broken open … when nothing fits the same anymore

I have this pair of fuzzy pants. They’re my favorite. My go-to, first thing I put on when the laundry’s done, favorite.

Cute, huh? Colorful, a little loud, maybe, quite noticeable.

There’s just one problem.

They don’t fit anymore. My weight has changed, and these much-loved pants aren’t comfortable now.

So what’s a girl to do? I mean, am I the only one who loves their favorite comfy clothes?

I have a couple of choices. I can keep wearing those cute, but ill-fitting and no longer comfy pants. Or I could break in a new pair.

If we’re being honest, I don’t much like either option.

But I’m finding that the more comfortable I am with my new weight, the less comfortable I am with those favorite pants.

And since I can’t run around with no pants (seriously, no.) I am choosing to break in a new pair.

This new pair is quieter. Less noticeable. Lighter weight, and surprisingly more versatile.

Just like my body changed with my weight, my soul has changed. Not the weight of it, but the shape of it, I think. All the parts are still there, but they seem to have been rearranged. And the things that used to fit me … don’t anymore.

I am doing life, broken open, down in the mud, with other bruised and bleeding souls.

We’re doing real, not fake, even when it makes us wince a little. We’re not worrying about what that guy over there thinks when we’re crying in Starbucks. We’re trusting each other with the most solemn secrets we carry, and finding relief in the trusting.

We’re finding safe places, and recognizing the hurtful ones more quickly, and rerouting and changing and squirming under the scratchy labels of unfamiliar garments even as they become our new favorites.

We’re overwhelmed with mercy, given and received, and relieved of the tyranny of rules that don’t make any sense when we’re bleeding.

When you see me, now, you probably won’t see colorful and loud (well, maybe still loud sometimes) outer garments, even though you were used to me in them. In fact, I hope you don’t notice the outer garment at all, and instead find compassion and mercy and need and hurt all wrapped up together in a way that looks both authentic and vulnerable.

God has taken all the parts of me and shaken out the wrinkles and put them in the proper order for this season and I am done resisting just because it hurts. I wipe the fog off the mirror, and see myself rearranged and even though I would never have chosen the things that made me not fit in my life any more, I can see that God is up to something good.

Is it possible that you’re wearing pants that don’t fit you anymore? Are you willing to let go of the comfortable for awhile, and be rearranged by the Hands of the Potter? I can’t promise it will be painless … in fact I can almost guarantee that it will hurt, at least a little, But you know what?

Those new pants are starting to feel more comfortable after all.

Broken open,

Angie

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