To my mom: now I can say thank you

Reflections

When I pushed

you open

that cold night

demanding

to be released into the world,

the tearing of your flesh

was but the first pain of letting go.

No one told you

how that opening

wide of motherhood

would empty you out

and fill you

all at once.

Maybe you had imagined

cries in the dark at midnight

toy explosions

sibling wars

and the endless thankless art

of making a home,

But you didn’t know

how the letting go

would begin first with

yourself.

The pouring out was

effortless some days,

kisses lavished, songs sung,

joy thick as the laughter

that embraced you,

a child’s bright smile

easy reward

for invisibility.

Other days

I sucked it from you,

heedless of weariness,

unaware of your soul

that extended so far beyond

my small imaginings.

Did you ever long to be

seen?

Did you wonder when I

would really

know you?

Still

you stepped cheerfully

into the humble role

I cast for you,

and even as

you wove a world around me

hemming me in,

you made holes

to let the light in,

a space to breathe

and dream.

So many things I took

from you,

my child’s heart never knowing

who you really were,

the woman who labored

and loved long beyond

her own strength,

who made herself small

to give me the universe.

This rock (Revolution of Jesus, Part 3)

Silent.

After all that has happened, this is the worst. The finality of this silence. The earth has simply swallowed up your hope. Everything you thought you were living for is now sealed in stone. Dead.

And nothing matters now but that look.

After all your bold words about following Jesus to the ends of the earth. You couldn't even own Him to a simple servant girl. You lied. Three times. You denied the one thing that you have ever been sure of. All those years of following Him. All your hopes. You were going to lead the way.

"I don't know Him." The grief of those words crushes your heart. I failed Him. I hurt Him. And I can never take it back.

The world has closed silent around those last words, and you must carry the knowledge of His eyes on you, burning into your heart.

Maybe you thought He couldn't hear you? That He wouldn't know?

But then He turned, and His eyes found you, and they brimmed with the sorrow of your denial. They pierced you with the knowledge of your failure.

But the sorrow in those eyes was all for you. The knowledge was for the burden you now bear.

You can still feel His hands holding your feet, staying your sword. You can hear His voice filled with agony, asking you to pray with Him.

And really, what have you done but fail this Lord again and again, with Your bumbling words, your impulsive zeal? And what did He ever do but gently say, "Not this way. Follow Me."

The truth is that revolutions always ultimately fail. You may rise up and act, you may work for a worthy goal, and you may even succeed for a time in throwing off the old and bringing in the new. But  in the end we cannot escape ourselves. We always wreck everything in spite of our best intentions.

We all stand in the loud silence of our sorrow and sob, "What have I done?"

We all must look aghast at who we really are and stop pretending.

You may even know beyond doubt that Jesus defeated death. You may have heard the angels, seen the grave clothes lying empty. But for you--your revolution has failed.

You failed Him.

You failed yourself.

And so you return to what you know. To life before the revolution. Even though you swore you would never go back. Even though you work all night and catch nothing--another failure. This is what you know. This is who you are.

And then you hear a familiar voice telling you to do something familiarly ridiculous, like, "Throw your net out again." Even though you already threw it hundreds of times and came up empty.

And as you haul in the net that is already breaking under the strain of so many fish, your mind flashes back to another moment exactly like this one, the moment your life truly began. The moment hope was born.

It is the Lord.

And you know it's silly to hope after all you have done, but you cannot help it--you leap into the water and splutter and splash gracelessly to the shore where you fall at His feet.

He raises you up. He feeds you. Just like all the other times, when you think He should be arming you for battle, He feeds you.

He looks into your eyes, and His own are filled with the sorrow of your suffering.

"Do you love Me?"

Three times. Once for every denial.

And  you choke out your love for Him and this time your words are not bold and fiery and confident. They are broken.

This is the rock He will build on. This broken thing, who understands shame. And failure. And regret.

Because really, how can you understand hope unless you have been hopeless? How can you tell the world of the grace He offers unless you have first known despair?

"Feed My sheep."


This is a revolution of hope. A revolution that will save us from ourselves. A revolution that never stops, because we we never stop denying Him, and He never stops restoring.

Because what we really need--what all of us need--is not the overthrow of kings or armies. Not the accumulation of things. Not the success that still leaves us empty.

We are hungry. We need to be fed.

It doesn't begin where you think (Revolution of Jesus, Part 2)

"Look how the whole world has gone after Him!"

The Pharisees fumed in their fear while the people flocked after Jesus, thirsty for a sign. They wanted to be fed. They wanted to be healed. They wanted to be free. 

And here was Jesus, doing the impossible. Raising the dead. Clearing the temple. Saying these preposterous things that made people want to hope. 

Revolution. 

But then. 

