Losin' My Religion

A God Thing In the Rubble

Posted on January 1, 2011 Updated on March 9, 2014

One of my best friend’s house burned this past weekend.  The fire started in the rear bedroom and burned so hot that it collapsed the floor and burned everything in the basement.  In the basement had been stored boxes of books that belonged to me…and books are one of the things that I absolutely treasure.

I have learned so many things from reading.  In reading a book I can go places in my mind that my body may never be able to travel.  Words paint pictures in my mind.  I “feel” the heart of the writer when I read.  And God shows me so many things – beyond the written words – in even “every day, ordinary” books…  I absorb those things into my heart like a dry sponge.  Words, especially written, are one of the things that speaks to the very depths of my soul.    So books are a treasure to me.  And now most of them were gone.  Lost in a pile of charred rubble.

I went with my friend to see her home after the fire.  As we stood outside and looked down through that bedroom window into what was left of the basement below, lying on top of the blackness – outside of the pools of black water – was one of the most important books in my life Heart of the Artist.  It’s a book about creativity and the heart of God, worship versus performance, servanthood versus stardom, accountability, and how God can use the heart of the artist to reach into others’ souls and touch even the very deepest and darkest places with His love and His light.  And there it was.  It’s full-color cover was still intact and it stood out to me in the midst of the darkness surrounding it.  And God spoke to me, about my life, through that image…

In the last several years, the things that had brought me feelings of security, those things that I had considered stable in my life, had collapsed.  Things that had been comfortable and safe were gone.  Things that I had invested my life in were no longer there.  All had been lost in the rubble of a world that had fallen down all around me, charred from the fires of conflict and anger, seemingly destroyed.

And for the last several years I’ve cried… watering the rubble that was my life with my tears.  Tears of shame for the marriage that I had lost.  Tears of guilt for the failure that I had become to my children – not living a life that I was willing for them to follow.  Tears of grief for the ministry that I loved passionately, and was no longer able to do… no longer “fit” for in my mind.   So many tears in the last few years.  So many days and nights weeping for things that I had lost hope of ever being restored.  Unable to forgive myself.  Unable to recover, rebuild, or even heal in some of the wounded places of my heart and soul.

Yet as I wept I yearned for that closeness with God again.  I longed to sense Him.  To feel His touch.  To KNOW that He was still there.  That He still heard.  That He still loved.  (Knowing this with regards to others was easy, but accepting it for myself – one of the impossible things in my own mind).  I ached for some kind of confirmation that I was still “worth-it” to Him… that His gifts and callings – in my life – were without repentance… that my heart was still His and His hand was still on my life to minister to others – to use those creative passions in my own heart to touch the hearts of others.  This has been my painful journey for the last 5 years.  Tears of black water over a life of rubble.

Then today I see, untouched, The Heart of the Artist in the midst of a pile of crumbled, charred, tattered debris.

And although my heart is not untouched by the destruction in my life, God showed me – through this simple image – that my heart is still His.  It can be restored.  “Full-color” creativity can be uncovered and recovered by Him.  My gifts and talents are still intact and He still sees me worthy to carry those gifts.

I am humbled by the reminder that in the midst of the rubble that has been my life of late, God can still use the heart of this artist to reach into – and touch – the hearts and souls of others with His love and his light.