He Sent me a Centipede

I am weak-willed.

I did not use to think that; I held two jobs, a full-time and part-time, while completing a full-time, accelerated Masters program. My lowest grade was a B+. My employers were happy with me. I had friends. I still do.
    I had accomplished so much, more than most would be willing to do (which is very different from more than most would be able to do). I had will, I had perseverance, and the friendships to hold me up when I faltered. I was doing well. I was disciplined, to work day in and day out, and sure, there were evenings when I procrastinated, but I was human. That was allowed.
    My first faltering showed in going to the gym; I no longer go, now that my sister moved and I do not have a partner. I exercise sporadically at home.

    It has since become much worse. But I did not know how much worse, until I met a centipede this morning.

I was sitting on the floor, after working out for fifteen minutes (one mile). I had stretched--some. I had stopped exercising when my heart felt like it would pound out of my chest, when I was pretty sure God told me not to go on. My pride surrendered, and I stopped. I stretched, the pounding went down, my muscles relaxed. It was 6:17, I think. My head was resting against the chair behind me, my legs stretched out flat on the floor. God told me to get up, to do my devotions; I said, you're going to have to help me up. I'm too tired to move.

Yes, I told God that. Yes, I am perpetually an idiot.

He has, before, helped me up, given me strength (it truly is in Him we live and move and have our being in His love...physical, emotional, spiritual, mental...all of us). I said that to be stubborn, but there was a part of me that thought I truly couldn't move. I was just too tired. I glanced down and there on the floor was the white blur of the centipede's innumerable, slimy feet, the slithering of the insectoid body that still sends shivers of disgust down my spine (and I like most insects). The creepy, crawling, hundred-footed cretan was moving at high speed towards my right hand. I suddenly discovered that I could not only get up, I could do it fast. On my feet, looking down, the insect disappeared beneath the sofa, and I shuddered and walked out.

And started laughing. Softly, so as not to wake my family up. God sent a centipede to get me up. A centipede. Really.

And then I had another thought, and it wiped the smile off my face. How many things have I said, I could not do, that I could? How many times was my will too weak to believe I could do what I had been called to do?

How weak was I really?

I hate that question. I love being strong, supportive and immovable, the strength that you can always depend on for both its gentleness and unbreakable support.

But in the end, my strength will not matter. God's will will be done, no matter my shortcomings, weaknesses, selfishness, or disbelief. His wisdom, power, and even humor will extend far past my shortcomings and bring his glorious plan. A child of his will not be condemned to hell or eternal brokeness because of my sin, though I will have to bear not being like Him.

And He might send more centipedes to move me in the right direction.

Hiding Because I Cannot be Held

   It started yesterday, I think, when the time of the month came around and my body ached and dragged at every motion with the tiredness that makes even gravity too hard to move against. But that was merely physical; my ability to be easily annoyed made today worse. But those were surface emotions, feelings, that destroyed life and wonder and yet left me intact.
    Then I got the call that a friend's unbelieving grandmother had passed away. My father's heart stands in the same place hers did, and my friend and her family...I ache for them. I open my email and read "Village Chief murdered, Pastor blamed." God, why must these things be? Why?
    So I open my facebook, and find things that make me laugh. I do that because I can, because it is either that or go down to my room and realize that I am alone and crying once again. My heart is sore, father, and beaten. I want to be held, to feel all within me give way and yet be caught, to cry and scream and yell and whisper the secrets that are too heavy to keep and give them all to someone holding me. I want to be held.
    But I don't even have the ability to let people hold me. I turn away, uncomfortable--am I asking them for too much? Will they still trust me, to make my own decisions, or more importantly, to hold them, if they see how weak, frail, and flimsy I really am? Will they let me help, if I show them how deep my own bleeding goes? Or will they judge me too weak, too injured, to bear that other burden now?
     And can I ask from others? Can they give to me, without this forcing them to deal with resentment, impatience, worry? Can I ask of them, and not burden them, but bless them?
    Who can even hold me? God, I want to be held! Can't you see me breaking apart? God, God, God...please. God. For them, the ones who have lost so much more than I have tonight, who need you so much more, For them. Hold them. God, who is big enough to hold each and every saint, come and find me. hold me. my God, my God, help me. please, hold me.

Sarah's Song

"By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore."

Barren Sarah's Song

I want to have a child.

TO have a child, a son of mine,
To feel his skin, so soft, so warm,
To give him milk, to hold his form,
To have, to keep, cradled, [kind].

I want no more of this reproach,
I want to feel that heaven smiled,
I need to hold my baby near--
I need to have a child.

To bear an heir, to give a son,
So borne a home, a family line,
My husband good, his hope [fulfilled]
A birth of hope, future begun.

I want no more of this reproach,
I want to feel that God has smiled,
I want to feel that I have worth--
I want to have a child.

To walk with pride in tents and towns,
To wash away the bitter words
That women use, that cleave as swords,
Their words so silenced, son, by you.

I want no more of this deep need,
I want an end to pain, despair,
I want to live, I need to breathe; 
I want, I need, to hope no more.

A promised hope I scarce believed,
A word, I laughed, to hear it said,
My body old, as good as dead,
Yet God to us--"your prayer received."

I did not want to bear this hope,
I did not want to feel this need,
I did not want to feel this weight,
That some day soon I might conceive.

My heart, my mind, my need, held sway--
But God stayed close through al the pain,
Rebuked, surrendered, I gave Him reign,
He walked with me, each day by day.

I want to trust this God of ours,
This Yahweh, LORD of life, of love,
If He has said "this will be done,"
I trust my child will outnumber the stars.

Musings

     Once upon a time there was a friar who lived with outlaws, outlaws who stole from the rich to give to the poor. Their lives were hard, cold, and often wet and dangerous, but the fellowship and adventure they had often made them happy, and their knowledge of the people they helped gave them strength to continue, even when the prince regent sent forces against them. But the outlaw band was one day confronted with the king, returned from his war, and swore fealty to him and to obey his commands. The one person who was excepted was the friar, for friars are sworn to the church above all. But the king, who was pleased that his people had honest defenders while he was gone, asked the friar what reward the king could give him. The friar, stuttering, said that he had what he wanted--friends, a place to live, animals (two dogs) he cared for, and his conscience was quiet. The king told him he was rich with a wealth kings could not give, for he had the riches of content.

    I forget which version of Robin Hood I read that in; I have read many. An interesting thought for a Black Friday.

    Contentment is a rare gift. A part of my mind is pondering how it relates to selflessness, for contentment is acceptance and satisfaction with what is owned, while selflessness is a passion to give out of what one has. Perhaps its the serenity that both possess, the lack of rebellion or dissatisfaction with what God has given, that drew them together in my mind.

Disjointed Puzzles, Dreams

    I draw in things and sometimes the pieces of life fit together like a puzzle.

    A conversation with a friend, telling her that she could not give up dreaming. ("Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a desire fulfilled is a tree of life"... and she has born so much disappointment.) To give up dreaming, hoping, wishing and working for things, to drift in life, is similar to stopping loving at all because a loved one was lost. It allows for no pain, but no life either.

     "I dreamed a dream [...] When hope was high, And life worth living, I dreamed that love would never die, I dreamed that God would be forgiving [...] I had a dream that life would be So different from this hell I'm living, So different now from what it seems, Now life has killed the dream I dreamed."

