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I am scarred.

“In this world you will have trouble…” Jesus

I am Jeff and I am scarred…

Wounded

Not the most comforting words found in RED in the good book, but as always with Jesus, they are honest. Those honest words were making one thing evident and clear to hearers that day, life is going to hurt you and leave you wounded. In the passing 2000 years, that promise remains true. We all end up hurt.
No matter whether you live 1 day or 100 years at some point in the journey life is going to sneak up from behind and shank you.  You will one day be cut by life’s sharp edges.  You will be scraped by its rough patches.  And your nose will be bloodied by the punches it continues to throw.
Thanks for the comfort, Jeff. This is real pick me up post.
Well, Jesus essentially made you and I this promise: in this world you would get wounded.  He was stating the obvious.   I don’t think any of the twelve would have argued this point that day.  They knew hurt, they knew sorrow, they knew grief.  Jesus was just putting them on notice that it was coming. Jesus was telling his closest friends the world is going to wound you.  And if you follow the stories of these men the wound up emotionally and physically cut open.
The crazier piece to the puzzle Jesus was painting is found in what he says next.  “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world.” (emphasis mine).
If I were summing up the word that Christ so eloquently dripped to his friends it would be this: wounds tell the story of hurting, scars tell the story of healing.

Scarred

We all have a story of being wounded, but have you become scarred?
Scarred has a negative connotation in our society.  As so delicately defined by that all reliable source Urban Dictionary to be scarred means to have lasting signs of damage.  But in truth a scar is where a wound has healed.  It is the visible symbol left on the skin of place where the wound no longer exists.
Wounds are the open places of hurt that still exist in your life.  Wounds get pressed on and the bleeding reopens. Salt gets poured into that open wound, a burn sets in. When that wound heals, you are left with a scar.
When are left scarred, the pain of the wound has passed but the reminder of the healing remains.
At some point you have to become comfortable being scarred. Staying hidden never really brings healing. Healing arrives when the wounds of our life our laid before the healer.  He is the one who takes the hurt and makes them scars.
Wounds tell the story of hurting, scars tell the story of healing.

Continue reading “I am scarred.”

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God's Math

It has always been as simple as 2+2=4.
Even when it was not so simple (x + 7) = 10, it at least made sense. (x = 3 if you are trying to figure it out).
Even the new “common core” while it may take 6 days longer to figure out a simple equation, still gets you to the logical answer.
Yet there is an element of faith that at times does not always add up.  Faith requires the ability to understand “new math” in the realm of God that is not always logical.
I have tried and tried and tried.  But so often it just does not add up.  How does God take the finite I offer and multiply it by his infinite to come up with the extraordinary.
My struggle is not with the math skills of God.  He is the common denominator in life.  It is that he takes something that seems like a negative and makes it a positive.  He defies the rules of math.  I was always taught that a negative can only be a positive when multiplied by another negative.  But somehow his positive always outweighs my negative.  His mathematical algorithms supersede my logical brain.
This is the properties of faith.  Faith calls us to not try to do math too much.  Faith challenges to trust that the logical rules do not apply to divinely creative God.  The more we try to add it up, the more God surprises us with how he makes it add up.
What I have learned from the Divine Calculus no matter how much I try to predict the answer and the formula to get there, I am typically wrong,  Yet in my incorrectness is always the right answer at the right time in just the right way.
God’s math may not add up, but it is always correct.

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Just Being Jeff

The story starts with an argument.
Apparently en route to the hospital my parents were still undecided on the precise spelling of my name.  Mom wanted Jeff(rey).  Dad wanted Jeff(ery).  Thank God no one wanted it to start with G.
Side note: my first life lesson learned that mama is usually right. It is Jeff(rey) to this day.
But from that moment no matter the spelling an identity was set into motion.  It would be formed and fashioned on the words of parents, coaches, teachers and pastors.  It would be gently shaped by the hands of mom, dad and grandparents.  It would be broken to pieces by people who seemed to be trustworthy but shattered that trust.  Identities are treated as fragile like fine China sitting in a buffet.  But often just as durable as our everyday dinnerware.
It is the identity that often determines our destiny.
Identity allows us to set a course for life, follow dreams and make determinations on right and wrongs in our journey.  The loss of that identity is just as powerful the other direction.  It keeps us bouncing on whatever wave comes, drifts us to and away from shorelines.  A loss of knowing your personal Northern Star keeps you from finding a direction for life.
There have been moments when I felt like someone had changed my name.  It is as if what we have been called our entire life no longer made sense.  There were moments when I felt as if Jeff had been changed to Geoff without my permission.  It was the sense that who God has always intended me to be was not who I was being.
Often the struggle with identity resembles a fitting room in a Goodwill.  I realize the Goodwill does not have fitting rooms, but hang with me.  Trying on identities is a like sorting through the racks of others people’s clothing looking for something that fits.  I would try on this or that looking for what looked like me…more times than not looking for the me I wanted everyone else to see.
Rack after rack of worn out hand me downs have I worn in hopes of finding a fit.  Then it happened.  I left the Goodwill.  I quit trying on the outfits and identities everyone else had for me.  I started wearing the special tailored design of God for my life.
I finally quit being who and what everyone else wanted of my life.  And finally started Just Being Jeff!