A Safe Place for Blueberry Stains

Photo credit: Nathanael Mokry http://adventurecaptured.com/

This piece was originally posted on my friend Megan’s blog (https://myracetorun.com/) in January 2019. Lately I’ve been wrestling through many of the same issues, so I thought it was worth sharing here. Be encouraged! His joy is our strength!

Stained Fingers, Stained Hearts

Tension was high. One more squabble, one more kid acting out in anger, one more outburst, and the Mom Volcano was sure to blow. I had tried everything: building a fort, stories, talks, prayers, snacks, even a couple episodes of the old school Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood. The only option left was to escape. 

“Everybody buckle up! Now!” I hollered. 
”Where are we going?”

I had no idea. I just knew if we stayed a moment more, it was going to get ugly. But God had already prepared a place for us at the home of a true friend and mentor. Somehow, God had told her that He had given her an extra hour for us that afternoon. A change of scene. A warm smile. A cup of tea. A heart that would pray for us after we had gone. She was ready to welcome us. 

My boys thoroughly enjoyed the afternoon outing. They ran. They jumped. They raced matchbox cars. A couple nearly ate their weight in frozen blueberries. T-shirts and plump little fingers bore the purple evidence of their snack. 

About an hour later, we arrived home to find Dad mowing the lawn. One child shouted with glee at the sight of his daddy. Another slunk out of his car seat as his carefree spirit evaporated. The first could not get out of the car seat and into the hiking backpack fast enough. His urge to participate in the work of his dad and enjoy time with him was palpable, but something had shifted in his brother. He stood next to his bike with his helmet on, shifting his weight from foot to foot. When I inquired as to why he wasn’t out riding in the sun, he mumbled something so quiet I had to kneel down to hear it.

He didn’t want Daddy to see his stained fingers. 

Little did I realize, I was feeling much the same way. I gave him a hug and told him not to worry. Then I rushed inside to attempt to simultaneously make dinner and reassemble the house we had left in shambles.

A couple minutes later I was on my way upstairs with a load of books and toys and I found him standing in the doorway, eyes down, hands twisting. I tried to quiet the compulsion to brush him aside in an attempt to rectify the state of our house BEFORE the lawn was mowed and Dad came in to see the state of it—to smell the failure in it. In me. 

God answered an arrow prayer for patience, and we sat down to talk about his berry stained skin. I told him he had done nothing wrong. His fingers were not wet or sticky and he wasn’t leaving blueberry prints anywhere. I explained that Dad wouldn’t mind. I told him that, more importantly, he never needed to hide anything from Daddy because Dad loved him so much, and nothing could ever change that. It was clear he still felt unexplainable shame at the state of his fingers. There was only one thing to do. I took that purple hand in mine, and we walked out into the sunshine to face Dad together. 

I waved him down, and the lawn mower stopped. The blue fingers were hidden in tight fists, and the blue eyes were downcast. My little guy looked completely miserable as I explained the situation and then pried his little fists open to reveal the stains within. 

Dad’s compassionate response was exactly what I had expected. Our son was visibly relieved. So was I. Now I could get back to the pressing task at hand: covering up my own figurative berry stains.

The mess and chaos within my walls felt like symbols of the mess and chaos that had happened between me and my kiddos. It was as if the whole house reeked of my failures—sin and brokenness on display. 

We all find ourselves face to face with our failure at some point. When I do, I fall for the lie that I can actually achieve the high standards that I set for myself. The enemy whispers in my ear, “Try again! Work harder! Be better! You can do it!”  I fall for it every. Single. Time. I focus my attention on finding the solution. More organization? Better schedule and time management?  More self discipline? But the frenzied brainstorms are always motivated by an intense desire to cram the evidence of my failures deep into my fist.   

Well this particular day marked a turning point for me.  This day I found a couple of deeper questions lingering in my heart. I was barely brave enough to ask them. I really did feel like a four-year-old with purple fists. For a brief moment, I set down my mental image of what I should be. I let go of my perception of what other people thought I should be. And I posed my vulnerable questions to my Father. Scrawled across the pages of a secret notebook:

How do You measure me?
What do I do with the areas You count as failure?

His compassionate answer took months to unpack.

Two Kinds of Failure

He broke down failure for me into two categories:

• Real failure is when I have failed by choosing to love other things more than Him, and myself more than other people. (Basically, sin.) 

• Perceived failure is when I have failed to meet human expectations. (My own or other people’s.)

Here is why it matters:

• My real failures are completely covered in the blood of Jesus!

• My perceived failures highlight places in my perspective that are out of alignment and misplaced priorities.

• My real failures are areas to meet God at the foot of His throne, by the blood of Jesus, to receive mercy and find grace. His kindness leads me to repentance. Repentance leads me to freedom to start afresh (which is quite different than the Work Harder, Be Better mantra!) See Heb 4:14-16, Rom 2:4

• My perceived failures can be debilitating because they derail me. They distract me from the work that Jesus has done to make me His, the work He is currently doing in me, and the work that He has given me to do now! See Eph 2

• Real failures are like fingers that are not just stained blue but dripping and sticky. Everything they touch is affected by their slimy state. They need to be washed. ASAP.