    Another conversation with a different friend, telling her she could not give up, drawing her out of her anger and disappointment and frustration and confusion--reactions to her fear, the circumstances out of her control. Seeing everything I wanted to be able to do for others when she came to realize the truth.

    My head thrown back to look at the stars, white-clad arms held out from my sides, my flame-colored skirt drifting around me, telling God I could not believe I would fit in His kingdom. He who created the stars and the wind and the strength of the trees, He could love me; I could not love Him as I should. Didn't He know that?

     A sermon this morning, where Jesus commanded a tax collector "Follow Me." Jesus command was sovereign, and the tax collector left--his business, permanently, his life, and his own dreams, because Jesus' word was sovereign. It was not that the tax collector was able, but that Jesus' word could not be refused. His command enabled; He spoke and it was done. Then Jesus ate with the tax collector's friends.

    I am a pharisee and the sinner, the condemning hater who also knows the depth of her own sin. God, your child?

     "I desire mercy and not sacrifice." "I heard the bells more loud and deep, 'God is not dead, nor does He sleep!' [...] A voice, a chime, a chant sublime, 'Peace on earth, good will to men.'"

     Why can I hear the battles of others, join them whole-heartedly, then hide from myself when alone? Why can I see His kingdom so clearly in them, and not in myself? When they open their hearts, God's power comes out, even when they're struggling. Their lives picture His kingdom, their struggles His possibilities. Open your heart to me and it is a gift, even if you hold nothing but pain. Why is it so very, very easy to see God's hand in you, and yet I hold nothing but impatience for the people working for mortgage companies who call on the phone at work who ask the exact same questions several times, several times a day...

    I wonder if it is because of what I dream, for my life. I have asked to be another Amy Carmichael, another Sister Teresa. I know my God, that such a thing is possible. I know myself, that such a thing will not happen unless every piece of me is broken, and if I am fortunate, that will happen two or three pieces at a time, instead of one by one. Therefore I do not hope for my own future, only wait and trust. Is that shutting off my dreams? Does that lack of hope create impatience with this life, the intense desire for books and movies and stories that I would replace His world with?

    That I would replace my failures with?

    The stories...that contain victory. The movies that contain challenges overcome. The books that contain heroes.

     The dream that they offer.

      Life, reality, kills those dreams. Or maims them.

      But when I asked, the night beneath the stars, doesn't God know, the answer was yes. Unequivocally, yes. He knows what I am. He knows what I wish. He knows how I tend to kill those dreams. And I have decided to live in His world, even if I must deal with who and what I am in that world.

    Or so I have said. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak..."

Unreasonable Love

     I was reading a book (by Francine Rivers) recently, As Sure as the Dawn. In it a stubborn, pig-headed, long-time captive, German gladiator becomes a Christian. The two sets of principles don't mix very well. He is first asked to give up his anger--the anger that has kept him alive for ten years in the arena. He fights that, but makes two very good friends, and they help. Next, he is asked to give up his lust, his only reward and pleasure during those years, to fight against strong temptation, even; he succeeds because God gifted him with a beautiful life and he had lived chained to lust and didn't want to go back. Then he is asked to give up his daily pride as his village baits him while he is trying to witness of Christ, the most important thing in his life. He struggles, daily, but gives up a bit of it, then falls, then gives up a tiny bit.
     Wasn't that enough? He was giving so much! But no--one of his dear friends was murdered by a German kinsmen, and he was told he must not seek revenge, he must turn agains the strongest code he lived by, that he must give up all anger and hatred and frustration and the desire for his own justice. He doesn't. He rebels. My thought? God, wasn't that enough? Isn't that unreasonable? Please, God, why couldn't you have let him live, and the German flourish; why this other hard lesson? Why take his strongest support? God, this is so unfair--you are asking him to give up everything, and he is not strong enough! God, this is unreasonable!
      But thinking about it later, lying in the dark, remembering that thought, I thought, of course, it is unreasonable. Look at what God loves. Look at us. The German had killed and killed and killed and killed and could not rid himself of the desire to kill again. His hatred and pride were so strong, and he went his own way rather than seek God's. He hit his wife and left her when she would not tell him who the killer was.
    Look at me. I, a sinner, whose pride and own pleasures so often become gods above my God, who persuades her conscience to quiet with good intentions that are never carried out. Selfishness and self-righteousness have become the creeds of my life; they always were there. I glory in the praise of others and scold them for mistakes while hiding my own sins. My heart does not follow his standard compassion, my will blatantly strays, myself is the center of my world. Look at what God loves! There is no reason in that love, no basis of the mind for his love for me.
     But love demands all of that, all of me. God loves me. The being whose compassion for me is endless, who is perfect, who knows all things and created every glory and beauty I have seen, from the slight, graceful tilt of the bird's wings gliding on the wind to the indescribable color of a star, who cannot sin and yet became sin for the sinners who hated him, this being loves me. This being, who is worthy of all worship and praise and honor and glory, who it is so easy to love when He is seen, he loves me unreasonable, irrevocably.
    And that unreasonable love is also borne out in his relentless demand for all of me, all sin, all scars, all stains. He will not rest till I am perfect; He has shown me myself as a statue, now stained and covered in crap and blood and cracked, disfigured in every aspect, the eyeless holes glaring above the gashed-in face. He has shown me another picture, of something unmistakably myself, yet perfect, the hands so strong and gentle, the face so lovely and beautiful and alive, the mouth worshipping without any small or mean word, the arms so ready to catch and hold and raise and heal, the person whole and more beautiful than any Mary created by man. Is it any wonder that he will not let me stop until I have given Him all, to be made like the second statue? Is it any wonder his love unreasonably demands everything?
    He has given everything to us. Let us give all to him, for, when seen as they are, we realize all things are His anyway, and for Him to ask that of us is not unreasonable, only hard, but with Him all things are possible, ALL things. And, in the end,

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.

And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light,

and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth

wil bring their glory into it, and its gates will never by shut by day--and there will be no night there.

They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will

ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those

who are written in the written in the Lamb's book of life [...] the throne of God

and the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face,

and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more.

They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light,

and they will reign for ever and ever.

    In the end, we will be completely His, and we will look like Him. In the end, His love will have all, and we will be changed, and we will see that all His demands were good, all His commands wise and given in love, and every law a help to us as we live. His love, which loves us, is unreasonable, but His demands, the demands of God on His saved, are not. God, may we fully follow you!

