Awake, soul

I stand on the trail under a sky so blue it could break my heart. It hovers above me with such profundity, the canvas of eternity. The mountains seem to hurl themselves deliberately into it, demanding attention: Look how beautiful I am! Below my ledge of earth the river laughs cold and clear, catching the weight of glory pressing down and throwing it back again, sparkling into the air. The earth shimmers this day. I can feel it worship.

I was not prepared for this. I pull out my heart-list of complaints, the shadow-burdens I have been collecting all week. I try to tell God my miseries, make Him understand the bitterness I feel. My words fall flat, pushed back into my soul like a song sung against the wind. Even my tears feel false and forced, an insult to the day.

I pray. Oh, to feel Your arms around me. To dance in Your presence. To know Your joy.

Do you really mean it? the river seems to say. The mountains grin at me. I am missing the joke.

I give up. At the coffee shop, I plug in my headphones, open my Bible.

The weight of all that worship out there presses down on me as the words pour into my ears:

Oh God, let Your fire fall down

Let it fall, let it fall

We welcome You with praise

We welcome You with praise

Almighty God of love

Be welcome in this place

Let every heart adore

Let every soul awake… (Chris Tomlin/Passion, Here With You, 2011)

And the earth cries out to me even as it cries up to Him, yearning upward toward the love that reaches down with the holy joy that says, Nothing else matters. Only this. This love, this moment when you stop and listen and let Me love you.

Let your heart adore.

Let your soul awake.

And God takes my bitter-list and gives me a new one:

Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits:

Who forgives all your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases,

Who redeems your life from destruction,

Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,

Who satisfies your mouth with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Ps. 103:1-5)

Forgiven, healed, redeemed, crowned, satisfied.

And oh, can’t you let go of yourself for once and fling yourself into this day of praise, forget yourself in the crushing wondrous holy joy of Him?

I smile. My heart does a little jig. I don’t understand why I suddenly feel so happy. So loved. But that’s the glory of this love that surpasses comprehension. Inexplicably, I know I am His.

More importantly, I know He Is. All of Him. All of it is true: all the power, all the promise, all the raging, pulsing, heart-shattering glorious love.

Bless the Lord, O my soul…

Resting in the darkness

The screaming lasts for hours sometimes. Standing in her crib, calling for mama, daddy, even brother, whoever might come and release her from the agony of bedtime. My comforting words, spoken over her in quiet whispers in the dark, do nothing to soothe her eighteen-month old anxiety.

Does she cry because she feels alone? Doesn’t she see the soft, restful place I have made for her is supposed to be a haven, not a cage?

Can’t she understand that I am doing what is best for her?

I want to tell her she will feel so much better if she just rests. I want her to understand that though she can’t see me, I am right there, bigger than the darkness. I can hear her. My love is always watching over her, and I would never, never let anything happen to her.

But in her childlike mind, she does not understand the darkness and the silence. It is not what she wants, and she throws herself against it. She does not understand that what I have in mind for her is even better than what she has in mind for herself.  

She must rest in the darkness in order to truly enter into the day.

She must let go of fear and anxiety and trust that I am there, that I have not forgotten her, that my love hovers over her, unseen in the darkness but as real as the blankets that warm her.

I sigh and muster all my patience and whisper it again, “Just rest. Just rest.” And isn’t this what my Father keeps whispering to me, the words in the darkness that I cry out against, the love that wants to soothe me to peace and trust?

“But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Psalm 131:2

The action lies with me. To still and to quiet. I can choose this, because I know who is with me in the darkness.

The Truest Kind of Healing

I didn’t know the man, but I had heard that tone in his voice before. Joy. Awe. The previous week he had asked the elders of the church to anoint him and pray for him, and now he was almost dancing in his excitement to tell us how God had brought him relief from his disease.

His words pricked my heart. I had been prayed over once or twice before, and I knew many people who love me had prayed many times for healing from the arthritis that has twisted and swollen my body.

But I didn’t really believe it.

Honestly, I was resigned to my disease. I called it “mine,” made it a part of who I was, saying I knew God had a purpose for it in my life. And He did. God has used it in many ways already to teach me much about myself. My selfishness. My idols. And, most of all, my deep, deep fear.

Fear is the disease that keeps us from faith.

This disease was my thorn in the flesh, and I accepted it as such. People prayed with me and for me, but in my heart I expected nothing to change. This was what I deserved, after all. And I would do my best to bear the cross with integrity.

I didn’t go to the elders because why should I embarrass God like that? He and I both knew this disease was mine. Sure, He could heal me if He wanted to, but I didn’t really think He wanted to.

