I've been thinking a lot about love lately; ever since my pastor talked about love at Heartland a few Sundays ago and we've been unpacking this a little bit at work too in our weekly "Babel Study."
The Bible says we are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and to love others as we love ourselves. After reading that verse hundreds or thousands of times, the last time I read it it meant something different to me. We are to love God differently than we love others. We cannot love God the same way that we love each other. We are to love God all the time, doing everything for his glory, meditating on him day and night. We cannot and SHOULD NOT love others in this same way. Doing so would make them a god and god-ship is, obviously, reserved for only one and He is a very jealous God. We don't love people ALL the time; we aren't actively loving others every single second of the day, meditating on them, thinking about them, doing everything for them. We ARE called to actively love God all the time though. Furthermore, when I don't love God all the time (i.e.: when I sin), it means there's a place (or most likely more than one place) in my heart that I've reserved for myself, or self-love. To love him with all our soul means giving up our rights to be right, letting God defend us and if he doesn't, we're defenseless. In diving, where your head goes, your body follows and it's the same with spirituality and matters of the heart. The head directs the body and heart. So loving God with all our mind means meditating on him and things that come from him (Philippians 4:8-9). If we do that, our bodies and our hearts WILL follow. It's been proven that emotion follows thought. The more we think about God, the more we love him with our hearts, and the more we exhibit that love with our bodies (through acts of service, saving ourselves for marriage, how we treat others, etc … ). It's like the more I think about someone romantically, the more my heart responds and the more my body follows suit (i.e.: going out of my way to do nice things for him, wanting to be in close proximity to him, finding ways to touch him, etc … ).
When we love others with the same intensity and propensity that should be reserved for God, that's when we begin to try and extract more from them than they were originally designed by God to give. And that's when they become false gods to us. The same holds true for ourselves: we often times try to extract more from ourselves than what we were originally designed to give to someone (having high expectations for ourselves or being disappointed in ourselves when we fail to meet the unreasonably high expectations set by us or others around us) and in turn we make false gods of ourselves. If we were putting God on the throne at all times, we would not have the need to give more than what we were designed to give because all our needs would be met and satisfied by God, in ways far deeper, far outside the boundaries than other humans can satisfy them. That intensity and propensity of love was designed by God for us; he loved and loves us with that intensity so that we would turn it back to him. Our error is in turning that love inward to ourselves or outward to others, instead of upward. Loving God requires a love that is separate and altogether different than loving others.
We spend so much time asking ourselves, whether consciously or not, How can I be loved more? And how we answer ourselves plays itself out from that point on in how we interact with others and most importantly how we interact with ourselves and how our spirits interact with the Holy Spirit. We manipulate. We push. We pull. We beg. We avoid. We put on our masks to cover up the real us-es, the parts of us that we have previously exposed only to have those parts pointed at cruelly and then discarded and rejected. Our point of reference is so self-centered that all our lives it's been our mission in life to get people to love us, after all why wouldn't they? We think to ourselves, If only I could make them see me, the real me, then I know they would love me. If they could just get beyond my slightly overweight appearance, my big nose, mousy hair, problem skin, and get down to who I am underneath they'd see how beautiful I am. And we set out to do just that, to make ourselves known, forcing others to take a closer look at who we are. Which more often than not sends them running in the opposite direction because we haven't looked at who they really are so they seek it out from someone else. And the cycle perpetuates. All of this complexity is easily solvable. It can be reduced down to changing our question from How can I be loved more? to How do I love others more? If we would choose to take the focus of our own need for a minute and direct it instead to loving others and meeting their needs, they'd be more likely to see what we so desperately want them to see: that we are beautiful and lovable, even in the midst of all our brokeness.
On another note, Marilynne Robinson, the author of Gilead and others said, "Love is holy because it is like grace - the worthiness of its object is never really what matters." It doesn't matter how worthy we are of that love that God has for us. It just doesn't matter. He loves us and there's nothing we can do about it. We can't talk him out of it. There's nothing we can do or not do to make him love us any more or any less than he does right now in this very instant. God's love simply is and we'd be so much better off to just accept it, rather than fight it like we do. I long for a day when I finally learn to treat God's love as the salve that it is, letting it heal and restore even the most painful and ugliest of wounds. And the same can be said for human love. It doesn't matter how worthy someone is of our love, or how worthy we are of someone else's love. What matters is simply the love itself, that it exists, that we love and are loved. Instead we fight it, railing against it as though it were a weapon and not an offer of well-being, peace, and intimacy because we certainly don't deserve those things. We turn into something far more complex than God intended for it to be. It's simple: it's not, "Work for God's love, and force others to love you;" it's "Love God and love others."
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
14 August 2008
30 July 2008
red light redemption ...
I was selling “fabric.” That’s what they told me I'd be doing a few years prior when they brought me here. At the time, I had been looking for a way out of my current situation and met them and they seemed nice enough. And they were going to give me a job and a place to live. So that’s how I wound up on the corner that night, the night I met him. It was the kind of night that aches: lonely, rainy, and full of yearning.
The ground was wet and gleamed in shades of red and yellow where the lights glinted off the rain-soaked cement. I could tell he had been traveling for a while. His dark skin was wind burned and his black hair was long and clumped in dirty dreads. But his hands, though rough to the touch, were gentle as one of them brushed my cheek as he lifted it to sweep hair from my eyes. And his eyes, though heavy with sleep, were kind as they searched my face for something that I didn’t yet know was there. He was familiar and I swore I knew him from some other night or some other life.
I told him that if he was interested I had some fabric for sale but he had to come inside. He said, “The fabric that you’re selling is precious and priceless. It’s the most valuable fabric of all.” It was strange but I didn’t care. He seemed a willing customer and for some reason I knew he would give me more than I asked for. He got off his motorcycle, took off his rain gear, and followed me inside and up the narrow staircase. It always smelled, I thought, like fear in there, passion and violence, hate and brokenness. We reached the top of the stairs and I crossed the room to turn on the lamp. His words fell quiet and tender on my ears.
The ground was wet and gleamed in shades of red and yellow where the lights glinted off the rain-soaked cement. I could tell he had been traveling for a while. His dark skin was wind burned and his black hair was long and clumped in dirty dreads. But his hands, though rough to the touch, were gentle as one of them brushed my cheek as he lifted it to sweep hair from my eyes. And his eyes, though heavy with sleep, were kind as they searched my face for something that I didn’t yet know was there. He was familiar and I swore I knew him from some other night or some other life.
