My Heart is Full

I ran across this picture, just the other day.  It was painted way before my life turned upside down and inside out.  I thought my heart was full.  As I look back from a different vantage point I am beginning to see that perhaps my life was full, but not my heart.  Perhaps, I had lived with such a full life that it had kept me from living with a full heart.  Maybe I equated a full life with a full heart.

 I really believe Jesus longs for us to allow Him to fill us and then everything else is the overflow of that goodness.  How easy it is for us to complicate that design.  To build our self worth on what we do rather than who's we are.  To fill our lives with good things, even God things but allow them to crowd out His voice and His perfect work for our lives.

I am not perfect (far from it) and sometimes my heart feels empty and hollow.  The pains of life, the barrenness of a busy life drain my heart from full to empty.  I alone hold responsibility for the condition of my heart.  I hold unto the fact that empty is only how I feel, not the reality.   That He never leaves me, but sometimes I become so filled with other things He is squeezed into a tight space in my heart instead of having free reign.  The God of the universe fills my spirit and He alone is exactly what I long for.  I may drown Him out sometimes with the busyness of life, sometimes I may even think I need something else to fill my heart such as friends, money, work or whatever (you could just fill in the blank with whatever your "filler" is).  However, He is always there waiting for me to slow down and prioritize Him as the most important thing.

Looking back I can see that years of serving the body had created a heart that focused on loving His people sometimes more than loving the creator.  Don't get me wrong, I always loved God but sometimes the people and the work became more important. It was never intentional, it was just a slow drifting.  Like floating in the ocean and all the sudden realizing you are far from shore.  We all sometimes need a reminder to be first full of Him and then we can pour out of that abundance unto those we love.

I am learning this lesson as one who has been stripped of a great deal of identity and now I am finding my true identity.  I thought I had already figured it out, but alas I still am working it out. I am hopeful for what this new season brings and expectant for the future. My joy isn't tethered to who likes me, how well I do at my job or even a man.  That's right I said it, I don't need a man. Whaaaat, some of my old time friends are gasping and surprised by this, and to be honest I vacillate around this issue. I always settle back into this truth, I need a heart full of Jesus nothing else will fit that deep need.  Anything I use to try to fill that, is just a prop for the real thing.

So today on this journey, I am finding my way to back to joy and it comes from having my heart full of Jesus.  Why do I seem to forget this intermittently in my life?  Just human I suppose.

Love to all my human friends, thanks for celebrating who I am and who I am becoming.  One day, we won't be human we will be heavenly and won't that be awesome!!

Debbie

Dance like you just don't care!

Sometimes you just have to be brave and dance 

like you just don't care!

I have been thinking about this whole shake it off thing..... 

There has been a whole lot of shaking.  I looked at this video today and all I could think was, God surely has a sense of humor.  He talks to me in my own language, the language of fun and laughter. 

Laughter does a heart good.  

 So here is some laughter from me....it's funny no matter how you look at it.  At the end of the day I choose to believe that God was right in the middle of everything that happened.  This idea of shaking it off has become my battle cry, when it feels like it is out of control I go back to that....and so do my friends.  
                                    Remember Debbie, shake it off! (I have great friends)
So I laugh more than ever since the bomb dropped, I am full of hope for the future as I look at life from the perspective of eternity. I want to be the best me, possible.  We can't let our circumstances or the pain of the past determine out future.  God's purposes and plans will not be denied if we are willing to be obedient and keep shaking it off.  Let's stay away from the desert and march on together towards the promise land. We are stronger than we think, God is bigger than any problem and Jesus is enough to bring joy regardless of circumstances.  Be encouraged friends.  
Love my tribe!

click the link below to watch the video....get ready to laugh!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwRp8ggVfJU2bEVna3dkUmdKN1U/view?usp=sharing

Grudgingly, Hopefully, Trudging Towards the New Me

Here is the ugly, beautiful messy story of this new version of me.  I am six months into one of the biggest transitions of my life.  I hate it and I love it. 
I would have never chosen this, but it is what it is and so it means transition. When I delivered each of my babies, during transition I always threw up.  Seriously got violently ill.  I don't like transition, my body doesn't like transition but here we are...body, soul and spirit transitioning.  However, something great came after those times of transition...my babies.  So transition is painful, messy and sickening but necessary for the next great thing.



