Picture taken at Louisiana State Capitol, Dorinda and BrandiTwo things I am learning: First, powerless is where God wants us to be and, secondly, even as we are running into the darkness God is preparing a way back into the light for the day when our hearts are ready to return to Him.
As I ring in the new year, I can tell you Dear Reader that I am completely powerless in and of my own strength. Watching the life I know come to a crashing halt in a downward spiral like a slow death throughout 2009, I decidedly have admitted to myself that the time has come to purge and pack again as God readies my feet for action for destination unknown.
I began to tackle more plastic storage boxes of my own shattered self-centered dreams that have been in queue since the day I moved into my home here in Texas on a road of ministry that has left me exhausted, burned out, stripped of the identity I once knew, broken, battered, bruised, and betrayed.
An albatross is what many of these storage boxes have been to my life as I have filled every free weekend possible with processing through this "stuff of life" that most people who aren't artists would label as junk and toss out without a second thought. But I like to think of my junk as milestones of the places I've been and the people I've known on this road to Heaven.
I did well early on as I made the choice two years ago to process through my maternity wardrobe and baby clothes and send them to the
Goodwill until God so chose to bless me again, if
ever. There was initially alot of pain associated with the letting go of this dream, but now my heart is very settled in this area and I am able to help others who are walking the dark road of infertility.
So I retreat to my office and begin to break down some boxes and as I do, I find myself once again convicted by my own hand, my own pen, the evidence and fruit of years past.
I open the box of the day and read for the first time a sealed copy of a letter of recommendation written by Dr. Glenn Walden, Professor of Musicology at LSU. "She is articulate in her speech, meets the public well, is creative in problem solving situations, has skills in leadership, is energetic, and works well with other people. Mrs. Chambless is a mature person of high moral character and excellent personality traits, a devoted wife and mother."
I find cards of encouragement for our ministry from the late Rev. Bob Chadbourne and his wife Sue, who blessed us on every holiday with their kind words in writing, "We are praying for you." The guest list for our rehearsal dinner in Monroe, LA, bright stickers that identified each box as we moved from state to state, a little stuffed puppy dog with signatures of all of Eli's first visitors in Columbus, Georgia, a sealed copy of the CD "Something Happens" that we recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, notes scribbled in my own handwriting from Leadership studies that defined the difference between charisma and character as modeled by Joseph of the Old Testament--these were just some of the maps back to who I am in Christ that I believe to have been God-anointed this day, January 2, 2010.
My work in the Louisiana, Tennessee, and Texas legislatures on such character values as the sanctity of marriage and the dignity of life was evidenced by notes from legislators, newspaper clippings, or action photos of me and my sister in arms Dorinda Bordlee of the
Bioethics Defense Fund. Songs I had written through the years penned in my own handwriting spoke to me for the life lessons I am now learning when I read my own lyrics, "Though life was breaking at the seams the Father mended me again. He gave me close companionship who reminded me of Him and how he never will abandon me despite the ways of men."
An old script that we had used at First West and again in Columbus, Georgia at Morningside Baptist Church when Mike and Teddy Ussery acted out a poignant three minute vignette on marriage called
Looks. "He glanced, she glanced," to "He glared, she glared."
Finally, I found a note from my husband during one of the greatest trials of my life in which I finished the race with integrity back in 1998. "The journey can't be measured by wordly achievements. Know that there is no end to the journey....the sole purpose is to CONTINUE down the journey...no matter what happens."
Though we are stamped with God's DNA on the day we accept Him as our own and nothing can ever separate us from his love, the story of Job reminds me that no one is so righteous that he is beyond Satan's warpath. Dear one, maybe today is the day to relinquish some "stuff", trust God, and step off a harmful path of destruction into your God-anointed eternal destiny. Maybe the time has come to take your hand off of this, and today consciously walk in humility to lean into the power of the Savior and ask for His help. I know I'm there with you, with a hope for my future in 2010, as I wait with a shred of faith and expectancy.
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