Broken But Beholding Blue!

Coming back to the place where you shed the hardened skin of your past to find a more pliable being capable of God-sized endeavors is as humbling as the original...just at breakneck speed compared with the first. Several days ago, I stood in the office of a colleague who proposed the question, ‘When did you stop noticing the sky was blue?’ I half-heartedly offered with a jest, ‘When you had to balance a budget!’

Leaving Japan was rough. I have previously shared how the past year has been “tough”. And the kick in the pants is many don’t understand, or claim to have a understanding based on a move from one state to another state! Of course, over the last year, Kari and I have spoke with wiser souls than ourselves who have shared with us both sides of the coin...as much as others don’t understand what we have experienced, we don’t understand them. How much is not understood? How much is not shared because of some feeling of not being understood or accepted? Such a waste! I have never told my story in such a nutshell...stripped to the bone...painful exposed.

Japan received me and when I had nothing to give. I was prideful and sinful. I didn’t care. Japan still received me. I offered nothing and I wanted nothing. I had no direction. I wandered in and out connecting with few. Japan received me. I had no skills and couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t communicate. I had little interest in the language and culture of the natives. Japan received me. I took. Japan received. Despite my aloof intentions, Japan received me and out of that receiving came a change. A change God orchestrated and enhanced to the “out-of-control” stage until the day came I hit the wall going 180 miles an hour. I had two choices, continue broken or continue broken with a better understand of who God was and what he could do in and through my life. I chose the the latter.

Experiencing Japan after being broken was like a butterfly IV in a rolling vein...painful, but knowing I was on the mend felt good. I can’t say it was all fun...I am sure Abraham wasn’t in his happy place climbing a mountain to kill his son...but he obeyed. Following the Father warms your face even when the world’s bitter cold closes in. I obeyed. My eyes were opened. I could see the hurt in the world. I had a mission to touch all I could...and when I did, I would bring them to the cross to show them why I was the way I was. It worked sometimes...most times it didn’t...but I was sharing! I was receiving! Not for me but ALL for HIM.

Then I came “home”. Imagine the world’s worst bank collapse with no economic stimulus package on the house floor to put a band-aid on the open wound...you may then have an idea of the staggering effects moving back had on Kari and I. We were in trouble...for some reason I believed God had finished his work and moved on. It was dark. Recently, Kari and I went to a “re-entry” seminar where we hit the wall again...broken and ready to obey...wanting to receive. I walked out on of the seminar and took some wisdom with me...but where was God?

I walked out of my hotel this morning and saw the most beautiful blue sky! I promised God as I wept surrounded by hundreds moving about to their morning train I would not leave him in Japan again. I saw a blue sky! God let me see the blue sky...broken but beholding blue! I love Japan! I love Kari and Stone more! I love God the most...and in coming back where Yahweh broke me...He has allowed me a chance to recognize I can receive, share and obey despite being broken because He is not! Praise God! Kari...I love you! Stone...you’re daddy’s little man! God...I will obey!