A Couple of Thoughts

"I plead for mercy from the God of grace."

   I seem to be crying for help so often lately. I cannot come before my God, nor think of His character, His call, or His commands without pleading for help for what I cannot do, cannot approach, and cannot hear without his help. The human inside of me struggles to understand that He does not grow weary of those pleas--surely, when it is the tenth time for this day of this year, where every day of the year so far as been the same, surely He must be weary of this plea? My head says he is not; my heart trembles, trying to believe.

   But today I remembered--I plead, yes, plead, pouring out supplication, cries, for mercy. Mercy, for me, a sinner; my God, mercy. I am a sinner. Mercy, my God, I cannot stand before you; mercy, I have failed your will and your word. Mercy.

   From the God of grace. I remembered that to be God of something is to own it, understand it, create it. God created grace. Who could understand it better?

   Who could give it more?

   I plead, on my knees, for mercy, for a sinner, from the God who created and loves grace. If I must plead for mercy (and I must), tis wondrous that I may do so before the God of grace. I come, knowing that He will give mercy, for he gives grace, forgiveness, righteousness, and strength intertwined. Oh God of grace, may my heart ever be turned in gratitude and wonder to you.

"So let me learn that the cross precedes the crown,"

--Sovereign Grace, "In the Valley"

    In the song, this is sung so that we might remember that the crown is not adorning us now, that painless, effortless victory is not ours now. The cross comes first. But I heard it the other direction. 

   I do not struggle with believing that we bear a cross now. I hear it, see it, taste it, and struggle underneath it even now. I see my struggle reflected in the spoken stories of my friends, my family, my Christ's siblings. I know, dimly, that there will be a crown someday, that we will stand as images of the glorious God, freely and joyfully hurling our crowns to His feet. But that is a dim picture that resembles a snapshot of Hawaii in an Alaskan winter. Reading I Peter, I find I am to hope, and to hope strongly, in the joy that is coming. That hope is to sustain my faith and create in me a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, now. What dim, dusty, bent postcard of a Hawaiian beach could do that when it is dark, frozen, and deadly at three in the afternoon? So the crown must be more now than a picture, more than an image in my imagination, shaped by Revelation's word. It is a promise that we taste now. 

   I still do not know how, but it is good to remember, that the cross precedes the crown. The cross is not all, not even most, for it temporary, and the crown for Christ's glory is eternal. God give all His children to hope and to be purified in the hope that He gives (I John). In the name of Christ, eternal victor, eternal King, amen!

The Dragon in the Parking Lot

    I walked by a dragon this afternoon, a dragon that no one else could see, a dragon no one knew but me. I walk by it twice a day at work, a black line across the pavement, the parking lot crack covered by a soft, dark line. The top of the line gracefully tilts up, just long enough to be a head, while there is a soft shape of his claws underneath that head. I met him early one morning, and he showed me that all the black lines in the parking lot were dragons, though most had their heads buried, or were absent. For the black lines I could see are where they sleep during the winter, something more than shell and less than a cave. I often nod to him during my breaks, taking care not to step on him. After all, he was my first friend of their kind. But by the time I reached halfway around the parking lot today, it startled me to realize that no one else knew about him. Seeing him twice a day, he had become a normal part of my day, something that brought a smile of friendship every time I saw him. He became normal. But walking around the parking lot, I had an instants thought to what another person's reaction would be if they saw me saying hello to the filled in a crack in a parking lot; I would be considered cracked myself. Funny how the extraordinary, if seen every day, became ordinary enough that it took me a moment to understand why someone else would be startled.
    But I saw something else this afternoon, something that stirred a story. Taking care to step over the dragons, I saw running over and around them other shapes, softer, quieter shapes that seemed to have more movement and less substance. I saw in an instant that they were the dragons' playmates, friends that appeared every so often, that were a source of fascination to the dragons, because the shadows were mute and yet like themselves. The dragons loved to play with them, calling them friends as long as they lasted, joyous to see them again everytime the sun was clear enough to cast the shadow of a tree.
   But I remembered Plato's cave, and thought with a smile that here, shadows were not a substitute for reality, but an exhilarating addition. When we have reality, the shadows add wonder and mystery. Shadows, things not real, or not life--literature, art, imaginary friends, dragons in the pavement--are a blessing when they season reality. Who couldn't use a playmate that was like and yet unalike?

Faith

    I started to pray again tonight. It's not uncommon, in fact, it's a common thing in my life, to pray for the people and prayer requests I have on the pale-ish green, electronic sticky-note in the corner of my computer. But tonight I knew something was wrong.

    Perhaps, the cynical side of my mind said dryly, it's because you've been hiding from God all day. Perhaps it's because you're trying to think about life but leave Him out of it as a person--leaving him as a power. Yes, perhaps that might be it.

   Sarcasm is a most effective way of telling the truth. As long as you're telling it to yourself.

   So I set down my computer and remembered that prayer is relational, a conversation, in many ways, between myself and someone else. A perfect, holy, awe-striking, fear-inspiring, worshipful, lovely, glorious being, yes, but a being. Not a wishing-machine or an electronic task manager; no, the God. 