Thinking Things

       There are plenty of things to think about. The image of sitting, thinking slowly, more noticing things, the sound of the wind, the quiet of the sky, the different in shade between the navy blue-black and the dark gray of a cloud, and then the car going by. It was white. It was to my right, in front of my, to my left, there and than not in an instant, and somewhere in my mind the slow thought compared the speed, the rushing, the instantaneous travel and movement of the car to American life and wondered what my slow stillness was. It was probably left over from the grocery story I'd written (and posted earlier) in this blog.
     I could think about God's character, trying to divine how to focus on it, to bring my mind to feel the wonder and awe that true thought and sight of Him must bring. He is the God of all the universe and Lord of all I am, broader, deeper, higher, more far-reaching than I can comprehend--and yet I have such trouble focusing on Him. I could think about how to learn that discipline (I know that music is a great help, when--and only when--the songs are chosen carefully, both true and excellent in melody and lyrics; His word, too--such a marvel, a puzzle, the layers and yet the simple truth of it! It told more of His character than I have discovered).
     I could think about my desire to ponder profound things, my wish to retain the excellence of mind I tried to practice once, turning over the irony of wishing for something so deep while thinking something so mind-numbing. Blah.
      But all of these come up empty; all of these give nothing but a moment' distraction from the quite, the unease of the silence that reveals to oneself who one is, what one is thinking, if one is self-introspective and aware; if one tends to critique one's own thoughts and emotions as a distant and yet biased judge. It is the quiet that allows no escape from the thoughts and emotions of the self. It is the lack of distraction that is so seldom available in an American culture where distraction till can equate with irritation, and yet to be without it would be novel and perhaps uncomfortable.
     It is only when I peel back the layers to what I am feeling and thinking, what I am and why I am, and how I can surrender all of that to God, that the silence becomes rest. In his hands, there is no unease, for I know He will make me all I should be. Only my own impatience for this certain work to be done mars that rest. God, give me the strength to surrender, and the faith to wait. In the name of Christ, amen.

Not Enough

"Seek the LORD, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; 

seek righteousness, seek humility" (Zephaniah 2.3a emphasis added).

       Have you heard the stories, the stories of the saints? Mary's story, a girl who lived through the fear of stoning, who lived to see God do the impossible, who lost her firstborn son, who lived in a house with God and did not, at times, understand him; who bore the savior of the world and delighted God. Corrie Ten Boom, who lived in a concentration camp, watched her sister die at the hands of her enemies, never saw her father again, lost relative and friend and disciple, who saw suffering we cannot truly comprehend, and who, after the war, helped to heal the broken, bind up the broken hearted, who saw God work in her own heart till she could shake the hand of her former guard with goodwill. Amy Carmichael, who saved thousands of children from prostitution, saved souls by God's grace, lived an uncompromising life, and left a legacy that still exists today. Eric Little dying in China, Jim Elliot run through by a spear, Daniel sitting by the lion, Paul planting church after church, getting up after being stoned. Sarah Groves writes a song, When the Saints, that declares "when the saints go marching in, I want to be one of them." Can you see the shining light of the saints, the light that lasts in the hearts of those who do not know the source, light such as Mother Teresa even today?
     I want to be one of them. I want my light to shine with the fierceness to burn away lies and evil, with the brilliance that it cannot be set aside, with the steadiness that inspires perseverance, and the warmth that calls forth love and surrender. I want to stand in God's presence and hear "Well done, good and faithful servant." I want to see God's light flowing through me, the light that was the life of men, and see it reaching the unreachable, doing the impossible, holding no score and denying nothing good. I want to do what other cannot, that God may be seen to be able to work all his holy will through the weakest of his children.
     But that is not enough.

     No, it's not. It sounds lovely, doesn't it? Over the phone with my friends, as I voice my deepest desires, or on paper, as I write out the thoughts of my heart, I sound like a powerful saint, someone to emulate, someone that could encourage and help and hold accountable. I laugh at that. Me? Come, live with me, and see that I am not the person I sound to be. Tell me I'm a saint as I lose my temper and glare at you for no reason, tell me I am someone to emulate as I spend night after night not caring to do what you want, selfish in my own little world, refusing to let you intrude, tell me to encourage you when I want nothing more than to tell you to go away.
    Cruel though this may be to say, there is someone else I knew like me. She stayed with me for a few months, and was so incredibly selfish and self-centered, inconsiderate to the point of cruelty at times. I see her posts on Facebook now, and they are so pure, so lovely, so beautiful, and as filling and nutritious as ashes that scum the tastebuds and do not leave. She has lost a daughter, since then, and I hope with all I am that I am misjudging her, that if I got to know her again I would love her and listen to her. But I sound like my memory of her when the reader can see my daily life.

     Wanting, wishing, desiring is not enough. To desire God is amazing, right, for we were made to love him and surrender all to him, to dwell in his presence daily, to live in his will. But did you hear the verse above? It is those who do God's will that are given commands, that he speaks to as he judges the entire earth and consumes it in the fire of his jealousy, as he sweeps away everything from the face of the earth. The humble, those who know who they are before God, and who know him enough to obey. Oh, God, give me that! Let me be more than the Talkative in Pilgrim's Progress, more than those who satisfy their conscience by imaging they are beautiful as they continue to stray and sin and squelch true repentance, those who "profess to know God, but deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work" (Titus). For such a one as that, I know I am.

    And confession does not absolve me; Jesus's blood does that. But to confess it is to encourage my pride (of all the frustrating, ridiculous things!), to let me say to myself, "Looook. Look how holy I am, look how well I know myself, look how I have a sense of my sin, look, I am righteous...because I know how sinful I am." How could there by any hope for me, more wish than truth?
 
     "Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled." On this I put my hope, for "God, who never lies" has promised this. God, make me righteous! Create in me a clean heart, renew a right spirit within me, keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins, let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Promise from God...on what else can I place my hope? For my own strength is as fragile as a wish from a whimsical, ADD person! But your strength, your promises backed by your faithfulness, you who have said if we hope for what we do not see, we can wait for it with patience, who tell us to ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is as a wave tossed about...your words, over and over, what I have to fear when you have promised this? So I ask, on the strength of your faithfulness and promises, that you match my actions till they go further than my desires, till my will is completely surrendered to yours, till your light is all that they can see when those who live with me look at me. In the name of Christ, who has washed me clean and washed away all the ash and mud with his own blood, amen.

