The Beauty of Redemption Shines Brighter on a Dark Canvas

In my recent memoir, Thin Places I share in first person present tense my journey of healing, finding God in the thin places, where his presence comes near in my personal darkness. I write starkly about sexual abuse, neglect, an unsafe home, and the ensuing dysfunction this caused in my life. I don’t share to titillate or sensationalize; I give it as it is to highlight one thing: God’s wild redemption is the point of it all. And as it is in all great stories, redemption shines all the brighter on a dark canvas.

Maybe we don’t see true beauty because we’re so busy hiding our dark parts, ashamed. Maybe we’re not exuding the beauty of Jesus because we haven’t let Him into those locked closets of our lives. Maybe we love control more. Maybe we fear the exposure that comes from laying it all out there, highlighting our vulnerabilities and insecurities.

But I’m here to say this: Forsake your fear.

Dare to tell the truth. Dare to share the darkness. Dare to be real about your emptiness, neediness, woundings.

Maybe not to the whole wide world at first, but pour your words at the scarred feet of the One who understands. Why would I say such a thing? Because I’ve seen Jesus beautify the desolate places. Where I used to see my devastation as a negative thing to be pushed against, I now see it as a tragic, but beautiful gift. Because my neediness, coupled with the darkness of sin (of others toward me, me toward others), propelled me into the arms of Jesus. My past, instead of being a detriment, is now a dance floor where He waltzes His grace.

When boys stole my body, my innocence, while I begged the sky for deliverance, I learned others wouldn’t protect me. When my home life swirled around me with drugs and parties and fear, I realized my own vulnerability. When my hero, my father, died, I learned I couldn’t control life or death. When I crashed into a heap of tears meeting Jesus at fifteen, it was this need for a genuine hero-savior that made everything make sense. And since then, He has taken the broken parts of me, the weak parts, and healed me. Psalm 149:4 says, “For the LORD takes pleasure in His people; He will beautify the afflicted ones with salvation.” I was afflicted. He brought salvation. He beautified me.

Please don’t think I’ve manufactured my piety. Or created any beauty. It’s Jesus. Just Jesus. He took the darkness, the pain, the anguish, and brushed a giant stroke of light across me, marking me in the best possible way. That way when others point, they won’t see my adequacy; they’ll see His. I’m thankful today for the dark canvas because it highlights His agonizing and surprising redemption.

That’s the paradoxical beauty of brokenness. That’s why this verse touches me: 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. “For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God.”

It’s my weakness, my despised state in the past that highlights God’s ability to take broken girls like me and create a beautiful life.

Mary DeMuth uses her painful childhood experiences to paint a grace- and hope-filled picture of her life in her most recent release, her memoir entitled Thin Places (2010). Mary is the author of novels such as Daisy Chain (2009) and Watching the Tree Limbs (2007) and has also authored parenting books including Authentic Parenting in a Postmodern Culture and Building the Christian Family You Never Had. She believes in the power of story and her deepest dream is to see stories, hers and others, change lives.

You can see a list of her books and purchase them here.

Follow Mary on twitter here.

Buy Thin Places here.

Read my review of Thin Places here.

Visit her websites: MaryDeMuth.com,  the MyFamilySecrets blog, and the WannaBePublished blog

Hello Beauty…

I don’t think we’ve ever really met.

You seem to call to me from covers of magazines, corners of the earth as the sun slips down, in the silence of the morning when I look into the mirror.

I’m drawn to you, always have been.

What little girl isn’t?

And yet I fear you too.

Because I don’t feel good enough, entitled to what you have.

Oh, others are…the cheerleaders and prom queen, Mary and Martha (Stewart).

But me?

It’s taken three decades to start discovering the truth.

I’ve been talking to Him about our relationship lately.

And I realized, dear Beauty…

We’re not enemies, we’re sisters.

We have the same Father.

He created us both.

Offered us as gifts to the world.

We both know what it’s like to be misunderstood, overlooked, broken.

We’re really more alike than different.

I’m so sorry for believing things about you that weren’t true, ignoring you because I was afraid.

