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Overview
Comparing people to stained glass windows, Patsy Clairmont explains the power of God to restore and redeem that which seems devastated beyond repair, and she does so with the quick wit and deep insight of someone who has been there. And back. Themes of art and creativity are woven together with stories from Patsy’s own life. And special features include quotes, suggested scripture readings, sample prayers, and recommended music.
With candor tempered by wind-whipped wisdom, Patsy provides a new lens through which to view our lives. Stained Glass Hearts is a perspective that gives us the chance to see our potential for color, sparkle, and great purpose through the grace of God.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780849949241 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | HarperCollins Christian Publishing |
| Publication date: | 12/19/2023 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 203 |
| Sales rank: | 882,213 |
| File size: | 892 KB |
About the Author
Patsy Clairmont is a popular speaker, a coauthor of various Women of Faith devotionals, and the author of such best-selling books as "God Uses Cracked Pots" and "Sportin' a 'Tude." She and her husband live in Brighton, Michigan.
Read an Excerpt
STAINED GLASS HEARTS
Seeing Life from a Broken PerspectiveBy PATSY CLAIRMONT
Thomas Nelson
Copyright © 2011 Patsy ClairmontAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8499-4924-1
Chapter One
The Heart of the Matter
My grandson Noah, who is seven and in the second grade, is hesitant this year to enter the school day with a full heart. With regularity at night he says to his mom, "How 'bout I don't go to school tomorrow?"
That's the sweetest way I've ever heard of saying, "With your permission ... I quit."
It isn't that Noah doesn't like school, his teacher, or his classmates. On the contrary, he is quite the ambassador of goodwill. But Noah finds school seriously eats into his playtime. It cramps his exuberant style. C'mon, it interferes with him romping with Sammie, his puppy.
I so get Noah's perspective. My life responsibilities mess with my dreams of an extended rocking chair retreat. I travel most weekends of the year to do conferences, which is both a joy and a pain. The pain is packing. I must have missed that class in high school home economics because I'm really poor at it, even after thirty-five years of perpetual travel.
On the night before a trip, I often want to say, "How 'bout I don't go to the airport tomorrow? How 'bout I just stay home?" Yet here's what I know about me: after a few months of tipping lemonade on the front stoop, I would be saying, "How 'bout I go somewhere?"
I'm so grateful for a light-bearing Savior who came to redeem me from my self-absorbed viewpoints and my broken-glass perspective, lest I give in to my childish whims and miss my calling, my potential, and the opportunity to make legacy-bearing contributions.
This is my third book dedicated to the topic of light and redemption—two topics wed by God's benediction over creation in Genesis that continue to intrigue and inspire me. Two topics that can elevate us to a Pikes Peak perspective. Two topics that fill stained glass windows around the world with timeless inspiration. And two topics that move us past the temptation to quit before we have finished "school."
What might surprise you in this tome, however, is the timbre. I'm known for my playful approach to life, which is fused within me; but to those who are closest to me, I'm also known for my need to pull on galoshes and wade into a thought. I guess when you've lived sixty-plus years you collect a lot of heartache from this wind-whipped world that causes you to search the shadows of the forest. In my childhood I would have skipped through the woods oblivious to anything more than the path ahead, but today I've learned to check the secret places for the treasures of darkness (Isaiah 45:3).
This book, more than my past writings, reveals the solemn side of my heart etched in by loss. But I also plan to explore fascinating art that will potentially enrich our minds. We will enjoy music that hopefully inspires a zippier life-dance; we will consider nature's display of God's glory; and we will dig into Scripture, knowing it will enhance faith. Of course my funny bone is still intact, and if you know me, there's no telling when I might act up.
And no, I'm not an art major, a dance instructor, a conservationist, or a theologian. I'm a bona fide, card-carrying cracked pot, grateful that it pleases God to make himself known to us all ... which brings us back around to redemption and light.
Light thrills me with its unexpected twists and turns as it bathes distant peaks and then plunges to the valley, illuminating paths below. As I pen these thoughts, I'm in a rocking chair on a Tennessee hilltop, watching the sunlight gyrate through the tops of thousands of acres of trees. It's like a living stained glass window where, for a weekend, I get to view amazing displays of God's handiwork.
Just as light does, redemption brings hope. Really, it's hard to separate the two, for wherever redemption is, the light of revelation abounds. And when light pierces the darkness, it's with the proclamation of God's redeeming love. Redemption is the rescue of humanity from sin by a sacrificial Savior, the restoration of the human heart, the reclamation of our dignity, and the revival of our purpose.
Oh, wait. Like a New York yellow cab at rush hour, a sun-drenched finch just dashed into the thickets below, staining the sky with its golden streak. Breathtaking. I like it here. A lot. I've been on this hilltop before but never long enough. Whenever I arrive here, my blood pressure drops, my stress level evens out, my spirits buoy, and I rest deeply in this hand-hewn cedar-and-cypress cabin. Because of the generosity of our friends Nordick and Mary Claire, I can step out of town and sit above the clouds—or sometimes smack-dab in the middle of them. It's a perfect perch from which to share with you my current events as well as those from times long ago.
