Christmas Present: Courage

     Twas the morning of Christmas, and my alarm was set. The treasured task was given to me; I was the gift giver, the one sent to silently slip upstairs and pour candy and little tokens into the socks spread over the window seat. I woke before my alarm rang, the hour of five calling my consciousness to come back. I stole upstairs, the fairy-lit tree and white electric icicles my only light as I carried the small basket of gifts in. One by one, I lifted the gifts out of the stockings to slip the candy, the oranges, and other small tokens in so the gifts in white wrapping paper would not be crushed. I tried to avoid waking my mother, wrestling silently to open a set of razors (pink, gifts for the girls), and hunting unsuccessfully for scissors. The razor package took more time than the rest of the blessed task, but it was done, and I smiled at the row of seven large stockings (and one tiny, empty one, for Corran cannot eat candy, nor oranges), then sat down on our large, warm couch to open my gifts.
      I had the razor, the pencil, the orange, the delicious chocolate, the bottle of perfumed lotion, and pine-permeated candle. But there was one gift down in the toe, one I had no idea what was. I opened and read by the light of the tree a note that made me smile, and then carefully, slowly, opened the present. It was gift from a friend, a pendant hanging from a chain. The ramping lion's claws were high, his tail also above his head, and "COURAGE" was written across the middle. I smiled, a bit amused, and turned it over. "Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9. I had once asked a friend to pray for courage, and the same friend who gave this gift texted me that verse. For all my dislike of texting, that was one blessing I did not forget, for I kept the text, and was often warmed by rereading it, remembering how it spoke to me when I was afraid, God's truth slicing the fear and dissipating it. Tears slowly falling, I put the more enduring memory of courage on. I have not taken it off since, except to sleep or shower. It is a memory of God's strength in the past, and an Ebenezer for the times to come, for I leave in less than a year, God willing, to go far from family, to make a new home overseas, and courage is a gift I must have from Him. It is a blessing to know He has already given me some, and given me a marker to remember it by. And it is a blessing to have a friend who sends me messages, and then marks them with silver.

A Letter to my Pastor

These are some questions I've been turning over in my own mind, and I emailed them to my pastor a few minutes ago. I haven't heard back, obviously, but I wanted to post them, so I could remember.

Pastor,
   I've been turning something over in my mind, and trying to make sense of it. Again and again in scripture, we're commanded to help those in need (e.g. James 1.27 "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world" or Leviticus 19.9-10a "you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you father the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner").
    There are even more verses in the Bible about loving brothers and sisters in Christ, which I assume also means helping them (e.g. twice in I Peter, "Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart," "Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling," and "By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning,that we should love one another. [...] By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. [...] And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us").
     Yet, when I look at my own life, I serve my family, I babysit for other church members occasionally, and I volunteer at a stable to help the mentally/physically handicapped. I do not help widows, orphans, or the poor, but mainly my own family. Is that Biblical? My family does come first--and with a sister with a newborn, a mother who is sick, and a sister who is in finals, there are plenty of opportunities to serve--but many of the things I do they could live without, it just makes their lives easier. Reading in Acts of those who had everything in common and who sold their houses to give to the poor, I wonder what a Biblical generosity today would look like; how does that translate?
     But it was really brought home when a church member and a good friend lost his job, before he or his wife got another job. I don't mean this to be a criticism of the church, I'm just wondering--when I was helping out with their kids, when he first lost his job, they were using an EBT card for a month. It was just a month, and they needed it, so that is not a criticism of them at all, but, in theory, at least, I have always thought it was the church's job to help the poor, not the government, that the church should be feeding the hungry, not EBT, WIC, or other government programs. But here was a member of our church, who we did not provide for. I asked my friend, the wife, about this some--because she's wonderfully honest and I knew I could--and they're not on a food card anymore, since both of them have jobs, but it raised some questions for me, like what should I be doing, and am I missing something? What does the Bible say about charity/generosity, and how do I live that now? Reading books about foreign missions (such as When Helping Hurts, which shows how American generosity often teaches dependency on charity, not growth), I've seen that defining "poor" can be difficult, let alone "help," or what wise generosity looks like. Yet I also read biographies of Mother Teresa, Amy Carmichael, and others, who changed hundreds of lives without much money, but by following God's commands and giving what they had. Currently, I'm giving what I have to my family, and sometimes to others. Is that enough? Or am I called to more?

New Child

        It's 5:30, and I am at the hospital. It looks new, with soft lighting, quiet halls, and a waterfall streaming down marble in the main lobby. The rest of my close family was in a nook hidden in the side of the third floor, watching a detective drama. In the filmed world the main character's teenage daughter had been kidnapped, and he was doing everything money and energy could to get her safely back. I did not blame them; we had been waiting since very early that morning, and distractions were becoming necessary. The drama drew us in, the distraction well written and well acted, but I decided I had enough drama in my life right then and did not need to augment it by TV. I walked into an adjacent hallway, across from my sister's room, and leaned against the wall.
     It was then that I started to hear the sounds the TV had masked. First were irregular sounds like large plastic tubes being dragged over something hard. My Mom explained "It's the baby moving; the microphone is for his heartbeat, and has to be very sensitive, so every time he moves it sounds like that." There were occasional gasps from my sister, sounds that made me uneasy, but no other sounds. Time went on, and on, and on, till I walked over for glimpses of the TV's story, but always returned to the hallway to listen to the story I was waiting for. It got closer to eight, and the noises got louder, my sister twice yelling in pain. I was shaken; I had not heard her cry in pain before. I heard her once yelling "I don't have anything left!" I knew childbirth was painful, but I had hoped it was exaggerated, that the stories I had heard were the exception. Listening to my sister, I knew that wasn't so. I prayed. I thought again of the curse in Genesis; I thought of one of the many prices of sin. I do not know if I went white, listening to her, but I prayed for her, for her child, for her husband, for a quick birth. It had been eighteen hours now since this story's climax began.
    Nurses had been coming in and out, in and out, always pausing for a second to gather hand sanitizer from a dispenser beside the door. Each one, I watched but said nothing. Each one had a job to do; someone would tell us if there was anything important. None did. In and out, in and out, with their muffled voices coming through the door, urgency in their actions. But wait, now one came out. She told us she could see the crown of our baby's head, my sister's child. Smiling, she told us he had a lot of hair. My mother and sisters joined me in the hallway, waiting with me, my dad sitting back in the nook, reading but smiling. The baby was coming.
   Time still went on. We waited and waited, staying in the hall. I thought of a chapter I read in a James Herriot book, where he oversaw two births, one birth in a cow barn, where it was only of interest to him and the cow mother, how no one else had time to watch the birth of a new life, and then after, on a small farm, where the calf's birth was the center of the whole family, even of the farm's dog. He felt the second showed the miracle of what a birth was supposed to be. I knew it would be that miracle for our family. All of us had waited for it for months, keeping in touch every week with my sister, watching her grow, listening as she learned what was happening the baby inside her. We still waited. Most of the nurses who came in and out started to give us uncertain looks; I imagined them wondering if they would have to hold us out of the room when the baby was fully out. We stayed quiet and did not move. Nurse came out, and went back in. They went to the computer at the reception desk three doors down; they came back. They went to the staff room across the hall from my sisters room; they came back out without anything. They were all in the room when we heard the baby cry for the first time; he was born at 8:46.
    We waited still. It seemed an hour before they said we could come in. They'd had to clean up the blood (I'd seen a few drops beneath the span of the opening door), stitch up my sister, clean the baby, and try to breastfeed. Mama went in before any of us, helping my sister with the amazing, vast knowledge a mother of six. They gave us details--7 lbs, 5 oz, and 21 inches long. We still waited, waiting till my sister and nephew were clean, the room back to hospital standards, and everything in its place. Then we were allowed in.
    He was so tiny. Most babies are born with fat; he was born with length. His feet were long, his hands reached to his knees, his head the size of his stomach, his dark hair completely covering his head. He was swaddled in two blankets, his chin a deeply defined dent in the midst of baby fat on the only place he had it, his head; his hawk nose had white bumps all over it, and his eyes were completely black and fully open.
    We got to hold him then. My mother held him first, then another of my sisters, and I witnessed another miracle, another of my sisters crying in front of the family, even if she laughed it off. She had closed herself off from us for the most part, but here was something she openly loved. I sat by the tired, light-headed new mother, who laid back with her eyes closed, and I watched my family while we welcomed this new member.
    When it was my turn to hold him, I regarded him with awe. I had not held a baby only a few hours old before, and I realized, holding him, that I was holding the beginning of eighty years. Eighty years can hold anything from wars to the beginning of a nation; here was an entire lifetime where nothing was defined, not even a personality. It is possible to hold an undefined being and love him wholeheartedly. What I held was a person, beyond all doubt, but I knew I could be holding a great warrior for God, a quiet, unnoticed man, a missionary, a plumber, an athlete, and I did not know it. God had already written this boy's story, and I was holding the beginning. Later, as I wrote a friend of his birth, and spoke of holding eighty years in my arms, I realized that his place of birth defined that number, for my friend lives in Cambodia, and that is not the average life span there. But he is here, in America, and he was amazing to hold, to love, and to wonder about and pray for. God willing, he will have a childhood, a life of God's glory, an ever-loving family, and God gave me to see, to even hold, the beginning of his story.

