true worship.

Being transparent can be so difficult.  

What rips away at me from day to day is how I can be more authentic and I find time and time again that it must include more vulnerability.  In fact, the secret to a life full of depth is a life full of sharing.

We have learned many secrets to a happy life in our home over the years.  But I believe one of the most honest and true secrets to how we manage our home, children, marriage and this complicated world of disease is this:

We fight and we worship.  

Sometimes we do both in the same room.  Sometimes we do one right after another.  

Sometimes the fighting is a result of something internal that isn't spoken clearly to one another.  Sometimes anger is felt more at our situation than one another.

Sometimes we fight together for something.  Sometimes we fight against one another for something different.  

But always; always one thing remains constant in this home and in this marriage.

We worship the God that we love and trust.  

Another secret to true, unaffected joy in our lives?

Truly knowing that Jesus is enough.

Believing that He is, trusting in Him and living it out in all that we do.

Remember that the photos don't tell the whole story.  Our life can be messy, difficult and scattered. 

 Our marriage has often reflected many of those same qualities.  

We have hurt one another and we have gotten it wrong.  I believe we all do.

But we have enough fight in us to keep at it.

To stop.  To breathe.

To worship.

In the midst of something so terrifying and consuming, it is literally all we have.  

We dim the lights, and we close our eyes.  Music plays and redheads dance. 

It isn't always quiet or perfect.  In fact, it hardly ever is.  

But in the moment when the rest is a mess, it doesn't really matter.

What I have come to realize is that we serve a God who isn't only in the mess but sometimes He is part of it. He wraps Himself up in it so tightly that He is all consumed by it.  It becomes His.  

Our worship isn't about structure.  It can't be.  If it were, I would fall short and fail every single time.  

I also used to think that my worship was supposed to be a beautiful sacrifice to God but I am learning more and more that it isn't always that way.  

The raw and honest truth of it is that our daughter is going to die.  It's going to be from this awful thief of a disease or it's going to be in some other way at some other time.  But it is no secret that she will not live forever.  We are made to believe that we have a choice in it.  We fight and we scramble to find a way to make peace with it and to sacrificially worship through the pain.  

But the worship isn't about that.  Or it shouldn't be.

Our worship should simply be because there is a God on the throne.  

I don't have a choice in Mabel's life or death.  I don't have reign over my life because I gave it to Him long ago and I meant those words when I said, "I give you my life.  Do with it what you will."

'Your will above all us, my purpose remains.  The art of losing myself, while bringing you praise...'

We can fight it all we want to.

Or we can worship when we can do nothing else.

It takes courage to worship through this life that is so battered and bruised.  There is a passion that must be ignited and a pursuit of Godliness that is both humble and torn apart.  There must be a mixture of desperation for the Holy God and need of escape from this world full of muck.

Inside of the vulnerability that lies in you is a piece of God whispering.  If you let Him embrace you the way that only He can, a solitude follows.  

It's there and it need not be difficult to rupture so that you can experience it's fullness.

In our quiet home today the Lord spoke to me.  He is in the secret places and the every detail.  

Fight and Worship.

It's quite simple.  Fight for something or against something or with something but at the end of the fight...

...be sure that you can still stand in worship.