I watch the sunrise every morning and am reminded that all the earth is transitioning.  It is spinning, days are coming and going and weather is transitioning.   Truth is God designed us with transition in mind.  We weren't meant to stay stagnant. From glory to glory is what scripture teaches us.  We were created for transition, for change, transformation, whatever you want to call it....most of the time it is gradual and we are hopefully, joyfully changing with little or no intention.  It is just happening as we grow older and wiser.   

Not this time.  I am grudgingly, hopefully, trudging.  I am forcing myself to believe that His purposes will be seen.  That one day I will just suddenly be able to see the why, in all of this.  It's weird that it is so painful still six months later.  That my life had been segmented into before Justin died and after and now it is segmented again....before I lost my life and after. Both traumatizing. Both life altering. 

I know you have to lose your life in order to find it.  The scriptural principle.  I get it.  I lost my friends, my job, my spouse, my life literally was stripped away.  And I loved my life.  I loved being a pastor's wife, loved my church family, loved my home.  But it was sadly coated in a beautiful lie and untangling from that meant transition.  In order to survive it meant transition.  Difficult, painful, gritty, truth telling, ugly transition.  To stay in that other world, would have destroyed me and I knew it.  In the very core of my being I knew it and so I began transitioning to a new version of me.

Sometimes this transitioning to a new home, a new job, new friends is actually beautiful in a haunting kind of way.  In that way where your heart is shattered and you are holding the pieces together with duck tape but no one can see that. They are kind and loving and you could see being friends with them but the ghost of your past are just lurking there.  You can laugh with them but inside you are thinking about all the history that they don't know.  I miss the friends that know the whole story, that love you even when you laugh to loud, or cry to easy.  It's history that cements people together and I don't have history here with these new friends. Not yet anyway.

And yet, history is always unfolding, transitioning.  New history happening every day.  I have new people in my life, I am gradually making new history.  They will never take the place of the history I have had, but they are part of the history I am making now.  It is difficult and vulnerable this transitioning and creating a new life.  Nothing feels safe and stable (including myself).

There is a rumbling and a shaking in order to create real change....all great things are preceded by chaos.  There is a great thing happening, but the transition is painful, ugly, lonely, messy and I want to rejoice in it....I really do.  

It's just sometimes I want to throw up.  Sometimes I want to scream and cry and shake my fist at the maker of the universe.  I am terrified, vulnerable and  strangely out of my element.   Then it passes, the Lord gives me a sweet comfort.  He reminds me that I have survived, that I made it through another day, week, month.  He reminds me that I laughed, that I made a friend, that I have a purpose,

So I throw myself into the transition, the new job, the new learning curve, the purpose, the passion of helping these women on the other side of the world.  I seek to make new friends, find a new rhythm, stay close to family and I go to church.  I go to church, where I am just a member not a pastor.  I listen to the word, I pass by hundreds of people and wonder what the future holds for me.  Will I get to know them, will I love them like I loved my church family before?

I will rejoice in the truth.  I will rejoice in this transition.  I will rejoice in the fact that no matter where I am or where I go, I do not go alone.

Stripped of it all, except Jesus who will never leave me or forsake me.  Now, I am becoming a different version of me.  Transitioning excitedly into someone I sometimes don't even recognize.   I am braver and stronger  and at the same time more broken and humbled than ever before.  This new me is dependent on Christ,  not my own strength and way out of my comfort zone.
My strength has left and in this transition, in this push to the new me....it is all Him because I just want to throw up (Okay, maybe that is an exaggeration).