Reality vs. Grace

   The company I work for is impressive. The average tenure is over 20 years; every month we celebrate someone who has been with the company for over 35 years, sometimes for over 40. They value their employees, treat us well, and go the extra mile to look out for our welfare.
    So it was a shock when four of them were let go, two days ago. Two of the four were outstanding performers; all of them were over the retirement age, and will have significant trouble finding other full-time work.
   Oh, I know why they were let go. Our department is combining with another, and "their positions were eliminated." Which means that, right before Christmas, each lady lost her source of income. Which means that all the work they had poured into this company was suddenly dismissed.
    The thing that reoccurs in my memory, painfully, is my own unintentional cruelty. Mary, who takes care of restocking everything in our department, had been gone the entire week before on vacation. As she was stooping over the printer, refilling it to the brim, but not over,  I passed by and said "You do that so much better than we do; we really missed you while you were gone." A few hours later, she was gone permanently. Oh yes, we missed her. Yes, she did a wonderful job. And we let her go anyway.
    Logistically, it made sense. My head knows without a doubt that capitalism works better than any system I have seen. There is no other system that works in a broken world, because capitalism is ruthless, efficient, and motivating for those who desire things--which is all of us. In capitalism those who have talent, intelligence, energy, and dedication are rewarded for their work, more often than not. And when the "not" comes into play, there is a reason that common sense understands.
   But that isn't how grace works. And I love grace, more and more, as time goes by, because I need it so much. In God's world, a person who is slow, clumsy, or whose intelligence does not shine is worth just as much as the one who sparkles or burns bright. There is no one treasured by grace, no child of God, who is let go. Every single one has a place! I have grown accustomed to a world where people are the treasures, and success is measured by God's delight--and God's delight is not dependent on skill, but on Christ's blood and righteousness. And that is given to all of us in overflowing measure.
   So I pray for four people who now do not have jobs, who have woken up for the second morning after the world changed on them, and I struggle to believe that God, who orders my steps, will also order theirs. Grace does not falter when the broken world is unfair.

Along the Wall

    It is mine to guard. A single stretch of wall, separated from other sections by a guard tower on each end, clearly marking the boundaries of what my responsibility is. The wall is tall, and had grown taller each day, firmly cemented together by the Word I love so much. At times the growth is large, block upon block holding each other up, at other times it takes weeks for one square to be placed. Currently, it felt like there was no growth at all.
   I was not the only one with a section of wall to guard. All throughout my relationships, each believer has a wall they walk upon, guarding as they guard their lives. I had, by what I said and did, helped some of those walls to place bricks, or had even spoken a steadying word written in my own wall as theirs started shaking. Therefore I loved their portions of the wall, loved seeing the house being built section by section. They had helped to build mine as well.
    But it had been a while. Guarding had not been a peace-time sentry's duty for a long time, for darkness had enclosed my wall. I could no longer see the sun or stars. The knowledge I had of others now came from distant sounds that I strained to hear, and, as I said, there had been no visible building on my own wall in a long time. There was darkness above, behind, before, to all sides, and the only certain thing was the wall beneath my feet, for it was founded on the Word. I had been losing hope, for I could see nothing, hope for nothing, and my own wall had started to crack from the strain. Earthquakes, loneliness, cold, and most of all, the dark, made it hard to pace the wall, hard to keep my heart and mind on the light I tried to believe existed beyond the darkness around my wall. All I could see or feel was the weight of my duty against a darkness I could not banish. I could not stop, for I had been trained and retrained and trained again in the course of my duty, since a young child, but the duty was joyless and heavy, and I knew that weight in itself was wrong, for written in the Word was that the yoke I had was easy, the burden light. But I did not know how to banish the thief of joy.
    I faced outward. I was too cold to pace the wall any longer, but I could stand and resist. I looked out, seeing nothing but darkness, and hardening myself to fight for however long it stayed. I refused to give in to the bleak despair at that prospect.
    Then I heard it. It was still a distant sound, unconnected with my own wall, but I knew it. It was a horn, blown only when a blatant victory against the dark had been won. It was sounding from one of the walls I had helped to build, and grown to love. It was sounding with joy, but more than that, with a strength beyond that of what is human. It made my heart cry, for I had longed for that sentry's escape from the darkness, and it had been given. Oh, God, thanks to you! I steadied myself, drawing in the memory to make myself warm. The memory of that friend's victory would be a shield against the dark. I drew myself up to start walking the wall again.
    The warmth faded as I walked, but the memory stayed, still helping to shield me from the darkness. Then I stopped in my tracks. There, again! Another horn, another clear note of exultation and thanks, rising from another sentry's portion. Another friend, whose fight had been longer than mine had been by two years, had been given rest. Sweet rest, where doubt broke up and strength and hunger for righteousness had been given. With the darkness pierced, she could see the goodness of our portion, and desire with joy to work for it. That desire made our burdens light, and our yokes a blessing, for they helped us along the way as we built our walls. Two triumphs in so short a time. God, what a blessing. I looked out at the darkness, and smiled grimily. The sound of victory from both my friends had reminded me; my turn was coming. I could not lift this darkness. But I was not alone, and someday, someday in God's timing, I would be sounding my own horn, and the darkness would be lifting. Someday. Today, I would go back to guarding the wall.