Tomorrows

"Tomorrows are all possibilities."
      I heard him say that and winced. I looked down at the crippled legs, my legs, deformed, bones protruding, the opposite of health or happiness. I could not contain the tremors that were shaking my hands and arms, the fingers clumsily dropping the blanket as I tried to cover up my legs. The brief moment of holding my head up to look at them was enough to make me sink back, exhausted.
     The doctors had assured me this wasn't permanent, that I could be cured. I knew they didn't lie. They just couldn't tell me when, tell me how long I would be imprisoned by weakness. How long my thoughts would be a torture in my cell. How long distraction would be a necessary as breath. How long?
     Prison sentences were written down in black and white. Many prisoners heard how long they would be incarcerated as the judge finalized with the bang of a dark wood gavel. I now wondered if that pronouncement was to keep them from going mad, rather than showing what justice decided. Uncertainty was torture. They at least could mark of the days on the walls of prison cells, if they did that. My fingers couldn't even hold the chalk steady.
     Tomorrow was nothing but pain. Not physical pain--drugs and life and apathy had deadened that to an unnoticeable ache. It wasn't even a distraction now. Except when I wanted to do something. My shaking fingers couldn't do much, but if I moved them slowly, losing a race to a near-invisible floating dust speck, I might be able put on music. Heroes, by Michael W. Smith. Inspiring, soaring, transcendent--distracting. It offered hope so unreal it became a dream, an escape. That deadened the pain, the pain of who and what I was--in the dream at least I didn't exist, and I could people it with characters like I wanted to be. This one changed the world, this one healed a friend, this one stood firm in a test, this one overcame the impossible. This one helped a hero, this one showed strength, this one reached a lonely person--this one changed at least one life. That one life changed others. No wonder reality was pain.
      Reality. Reality, that I was born this way. Reality, that someone loved me enough to bring me to a hospital, to help me heal and change. Reality, that I threw temper tantrums and yelled and screamed as thanks. Reality, that I could never meet that compassionate, all-covering gaze with even enough love in my own. I was too ashamed.
      He told me he would not give up till I was better, and I believed him. He told me I would one day be like him. I clenched my shaking fingers and wished with all I was that I could give that compassionate gaze to others, that I would have the power to help them change, to help them heal. How many other cripples could be saved? How many other twisted souls, straightened? How long till I could help his work?
     I did not want to know how many surgeries, precise, cutting blades, reconstructive movements, aching hours of physical therapy where he would not let me give up and I would not let myself thank him, how many more times I would tell him no, stood between me and that time. Tomorrow? No, I would not be healed tomorrow. That I knew, as much as I trusted him. Tomorrow I would still be crippled. Still shaking.
    Shaking. I looked at my arms. They were straight, they were long, they did not bend like an ostrich leg in three or more places. They weren't always that way. I could see them, too--something that had not always been true. (Sometimes I wondered if I didn't prefer the dark, to knowing what I was.) But who noticed straight arms, when they were covered in fading scars? Who noticed healed fingers, when they were stretched above my ugly legs? No, I did not want tomorrow.
    But he did. My friend, my savior, my reason for survival. He wanted tomorrow; he wanted today. He measured my growth with perfect, unfailing exactness, and loved my straight arms and scarred fingers. I could hear it in his voice, that he had work for my arms and hands, even when I could not walk. Even when I could not hold a blanket. Not the drudgery of work that means nothing, but work that helped him. Some of it--the squeezing of the exercise balls and counting one, two, three, one, two, three, four, five, six, one, two, three...it was tedious. But he told me it was getting my fingers ready, even as it made the muscles shake. He told me he was helping them to heal.
    And there had been the time he had brought her in, a little child named Mary, a three year old with her eyes squeezed tight, holding his shirt and shaking, and he had let me touch her cheek. My finger shook even harder as I brushed her hair behind her ear and she opened her eyes and looked at me. I don't know what she saw--she must have seen me with his eyes, for she grabbed my finger and held on tight. He told me it was the first time she had kept her eyes open for more than a few seconds. She had left creases in his shirt, where she had let go with one hand. I could not speak for crying when they left. It was beautiful to see his work.
     The older, grumpy cripples were harder to love, the grandpa scowling at his food, the thirty year old brunette a perfect model of whining self-pity. But I watched them squeeze their exercise balls, or do sit-ups (I dreaded the day I would do those) and watched the pain imprint ragged lines on the red, panting face. He told me the lines weren't permanent, but I could see that they, too, wondered how long pain would mark them as its own. He told them that today and its pain was his. My pain too. He told me he counted every tear. He told me they had not gone to waste. I wondered if they, too, left a mark, a mark for Mary to see. I wondered if that's the reason she could hold onto me.
    Tomorrow was full of possibilities. He said it with such joy, the tone of his voice more blazing than a smile, the strength of that joy more firm than the concrete hospital floor. I did not want tomorrow, with its pain, its battle against apathy, its long, slow time ticking another hour of monotonous exercises. But the grandpa spoke to me the other day, to tell me he sat up by himself. My friend had shared that joy as much as he shared our pain. The brunette, Karen, told me she was reassured every time she saw him look at me, because she knew he loved her, too. But Mary--maybe there would be more Marys. Maybe tomorrow really did hold work that could be done by a cripple with odd-shaped legs. Maybe tomorrow, if I left it to him, would be a possibility. Maybe tomorrow I would learn to trust him with the next day. Maybe tomorrow I would learn to smile. Maybe tomorrow...maybe tomorrow.
    Maybe today.

Living Before a King

"By faith we see the hand of God [...] by faith this mountain shall be moved" 

Keith and Kristyn Getty, By Faith

     I was waiting to visit the king, and I was sick. I had felt it in the heat in my forehead when I rested it on my hand, in the tiredness that dragged at body and mind, slowing them, and in the spirit, where numbness caused an apathy for life. But the day was long, and the next one longer, for it start at four thirty and not cease till ten fifteen. Tonight I would likely be up late, celebrating the last night of a close relative's visit. And my health was foundering. In such cases, I went to seek out my king, for advice and strength.
     Walking through the city to reach it, all I could think of was how tired I was, how much I had to do; each step was an effort, and I had not even begun to work yet. Maybe work would take my mind of being sick; maybe working would make it so bad I would miss out on visiting my my cousin tonight. Why, King who heals, am I sick right now? Why, when there is so much to do?
     Each step coming closer to the castle caused me to understand less, as each step took effort I did not have to spare; would my king replenish this strength on getting there? My throat ached, a bad sign to someone whose job involves speaking all day. My nose ran, and I frequently had to pause to blow it. I felt miserable.
     Now I was waiting for the king to see me. I needed him, and I needed him to strengthen me; I was living the life he appointed, so it was only just.
    I paused when thinking that; even I could hear the self-pitying, selfish demand in it. No, each day was a gift from God, and each measure of strength a further gift, and he gave to all as they had need. But his promises--those I knew, those I could ask for, such as the ones where he taught his children to truthfully say "The LORD is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God, and I will praise him" and "God is mighty, and does not despise any; he is mighty in strength of understanding." Best tied to my situation, however, was another saying of his children: "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." My king would give more than physical strength to his children in need. I would plead with the king for strength of spirit as well.
    My turn to go in. I walked through the door held open, and looked upon my king. Words fell away and I knelt, my pride crumbling to nothing under the loving gaze of the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the man who felt more suffering than I could comprehend and stretched the scarred arms and hands out to the ones who caused the wounds. His strength went farther than I had vision to see, his love encompassed all of me, and he would give richly all his promises for no other reason than for love. Let me remember this, I prayed, when I go out among your children and feel tempted to complain, when I sit at my desk and feel the touch of fever and want to wrap it in self-pity, when I come home and just want to collapse but should be serving instead--O God who serves us, let me remember! God who rules us, straighten my path before my feet, and cause me to walk in your way!
   There is little time left in his presence, but he will go with me, this king of mine, walking beside me as my body heats and weakens, pausing when I do as I blow my nose, and lifting my hands and strengthening my spirit, in this daily walk, today, tomorrow, and always. I am not alone, sick or healthy, and I am not unloved, whether I be unlovable or obedient. I live before my king.