But seriously, my own ability is not enough for this new me....it has to be all God.

I know what you are thinking, didn't she already learn this?  

Apparently there are different levels of this kind of learning.  Don't judge.

Anyway that is my story for now....my messy, vulnerable, crazy, exciting new adventure.  I miss my tribe, my friends that I call family(framily) and I think I always will, but I am making room for new friends.  There is room in my heart for the new and the old, and the world will eventually quit shaking, the chaos of emotion, the shaking of transition will eventually lessen.  Le't be honest this was an  "8" on the earthquake scale. 

Thank God, He has kept me through it all,  close to His heart and set my feet upon solid ground. True,  everywhere I look in my heart it is shaken and crumbled but He is the resurrection King!

One Day Soon

I thought I would write something deep and personal and maybe this poetry is.....it is just what came pouring out as I typed.  This is me, my new life, my new job, my new home.  Not much time to get sad, I'll write more I am sure when the pressure of finding my way in a new job lessens.  Pray that is sooner rather than later.  I love it, I do.  It's just been awhile since I have had to work so hard to learn new things.  I am in over my head, no doubt but I know it is right where God want's me.  Trying to figure out how to post a short video on here for a few friends that said they miss my laugh, sometimes I even miss my laugh(Maybe tomorrow I will figure it out).  Laughing more every day, improvement is a good thing.  Miss my friends, miss my boys...Don't think for a minute that I don't think of you often and long to be in your sweet presence. God is making all things new and that is enough for now.


One Day Soon

I thought I had lived life

I had grown and I had grown

I had still not touched the sun

There were bright days and dark nights

Still I had not touched the sun

I had stretched and stretched reaching for the sun

Been despaired at the lack of warmth

I had been cut down, run over and sifted

Yet, still I grew

I was small so very small

But never knew until I grew tall

I reached

I withdrew

I danced with cold fear

And still I grew

I was dead in the dirt

Cracked open and hurt

Still I grew and I grew

Pain twisted my seed

I held tight to its root

And the sun still shone

Its warmth bringing hope

New shoots breaking forth

Pushing through hard ground

Seeking out the sun

New life still grows and grows

Though death enfolds the fallen leaves

The new still grows and grows

The old crumbles, cracks and falls to the ground

I grow and I grow

Still I have not touched the sun

I have grown taller and taller still

And yet I am still so small

Still reaching for the sun

Still growing and growing

My face bent towards the sun

And my roots digging deep

This is a new season

Warmth is shining

I am living

One day soon

I shall touch the sun

A Little Update

Hello Tribe,
So it's hard for me to write.  Such a depth of pain and transition is rarely speakable and yet at the same time there is an anticipation and a confidence in God's plans.  I will never understand why things had to happen the way they did on this side of heaven.  My heart broken not just for myself, but for all those affected by such betrayal.  I am often still shocked and dumbfounded by the turn of events....BUT one day when we cross over into heaven it will be so clear how God has turned it for our good.  Romans 8:28  Whatever happens, I stand on that promise, that He turns all things to good.

I once heard someone say they ate fear for breakfast.  I didn't get it.  I thought it was a quote from something they had read and maybe I should read.  I didn't think about it much after that, until today. This morning I thought, I eat fear for breakfast.... I choke it down and keep going, keep believing that this is part of the plan.

I do my day with fear sitting in the pit of my stomach, but I do it anyway.  I am not fearless, but I am brave.  This new adventure sits before me and I will run into it with everything I have.  I will do it afraid, I will eat fear for breakfast and then I will see the promises of God unfold before me.

Sad, yes I am sad but I am also glad. Glad that the plans and purposes for my life are not thwarted by the enemies destructive schemes.  I will make a difference in this world, I will not give up and I will eat fear for breakfast and one day I will look back and see that HIS glorious will has taken me to places I could have never dreamed of.