Come here, sweet Beauty, let me see you for the first time the way I was meant to all along.

Oh, what a surprise for my soul!

I never knew…

The more I truly look at you, the more I see Him!

Holley Gerth, co-founder of (in)courage and author of Rain on Me: Devotions of Hope and Encouragement blogs at Heart to Heart with Holley. She lives with her husband of ten years in Arkansas and has just finished up her Master’s degree in counselling. I’ve had the chance to spend some time with over the past year even though she lives far off.  She is dear to me and I’m honored to call her friend.

[Photo credit]

I’m not one to push any kind of product. You won’t find me talking about my special kind of vacuum cleaner that picks up even the ground-in-dirt and I probably won’t be giving away strollers or baby-wraps here on this blog.

So even if this blog gets really big someday I’ll still be living with my ten year old fridge and my dying dishwasher. I’ll never have the kind of clout on the web-er-nets that will garner the attention of W*lmart or some other big deal retailer.

If that’s why you came, I’m really sorry.

I like it like this.

And I hope you do too.

But once in awhile I come across something that really makes me smile, makes me seriously jump up and down for what someone has done for those of us who spend money, and I find myself telling everyone I know about it.

Word of mouth is the best marketing, I think.

A month ago my husband came across this listening to a Mark Driscoll podcast. It’s a children’s Bible.

Now I know there are amazing kids’ Bibles out there. There are dozens of them in the Christian bookstore and hundreds online. But this one is so different.

It’s called the Jesus Storybook Bible and it’s written by Sally Lloyd-Jones and is illustrated by Jago. I’m never going to do it justice so here are a couple excerpts:

From the Introduction:

“…There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.  It takes the whole Bible to tell this Story. And at the center of the Story, there is a baby. Every Story in the Bible whispers his name. He is like the missing piece in a puzzle — the piece that makes all the other pieces fit together and suddenly you can see a beautiful picture…” (p17)

From Jesus and the children:

“…Would you have done just what these children did — run straight up to Jesus and let him pick you up in his arms and swing you and kiss you and hug you and then sit you on his lap and listen to your stories and your chats? You see, children loved Jesus and they knew they didn’t need to do anything special for Jesus to love them. All they needed to do was run into his arms…” (p262)

From Pentecost:

“…Suddenly, a strong wind filled the little room, whistling through the walls, rustling the straw on the floor. And there — on everyone’s heads, shining in the gloom — were flickering flames. Fire that didn’t hurt or burn. And something more: inside, in their hearts, they felt a strange heat, almost as if the coldness and hardness were melting away. As if their broken hearts were mending.  And God was giving them brand new hearts — hearts that could work properly….Could it be? Heaven was coming into their hearts…” (p329)

I don’t know how to explain the amazing spirit behind this children’s Bible.  Our family is using it for a family devotion time in the evenings and so far it has been amazing.

I think it should be required reading for every adult.

It’s more than the stories.

It’s the WHY.

God loves us and because we needed rescuing, that Story is called the Great Rescue. Every part of the Bible points ahead to the Rescue or back to the Rescue. It’s absolutely beautiful.

You will have to pick it up to see for yourself. You won’t be disappointed by this one, I promise.

You can buy it from Amazon HERE. (Ages 4-8.)

*Disclaimer – I purchased this book on my own. I have not been compensated by Zondervan in any way for this blog post.

What’s the best children’s book or Bible you’ve come across lately?

***UPDATE for the UPDATE: ACTUALLY, my friend Jen fixed it for me. FINALLY. Sorry. I’m pretty sure this actually works.

**UPDATE: The code for the button doesn’t work yet. Please bear with me as I figure it out!! Also, you can post the post any time and for now, just put a link in your post to my site. Thanks for your participation and your patience.

Most days I don’t even live in the same county as Beauty.

I wake up, pull on my Asics and my workout pants to walk the dog.  I brush my teeth before we go out, just for my own sanity and I glance in the mirror.

Then I wish I hadn’t. If it’s the week leading up to my period I’ve got acne. And I’m bloated.