When as a child I did something outlandish, my dad would quip that I had a "paper head." Funny thing, he never mentioned my stained glass heart. I wonder if he knew then how easily we shatter? I'm certain he was familiar with brokenness since he grew up in the Depression, when times were tough and people desperate. I'm not sure Dad absorbed the chaos of those years with its hardship since most of his life he remained an easygoing man who loved poker, naps, crossword puzzles, toothpicks, and the Charleston.
That is until my brother, Don, Dad's only son, died in a car accident and knocked the dance out of Daddy. I saw his heart shatter. When word came out of the operating room that there was no hope for Don, I found Dad alone, leaning against a wall in the hospital. He was clutching his chest as if he were trying to catch pieces of his heart as it broke. I took Dad outside, and when his color improved, we took him home to mend. That was one day of many to come when I was reminded that all God's people have glass hearts. Even dads. We aren't alone in our fragile design.
So come on into my storybook. Look around. Yes, I know it's personal, but you have my permission to ruffle the pages. While you're here, I'll share my tattered life with its crashes and recoveries because I believe in community wellness; we each contribute to others by sharing our successes and most certainly our failures. I believe we help each other know a fuller picture of Christ through the drama of what's happened to us and how he goes about daily redemption. I will also talk about the new vision and eventual version of us that comes with holy rescue. And I would like to chat about our stained hearts and our limited—as well as our expansive—perspectives that color who we are and how we relate to others.
First, though, I want to take you back to a miracle moment in the vortex of my once-suffocating existence ...
For a long time I believed that if I just tried a little harder, I could fix my broken self, but no matter how thoroughly I rifled through my bag of tricks, I didn't have the tools recovery required. Then I bought into the lie that if I could redesign my life to circumvent my fears, I would make it through this scary maze called life. Only my fears multiplied, further constricting my ability to function. It seemed the more I adjusted my life to avoid what scared me, the more tightly fear coiled and hissed venomously.
Finally I gave up trying to reason my way out of my fear-based lifestyle and instead waited for a Clark Kent intervention. Then one morning I woke to the startling realization that I wasn't going to survive my agoraphobic self, much less the world, and that no cape-clad superhero had been assigned to my case.
I had, over several years, become emotionally and physically housebound; then I became bedbound and drug dependent, and my physical health was precarious at best. My weight had dropped to eighty-five pounds, and I was strung out on caffeine, nicotine, and heavy doses of fear. I popped tranquilizers like kids gobbled jawbreakers, trying to escape the darkness and panic that had seized my mind.
So what life-altering event caused a shaft of light to finally enter my debilitating gloom and bring me a glimmer of hope? Did I invite Christ into my heart? Actually, I already had done that. Unfortunately I filtered Scripture through my twisted thinking, which at best left me with a distorted picture of who God was. I read of God's judgment, and that aspect of him Velcroed to my overdeveloped guilt, but his words and acts of grace slipped through the cavernous hole in my heart. Grace was, in my thinking, reserved for someone more deserving, like the Abigails and Ruths of the Old Testament.
Did an angel finally appear and touch my bruised mind and restore my ragged health? Nope. I would have been thrilled with that kind of divine Jiffy Lube quick start. I was an eager advocate for fast, easy, and convenient restoration.
No, nary a flapping wing nor a fiery chariot arrived at my bedside to liberate me. Instead the turnaround came on a day when three simple yet startling words rose up inside of me and flashed like a neon arrow.
Before I tell you those life-changing words, though, I would like to talk about Chihuly. How random is that?
Have you heard of Dale Chihuly? Dale is a glass artist. In 1976 he was in a serious automobile accident that threw him through the car's windshield, causing him to lose his left eye. Vision is an important part of an artist's ability to maintain balance in his art and scope.
Then Dale injured his shoulder scuba diving, and those combined accidents forced him to step down from his coveted master glass grinder position. It appeared Chihuly's career in the art of glass would be greatly altered or perhaps even be over, but then a life-changing moment occurred. Listen to Dale in his own words ...
"Once I stepped back [okay, get ready, here it comes], I enjoyed the view," said Chihuly. Did you hear that? "I. Enjoyed. The. View." He lost his vision in one eye, he lost his esteemed position, and he likes what he sees?
What he saw was his art from a new angle. His unwanted change gave him a different perspective. Dale couldn't have imagined that his limitations would position him to see limitless possibilities. He is now considered by many to be the premiere glass designer in the world. Chihuly's light-bearing work is displayed in hotels, castles, gardens, and museums throughout the world.
"Once I stepped back, I enjoyed the view." Selah (Hebrew for "Ponder this thought").
Now, return with me to my story and my breakthrough moment. The three words that pushed their way through my cloying fear, bleak melancholy, and blinding stuck-ness were (drums, please) "Make your bed."
Yep. Not "Change the world," not "Go forth and conquer," but "Make your bed."
I pressed myself that day to respond, and I made the bed that I had been hiding in and "once I stepped back ..." I experienced a ping of hope, a moment of personal triumph, a shred of dignity. Why? Because "I liked what I saw." Suddenly I had a visual boundary, a starting point, an opportunity to reenter life.
