God of the broken

So I really wanted to drop in a blog in the last few hours of August. I have only written twice this month because one of the weeks of this month was absolutely one of the worst of my life. I do believe a cancer relapse may have been easier. This kind of pain was different because it was the kind that was mostly brought upon myself. Those who need to know what happened know and those who don't, will not know. All I can say at this point about that is that I have finally started to feel like Lauren Meow again in the past couple of days. I know it's been the prayers that several people were praying for me and a couple that I cried out for myself- the peace of Christ has come over me. I have been reminded of who I am and who I want to keep being. There were a couple of moments where I honestly contemplated running far, far away from everything because then I would never have to face anything. I would pretend that I did not have to face myself. I can't run from God. I could run into the mountains of Oregon or Spain or somewhere and still God would be there, pursuing me, chasing after me like a mother after her kidnapped child. Like a man who felt his lover slowly slipping out of his arms, He came back after me. I am grateful with all soul that I was not able to escape Him.

In three weeks today I will be leaving Immokalee. Tomorrow makes exactly three months that I have spent here. Despite all this self-inflicted pain I have been experiencing lately, I am so glad that I can say now that close to 4 months of my life were spent here. I am thankful for the stories I have heard, the people I have met, the pain God helped me to embrace, the countless times I laughed, the moments that made me uncomfortable. I am grateful for the way God has made me yet again even more desperate for Him. I am privileged to have been able to open up this world to many others that I know. I am honored that I have been accepted into this community, even as so far that two of my friends here from Oaxaca (southern Mexico) have insisted that I come to visit them soon when they finally go home after several years of being in the US.

The last two weeks have been a bit of a blur for me being here in Immokalee. I know that I have been working and living but it has been hard. I am trying to remember the week before that but right now I can't. Right now I feel like I am in a stage of mourning....mourning the lost of things very precious to me, mourning over the broken person I am, mourning over things that should have never happened. Anger has been flaring up and down in me, mostly at myself, somewhat at others. Others who should have heard me when I said certain things but mostly I wish I would have heard myself and that I would have heard God in moments that I really needed to...

Grace.

I have never had this kind of deep understanding of grace and love before. I had, in many ways, forgotten what the Gospel really is all about.

The Gospel is for people like me. Broken, prideful at times, feeling like much of my life has been a disappointment, feeling inadequate, confused, not one of the most educated, not someone who can speak in a very intellectual way, someone who just messes up a lot. The Gospel is for ragamuffins, for people who do not have it all together, for people who will never think they have it all together. The Gospel is for places like Immokalee, where there is a town full of people that the most of the world has rejected. So perhaps this has been a good place for me to be in a lot of ways. Though I am not materially poor, my spirit has always been poor and I will always need Jesus to keep coming to fill it to just where it needs to be.

I have recently started reading a book called The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning. I think everyone in the world should read this book. Unless you really think highly of yourself, that you're good on your own and that you don't need God. Otherwise, it will break you in ways that you didn't think were possible.

I have been dwelling just a little bit on this old Anne Frank quote that I have always really liked..."I don't think of all the misery but of the beauty that still remains". I remember I used to have that written that on my bedroom wall in high school (along with all the other hundreds of things written and painted on the walls). Let's face it, there are plenty of things to be miserable over in this world. I see a lot of things to mourn over every day in Immokalee. I see a lot of things that are miserable about me. I have done some miserable things but there is still so much beauty in me that remains simply because I am a Jesus follower. That is the only way any beauty can remain in me ever and it's the only way to keep bringing something better into a miserable world, even when you are the one who caused the freakin misery in the first place.

Reconciliation. Like I said in one of my earlier blogs, that seems to be the theme of my life this year. That is a theme I am desperately praying to keep around. I am hoping and praying with everything in me that I will see it once again lived out in my life again soon.

Perhaps I will write once or twice more before I leave here. My mind is still trying to grasp so many things that have happened lately that it's been overwhelming.

I hope all of you are doing well. I will see many of you soon!