Questions

       I've been reading through Lewis's Surprised by Joy. I may not agree with his definition of joy (though that is more because I am currently having trouble defining it myself, and it is difficult to agree with anyone when I do not yet have a clear idea of what we're agreeing about). But it has made me think about a few things. God, guide and guard my thoughts!
     Why do I believe in the Bible, and in the God described there? To ask these questions is not to say I have stopped believing in the Bible, or God, but I do believe God gave us brains for a reason, and I would like to examine my beliefs and see if there is a reasonable progression between what I know and what I believe. But I shall probably do so very poorly, because I am still testing out these things, and discovering assumptions. So perhaps this post should be labeled "nonsense," not "Questions."
    One, I believe there is a God. Creation hails to that. I found assurance of that in a high school sciencebook, where it spoke of to symbiotic fish. Most fish do not have teeth, because they would rot away underwater. This type of fish did. Its main food source was smaller fish. But there was one small fish it did not eat--it would seem up the smaller fishes' home, open its mouth, and the small fish would dart fearlessly into its mouth and eat away everything that would have rotted the teeth. The larger fish was the food source for the smaller, and somehow knew not to eat them while they were in its mouth. I honestly don't think that could have evolved; it would make no sense. Other points of creation point to a creator, as well.
    An incredible one, with infinite creative capabilities. Sunsets alone are proof of that, where beauty is common but the variety makes it new. The difference between a jungle and one of the Poles, between the plains and the mountains and the plateaus, even between the various types of beaches (sand, rock, cliffs, slopes, and the overwhelming variety of life there), point to being that loves to make things. Once again, if this was created by evolution, why is there such an abundance of life? Why so many variations? Evolution is about what works, I think, and yet that would mean a lot more simplicity. Why would things be so complicated if the only goal of life was to survive?
    Creation is beautiful and vast. Whomever created it is worthy of awe, infinitely (at least by my standards) complex, and I am a joke of intelligence beside him.
    The creation of humanity, though, brings up a million more questions. Humanity is as varied as the earth we live on. I've never known two people whom I could ever call the same. There are fundamental differences even in the ones who are similar...and, reading biographies and autobiographies, I find the same. Yet humanity has much in common--we eat, we sleep, we cry, we fight, we strive, we desire, we seek happiness, we think, all in varying degrees, yes, but we do. The English word "alien" illustrates this, for to have something alien there must be something in common with those who are not foreign. I find it hard to for humanity to tell me much clearly about God, save for this--we can be amazing beautiful, but there must be someone out there that is not broken, or there is no hope for us. I've been the one to bear the burdens, and I've been the one crying out for help, and I know how good fellowship is, but if I did not have hope of a God who was more than humanity is, I would have committed suicide. From humanity I expect to be hurt, to be let down, to be demanded of, and to be yelled at (thank you, Customer Service job, for the last). I know from myself, I will break every standard I have. I already did today, and paid for it with regret and the crumbling that brings me to my knees when I cry.  I cannot be perfect. No other human will be, or has been, other than one the Bible tells me of.
    I cannot know all of God form humanity, because I cannot comprehend even humanity. Yet I would say we are more like God than any other part of creation, for we are unique from it. We create wonders of beauty, travel through sea and air and on land, write, build, and keep a record of the past as we can. We also enslave, build wealth, and seek for more than our basic needs. Summed up, mankind is "both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth" (Lewis). Therefore, I know this--mankind is complex enough that its creator is going to have to make itself plain to me, or else not hold me accountable for knowing Him, for mankind is not enough for me, at least, to fully know him as I am now.
    Which brings me to Scripture. A struggle between good and evil makes all the sense in the world, considering what the world is. I see evil fighting evil or good fighting evil all over; sometimes, I see good fighting good over what each side considers to be truth. But most of the world is at war, and it makes sense to have a cosmic battle, if the world and even myself war so much. Everyone I know has fights in their life, Christian or not. Each one determines that he or she is right, and therefore has a right to win. What would the cosmic battle look like, though? What are they fighting over? We tend to fight for truth, for power (in any form), for entertainment, or for pride, but if I believe God is more than we are, would He be fighting for more? Would He be what is best in humanity, or, since that logic is twisted, would the best of humanity be molded after Him? The heroes that fight, the Resistance in the World Wars, the Underground during the Civil war, those who fight when they have no chance and no hope of gain, who teach us something about the strength of character, wouldn't they be more like God? Because they teach us about something beyond ourselves.
    Ugh. It's late at night, and I just realized that I have, in my reasoning, said "God must be like this, because we need Him to be." I should have discovered that earlier, but it's late. I may come back to this later. God bless. God, give us truth.

My Relationship with God

I walk on the edge of a precipice,
    and I am safe from falling.




I was up a ladder, about two stories in height, two days ago. I trembled inside every time the ladder shifted minutely, and called myself a coward. I thought I was not afraid of heights, but heights and no safety are a fearful thing. Someone holding the ladder made all the difference, even though it still moved. Tis the same with my relationship with God. I need have no fear of falling, but the precipice is terrible. Only when I remember who holds me does the fear leave.


I walk on the edge of a precipice,
    and I am safe from falling.

Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart;

Wean it from earth, through all its pulses move;

stoop to my weakness, mighty as thou art,

and make me love thee as I ought to love.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,

no sudden rending of the veil of clay,

no angel visitant, no op'ning skies;

but take the dimness of my soul away. 

Hast thou not bid us love thee, God and King?

All, all thine own, soul, heart, and strength and mind.

I see thy cross--there teach my heart to cling;

O let me seek thee, and O let me find.

Teach me to feel that thou art always nigh;

teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,

to check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;

teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Teach me to love thee as thine angels love,

one holy passion filling all my frame;

the baptism of the heav'n descended Dove,

my heart an altar and thy love the flame.

A Gift - Beauty

I've been working on a gift for a friend who recently started dating, and is looking for guidance. I am taking pictures and putting poems to them, or prayers, or verses. I'm intending to send them as 5x7s.

Remembrance

    I have many more imaginary conversations than real ones. I have conversed with an imaginary sister,  a pseudo philosopher, a fictional enemy. My conversationalists have ranged from King Arthur to the friends of my coworker in the grocery store. In one of these imaginary conversations (taking place, ironically, at a bar--I've never been to a bar, but a story takes one to surprising places) I realized I was telling the character in my head something I needed to remember.
    I was commenting that it is easier to give happiness to a stranger than to a family member. For a stranger, a smile suffices; it may make his next second, next minute, or even next ten minutes better, depending on how aware he is. For a family member, our smiles are a part of ourselves, and to give them happiness takes more work--though the memory of it may last longer. The imaginary conversationalist asked me why it's worth it to make a stranger happy, when it only lasts seconds. Thinking about the answer, I asked him what we did that lasted? I asked him how much, in his life, would last; how many of his actions would be remembered even a month later? If humans did something only if it would last, we would do nothing at all. Nothing lasted past the flood, that I'm aware of; most of what we have left from the past are crumbling monuments and gradually altered stories. Nothing we make is eternal. Then I smiled and said that, as Christian, it was relief to have a God who remembered everything.
    Everything. Every time I've smiled at a stranger. Every time I've picked up litter and thrown it away. Every night I said I can't do anything else, and yet went upstairs and helped. Every good thing He has given me grace to do is written in His memory; and He does not forget.
    The flip side of that, of course, is that He remembers every sin. But that is covered, for me, covered and washed completely clean by the blood of Christ. I stand perfect before Him.
   Then, talking (with a real friend), she spoke of the nuggets God has been giving me, the things of joy when the days are dark. We spoke of how those built our faith, so that when the dark days were all that were left, I'd have something to hold to. But the trick was to remember them.
   The same is told in the Psalms. Over and over, when the circumstances are darkening to black, the king, the saint, would remember what God did in the past. That remembrance gave them hope, more, unshakeable faith that led to trust and even action, for the future.
Psalm 143:

For the enemy has pursued my soul;

he has crushed my life to the ground;

he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.

Therefore my spirit faints within me;

my heart within me is appalled.

I remember the days of old;

I meditate on all that you have done;

I ponder the work of your hands.

I stretch out my hands to you;

   Remembrance. Remember, though the past is gone, beyond our reach, and though it does not change the circumstances of the future. Remember, because God has not changed from those past moments until the moment I am weeping in now; remember, because His love is as unchanging, overwhelming, demanding, and all-sufficient as it was then. I am still alive. I am still growing, and I am not defeated. There is in that fact proof to sustain me in the future, for the past should have had me by now. So I set this as my task, to go over the proof of God's faithfulness, to mark the times His victory is startlingly clear. To make His story my remembrance. 

Rambles of Things Not Fully Thought

    I could tell many stories of this past weekend, of the wedding I helped plan, from the bride and groom neglecting to get the marriage license till the day before the ceremony, to the shattered window discovered the morning I planned to drive fourteen hours. But there are moments I remember, moments that were woven into the past that made me who I am, and yet were influenced by the present.

   The spacial awareness of where I was in the room, lying on the fold-out bed, on my side, hand tucked under the pillow lying under my head, turning to introspection as I realized that, for the first time in two years, I felt whole.

   The afternoon at the wedding, five people who were willing to give me the secrets their hearts held, asking me for truth, sympathy, and a listening spirit. Knowing that, given the choice, I would say this is what I was born to do. Forgetting, for minutes, the present where I am no such person, as a girl held me and cried, letting her barriers down, thanking me that she could not wear a mask in my presence. Praying for them; praying for them then, praying for them still. God, help them and me; them, with the lives that are causing them to shed tears; me, with the life that is causing me to dry and wither.

    The silent, stunned, disbelief, and heartfelt "no, make it go away, please, God, let my eyes be fooling me," as I sat in my car and saw the hundreds of diamond shaped by the cracks running through my windshield. The utter dependence on God that grew strong as I realized I would use the last of my PTO for this year because I could not get home when I planned. The choked laughter inside as I realized the time I'd saved for emergencies would actually be used.

    Susan's face. Under the veil, but the emotion could not be hid by the drape of tulle. I had before seen the bride who was a queen, a queen that served and led and loved and lived walking in the light, and she took my breath away, but Susan was the bride, the joy that streams tears, that silently sings "You won't relent until you have it all; my heart is yours" while waiting to turn to look at her groom, the girl who trembled with triumphant, humble elation on her marriage day, the girl who caused me to smile with pure rejoicing as I watched her joined to her friend, as the two of them became one before God.

