Before I begin to tell my story, I want to share a few lyrics to the Casting Crowns song “Somewhere In The Middle.”
…Somewhere between the wrong and the right
Somewhere between the darkness and the light
Somewhere between who I was and who You’re making me
Somewhere in the middle, You’ll find me…
Mark Hall from Casting Crowns wrote this song and the following is his response to the question “what is the distance between Sunday and Monday mornings?”
“When we’re at the altar, everything makes sense,” Hall says. “We know what we’re supposed to do. We know how we’re supposed to live. Everything’s black and white. But somewhere between the altar and the door, when we leave and go out into our lives, it all leaks out, and everything gets gray again. The Christian life is the journey between the altar and door, trying to get the things you’ve got in your head, into your hands, feet, into your life. The Altar and The Door is all about the journey. The realization on the journey, the struggles and the victory of seeing it as possible.”
Since returning from The World Race Training Camp, I would like to tell you that my prayer life has expanded, that my relationship with the Lord has grown leaps and bounds, that I have brought joy to all that I encounter, that I have learned how to take what I learned in Training Camp and apply it to my life. But I just can’t. Because somewhere between Training Camp and this moment, I forgot about who I am.
It has been a battle. A battle that I was not prepared to fight. I allowed the enemy to whisper lies that have now seeped back into my life. I sit here in the stench of old coping mechanisms that have left me feeling alone, dirty and hopeless. I am “somewhere in the middle.”
Yet I just heard this still, small voice that said “I just want your stench.”
I have been sitting in my stench for several days, ignoring the whispers and convictions to turn to Him. As my friend Kyra tells me all the time, “I know you’ll make the right decision in the end. It just depends on how long you want to be miserable.” I can’t explain it. I don’t know why I sit in my stench, but what I do know is that He always brings me to this place. This place of brokenness and beauty. “He will give a crown of beauty for ashes.” Isaiah 61:3 NLT
That’s it. I don’t have any answers beyond the truth that He just wants my stench.
