The Before. The After.

Collection: “Bruised Reeds and Smoldering Sticks.”
For: The Stone Movers Gallery
Artist: Tiffany Adams

The Before – Jesus, how do I talk in depth about the before? I was so young. I think however that in our lives there is never just one “before.” We are on such a twisted journey trying to figure this out that THE before is not always relevant in everyone’s life. We go through seasons we are grow up, looking, searching, sometimes not looking, sometimes not searching. Can my before be before 18-24 months ago? Before 18 months ago I was not searching, I was hurt. I was apathetic. I wasn’t mad or angry anymore, not that I remember – but the damage was done and I for one was not doing anything to rebuild, to heal. For me I focused on what I could depending on what was important in my life at the time – track and field, work, a new job, climbing the corporate ladder – and doing what it took. My words were not glorifying, my actions while maybe if you plotted them out on a sin scale of 1-10 would not have “technically” been a 10 (if such a thing even existed) – they were not glorifying. They were about impressing others. Let’s face it, it was about impressing me – I had to work to impress me (how pathetic is that?). It was about the next Martini at times, it was about the latest office gossip, it was the foul mouth to emphasize a really important part of a story that I can no longer remember. What set me apart from the next person? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It has always been about being a good Mom, but not a Mom focused on showing her daughter Jesus in the flesh. Not a Mom focused on showing her daughter how to love others. Not a Mom focused on showing her daughter how to love and serve her future husband. Not a wife focused on making her best friend, truly her  best friend. Not a wife focused on making her husband feel loved and secure.

I just was. Was what? I don’t know. I just was. I was just here. Not making a difference – not consciously choosing to make a positive difference, and with that choice I’m sure I did more damage.  I don’t think you can just stand still.

The After: It’s amazing that even someone who is as harder on herself as I am on me, can when forced to, sit down to think about the peace, the blessings of The After. When you seek to understand the Character of God, things start to happen. You don’t see a Rule Maker, you see a Father, you don’t see a Rule Enforcer, you see a lover. You read stories that are not just “nice stories” of a man who used to raise people from the dead, heal those who had asked and who were lucky enough to be in his presence on that day – you start to see a man who is God, who loves me, who hurts with me, who uplifts, me who encourages me. At least, I did.

I go to bed with peace. I start to accept things in life that I don’t understand, I start to see where I’ve went astray and need a different course of action – I get convicted BUT the outcome is not me beating myself up over it for months at a time (just weeks – ha!) it’s simply a different course of action.  I see the good in people more, I get to see others making a difference, I allow myself to be encouraged. That one? It’s a big one for me? I am better at encouraging others than allowing myself to be encouraged. I still struggle with allowing myself to feel hope, goodness, the true joy in the blessings I have been given – but I’m working on it.

I see my husband and daughter playing and talking in a very important, in depth discussion about this, that, or another and think, “Life is good.”I hear Prayse tell her Daddy, “God. Made. Me.” with an affirmation that there is no more important fact in life – and think, “Together, we’re getting this.”

I do not have to beat myself up (still working on this) over where I am not, but enjoy the journey a little more. I get to take pure enjoyment out of seeing others happiness or a smile – I thrive off of it and want more of it. But it’s not me, it’s this burning desire to love on others because I am so loved. That is big. You may not understand, you may not get it, but to me – that is big. So big, I’ll say it again because it has been a long journey to even be able to write that sentence – I do not have to beat myself up over where I am not, but enjoy the journey a little more. I focus on what I am not, on where I have failed, on where I may fail – and not enjoy what is going right, what is good, what is a work-in-progress but at least headed in the right direction.

Anti-climatic? To some maybe. I don’t have a story of a past drug addiction, no nights spent in an alleyway stumbling drunk and passing out where I fell, no arrest records, no life of pain, misery, and suffering where Jesus saved me at the last moment I decided to take my life. I don’t have that.

But I do have a life where God, decided to become Man, to die a painful and brutal (to put it nicely) death – innocently I might add – and to defy that death in the grandest of ways. I have a Savior who saved me from an eternity of suffering. To me? That’s pretty darn good.

The best part? It’s not over yet.