    The growing knowledge that the bride's temper sets the tone for all else, for, barring one wedding, all look to see if the bride is happy, and if she is happy, then everyone else is rejoicing. For the one, not even a queen could relax the queen's mother, and that made the queen unhappy.

    The time back. The utter shock as I watched "clean" episodes of CSI: Miami, and the knowledge that they were pervaded with sinful ideas--and the knowledge that I could so easily watch enough that I would no longer notice.

   The question "why" dying as I came back, my sense of my life falling back to its coma, my struggle to stay away, my never-ceasing question of what is right, to do, to feel, to think, what is good, what brings light and life, not to rest on my life, for it is already there, but to shine it, to welcome it, to abide in Christ, by the grace of the God who already made me alive. God, how not to sleep, how not to be numbed?

    The desire to disappear. God, I confess I want to stop work, stop relationships, to retreat, to find again the ability to sit and be quiet, to watch a stream, to breathe with the wind in a tree, to become to aware of the quiet that it settles in my soul, to find the world so fascinating that no daydream can hold me.

    The delight of walking with God, the way I cannot see, feel, hear, or know it at this moment. It is an empty place, not overwhelming only because I know God has not left. To go from whole to apathetic is something I do not understand; how can I do this? Stronger still, how can I stop? How can I heal? How can I live?

     Work. Oh, God, this is not what work should be. God, for the hearts that carry even heavier burdens than mine, for those of us who try to lay them down and only seem to set them on our crushed hearts, God, for those of us hear the echoes of our cries in the silences that are haunted by the thoughts that won't let us alone, God, let us know you. Every doubt that becomes desperation, every question that becomes a cry, every pleasant relief that becomes a reproach, every crushed, broken heart of your child can be answered, held, or released by who you are.

    I stand before you asking, am I sleeping or awake? Is this the dream of a comatose child, or the struggles of a wearying warrior? Should I let this go, should I let that fall, should I just give up, how do I surrender to you without turning away? For to give up the fight you have called me to is evilness, but to fight by my own strength is just as bad.

I ask for this: tell me what you wish me to do, and give me the strength to do it.

But those demands are not for your children to say, for you are God, and we are not.

So I change my cry to this: help. Oh, my God, help.

An Unthinking Urge

    I am fasting today. More correctly, I remembered I am fasting this morning--I was going to start last night, but I confess I did not remember. By God's grace, I opened my email (which also contains my calendar) before I ate anything this morning. There was my reminder. There was my sudden rearranging of my day, and my hasty prayer for help. God, I wish I had remembered. Prayer and fasting are a lot better when I prepare myself.
   As a "for instance" of that--twice this morning, reading and writing, I got up off our couch and headed towards the kitchen before I thought about what I was doing. I have the definition of "plenty" just a few steps away, and it is a second nature to just picking something up in the kitchen when I am hungry. It's not a conscious decision anymore, only an urge that became a habit. In a culture of pleasure and plenty, fasting looks weird. I am hungry. Close by there is a fully stocked fridge (very full--grocery shopping was yesterday). It does not look sensible to ignore the fridge, the pantry, the cupboard, the snack collection, and continue to go hungry.
    But for the sake of something eternal, and for the friends I am praying for, I do not indulge. I minimize the amount of something good, for the sake of something better.
    Which is a startling metaphor, when it occurred to me. For it applies to more than food. Just think about it.
    Entertainment. Knowledge. Work. Friends. Communication. Organization. Volunteering.
    Very good things, in and of themselves. But we have them in overabundance. They can be had or done at any time, usually within a few minutes drive (if you live in the city. Or if you have a computer). And I did most of them recently--I watched a movie last night, read several things this morning, did laundry, even read about a friend's life. They were good.
    But how often do they distract me? Tired, my attention wanders in search of entertainment when I'm trying to study God's word. Or, if I'm lazy, I decided expanding knowledge is a good substitute for meditating on God's word, asking Him to write it on my heart. Yes, I need knowledge. But it should never replace pondering God's word. It enhances it, strengthens it, but does not replace it. I keep myself far busier than I should. I know that seriously interferes with my Biblical walk at times, simply because I am too busy to make sure my life is in accordance with God's law. I excuse something because I tell myself I don't have time to examine my justification of it. Really, I know I'd see through my justification if I examined it. How many times can I do that without singeing my conscience?
    Just because something is good and available doesn't mean it needs to be utilized. Or, to put it Biblically, "'All things are lawful,' but not all things are helpful. 'All things are lawful,' but not all things build up. Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor." Funny, that discussion, too, was about food.
    So I will continue to do the somewhat humorous thing, and go hungry in a house full of food. And pray that God forgives the unthinking habit that continually turns my steps towards the kitchen. Because He does give us opportunities to say no, even to good things, because He gave us something better. May God bless the fasting today.

All I Saw Were Shadows

    They should have been clear. I should have seen people, immortal spirits housed by incredibly varied physical forms. I should have been able to read the stress, laughter, concentration, and apathy in the motions of those walking through the hallway of the corporate headquarters. I should have seen a glimpse of other lives, other stories, other struggles and victories so clearly written in each person's demeanor.
    More, I should have been able to form expectations for the future, for I should have been able to see which form was the person I was waiting impatiently for.
    But all I saw were shadows.
   The shades had been drawn, though the dim light in the small atrium I was in meant I could see the shadows of each person that passed, and dimly, though the closed door, hear the tones of voice when they were raised in excitement. Again and again a tall, darker shape would pass over the grey blinds, walking quickly, varying only in height. They were indistinguishable from one another, only shadows of what actually were.
    "For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known" (I Cor. 13.12).
   God, give me grace to see more than shadows.

After Sin

    The resolution to act correctly. The putting it off till it can't be done. The glorification of myself and my virtues. The following argument with my family. The repentance, swiftly done. The reparation, neglected.
    Then, the self-incrimination on a blog without a corresponding humbling of self. That would be just too hard.
    And God does not desire guilt. Conviction, yes, but not guilt.
    Which means I must go apologize to my sisters.
Now.
God, give me strength.

Done, by His grace.

Freedom by Truth

    I have been struggling to find my way for years, now--two years, two months, and perhaps ten days. But there were some basic questions I had asked, some that I know the answers to now.
   What do I want?
    The negatives--I do not want a job that is grown-up, formal, polite, responsible, and the absence of everything real except facts. I do not want to become a nominal Christian, either.
   A positive: I want to be the fire that steadily burns hot. I want to give warmth to those who are cold, energy to others on fire, a searing touch of truth to those who are dead, and light to anyone who is in darkness. I want to be the salt and light of the earth, the truth that banishes the doubt, the wisdom that changes the ignorance, in a word--the hands and feet of God. I want to rely on Him so completely that all may see the glory is truly his, and the kingdom mine.
   I want to be alive. I want to live and breath and remember my life.
   I want to have the faith that moves mountains, and the prayer that does not give up no matter how long the wait.

   Another question I have answered:
   What am I to do?
    Anything he commands. And I know, without a doubt, that he does not leave us without commands. Oh, there are (many, in my case) times the way is unclear, but we have commands even for that time. Trust. Live righteously. Wait on me.

    And I know without a doubt I am a sinner.
    Every day, every thought, every attempt to pray or to be kind or to be obedient, or, most of all, to rejoice in the duties laid on my life at the moment, are frustrating in their twisted, malformed motivations and carrying out.

   I know I cannot change myself. Believe me, I've tried. And I'm a strong-willed person.

   I know God is faithful. I'm alive, spiritually, even.

   And He has promised to complete my redemption. No, He promised that my redemption is complete, and that my transformation into a righteous child of God, the image of God redeemed, will be complete.

   I still have questions, of course.

    What does it mean to rejoice when I am to broken to hope?
    How do I teach myself to take joy in what I'm given? Or to have gratitude?

    But just in writing this, just in writing out the truth, I'm reminded of what the truth is, and of what I've learned. And the doubts, the fears, and the pressing in of questions, lies, and honest seeking ceases for a moment. Truly, the truth sets us free.