I told him that if he was interested I had some fabric for sale but he had to come inside. He said, “The fabric that you’re selling is precious and priceless. It’s the most valuable fabric of all.” It was strange but I didn’t care. He seemed a willing customer and for some reason I knew he would give me more than I asked for. He got off his motorcycle, took off his rain gear, and followed me inside and up the narrow staircase. It always smelled, I thought, like fear in there, passion and violence, hate and brokenness. We reached the top of the stairs and I crossed the room to turn on the lamp. His words fell quiet and tender on my ears.
Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Those days are over / You
don't have to sell your body to the night / Roxanne, you don't have to wear that
dress tonight / Walk the streets for money / You don't care if it's wrong or if
it's right
He told me again that the fabric I was selling was too costly to sell and that I should treasure it. “It’s the fabric of your very life; don’t sell it to the wolves.” I was flushed with anger and with embarrassment. Who was he? Who was he to tell me how to run my life? How was I supposed to escape this place? And how would I start over if I did? I was scared though too. I knew they would be watching for the red light through the window. And I reached out my hand again to turn the switch.
Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Roxanne, you don't have to putHis voice was like a salve, healing old wounds and soothing the ache left by years of prayers uttered in dark rooms illumined by red lights. He drew me in close to him the way I’d dreamed of someone doing before this nightmare of my life began. His arms embracing me brought old feelings and memories back to me. Feelings of being a little girl being wrapped up tightly in her daddy’s arms; memories of feeling truly treasured and cherished. I felt all of the past escape me and with it all the shame associated with the kind of life I'd somehow found myself in. Outside the door my boss was storming up the stairs, yelling my name. Telling me I had a customer asking for me downstairs.
on the red light / Put on the red light, put on the red light / Put on the red
light, put on the red light / Put on the red light, oh
I loved you since I knew ya / I wouldn't talk down to ya / I have to tell you
just how I feel / I won't share you with another boy / I know my mind is made up
/ So put away your make up / Told you once I won't tell you again it's a bad way
This seemingly familiar stranger knew me, knew my name, and knew who I was and what I was about. All the same, he didn’t care where I’d been; only where I was going and that I was going there with him. We went out the back window. He made bending the iron bars that had kept me trapped inside so long look so easy. We scrambled down the fire escape and had disappeared around the corner across the street under the cover of the night. He was a jealous lover. He refused to share me with anyone or anything. He didn’t want leftovers but rather he wanted my everything. That was made clear to me. A few years have passed since he ripped me from the life I’d stumbled into and hemmed me up into a life much better, one he’d long been preparing for me. Every once in a while he catches me in affairs, pretending to be someone I'm not or forfeiting the distances I've come since that night and I hear him whisper to me:
Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light / Roxanne, you don't have to
put on the red light / You don't have to put on the red light / Put on the red light, put on the red light.
(Roxanne lyrics by Sting)
17 March 2008
that illuminating glory ...
It's been a while since I posted anything new here and today's not going to be much different. I apologize for that. But last Friday I received an email from someone in Canada who has a ministry there in Alberta called The Mustard Seed. It was a fairly short email asking my permission to use one of my stories for his ministry. I wrote back asking him to clarify how he wanted to use it, in what context, etc ... and told him that it wasn't my story but God's and who was I to prevent someone from using it for his glory. He responded that he wants to make my story the basis for his sermon to about 60-70 homeless people on Easter Sunday. I was so shocked! My first reaction was to puff up and be proud, like any human would. But it is my utmost desire to exhibit humility and not become arrogant or defined by what someone else thinks of my writing abilities.
That being said, however, I do want to re-post the original story here. I wrote it over a year ago before I switched my url to the current one. So here it is (I will be re-working the last couple paragraphs to flow more easily, but you'll get the idea):
I didn't understand it then, what I was saying, and maybe I still don't. Perhaps I never will fully comprehend the extent of the power of my words that day. I didn't know that they would change my life, or what little was left of it, and then the next life too. Let me start again...
The air was thick with death that day. You could feel it crawling on your skin and smell it in your nostrils and taste it even on your tongue, and perhaps most gauche of all, you could see it, witness it, with your eyes. Maybe it was the unusually balminess of the weather that day that played to my senses. But death, no doubt, permeated the air. As did the smell of jasmine. Looking back on it now, it was the smell of jasmine that seemed out of place to me. How was it that such a beautiful and pure aroma did not get drowned out or overpowerd by the depravity of the other?
I couldn't believe how they were treating him with such disdain and hate. Who were they that made them believe they could do that, anyway? Like Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone." And I knew none of them were sinless. I had no actual evidence of them committing a crime except what was happening in front of me. They were doing it so willingly, and with such ease that I was repulsed with the sight of it. It reeked of old crimes committed in their pasts, and, truthfully, my own. I don't think they would have been able to do the things they did that day without having had shady pasts of some sort. To treat an innocent man like that... It's unspeakable.
I deserved everything I got that day and more. But not him. He was completely innocent, absolutely sinless. Why should he suffer for my sins? Or the sins of the world simply because his father loved us that much? I don't understand it, even now, 2000 years later. It seems so foreign to me, too surreal to comprehend. But I know it was real because I was there, I witnessed it all firsthand.
I didn't know 33 years prior to that day, before he was born, that I would one day meet him. I had met his mother and Joseph on the road. They were on their way to Egypt and I was part of a band of thieves. We were set to jump them and take everything they had, but I felt something, even then. It was something that I can't put words to, but I just remember this feeling of sacredness, like they were the work of a miracle somehow. I told the others with me not to do anything to them, not to harm them, and just to let them pass. The woman, Mary, looked at me with such gratefulness and I could have sworn that I saw the face of God in her. The glory of it was so heavy that it forced me to my knees.
I remember that I used to wish I was still kneeling there in that spot. In the remnants of that illuminating glory. It would mean that I would never have done all the stuff that I ended up doing, I would never have hurt anyone else, I would never have been the person that I became. But then I also know that I wouldn't be where I am today if I had stayed there.
Thirty-three years later I met him after having heard of him on countless occasions. The very moment I saw him I knew that he was the miracle I felt the presence of all those years prior. And then there we were, both being whipped and beaten and scourged and degraded and defiled. I deserved far more than I got but he deserved none of it and yet received at least 3 times what I did. I was so ashamed. I couldn't even look at him even though the one time I did I was met with a look of such deep, profound love. I could read in his face that he knew who I was. Maybe his mother had told him the story of the thief that let them pass all those years ago. Or maybe he just knew. Either way, it didn't matter. He knew me without ever having spoken to me. And I was utterly terrified because of it.
Pontius Pilate had him stand before the crowd with Barabbas, a murderer. Pilate then asked them, the crowd, which one to release: the known killer or the innocent, thinking that they would come to their senses about it. But all the rulers had whipped them into such a frenzy that they all cried out, "Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!" until Pilate relented, released Barabbas into the streets, and set forth the events that changed history, surrendering Jesus to their will.
