My husband and I crazy enough love to do puzzles and once you get started they can be quite addicting because you want to see the finished picture. Laying out the puzzle pieces on the table, all face up and ready to go. We always work the border first, the edge pieces. In finding the right pieces to go where they need to go for the rest of the puzzle, sometimes we have found that we have put the wrong pieces in place because they look similar but are not the same and you figure it out later when you notice something does not look right.  You have all the pieces but it still does not look right or the worst is to find you are missing a piece…

There was a moment in my life with God that I was at odds with so many of my long held beliefs and with my own internal feelings. I was struggling with the questions and difficulties that my children were having with the church and with us and with God. I felt disconnected and lost in my relationship with Jesus and I didn’t know where to put all of this stuff.

God and I had some crazy conversations during that season and through some amazing moments with Him and hearing some words from people I respect, I came to realize that so many things that I was striving to make right and trying to control were not things under my control.

I felt so much fear and guilt and shame and condemnation and those feelings would drive me to DO better and to try to make sure that I was acceptable to God and myself. The To Do list was exhausting.

One day in the middle of all of this I was talking to God and I told him I feel like my life was a puzzle that had been taken apart and was not sure what to do.

It felt like all the pieces were a jumbled mess. In that conversation and moment with him I heard a still small voice…

And these are the words that I heard:

“I am your Father and I love you…I am not mad at you…(Wow, I needed to hear this.)

I will never use shame, fear, condemnation, or guilt when I speak to you or work in your life.” This was a life changing moment for me.

I wept with tears of pain and tears of joy. Pain for what I had lived under and how it had affected me and my family. Joy, knowing I was on a path to live free as He intended. I felt a deep realization that there were so many self imposed requirements,  grounded in my own religious thinking and beliefs that were not any part of what God had for me as a follower of Jesus. I realized that I was on a road to what later I would discover was God leading to deconstruct and reconstruct so many parts of my life and faith.

He impressed on me that the puzzle of my life had all the pieces and we would put it back together one piece at a time. He was with me and we would be on this journey together.

I have found out along the way that there were some pieces that were a part of the puzzle, the picture of my life that actually didn’t fit but I had tried to make them fit and be a part of my picture because they were familiar parts of religion that I had lived with for so long. Some of those pieces included fear, condemnation, shame and guilt that religion uses to control. They drove me like harsh task masters and in turn I used those same things to try to influence those around me, even my own children. I never saw it until faced with the affects that those were having on my children.

2012/2013 were turning points for me on this journey.

As God and I have been in a reconstruction process I have found increased freedom and joy and peace on my journey as a follower of Jesus.

Now when I am faced with moments of guilt and shame and condemnation and fear I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it is not my Father and it is not Jesus but it is the enemy of my soul, working to derail me. These have no place in my life as a follower of Jesus. They are not who He is.

Now when those pieces of the puzzle try to come back they are so out of place that it’s obvious that they don’t fit in the picture of my life anymore.

My heart is broken to see so many abandon their faith because they have faced the disappointment and disillusionment and pain that is the result of religion, and well intentioned people placing their own rules and demands on others. These have become like burnt stones, broken down and adrift. I have an expectancy in my heart that they too will discover the reality of Jesus and His love in place of the heavy but empty and powerless void that religion creates in the lives of those who come under it.

The process of our journey and our story does not end overnight. It is an ongoing journey that we are on.

I know that as God and I continue this journey together I will probably discover other pieces that either need to be removed or need to be placed differently. 

I am a work in progress…and that’s okay. I am becoming.