A Hawk

    The sunset. A clear, clear blue sky, where the air was a soft clear gold that could could never inspire evil. No vibrant colors, no explosion of glory, only the still beauty that gives peace.
    I was sitting on the stump of a tree, cut to a few inches off the ground, grey and dead. I perched on the very edge, so I would not sit in the dried green splat of bird poop in the middle of the wood.  It seemed a fitting place for me to sit. The beauty couldn't touch my messed-up soul tonight.
   Just last night, I had spoken and listened for an hour and forty-two minutes (to be precise). Just last night, I had heard my mouth admit that I could have certainty for eternity, but I could not summon the strength to dare to hope for tomorrow. I didn't dare to believe that things might get better. I did not have the strength.
   I despised myself for that weakness. I sat with my arms around my fire-clad knees, the skirt falling gently. With a pure white top, and a skirt all the colors of flame, my hair falling softly over my shoulders, I might look liked I belonged with a golden sunset. I'd hoped so, picking mulberries off a tree, for I would enjoy being beautiful as much as I enjoyed the flavor of the dark purple fruit spreading over my tongue. But I had turned and left, and found the grey tomb of a fallen dryad. I sat, and waited, asking God for help. For hope. For truth. For some other way of living, than being a blind person led by a blind faith.
   I acknowledged that I felt like I was living a dim, grey, harsh life, with no joy or hope. I was continuously fighting, fighting to do my duty, to love, to obey, to discipline myself. To do all that needed to be done. Even to hope, when things were dark. But hope I'd cut out, joy had left, and I was left with bleak days and endless, weary battles. I was fighting only on the strength of a memory. I had nothing, just the dim, lonely, shades of what I remembered. Nothing to fight for but that.
   Twas then I saw the hawk. I have loved all flying things, and birds, especially, have swooped over my head often when I needed to be comforted, or snapped out of self-absorption. The sun, still shining, outlined the white feathers of the out-stretched wings, a stroke of brown running through the middle, the white body white against gold air. It was soft and powerful and free. I sat, watching it; it circled overhead. One circle, two; I could not believe it had not left my sight by now. It flew over, and I tilted my head to keep it in sight. It landed on the top of the tall, tall, pale blue water-tower two houses down from my home.
    I followed. The back of my mind knew I was mad, knew that for a land-bound human to follow a winged creature of the sky was hopeless, but I did not have anything to lose but my place--the seat on a low, grey stump. The hawk waited for me, atop the tower, flitting its wings to keep its balance as soon as I thought it wasn't coming back. I came closer and looked up. It took off, past a line of trees; I followed again.
   It vanished. It was not in the trees, it was not in the clear blue sky, there was nothing of it left in the warm, still air. It was nothing but a memory now.
    I literally sank to my knees. Home was behind me, a few houses down. I wondered what this meant, if it meant anything at all; if a memory was to be enough warmth and strength to keep me fighting, to bring me victory as I leaned on the strength of God.
    I still don't know. But it is a beautiful memory. And it is a question, and reminder: if God wants to use a lord of the sky to lead a clumsy stumbler, he could do so. Was I willing to follow? And to keep going, even to turn and go home, when beauty was nothing but a memory?
    I do not have another choice, right now, for I have nowhere to be but home. But...I wanted to remember the hawk. So I came home, and wrote this. Hoping, maybe, that it will remind me that there is still beauty. That memories have power. And that obedience may not always make sense of the circumstances, but it is a good God whom I obey.
    A God who makes hawks. And who made me. Maybe someday I'll understand why.

The First Time in a While

    I haven't felt at home in a while. I've been writing about that recently; maybe I'll post it. But tonight--tonight was a reminder. And reminders should be marked, written down in my case, maybe retold or painted or held in a memento in others...but here is my memory.
    The weakness and despicable feeling of sin has held my heart for a while. Each defeat seems inevitable; each victory unreal. Until tonight.
    Tonight, someone very close to me called. She's a member of my family--and my family does not cry easily, and certainly not to each other. She called me, I missed the call, I called her back, and started to tease her--till the silence on the other end of the line instead of laughter woke me up. "____, what's wrong?"
    It was the first time she's cried to me. No, I take that back--she asked me questions once, questions about assurance and salvation, and she was crying then. That was years ago; I still pray for her, many times each week. Tonight, she called about family.
   I have the-same-yet-different struggle in my own family, and I listened and spoke, and we ended the conversation laughing, as I walked up to the register to buy some things to make no-bake cookies. I'd sat in my backyard while she was crying, so no one else could overhear.
   But these two memories are strong. When she first called I misheard what she said, and my mind jumped to a sister of mine; the fear had my pulse racing and my mind crying over options, what to do. I heard her explain more, and my fear calmed--I had misunderstood. I could listen to her better then.
    The second strong memory was a memory of strength itself. It has been so long, so very, very, very long, since I have felt strong. Since I have felt I had something to say, where my words were certain and my heart...less broken, even when feeling the soft cry that echoes when I hear someone else's pain. Empathy and brokenness are two very different things, and the weight of tears at someone else's grief is not nearly as heavy as the unheard sobbing, throbbing of a cracked and broken heart. And oh, the grace of God, that he gave me this gift tonight: I was once again a part of his kingdom, his hands and feet to the lost or hurting. God, I give you my thanks, for this memory of what it is to say and love as you have given me gifts to do, for those I love the most. My thanks to you, my humble, heartfelt gratitude and thanks for that grace. In the name of Christ, who washed me clean, amen.

Confused, even Lost

    My life has, for the past year and a half, followed a strict routine. That life is not my favorite--I prefer a varied life with a few routines in it, in the morning and evening. But it does make it easy to judge how I am doing, because I have so many similar days to judge by.
   The last few days have not been routine. Normally I try to watch little TV; yesterday I watched fifteen episodes of one show. You read correctly; fifteen. That's eleven and a half hours of TV. I was sick, and stayed home from work; bored, and disinclined to sew or read any of the books I'd read a hundred times before. I know addiction is wrong, and that deliberately putting entertainment before anything (even devotions--I did not do those yesterday) is wrong, and hiding from that knowledge by distracting myself with entertainment is still worse; it is blinding my eyes and stopping my ears, that I may do my own will.
     The night before I was sick I watched two episodes. I realized, that night, that I had been hiding, hiding from hope. My brother came down to make up a drill (he's in the reserves). My sister moved up with him and his wife, and she seems to be doing very, very well. At least compared to how she was doing before. The hope that she might be healing was so strong, so frightening. I have not let myself love anything new since coming back, because love was hurting, just then--hurting from my friends, who were now far away, many of whom do not have time, hurting from my family, for I could not reconcile who I had been with who I was around them very easily--something many people face. So I continued loving as I had loved, but not growing, and not, above all, hoping for change, because to love and to hope is to be vulnerable, and I did not think I could take any more hurt.
    That became a pattern, a pattern I had been confronted with before, but one that overwhelmed me that night. I deliberately avoided praying, for to pray is to be honest, for who can lie to a God who knows all things, even the depths of my heart, my motivations? "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account." But he brought me to my knees that night, and I told him I would hope if I could, if he helped me.
   The next day I ran. A part of me acknowledges that I need to rest, that I had not dreamed or daydreamed with new material for too long, and I was careful not to watch impurity or evil. But I was still hiding.
   This morning I got up, and got ready to go to work, and listened to my Mom. She has arthritis, inflammation, scarring tissue, and pinched nerves, which, combined, are steadily getting worse and worse till she is in pain sitting down, lying down, standing up, or breathing. She is praying for a long-term solution, and is switching doctors to one who wants to do more than pain management--she's going to the new doctor today, one who is highly recommended by a friend (one more thing to hope for). But she as given a cortisone shot yesterday, and she was so incredibly joyful this morning, because she could sit up after waking up without pain. You know that moment when you wake, and you sit up? For myself, I don't even think about it. For her, she has to prepare herself, because it is very, very hard. It is excruciatingly painful. She was so happy this morning, that she could sit up. She spoke of her struggle to make sure she was not bitter, unhappy, or unsubmissive to God because of her pain, and of the people she's seen who do so much more (note: my mother does not complain hardly ever, and is often more encouraging and hopeful about her condition than I am). Mom is hoping the shot will keep 80% of the pain away for a month, so she can finish teaching (yes, she still works full-time) and go on vacation with the family with less pain then normal.
    So I came back down here, and opened my Bible, seeking for answers. Seeking for strength. Because I have promised God, if it is His will, not to watch TV or movies again unless someone watches them with me, or I am exercising. I am addicted to a TV series, and need to pay the consequences. I need help, not to hide. I want to change peoples' lives, I want to bring for the kingdom, I want to burn with God's light and life. To do that, I need to be vulnerable, to be willing to be hurt again and again, instantly forgiving and giving grace, instantly surrendering my rights and my wishes, everything laid down at God's feet. I read of Jesus washing the disciples feet, but still felt blind and cold. I felt as blind and ignorant as Peter, who sat there arguing with the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. I heard "Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." I knew that God loved a willful fool; I knew that God can use and change a willful fool.
   But that brings me back to something that has been haunting me, that makes it very hard to hope.
   I do not see God's victory. I have been taking it on faith for a long while now; I take on faith that I am saved, I take on faith that God's Spirit is working in me, even when I cannot see it; I take on faith that God is planning something better than I can dream of for my life, when my dreams fell months, almost years ago to ashes and I have nothing left to build for; I take on faith that I am not falling farther and farther away. I have no proof, nothing but His word. The sweet, life-giving Word of God that has immeasurable power, and I know "he who promised is faithful." But I am struggling with the tension of reading and believing one thing, and seeing and living another. That is why it is hard to hope for my sister's full regeneration; that is why it is hard to pray for my mother's complete healing; that is why I had much rather hide. For I know I could be Little-Faith, that pilgrim in the second half of Pilgrim's Progress who lost everything he cared about (his jewels, his reputation, and his wits), did nothing to help others, and came to the gates of the Celestial City and entered, but without any story of God's glory but this: that God could save one so weak. No other victory was his. "Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire." I do not want to be Little-Faith; I do not want to build on God's foundation with straw.
    But I do not know where to go, what to read, what to do. I live by faith; no, I continue to exist and breath by faith, and pray to God that He teaches me to live.
   "What about the times when even followers get lost? Cause we all get lost sometimes. There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll, in the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold. He's kneeling in the garden, silent as a stone, and all his friends are sleeping, and he's weeping all alone. And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot what sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought. So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God, the aching may remain, but the breaking does not in the holy, lonesome echo, of the silence of God."--Andrew Peterson