The Importance of 9:00

     9:00 is my time. Yours may be different. And, ironically as I write this, I may have to cut it short, as nine is now nine minutes away. But I wanted to write this before I forgot.
     Relationships are built on communication. Without that, verbal, non-verbal, face-to-face, phone, email, written letter, Skype, IM, or even the brief attempts at communication known as texting, there is no relationship. So I have three times set aside for building my relationship to God, though only two are practiced on a daily basis--the third is sporadic.
      One, the morning. After gym, after breakfast, after dressing, fully awake, before work, half an hour. A time that, frustratingly, cannot be extended without making me late for work--and while His word is good, food for the soul and spirit and growth and health and life, the time limit puts a stress on it that is not good. For who would truly value a half-hour where the partner kept glancing at the clock? (As my eyes stray towards the top right of the computer--six more minutes till nine. God, please let me finish this in time.)
     Then, the only-sometimes-remembered-time--at seven in the evening, a friend of mine and I try to set aside ten minutes to thank God. It's incredible, ten minutes of a busy lifetime set aside to sit with him and realize what he as done throughout the day, encourage clear sight of God's hand and a love of His care. It's beautiful, it is hard, very hard, and it only gets better with practice. God, help, for practice I have fallen short on.
    Third, before I go to bed. I love evenings, for there comes a point when I set aside all tasks, all responsibilities--usually after eight or nine. I am worn, tired, so very tired, and yet, as I set responsibilities aside, energy springs up! For I am, at last, free! For fun, for work, for chores--what matters it, as long as it is my choice? Then, I usually procrastinate, clean, create...or write on blogs. It is suddenly hard to go to bed. And so I stay up later, and later, and late. Then, as I slowly stumble down the perilous impediments to gravity to bed, I am too tired to pray. I struggle to keep my mind alert, struggle to keep it focused, and it is hard to pray through the desire to crawl into the inviting bed.
    But if I go at nine, to meet the savior of chosen of mankind, what focus, what strength, what delight is mine! So, the importance of nine, leaving time for the meeting of human and divine God. For relationship.
     And it is now 21:01, or after nine. To bed I go--God, bless us all.

Class Assignment

I was required to write a short story for a class; I'm posting it below, for those who are interested. But beware--it's longer than what I usually write.

They’re a marvel to any person from a third world country, a miracle, a mystery. They’re excessively ordinary, a place to buy food. Every walk of life enters them, and they hold miniature examples of all that happens in life. I shop at them. I could start naming the ones everyone knows: Wal-Mart, spreading all over the US, Sam’s Club’s blue letters welcoming large families (or Southern moms who feed armies, like mine), but there is one that holds a special interest for me. I work at one, my neighborhood Hy-Vee grocery store. I know its rules, rhythms, commands, and resulting sales. I know the actions, human streams, ebbs and flows of action that it will always have.

Working at one, the way I see things changed. It started simply, straightforwardly, an awareness of other workers, no matter the store. I would start thanking cashiers by name, looking them in the eyes and seeing them. I tried to make them laugh, giving them a moment of real personal interaction in hours that dragged on. Or perhaps I stayed quiet, not forcing them to chat, watching the speed of their hands, as fast as concentration could make them. I would help bag my family’s groceries if the sacker was busy (I was fourteen then). I would bring a cart or two in if they were in arms reach, especially in the heat of the Iowan summer. Little bits of effort, unexpected kindness, things that can change an attitude, that can make a whole day better.

I became familiar with my store’s contents, in the carts or on the shelves. I knew the people by heart, the four-year-old hand grasping a cookie from the bakery, clinging with the other hand to the rolling metal carts, taking a firmer grasp when it slows as the shopper reaches on the top shelf for something. There are fathers, stopping on the way home to pick up milk (at $3.62 a gallon), watching a miniature, younger version of him buying a candy bar, though his choice might have switched from the orange Reeses to the dark Snickers. From the old men buying coffee and newspapers to the little girls buying Ring-Pops, the grocery stores are familiar, similar; I know them, their unchanging outlines.

The pace in a grocery store changes, however. I have been there at six-thirty in the morning, wide awake and hurrying through silent, florescent isles with canned pie filling, and I have been there at ten-thirty at night, the customers happy and excited while I drag myself through the door to go home (I’m a morning person, and they are most definitely not). But the pace—the pace changes. The morning is a silent, steady walk, as the boxes carrying what the shelves won’t hold are put back in back, and the shoppers know exactly what they want—and that’s to get in and get out. I try not to chatter in the morning, for it’s not welcome, except at the inside Starbuck’s, its green sign always glowing above a line. Next to it the inside café is busy, the booths’ cushioned benches nearly filled, while the tables hold stacks of empty plates covered in syrupy remains.

The pace changes as eight o’clock nears, and I watch every person in the Starbuck’s line check the time, from the lady in the business suit to the man with the over-gelled hair. Work is nearing, and coffee is needed for the hard workday; time is now precious, and impatience is apparent—and too often audible—among the customers in line. From my station in Customer Service, yards away, I wince for the barista, her green apron stained and her ears filled with complaints; can’t they see she’s doing her best? She has the longest line. My customers only want newspapers and a smile, while the people in the checkout lines narrow their choices to a can of orange juice and a small breakfast substitute, a granola bar or crispy doughnut. They’re not hungry, only aware of the need they’ll have for energy. Am I the only one who loves mornings, who tastes being alive?

Bored by my lack of companions, my absence from the work and energy, I watch the checkers. They work at the registers, the domain known as “the front.” They aren’t worried yet, that won’t come till nine. Nine is when a rush comes, nine is when every checker wants a sacker so they needn’t do two jobs at once. (Why nine? Perhaps because all the non-morning people are up; perhaps because all the moms have dropped their kids off at school.) Nine is when I ache to leave my slow post and go up there, where the action is, where I can help people, my slim fingers seizing, dropping, grabbing handles and setting firmly in the cart. But I cannot leave my post at nine; 9 might turn out to be some whimsical customer who wants a carton of cigarettes. I’m not allowed to keep them waiting.

But the busiest time of day is 4-4:45 (except Wine and Spirits—then it’s after five—or Fridays). Everyone gets off work; everyone wants to get their grocery shopping done before they get home. No one likes going out again after finally getting home, so the grocery store is a stop along the way—an hour-long stop at times, as the grocery list gets longer and the checkbook gets thinner. Carts roll to the checkouts, overflowing carts—often with a bright yellow Cheerio box sliding off the top of the pile. The sacker in his teal-green apron from produce, the health-market, or stocking the freezer, coming to help with the rush, groans inwardly as he smiles pleasantly at the customer, for he has to pack it all back in the cart again. I watch sympathetically, when I can. I’m busy too. My line is long, for once I’m not cleaning behind my counter. But at the front there’s so much to do—and they’ll probably want help out to their cars. The sackers disappear into the parking lot to help them, the lines get longer, and the checkers are bombarded with the never-ceasing beep as food slides over scanners.

But that’s on a normal day.

Then—there are sales days. They’re generally on Thursday and Friday, or Friday and Saturday; they always come in pairs. On sales days there are no rushes, no pauses, no breaks. There are only cashier’s fingers flying over the touch-screen keyboard, unending hums from every register for the unpredictable collection of items endlessly moved and scanned (Marshmallow Cream, rubbing alcohol, and Camel Wide Pack cigarettes? Really?). There is always a line, always a customer, never enough time. A smile, brief “How are you doing? Did you find everything?” (questions I still repeat in my sleep from my first days up front) are all there is time for. There are only people, items, and speed, speed, speed. We come, we work, we breath, we find it’s time for break, then it’s time to leave.

That’s how it is up front, at least. Behind Customer Service is slightly different. There I sell paper and cardboard lottery, fancy event tickets, and green city recycling stickers; I help customers electronically pay bills (MidAmerica’s my favorite), send and weigh mail, return perfectly packaged unopened items from complaining clients, recycle nasty, smelly beer bottles and hug, blue, 5-gallon water jugs…I do a lot. Plus sell newspapers. I run, and run, and run, the length of the long counter, back and forth, dancing through our machines to get what the customer wants. In between the mad dances that go in circles at the music’s fast-paced beat I restock plastic bags and put pretty blue-and-white postal boxes in their designated areas. I clean fanatically; I’m one of the few that do back there. I descend weekly on the accumulated dust with unshakable intent. I keep myself busy, not bored, and my pace, sales days or not, encompasses more feet than the checkers’; I love it that way.