(I’m talking like 7 pounds of bloat.  Thank you, Age Thirty-Five.)

We go out for about 30 minutes, her leading, and me thinking.  Sometimes it takes me the whole half hour to beat down the voices that tell me

I’m ugly.

I’m weak.

I’m fat and out of shape.

I’m old.

Sometimes I never beat them down and I come back in the house, body warm from my walk the voices still loud in my cold ears.

I seem to be able to find beauty in the world day after day but I struggle to find it in myself.

I’ve asked five women to share with us all what they think about beauty. They’ve written about their own struggles, their own heart aches, their own disappointments. And they are going to be sharing it HERE all week beginning Monday the 15th.

I am SO EXCITED!

Some of them you might know, and some of them you might never have heard of. They’re from Arkansas, Texas, South Africa, South Carolina and Colorado. They are just like you. Some of them are moms, some are not, one is a military wife, two are authors, and one I met last fall as a result of sharing my story.

Maybe I’ve asked them to write on this because it’s a personal struggle of mine. Maybe I’ve asked them because I love them. Or maybe I’ve asked because I’m really, honestly curious about what they think about beauty.

And I’m curious about what YOU think too.

I’m going to propose a project for you all: Write a blog post about beauty. Your thoughts, your pain, your triumphs. It can be outer beauty, inner beauty, what you hate, what you love. Anything. Be creative. It can even be a single photo.

Write it sometime between NOW and the end of next week (Friday, March 19). Copy the HTML for this button into the body of your post so it appears as a button with a link. EMAIL me the link to your post in an email to sarah at sarahmarkley dot com. Put “BEAUTY POST LINK” in the subject line. On Friday the 19th, I will compile the links and put them into a blog post sometime the following week for you all to read what the rest of this community has to think about beauty.

We are all full of beauty.

Yes, you.

Even me.

I am sure I’ve added to the American childhood obesity epidemic.

Once upon a time, I used to be a middle school teacher.  In retrospect I might have chosen differently, but I used methods that worked.

On certain days I would toss candy at any kid in my class who would volunteer for anything: answering a question, reading aloud, helping a friend. Anything.

Erase the board? Here’s a package of Sweet Tarts.

Collect the papers? Catch the Tootsie Roll.

What’s an adverb? Here’s a mini Snickers.

Kids whose heads yesterday bobbed with the in-class sleepiness that plagues most eighth graders, today would shoot hands up to beg to volunteer for everything, anything.  Although motivated by external forces of sugar and sour candy, this was an example of enthusiasm at its best.

It motivated them to action. So simple. Candy: the currency of 12- and 13-year-olds everywhere.

I’m sitting here at 6:26 at night with my penciled in, crossed out, erased and rewritten list of things to do, most of them computer or writing related. I’m motivated to work right now only because I’m behind.

No one is throwing me chocolate.

I’m behind on returning emails. I’m behind on a few promised writing projects I’m behind on longer-term projects that have a cushion, so because of that I’m pushing them to the back of my list. I’m behind on short term projects that I’m simply pushing to the end of my day.

I’m working hard tonight because I must. I’m not happy about it; I’m just leaning hard into my to-do list to see how much I can actually knock off before I fall asleep.

I’m motivated but I’m not enthusiastic.

But I don’t want to be this way. I don’t want to HAVE to do things, I want to WANT to do things.

My eighth-graders were somewhere in between motivation and zeal, but nonetheless, the candy changed the whole mood of the classroom.

I need something to put before me, either physically or metaphorically, that will change the mood of my heart. Something, like the hurled sugar, will motivate me to enthusiasm about the things I need to do. I don’t just want to be motivated by a deadline. I want to be passionate.

Type type type at the computer. What’s my reason for joy? Clean out my inbox. What is my zeal, my passion? Write tomorrow’s blog post. Why am I doing this?

I need to set it in front of me, like an uneaten Hershey bar. Why do I continue?

I’m doing it for Him. And for you. And for my family.