They nailed us to crosses, big beams of wood that were sorely unforgiving. And put us on display for others to mock and spit at. Most of them ignored my friend and I and instead threw words of hate and scorn at Jesus, laughing at him, saying that he saved others so if he really was the Messiah why didn't he call on God and his angels to save him. "If you save yourself and come down from there, we will believe in you," the chief priests and elders called out. All that he could say in response was, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." They divided up his clothes by casting lots. And my friend even called out to him, forgetting all too quickly that he was in no position to mock another, for he himself was the subject of others' mocking. But he called out, "If you are truly Christ, then save yourself, and us."
My embarassment for my friend didn't keep me quiet. Instead I said between agonizing breaths, "Do you not fear God? Are you not under the same sentence, fool? We deserve everything we've been given today. But not him, he has done no wrong." And turning to finally meet Jesus gaze, "Remember me when you enter your kingdom today." And it was those words that I didn't understand at the time, or even now, how they would change things so drastically for me. I had no idea what he would tell me, nor did I have any expectation of them being fulfilled once he uttered them into the air, thick with the stench of death and evil. "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." Once he said them, I felt a shift inside me. I didn't know then that it wasn't just death tightening its grip on me, or just Satan calling me a fool for putting hope in such things for who was I to even think that I might enter into the Kingdom of God? All of these things played in my head over and over again as the sky opened up and rained down a cleansing flood into the now dark landscape.
A while later he cried loudly, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" Someone below ran to offer him a sponge dipped in vinegar. Jesus cried out again and then fell silent for the last time. It was the events immediately following his silence that shook me. The temple curtain tore in two. It was a large blue, purple, and scarlet curtain that separated the Holy Place from teh Most Holy Place, an inner room which symbolized God's presence; basically it separated people from God. When God tore the curtain he was dramatically showing that Jesus' death, the death of God's own son, had given people access to God. The earth shook and the rocks split and many who had died were brought back to life. This was a way of showing that death would not be the final victor and a foreshadowing of the time when all the faithful will be raised to life. When all this happened those who had been mocking him were terrified and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"
Shortly after all that had happened, I was surprised to find myself in Heaven looking down and watching people crucify him all over again, day after day, and rejoicing with the angels when they repented, as I did all those years ago, ensuring their entrance to a place far beyond their imaginations, where we will all forever be in the presence of that illuminating glory.
This is a story based on true events, as if told by Dismas, the thief that went with Jesus into Paradise that day.
That being said, however, I do want to re-post the original story here. I wrote it over a year ago before I switched my url to the current one. So here it is (I will be re-working the last couple paragraphs to flow more easily, but you'll get the idea):
I didn't understand it then, what I was saying, and maybe I still don't. Perhaps I never will fully comprehend the extent of the power of my words that day. I didn't know that they would change my life, or what little was left of it, and then the next life too. Let me start again...
The air was thick with death that day. You could feel it crawling on your skin and smell it in your nostrils and taste it even on your tongue, and perhaps most gauche of all, you could see it, witness it, with your eyes. Maybe it was the unusually balminess of the weather that day that played to my senses. But death, no doubt, permeated the air. As did the smell of jasmine. Looking back on it now, it was the smell of jasmine that seemed out of place to me. How was it that such a beautiful and pure aroma did not get drowned out or overpowerd by the depravity of the other?
I couldn't believe how they were treating him with such disdain and hate. Who were they that made them believe they could do that, anyway? Like Jesus said, "He who is without sin cast the first stone." And I knew none of them were sinless. I had no actual evidence of them committing a crime except what was happening in front of me. They were doing it so willingly, and with such ease that I was repulsed with the sight of it. It reeked of old crimes committed in their pasts, and, truthfully, my own. I don't think they would have been able to do the things they did that day without having had shady pasts of some sort. To treat an innocent man like that... It's unspeakable.
I deserved everything I got that day and more. But not him. He was completely innocent, absolutely sinless. Why should he suffer for my sins? Or the sins of the world simply because his father loved us that much? I don't understand it, even now, 2000 years later. It seems so foreign to me, too surreal to comprehend. But I know it was real because I was there, I witnessed it all firsthand.
I didn't know 33 years prior to that day, before he was born, that I would one day meet him. I had met his mother and Joseph on the road. They were on their way to Egypt and I was part of a band of thieves. We were set to jump them and take everything they had, but I felt something, even then. It was something that I can't put words to, but I just remember this feeling of sacredness, like they were the work of a miracle somehow. I told the others with me not to do anything to them, not to harm them, and just to let them pass. The woman, Mary, looked at me with such gratefulness and I could have sworn that I saw the face of God in her. The glory of it was so heavy that it forced me to my knees.
I remember that I used to wish I was still kneeling there in that spot. In the remnants of that illuminating glory. It would mean that I would never have done all the stuff that I ended up doing, I would never have hurt anyone else, I would never have been the person that I became. But then I also know that I wouldn't be where I am today if I had stayed there.
Thirty-three years later I met him after having heard of him on countless occasions. The very moment I saw him I knew that he was the miracle I felt the presence of all those years prior. And then there we were, both being whipped and beaten and scourged and degraded and defiled. I deserved far more than I got but he deserved none of it and yet received at least 3 times what I did. I was so ashamed. I couldn't even look at him even though the one time I did I was met with a look of such deep, profound love. I could read in his face that he knew who I was. Maybe his mother had told him the story of the thief that let them pass all those years ago. Or maybe he just knew. Either way, it didn't matter. He knew me without ever having spoken to me. And I was utterly terrified because of it.
Pontius Pilate had him stand before the crowd with Barabbas, a murderer. Pilate then asked them, the crowd, which one to release: the known killer or the innocent, thinking that they would come to their senses about it. But all the rulers had whipped them into such a frenzy that they all cried out, "Crucify him! Crucify him! Crucify him!" until Pilate relented, released Barabbas into the streets, and set forth the events that changed history, surrendering Jesus to their will.
They nailed us to crosses, big beams of wood that were sorely unforgiving. And put us on display for others to mock and spit at. Most of them ignored my friend and I and instead threw words of hate and scorn at Jesus, laughing at him, saying that he saved others so if he really was the Messiah why didn't he call on God and his angels to save him. "If you save yourself and come down from there, we will believe in you," the chief priests and elders called out. All that he could say in response was, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." They divided up his clothes by casting lots. And my friend even called out to him, forgetting all too quickly that he was in no position to mock another, for he himself was the subject of others' mocking. But he called out, "If you are truly Christ, then save yourself, and us."