And then this man stood up in church and his words pierced. And the message that morning was about how we are chosen, set apart, called out for a special purpose. When we give ourselves up to God, we give up our rights. We become gloriously His.

And God spoke to my heart. What right do you have to not obey Me? Why do you trust man and not God?

The truth pressed into me. I I did not ask because I did not want to be disappointed. I did not want to give God the chance to fail me. So rather than give God a chance, I turned to doctors and medicine and the cures of man.

Trembling, weeping, I walked to the front where a group of elders and deacons stood waiting.  I want to be faithful. To give God this disease once and for all. He can heal me or not, but I want it to be His, not mine, to use as He will.

His, not mine.

They prayed, and a wondrous thought came over me in a rush. He CAN heal me. And for once, I knew it as a certain truth.

“God has a word for you. ‘Do not fear. Trust in Him and do not be afraid.’”

Like the arthritis that had twisted my body, fear had twisted my soul.

It remains to be seen whether my body is completely healed of arthritis, though I do feel better than I have in a long time. Maybe this is because of the real healing that is taking place.

My real sickness is the fear that keeps me from faith. Maybe God will heal me physically in order to prove His point, that He is faithful. And maybe if the physical healing does not come, He purposes to use the pain to accomplish a deeper healing, one that truly frees. If He heals me physically, will I be more awed than if He heals me from the scars of my fear?

I only know that when I obeyed, released my disease and with it my fear, God plunged me into His love. I do not have to be resigned to what I deserve. When I accept grace, I receive healing beyond what I ever imagined. I never knew before that receiving that unfathomable love would require a step of obedience.

The healing I really need is to experience His love for me. And I cannot receive love with clenched hands.

This morning it washed over me anew. Wondrous grace. Unsearchable love. Does He really love me enough to heal me, to just take the pain away, just like that?

My feet don’t hurt. My fingers on the keyboard are light. And in my heart a peace is blossoming, unfolding to the brightness of His love.

How to have a happy New Year

“I think I’m going to be happier this year.”

The conversation stopped and everyone looked at my friend. “Their jaws dropped,” she said of her husband’s family. Since “no one keeps their New Year’s resolutions anyway,” they had decided to make New Year predictions instead. Discussing politics, the economy, and the general state of the world, their forecast so far had not been bright.

“Then I said I thought I was going to be happier. They didn’t know what to say after that.”

How to be happy in a world choked with worry, fear, hatred, confusion, loss, selfishness, pain? How to decide ahead of time that this year will bring joy?

“I’m going to be thankful.”

There it is again, that word. Thankfulness seems too simple to be so powerful. Then again, there is a great difference between saying words of thanks and possessing a thankful heart.

A thankful heart, I am learning, does not have room for fear and worry. A thankful heart receives what is given without asking for more. Rather than wondering what tomorrow will bring, it is filled with wonder for today.

The more I thank Him for the wonders in my life each day, the more I find myself trusting Him. “His mercies are new every morning.” I find (wondrously) that I believe that. When the chaos of the day begins to settle and I finally stop and still, I am amazed to feel the warm comfort of peace within. I give thanks. The peace takes hold, spreads, smoothing out the wrinkles of stress and worry.

This is why my friend can predict a year of happiness. A thankful heart puts God in the spotlight, and God does not fail. Thanking Him for this moment, this present joy, this current place of provision, takes away the stranglehold of tomorrow’s uncertainty. And moment by moment, that faithfulness sustains me. Giving thanks roots me to now, to the God who holds me in His hand this moment. As I see that moment after moment He is still there, I learn to trust.

“So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness” (Col. 1:6-7).

A Year Worth Living

I know that I have life

only insofar as I have love.

I have no love

except it come from Thee.

Help me, please, to carry

This candle against the wind.

--Wendell Berry

No life without love. This is a good place to begin the year. After all, I didn’t begin the year with a clean house or a grand adventure or a neatly typed out list of resolutions. I didn’t begin as I should have, with Christ at the center. With one whole day of 2012 behind me, I have already marred the year with selfishness, sinful thoughts, and thoughtless words. So much for a clean slate.

There is much to anticipate in this new year, and if I am not careful, much to fear. Much at which to fail. I would be lying to say I do not have resolutions, even if I have not called them such. But what are any of these things without love? So easy to treasure tasks above people.

I want to live this year. And there is no life without love. I want each moment to be love-drenched, each task to be thoughtful and purposeful, and never more important than those for whom I do them.

