Faith

The Relentless, Passionate Pursuit of Restoration

/ Rebekah Brackett / 1 Comment
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“Roses at Dusk” | Photo by Rebekah Brackett, Brackett Studios

Darkness encroaches, steadily seeping into my world. All is still, hushed under heaviness. The vibrant verdant hues of Summer’s approach are dulled with the impending ink of night. My favorite wooded reprieves bare down under the Sky’s tears and the lush honeysuckle sighs. Mountain ranges are turned to charcoal silhouettes against the backdrop of stacked varying tones of grey and sullen blue. The Spring roses heave their heady musk into the damp air, yet fail to distract from the danger I feel pressing, prickling the nape of my neck. Something is coming, and every part of me feels it. What has been chasing me just outside of my peripheral vision stalks ever closer, more sinister. Or perhaps what is unknown is considered frightening simply on the basis of previous harrowing experience. Either way, friend or foe, memory taunts, and I am worn thin in the layers of me, all the way down to my tired, aching bones.

I keep thinking… we are meant for more than simply waiting to die. I strive and I forge ahead, but often feel I am carrying the Ring of Sauron around my heart; a violent shrieking threatens to break out from the cells of my being where trauma had its way with me. I am over it. I am over it all, and I push back against the impending doom of yet another “new” memory crashing into my conscious sphere. When will this “healing journey” be over? When will it be enough?! I demand answers, but realize the questions I ask aren’t always the ones God wants to address.

The truth of it is, it’s not all darkness and heaviness in the lands that comprise my being. Increasingly, there are more and more expanses of light and life and hope — even moments of revelry and joy so beautiful, it almost excruciates me in its pleasure. I am learning, growing, healing. And Lord, it has taken eons. But throughout it all, He has been with me.

Oh, I rant and rave within myself and daily carry the weight of the pain and nightmare, but to stop there would be a lie. Because in the midst of the chaos and confusion and emptiness and numb, Jesus has been there every single step of the way. Every time I lie down and cry to die, He’s been there. Every time fear curls me into the fetal position, He’s been there. Each time laughter has broken out of this mouth so hungry for truth, He’s laughed with me. And within the labored seasons of grief or the ever-expanding glimpses of wholeness, He’s been my Immanuel — God with me. Right in the mess, right in the glory and in every space of this life in between.

I don’t carry the Ring of Sauron around my heart; Jesus paid for the curses, for the atrocities, for the sins committed against me just as He paid for the sins I’ve committed against others. I can’t be a victim or simply a survivor as a daughter of God. I am MORE THAN A CONQUERER… I reign with Him in the heavenly places, and all that has been given Him has been shared with me. His promise declares I am moving from glory to glory and strength to strength!

And yet — the reality is, I’m walking into the true awareness of the wholeness Christ has gifted me. So I wrestle; I grope for Him in the night watches and I seek to receive all of Him in all of me. I am relentless in my passionate pursuit of restoration. I understand the storm will pass and daybreak will greet me again. But it doesn’t always feel that way. Depression and pain are very, very real. The effects of trauma are real. It doesn’t make us failures as humans after encountering the arrows of hell to be enveloped with grief, feel anger at the injustices committed against us, or question our existence and wonder why terrible things happened. We wouldn’t be human otherwise. Please don’t allow the sharing of my faith and encounters with Jesus to convey your own heartache isn’t valid or something to be acknowledged and honored; it is surely the opposite. All of us matters to Him. I believe in more and more of my heart He is continually, unbreakably present with us in the midst of it all. And that is changing everything for me.