But there was one Saturday, one sales Saturday, where someone wasn’t following the invisible, inaudible, undeniable beat. There was one Saturday where a single moment changed my point of view. The front, the customers, checkers, and courtesy were frantically filling sacks or unloading carts. Behind Customer Service, I hung up the black, professional wall-phone and saw him. He was an old man in a dark blue shirt, walking with a cane. The cane was a dark, quiet brown, and it slowed him down as he walked across the chaotic front. Sadness slowed my motions for a moment, sadness for him—to be restrained to such a pace in such a place. I know one day I’ll be forced to keep the same slow pace, to have chores to do, to watch everyone else doing them and getting them done while knowing that I’d be the slow one. I’d be the one in the way, I’d be the one that was to be pitied. I winced away from the thought.

And then he stopped. There, dead enter, in front of the express registers but out of their way, he stopped and looked around. And then I saw him differently, my view turned on its head, because he didn’t stop to rest. He didn’t lean on his cane, didn’t make a face or grumble. He stopped to see.

He was not restrained, not forced to a slow pace—it was his choice to stop. It was not an arrogant, deliberate choice—it was a serene, inquiring one. He walked with his eyes open to items, colors, people, chaos. He stopped to take a deeper look at the rest of us, rushing around, because he was calmly curious. He looked at his surroundings, moving his head from one side to another slowly, once, taking it in. We had chores and speed; he had an interest in life. But that interest in life was not frantic, not craving success and love and life to the fullest, not a deep desire to be filled, but a still interest that allowed him to take in what life was and enjoy it without the rush that hid so much discontent in the lives of everyone around him. We were chaos; he was calm.

I yank myself back from my staring and realized a customer was standing at the counter. Wait, there were more behind her. I’m still employed, paid to dance to a tune I’d forgotten to a moment. I suddenly didn’t want to join. But the customers are lined up, I call over the intercom for help between one breath and the next, and my fingers dance the 7069 to ring up Powerball again and again and again (the pot was 63 million that day). I did not see the gentleman again; and then it was time to leave.

As I walk out the door I wondered, of course, if I imagined it, if he was nothing more than an older person stopping to rest on his cane and stare mindlessly at skidding, crashing cans and cradled fruit. I wonder if I had seen what wasn’t there. But even if he stopped to rest—that is a gift that none of us possessed, to stop and rest in a grocery store. And I paused for a moment that morning, and suddenly saw a different life, a different perspective, a different pace. That moment captured me and stopped. I remember I loved the concept of life, the way this wonder was embodied in the nonbreathing, trembling tulip petals of a flower to the unborn baby learning to think. I loved the way life is influenced by nonliving rumbles of sound in the skies, connected by non-living electric pulses between machines that moved but didn’t live, and continued through invisible relationships that shape life itself. I remember my first reaction, my pity and sorrow, and then my second. I had pitied a man who lived, who redefined life as stillness as well as energy. I walked out the door to my car and hoped to remember him. To remember life.

And I have. Sometimes, when the dance lets up, usually very early in the morning, I stop and see, for a moment, what he did. Breath and rest—remember that contentment is not efficient accomplishment. I look at the milk and remember what it tastes like, what it is to taste instead of eat and run simultaneously. I look at the child holding the cart and imagine what it’s like to have one foot riding in the air above the floor. I look at the customer who wearily brings me his MidAmerica bill and attempt to make him smile. The moments don’t take long, but change everything. I enjoy the dance still, but I also remember that sometimes, watching the dance is as alive as joining it. I remember to enjoy sight and sound as much as energy, the slower pace as much as the faster.

The Conviction of Right

       Humans are obsessed with being right--a trait very evident in my family. We're so convinced we're right we must hit our heads on the wall--repeatedly at times--before admitting to being wrong. And then we apologize. I'd viewed determination to be right a negative trait. But I've discovered it's more.
      I cannot do the impossible unless I know it is right to do so. My life is impossible, by human standards. I am only attempting it because I believe God called me to it. Or believed. As long as God was on my side, as long as I was doing right, the obstacles did not matter, nor the sacrifices. But the rightness of my course has been called into question, and I am frozen inside, twisting, writhing, trying to come to grips with this.
    Because last night I reaffirmed my course, I believe it to be right...but others disagree. And common sense disagrees. And perhaps wisdom--I do not believe I have enough of that to judge. My own belief of rightness is not enough, because I have been too often wrong; I depend on other's judgement.
    But what of conviction? Without it, I cannot try and try and try and try and take the blows and climb those last few steps at the end of night when I have been doing so many things that day, and I cannot keep my temper. God, help. Show me what is right; lead me in your way.

Duty vs. Self Pity

     It was strange, this exhaustion, for despite the paper I had been working on, I was not mentally tired--perhaps because my physical tiredness gave me the inability to focus for more than half an hour at a time--but physically. Yet, tired as I am, I am torn, between spending time with my sisters, the chores that need to be done, that will allow my third sister to stay in bed longer this evening or work on her paper more and will take stress off of my sick mom, and between shrinking into myself and staying an introvert. The third option is not available. The first two, though...both exhausting (if my sisters are doing something active), both things need to be done, and both, even if I do these unselfish sounding actions, useless to God's kingdom unless I do them with humility and love, forgetting myself and my actions and praising God. To do these actions without complaint, inwardly or outwardly, to bear in love the reproaches or extra work that my siblings bring while I'm cleaning...well, let's just say it proves I am no saint. At all.
     Behind my attitude I start to build an impatience, an impatience that destroys humility and self-forgetfulness, an impatience with God, for have I not admitted that I cannot change my attitude on my own, cannot change a sinful heart? The impatience builds, wrapping around my heart, making me mutter inwardly at the two new glasses on the counter, at the loud voice of my sister who might wake my mom up whom I cannot rebuke without both of us losing our tempers...and I hate what is in me. My attitude is probably written all over my face, and I wonder why my service changes nothing? Ginny Owens wrote a song, I Am Nothing, (sorry about the pictures--it was the only one I could find), which illustrates this point better than this post ever will. God, I kneel, confessing I find it hard to wait on your timing, hard to follow your life, hard to obey your will. God, I want to live for you. Grant me a life that is submitted, joyfully, to your will as the priority of my life. In the name of Christ, amen.

Silenced

It is not my argument shattering the peace and wholeness of them (I love them),
it is not my fight. I look at
them, their hurt, their fallennes, their minds upset, and I know
I am mute. I have nothing to say, no
solution, no
peace, no
gentleness to
bring them.
I have nothing to say.
I have nothing to pray.
They would not want to hear.
I plead, silently, mutely,
unknowing how to look,
for the least glance may be deadly, make
the situation explode.
I plead with God, I plead for them
with no tears, no groans, nothing but a body on a couch,
wondering why I'm here, why I hear,
when to them, I am nothing but an unwelcome presence,
when I can do nothing but hurt and pray.