A sacred night. A quiet upper room. These friends who thought they knew their Jesus, who thought they were ready to follow Him into death. 

That night it really began. That night Jesus started the revolution that would one day catch fire across the world. 

He knelt at the feet of His friends. His followers. These beloved yet frail and faltering feet. And one by one, He washed them. Touched them in the place of greatest outward shame. Held the mess of them, the flesh stinking with the filth and grime and weariness of earth. 

One by one. Purposefully cleansing. Looking into their eyes. I see you.

And then Peter, the one who had confessed his teacher as Lord, the one who knew he was serving his Messiah. Peter, whose heart burned with righteous fire, who above all things wanted to do. To act.

"You shall never wash my feet." 

Did he say this because he knew it was very God about to do this thing? Did he say this from deep humility? Or was it something else?

"Unless I wash you, you have no part of Me."

Jesus knew that place of deepest pride, the place so hard to reach because it looks like humility. The place that says, I will gladly serve, but I will never be served. I will give all, but I will never receive. 

We focus, rightly, of course, on the selfless act of Jesus in the most humble act of service. We hear His words, "Do as I have done for you." 

Maybe this is where revolution begins. 

But maybe, for some of us, it begins in Peter's place. It begins when someone kneels before us and enters our mess, takes our grime in their hands and says, "Let me help. Let me love you."

Aren't we Jesus-followers often so good at giving? So intent on serving? But can we receive? Can we be served in return?

"Wash one another's feet," He said. "Unless I wash you, you have no part of Me."

You, Peter, so ready to go, to do, to lead the way for Me, you will not know the way until you sit here and lift up your mess. Until know your need to be touched, served, cleansed, and until you allow others in, You will have no part of Me.

This revolution began not with going, conquering, demanding, taking, but with sitting, kneeling, serving and being served. 

This Jesus, he knelt and served. But only a few moments later, He opened His own soul, full of agony, fear, and despair, to His dearest friends. "Pray with Me," he begged them. He invited them into His struggle. He asked them to serve Him. He allowed Himself to need. Even when they kept falling asleep, He kept asking. Be with Me.

I would rather wash a thousand feet and keep my own twisted toes safely tucked inside my shoes. But  when I sit and let someone kneel before me, touching me in a place of great need, I feel my soul open. I see my shame and my sorrow. I am exposed. But here is where hope and grace can enter in. Here, at the place of giving and receiving, is where revolution begins.

What this spring should really be about (Revolution of Jesus, Part 1)

These days I cringe when I open my front door. I’m waiting for that icy blast of

wind that has kept us captive inside for far too many months. Is it just me, or has this winter has seemed harsher, colder, and longer than most?

I’m ready for summer. And for windless days. But for now there is the sunshine flooding the window with light. There are the fuzzy buds blowing around on the branches outside, and there is this green grass poking up stubbornly through the snow that keeps falling on it.

Spring is a patient but demanding master. It always comes. Life keeps springing up out of the dead things.  Each year the world undergoes a mini-mutiny as it throws off winter’s grip and claims the sunshine.

As Easter approaches, I’m contemplating this life of Jesus, particularly in His final days before His death. And to my surprise, one word keeps coming to my mind.

Revolution.

It’s easy to see why the Jewish leaders were afraid of revolution. Jesus was a common man who became a great leader and teacher. He stirred the crowds with His humility, compassion, and fearless stand against the religious oppressors. He came to a people downcast, captive, and trodden upon.

And on top of that, He healed diseases. He opened blind eyes and deaf ears. He fed thousands. He raised the dead. He met the people at their most basic needs, needs long overlooked by their spiritual and political rulers.

He gave people hope.

And hope makes a people bold. It awakens them, like a world thawing into spring. It stirs them to act.

While the Romans and the Jewish leaders controlled them with rules and force of law, Jesus saw them. Heard them.

When He stood before that tomb of his friend and wept with sorrow, He was one of them. When He called the dead man out and restored him to his sisters, He was God.

Here was God come down into the captivity of His people, walking in it and even grieving it with them—and showing them a way out.

And suddenly life was stirring in the hearts of these people long used to facing death. And they began to think their days could be about more than survival.

The religious rulers were happy with what they had. They loved what they had. They were perfectly comfortable in their captivity. “If we let Him go on like this,” they said, “everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our temple and our nation” (John 11:48). The religious leaders were furious because they were afraid.

They were right to fear a revolution. They were wrong to think that they could silence it. For although no one yet understood what it was, Jesus was about to instigate an uprising. This revolt would have nothing to do with overthrowing a government or political system. It would have everything to do with overthrowing the heart.

And when the human heart is overthrown, death only opens the door to life.

Jesus awakened people by loving them. He showed that real revolution begins not by demanding our rights but by letting go of them for the sake of others. He led the way not in taking up arms, but in laying down His life.