    And I think He asked me what I wanted. I replied, honestly, that I wanted Him to rule my heart and mind; more, that I wanted Him to rule the hearts and minds of every person on my list, that I wanted His hand to be surrounding them and His will to be leading their lives. I remembered from all of my Bible reading and Christianity-studying, that my wish was already fulfilled, that God is God, over my life and my friends' and family's lives. My wish was already granted; what I really wanted was already so.

   But it does not seem that way. I could not help but tell God that. I told Him what I saw--diminishing relationships with three of my friends, as their lives become too busy to speak with me. The hurt from that I quickly brush aside--I know what it is to be busy. But I'm not fighting their battles anymore, because I don't know what those battles are. But I know they're battling. And what of the friend who is without a job, and who has been for months? Or the friend as close as a sister, whose husband is getting to lost to his career that he is forgetting to seek the will of His closest friend, his Lord? What of her questions, the ones she can't find an answer to? What of my sister, whom I can't seem to speak to without offending her? What of the friend who has wandered away, and is still turning round and round as she tries to come back, what of the friend who is sick in health and sick in soul? What of the roommate who is searching for purpose and faith? God, where is your rule?

   The question is a cry as much as it is a search for truth. Battles, battles, battles, battles at work, battles in my soul, battles in my body, battles with my time, battles for faith, battles for friends, battles for family, everywhere I look, nothing but fighting, bloody, tearing, wearying, endless fighting. Oh, God, if this is your rule, why is it a war?

   Who wins, if it's a war? Not you, for your people are torn to pieces. That does not please you. But it pleases the enemy, oh yes, he'd just as soon we were torn to pieces as under his rule. Both he delights in.

    So why isn't he winning? Why can't I believe Satan is more powerful? The questions remind me of the truth.

    We don't stay torn; we don't even stay dead. We were crucified with Christ, and He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also bring life to our mortal bodies through His spirit who dwells in us (Romans 8). Suffice it to say, The war was won when our condemnation was set on another--and the war is not defeat, because every battle will be won and every scar healed, every cry answered, every tear redeemed. 

    Eventually. 

    Eventually--though the war is already won, the battles are not. And they do matter, these battles, because they can bring power and honor and praise to Christ, or they can be another setback. They put the brothers and sisters of Christ through the furnace--and, as Peter says, prove their faith, of more worth than gold that perishes though it is refined by fire. The battles grow our faith. My cry of seeking, ending in a belief--a heartsick, trembling, fainting belief, but a belief nonetheless--is one more growth of my faith. My God, I believe--help my unbelief! For my head knows you won the war, but oh my God, my heart and soul need to know you will win our battles, and bring us home, healed. Grant me faith to believe. In the name of the Savior who died that I might come home, in the name of Christ Jesus, amen.

Green Lights

    My job is a blessing. Not my favorite blessing, mind you. I don't particularly like the work. But the pay and benefits are good, the coworkers are better than normal, and the company and managers are fantastic. A blessing.
   Particularly when I look at the lives around me. A parapro at a school is making much less than I do, though I would consider her more intelligent and more disciplined. Another peer is working at Claires, a third at Chic-Fil-A; my sister works the third shift at a hospital as a lab tech, though she went to a better-known college and graduated with better grades. A friend is moving back with her parents without a job, debt piling up. The vice-president of the entire student body of my freshman year, someone I highly respect, just appeared in an article, making over ten thousand dollars less than I do as a teacher. She is also moving back with her parents. My sister is struggling to make the $6000 a semester for the college she commutes to, an hour away.
    I do not understand why I have this blessing. I have never particularly hungered after money, other than a brief time as a child. I learned to live with less than the barest minimum while I was in my senior year of college--I have never been able to forget that an adopted grandmother paid half my rent every month. So why do I have this blessing, this higher-than-average-income, why do I have it now?
    I've asked this question particularly since I got a promotion, and with it a nice, small raise. Why do I have this blessing?
    I've thought, perhaps it's because I'm following God overseas--He's providing for me to pay off my student loans because I'm following His plan. That's a comforting thought, and perhaps it's a true one. But it frustrates me that, if that is true, He keeps sending obstacles in the way of me paying off the loans, by sending bills or events that require money. If he's helping me to go overseas, why not let me pay of the student loans more quickly? Why is the doubtful blessing of my job becoming so complicated?
    But today I was taught a lesson by green lights.
    Funny things, green lights. There are many times I get my fair mixing of red lights, yellow lights, and green lights, and I wait, or watch, or go straight on through the intersection as the case may be. There are a few times I get every red light, and I smile as I wait, glad a particular song is playing, or tap my fingers impatiently on the wheel, depending on how early I want to be. Or how behind I am. But today, heading to a bookstore to pick up Beatrix Potter stories for my future niece or nephew, I hit all green lights.
    It was funny, because that day had been a day I labeled absurd. I was up at 4:30, checking to make sure the water that had poured from our laundry room hadn't done any permanent damage (my sister had failed to notice we had hooked up the sump pump, and unhooked the washing machine). I had taken my sister to school, drove to work, then run across the street to get all of this training required for new managers, mostly on benefits for full-time employees. I manage six part-time employees. I returned to work, and tried to do in two and a half hours what I normally do in eight, while answer a busily ringing phone and clarifying things with my boss about what I would and would not be doing as a team lead. I looked at the clock five minutes after I should have left, remembered I had a two-month-overdue haircut in twenty-five minutes, walked out and turned my phone on, got a text from a worried coworker who had noticed my empty desk that morning, ran back to explain things to her, ran back out to my car, arrived just in time for my hair appointment (missing supper so far, of course), came home, took four bites something warmed in the microwave, went to the grocery store, meeting a friend in the cafeteria and talking for about an hour, bought graham crackers, coconut, and butter to bake with later that evening, and then went to the bookstore.
    And got all green lights. I had one left on the drive, and it turned red. I had just been thanking God for all the green lights, but subtly suggesting that I didn't understand why I was getting them today--surely there was a better time to give me this, like when I was stressed and running, not just doing things that weren't timed, only necessary? I asked Him, if He would, to turn the last light green, just for the fun of the thing. But if that wasn't His plan, thanks--and I meant thanks--for the other green lights.
   It turned green at the last second, just enough for the cars in front of me to start rolling so I didn't have to stop. But I still didn't understand why I had this blessing now--why green lights today? Then realized--
    What a mistaken idea, what a wrong assumption. God doesn't skimp on blessings, doesn't say "I gave you this today, so you can't have it tomorrow." He gives us blessings because He delights in giving us blessings. But He doesn't have to give us blessings we understand, or rather, he doesn't have to give us blessings in such a way that they meet our expectations of how blessing should act, or what the motivation for giving them is. He gives blessings because His hands overflow with good things for His children, he gives the small and large things to bring his children joy. He gives me a good paying job and then the responsibility of handling the money his way, not mine. He gives me blessings to remind me that blessings are gifts, not give and take. He gives me blessings to remind me that blessings are free and freely given.
   He gave me green lights.