Today, if I could map my trek to wellness and draw you a visual of the path I've been on, it wouldn't fit inside the outline of my home state of Michigan. Nor would it fit inside the twenty-two hundred acres where the Tennessee cabin abides. Actually, it would require an atlas of the world. The trip (I did a lot of tripping) toward stability took me through jungles of emotions, pits of despair, ledges of fear, deserts of loneliness, wind shears of relationship, and white, churning waves of anger. Ah, but the vistas from mountaintops, the bounty in gardens, the beauty on beaches, the serenity inside forests, and the vibrancy of rainbows would cause the journey to have life-breathing purpose.
"Make your bed" was a divine doorway for me to reenter life. I know it sounds too simple and obvious to be a breakthrough; yet in that step-back moment, that's just what it was for my trapped heart. I should have known to get up and set things in order, but I was too overwhelmed and intent on someone else taking responsibility for my recovery. I didn't think I had what it would take to get well. I was neither brave nor competent. I would have to grow into those big-girl shoes.
How tender of the Lord to make the invitation toward change attainable. He knew it would take all I had to even make the bed, and he also knew I was desperate enough to finally risk trusting him for what I couldn't do. To look at myself through an achievement instead of from under blankets of weighty failure spurred me on; it offered me a new way of seeing.
I selected the theme "stained glass hearts" for this writing project for a number of reasons. First, I think even the phrase "stained glass" conjures up not only the usefulness of brokenness, but also its potential beauty. And even though the stained glass pieces are artistically designed, they still have been broken, sanded, and soldered. They didn't naturally fit the redemptive pattern without holy repairs. Also, stained glass art doesn't begin to show its beauty or its inspiration or release its story until light touches the dark. The light transforms an otherwise subtle picture into a brilliant, dimensional experience.
Isn't that how we are? Broken? Sharp edges? In need of repair? Longing to be, yet frightened of being, seen in the light? I know I'm all of the above and then some. And I deeply identify with the stained heart: tainted by my own spiteful nature, disruptive and addictive tendencies, with longings for my life story to be infused with purpose and meaning.
In the chapters ahead I have included elements that have spiritually nurtured my heart, and I hope they will yours as well. At the close of each chapter, you'll find a section called "The Art Gallery." It will include quotes, poetry, music, scriptures, artists, and more.
My suggestions of, say, art may send you on a quest to a library or the Internet, and the music may take you to iTunes. This will be an interactive adventure during which I think you will find the stories, songs, and pictures inspiring, comforting, heart-expanding, and revealing.
Sometimes simple is profound. And sometimes the answer for change in our lives is so close we can miss it ... unless we gain God's perspective. Hopefully our art, music, and book exploration will give us some step-back time. And then we can begin to "enjoy the view."
Friend and author Ian Cron said to me, "Christianity is not something we do; it's something that gets done to us."
So true. I wish that thought could be etched into the stained glass windows of our souls. Our faith journey is about grace, and grace is such a scandal because it whispers that it's not about our efforts but about God's provisional love. That's so hard to embrace because in our humanity we are certain if we try harder, serve more, love better, we will somehow earn our wholeness and make points with God.
When God whispered, "Make your bed" to my fear-ravaged heart, he knew I needed to move out of my self-made hiding place, which had become a dungeon for my soul, and to step into the light of his grace.
Today at times I still wrestle with my tendency to think that what I do qualifies me before God instead of what he's done and completed. In my mind I know the truth, but my emotions still are susceptible to the lies of the evil one as he bellows, "You haven't done enough!" "You aren't enough!" "Try harder!" I have a natural leaning toward legalism, strapping myself to works and buying the lies. I'm grateful the gift of God's love continues to liberate me and help me to see Christ in his grace-based holiness and to see others and myself with our delicately designed stained glass hearts, each with a redemptive story to tell ... In the pages ahead are some of those stories.
How 'bout we get started?
Chapter Two
Achy-Breaky Hearts
Today I stood on a broken heart.
That felt odd.
And even though it was a mosaic set into the floor in a studio where I was recording sound bites for radio, it seemed personal. I mean, I was smack-dab in the middle of that tragic art. Actually, when I think about it, I've known people who have stood on my achy-breaky heart, and I think that's why it felt inappropriate to stand center stage on that delicate design.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from STAINED GLASS HEARTS by PATSY CLAIRMONT Copyright © 2011 by Patsy Clairmont. Excerpted by permission of Thomas Nelson. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
1. The Heart of the Matter....................12. Achy-Breaky Hearts....................15
3. Enlarge Our Hearts, Oh, Lord....................31
4. Reflections on Our Heart Condition....................45
5. Enough to Make a Stained Glass Heart Sing....................59
6. Stained Glass Prayer....................75
7. Wisps of Poetry from Stained Glass Hearts....................93
8. Stained Glass Books....................109
9. Stained Glass Puzzles....................125
10. Stained Glass Nature....................141
11. Stained Glass Profusion, a Garden....................155
12. Stained Glass Rock of Ages....................169
13. Stained Glass Redemption....................183
About the Author....................191