society and at odds with God, or they bring us closer to the Divine and away from the applause of the watching world. Just maybe it's true that the people who matter most to the Savior are those whose work appears low and unimportant to the culture. 

I am taking my life back. I am getting back to my purpose. I am returning to the path I departed from. God made me a messenger of hope, and I must embrace it - fully and gladly! I possess the one thing that people deep down crave most in this world - joy. God-given, infectious joy. So why hold that back when it's what people need most?! If even a few people find the joy they desperately are looking for because their path crossed mine, then I will feel like I made a difference. The message isn't one that will come from sterile offices and over-worked employees, from stressed out commuters stuck in traffic, from driven, competitive athletes whose goals are to be #1 and build up their trophy case. It just may come where all those would least expect it. It just might come from spending time in the mountains as I do - from pulling up a chair and listening to a shattered soul pour out their story. From being a modern-day "Good Samaritan" who is more interested in making sure people finish life well than in getting there first. Because in God's eyes, those who race well and win aren't always those who cross first and get there fastest but instead those who helped their fellowman along the way or gave up their own desires in order to fulfill God's. 

Just maybe your one life lived well won't put you in highest esteem of those looking on...but sell your purpose to them with joy! Tell them you've got what matters and that you want them to have it too! Be so taken with the Grace-filled life that they can't help but notice your faith and wonder if they don't perhaps need it also. 

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