My embarassment for my friend didn't keep me quiet. Instead I said between agonizing breaths, "Do you not fear God? Are you not under the same sentence, fool? We deserve everything we've been given today. But not him, he has done no wrong." And turning to finally meet Jesus gaze, "Remember me when you enter your kingdom today." And it was those words that I didn't understand at the time, or even now, how they would change things so drastically for me. I had no idea what he would tell me, nor did I have any expectation of them being fulfilled once he uttered them into the air, thick with the stench of death and evil. "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." Once he said them, I felt a shift inside me. I didn't know then that it wasn't just death tightening its grip on me, or just Satan calling me a fool for putting hope in such things for who was I to even think that I might enter into the Kingdom of God? All of these things played in my head over and over again as the sky opened up and rained down a cleansing flood into the now dark landscape.
A while later he cried loudly, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" Someone below ran to offer him a sponge dipped in vinegar. Jesus cried out again and then fell silent for the last time. It was the events immediately following his silence that shook me. The temple curtain tore in two. It was a large blue, purple, and scarlet curtain that separated the Holy Place from teh Most Holy Place, an inner room which symbolized God's presence; basically it separated people from God. When God tore the curtain he was dramatically showing that Jesus' death, the death of God's own son, had given people access to God. The earth shook and the rocks split and many who had died were brought back to life. This was a way of showing that death would not be the final victor and a foreshadowing of the time when all the faithful will be raised to life. When all this happened those who had been mocking him were terrified and exclaimed, "Surely he was the Son of God!"
Shortly after all that had happened, I was surprised to find myself in Heaven looking down and watching people crucify him all over again, day after day, and rejoicing with the angels when they repented, as I did all those years ago, ensuring their entrance to a place far beyond their imaginations, where we will all forever be in the presence of that illuminating glory.
This is a story based on true events, as if told by Dismas, the thief that went with Jesus into Paradise that day.
19 February 2008
a good spring thaw ...
Do you find yourself feeling a certain way and then you read something and realize that someone else, someone outside your story, has put perfect words to something that you thought was indescribable? My friend Jeff wrote this about 3 years ago. I printed it out and have kept it in my journal or my Bible since then. I re-read it again last night and it resonated deep within me. It just fits beautifully with how I feel right now.
With the gray of the morning, I am ashen too, and forever at odds, it seems, with who you are as if the breathing in of One who just is holds no bearing, no advantage, no explanation.
Yet I write, for this art must paint you. My design is known by you, as is my longing to contain you and bring form to the formless, to rip light and its shadows from voids, to color the dull.
Fall down upon me now and create the weight of something – anything – for me to bear a piece of you. Draw near in some fashion, beyond these whimsies and conjecture, for this appetite will not be satiated with trinkets or toys. Put skin upon your flock and multiply their numbers; time their rhythm with mine, for I crave some companionship, this day, of the supernatural sort.
Bring tension to this story, I beg; release some rising action that will at once invite resolution and a looming epilogue to cap this enduring, timeless struggle.
I am crushed into the realization that my humanity, more often that not, bears no resemblance to that which you intended. I should daily die but, instead, every other day perhaps, I grasp and claw and fight my way into my will of living, the very resolve that is manmade, centric focused, self-fulfilling.
Reveal yourself to me once more, for I’m thrashing about beneath these wanderings and taunted endlessly by one who hides you from me. Offer peace to these members and calm to this spirit; cocoon me away in your infinite reality, for musings of the human sort render no such comfort.
I am tired. I am beaten. My eyes grow weary and blurred; my breathing becomes labored at times. My legs are heavy as I climb the stairs toward something, anything, above and beyond this moment.
I watch as the chapters of this story reach their glorious heights only when I realize quite shockingly that I am not the Author. Yes, surprisingly, you do a much better job than someone such as me, with my feeble existence, my limited tolerance, my pathetic shell. Even as I write this, I plead for something, anything to help me describe you.
Help me depict you, because as it is, my mind bounces this way and that as I cower at the thought of you. My writing is sporadic, stunted, all over the place, yet nowhere as I try to capture you, as I search to contain you.
As I get out my bucket and shovel and begin to work on my sand castle, you form a mountain with your bare hands. While I retrieve my crayons and my construction paper, you sweep your fingers across the sky and make a prism of color unlike any other. While I blow hot air, you breathe into the wind and engulf me into your embrace. While I puff on my horn and beat my drums, you summon nature to cascade and ripple and resound with the harmony of the ages.
You shock me, beckon me, and pull me by the ear. You embrace me, tap me on the shoulder, smack me on the bottom to get in the game. You place your hand on the small of my back, or turn me to face you. You stand in front of me, beside me, shield me, and nurture me. You even get out of my way.
You give me a free will to sin and so I do. But as one sin falls on top of another and they multiply and grow arms and legs and tentacles you never stop taking me back. I am wounded, limping for a lifetime, in fact, but there you are, down the road, on one knee, weeping as I run toward you. You’re so happy that I’m back. I run so fast to you that I knock you over when I get there, and we laugh.
Your lap is imminently ready to be crawled into, your chest large and comfortable to lay my head. You sit at my table, occupy my grief, and circumvent my catastrophes.
But I can’t mistake you for any other. No, I dare not try because you will deafen with thunder and you will rebuild kingdoms and you will not trifle with sin. Yours is a mighty fist attached to a muscular arm that keeps this planet in motion. I shudder at the reality that you are.
I try to capture the beauty of you, but no frame can contain you.
Your love is overwhelming, nearly as vast as you are. You prepare and execute a cosmic change in plans and summon your own beautiful Son to walk this earth and ride through my imagination. To fix a horrible mess that in mankind; a horrific mess that is me.
Then you turn your back on him. You reject him, your first and only born; your beloved Son, yes, just for me.
So, as I write this, I am tired and I am beaten, but oh! how thankful, how awestruck I should be!
I was not meant to prop myself up, to cling to artificiality, to pigeonhole my way, I was not designed to muscle out of this box. I am fearfully and wonderfully made and I must – yes, today I must – find my weakness made strong in all that you are.
So throw back the curtains, let the light pierce the corners! Smack the space rugs and let me watch the dust cascade and tumble into the cleansing wind. Unshackle the back porch and invite in the subtle and benign breezes. Take off the storm door of this heart and soul and hang the wind chimes once again to perform their dance, to find their part in this great orchestra.
Unfold and unravel me! Search me deep within. Turn me upside down. Find me unholy, unworthy, unabashed; and take every square inch and reconfigure me.
Reshape and retool me. Sweep away the cobwebs of bitterness, indecision, judgment and pride. Forgive in me the dusty shadows of winter, the cold and frost-covered center of my being.
Transform me to your design so that I can join in the rapture of the season.
