Be Real

When life seems crazy and you find yourself needing a good dry cleaning, and you get stuck in the dryer.
Life just needs to get real.

    Yesterday the phrase, "Be Real" was rolling around in my head.  We live in a such an unreal world.  Pictures are photo shopped to look perfect, music recorded is adjusted in the studio to 'sound better.' If you don't believe that, just hear your favorite band live someday.  Videos are edited and the movie industry has all kinds of 'trick' photography. 

   When we get down to life, we're not much different than the rest of the world. People walk around with their masks on pretending that they are so much better than they really are.  Sometimes cause they just don't want to face what they're going through, and sometimes because they don't want anyone else to know that they're hurting.  I think that's when pride enters in.

  It's not that one should walk around with their dirty laundry exposed for everyone to see, but there are times and places you need to just get real.  Quit playing the game, and be real and honest.  Oh human nature doesn't like to be honest, cause then it might show that we're not perfect.  No one is perfect.  (Except Jesus)  The rest of us, are what is called, human, full of faults and failings.  

   But thank God we have Jesus to help us through all those faults and failings.

   I heard on the radio yesterday a young lady, who is a Christian singer, get real. She's made fame with her music in the Christian world, but from what she said on the interview, things were falling apart at home.  She said, her and her husband decided to get real, and begin to share that things weren't going well, they got help.  She didn't share any details, and I don't need to know, but it sounded though things might not be perfect, they're on the road to recovery.  She said since they've opened up other couples have come to them, confessing that they're falling apart at home too.  Being real, has allowed her and her husband to help others get real, and get help. Christianity is not the great cover-up but the great unveiling.  It's when God starts pulling back the layers in our life, to expose those things that need correction.  It's the unfolding of His grace.  Taking what is awful and making it into something beautiful.  God has a way of doing that.

    Just like when you peel an onion pulling back those layers can cause tears.  Tears can wash though.  In Grief Share, I learned the phrase, "Tears give you a good washing, and laughter a good dry cleaning."  We need them both.  There are just some areas that crying over it won't help any more, so you might as well laugh.

   Some time ago, Kristi (my daughter) and I were talking, and she said, "Mom, I can't write like you."  I was like, "What?"  For I think Kristi's writing ability has far succeeded mine.  (If you haven't read what she's written you need to check out her postings on: www.fanfiction.net and search under writer as: lotrlover16. Her stories all called "The L and L Adventures.")  She said, "Mom, I can't bear my heart for the whole world to see, like you do."  I had to stop and think, is that what I do?  I've been accused by some, of being too open, by another of writing because I'm trying to ease my guilty conscience.  

     Well, I don't have a guilty conscience, and maybe I'm a little too open, but I kind of feel, if I've walked a road of pain and suffering (of a sort) then maybe what I've gone through, can help someone else.  The key word there is gone "through."   I'm not stopping in my pain and grief, I'm going on.  In one of the most familiar verses in the Bible, Psalms 23 is says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me."   I'm going through, I'm not stopping and setting up a tent in the valley of death.  

     Being real:  There were days I didn't think I'd get through.  I thought I'd die with Todd.  There were times, I thought I'd die before him of sheer exhaustion from the constant care of him.  I saw no hope, I saw no ray of sunshine.  I know what it is to be rock bottom.  But when I hit the bottom, I found there was the Rock, and the rock's name was Jesus.  Oh, I knew Him before, but I know Him in a whole new way now.   Am I perfect?  Oh, no!  (Did you just hear the roar of laughter?  I'm picking myself up off the floor from laughing at the thought of being 'perfect.')  But I am a little bit stronger now.  I think it's like weight lifting (not that I've ever done that) the weights are heavy, and your muscles get sore and tired, but the end result is you get stronger.  I believe your muscles even 'break down' in the process, and have to be 'rebuilt.' It's a new strength you didn't have before going through all the pain of lifting.

     I haven't arrived, but I am going through.  I'm so glad He's with me every step of the way.

     Today marks 16 months since Todd moved to heaven.  It's another one of those 'landmarks' days.  In some ways it doesn't seem that long, in others it seems even longer, funny how time is like that.  In the past 16 months, this scripture from The Message translation has been an anchor in my soul.   "So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 MSG