The creative process for me borders on this basic progression of thoughts:

Hey, that’s a really great idea. Do something with it.

Wait. This might be complete and utter trash.

Oh. My. Gosh. I am trash.

Pull it together. You are not trash.

And after I have questioned just about every angle, clarity comes and then I mine for treasures hidden in something that I’ve said, a word search study that has captivated me, several scriptures, a paragraph where I went off script and found my heart in words strung together. It’s the beginning of something, but of what I’m not sure.

If you have followed my blog, or know me very well, you know how passionate I am about women finding healing and freedom in Christ, especially from baggage from the past. I started with a general direction, so I went there and took a journey this past year. What I wasn’t prepared for was how two thoughts would collide and change everything I recently thought about our baggage.

In moving forward in this process, I literally had to go back and revisit some memories. I truly believed with all my heart that I had been healed and so the idea was that I would simply unfold these moments and put them in different categories. Can I tell you the truth? I ended up in counseling wrecked and needed to make sure I really was healed. What I realized is that I wanted this baggage, so to speak, to fit in tidy boxes and categories, although I never really typed that out. Because that would be crazy, right?

I wanted everything to fit in…

Pretty boxes

Ugly boxes

The box of lies

The box of truth to deal with those lies

The box that said: mended and I’m okay now

I wanted to know why sorting these things out mattered to our spiritual health and at the very end of this line of boxes would be a really big box with this written on it: PURPOSE.

Here’s what I know about baggage, we all have it. Even if you think you are completely baggage free with nothing in your hands dragging you down, there is something that needs to be dealt with. A struggle. A lie you believe about yourself that isn’t true. That you deserved the abuse you received. Every lash, every angry word yelled at you, for some reason deep inside you believe that you earned that. We will always have our somethings that break our hearts. I guess that’s why tears roll down my face right now as I am typing, I desperately want to pry each hurtful thing you’ve experienced out of your hand so that you will deal with it. That you would heal from it, somehow making peace with the messiness that litters your memories and the things you are not over.

But, there is not a box that I can give you big enough to show you just what God can do with what you thought was a painful mistake.

Your box is borderless, without edges and strait lines, because you can’t measure grace. You can’t measure mistakes. You can’t gage brokenness on a scale of “my junk is way bigger than your junk.” What we find every broken step and painful heartbeat is measureless grace to cover it all. In this book/cheap therapy you will walk to the brink and verge on something you never really quite imagined…your borderlands, that place that only you can go because it’s your story. It’s your junk. What you thought was useless really is what makes you qualified and useful. What you thought was baggage and deadweight is the very place where your pain and past collide with your future. It’s your purpose. And if we are brave enough to go there, we find that thing we’ve been missing for so long~ belonging.

Nothing else fits quite like the purpose waiting for you. That’s why we have to do the hard work to be free. It’s a journey. Wanna come with me?

Much love to you,

Jennifer