No love except it come from Thee. That each moment be rooted in Him so the love will flow down.

Love never fails. If I fail at everything else, if all my plans and projects come to nothing, but I spend the year soaking up His love, filling each moment and word and work with the love that brings life, then this will be a year worth living.

Help me to carry this candle against the wind.

Expectant Waiting

Many of the reflections I have read this month speak of the First Advent in relation to the Second Advent. We cannot fully grasp the first coming of Christ without knowing of the second that is to come. He came to earth to become like us so that we can go to heaven and (finally) become like Him.

Because really, the humble birth, the quiet growing up, the mighty but brief ministry among a small group of people—even the sacrificial death and miraculous resurrection and ascension—none of it would mean much if that were the end.

And all that has happened since then—the message of love that has spread across the lands and centuries, defying persecution and time and sinful misuse and abuse—it has all been in anticipation of What Is to Come. If this were it, if we lived our short matchstick lives here and then burned out—no matter how spectacularly—what would it matter? Why would we brave disease and danger to take the gospel to an unreached people? Why would we give up wealth and luxury to live among the poor? Why worry about the hungry and hopeless? Why sully our reputations with words hateful to some ears? Why make ourselves uncomfortable?

But of course we know this is not the end. He came that first time, He lived among us and died hanging there between time and eternity, His blood dripping down to drench the world in Hope. He went back to heaven but left that Hope with us. He came the first time so He could come back again.

And we take Hope to a suffering world, hold it out in hands that are inadequate, speak it with words that all too often fall short. But like the wind bearing seeds, this Hope needs only our efforts. We only hold it out, speak it aloud, offer it up. Hope does the rest.

We are not taken out of our suffering, but He comes to walk with us in it, and “we behold His glory…full of grace and truth.” And maybe those who suffer most are those who Hope most.

To live in Hope implies that we are waiting expectantly. Like those who lived in darkness and saw a great light, we live in an electric anticipation. He is coming!

Mother of God

What must it be like to hold God in your arms?

I wonder that every year during Advent, especially now that I am a mother myself. I have always admired Mary, wondered what she must have been like to receive such favor from God. To bear His Son. To take that flesh-clad holiness into her own home, to let Him live among her messes and failures and weariness and dirt, to feed Him and change Him and to know He often saw her at her worst.

Yet she accepted the angel's pronouncement with quiet faith. She endured the months of gossip and slander and questioning, mocking looks. There is no evidence of her complaining at giving birth in a stable far from home. Her only recorded words are words of trust and ardent praise. When those around her chattered giddy with wonder and joy, she quietly tucked the moments away in her heart, treasures to ponder in her own quiet way.

Would I want to be Mary, if I could? Would I want to look at the baby in my arms and know He was God? Would I be able to live with those eyes on me, those little hands reaching out, the same hands that made the world? How would it feel to explode in a sudden burst of anger and then remember that God was in the room? What would it be like to impatiently snap at Him with harsh words, only to be reminded of His divinity?

I heave a sigh of relief to know that my own children are only ordinary sinners like myself. And yet. Sinners they may be, but they were created in His image. They bear His stamp, just as Jesus did. And when I hold them in my arms, I may not be holding God Himself, but I am holding holiness. His breath breathed into them. His fingerprints covering every inch. His song of delight hovering over them, just as it did over His Firstborn.

When I speak to them in anger, when I treat them harshly, when I withhold my time or attention or love, I hurt God as much as I hurt them. Why would I not be as careful and gentle with their hearts as I would with the very heart of Christ?

I am convinced only Mary's humility allowed her to live day after day with God under her roof. She surely knew the meaning of grace more than anyone and was able to accept it fully, aware of her inadequacy. But the knowledge of who Jesus was must have made her more thoughtful, more careful, more purposeful.

I have neither the humility nor the thoughtfulness. But maybe, by His grace, I can begin to see my children as God sees them. And maybe, by the same grace, they will see me the same way.

The Holy Among Us

Wrapped in swaddling cloths, my squirming, kicking five-month old makes a ridiculous Baby Jesus. Adorable, yes, but she is all girl with those rosy cheeks and delicate eyelashes. And newborn she is definitely not, as evidenced by her ever-moving, chubby appendages and bright, curious eyes. And who am I to think I could pretend to be the Mother Mary?

Yet here we stand before a plywood stable in a warm indoor garden, "Silent Night" playing in the background as we wait for the hundreds of onlookers to travel through a theatrical Bethlehem in search of the Baby Jesus. I feel anything but holy as Ben and I joke with the teenaged Roman guard. Sylvia, perhaps sensing the seriousness of the moment more than her mother does, promptly falls asleep in the manger, naked arms spread in peace.