“Then why does He allow awful things to happen?” we might ask. The simplified explanation I’ve come to is we live in a world at war (to borrow the words of John Eldredge). But just as we ask why God allows all the pain we see and experience, we need to equally ask in awe why He allows so much good and beauty in a fallen world. In this realm, the two extremes will be inextricably tied together. I think this is why we long for a far better place… Tonight, my heart aches for my eternal home where “everything sad will come untrue.” (J.R.R. Tolkein, The Lord of the Rings) But even as I feel this in the depths of my being, I hear the Lord gently remind me how He taught His disciples to pray: “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10, my emphasis) We don’t have to wait for the afterlife to experience glory, to revel in wholeness. In Heaven, there is no sorrow, no pain, no suffering, no confusion, no illness, death or disease. So I strain forward, pushing the boundaries of my mustard seed-like faith, and cry for expansion… Let me live as though Heaven has come to Earth, because it has.

What then will I do when the buried memories rise up and hit like a tsunami — for they don’t taunt without basis and come they will for a reckoning? I will recall the words of a cherished, wise counselor: “You have already survived it all. You are alive!” And Jesus will meet me there just as He has in every broken and beautiful place before.

In the end, we choose to see our pain from a place of deception  — “This is who you are; this is all there is.” — or from a place of extraordinary victory — “This is not the end; there is more to life than this.” I choose life again today, and by God’s grace, I’ll choose it again tomorrow, trusting in His promise of “a whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more life on the way!” (Romans 6:22, The Message, my emphasis)

Be blessed in the shadowlands, and be blessed on the mountaintops, for Jesus is with us wherever we go! xo

Thoughts on Mother’s Day 2017

/ Rebekah Brackett / Leave a comment
Tulips

“Spring Tulips” | Photo by Rebekah Brackett, Brackett Studios

Mother’s Day is a lovely time to pause and reflect with gratitude on the many wonderful virtues of the moms in our lives. I’ve always loved celebrating my mom; she’s my hero and in more ways than one, she laid down her life for me. But this holiday can be full of mixed emotions… Some of us experience daily the loss of our mom due to illness, age, accident or separation. Time never seems to ease the emptiness we feel in the place our precious momma once filled. Some are working through the painful confusion of wondering why mom did the things she did or said the hurtful things she said. A chasm lies between which doesn’t seem capable of being crossed. For others, we hold tender, aching hearts that yet another year has passed without our realizing the dream of becoming a mother ourselves. We rejoice with all of our momma friends, but long to enjoy the (very full!) gift of motherhood. And others are grieving the delay of more children or the almost unbearable loss of children, either before or after birth. With these varied stories in mind, I’d like to share a couple of verses I am clinging to this Mother’s Day, with the hope they will encourage all my sweet friends who are also facing grief in the midst of the day’s celebrations: Jesus says through the Prophet Isaiah, “I’ll convert their weeping into laughter, lavishing comfort, invading their grief with joy. God will create a new thing in this land: A transformed woman will embrace the transforming God!” (Jeremiah 31:14a, 22 – The Message)

I understand faith is a very personal choice, and whether or not you share my faith in Jesus, I hope you know my heart is with you in your suffering as well as in your celebration. But it is my soul’s delight to rest in the promises of God to do all He said He would do in the verses above (and more!). I am grateful to see in my own life the power of being transformed from the inside out through a personal relationship with Jesus. He is truly turning my mourning into dancing, my weeping into laughter, and invading my grief with His contagious joy — He’s lavishing comfort in the hard places and helping me through the pain. Jesus is transforming the ashes of my life into beauty, and He is more than willing to do this for you and with you! (I, too, am willing to walk by the side of my friends as I journey through my own “stuff”. Just reach out!)

I’m hoping this message brings encouragement to those in need of it today. And if none of this post applies to you and you’re still reading, I hope you’ll enjoy the beauty of these vibrant flowers! They made my heart smile, and I’m glad to share them with you.

Be well!

Praise to My Savior

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“Quiet Repose” | Photo by Rebekah Brackett, Brackett Studios

Oh, Great Artist!

You, who buried me in Life’s fertile soil,

Who whispered secrets to my hidden heart —

You wooed me to trust You in the great unknown,

And in my letting go,

You freed me from my seeds’ conflicted constraints.

Now from deep darkness I bloom in radiant light,

My buds wholly yielded to Your compelling grace.