God, when will this be enough?
When will these cries be heard?
When will you touch and heal?
When can I hear my own cries,
when I no longer lock the inside,
when I can speak and be heard,
when I can hear, more than is said,
to God be the glory, for all pain is dead!
When silence will no longer bind me,
when finally, they will be free,
and pain and sin will die
in the glory of God-given life.

An Absurd Picture

I know this needs to be edited, particularly the last paragraph, but I'll post what I have for now. :)
    This morning it was raining. Now rain is not an unusual event, though it is slightly inconvenient to plans and picnics. However, the rain this week had been quite courteous and held off its drizzle till I was safely at work, and I thus enjoyed the storm-swirled air without soaking my hair before work. Not so this morning. No, this morning it was raining just around seven thirty-five, when I walk to work. 

     Now the rain in part may be excused, for I had not intended to walk to work this morning. The friend to whom I lent my car was in the hospital, and had no further need of my lovely mechanical luxury. I had reclaimed it--or rather, a sister had gone and fetched it for me and brought it home. But last morning I had found, on the way to the gym, that it was even more disinclined to exertion than I was, even at five forty-five in the morning (cars, after all, never keep good time, so time in the short term should not affect them). I took it home and let it sit. Hence, I was without the luxury of sitting and moving, and had instead the luxury of walking (for I can never walk somewhere without an excuse for doing so now; such is a sad fact of life). So I put on my black leather jacket and went out. 

    To the porch, that is. The rain was coming down, not hard, but constantly, and even I could see the foolishness of walking to a professional place in without protection. Then I bethought me of a gift I had hanging on a hanger downstairs (underneath my belts, since I never use it). It was a bright pink umbrella. 

     Now all of you know me well, and know that I detest and despise three things that come immediately to mind: scarves, umbrellas, and pink. The umbrella I own I believe was given to me by Liz (I think it was because she always threatened to give me scarves, and it was in Budapest that I was going to use the umbrella, so I associate it with her), who got it from the free pile. Well, Liz would be proud of me for using it, and I was ready for something absurd, so I went, swinging my six belts off onto my bed, and taking the umbrella. (It is a very noticeable pink, especially on a cloudy day). I went back upstairs, grabbed my tan and brown Guatemala/llama purse that bulged from the water jar inside it, put that over my black leather jacket, and snuck past my mother (who would immediately offer me a ride, and I have yet to persuade her that doing something absurd is not only more fun, but better for the soul, than being sensible). I went out the door and walked down our street. 

    I won't pretend I didn't regret my choice, as I walked in white formal sandals (a strap with a gold buckle around the heel, of course), black capris, black leather jacket, brown/tan purse, and pink umbrella, especially as the one broken metal line clinked in my ear at every step. But I eventually started laughing inwardly at the picture I made, laughing--until I got to Ashworth Road, the four lane street I had to run across. With a pink umbrella held like a flag around my head. Or perhaps until I got to the trees, the wet limbs brushing low enough that my umbrella hit the top of my head in its attempts to avoid them. But then I laughed all the more, though a part of me wondered how many of the many cars held coworkers who knew I walked, and who would be staring at me in disbelief. I shook it off. After all, it had been too long since I had been absurd--and I was enjoying my walk in the rain. The scent of tulips--have you ever smelled them in the rain? Walking past, I enjoyed it for a moment, and then another smell overpowered it--most likely the lovely magnolia tree a few feet ahead. I continued walking and smiled, for I was literally walking on flower petals, a romantic dream come true--until I slipped on one and nearly fell. I shook my head--the prosaic always ruins the romance. 

Dependent on a Word

      The sermon this morning was amazing. We're going through Matthew, and this about Jesus's forty day fast and temptation. The sermon had several points, but I have been asking questions about fasting, especially about when to end, and some of the things that were said stuck with me.
    One, Jesus's temptation was really about dependence on God (fitting in with the theme that Jesus's whole life was a life of weakness). The first temptation, making bread from stones, was not, in and of itself, sin. However, Jesus is fasting as obedience to God, for forty days AND nights, and is dependent on God on when to end it (the fast ends as angels come to minister to him). Oh, how tempting that would be! To make bread, when it is not directly wrong--but God has commanded that Jesus fast, and, though he has done well/right for forty days, it is not ended yet. The second test is also subtle; it asks Jesus to prove his power, that God really cares for him; my pastor pointed out that Jesus's answer shows Jesus's understanding that this is Jesus's test of righteousness, not God being tester. The third test is not subtle; the devil gets right to what he wants, Jesus's worship of himself, God lowering himself. This test (my own thought, not my pastor's point) was the immediate gratification vs. the suffering that was going to come.
     One of the most striking thoughts, however, was how Christ answered: with the Word of God. My pastor pointed out that Christ was the word--anything he said would technically be the word of God. But Christ uses the Old Testament, the word that he was given, and uses it wisely/correctly. Satan uses it too, yes, but Christ's dependence on God was on more than bread, but on the wisdom to answer Satan's attacks, and the wisdom to live--to wait to end his fast till God sent angels to minister to him. I knew, from Psalm nineteen, just how important the Word is--reviving the soul, rejoicing the heart, purity enlightening the eyes, wisdom itself, warning of sin. But this--Satan lost this war because Christ depended on the word of God.
      I want that--I want that so badly. I came home and read Pilgrim's Progress. In there are Christians known as "Little-Faith," who barely made it to heaven, who complained this whole life through, and "Greatheart," who defeats the Giant Despair. I, indolent and gluttonous as I am, with as little faith and as complaining a spirit as the weakest of Bunyan's characters, want to be one of God's champions, one of those who escort people along the narrow way, even though that means traversing that dark path again and again, with Satan's new tortures along the way, even though that means loving--and suffering with--each person through their fears and disappointments and hurts. And I believe God can change me to that, me, I, kesse, girl who lives half in imagination and half in fighting against bitterness at reality. But I am made in the image of God, and He has redeemed me, past tense, redeemed. And I will be His, and I will wait on Him, with faith, dependent on Him to change me. Warrior, champion, healer, prophet, minuscule  person in the corner, I believe first and foremost that He will do what is best, and that it will be good. All glory to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, Trinity three in one!

Spanning Distances

I exist
in a disconnected world.
My job,
eight hours a day,
on the phone, taking claims
From GA, IA, AK, CA,
Mere moments with mortals millions of miles
away. They don't know me; I'm a voice
in a phone, completely professional.

Come home, homework
on the computer,
cyberspace,
Disconnected, none of it applies
to anything I'm doing, only to
a future--that's nothing more than dreams.
Dreams, they're disconnected
from right now.

My friends-
the 2 closest, both in GA, while I'm here,
here,
here,
literally thousands of miles away.
I can't touch them.
My family--they're busy, and
they do not know what
it might be like to talk
so freely, so openly--no secrets.
Secrets hide reality
disconnect with masked faces
one person from another.
And I have no right to ask them to show their reality;
Disconnect.

But the biggest distance
I create
my sin, my shame, my sorrow
that alters none of my actions
(so it seems)
God, I want you.
I cannot find you.
I cannot hear you.
I cannot see you.
I take on trust,
tried and tested faith
Your existence.
You have proved it.
But I do not know, right now, how faith connects
with reality
how to put faith
and reality
in the same line,
or the same life.
I do not know how to span the distance
between the supernatural and the eight hour work day
the certainty and the cyberspace
the faith and my family.
And I cannot come to you
of my own power or will; I run
away,
sucked back into--disconnect
and gone.