I’m doing it for the joy that comes from hearing one more story from one of you. Hearing another story about restoration, redemption, reconciliation. For the sweet friendships that come from community. I’m doing it because God’s given me the desire to create through writing and if I stop, I dishonor Him.  I work because He’s asked me to and He’s given me opportunity. I’m grateful for that. I’m motivated because I want to be an example for my daughters and a solid wife for my husband. I want to continue to grow and learn and change. I need to — for them.

So when I’m tired and all I want to do is to take a nap as my inbox number climbs and climbs, I need to remember that my zeal should come from what (or WHO) I’m working for.

And it’s not chocolate.

What (or WHO) are you working for?

I’m actually pretty embarrassed to be talking about this.

But I don’t have much to lose. You’ve seen the inside of my heart, the inside of my van, and my face without makeup, so here goes.

I really screwed up last week.

I lead a small group ladies Bible Study at my church and have been teaching this same group for three years.  It’s my stewardship and to be very honest, I’m honored and humbled that people trust me with things like this with things like that in my past.

Leading up to our meeting on Thursday I was distracted, busy and just plain tired. I felt like my life was disheveled and my mind seemed to tear whenever I thought about something new. Heart reflected life and crazy mind reflected crazy days.

I worked on my lesson but treated it like a thing-to-do on a thing-to-do-list. I prepared. I prayed (some). And I packed it away when I was “done.”

And I gave myself an I-can-wing-it pat on the back.

Huge mistake.

I cannot wing something like this.

Even if it is a small group in a small church for a simple hour on a Thursday. It isn’t small but I treated it like it was.

Let’s just say, metaphorically speaking, I got my metaphorical rear end handed to me on a metaphorical platter.

Ouch.

I knew it was going to be sticky when the I realized that the first Scripture I read outloud I didn’t completely understand. I ended up misquoting something, I didn’t do the proper research and I figured out 20 minutes into the lesson that this topic was so much deeper and LESS straightforward than I’d assumed.

I failed them.

The ladies were amazing, however, and forgave me as I bumbled through my apologies mid-lesson.

I went home and sent them each an email asking again for their forgiveness, promising to rely on the One who actually wrote the book and less on myself, and to treat this time and these women with the respect that they deserve. I apologized for failing them.

Sigh.

I’m not a strange to failure, but this is the first time (pretty sure) I’ve failed in this area. I cringe when I think that I allowed my crazy life to get in the way of ministry and that I allowed mySELF to get in the way of God’s working.

However, what I’m realizing today isn’t that I failed THEM, or even that I failed GOD (we do that daily, don’t we?). I’m realizing that I failed me.

I failed me because by neglecting to pray for those women last week I wasn’t able to see God answer prayer.

I failed me because by hurrying through my preparation I missed out on wisdom I might have learned.

I failed me because by underestimating the power of God’s word I underestimated His power in my own life.

I failed me because by treating something big like something small I made myself small.

But even in the middle of my debacle I heard the word grace whispered to me. Grace for me from Him. Grace for me from ME. Because I’m still learning how to do this life well, how to walk worthy of the allegiance I’ve claimed, how to allow the lens of the Kingdom to color my view of the world.

I’m sure I will fail again. Life sometimes equals failure. But I’m learning quicker from my own mistakes.

And I think that is a success.

How are you with failure? Do you give yourself grace? Do you give others grace?

As he faced us in the on-board State Room, the docent told us that that the President had  just asked.

President Reagan, before he died in 2004, simply asked the government for the plane.

The plane he’d flown around the world on when he was president. The plane, that when a president boards, it becomes Air Force One. The plane that had, at the time, been decommissioned and was sitting in a warehouse. It was agreed that if his Presidential Library in Simi Valley, CA built an indoor hangar to display the aircraft, then he could have it.

All because he asked. I guess being the president of the United States for 8 years taught him a couple things, one of which is the power of a request.

Last week I had a conversation with my husband.

“Why don’t you just ask HER?” Chad suggests.

“Because I’m sure she wouldn’t have time to help ME, and by the way, I’m not even sure she does that for people.” I answer.