Pray for me as I pack up and leave the place I have called home for over twenty years. I love my tribe here in Southern California with all my heart.  As a matter of fact I am leaving a part of my heart in each person that heard my story, heard me preach and teach, shared their life with me.  We all belong to one another, we are family.   God's family.

Let's all be brave together, eat fear for breakfast and take a leap of faith in your own life.  There is no dream too big for God.  I can't wait to hear what God does in all our lives as we grow braver and more confident every day!  Take the chances, follow the dreams, live in the excitement Christ intended for us, we were made for greatness!  Never give up sweet friends, we shall overcome!

It's so funny, I thought I was already all grown up.  Turns out I am still growing, and this adventure is part of the growing.  This is the new year and the new me....crazy but so exciting.  Didn't see it coming but embracing it all the same.

Below is a letter I sent out to some asking for support for this upcoming year.  Take a minute and read it, pray for my new adventure and ask God if you should partner with me.  Every little bit will help me follow HIS direction.

Hello Family and friends,

      Happy New Year!  January comes with many exciting changes for me, a chance to write new adventures in my life story.  I am so thankful for the time I had in ministry with The Rivers Edge Church and it’s community, the growth and seasoning it brought to my life cannot possibly be tallied this side of heaven.  As I look back I see that God is always positioning us for the next thing (after all He knows all the plot twists way before we ever even see them on the horizon).  So as I contemplate the friends I have made and the love we have shared I am filled with hope and anticipation that this is not the end of our story, but merely a change in the direction.  

     On January 19th I will begin a new job with an organization I have partnered with for many years, HEART (Health Education Africa Resource Team).  HEART is a non-profit group that is a beautiful picture of loving the orphans and widows.  They are making a difference every day in Kenya!  HEART has a great reputation and over 80% of their project money goes directly to help on the ground in Kenya.  Please click on the link to read about all that they do throughout their widespread influence in Kenya. http://www.africaheart.com/who-we-are/#impact

     This job was a sudden opportunity; they as a non-profit were not quite prepared to fill this position with a full time salary but the need of someone is urgent.  My salary is not available in their general budget, but when the founder realized I was available they began to pray.  They truly were at a crossroads, they needed more funding (to help more people) but in order to build more relationships and develop more funding they needed to hire someone.  So together we are taking a leap of faith, believing that this is God's divine will for my life and for the future of HEART.  I am asking if you can help support me through giving to HEART’S general budget for this upcoming year.  As I am training, learning and building the foundation of a new “Community Development Director” your tax deductible donations will help support my salary for this first year.  

      Your money will help me to pour my heart into helping these women and children that are so precious in my sight, as well as in God's sight.  Once up and running I believe I will be able to make a huge impact on the ground in Kenya as I travel there, but also in funding throughout the United States. I believe that provision will follow the vision God has given me as I develop this new position, but this first year I will need a little help from my friends.   

I am praying that we will still partner in building the Kingdom together as I take this next step towards a surprising future.  There are several ways you can give; personally, as a church, or an organization.  When you give to the general budget, just please include my name in the notes section.  

·         Online monthly at https://heart.networkforgood.com/                                            

·         Send a check monthly to HEART  P.O. Box 631964 Highlands Ranch, CO 80163 again mentioning my name.

·         I will receive 100% of your donation toward my salary.

 Please pray for me as I pray for you, together we are better!   Please feel free to call me to find out more about my new adventure and prayerfully consider supporting HEART and myself in this new year.
In Christ Amazing Love,
Debbie Hornsby    951.662.9427                                                                                                                    P.S. I would love to come share about HEART at your church, women's group, event, missions group, etc.  I know you will fall in love with HEART just like I have.  Perhaps you will even join me on a team trip to Kenya.  That would fill my heart with joy!!

