Beauty in the Cracks

Are posters hanging in the room of your heart that capture your time and attention more than God? – Jud Wilhite

Questions like this have been where God has had me for almost a year now. I’ve written a post similar to this one titled “Picture Frames.” Simply talking about how we have all in one way or another have picture frames hung up in our minds of how we imagine our lives will turn out. We make all these plans, and yet we never really surrender them to the Lordship of Christ. 

I did it for YEARS!!! I had images framed in my mind of the life I dreamed of. They looked “godly” so I assumed they were God’s plan for me. Therefore I only intended of those dreams I had framed and hung up on the walls of my mind, to come true. I never really remember having a moment where I prayed and asked God what He wanted. I just decided what I wanted, and prayed He'd bless it.

Please tell me I am not the only one in the boat on this?

But, as I read the question above: “Are posters hanging in the room of your heart that capture your time and attention more than God?” This question came to mind: What if your dreams do come true, but they don’t happen the way you thought, when you thought, or look the way you thought they would?

I don’t mean the obvious stuff, like when you get married it’s not going to be the fairly tale!!

Many of you maybe have read of or at least heard of the book When God Writes Your Love Story.  I have read the book and have mixed feelings about it. But, I ask you this. What if God doesn’t write your love story the way you would like him to? Don’t get all spiritual on me and say you trust Him, I was that girl who would say, “I trust that God is writing my love story. I am waiting on God.” And the WHOLE TIME I had a plan of idea of what I was hoping that “love story” was going to look like.

We’ve all done it. You come up with a plan of how its’ (aka...“God’s plan”),is suppose to look or unfold.  But what happens when it doesn’t go, “as planned?”

This is a lesson God has been and continues to teach me…in every area of my life. I use the area of relationships a lot because I think that’s a big one that we as  Christians over-spiritualize & over-analyze. I know, because I did it & I didn’t do it alone.

But in almost ever area of my life I am learning to see beauty in the cracks. Learning to see beauty in the brokenness. Beauty in the imperfections! Beauty is seeing my picture framed life come crashing to the floor.

Piece by piece God had knelt down with me to pick up the pieces of my broken heart over the last year. All it took was one moment to bring to the surface YEARS of things I had kept stuffed and hidden. It was the "last straw" you could say. That picture frame was hanging by a thread anyway, and in the blink of an eye it came crashing down! 

I was talking to my friend/accountability partner a few nights ago about a situation/decision and she asked me this question, and it wasn’t until we got off the phone and I could process her question, that I could honestly answer her. Her question was this: “What are you so scared of? Why do you push back on this?”

My honest answer: “This wasn’t the plan!”

While sitting over coffee with a sweet friend of mine today we hit on this topic briefly. I love what my friend Heather shared, “we know that life isn’t going to look like we imagined, and yet when life doesn’t go according to our plans we are still surprised for some reason. We still act shocked!”

Maybe it’s just me, but I doubt it, but do you have imagines in your head of how you imagine your life to look? Only to find that you are devastated when they don’t happen or look how you planned? It's a natural reaction (for example: lost of parent of friend, cancer, sudden move, lose of job...etc). There are just some things we don't plan for. And so when things happen that we never really imagined it just kind of sends us into a bit of shock. Again, it's a natural reaction,  but it also shows that we really do have this image in our minds or desire for the "perfect life" as we imagine it. 

The first half of the very familiar verse (Jeremiah 29:11) has been playing like a broken record in my brain for the past few days. It simply says, “For I know the plans I have for you…”

A simple reminder that God, not me, know the plans! The verse goes on to say they are good plans. That doesn’t mean easy, but that doesn’t mean struggle all the time either. Just simply that God’s plan are good plans! In the moment some things may not feel or even seem good, but Romans 8:28 reminds us that God works “…all things together for our good…”

God can take anything, if we will let him, and he will use EVERYTHING for our good and ultimately His glory!

God's will may not fit your picture perfect plan, but we can rest in the truth that as we trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and follow where He leads...out lives may not look like what we thought but they will be better than we ever imagined!