(All emphases are the original author's)
With the gray of the morning, I am ashen too, and forever at odds, it seems, with who you are as if the breathing in of One who just is holds no bearing, no advantage, no explanation.
Yet I write, for this art must paint you. My design is known by you, as is my longing to contain you and bring form to the formless, to rip light and its shadows from voids, to color the dull.
Fall down upon me now and create the weight of something – anything – for me to bear a piece of you. Draw near in some fashion, beyond these whimsies and conjecture, for this appetite will not be satiated with trinkets or toys. Put skin upon your flock and multiply their numbers; time their rhythm with mine, for I crave some companionship, this day, of the supernatural sort.
Bring tension to this story, I beg; release some rising action that will at once invite resolution and a looming epilogue to cap this enduring, timeless struggle.
I am crushed into the realization that my humanity, more often that not, bears no resemblance to that which you intended. I should daily die but, instead, every other day perhaps, I grasp and claw and fight my way into my will of living, the very resolve that is manmade, centric focused, self-fulfilling.
Reveal yourself to me once more, for I’m thrashing about beneath these wanderings and taunted endlessly by one who hides you from me. Offer peace to these members and calm to this spirit; cocoon me away in your infinite reality, for musings of the human sort render no such comfort.
I am tired. I am beaten. My eyes grow weary and blurred; my breathing becomes labored at times. My legs are heavy as I climb the stairs toward something, anything, above and beyond this moment.
I watch as the chapters of this story reach their glorious heights only when I realize quite shockingly that I am not the Author. Yes, surprisingly, you do a much better job than someone such as me, with my feeble existence, my limited tolerance, my pathetic shell. Even as I write this, I plead for something, anything to help me describe you.
Help me depict you, because as it is, my mind bounces this way and that as I cower at the thought of you. My writing is sporadic, stunted, all over the place, yet nowhere as I try to capture you, as I search to contain you.
As I get out my bucket and shovel and begin to work on my sand castle, you form a mountain with your bare hands. While I retrieve my crayons and my construction paper, you sweep your fingers across the sky and make a prism of color unlike any other. While I blow hot air, you breathe into the wind and engulf me into your embrace. While I puff on my horn and beat my drums, you summon nature to cascade and ripple and resound with the harmony of the ages.
You shock me, beckon me, and pull me by the ear. You embrace me, tap me on the shoulder, smack me on the bottom to get in the game. You place your hand on the small of my back, or turn me to face you. You stand in front of me, beside me, shield me, and nurture me. You even get out of my way.
You give me a free will to sin and so I do. But as one sin falls on top of another and they multiply and grow arms and legs and tentacles you never stop taking me back. I am wounded, limping for a lifetime, in fact, but there you are, down the road, on one knee, weeping as I run toward you. You’re so happy that I’m back. I run so fast to you that I knock you over when I get there, and we laugh.
Your lap is imminently ready to be crawled into, your chest large and comfortable to lay my head. You sit at my table, occupy my grief, and circumvent my catastrophes.
But I can’t mistake you for any other. No, I dare not try because you will deafen with thunder and you will rebuild kingdoms and you will not trifle with sin. Yours is a mighty fist attached to a muscular arm that keeps this planet in motion. I shudder at the reality that you are.
I try to capture the beauty of you, but no frame can contain you.
Your love is overwhelming, nearly as vast as you are. You prepare and execute a cosmic change in plans and summon your own beautiful Son to walk this earth and ride through my imagination. To fix a horrible mess that in mankind; a horrific mess that is me.
Then you turn your back on him. You reject him, your first and only born; your beloved Son, yes, just for me.
So, as I write this, I am tired and I am beaten, but oh! how thankful, how awestruck I should be!
I was not meant to prop myself up, to cling to artificiality, to pigeonhole my way, I was not designed to muscle out of this box. I am fearfully and wonderfully made and I must – yes, today I must – find my weakness made strong in all that you are.
So throw back the curtains, let the light pierce the corners! Smack the space rugs and let me watch the dust cascade and tumble into the cleansing wind. Unshackle the back porch and invite in the subtle and benign breezes. Take off the storm door of this heart and soul and hang the wind chimes once again to perform their dance, to find their part in this great orchestra.
Unfold and unravel me! Search me deep within. Turn me upside down. Find me unholy, unworthy, unabashed; and take every square inch and reconfigure me.
Reshape and retool me. Sweep away the cobwebs of bitterness, indecision, judgment and pride. Forgive in me the dusty shadows of winter, the cold and frost-covered center of my being.
Transform me to your design so that I can join in the rapture of the season.
(All emphases are the original author's)
31 December 2007
new year's eve ...
find me here
in the twilight of this last year
looking inward, all i see is pain
where peace used to remain
furtive introspection
hiding in my own reflection
can't seem to break free of this self-deprecation
and loose the chains of my self-evaluation
softly, sweetly i feel you answer
telling me in your candor
i am not the things that i describe
there's so much more to me inside
caught in the shadow of my insecurities
drowning in the deep end of my own self-doubt
you reach down and pull me out
telling me that in spite of all my infidelities
you are still there reminding me
i am exactly who you want me to be
candid introspection
shedding light on my reflection
finally peace remains
where all there used to be was pain
help me this new year
to shed all my fears
help me draw new lines where they need to be
and erase old ones that hide too much of me
help me to be weak
so that you in me are strong
and if you would have me speak
give me the words
so i don't say the ones that are wrong
trading in the shadows for sunlight
the deep end for the shore
i feel you here with me tonight
i am not drowning anymore
you're still there telling me
i am exactly who you want me to be
in the twilight of this last year
looking inward, all i see is pain
where peace used to remain
furtive introspection
hiding in my own reflection
can't seem to break free of this self-deprecation
and loose the chains of my self-evaluation
softly, sweetly i feel you answer
telling me in your candor
i am not the things that i describe
there's so much more to me inside
caught in the shadow of my insecurities
drowning in the deep end of my own self-doubt
you reach down and pull me out
telling me that in spite of all my infidelities
you are still there reminding me
i am exactly who you want me to be
candid introspection
shedding light on my reflection
finally peace remains
where all there used to be was pain
help me this new year
to shed all my fears
help me draw new lines where they need to be
and erase old ones that hide too much of me
help me to be weak
so that you in me are strong
and if you would have me speak
give me the words
so i don't say the ones that are wrong
trading in the shadows for sunlight
the deep end for the shore
i feel you here with me tonight
i am not drowning anymore
you're still there telling me
i am exactly who you want me to be
11 September 2007
released...