Follow us on: [http://www.mail-signatures.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/facebook.png] <https://www.facebook.com/AFRICAHEART> [http://www.mail-signatures.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/twitter.png] <https://twitter.com/AfricaHeart1> [http://www.mail-signatures.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/instagram.png] <https://instagram.com/africaheart1/>
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So this is my Merry Christmas...a little bit sad and a lot of joy!

Health Education Africa Resource Team
Founder Vickie Winkler

Merry Christmas from my heart to yours.  Third Christmas without my son, Justin and now this.  This is my third Christmas that I haven't been able to bring myself to send out cards, I am not even doing gifts (please forgive me I just can't seem to emotionally bring myself to go to a mall nor have I had the time or finances).  It's not as easy to be jolly and joyful when the debris of desolation lies all around you.  For months I spent almost every day in tears I really didn't think I could make it through.  The losses so great, I sometimes felt as though I might never recover BUT God.

Let me start at the beginning....Many years ago, I think close to nine I was waking up in the middle of the night crying and praying for Africa.  It seemed so strange, because I had absolutely no connection to Africa.  Then one day into church walked a man from Kenya and he invited me to go to Kenya, that is where I got introduced to HEART.  We stayed at the HEART lodge and I met Vickie, we traveled around Kenya meeting the people and staying at an orphanage. That was the beginning of my love affair with the Kenyan people.  I can still remember the first time I left crying as the plane taxied away.

I always hated leaving, always wanted to do more there, always left a piece of my heart there.  It never made any sense on the surface, why would God have given me such a love for this place, for these women and their children, for the Masai girls, for the beauty of the African landscape?  After all I had a church to help build, my children needed me, my life was here in the states not on a foreign continent.  Yet, year after year I continued to go and be blessed always wondering if I would go more once my children were grown.  If perhaps one day this burning desire to be more involved would be realized.  It always puzzled me.

Then one day a bomb dropped and blew my world apart.  I suppose somewhere in my heart I was always waiting for it.  Where there is smoke there is fire and eventually truth is always revealed.  I don't regret the years, the love, the life but it was over in two searing days of brutal honesty.  A fatal wound to one part of my life, BUT God the redeemer had a plan.

So I am still a bit sad.  It is still not easy,  BUT God had a plan.  It had been there all along.  A seed of love for a country far away, prayers and tears had fed the seed.  My heart had been connected with Vickie Winkler and she had become a friend and the ministry of HEART one of my greatest passions.  It seems sudden but in reality it was part of the plan, the plan to put me back together with His purposes and His passion.  The plan to reveal His divine appointments, His weaving of passion and purpose throughout the last ten years is now revealed.  It is so comforting to know He was aware, He was planning, He was positioning, He was preparing....He knew all along exactly what would happen, the sin that would blow my world apart. He knew all along that the dreams and love for Kenya and the women of HEART would be just what would rise out of the rubble.

So with great joy, I announce that as of Monday January 18th I will be part of the HEART team.  My official title will be Community Development but it might as well be ......

Joyful woman that gets to lay her life down to help women with HIV/AIDS, to do orphan prevention, to help stop female genital mutilation, to help girls stay in school, to help fund clean water programs, create sustaining food programs, train widows to provide for their families and provide food and shelter for the poorest of the poor. 

I guess that is to long of a title but it seems much more fitting. So with joy I move forward in my life. It is a new chapter, a new beginning.  I am sad to leave California, but glad to go home to Texas.  I have always been a Texas girl at heart.  So I am returning to where I started so many years ago for a fresh start.  I don't know if it's forever, I only know that I can trust God with the plan.  

As my new pastor(Pastor Jackie)said this past Sunday from Church On The Rock in Lubbock, 

   Change is difficult, but there is always a purpose.  There is always a promise attached to the     purpose and there is always a plan to get you to the promise.  (paraphrased version)

So look for more information from me.  Look for more joy from me.  Look for Texas to be good for me, southern hospitality and close family will do me good.  I won't be gone for long, I will be traveling quite a bit and that means getting to see old friends and make new ones.  