Sights - Light

Snowing Up

   It was early enough in the morning it was still dark. I sat on the couch across from the window seat, wishing our couches hadn't been chosen for comfort. It would be too hard to get up and go to work. I stared into the dark outside, barely lightened by the city-orange street light by our driveway. I think I was praying for help to get through the day, leaning forward to see if the dawn was coming up.
    It was snowing. I couldn't see it in the dark, only in the intangible circle of electric light that existed arbitrarily around the top of the telephone pole. The wind was blowing fiercely then not at all, the white  streaming lines through the light going too fast to see till a moment later, when snowflakes were soft matters of existence that the eye could follow slowly down till it left that circle of visibility. The eye, moving up to catch another snowflake, would watch as they started to move faster and faster, till they were moving sideways, not down. If a white rope had been thrown between the tops of two poles and pulled faster and faster it would not have been more horizontal. I watched, dazzled, as the snow and wind changed everything in that circle, without a pattern. But the crowning moment came when the wind whimsically whirled the white lines up. I stared, unbelieving, as I watched a snowfall going up. I looked outside the streetlight's ascendancy--nothing. Only in the light was that small miracle visible.
    The snow had melted by the time I came back upstairs.

Washing Dishes

    The sun was just outside our kitchen windows as I stood at the sink. The double windows allowed a cool breeze to touch the person cleaning at the sink in the summer, but during the fall and winter days they staid firmly closed. Tonight, less than thirty degrees outside, was one of those times. Our backyard was flat, flat, flat, till ten feet from the end, where we had a gentle slope going upwards. The sun wasn't setting yet, only finishing up the last of its daily duties before it turned the skies into glory. It's light streamed right throw the window, through our kitchen, through our dining room beyond it, past the window seat in our connected living room, through the window pane ti dispel into the cold outside beyond it. It was the golden light that was invisible till something reflected it.
    Washing dishes, I expected the water to be beautiful and diamondlike in the light. But it was too transient, moving through the light and falling before it caught the incandescence. But the glass--the light tan bowls shown as if they had been waxed, the black crockpot held the dignity and power of a true gentleman's tux, even the scratched glasses turned scars into crystals. The clear glass--the wine glass that had held the Sweet-tart balls, the glass bowl that had held the carrots, were turned into frail reflections of breathtaking beauty. I held them as I would hold light, cradled and gentle even as I feared my hands would shake. The small soap bubbles that brushed across them turned into fascinating patterns, swirling in frozen motion or streaming off under the water.
    But walking through the living room, every speck of dust on the black piano turned the instrument of music into a ghost's companion. My computer screen, the laptop turned sideways on our table, had thumbprints and dust on every inch. Electric light made hidden things visible; the sun's setting enchanted household items. If the crockpot was a gentleman, my laptop resembled a sodden drunk.
     I could see the miracle in the streetlight, but by the sun's light I could see the wonder of everyday things, even if I couldn't see the light itself. I tried. The sun, even setting, was too high, too small, and to gold for me to see. The only beauty of the light I was able to see was the beauty that it gave to everything else.

"In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."