The Tangible Realities

Why share such intimate details of my life?  Opening up my heart to the things that bring me joy is easy. It's easy for most people to share the good.  However when we keep quiet about the private issues, how do we learn and grow from each other.  I can read lots of books on the areas of my life that need working on.  I learn more with the tangible.  Being able to sit, chat and hear the struggles of another and how they have worked through those issues.

This past fall there were three women who opened up their hearts about the struggles in their marriages.  The conversation was not about me, and my marriage. It was about someone sharing how they "worked" through some very hard issues. I took mental notes. I listened and asked questions.  All three women shared things with me that brought insights into my own heart.  They did not realize it at the time, but my heart was challenged by their words.  My heart was opened to understand things about marriage that I had never considered.  Books did not teach me any of the things these wise women spoke of so deeply.

I think as women we are paralyzed to speak of the deeper issues in our life.  We fear the judgments of another and resist telling the entire story, or sharing the story at all.  I loved how each of these women honored their husbands as they spoke and did not speak out in a way that would cast any shadows on the characters of their husbands.  This is tangible living.  I guess I share so deeply the processes of my heart so another may find a tangible for themselves to learn and grow from.

Without sharing the harder things in my life, I could not show just how magnificent God is in my life.  How God shows up and restores, rebuilds, and grows deeper in my life.  Without sharing the harder things one might read this, and as I glaze over the details, one might fill in the details making it less that what it really is. I want God to be more and by being more I must share more for you, the reader to really know His character to come alongside and work His divine miracles in my life.  

I am not paralyzed by my sorted past.  I share openly with the prayer that you the reader will dig a little deeper into your own heart to learn and to grown closer to a God who is there every single moment waiting to have it all handed over to Him.

I have prayed for wisdom in this past season of my marriage. Made a few to many mistakes and God brought three women who could openly share the difficulties they faced with their marriages.  Later I shared with these women (and if you are reading, you know who you are) how much they helped me along.  One woman was shocked that her life, her walk with God, and her process in the sorted details of marriage could help me along.  Why be shocked?  Tangible is how God designed me.  Perhaps that is why I have loved being an interior designer, or could never put my kids in daycare, or loved cooking, and cleaning and finding my way. It's all hands on.

I guess you can say my life is an open book.  You have to pick up a book to open it up to read it, and that takes hands to do so, so again hands on, the tangible.  I hope my life, an open book, opens your heart to dig a little deeper.  Compels you to want to share those deeper issues with those around you, because you never know who's life you may touch. What your testimony will share and how God will use you.

2 Timothy 1:8 "Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or of me, in suffering for the Gospel...."

If suffering is facing the judgments of others, then on most days I can handle it.  I realize with a public blog there will be judgments and criticisms. However in sharing so deeply the intimacies of my life my prayer is that someone will come away knowing God in a more intimate and beautiful way.  It's a super natural kind of love affair.  One that shows up in ever aspect of my life.

God brought me three women this past fall who spoke in tangible ways about their lives. They clearly were not paralyzed with the fear of judgment in the depth of their sharing and I came away with more understandings of marriage than any book I have ever known. I know God knows me intimately and knows that this girl needed hands on brought to me through three lovely ladies.

What kind of tangible life are you living?  Are you leaving your story untold, or full of holes because of the fear of being known?  Showing how God has raised you up, brought you out, and is making you whole is your story to be shared so another who is not as far along as you can grab hold to a deeper relationship with God.  Praying that my dear sisters in Christ would share the intimacies that God has changed in you today. Love and Blessings.