Suddenly it has begun. The first onlookers arrive and I hear Ben reciting his lines of welcome and see the look that comes over their faces as they view the child. I open my mouth to say my only line, "He is our precious gift from God," and my voice catches in a sob.

Our precious gift from God.

The holy bursts in upon me with a force that brings the tears to my eyes. I--who so long have loved Mary's heart and story, who so often yearn to have her gentle and quiet spirit--I should have been ready for Christ to come. But I was not looking for Him, and now here He is, quietly closing around me and taking my breath away with His love.

The people coming through our little stable do not see my bouncing baby Sylvia. Looking upon my sleeping child, they see Jesus. Because they are looking for Him. They have come this night to escape the bustle and glitter and clamor and noise, to be reminded of What It's All About. And there in the manger sleeps a perfect little baby, and they don't see my baby but another Baby who was also God.

The wonder and ridiculousness of it makes me laugh even as I am crying. That God would use a harried, exhausted couple and their too-big baby and a fake manger scene in a modern church garden...It's almost as ridiculous as God using a real teenage girl and her fiance and a real manger scene on a real night in Bethlehem.

He is our precious gift from God. The holy has come among us.

I must admit that I love the traditions of Christmas. I love the decorations, the gifts, the cookies, the carols, the family gatherings--all of it. And though I piously agree with all who say that the true meaning of Christmas is Christ among us, I secretly think it just wouldn't be the same without all those other things. I know this is because my heart does not long for Him fully enough, does not look for Him intently enough. Though I long for Him to be my All in All, I must shamefully admit that He is not.

What would happen, I wonder, if I put all the Christmas things away, forsook the gift giving, forgot the food, and truly focused on Him? Would it be Christmas?

I want to want only Him. I had a glimpse of Him that night as I held my baby in my arms and imagined holding God. A God who would give Himself to us in such a way is surely worthy of my all.

(From the archives)

A light has come

Today is the second day of Advent, Day Two of our Jesse Tree journey. I have never done a Jesse tree before, but this year I want to make Christ the center of the season, for myself and for the family. So each evening we read our Jesse Tree devotional to see how Christmas started all the way in the beginning. Day one tells of God's creation, the act of great love that breathed us into the world. Day two is (already) our rejection of Him. We turned our backs to Him, inviting in the destruction, desolation and despair our pride would bring. Yet He pursued us with His love, driving us into a world that would drive us back to Him, clothing our nakedness and protecting us from the Garden which would now destroy us, and most of all promising us a Savior.

God, let me believe. This world is so weary of waiting. It is bitter and cynical and alone and afraid. It lashes out at You while claiming not to believe in You, because believing hurts too much and raises too many questions. Where were You when…? Where are You now? Why don’t You come? Why don’t You come?

And yet You did come long ago to a tiny manger in a tiny town. You made Yourself tiny among us and clothed Your God-glory in flesh that we might bear it. It was enough then, and it is still enough. We long for vengeance; You showed us forgiveness. We long for justice; You showed us mercy. We long to see our enemies punished; You showed us love. We long for all of this pain and suffering and loss and rejection and hopelessness to disappear; You took it all to the cross and transformed it into hope. You did not pull us out of the pit but plunged into it with us, and if we will but learn from You, we will find You in the midst of the mess.

This I want to believe. To know that those who have suffered most will drink most deeply from Your well. To understand that the ruined and broken people of the world can find peace and joy and rest in this place, right now, in Your love. To see the light that entered the world so long ago burning warm and fierce, healing our hopeless, battered hearts.

You used a manger to cradle Your glory. A band of fishermen to spread Your story. A teenage girl to hold all our hopes inside her pregnant belly. A rough wooden cross to bear the weight of Your sacrifice. We keep looking for fireworks from heaven while you keep making miracles of everyday things, quietly filling us—US—with the hope the world hungers for. Or we would be filled if we would let You open us raw and wide and hurting and afraid; if we would give You that and let You use it. But in our fear and pride and loneliness we shrink down into smallness, hovering over our hurts instead of letting them be bread broken for You. We don’t listen. We don’t come. Because we don’t believe.

If we did, we would be crying it out to all the world that our hope is here, among us, as the shepherds did on Your birthday, as the angels did on Your resurrection day, as the true few have done every day since.

Help me believe. Enough to give myself to You. Enough to give up everything else. Enough to proclaim You with all my might.