His voice comes out from the cd, over the threshold of my ears, and settles into my heart breaking into the loud silence there and interrupting my self-deprecation:
Clouds rumble, earth will shift
Walls tumble, hearts will skip
Things changing
Everywhere but here
His words pour out with such a sweet, melancholy sincerity it almost aches. I am jarred, pulled by his song from a moment steeped in self-pity. I am reminded of a promise I once read:
“‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54:10, NIV)
My question changes, turning from “My world is falling out from under me. What have I to cling to?” into something more reflective of this promise and the one who spoke it, “God, grant me the blessing of your peace that I might cling to this steadfast unfailing love. Even as the earth crumbles underneath my feet, I will hold to it like I lifeline.”
Small window, tiny room
Sun hits in the afternoon
For one minute fills this space
Beautiful, illuminated
My heart expands in its tiny space as the Son hits it. It bends toward the light and the light makes it beautiful. The dank dark corners full of the cob webs, devils and dust left over from last season are swept clean and replaced with new life, green and fresh.
When I am released
And the gates fly open before me
When I am released
Will you still be waiting for me?
When I am finally rid of everything that hinders me and have shaken loose the dirt and muck that always seem to find its way back in again, will you still want me then, because it might take a while? I always seem to want to take back from you my abandonment and to give you back your grace, feigning sinfulness too unworthy for such sweet redemption. I just want to be free from yesterday’s chains, bound only to blue sky and yellow sun, universal symbols of a new day; leaving the past where it lies and looking to graze in pastures of tomorrow’s truth.
Some look and all they find
Are problems and alibis
But my cup is one-sixteenth full
I am getting there but the getting’s slow.
This broken world is blind to what’s being offered, to what you’ve given and are giving. All they see is the brokenness and fail to see the opportunity to be opened up to you, the opportunity to live differently and to make not necessarily the good and safe choice but only the best choice. I am broken too but I’m aware that it’s only the broken pieces that get put back together again. Were it not for my brokenness I would not be thankful for the wholeness. Valleys fill first and though the depth of you in me so far is shallow, I trust that you are constantly pouring yourself into me. Yes, I am getting there but the getting’s slow.
When I walk outside I will see the sky
I will leave all this behind
When I walk outside
Sun to warm my skin, friends to take me in
When I walk outside
When I am released
And the gates fly open before me
When I am released
Will you still be waiting for me?
I can hear the flood of people singing on that day, calling out an anthem of praise and issuing an invitation to come out of hiding, to join the celebration, and to leave the dark corners of solitary prisons behind and stand in the sunlight. My heart hears this invitation and sends out its RSVP for 1: I will be there on that day of celebration.
I can see that God you’re moving,
a time of jubilee is coming.
When young and old return to Jesus
Fling wide, you heavenly gates
Prepare the way of the risen Lord
Open up the doors and let the music play
Let the streets resound with singing
Songs that bring your hope
Songs that bring your joy
Dancers who dance upon injustice.
(Released lyrics by Glen Phillips; Did you Feel the Mountains Tremble? lyrics by Matt Redman)
Clouds rumble, earth will shift
Walls tumble, hearts will skip
Things changing
Everywhere but here
His words pour out with such a sweet, melancholy sincerity it almost aches. I am jarred, pulled by his song from a moment steeped in self-pity. I am reminded of a promise I once read:
“‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.” (Isaiah 54:10, NIV)
My question changes, turning from “My world is falling out from under me. What have I to cling to?” into something more reflective of this promise and the one who spoke it, “God, grant me the blessing of your peace that I might cling to this steadfast unfailing love. Even as the earth crumbles underneath my feet, I will hold to it like I lifeline.”
Small window, tiny room
Sun hits in the afternoon
For one minute fills this space
Beautiful, illuminated
My heart expands in its tiny space as the Son hits it. It bends toward the light and the light makes it beautiful. The dank dark corners full of the cob webs, devils and dust left over from last season are swept clean and replaced with new life, green and fresh.
When I am released
And the gates fly open before me
When I am released
Will you still be waiting for me?
When I am finally rid of everything that hinders me and have shaken loose the dirt and muck that always seem to find its way back in again, will you still want me then, because it might take a while? I always seem to want to take back from you my abandonment and to give you back your grace, feigning sinfulness too unworthy for such sweet redemption. I just want to be free from yesterday’s chains, bound only to blue sky and yellow sun, universal symbols of a new day; leaving the past where it lies and looking to graze in pastures of tomorrow’s truth.
Some look and all they find
Are problems and alibis
But my cup is one-sixteenth full
I am getting there but the getting’s slow.
This broken world is blind to what’s being offered, to what you’ve given and are giving. All they see is the brokenness and fail to see the opportunity to be opened up to you, the opportunity to live differently and to make not necessarily the good and safe choice but only the best choice. I am broken too but I’m aware that it’s only the broken pieces that get put back together again. Were it not for my brokenness I would not be thankful for the wholeness. Valleys fill first and though the depth of you in me so far is shallow, I trust that you are constantly pouring yourself into me. Yes, I am getting there but the getting’s slow.
When I walk outside I will see the sky
I will leave all this behind
When I walk outside
Sun to warm my skin, friends to take me in
When I walk outside
When I am released
And the gates fly open before me
When I am released
Will you still be waiting for me?
I can hear the flood of people singing on that day, calling out an anthem of praise and issuing an invitation to come out of hiding, to join the celebration, and to leave the dark corners of solitary prisons behind and stand in the sunlight. My heart hears this invitation and sends out its RSVP for 1: I will be there on that day of celebration.
I can see that God you’re moving,
a time of jubilee is coming.
When young and old return to Jesus
Fling wide, you heavenly gates
Prepare the way of the risen Lord
Open up the doors and let the music play
Let the streets resound with singing
Songs that bring your hope
Songs that bring your joy
Dancers who dance upon injustice.
(Released lyrics by Glen Phillips; Did you Feel the Mountains Tremble? lyrics by Matt Redman)
29 August 2007
and so i wait...
Hi. As you know it's been a while since I have posted anything. Quite possibly this may be the longest I have ever gone without posting, especially posting something of my own since my last post was hocked off of John Eldredge. My lack of posting is due to a number of things really, none of which I can fully explain in a way that will enable you to understand.
I sit silently straining deeply inside myself to try and cover something up that can't be covered. I bury it. But then some time later these little sprouts, evidence of weeds that haven't been pulled out by the roots, start shooting up all over the place and the garden of my heart is a disaster again. I do some weeding, trying to pull them out by their tips but the pruning and pulling is painful and so I give up before I get to the root leaving evidence just below the surface. And all I feel is bare and ugly for a time. I am left with nothing but time to wish I could just go back to the days of long ago when I was lush with flowers and blooms of every variety and I bent toward the sun, untouched and unscathed by humanity and its depravity. I was fed continuously by the Gardener and drank deep from the water he provided. My soil was richer then. Before the evidence of the weeds some asshole planted in the Garden some thousands of years ago, because he was arrogant and afraid, began to show, ruining its true beauty and marring its glory forever after.