After all, the only way to get to spring is to go through winter. And the only way to find out who we really are is to lay down everything we thought we were. Our true life will come from our dead things, just as revolution comes when we allow hope into our deepest need.

During these next few weeks I hope to explore this revolution of Jesus. And I hope it will catch fire in my own heart.

How to be radiant

She lived in a dark place. She knew Jesus, loved Him, walked with Him every day, but inside there

was this place of fear. This empty place, a place she didn't truly believe could ever be filled.

In that deep empty place, she was alone.

And so she raged against all the things that couldn't fill that place. Things she cherished but things that were not enough. Nothing was ever enough.

And of course those things failed her. People messed up. Those who loved her most disappointed her the most profoundly.

Everything failed her. Everything.

She longed for more of Jesus. She began to cling to the word, to eat, drink, and breathe the word, maybe more from desperation than from actual belief that it would help.

But there's this thing we discover when the word suddenly becomes our only lifeline.

It saves us.

Because Jesus, He really IS the Word, and when we breathe it in, we breathe in Him. And the word really IS power, and life, and light, and bread, and water, and it really saves us.

Why don't we believe this?

She went to the word and just started living there. And one day, in the midst of one of the greatest conflicts she had ever known, she thought, What if I just responded out of His love--right now, right in the mess? What if His love came out of me NOW instead of afterward, after I screw it all up, when I am looking back with regret?

And she opened her heart, and the most amazing thing happened. Love came into the empty place, and it filled her completely. And Jesus whispered, I can even do this. I can be enough for you in this place you thought would never find enough. 

Her heart was softened and it stayed soft. And the darkness around her did not get better. It got worse. But in that darkness she was this blazing light shining this Love that had changed her heart. I saw it, and I've never seen anyone so transformed. So filled.

Radiant.



That's what happens when we live in His word. Really abide. The word fills us up and floods out of us and we become what Jesus wanted for us all along. We become love.

He said that people would know by our love that we follow Him. But the thing is, we are all so full of fear and failure that we can't love like He did. And so the world sees just a bunch of messed up, prideful, fearful, angry folks who say they know the way but don't truly walk it.

Who would want to follow that?

His way is the way of the cross, and He bore that cross because He knew a Love great enough to overcome it.

The cross is nothing without the Love.

And we are nothing without the Love that is His word, that is Jesus Himself.

I have tried so hard to be His. But I wonder if I'm just a clanging cymbal. I wonder if I am carrying a cross, trying to be like Him, but doing it all on my own. Doing it without the Love that overcomes all the crosses.

What if we really believed that Jesus is the Word, and what if we filled ourselves up with that Word until there is no room for anything else, and all that flows from us is Him?

That's what we all want, but do we want it enough to let go of everything?

What if you jumped?

"The people who walked in darkness
Have seen a great light;

Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death,
Upon them a light has shined" (Is. 9:2).

What gets me is that He knew all along how dark things would get. This Author who sits above time, who knows the end from the beginning, when He dreamed us up, He saw it. All the suffering that would follow the choice to give us freedom to choose Him. I wonder if it all unfolded in His mind like a movie script, the whole huge holy mess that is the story of us.

And yet He did it anyway. Breathed the breath of Himself into story and song, unleashed all the howling beauty and passion and sorrow and laughter and suffering and all of it--ALL of it--He knew.

This overwhelms. And it could easily lead one to anger and despair. Why? Why would He allow it? This hurts too much! we cry. We didn't ask for this. And maybe He seems cruel. Distant. Unjust. Certainly we do not understand.

But there is another way to see this story. It begins with an Author so full of love that He cannot keep it to Himself--He MUST love. He breathes this world into story and fills it with the people of His love, and He gives us freedom because after all, what is love without freedom to choose it? And yes the darkness descends and we, muddled and confused and choosing the wrong way, we lose the way and stumble along, and really to us none of this seems worth it. And so we climb to places we think are safe.

But climbing onto comfort cheats us of our true story.

The One who is very Love itself knows it is all worth it. He yearns over us, He whispers our names in the darkness, and when we lean out, when we grope for Him blindly, He comes. Love steps down and walks straight into our suffering, walks straight into the death we all must die, because Love is worth it.

We don't believe Him. We are filled with fear. We hold back and rage at our sufferings because we don't believe His love is worth the sacrifice.

But all great love stories are built on sacrifice, aren't they? And when we give up who we think we are, then we discover who He meant us to be all along.

Beloved.

I know it sounds all wrong. It sounds crazy and silly, and even if we say we believe it, very few of us are really living in the freedom that is Love. We would rather cling to our comfort in the darkness.

