On Being Breakable, and an Ash Wednesday Invitation
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a contrite heart, O God you will not despise. (Psalm 51:16-17)
Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts?
Just a cage of rib bones and other various parts
So it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess
And to stop the muscle that makes us confessWe are so fragile
And our cracking bones make noise
And we are just
Breakable, breakable, breakable, girls and boys~Ingrid Michaelson | “Breakable”
A couple of nights ago, my oldest child suffered a severe allergic reaction to something he ate. Within minutes, our friday-night-take-out-and-a-movie-dinner turned into a panicked trip to the E.R, multiple epinephrine injections, a variety of oral antihistamines, and several hours spent watching banal late night T.V. to the sound of the blood pressure cuff squeezing and releasing.
It wasn’t the night any of us envisioned when we opened the bag of take-out food on the counter. It never is. It’s never a “good time” for a crisis. The threat of death is a frightening inconvenience that we are apt to forget when all is (mostly) calm. But of course, it’s always a possibility. This is not a surprise, it is, after all, a promise. We are dust, and to dust, we will return (Genesis 3:19).
Tonight we will gather in the pew of our church, we will walk the center aisle to receive the blessing that reminds us of the curse. We will bow our ashen heads and remember our fragility, we will behold each other in community, and look on the breakableness of our friends and neighbors. We will consider anew, how our lives are but a breath, and how every moment ought to be lived as if it might be our last. Because it might. And because, really—we live so selfishly—hoarding up the moments, our love, our things—as if, with pockets full, we will somehow stave off the inevitability of our passing.
Friday night in the hospital room, I remembered how death can surprise us still. How we are here today, and gone in an instant. Just like that. Also?—I’ve been here before.
In my upcoming book, I tell the story about the first time this happened, the way his little face inflated like a balloon, the panic that overtook me, the primal, parental instinct that kicks in when you’re watching someone suffer before your eyes. I also share what came next, how in times of peace it’s easy to forget the depth of our need for God, how distance from heartache can lull us into complacency, into the ever-tempting-but-toxic self-help theology that says, we can handle life on our own.
Crises always shock the system. That experience marked me. I’ve spent the last 15 years learning how the gospel is the most unexpected invitation to life, by way of death.
Then he told them what they could expect for themselves: “Anyone who intends to come with me has to let me lead. You’re not in the driver’s seat—I am. Don’t run from suffering; embrace it. Follow me and I’ll show you how. Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self. (Luke 9:23-24, Msg)
A contrite heart only comes from dying to self, from dying to pride and arrogance and personal desire for vainglory’s sake, and an admission that none of our days are actually ours. This is a tough pill to swallow for those of us who prefer to live life on our own terms. This idea doesn’t play well with the Truth that every moment we get to breathe is time gifted to us, and not because of us.
Five years ago, when I sat down to write Everything Is Yours, I was met with the repeated warning from others in the writing world, that this will be a hard book. Maybe, too hard.
I heard the warning, but I did not heed it. I could not.
I knew in my bones that however challenging the message may be, I could not, not write it. (Know the rules, then, if need be, break them—responsibly.) At that time, I’d been sitting with Paul’s words from Romans 12, and could not-no-matter-what, shake them.
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. (romans 12:1-3 Msg)
Place it before God as an offering. Everything. All of it. Hold nothing back. Everything is His. This verse kept tapping me on the shoulder. Finally, I said yes. Yes to writing about this—no matter what. And now, it’s done.
I lack whatever strand of genetic code is responsible for giving people the gift of strategy. I am a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants person, and I think God laughs at this, and uses this to surprise me with His love for concentric circles. What I mean is, I didn’t plan to invite you to my launch team for Everything Is Yours on Ash Wednesday, I’m just not that good. But when I looked at the calendar, and realized that it’s time to get this ball rolling, I couldn’t believe the perfection of the timing.
I’ve made no secret of my love for the Lenten season. It is most fitting that the invitation to experience surrender should come on the day when we look squarely into the face of our fragility and remember that all of life is in God’s hands. And that fighting this Truth doesn’t change the Facts. The only way to navigate it is to surrender, to accept what we cannot change, to receive the gift of God’s provision, even when it looks like, and feels like, a wound. Maybe, most especially then.
We are awake again to the fragility of our days. Awake to the Truth that we live and breathe in the palm of God’s hand, and not on our own. We are dust. We are but a breath.
An Invitation
As every writer will tell you, launching a book takes a literal village. I’d love for you to be part of this little village I’m building, which will be made up of people who are ready to say “yes” to really living. Here’s the link to join the launch team. Invite your friends, family and neighbors. All members of the launch team will receive a pre-release PDF of Everything Is Yours, How Giving God Your Whole Heart Changes Your Whole Life, as well as access to the private facebook group.
Here’s what some have said about Everything Is Yours:
“I have had some deep conversations with Kris Camealy, and each time I come away with my spirit refreshed. I also come away challenged. Reading Everything Is Yours is a similar experience—it’s like having an enlightening and honest conversation with a sister. A sister who asks hard questions of you. But not without first asking them of herself. Like, how many of God’s gifts have you missed because of your resistance to surrender? Kris, in revealing her own struggle to surrender her expectations, plans, dreams, (and her whole heart), lovingly brings us to the feet of Jesus and says, “Let go of all of it—the whats and the whys—so you can cling to the Who…so you can know the utter freedom of proclaiming, ‘Everything is Yours. I am Yours!’” ~AMANDA CLEARY EASTEP, Sr. Developmental Editor, Moody Publishers
“…Kris Camealy writes the unvarnished truth in this book without sugarcoating words, without tiptoeing around the topic and without coddling her reader. Instead she boldly confronts both the pain and promise of surrender with refreshing candor and authenticity, confidently leading the reader through the labyrinth of spiritual transformation toward true freedom….” ~MICHELLE DERUSHA, author of True You: Letting Go of Your False Self to Uncover the Person God Created
With deepest gratitude,
By His Strength, for His glory,
Kris Camealy