Lately, I have just had this longing. I don't know how else to describe it. A longing for life lived with reckless abandon and to explore and ultimately know what that would even look like for me. A longing to hole up in a cabin by the lake in the mountains somewhere and just write like Thoreau did. A longing to open a small new/used bookstore/coffee shop/cozy-corner-in-a-harsh-world in a small mountain town. A longing for family, not family of my own exactly, but my family, my childhood family. A longing for my mom. A longing for Jesus and to just know him so intimately that I am filled with an aching, and, again, to know what that would even look like for me. A longing for connections, for community. (I actually have a good community of believers, and non believers, at work but I want something that carries over to outside.) I have friends, don't get me wrong; and I am not desperate. It's just different than it was before I finally listened to my heart and what was being whispered to me there and decided I needed to go live in Alaska for 2 years and just up and left. Friends I had before I left I haven't heard from since I have been home; and a few people I knew on the surface before leaving have become more precious to me.
While I was away changing and growing, everyone at home was changing and growing too. Why did I not expect that and look for it? Why did I think I could just come back and re-enter everyone's lives like I had never been gone? And why am I now surprised to find that people moved on, found others to confide in, spend time with, call to make last minute plans? I feel as though I have been replaced. But I find myself turning to other "friends": the characters in the books I have been voraciously reading lately. That's just not normal. In fact, I sometimes consider that I might become this person that they'll make a movie out of one day. It will be all about how I plummeted into some dark false reality of living in the landscapes of the books that I read and my relationships with the people there.
Again, don't get me wrong. I have friends. I interact with people on a regular daily basis, in person and on the phone. And I have not started talking to imaginary people about their journalistic adventures in Africa or their own murder that they describe and investigate from their own version of Heaven or their road trips across country or their life on Cape Cod or in Nantucket. There's no need to call a therapist or have me committed. I do feel that it's a good thing that I am aware that it's not normal. I fully acknowledge that while it is easier to hide behind books than it is to step out from behind them and enter into actual relationships, it's, by all means, not healthier.
But I still feel a little vacant. I know this vacancy cannot be filled by other humans. It must be filled by the Holy Spirit. Quite frankly the idea of that scares me a little. And the knowledge that that scares me, scares me. Why would I prefer to cling to the company of men (used in the general sense of the word) – broken, imperfect, fallen, bound-to-hurt-me men – than to cling to God and his holy, unconditional, whole, heals-my-wounds, perfect love? It makes no sense to me. Why am I so stubborn? Why can't I just accept what's best for and being offered to me instead of "knowing" that I am, and will always remain, the single exception to the promise that God's grace is offered freely to those who will receive it? It's true. I just know that it's true for everyone else but not me. It doesn't matter how many times I hear it or someone tries to drill it into me that Yes, indeed. It is true for even you, Christina. It just will not sink in to my thick skull. Or my thick heart. Whichever.
Part of me is constantly battling those feelings of entitlement. I want what others have and I feel I have a right to these things: relationships, possessions, feelings, deep spirituality, a seemingly easy life, to have it all together, etc… Through talks with my friend, and chaplain here at work because I am so blessed to have one, I am learning that if I want to give up my wrongs (attitudes, feelings, actions, etc…) then I have to surrender my rights. I have to live free of the idea that I am entitled to or deserve anything good that I have in this world. The truth is, I don't. And, like Bill reminded me, Christ didn't deserve the Cross. It wasn't fair. But he did it anyway. Bill explained it a lot better than I am doing here, in a way that led me to one of those moments where you sort of sit back, smile, and soak in the light and truth that has just been unveiled to you as though shrouded for years under some great, dark, dusty lies.
It's frustrating to struggle with the same thing over and over and over again. To know the truth and still live in and believe the lie. To see light but remain in the dark like there's a thick "pain" of glass preventing you from ever truly getting there. You begin to chip away at it and it seems like the more you do, the more the little shards stick in you, penetrating deeper, until you're bleeding out everywhere. And so you stop the chipping because your bleeding heart is driving people away. And you start to believe that you will never make it through that wall. If only Someone could come and just shatter that pain of glass all at once, then you would be okay. Only it doesn't really work like that. It has to be a process. Otherwise the shock and hurt of that sudden shattering would probably kill a person. More than shatter the pain, it would shatter the life right out of them too. And you thought just the sight of a little blood was messy.
Just a couple weeks ago I was in Dallas with about 15 of my coworkers and friends. We went down to our new facility to have a service in which we dedicated the company, its customers, employees, the building, everything to God and gave it over to him in prayer. We shared in worship and communion together, celebrating what God is doing. Bert, the owner, and Bill, the chaplain, shared a word with us. They were words that I had been hearing from nearly everyone since I have been home, if not longer. We are all characters playing a role in a larger story. We are all here for a purpose. We may not know what that is this side of life, but have no doubt. Your role in this is important. We could not do this without you. You are vital to this company, to this ministry, to this extraordinary church we operate without calling it a church. It is you. And the hairs on my arms raised and my heart skipped and the corners of my eyes got leaky. Oh how I wanted so desperately for that to be true of me. To be a part of something larger than me. Beyond anything that I could ever dream up or imagine. Is this what I have been preparing for these last 30 years? Has it all been leading up to this? Is it here that I will find my true calling and fulfill my life's purpose and imbibe immense satisfaction? And my questions have gone unanswered. Or maybe I am just not listening and hearing, not tuned to his voice. How I want to be tuned to my shepherd's voice so that when I no longer hear it, I know I have somehow strayed a little too far from the flock and know to stay and wait for him to come and bring me back. And so I wait.
Abba, I thank you for unknowns, for the times in my life when I cannot clearly see the path or where it is leading me. I know in the past those are the times that I have had to learn to lean into you, to trust you with everything in me, even though it was a little scary. It was in those times that you took my mustard seed faith and increased it and showed me things that are far beyond my wildest imagination, more than I could have ever fathomed would be possible. You have a proven history of blessing me so much more than I deserve in the times when I have fully trusted you with the unknowns of my life. May I continue to seek you with fervor and to entrust all my moments, known or unknown, into your big and more than capable hands. Lord, I believe. Only help me with my unbelief and forgive me for my doubt of you. Forever and ever Amen.