I don't know what the future holds, but I know the one who holds the future.  I am smiling once again as I see His hands at work in my life.  Hands of provision and promise.  I am happier now, then yesterday, I have more joy than I could have envisioned four months ago and it just keeps getting better.  

 Follow me to stay updated and maybe you will join me on a mission trip one day and you too will leave a piece of your heart in Kenya!

Thanks for loving me so well, following my blog and sharing the journey with me.  Together we are better,  LOVE you people so much!  Merry Christmas.

Debbie

P.S. Check out all that HEART does...http://www.africaheart.com/who-we-are/#impact

              She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs                   without fear of the future. Proverbs 31:25

Strength for Tomorrow

 28 We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God—those whom he has called according to his plan.Romans 8:28 (GW)

All things work together for good but that doesn't mean all things are good.  It just means God can use that awful tragic thing somewhere down the road.   It means we all have the opportunity to make the choice....I won't be what happened to me, Ill be what I become.  

We all have the choice when we are living in the pain of our "today".  When memories are sometimes as painful as physical wounds, we often carry our wounds and scars deep in the hidden recesses of our hearts. 

They are locked in our hearts as memories, we cannot live without them, but we cannot live within them either.  

Those scars are just that, scars.  Proof of what we have lived through but not proof of who we are.  Those wounds heal over time if we are willing to do the hard work, to dig out even the slightest splinter of unforgiveness, to push love deep into the wound so that it can heal instead of fester.  

Once that wound has healed, once that scar has closed and time has worked it's plan that scar is proof of faithfulness, recovery, restoration and hope.  You have survived, what you thought would kill you.  

When you look back at yesterdays pain you suddenly realize it has given you strength.  God has been there, an ever present help in time of trouble.  It was still brutal and bloody, messy and ugly.  You may have been hemorraging with pain and lonliness, but upon further reflection you can see the shadow of the Almighty.  

You can come out from being frozen by shame and held hostage to silence.  You can let out a victory cry and a painful howl for everything lost and yet to be found.  Because both are true, things have been lost but victory is coming.   

Everyday you have the choice to grow from your pain, to put to death pity and self loathing.  To embrace the healing journey and wear the scars as a badge of honor. What was meant to destroy you has only made you stronger and better.  

Don't live in the pain of yesterdays bad memories, allow them to heal, allow them to make you stronger, braver, wiser.  Yesterday teaches us what we need to carry into the future, yesterdays are full of seeds for destiny.  The pain you are currently feeling is temporary, each day healing and strength are being restored and what you planted in the past is bringing forth hope in your future.  Life, like a mighty river keeps rolling along with all it's twist and turns, with the pain of disappointment raging, but suddenly you will come out of that and see the beautiful scenery.  You realize life has taken you to a better place, and joy has been restored.  
Life never looks quite like what you expect, you can't plan it all out.  Sh*t happens, you just have to choose to live in hope, and become. 

It's tough, but you are tougher.

It takes the whole story to get you there, to round the bend                                        and become the new you.                                                                                                              

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

These words flash through my mind over and over again....unintended journey.  I am on an unintended journey.  A road less traveled, that's for sure.  I am not sure where it is going to take me, but I am excited.  I am full of hope for the future.  I have just spent the last one hundred days of my life in some of the darkest of days.  Pain that creeps upon you and paralyzes you, tears that won't quit.

No one likes to talk about the raw truth of how ugly and painful and shameful things can be, but I will.  Because many of you have felt that too.  You have known the hurt of unexpected journeys, of loss and disappointment.  Like me you have walked through times of silence from God, but like me if you press on one step at a time you will hear His voice again.  You will feel His presence again. Be brave friends the promises of God are just around the bend in the road.

On this unintended journey, understanding was critical.  It is just how I am wired, how God created me.  How did I end up here?   I have split my heart open and examined it loathingly and fearlessly.  I have seen my failures, my flesh, my selfishness, my pride, my desires, my codependency,my blindness, my works mentality, etc.  I have looked at it with new eyes, fresh eyes born of the spirit.  I have had a Damascus moment.  A life changing moment.