He thinks for a minute and challenges me. “You say that you aren’t afraid of rejection, Sarah.”

[Using my first name in a conversation with my husband is a sure attention getter.]

“So what would it hurt to just ASK?” He continues. “I think you should.” And he leaves me to churn it deep inside, whisk it around in my brain over the next few days. So I think. And question myself.

But then a few days ago I wrote the email and hit send. And guess what? She said YES.

Even if she hadn’t, practicing the art of it-doesn’t-hurt-to-ask lately has been completely freeing for me.  In my unofficial but intentional self-experiment to attempt to get over the fear of asking people for help I’ve been faced with at least one “no”, one “yes” and one I’ll-get-back-to-you-later.  Not bad, I think.

Why are we so afraid to ask? We are afraid of someone saying “no.” That’s it.

OOhhh, a big, bad NO.

What’s the big deal? I’m going to suggest to you that it truly does not hurt to ask.

If you do ask, this is what I’ve learned from the last few weeks of asking.

• Don’t Ask the Impossible. Ask for something within the person’s skill set or ability. For example, I wouldn’t ask my sister to babysit on a Tuesday at 1 pm if she works until 3. She’ll have to say “no.” And don’t ask for the moon. If you know your mother would agree to watching the kids for the whole weekend, but you also know that she is getting over a cold and is exhausted, use compassion. Don’t prey on her good graces for a positive solution to your problem.
• Be Specific. Make sure you explain the extent of what you need so that the person will have all the information they need to make a decision.  Example: “I’d love to have coffee with you sometime. I’m free on Friday or Saturday. Would you have any free time either of those days.”
• Grow Up. If someone does need to say “no” to you, then get over it. Most of the time it isn’t personal. It’s usually that they are unable to help. And then be gracious. Don’t use it as a reason for bitterness or as a reason to say NO to them in the future. How third grade! Example: If you ask someone to contribute to a cause that you believe in and they decline, it is probably because they cannot for financial reasons.
• Take NO as an Answer. Expect honesty from someone. If they say “no” to you then it means “no”.  Don’t ask again. Don’t be persistent because if you do, you become annoying. Ask once and then let it rest.
• Return the Favor. If you are asking someone to sacrifice time or money, know that they might ask you for help in the future. This kind of stuff is a give-and-take economy. Pay-it-forward to others, but also pay it back, if needed, to the person who helped you. Example: My writer’s group sends around manuscripts occasionally for the rest of us to offer critique on. I participate in this (even though it takes time) because not only do I love them very much, they’ve helped me in the past.
• Ask Within Relationship. Probably not a great idea to ask someone you’ve never had a conversation with to pick you up from the airport when you fly into town. Some people might say yes to something like that. But you shouldn’t count on it. People are more apt to agree to help others that they have some form of relationship with.

So maybe you aren’t asking for entire airplane. Maybe you aren’t even asking for much. But ask.

Just ask. The only thing a “no” will hurt is your pride.

Are you an “asker” or not? Do you take risks in asking people for help?

I can’t always tie it up with a neat little ribbon.

Using my left hand, put my finger in the middle to hold it down while I snap out a bow with my right hand. 1, 2, 3. It’s done. It’s a tight, perfect little knot. It’s tidy.

I can’t always do that.

Because we don’t always live in a neat and orderly world.

We lose marriages, and houses, and we might even lose our children or our parents. Our worlds crumble, our check books crumble, his face crumbles when you give him bad news. We get mean emails, lay-off notices and we get bills taped to our front door.

I can’t always say It’s-gonna-be-okay because sometimes I don’t believe it myself.

I

can’t

see

the

future.

And it bugs me.

[Because I want to write this tidy little blog post where I say that I'm depending on Him today to carry me.]

But I can’t always find the spiritual meaning when I’m stuck in the middle of it. When the grinding of the transition and the memory of the heartache is too big to let me see anything else. Tomorrow is as murky as the LA River.

Even now I’m resisting the urge to find the greater meaning in it all.

Tidy says that God will fix it.

Tidy says that it’s all in His Plan.

