self-worth | Heartstone Journey

Life Is A Beautiful Struggle

A colleague of mine let me borrow ‘Ragamuffin: the true story of Rich Mullins’ and wow did it wreck me in a very positive way.

Here is a quick synopsis from the DVD box:

Ragamuffin is based on the life of Rich Mullins, a musical prodigy who rose to Christian music fame and fortune only to walk away and live on a Navajo reservation. An artistic genius, raised on a tree farm in Indiana by a callous father, Rich wrestled all of his life with the brokenness and crippling insecurity born of his childhood. A lover of Jesus and a rebel in the church, Rich refused to let his struggles with his own darkness tear him away from a God he was determined to love. As he struggled with success in Nashville and depression in Wichita, Rich desired most of all to live a life of honest and reckless faith amidst a culture of religion and conformity.

As I was being drawn into the story with vivid similarities with my own life, minus the music success, I froze as the movie came to the scene where Brennan Manning was sharing a word with a church congregation. I couldn’t hold back the tears as this message went through me like a plow.

Here is that narrative by Brennan Manning…

Alert: Your Personal Brand Is Not Self-Promotion!

For those of you who have been walking the journey out with me over the years here on Heartstone know that life is not always fair, its tough and through it as all we share many of the same stories. These events in our lives shape us along the way and how we choose to interpret these events makes all the difference in the world.

One of these events for me was divorce. It was tough…very tough, but I’ve learned so much about myself that I would not have learned unless I walked through this dark chapter in my life. I could have let it destroy me, but God put the right people in my path to help me walk it out and to see life through a different lens. I am learning to walk it out as my authentic self, to being the real deal, choosing to live life fully alive through it all.

God definitely got my attention, but breaking free of the expectations of this performance-oriented view of the world would take some time. Here is a snippet from Heartstone that described my condition.

There’s A Little Lady Gaga In All Of Us!

There’s a little Lady Gaga in all of us! Why, because we all crave “the applause”, don’t we? We crave to be known by the crowd, by the level of influence in our community, position at work, number of likes on Facebook, number of followers on Twitter, [fill in the blank]. We actually convince ourselves that one of these proofs of “being known” will satisfy us…but they don’t.

Appointment With A Stranger

I discovered in the wilderness that the Samaritan woman at the well symbolizes all of us who have used their best efforts to satisfy the yearning for love and completion. She had five failed marriages (I had two), lived in guilt and shame and intentionally avoided everyone because of the rejection she was carrying. Seemingly out of nowhere, Jesus walks onto the scene and asks her for a drink and she debates Him. This sound so familiar, doesn’t it?

Jim Valvano

My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.

Life Is A Beautiful Struggle

There’s A Little Lady Gaga In All Of Us!

Appointment With A Stranger

Jim Valvano

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Never Out Of The Fight!

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