I sit silently straining deeply inside myself to try and cover something up that can't be covered. I bury it. But then some time later these little sprouts, evidence of weeds that haven't been pulled out by the roots, start shooting up all over the place and the garden of my heart is a disaster again. I do some weeding, trying to pull them out by their tips but the pruning and pulling is painful and so I give up before I get to the root leaving evidence just below the surface. And all I feel is bare and ugly for a time. I am left with nothing but time to wish I could just go back to the days of long ago when I was lush with flowers and blooms of every variety and I bent toward the sun, untouched and unscathed by humanity and its depravity. I was fed continuously by the Gardener and drank deep from the water he provided. My soil was richer then. Before the evidence of the weeds some asshole planted in the Garden some thousands of years ago, because he was arrogant and afraid, began to show, ruining its true beauty and marring its glory forever after.
Lately, I have just had this longing. I don't know how else to describe it. A longing for life lived with reckless abandon and to explore and ultimately know what that would even look like for me. A longing to hole up in a cabin by the lake in the mountains somewhere and just write like Thoreau did. A longing to open a small new/used bookstore/coffee shop/cozy-corner-in-a-harsh-world in a small mountain town. A longing for family, not family of my own exactly, but my family, my childhood family. A longing for my mom. A longing for Jesus and to just know him so intimately that I am filled with an aching, and, again, to know what that would even look like for me. A longing for connections, for community. (I actually have a good community of believers, and non believers, at work but I want something that carries over to outside.) I have friends, don't get me wrong; and I am not desperate. It's just different than it was before I finally listened to my heart and what was being whispered to me there and decided I needed to go live in Alaska for 2 years and just up and left. Friends I had before I left I haven't heard from since I have been home; and a few people I knew on the surface before leaving have become more precious to me.
While I was away changing and growing, everyone at home was changing and growing too. Why did I not expect that and look for it? Why did I think I could just come back and re-enter everyone's lives like I had never been gone? And why am I now surprised to find that people moved on, found others to confide in, spend time with, call to make last minute plans? I feel as though I have been replaced. But I find myself turning to other "friends": the characters in the books I have been voraciously reading lately. That's just not normal. In fact, I sometimes consider that I might become this person that they'll make a movie out of one day. It will be all about how I plummeted into some dark false reality of living in the landscapes of the books that I read and my relationships with the people there.
Again, don't get me wrong. I have friends. I interact with people on a regular daily basis, in person and on the phone. And I have not started talking to imaginary people about their journalistic adventures in Africa or their own murder that they describe and investigate from their own version of Heaven or their road trips across country or their life on Cape Cod or in Nantucket. There's no need to call a therapist or have me committed. I do feel that it's a good thing that I am aware that it's not normal. I fully acknowledge that while it is easier to hide behind books than it is to step out from behind them and enter into actual relationships, it's, by all means, not healthier.
But I still feel a little vacant. I know this vacancy cannot be filled by other humans. It must be filled by the Holy Spirit. Quite frankly the idea of that scares me a little. And the knowledge that that scares me, scares me. Why would I prefer to cling to the company of men (used in the general sense of the word) – broken, imperfect, fallen, bound-to-hurt-me men – than to cling to God and his holy, unconditional, whole, heals-my-wounds, perfect love? It makes no sense to me. Why am I so stubborn? Why can't I just accept what's best for and being offered to me instead of "knowing" that I am, and will always remain, the single exception to the promise that God's grace is offered freely to those who will receive it? It's true. I just know that it's true for everyone else but not me. It doesn't matter how many times I hear it or someone tries to drill it into me that Yes, indeed. It is true for even you, Christina. It just will not sink in to my thick skull. Or my thick heart. Whichever.
Part of me is constantly battling those feelings of entitlement. I want what others have and I feel I have a right to these things: relationships, possessions, feelings, deep spirituality, a seemingly easy life, to have it all together, etc… Through talks with my friend, and chaplain here at work because I am so blessed to have one, I am learning that if I want to give up my wrongs (attitudes, feelings, actions, etc…) then I have to surrender my rights. I have to live free of the idea that I am entitled to or deserve anything good that I have in this world. The truth is, I don't. And, like Bill reminded me, Christ didn't deserve the Cross. It wasn't fair. But he did it anyway. Bill explained it a lot better than I am doing here, in a way that led me to one of those moments where you sort of sit back, smile, and soak in the light and truth that has just been unveiled to you as though shrouded for years under some great, dark, dusty lies.
It's frustrating to struggle with the same thing over and over and over again. To know the truth and still live in and believe the lie. To see light but remain in the dark like there's a thick "pain" of glass preventing you from ever truly getting there. You begin to chip away at it and it seems like the more you do, the more the little shards stick in you, penetrating deeper, until you're bleeding out everywhere. And so you stop the chipping because your bleeding heart is driving people away. And you start to believe that you will never make it through that wall. If only Someone could come and just shatter that pain of glass all at once, then you would be okay. Only it doesn't really work like that. It has to be a process. Otherwise the shock and hurt of that sudden shattering would probably kill a person. More than shatter the pain, it would shatter the life right out of them too. And you thought just the sight of a little blood was messy.
Just a couple weeks ago I was in Dallas with about 15 of my coworkers and friends. We went down to our new facility to have a service in which we dedicated the company, its customers, employees, the building, everything to God and gave it over to him in prayer. We shared in worship and communion together, celebrating what God is doing. Bert, the owner, and Bill, the chaplain, shared a word with us. They were words that I had been hearing from nearly everyone since I have been home, if not longer. We are all characters playing a role in a larger story. We are all here for a purpose. We may not know what that is this side of life, but have no doubt. Your role in this is important. We could not do this without you. You are vital to this company, to this ministry, to this extraordinary church we operate without calling it a church. It is you. And the hairs on my arms raised and my heart skipped and the corners of my eyes got leaky. Oh how I wanted so desperately for that to be true of me. To be a part of something larger than me. Beyond anything that I could ever dream up or imagine. Is this what I have been preparing for these last 30 years? Has it all been leading up to this? Is it here that I will find my true calling and fulfill my life's purpose and imbibe immense satisfaction? And my questions have gone unanswered. Or maybe I am just not listening and hearing, not tuned to his voice. How I want to be tuned to my shepherd's voice so that when I no longer hear it, I know I have somehow strayed a little too far from the flock and know to stay and wait for him to come and bring me back. And so I wait.
Abba, I thank you for unknowns, for the times in my life when I cannot clearly see the path or where it is leading me. I know in the past those are the times that I have had to learn to lean into you, to trust you with everything in me, even though it was a little scary. It was in those times that you took my mustard seed faith and increased it and showed me things that are far beyond my wildest imagination, more than I could have ever fathomed would be possible. You have a proven history of blessing me so much more than I deserve in the times when I have fully trusted you with the unknowns of my life. May I continue to seek you with fervor and to entrust all my moments, known or unknown, into your big and more than capable hands. Lord, I believe. Only help me with my unbelief and forgive me for my doubt of you. Forever and ever Amen.
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