I have always dreamed of getting an upright steamer trunk, so I was crazy excited to receive this one as a gift! I had dreams of restoring it (or at least sprucing it up), and plans of maybe turning it into a cute little hide-away desk. But even with all my excitement, years passed and somehow this particular project always got pushed to the back burner, like a nice “someday plan” when I have more time. Looking back, I said that about a lot of things: my faith, friends, family, getting a house, getting fit… ya know the usual.
Yeah its way at the back there & yes this room is a complete mess… sorry not sorry, this is real life. Messy, full of miss place or missed used things & a little overwhelming at times.
Then my world somehow simultaneously imploded and exploded. I found myself in the middle of a separation that was heading towards divorce and a surprise genetic disease that was taking away my independence and keeping me from doing pretty much everything I loved to do. It was shocking and it was hard. Some days I could hardly stand my reality. I was so grateful for books and the family and few friends that stood by me during one of the most challenging times in my life. I was so angry sometimes! This was not what 30 was supposed to look like. I swore I’d never get divorced and here I am running out of options to keep my marriage alive. We were doing counseling, but I remember the day he came home from work, and I was still in bed, and he slid down the wall and said, “something broke between us.” A few counseling sessions later he told our counselor he’s “in a selfish phase and he’s ok with that. He wants to explore his options.” That day something in me finally broke. He had gone back to old habits, and he was going somewhere I couldn’t follow. I mean our marriage was on the rocks before I got sick, but getting sick either makes or breaks a relationship, right? Well, it broke mine and I’m sorry to say he wasn’t the only person that bailed when everything went pear-shaped. But this wasn’t the first time I’d faced divorce… I watched my parents’ divorce, rip apart our family and friends over their divorce back in college. I knew where depression could lead if I let bitterness and the feeling of worthlessness take hold again. And I really didn’t want to go back there. So, I made a new oath. I prayed that God would take this pain and make it worth it. I prayed for Him to take my ashes and make something beautiful out of them, that He would give me a testimony that would bring others closer to Him and to teach me His ways, cause I wanted to walk closely with Him. And I knew with Him I’d always be loved; with Him I had hope and could find joy. He can redeem anything; nothing is too big or too small.
Now that all may sound cool and profound or maybe just typical Christian corniness, but honestly, I couldn’t face the depression I went through when my parents got divorced or lean into my addiction again. It was way too painful of a road and I desperately didn’t want to go back to that dark and bleak hole again. I felt like God had just bailed me out. There were some days I panicked that I’d fall into that blackhole and other days I got so angry at the unfairness of it all that I just wanted to go find some old useless junk to break; just to get it all out, ya know? Then I remembered what my mom did when she was fighting for her marriage. She took it all to the cross and, on the days she couldn’t breathe, she read more scripture to find rest, to find the air to keep going. So, I started thinking of the people of the Bible who went through rough stuff thinking I could relate, and I could. Then I thought of the book The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. It is one of my all-time favorite stories. As I listened to her story, I was weaving my way around the house trying to stave off the stir craziness a little bit longer and that old steamer trunk caught my eye. It was kinda like seeing my insides outside and I was really tired of seeing it and my heart looked so beat up and kind of gross with its stale smokey peeling interior. Without thinking I found myself peeling the lining off strip by strip, piece by piece, and sometimes I’d get it to come off in one nice big satisfying chunk and it was like a cleansing of my soul. All while listening to the complex weave of Tante Corrie’s story unfolding in my ears. The ashes of her life count for something greater; I listened to her choice to forgive her oppressors and ask God for help when she couldn’t do it herself. She never stopped praying. I’d come back to the trunk on my physically good days, and sometimes on my mediocre days, I’d curl up next to it and with trembling hands I’d slowly deconstruct my trunk and listen to more of her story. I remember praying for a faith and calling like Corrie’s. And each day I found more peace peeling off each layer so carefully and ripping and tearing off others in a frenzy. I was confronted with so many things during that time. I felt like Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Aslan was surgically removing his dragon hide, but for me God was removing my dragon heart. He was digging deep into my pride which was preventing me from graciously accepting help from others. He was delicately probing at and dismantling my distrusting heart. In other words, He was making me new, but just like the trunk I had to be stripped bare first. Now this may sound counter intuitive because who wants to be vulnerable when they have just been hurt and are grieving deeply. I know I didn’t. But any restorer worth their salt will tell you, when restoring something you must take things down to the bones and build up from there. In Ezekiel 37 God and Ezekiel are discussing these dry bones and what God has plans to do with them. That God will breathe life back into them and give them flesh. Or as God tells Ezekiel in the previous chapter that God will give us a new heart and put a new spirit in you: “I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ez 36:26). And that is exactly what God was and is doing for me.
I needed to learn how to forgive quickly and like Corrie I needed to stop leaning on my own strength instead I need to lean on God’s, especially in this area of grace and forgiveness. My perfectionism and stubborn independence were going to have to change, and leave perfection to my Savior and learn that dependence isn’t always a dirty word. This was scary and not a place I really wanted to journey with God. I mean I just wanted to fix my trunk and Him to just fix my life with one push on the ‘easy button’; can’t faith and relationships just grow with just a couple of quick phone calls and a few reading sessions? Needless to say, I backed off from the trunk once I got it stripped. Some of it was lack of ability for months on end and some of it was once again pushing it to the back of the docket. I mean I did get vulnerable, and I did strip it down. I could work on the rest when I felt less raw.
I don’t know if you can see the dust coating my arm but that is all the old glue, stubborn pieces of fabric, dirt all from sanding; talk about ashes.
Funny thing is when you ask God to do something that aligns with His will and His plan well, He’s gonna do it until He completes His work (Philippians 1:6). And last fall (in 2020) He began pushing and pushing hard. I started working on my trunk again, started deodorizing and designing, painting, and staining. It wasn’t all done in one fell swoop like a ‘normie’ (normal healthy person) but like me: the slightly crippled special little cupcake I am. So, I worked in little stints here and there and if I was having a really blessed day, I’d get a whole afternoon! I sanded and worked till my hands shook and made more mess than beauty. Calling it quits some days was so hard and having to leave it for a few days was even harder. I meant to post my progress but somehow it felt really private. Then I got to the final step about a couple months since I had really started going for it and messed things up and had to stop. Not just out of frustration, but because my body decided it wasn’t interested in working like that for a while. And that’s when God started really working-over my heart, pointing out where the decay of the stuff He had stripped away and dug deep into my core, into my identity. He pointed out what true love is, what His love really looks like; not religion but what He really says about it in His Word. That forgiveness is an expression of love, not weakness. That unforgiveness only punishes me, not others. And that forgiveness can set you free. He showed me that dependence on Him is never a bad thing, because He is my Creator and will always know how to best help me and what I truly need and the people He placed around me are safe to lean on too. That the island of me is unnecessary; we were made for community. I don’t have to live in isolation because of my illness, and I don’t have to hide my story cause it’s pretty gnarly at some places and doesn’t always put others or myself in the best light. The list goes on, but I started to feel like I was finally leaving the spiritual ICU and into a new day with a ton of possibilities and a new purpose. Like my trunk I had been made new again and I finally realized that unlike my trunk or even my body where there is a limit to how new or how continuously man can make them new, with the Lord there are no limits. As I stay close to the Lord, He renews me, my heart and soul, day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).
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