• Perceived failures are just stained fingers. They may be unsightly to some, but they are not actually causing any harm. More importantly, they have not offended the Father.

• Both failures are opportunities to reach for the Father and find that the depths of His compassion outweigh our expectations.

Remember the girl who “was lookin’ kinda dumb with her finger and her thumb in the shape of an L on her forehead”? Every day is laced with triggers that make me feel as though I have a giant neon F on my forehead. The trouble is, I usually can’t tell if the it is real or perceived failure that is being triggered—ESPECIALLY if I am consumed with Working Harder and Being Better. Instead, God is calling us to us to lift our eyes from our unsightly fingers to Him—our Father. Where I used to cram my stained fingers into my fist, now I hold them out to Him. I ask Him if they are blue because I was enjoying His gift of berries, or if they are indeed sticky and spreading stains everywhere. If it is the former, I can let go of misplaced expectations and go on my merry way. If it’s the latter, I can trade my stains for the purity of Jesus and still go on my merry way. And in either case, I am inching my way to becoming like the toddler who dives out of the car, free to participate in the true work of my Father. (Matt 18:3)

Safety in the Gospel

More months passed, and a verse began tumbling through my mind in a strangely uncomfortable way.

“The joy of the Lord is my strength.” (Neh 8:10)

At first I assumed the discomfort was from the overzealous melody it brings to mind.  But soon I realized I was bothered because I had no sense of what the simple phrase could possibly mean! I’ve never felt so weak in my whole life as I do in this current season. The thought of finding strength in joy seems like a ploy to sell coffee mugs. Definitely not the reality I am experiencing. How can joy fuel strength anyway? And why in the world is that verse in the middle of Nehemiah? Shouldn’t it be something Paul wrote about Jesus or our heavenly inheritance or the seal of the Spirit or something? Maybe right alongside grace that is sufficient in weakness? What could this Old Testament leader possibly have meant? 

The questions were so persistent that I just had to dig a little deeper. And guess what! It was actually another layer of His answer to my original two questions posed all those months ago! Three puzzle pieces clicked together and frankly blew my mind.

The first piece of the puzzle was the Hebrew word that is used for strength in this verse. I wrongly assumed that it would have to do with being tough, steadfast, mighty (ie. Try Harder, Be Better). Here is what I found:

strength—ma’owz

1. Place or means of safety, protection, refuge, stronghold

A. Place of safety, fastness, harbor, stronghold

B. Refuge (of God)

So instead of the joy of the Lord being my source of endurance and might, it is my safe place, my refuge. In other words, instead of empowering me to meet the standard with a smile, it gives me a safe place to actually expose my sin and shortcomings to the one who delights in growing me. His joy is an invitation to unfurl my heart. There is no failure, real or perceived, that can diminish either His love or His power to work in me.

The second piece was realizing that since this is an Old Testament verse, the word LORD isn’t referring simply to Jesus. It is standing in for God’s name given all the way back to Moses: Yahweh. I Am Who I Am. Yahweh, the unchanging, preeminent, self-subsisting source—the entire Trinity.

The last piece was placing the verse in context. In Nehemiah 8, a small vagabond group of Hebrews miraculously finished rebuilding the wall around their ruined city. Ezra the priest and Nehemiah the leader gathered all the people together to read God’s law to them. Every heart was rendered, cut to the chase, and they wept. Why? Perhaps they knew in that moment that they were incapable of meeting God’s standard. Perhaps they realized that they all had sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Perhaps they understood that there was no hope for them. They had failed. They were doomed. Sin stained their hearts as blueberry juice on young hands. So they wept. Ezra and Nehemiah responded by calming the people down. They told them not to mourn but rather to celebrate. They told them, “THE JOY OF THE LORD IS YOUR STRENGTH.” Literally, “the gladness of Yahweh is your safe place.”

Can you see it? It’s the Gospel preached right here in the middle of the Old Testament. 

The law.
The grief.
The delight of God to intervene.
The safety.

It’s our Jesus!

We are, all of us, stained and broken. He entered into our shame and nailed all of our failures to the cross. He applies His blood and we are clean. In our death and darkness He pursues us to bring us into His light and life. Into sonship. In fact, it was the Father’s will to crush Him on our behalf. And for the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and completed the work! Then He promised to complete the work He began in us! God’s delight is not just to save us, but to conform us to the image of the Son. So we can, we must, let go of the Work Harder, Be Better mentality. (Col 1:21-22 and 2:13-15, Is 53, Heb 12:2, Phil 1:6, 2 Cor 3:17-18)

When we come face to face with our failure, the joy of the LORD is our strength. We can count on the compassionate purposes of the Father. We can count on the sufficiency of the work of Jesus. We can count on the continued work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives. The joy of the LORD is our strength. The delight of Yahweh is our safe place. 

What will you do with your blueberry stains?