Enough

   Her lips pressed together as the noise climbed. Thirteen children one room over were deafening, and she had to finish this submission before the clock struck nine. Not that she'd be able to hear it. "Quiet" had been commanded several times, lessening the confusion, but always the noise rose a few minutes after the command had been given. Her youngest child started to howl "That's mine!!!" She stomped to the door and yelled "Enough!"

    She was old. Her children were far away, her husband dead within the past month, her house mortgaged, and her social security checks slim. She had no where to go and nothing to hold on to. She hobbled to the front door to open to get the mail, taking it from the hand of an apathetic postman. No bills, she thought with a small sigh of relief. She could not pay the ones she had on the counter. She opened the top one, from the medical clinic where she'd been tested. The black words told her bad news, that she had cancer. Chemo would need to start soon, and included was another large bill, a bill that would only grow as her treatment went on. Sinking to the floor, she put her head in her hands, crying, "God, didn't I have enough pain already?"

    I came to realize that there is no such word as enough in the Christian's storehouse. Enough means "no more," and we cannot tell that to God. For we have been set an example by Christ, who "knelt down and prayed, saying 'Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.' And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down the ground. And when he rose from from prayer, he came to his disciples" and later, during his great trial, it is said he opened not his mouth, but was like a lamb before the shearers. He did His father's will. "'Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.' Then a voice came from heaven: 'I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.'"
   I cannot say "enough, God, no more" even when I am sick, when, as last night at nine thirty, I want nothing more than to sleep, for oblivion to take hold of me, and a friend texts me, a friend who always needs help. She said she didn't want to keep me up, but proceeded to text me till nearly eleven at night. God was very gracious, and did what I had been asking for, and turned my heart, but oh, the temptation to say "no, God, I will not do this tonight, I'm sick, it isn't fair."
  I cannot say "enough, I won't" even when I do not want to work, even when my reasons are overwhelming, even when things at home are hard, even when I have given and given and given and have no more to give, I cannot say "enough."
   We cannot say enough because our God is limitless. All things are possible through His power, even a smile, a real, tired smile in the aftermath of a terrible day when we come home to one more person who needs something. Such was planned by Him, and is therefore God. Jesus withdrew to pray by Himself, but He did so because it was God's will, not because He had had enough of following God's commands by giving to blind people who would crucify Him (not that I am any different). Jesus never told God that, as a human, he had done enough. Nor may we. God's power is enough to fulfill His will, and to trust Him is to accomplish many impossible things in God's timing.
    But there will come a time when we will say "this is more than enough." For God loves to bless His children, and will fill our lives and hearts till they are overflowing, and staring at Him in wonder, we will say "the sufferings of this present time were not worth comparing to this glory"--it is more than enough to have followed God, to have surrendered each difficult moment to Him, to have never said "Enough."

A Shattered Vessel

     He held the shattered pieces in his hand.

    I could not take my eyes off them, for the shattered pieces were me. I didn't deny I needed to be shattered--the flaws were clear even now, still retained in the tiny pieces. I knew I needed to be remade. Still flinching at each crack, I had tried not complain as I fell into a helpless, broken pile of glass and cracks. I am so frail and weak.
    But what I could not understand was why he held them, doing nothing else that I could see. I had been broken so that I might be remade, not that I might stay broken. I knew, his timing, his timing, repeated in panting rhythm as I tried to breathe, but still the agony of the question swamped me, why doesn't he move? Why am I still shattered?

"If anyone serves me, he must follow me [to death]; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him.

Human Joy - Elizabeth Eliot

    The following excerpt is taken from Passion and Purity:
"Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear--
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.
                                                            GEORGE CROLY
                 "Spirit of God, Descend upon My Heart"
[...]
"'What hindereth thee more than thine affections not fully mortified to the will of God?' wrote Thomas a Kempis in Imitation of Christ.
    Mortified. A frightening word. If my affections must be mortified, does that mean they must be killed? Does it mean they're all evil and sinful and wicked? [...]
    There is no getting around the etymology of the word mortified. It comes from the Latin for death. The King James Version of Romans 8:13 says we must mortify our members. A modern translation makes it even more direct, 'But if by the Spirit you put to death all the base pursuits of the body, then you will live.' What are base pursuits? There is a list in Colossians 3:5: fornication, indecency, lust, foul cravings, and the ruthless greed which is nothing less than idolatry. These are products of human desire, if human desire is given free rein. The Christian has handed the reins over to his Master. His human desires are brought into line. The desires still exist, are still strong, natural, and human, but they are subjugated to the higher power of the Spirit. They are purified and corrected a we live day by day in faith and obedience.
[...]
The nonbeliever denies this, listens to the promptings of the flesh, capitulates, insists he has to do what feels good, to go with the flow. The Christian mortifies the flesh by submitting to the authority of Christ--to His authority in every area of his being

     I forget where I was going with this, except that there was a recurring theme, around the time I first copied the above, of whether it was good to enjoy something that did not directly relate to learning about or worshipping God; or rather, to what extent it was good and to what extent it was a distraction from what we should be focusing on.

Prayer

   "We ask thee for the daily strength; to none that ask denied. A mind to blend with outward life while keeping at thy side, content to fill a little space if thou be satisfied. "--Hymn 444 in the Blue Hymnal.
    God, I am sick, and weary. Nor am I strong in my faith or my discipline. But I have just read of those who were, Mary, who gave herself entirely to your devotion right before you went to die, and realized that such strength is a gift from you. I do ask you for the daily strength, to live through today, for it seems a wearier road than I would like, but more than that, for the spiritual strength to glorify you in thought, word, and deed throughout today. I ask that you would bring me to love you with all my heart, all my mind, and all my strength, and to love all those I see and hear as I love myself. For the sake of your son, who died that I might live, I ask these today. Amen.