Tidy says that I was destined for this.

But I feel like I’m living in UnTidy: Where my heart winds around reality and I don’t feel like “trying to find the best” in it all.

But when my heart can’t see the end or the good, my mind must take over for a day or two to know that there is good. And there might not only be good but there might be better.

Sigh.

Even if that better is hiding behind the deadbolted door labeled Eternity. And I have to be okay with the possibility that I might never get to glimpse the grand purposes behind today’s woes.

Lord, prepare my heart to take blind steps with eyes wide open in the dark. Help me to rely on the KNOWing and not the FEELing of Your presence, beside me, behind me, before me. Watch when I cannot.

Am I alone? Is there anyone else out there feel like this?

“Could you sharpen these pencils?” my daughter’s teacher asked as she walked out of the classroom door. I’d offered my time on a Tuesday morning to help her in any way she needed: filing, stapling and today, sharpening pencils.

I thought about my childhood pencil sharpener as I listened to the WHIRR of the electric one.

My father had bolted it to the inside of a cabinet in our kitchen.

I’d sit at the table doing homework and wear down that pencil to a blunt edge. And because the pencil felt heavy in my hand with a dulled end, I’d scoot my chair out, open the cupboard, and switch the hand-cranked sharpener to the right-sized opening.

I would crunch the wood and taper the tip with each rotation so that graphite dust and pine shavings would collect on the shelf beneath the sharpener.

The whole cabinet smelled hard and bitter like cut wood, but familiar.

Pencils are a sought-after commodity in the second grade classroom. Everything is written in pencil because at eight-years-old, the eraser is almost as important as the tip.

I finished the sharpening and placed the pencils tip-up in a cup.

Even her teacher, who’s been teaching for many years, writes everything in pencil, I thought as I filed student work in folders with their names written in the teacher’s practiced cursive across the tab.

Taylor

Madison

Hope

Michael

All written in pencil so that it could be erased for next year’s second graders. And beneath the collection of this year’s names I saw the erased words from last year: Julianna, Audrey, Jackson.

Pencils. So easy to come by and so easy to erase.

I realized as I looked at Hope’s name, difficult to read over the name that had been erased from the previous class, that there are places where our names our never erased.

In our families. In the hearts of our friends.

My name is written, as permanent as a tattoo, in the life of my husband, my daughters, my own mother.

My name isn’t erased in the life of someone that I’ve told the truth to. It isn’t erased in the heart of someone I’ve wounded.

Our names are written in un-eraseable ink on the mind of God, in the narrative of this world, in God’s story. It isn’t erased because it cannot be erased.

Our names and our lives are indelible. They aren’t easily replaced like the penciled-in name at the top of a file folder. We aren’t disposable and we aren’t forgettable.

Each one of us.

We are worth the permanence of His ink, His blood.

Knowing that we must treat others as if they are written in ink and not in graphite: important, memorable and ingrained into the fabric of the world’s story just as we’ve been written indelibly on the heart of God.

What do you think? What does it take to make you feel this way?

I’m not a loser.

I mean, I don’t lose a lot of things. I usually keep things close at hand and I can’t go to sleep at night if any part of my vital person is missing. I need to know where my keys are. I need to know where my wallet is, the cat, the dog, my purse. All of it.

I can’t rest if things are lost.

I lost Hope once. My daughter. In a crowded place. In a desperate place.

Getting Lost By Walking Forward

posted at (in)courage

A couple years ago, I lost my daughter at Disneyland.

We were in a large group: six adults and four children and we all stopped to look at a fountain.

But Hope, six years old at the time, kept walking. She didn’t intentionally wander off exerting defiance or trying to be naughty.

She simply kept going in the same direction we’d all been walking a few minutes before.

But I didn’t know that.

None of us knew that.

We paused. Nine of us watched the fountain:  all six adults and three children.

Three children.

Where’s Hope?

WHERE’S HOPE???!

Click over to (in)courage to read the rest of the story and then come back to tell me what you think.

Have you ever “lost yourself” by not paying attention to your surroundings?