But you told me, once,
and then again
and again
that you are here,
here,
HERE, with me.
That you bridged the distance
with your blood
and filled the empty space with your love.
That I cannot make you leave.
And I believe you.
I believe you.
Teach me now to live
in reality with faith.

Ebenezer

    My hands reached for the stones, straining to pull them out of the mud. My fingers dig, freeing the shape one layer at a time, taking out the first stone for the foundation. It was for an ebenezer, a marker to commemorate what God had taught me. He'd show me the first stone, the criteria on which to measure the rest of my life: his delight. I was not responsible for the results of what I was commanded to do. I was only to ask Him if what I was doing was his pleasure. So freeing, in some ways--to have no pressure from results, no conflict of my own interests, no trepidation from my own flaws weakening me until I was not enough--I, with God's' grace in me, would be enough for him, more than enough.
     The first stone was laid, the beginning of a monument I was building to cause myself to remember, remember, remember. I am so prone to forget. Remember, God's pleasure is the foundation, the corner stone that guides the rest into place. Remember.
     The second stone, firm, immovable, fitting perfectly with the first. This, faith. For I know that God's pleasure is not a visible thing, not something I can measure--something I have to take on faith. For I only have his word that when I do his will he is pleased; and I only have his word to know what to do. There will be no "good job" directly from him till I hear that "well done, good and faithful servant." I will gain that by His help; this I believe. But I have to trust, in the meantime, that if I seek his will, I will find. If I ask for his guidance, I will receive. He will reveal His will to me in His time--as David cries "teach me to do you will, for you are my God!" Faith that God will lead me where he wishes me to be. Faith that He will teach me to please Him, and that He will show me He is pleased when I need to know it, when I crave proof, when my spirit is not strong enough to take it on faith.
     A third stone, this one a promise. It's slippery, covered in sweat from the work of drawing it out. I promise to remember, to tell this tale as God wills, to bring it up with my friends. It is a stone I find hard to hold, one that weighs me down, one that cements me to this place. It holds me accountable to these stones, reminding me that they hold the strength to build a place to stand on--to kneel on. It holds the weight of God's presence, a place where I came to know him better.
    Three stones do not seem a large pile, three stones do not seem a great monument. It is fitting to my pride, fitting to the humility I have been asking for. But three stones is enough; if my life is enough for God to use, and He has promised that he will complete the work he began in me, then three stones are more than enough to use to cement me to my knees and teach me who he is. All praise to the God who created stones, people, faith, wisdom, and love! He works in ways I all not always understand--so I pray that he gives me the strength to trust, to live on that trust--to honor him. In the name of Christ, amen.

Crafted Together

      I was working on a puzzle. I'd just started; it was a picture of a human faerie maiden playing music in a moonlight wilderness of ruins. The edge was a golden gilt frame, studded with jewels; I was sorting pieces, picking out the ones with the straight edges, listening to Sara Groves. The song died and I heard it; the crying.
     It was coming from my parents room; it was my sister, struggling again with the decisions my parents had already struggled with, discussing what is best. My Dad's work phone beeped; he had to go to work. The charged meeting would soon be over. She came out later and played the piano; it's her release.
      What changed me was in-between. I heard the crying and started praying, praying, praying, pouring out all I had to Father, who has sovereign control, Son, who saved us, and Spirit, who changes us and can work peace in us. Three in one; I am new to praying to three in one, at least this way--Sunday's sermon was on it. Minor details I use to give my mind something to focus on other than pain.
     But I struggled with praying, keeping my mind fixed on Him. He's been helping me with it; praying for His will, praying for more than ten seconds without drifting. Here, what distracted was the puzzle pieces. I wanted to cry. I was exchanging focus on souls, people I loved, souls, immortal, the most beautiful things in existence, for cheap cardboard imitations of gaudy golden gilt. I traded pleading with God to play with a falling apart picture. And it wasn't just once. Pulling my mind back, it would travel again; I saw a new edge piece, it's greener-than-teal back tugging at my vision. This, while I prayed for a crying sister. It's an apt metaphor for what usually distracts us from God.
      But pray I did; hear, God certainly did; the results, God alone knows--and God alone is responsible for. But the once piece I did put in place reminded me that, while I may struggle to put together the pieces of painted cardboard, God has crafted together every event, making miracles in moments, and holding helpless souls who cry in pain. Even those who come out a few minutes later and pretend everything is fine, practice a music piece for a friend coming over (it must be done), and my Dad who comes out and gives us goodbyes as he goes to work. It's my family; we hide. But never successfully from the God who makes true beauty, who shapes the lives of the broken, falling apart children into something beautiful.

Conflicting Thoughts

      A week or two ago I was struggling with depression; through the advice of some good friends I told my parents. They encouraged me to go to our pastor, and I met with him last night. My defensive reactions and desire to be distracted told me more than enough--he was speaking the truth, and I hadn't been listening. To serve, to thank God, to pray through scripture, to wait with thankfulness--these things I had not been doing. My desire for him--or any Christian--to think well of me was all too apparent. "I" am currently the center of my life. ("Oh Christ, be the center of our lives, be the place we fix our eyes, be the center of our lives"--the song goes on to focus on Christ, not us...truth in music.)
     This morning, after homework, a few chores, I read A Chance to Die (Amy Carmichael's biography by Elisabeth Elliot), or rather, a major portion of it. Carmichael's poetry is as stunning as her life is complex. Her faith, trust, singular focus, and complete dependence on God is something that brings me to my knees before God, asking for a similar heart; the way she secluded herself from the world, her view of story's role, are things I question and weigh and wonder and ponder...but overriding it all is her unfaltering determination to follow her Captain with no pride, no fear, no wavering, and no other ultimate guide. Her suffering, determination, and joy in her savior go beyond what I have known or seen. But that incredible spirit was shown in cleaning rooms, changing diapers, loving children without compromise in them or her, in trusting God for the future when He allowed death to sweep through those she cooked and cleaned for...in serving. In my prior readings of the book she had struggled with giving up evangelism for a family of seventy children (she literally couldn't do both), considering one more glorious than the other--and learning that it wasn't. Doing dishes for my sister, running an errand for my mother, picking up a piece of trash in a parking lot, that's similar if done for God's glory. Even now my desire for my own glory runs strong through it (God, forgive me!), but I am praying that I forget myself--that He focuses me on Him, and those He loves.
     And then I run errands, see just a few minutes of a movie, and I have no desire to focus on God's will anymore, but merely to live in happy daydreams that will never bring glory to God. And I come home, and find someone I love is struggling--sinning, once again. God's kingdom is back, right there in my face, as I had spoken with her this morning and heard nothing, ignored what I had seen. Just as she wanted me to. Will failure ever not be bitter? Will helplessness? Or will it drive me deeper and deeper into prayer? Will I trust as Amy did? Will I give them over to Him?
     And in this, I am to be thankful. Sincerely thankful--God, I thank you for the lives of prior saints, for your unshakable hold on your children, those I love, too; for your ability to calm me and banish my distrust, for showing me you, thank you, Father.