In quiet repose, my tender petals and leaves unfurl;

Death’s pangs are forgotten as my roots anchor deep.

Your glory grows through my multi-layered unfolding —

My life bursts forth to proclaim Your praise!

A Place Where Love Reigns

/ Rebekah Brackett / Leave a comment
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“A Place Where Love Reigns” | Photo by Rebekah Brackett, Brackett Studios

I long for a place known only by my dreams. A place where love reigns and the wide, open spaces of the soul expand and expand infinitely. The home where my heart is fully known, fully understood and fully accepted. The world in which I completely love my God and my neighbor, and yes — a world where I even truly love myself. So I call Heaven to come to Earth, to this mountain home where I feel so lost sometimes. I tell myself to breathe; to notice how the sun keeps rising and setting, how the world keeps turning without any thought to its schedule or timing; how the grasses and wildflowers move and sway in the evening breeze. I tell my heart to “hush” and embrace stillness and sit with the discomfort of the Unknown until Peace permeates every fiber of my being. Oh, beloveds… In this place, may I remind you: We are not alone.✨

Courageous Living

/ Rebekah Brackett / 6 Comments

What makes it so frightening — the thought of baring my heart through written word? Perhaps what scares me is the reality whatever we put out on the “web” can never be fully removed. There’s a commitment in becoming an author who vulnerably shares the tales, trials and triumphs of a personal life story. But the words are banging on the doors of my soul, and there’s no peace in withholding the gems I’ve gathered along the raw, beautiful, rocky way of my journey to healing. I am not the only one who struggles with overcoming hidden pain. Isolation is a facade. We’re all connected, and no one is effected in their life — positively or negatively — without implications to the world around them. So why not share the gifts I’ve received out of the fire of trauma?

So today, I choose courageous living. I choose to say to the darkness of my past, “You can’t permeate my soul a moment longer.” I choose to say to the spirit of shame, “You have no standing here. I’m not alone.” I choose to show my scars; I choose to celebrate my successes. I choose to release myself into the unknown because I was born to live courageously. And living doesn’t come without glory as well as pain. Living a full, unadulterated, vulnerably authentic life means trial and error, fumbling in the direction of God’s whisper, and leaning into the uncomfortable moments and seasons of growing pains. But we’re in it together! I am not alone. You are not alone. Let’s share this journey, and walk in grace toward one another, bravely embracing that for which we were made: Shared community. Honest conversation. Compassionate humility. Merciful understanding — even if our life paths or personal beliefs look very different.

This blog is dedicated to my fellow wounded (in-the-midst-of-healing) warriors, to the weary life-travelers, to those who recognize they don’t have it all “together”. These stories and poems and art are for the shattered of heart. Because there’s an invitation waiting for you — a secret I’ve heard whispered in the treasure troves of my soul — and it’s this truth: not one piece of us has been lost. ALL of us, ALL of our personhood, ALL of our story is necessary for our living and is regarded as priceless to God. We have been wholly preserved, our whole heart, even — yes, even — if it doesn’t look or feel like it.

There’s one caveat: This isn’t a place to rehash pain for the sake of poking old wounds. Jesus doesn’t allow us to relive the horror of the past in order to rewound us. We dig into the wreckage with Him by our side so that together we can rebuild the life He created us to live. With this truth in mind, I find an intense longing for the rare beauty born out of ashes; not to make sandcastles in the ash-heap of trauma or to remain a victim.

This blog is also a place for people who have a very different life story to see a bit into the soul of a trauma survivor. Whether you know it or not, you are surrounded by survivors of all manner of trauma: physical, mental, emotional, sexual and spiritual wounding. We don’t expect you to understand our pain if you’ve never encountered what we have. Also, people react and process life and trauma differently. What greatly effects me may be nothing but a blip on your radar, and vice versa. But in all things, compassion is needed. I invite you into my journey with a humble heart, and ask that through the vulnerable sharing of my life’s story, you might be more open to coming alongside those who are hurting in your own circle of influence.

Here’s to the wild abandon of courageous whole-hearted living…