I can fix no one but myself.  I have no responsibility,  but for my own heart.  I cannot change what has happened, but I can change the pain.  If  I don't transform the pain I will transfer it to others.  I choose to follow the Healer, to repent for anything I have done and transform the pain to gain.  I choose to believe that somewhere over the rainbow the healing will come.  I can trust the God of the universe to point me in the right direction.  I may not be able to see past the curve in the road but I can trust Him to keep laying the road out in front of me and leading me to the promises.

These days it is not so brutal, these days it is easier and easier.  These days the Lord gives me dreams and visions and fills my nights with song.  These days He gives me friends to carry me on my mat to the healer.  Take a look at Matthew 2 where the four friends carried their sick, broken friend to be healed.  We all need those friends.  These days there is less carrying and more walking it out.  I am still carried in some ways; by prayers and laughter, small gestures and big hearts. Jesus is strengthening my heart daily in the sweetest of ways.

This I know, we shall overcome. Every last one of us that profess the name of Jesus shall overcome.

So I give myself broken, damaged, humbled, to the Holy one who says.....when you are weak I am strong and I say in all honesty I am weak and He strengthens me with the one thing that is so easily lost....HOPE.

I am a laid down lover of God and no amount of hell is ever gonna change that because GOD IS GOOD.  Circumstances suck, consequences affect us all, this world is really messed up, but God is still good.  The best is still yet to come.

Be filled with hope friends, Joy always comes in the morning!  Laughing again and loving my tribe.
Let's be brave together, let's be kind to one another, carry the broken, humble ourselves and let's just focus on the speck in our own eye.  Love better and bigger than ever, expect nothing in return.

I thought I was Brave....

Today I sat for an hour in a physical therapy room watching brave everyday people learning to sit, stand and walk.  Tears rolled down my cheeks the whole time.  The young boy with the scar up the back of his head walking in large circles around the room being cheered on every lap as he passed me.  Other people just trying to be able to move their hands.  Precious children of God all struggling to do things that we take for granted every day.  Sometimes I feel sorry for myself, sometimes I have a pity party but this bravery and strength, this determination that I see in these hearts makes me feel ridiculous, ashamed really.  It could be so much worse.  Yes, my heart is broke.  Some of us are broke on the inside and some on the outside.  I think my broken heart will heal much easier than most of the men, women and children I see doing physical therapy.  Every time my Dad stands up, the effort looks like he is squatting five hundred pounds.  He hits the top and we smile and celebrate the victory.  The inner cheerleader in me wants to run around the room cheering each person on, telling them how brave and daring they are, telling them how proud they should be of themselves(I don't do this because I am sure it might embarrass them).  They are each hero's, in their own ways.  They are those who won't be broken by their circumstances. 

Then there is the M.D.Anderson Hospital.  Waiting rooms full of people fighting for their lives,  They epitomize "Rocky" the fighter as they are pumped full of horrifying medicines, beaten down by the after effects of chemo and then get right back up and keep fighting.  Fighting for life, fighting for hope, fighting for their loved ones.  My stepmother amazes me as we travel from her treatments to my Dad's treatments she never complains.  SHE NEVER COMPLAINS. We run through list of things we are thankful for as we drive, we stay positive, we laugh and I cry.  All day long tears leak out of my eyes and down my cheeks because I love these people, this family and because I had forgot how good life is even when it's bad.   It can be beautiful to struggle together, to kiss the top of my Dad's head, to sit and play games while poison is dripping into Gwen's body, to see grown men stand for the first time, to celebrate every tiny little thing with a different perspective.  Is it hard? YES but their is beauty in the hard things, there is hope in every moment, there is victory in the smallest of accomplishments and there is love, there is always love. 