Useless

     My family has the doubtful joy of living next door to a helicopter tree. For the unlucky souls who have not seen one, it releases thousands of seeds attached to a boat-like sail-fan that causes them to whirl around and around as they fall. It is a wonderful playmate to the wind--and a terror to our gutters. We have five downspouts, and each time a rainstorm comes the ladders come out, the children go up, and our grouping hands pull dirt-like leaves and sodden helicopter seeds off the top of each downspout.
    Each downspout but one. The back right corner of our house has a downspout that is not connected to a hole in the gutter. The winter comes and it ices over, the white bottom hidden in the feet of snow. Spring, and the chipmunks use it as a hiding place when human steps venture near, heading towards the trash can. Summer, and it sits, and sits, and sits, useless. Fall, and the leaves cover the bottom, and we stub our toes against it and scowl. Lately a treebush has grown up next to it, keeping us safe from its white blockage. For the past twelve years, it has sat there uselessly.
    But walking past today (avoiding the downspout), I realized there was a bird sitting quite still in the crook where it leaves the wall and stretches towards the gutter itself. The bird's head, body, and even its feathers, were completely motionless. I realized it was sitting on a nest, a small nest, not in the tree, where the frail limbs would break under the weight of even so small a nest, but the observant, creative birds had built their nest in the midst of the branches on the strong, useless, thin metal instrument of man. Useless for twelve years, it suddenly provides safety and strength to a mother, father, and family. It needed to do nothing but be there, as itself, amid the branches of the tree, and it was suddenly a gift.
    I have been home two years and thirteen days, and have felt useless. But what are my two years, thirteen days to the twelve of the downspout? And what am I being prepared for, that God keeps me here? Will I provide shelter, not just to the helpless, but to souls, eternal, immeasurable souls, which are made in the image of God? Would it be worth it, just to provide shelter for one family?
    Such a question doesn't even need to be asked. God, give me grace to be patient in the years of waiting for your purpose, for when it comes, it will be glorious beyond comparison to the waiting now.

Bitter Weakness, oh God of Grace

"The whole consciousness of [...] my hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That bitter hour cannot be described; in truth, 'the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire; I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me.'"
      Charlotte Bronte.
"For the enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead. Therefore my spirit faints within me; my heart within me is appalled."
     David, a man of God.

    David's answer was to remember the past. I struggle to do that, struggle to find in its cold written stone the inspiration to hope for the future. I have faint, dawning hope in the promises of God, for he who promised is faithful, but it just leaves me wearily asking for help. "The words of gold, have all grown cold, over and over...I need to see you in the sunrise. Time takes its toll on us and its tries its best just to steal our love and we bend and we break but we don't give up; time takes its toll on us." David's cry leaves the tears in my eyes, my soul aching. God, God, God...
    I once compared me becoming a manager to a hermit being taken to a world-famous rock concert. It is an expensive, honor-giving gift. The hermit would be horrified.
    I thought, the hermit might enjoy it, might marvel at it, at least, even if it was taxing, nerve-snipping, and all together foreign. But I did not remember how ready the hermit might be to leave by the end of the three or four hours, how much he might bless God for the peace and quiet of the smallest breeze that blew through his hidden harbor.
    I have been a manager over a month. I have not yet learned to bless the boredom of my old job, but I have learned to understand the grace of busy afternoons at the job I held for nine years before this company. From fourteen to twenty-three I worked there, and never did I dread working at the grocery store with the same held-in-check fervour of going to my job.
    If I did not know for certain that God had given me this, I might take it as a sign to quit. But I prayed for weeks, and asked friends to pray, and told God I surrendered--He could do anything He wanted. He did, by offering me the job but completely changing the job description. I had known it was somewhat open to interpretation, but the one department I hadn't even thought about considering is the department I'm over. And there were even good things that happened today.
   But I cannot check the bitterness that I hold from my tongue (most times), that has fallen from my mouth to coat my heart and mind. I do not enjoy this rock concert, the thousands of cries of unfinished tasks, the energy required when all I want is quiet, the complaints of the janitors and guests in the back rows that I try to offset...I feel bitterness well up as I cry, why? Why, God, did you place me in a rock concert. I'd truly be willing to accept the quiet of a tomb over the clamor of this world by now, if I did not have so many ties to the living.
   God, I do not, do not, do not know what to do. I cry, "No mercy in the high noon desert, no shadow gonna block the sun, still covered in dust from all our yesterdays and days to come. Every turn is a new temptation," every day another sin. So many battles lost. But the same song sings,
    "Bring us home! Lead us to the highest wall; every single stone will fall; we have never walked alone--only you can bring us home. Every tear drop in the sand, longing for a distant land, we have never walked alone, only you can bring us home. You are fire in the night sky; you are cloud by day; we're calling on the name of Yahweh! In seven days everything was made, and in a week, it's crazy how everything can change." One week. Oh, God, you don't even need that. My God, help me. I have nothing left but this cry. Help me.
    Disappointment swamps my life, bitterness eats at my soul. I cannot swallow back, nor do I have the strength to expel. I have everything that promises a good, prosperous, busy American life, but it tastes of ashes. I want nothing but you, my God. Within me wars my desires for comfort and pleasure and distraction, but on my knees, brought there by everything my life has given me, I want nothing but you. Nothing else, nothing else, for only you can satisfy. Only you are worthy to be praised, worshipped. You are worthy of worship, God of justice and of grace, of holiness and compassion, of perfection and of sinners. My mind is not my own, my job is not my own, they are yours. By the same admission, my life is yours, and so is my soul. The bitterness I feel cannot win against the God who brings the dead to life. Disappointment dissipates before the truth of who you are. Give me your grace, grace to let go of my frustration with my inability to communicate, to let go of my constant tiredness, to ask forgiveness for the impurity of my mind and heart and to know I am forgiven, to see that I am empty and yet to know that your children have the fullness of life. You are not set back by my stumbling questions, your plan is not weakened by my tiredness, my sin is forgiven and I am clean, and your hands are never empty, but full of what you give your children. My God, my God, I need you even more than I want you.

"I never thought I would be much more than Jesse's king. Who would ever dream a king would come from Bethlehem? I know that I've crashed and burned, lives have been overturned, but you redeem everything, yeah, even me."

I am waiting, God of grace. Come help me now.

Seeking Wisdom in Life

What is it I should do? Should I have watched those minutes of the movie with my family, taken that last salt-covered tomato for my throat, answered my friend's text in the middle of devotions?
    Should I confess them as sins? Should I justify them so I will not have false guilt? Should I just pray and not think and wrestle with these things? Is this working out salvation with fear and trembling? It was a tomato, a text, for crying out loud! But if we will be called to give account for every careless word, how much more every careless act?
    How could we enjoy life if we are thinking every moment about our actions, keeping a tab on them? If we are every moment making sure we are doing something good?
   George MacDonald said it best, when he writes,
    'But, please, ma'am--I don't mean to be rude or to contradict you,' said Curdie, 'but if a body was never to do anything but what he knew to be good, he would have to live half his time doing nothing.'

     'There you are much mistaken,' said the old quavering voice. 'How little you must have thought! Why, you don't seem even to know the good of the things you are constantly doing. Now don't mistake me. I don't mean you are good for doing them. It is a good thing to eat your breakfast, but you don't fancy it's very good of you to do it. The thing is good, not you.' 

    Curdie laughed. 

    'There are a great many more good things than bad things to do. Now tell me what bad thing you have done today besides this sore hurt to my little white friend.' 

    Truly, there are a great many good things to do than bad. There are many joyful, wonderful, beautiful things. But George MacDonald continues...

     While she talked Curdie had sunk into a sort of reverie, in which he hardly knew whether it was the old lady or his own heart that spoke. And when she asked him that question, he was at first much inclined to consider himself a very good fellow on the whole. 'I really don't think I did anything else that was very bad all day,' he said to himself. But at the same time he could not honestly feel that he was worth standing up for. All at once a light seemed to break in upon his mind, and he woke up and there was the withered little atomy of the old lady on the other side of the moonlight, and there was the spinning wheel singing on and on in the middle of it! 

      'I know now, ma'am; I understand now,' he said. 'Thank you, ma'am, for spinning it into me with your wheel. I see now that I have been doing wrong the whole day, and such a many days besides! Indeed, I don't know when I ever did right, and yet it seems as if I had done right some time and had forgotten how. When I killed your bird I did not know I was doing wrong, just because I was always doing wrong, and the wrong had soaked all through me.' 

     'What wrong were you doing all day, Curdie? It is better to come to the point, you know,' said the old lady, and her voice was gentler even than before. 