What if we really believe that His love is worth this story? What if we begin to trust an Author who knows the pain of living is nothing compared to the Love that rescues us in our dying? He knew what this story would cost us. What it would cost Him. Nothing less than everything. But what if we choose to enter in--to come out of the shadowlands and truly live this story?

The darkness is still dark. Unknown. And it costs us everything. But there is this light shining away in the distance, and there is a hand reaching for us in the dark, and I'm starting to see that taking that hand, jumping all the way into the darkness, there is a Love story waiting, a story I never dreamed could really be true.

I have seen it.

(To be continued)

A letter to my children: better than jellybeans

Dear Kids,

I know it doesn’t seem fair. The colorful plastic eggs and the baskets wrapped in shiny cellophane do look attractive. Those jellybeans certainly are delicious. And who wouldn’t want a giant chocolate bunny?

Believe me, I understand the longing for pretty. For new. For shiny and sugary.

It’s been that way from the start. Our eyes want what is nice to look at. Our flesh craves something better, something more.

The hype sounds so good. You want this. You need this. If you just get this—this ONE THING—you will be satisfied.

We tell ourselves we deserve it.

And so we take. We clutch and cling and stuff ourselves silly on all the things we want. We indulge.

But once fed, that beast is never satisfied. It will keep whispering, just one more thing. And in the end we are just tired from all that trying to get stuff. We are left with empty plastic shells and sick bellies and a question:

So what?

What was it all for?

The truth is, kids, you cannot hype your way to a better story for your life. No one ever found freedom by filling themselves up with stuff.

But there is something else.

All that hyped-up emptiness leads us to face the indisputable, tragic fact:

We hurt.

We are wounded souls. The Easter Bunny can’t fix that.

And we can’t fix it either. We tried, remember? So we sink down into that hurt and we live there. We blame. We blame ourselves, we blame others, we blame circumstances. We blame God.

The trouble is, we can’t blame our way to a better story, either.

Between the hype and the hurt is this thin path. It’s rugged and rocky and often hard to see. But it is the way out.

This is the path of hope. And hope is messy and gray; it is light and darkness mingled together. Hope is scary because it leads us into open places where anything could happen.

This is where Jesus lives. It’s the path He came to make for us, and it leads through hard places. It leads through death.

It doesn’t seem like walking through death would really be the answer, does it? It’s easier just to live in the hurt place or keep chasing the hype.

But every good story contains a death. Death is the only way to new life. And every good character must die to himself if his story is to find any meaning.

I know you don't want to believe me, kids, that dying is the secret to living, and I can’t tell you that the hype and the hurt won’t always be trying to pull you away. But Jesus came to show us how hope pushes through the middle. And when you really have hope that meaning will come through death, it sets you free.

That’s what Lent is really about. We pass through winter into spring. All the seeds that died and were buried start to push through the dark earth and breathe. And if you just filled up on eggs and bunnies, you would miss this story, this amazing drama you are a part of.

His death gave you life so your story can have meaning. And the little deaths you die each day, they can free you, if you will let them.

I’d fill you up with all the jellybeans in the world if it meant your lives would be meaningful and whole. But try as I will to stop it, I know the hurt is coming. And when it does, I don’t want you to sink down among the empty shells of a hyped-out life. I want you to know the path of hope. And I want to walk it with you.

* Thanks to Storyline speaker Mike Foster for the inspiration for this post.

A see-through story

First it was the IF:Gathering asking me, "If God is real, then what?" What could we dream, do, live? What could be possible in our lives? Then a few weeks later the Storyline Conference with "What kind of story are you really living?" Who are you, and what do you really want?

Doesn't it just seem like the story in our hearts doesn't match the one where bills must be paid and jobs worked and children and homes cared for? Doesn't it seem like the story writes us rather than the other way around?

I don't know yet exactly how to match up the story in my heart with the real story I am living. Lately I've been given a lot to think about. I hope to share it here, hash it out with you, figure out what our stories mean.

Today is the beginning of Lent. I never used to do Lent. Didn't even know what it was, really. But over the last couple of years Lent has become very important to me, and this year even more so.

Lent is a deliberate thing. It's a slowing and a stilling, an act of setting oneself apart in some way in order to see Jesus. To enter again into His story, thereby finding ourselves.

One Storyline speaker said, "Make your story translucent so others can see themselves through it."

Isn't that what Jesus did, wading into our muck and entering into the mess with us, living a see-through life that pointed directly to God?

We keep trudging along with our eyes to the ground, just trying to survive and keep our stories going forward. We forget that our stories are not our own. We forget that Jesus, He IS the story, and He's made us a part of it, and when we live His story with Him, it fills with meaning. And the more transparent our stories are, the more they invite others to tell their stories too.

Your story matters. Do you know what it is? What will the world miss if you don't tell it? During this season of Lent, why not enter into His story more fully and deeply? Who knows, in living His story, you might just find your own.