I thought I was brave and maybe I was but this is true bravery, true strength.  So today I repented for my pity parties, uninvited all the guest in my head, set my heart right before the Lord and decided I could be braver, I could see more beauty and less of the ugly.  My heart is broken but only a part of it and just like all these brave, determined people I am just going to keep exercising it until it is strong again.  I don't think I can quit crying but maybe that can be beautiful too, just letting people see the inside as it leaks out your eyes is an act of honesty and beauty.  Feelings aren't bad, crying doesn't make you weak it makes you real.  So I cry for happy things and I cry for sad things, basically I cry when I am happy and when I am sad and everywhere in between.  Eventually that will stop as I exercise my heart more and more, the sad will get less and less. 

I know God is fixing my broken heart, showing me new things, near to me, teaching me how to move to a whole new level of brave. I get to see "that brave" in others every day.   Change, He changed the world and He is the one who will change my heart.  Thankful for the opportunity to be here, in this moment, in this season, to know wholeheartedly that I am surrounded by bravery and beauty and to allow it to help heal my broken heart.  This unexpected journey is going to be beautiful and I am going to lean into it wholeheartedly.  I won't be broken by circumstances as a matter of fact I think I will just grow stronger. I think it's going to be exciting to see where it all goes from here.  Not quite what I had planned but who's life really ever goes as planned?  The only one that really knows is God He sees the beginning and the end all at the same time....He is the master planner, my plans were just that...mine.  Now, it's His turn. 

Pretty, Pretty Please

Made a wrong turn once or twice
Dug my way out, blood and fire
Bad decisions, that's alright
Welcome to my silly life

Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss 'No way, it's all good'
It didn't slow me down.
Mistaken, always second guessing
Underestimated, look I'm still around

Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than perfect
Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing, you're perfect to me

You're so mean (so mean) when you talk (when you talk)
About yourself. You were wrong.
Change the voices (change the voices) in your head (in your head)
Make them like you instead.

So complicated,
Look how we all make it.
Filled with so much hatred
Such a tired game
It's enough, I've done all I could think of
Chased down all my demons
I've seen you do the same
(Oh oh)

Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than perfect
Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing, you're perfect to me

The whole world's scared, so I swallow the fear
The only thing I should be drinking is an ice cold tea
So cool in lying and we try, try, try but we try too hard
And it's a waste of my time.
Done looking for the critics, cause they're everywhere
They don't like my jeans, they don't get my hair
Exchange ourselves and we do it all the time
Why do we do that, why do I do that (why do I do that)?

(Yeah! Oh!)
Oh, pretty, pretty, pretty

Pretty, pretty please, don't you ever, ever feel
Like you're less than perfect
Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing, you're perfect to me
(You're perfect, you're perfect)
Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel
Like you're nothing, you're perfect to me.

I have sanitized this Pink song for my "Holy Rollers" and my "Teen Queens".  Not validating the cuss words but saying the words to this song are amazing!  Change the voices in your head, uuummm hello!  That is the answer.  Don't let the enemy plant any negative thoughts, pull them out and replace them with truth.  You are perfect and righteous covered in His blood.  We have all made mistakes, forgive yourself, God already has.  Mistreated, yea welcome to the world.  We all get mistreated at times but so did Jesus.  There is no escaping the difficulties of this messy world but YOU are perfect, don't exchange who you are in Christ to fit in or please the critics.  BE TRUE TO YOU.  That is what the world needs more authentic Christians.  Messy, beautiful, broken, healing, loving, dreaming, bold, lovers of God.  Lets take over the world with His love.

My tribe, I love you.  Believe it even when I am not there physically, I am praying for you and believing for the best possible expression of God's love in and through your life.  Love you all so very much.  We win in the end!

In Christ Amazing Love,

Debbie
P.S. I don't know if Pink knows Jesus but I can hear Jesus telling me this...He can use anything!  And he doesn't want any of us to feel like nothing or less than.  Hold your head up and be fearless!