     'I was doing the wrong of never wanting or trying to be better. And now I see that I have been letting things go as they would for a long time. Whatever came into my head I did, and whatever didn't come into my head I didn't do. I never sent anything away, and never looked out for anything to come. I haven't been attending to my mother--or my father either. And now I think of it, I know I have often seen them looking troubled, and I have never asked them what was the matter. And now I see, too, that I did not ask because I suspected it had something to do with me and my behaviour, and didn't want to hear the truth. And I know I have been grumbling at my work, and doing a hundred other things that are wrong.'

    And he is praised. For with him, to know what was wrong was to begin to mend. For me, I do not know what is wrong--so how can I mend? How can I seek to be better? For it is surely not in questioning every thing, but perhaps in knowing what to question. Self-discipline in all areas (from the amount of tomatoes I eat to the amount of texts I let interrupt my time) is good; but to be self-disciplined in all areas is not to be right, nor righteous. One can be self-discplined while learning to be evil. 

    So then, I am left with this: seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God. Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness, seek humility. (The latter verse is in Zephaniah.) 

    God, teach me to seek justice, righteousness, and humility, to love mercy, to walk with you in humility. I cannot do so much; you can do so much more. I am in your hands, God of Abraham (a liar and in cases a coward), of Isaac (a bad father), and of Jacob (a runaway thief). I am not so faithful as they, but I am yours. I ask no more but this: teach me to do your will, for you are my God. In the name of Christ, amen.

My Mother

   Do you know your face still lights up when Dad walks in the room or that you smile when you speak his name, listen for his car, and think and speak of him often? Do you know I watch every time he kisses you, thanking God that He taught you both to love constantly, tenderly, and unselfishly? From you I have learned that a wife should love what her husband loves as I watched you learn baseball, fantasy baseball, and the baseball game on Facebook. I have watched you grill and buy Cubs clothing and look forward to those boring baseball games because you learned to love what he loves.
   Do you know from both of you I have learned what it is to support and strengthen one another? I have learned a definition of godly marriage, and I have shared that with friend after friend as they marry. Your unselfish joy in each other is a gift you give to you, to me, and to all those your children discuss marriage with.
   From you I have learned to cook, to clean (with bleach!), and to balance a checkbook. I have seen you mix those mundane tasks with the joy of walking with God, even working in a place where God is denied and yet living the light of the gospel. I have learned it is possible to do a hundred things well in a short period of time and I have learned to take time to rest. You have taught that God can be trusted when we are physically weak. I have poured my heart out to God for your health, learning what it is to pray for I desperately want, and yet, watching you, to trust Him if He says no. You have taught me that He gives overwhelming grace in our weakness.
    You show me that I can come to you, telling you what is in my heart, and you will give me good, sound advice. I would trust you with any decision I had to make, and yet I know how to make many of them without help, because you taught me independence. I take courage, knowing that you pray for me as I make those decisions. I know, when you reach heaven, that your life as a mother will be one of the tasks where He will say "well done, good and faithful servant." I am so thankful that He gave you to me, Mama.

My Mother Rough Draft

   Did you know your face still lights up when Dad walks in the room? Do you know that you smile when you speak his name, listen for his car, and think and speak of him often? Do you know I watch every time he kisses you, thanking God that He taught you both to love for years constantly, tenderly, and unselfishly? Do you know that from you I have learned that a wife should love what her husband loves? I have watched you learn baseball, fantasy baseball, and the baseball game you played this week. I have watched you learn to love the Cubs. I have watched you grill and buy Cubs clothing and look forward to those boring baseball games...because you learned to love what he loves.
   Do you know that I have learned, from both of you, what it is to support and strengthen the other? I have learned a definition of godly marriage that I have shared with friend after friend as they get married. I have learned from them that your unselfishness and joy in each other is a gift granted to you, and to us, to all those your children discuss marriage with.
   From you I have learned to cook (especially from scratch), to balance a checkbook (to spend and to save...I needed the former), to clean (with bleach!), and to organize bookshelves and clothing. But I have also seen what it is to try every day to see God in life, to work in a place where God is denied and yet live the light of the gospel and to learn to trust Him still for life. I have learned it is possible to do a hundred things well and I have learned to take time to rest. I have learned that God can be trusted when we are physically weak. Your physical condition has taught me to pour my heart out to God for something I desperately want, and yet, watching you, to trust Him if He says no. You have taught me that He gives overwhelming grace.
    You show me that I can come to you, speak with you, tell you what is in my heart, and you will give me good, sound advice. I would trust you with any decision I had to make, and yet I know how to make many of them without help, because you taught us independence. I know that you pray for me as I make those decisions, and that gives me courage. I know, when you reach heaven, that your life as a mother will be one thing where He will say "well done, good and faithful servant." I am so thankful that He gave you to me, Mama.

Limited and Unlimited Grace

    I walked to lunch from a meeting, a meeting that went well the first hour, the last half hour degenerated into the same people restating the same opinions over again. And again. And, oh, by the way, again. I laughed, shook it off, and went to lunch. At last, a break from professionalism.
    Not. My closest friend at work was sitting with to other coworkers, and she was almost crying. She had been written up for something she had done the day before. It was something another coworker had done several times, and we did not know if she had been disciplined for it or not, as that is something the company does not share. The ladies also mentioned that the offence Carol was written up for is punishable by termination of employment. But for the rest of the lunch, my friend and the two other ladies tore the fourth coworker into shreds, attacking one or two other people at the same time. It was gossip with a self-justifying attitude turned fighting-for-the-underdog. And much of it, at least against the fourth coworker, was justified--still gossip, but true.
   I had been made a manager within the last two weeks, and I sat. I could not answer the lady written up as a friend, since I had authority behind my words now. I could not answer as a manager, because I did not know what was going on. So I compromised--for the most part I remained silent, giving Carol a hug. I answered twice as a person, reminding the table that the people being ripped apart did have merits--that we should be fair. But when I left I left wondering "What should I have said?"
    I set my water bottle at my desk, went into my manager's office, and asked to speak with him. Coming out, having heard the other side of the story, I felt better. Carol had been given grace, as was the fourth coworker. Carol was not terminated; the fourth employee was also learning to do better.
   But it was limited grace. Carol is still on probation, for instance.
   I worked the rest of the day, then drove to meet a friend. This friend had just moved out of an apartment with four other girls; they'd been living in the same place for two years, but all of them were moving elsewhere, for different reasons. Two of the roommates did a terrible, horrific job of cleaning; another deeply hurt my friend just as she handed her the keys. I pointed out to my friend that nowhere in Scripture are we allowed to hold a grudge, or to be angry--that is left to God, who can exact vengeance and justice without sinning. I told her--after getting her permission to speak bluntly--that she had to forgive them. She had been shown unlimited forgiveness, and she was required to give the same.
    I need unlimited grace as well. At work or in relationships, I sin. Not just once, not just one time a week, but again and again and again. If you give me limited grace, I will use it up. I am human, I am fallen, and I cannot keep good commandments. I can keep my job, true, but only by playing a pharisee, where the outside keeps to the rules and the inside rebels or grows proud. To truly live in a fallen world, I need to give and to have unlimited grace with people
    I can't do that as a manager. I have to keep the company's best interests in mind. In a corporate world, a company that lets itself be taken advantage of again and again, that gives unlimited grace, will not survive. Unlimited Grace is not practical and not real. But I am appalled to discover that I work in a place where the law of the gospel will not work. How can that be? I want the gospel not just at the center of my life, but in every aspect, by God's grace in every word and thought and action. The contrast between the law of grace and its transforming power and the law of a broken reality hurts.
    For I heard Carol crying through the rest of the day. I thank God that she has today off, that it's the weekend. No, I do not think the company was wrong for writing her up. But I dread knowing that the grace they gave her is limited, and it might some day run out. Mine, too. I have no warnings, no rebukes that are uttered more than once, I even have a promotion. But to succeed in a world that measures by works means a long, hard struggle with the only reward being a flattering of my pride. I don't want that--I want truth, beauty, grace, humility, and wonder as the strength that is stronger than my own undoes my walls, cleanses my sin, and changes my character. I want to give Carol a hug and tell her she's forgiven--if she would even accept that she was wrong. But the absurdity of doing that is clear. We can only give limited grace. Unlimited grace is left for God to give, or for us to give in the personal areas of life.
   God, teach me where to go from here.