About the “do JUSTICE” series I am uncertain about many things, but I know two things for sure.

Firstly, this series is not a series as much as it is an indefinite life change.

Secondly. I.am.broken. Not just the contrite kind of brokenness, but the in-need-of-fixing kind.

I’ve struggled for hours here, crying a pleading out to a God I can’t hear. He’s silent, and I’m not sure why. I’m not short on words but direction, as my mind is a sea of confusion and my emotions a flood in all directions.

I’m supposed to be writing about justice and feel the most unqualified to do so.

And on a Sunday night, my birthday night, a few minutes after 11pm Eastern Standard Time, hours after I thought I’d be done writing, I might have an idea of why I’m struggling so.

I’m repulsed by my own lack of authenticity and transparency and somehow I’ve built up a facade and maybe its a mirage in my own mind and I’m over reacting. But I want to show the real me, and the real me is a mess right now.

A life surrendered is a life that is not my own, but God’s. It’s one that still has parts of the old nature fighting, wrestling with Him. But the surrender is in the staying, in the contending. My spirit is willing but my flesh is weak and they contend with one another, daily. One desperately in pursuit of God and pleading to be made holy. And the other entangling, weighting, hindering that one back from doing so. And that fight within is a necessary one for a life surrendered to God.

A life surrendered doesn’t mean a perfect life without sin. It doesn’t mean I get it right every time. And just because it’s the name of my blog, it doesn’t mean all I get to show you and all I get to tell you are all the right things about me, and all the good and noble things I’ve done. And I don’t want it to be. I can’t let it be.

How do I pull back the veil on my life and temper my words with grace? I wonder if it would cause you to stumble if I’ve told you how badly I have. I wonder if it would cause you to doubt because I feel confused and unsure. I wonder if my other words would lack credibility if I told you how I am really doing.

Yet, I’m not one who’s satisfied with wearing mask, but one put off by pretense. If my husband and children came to read these words today would they find the same wife and mama they’ve had at home this last week, or someone masquerading as someone entirely different — trying to fool?

Would they read my words and wonder whose woman this is?

Would the kids say, “Mom, you’re a fake and you care more about your blog than you do us?”

Would my husband feel shoved aside, hurt and longing after a wife who’s gone wandering? 

Or would they all wonder without ever saying a word, “You think the world needs you, but did you forget, I need you, we need you?”

May it never be.

Right now, I’m not sure about a whole lot of things. But I am sure of this; I never want to be someone on this blog, that I am not at home, or someone at home that I am not on this blog.

If you had a view through a window into my house this week, I’m not sure there’d be any readers left here. Each one of my children have had me unleash my frustrations on them. I told my two year old to “shut up.”  I’ve never said that to her before. And I’m not even sure she heard me or knew what it meant, because she kept on with her whining anyway. Nonetheless, I lament the condition of my heart for letting it slip.

I’m not doing well. I’m struggling. And it’s been a very long time since I’ve found myself in this place. I’m not sure how I got here. But somehow I think it’s the result of what I asked for when I prayed for change.

New things cannot be planted until the fallow ground is broken up.
And gardens cannot grow unless weeded and pruned.
A broken bone cannot heal unless it’s set first.
Sometimes old structures have to be torn down before new ones are built in their place.

And sometimes the ground is hard, the weeds are stubborn,
the setting hurts, and those fortified structures don’t tumble down easily.

I’m pressing in and pushing against and it feels that everything is pushing back at me. I dare to have a dream to see my family rise as world changers.

And I can barely get someone to change the toilet paper roll.

And though I’d like to take a big black Sharpie and hide all the mistakes of this last week — instead I’m going to take God at His word — the same One who asks us to do justice and also love mercy, and believe He wouldn’t ask us without practicing the same.

Instead of hiding in the darkness, I choose to let the Light shine. And instead of black, I choose red — the grace flow that makes me white as snow. And somehow I know through it all He’s teaching me what He means when He says, “Do justice, love mercy and walk humbly.” And none of these directives can be lived fully pleasing Him without each of them interwoven throughout the other. They can’t be practiced in isolation from one another.

And I am beginning to see understanding the relationship of the three is also understanding more fully the heart of God for us, for this world.

The Gospel is the result of the greatest injustice and the most undeserving justice the world will ever know. And it is paradoxically — a mystery.

And that is a mystery I am seeking to understand. I’m not sure you’ll want to come along on the journey. I feel it’s going to be a long, arduous one. And one that will cost me my life. The road is not clear before me, but I know it’s one I am to walk by faith. God wants me to learn what justice means what it means for this mama, and what it means to Him. And not just know, but experience it. And I know it means dying to gain life. And bearing my cross. There can be no rising to new life, without death first.

And so, I’m pursuing justice — I’m pursuing Him — surrendered.