Fire Girl

PINIT

Well, hello there Bravehearted Beauties! It’s been more than a hot minute since I’ve hung around these parts! Is anyone still out there in blogland?!?! If blogs could gather dust, this one would be covered in it! As I begin to type, I can almost hear my words ricocheting around the internet and echoing back in my own ears. Helloooooooo out there!

I can’t believe it’s been a year. One post in 2019 and only a few in 2018. Shew! 2018 was STRAIGHT FIRE…and not in the way cool kids use that term these days! Intentional recovery from divorce, trauma, abuse and codependency…that is some INTENSE HEAT, my friends. The kind that burns away so much that you don’t know what you’ll look like on the other side. It feels as if you won’t survive the scorching heat and searing pain…and some days you’re not even sure you want to survive. BUT GOD.

“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
 and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

When you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.” ISAIAH 43:2

I’ve always loved those words. I sang the song for decades, as wholeheartedly as I could for a girl who worked so hard to make life comfortable, peaceful and perfect. The words of Isaiah 43 always moved me, but I never knew how to really, truly depend on them. How to live and breathe by them. This is when your faith gets tested for real: when the flames feel like they will consume you. This is when the promises of God are everything and the only thing you’ve got: when life as you wanted it to be is going up in flames.

Friends, I did NOT want to stay in that fire. Anything but the pain of staying in those hot-as-hell flames. I wanted God’s promise to mean He’d airlift me out. I wanted to lift my hands to the heavens, cry out for help, and see a dramatic rescue operation take place on the spot. And when they airlift didn’t come, and the flames got hotter, I wanted to crumple to the ground in a heap of ash. Anything but stay in the center of all that pain.

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But you know what Jesus did instead of airlifting me out of that place? He taught me how to dance in the fire. Yes, DANCE! He stepped right into those flames, unfazed by the heat, took my hand, placed his other hand on my low back, pulled me in close and taught me to dance with Him in the center of the flames…the very hottest spot, yet where I would not be burned and overcome…where I would learn to live and grow and heal and rise.

I’ve always been captivated by the way flames dance. But I’ve never once wanted to be on the inside of that hot dance! And now, I know I can be. And I will not only survive it, but I will thrive. I will not only be rescued, but I will be restored. I will be forged into more of who God made me to be through the very flames that felt like they would consume me. The truth is, I feel more like myself today than I ever have. Playful parts have shown up that I haven’t seen for awhile! Friends who knew me in the past see the girl they knew. Friends who know me now see a different glow. And best of all, my daughters are discovering and witnessing the fullness of their very fiery mama! Oh, she’s always been in there…but today the outer layers of protection have burned away.

PINIT

In these last two years, Jesus taught me that there are fire people. Fire people know the depths of pain and suffering and have been changed by it. Fire people are the truest versions of themselves because of what they’ve been through. And I’m now one of them. A fire girl. (Cue “This Girl Is On Fire” by Alicia Keys. I’ve been belting it out for the last year!) Becoming a fire girl comes at a cost, but I can already tell you it’s worth it, hot flames, heat scars and all!

I didn’t intend to go silent in the fire, but sometimes you can barely breathe in there. And you certainly can’t see beyond the flames. You know how they tell you on the airplane to put your own mask on first? I always thought that was craziness because what good mama wouldn’t put a mask on her children first?!?! I had to learn to put my own oxygen mask on first…in almost every area of my life. And as much as I wanted to gasp for air outside the fire and breathe some words of life outside those flames and into your world, I needed to be where I was. Going though it. Staying with it. Staying with Him. I’m pretty sure the only ones who got any life-giving words from me in that fire were my girls. So thankful for the grace of God to love and care for them so well.

PINIT

I journaled pages and pages over the last few years, and shared snippets on Instagram here and there, but when you’re going THROUGH IT, sometimes you just have to put your head down, lift your hands up off the keyboard and let God have His way with you and your story until you can find the words to start telling it again.

So here I am, beginning to tell the story again…a year older (45 last week!) and several years truer, wiser and deeper. It won’t be a tell-all. My blog will never be that place. But it will be an honest place. A true place. A place of hope and encouragement for those of you going through it, whatever “it” is. (And we all go through it at some point in our lives.) I hope that as you linger here, you will find out in one post or another that YOU ARE NOT ALONE. And, that even when you can’t see the good in your story, God is doing something glorious, good and beautiful beyond what you can see. May my story be a testimony to that truth.

PINIT

So WELCOME BACK, my friends. Welcome to the telling of a beautiful restoration story. One still unfolding with unknown twists and turns, loose ends and unknown outcomes. I don’t know how this story ends, but I do know this: the broken will be made beautiful. God is the master of a “beauty from ashes” narrative. And this fire girl is rising to tell it!

So much love to every single one of you reading these words. Humbled and grateful for your presence here.

 

 

P.S. My oldest daughter gets the credit for inspiring me to write today. She called me from college last night and said she needed some advice from a blog expert. Umm…you mean the one who hasn’t written in over a year? Well, that courageous fire girl just posted her very first blog post on her brand new blog, Living in the Grey. Go give her a read and leave her a little love. She’s as good and true as they come.

Photo credit: Thank you to my dear friend Paige for seeing radiant light in me, and capturing me in the midst of it. Paige, you have a gift of seeing with God’s eyes. I’m honored that you have been one of the witnesses of my story through our 10+ years of blog friendship (2009?) and now real life.