And I Have Loved You

But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, O Jacob, and He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by your name; you are Mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you. For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior; I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place, since you were precious in my sight, you have been honored, and I have loved you. Therefore I will give men for you, and people for your life.

Isaiah 43:1-4

Breathing is such a deep and humble embrace of pain. I lean in to it, grasping the hands of Sorrow and Suffering until I think that I must die--surely, I must die. But I have learned that though we are fragile creatures, we are resilient, and so I wake up and feel the aching morning in all of its wonder and misfortune.

My life is beautiful. The thought surged in like a glass of cool water on a hot summer day. I cling to it, even now, when the effects have faded, and the words seem dull and lifeless, an overly fingered bit of stitching. Beauty is such a mess to deal with, I think. It is part of my calling, to make and find beauty, to trace its curves and rephrase it, translating it for others to behold as well. I need it like I need water, but all I have right now is a heart laced with scars that still bleed when I strain them. 

Jesus has a tendency to strip things away. Layer by layer, piece by piece, until there is nothing left at all, and I stand, shivering and ashamed, before the Lord my God who asks me why I hid. I hid because I was afraid. I was afraid of this person that I am, and how small I am compared to You. I hid because I was afraid that You would take more from me, that I would feel a deeper pain that I would not be able to bear. I hid because he told me I was naked. 

Are these sufferings truly temporal? I long to dip my hand into the spring of eternal life, to drink deeply of the place where there is no more pain, where there are no more tears, because this has lasted so long and I am so tired of the sort of brokenness that hinders me from being the person that I am somewhere inside. I know that I am still here, somewhere in the midst of pain and resilience, beauty and suffering, stripping away and building up again. There I am, and He says that He has loved me. He has seized me by the heart--how can I give you up? How can I hand you over? My heart churns within me... 

What if I stepped back from everything--from the pain of disease-ridden bones, from the depth of sorrow that comes with heartbreak, from the confusion and the chaos in my head--what if I stepped back and let His saliva cover my eyes until I see, really see that He is good? What if I saw that I am drenched in blood, but it is not mine, it is His, and it has washed me white as snow? 

I think, then, that I would see that my life is beautiful. 

And so I pass through the waters, and through the rivers--they do not overflow me. I walk through the fire, and I am not burned, nor scorched. 

I am His. 

And When I Come to Die

We're not going to leave you behind, he said, and I think I could have cried. You sure? I said, the words thick like mud coming up from my throat. Thick like doubt. I'm moving awfully slow. He gave a half-smile and shook his head. We're not going to leave you behind. 

...

Wednesday night, I sing. I pace up and down, wearing patterns in the carpet, barefooted. Something is off with my body, but as usual, I'm ignoring it. It'll pass, someday. Someday I will break free from this crushed shell and mortality won't grip me anymore. But it's after the set now and I'm hot, too hot to stay in the room. I'm just going to take a breath of fresh air. 

Why is my heart pounding? It's nothing, though. I just need a break. I'll reset, regain some composure. I'm washing my hands in the bathroom and the room is spinning a little, black flecks speckling my vision. I might pass out. I'll sit down and it'll pass. 

It does--it always does. I stand up shakily and look in the mirror. Man, I don't feel well. Next thing I know, my legs have crumpled underneath me. I lean back and try to breathe, try to see straight, but something is wrong, more wrong than normal. I'm alone. I'm alone in the bathroom and I don't know what I should do. 

My phone is in my pocket. I dig it out, and my hands are starting to curl over on themselves. Soon, I will lose feeling in them entirely, just like the numbness that is creeping over the rest of my body. I force my fingers to tap out letters. It's probably nothing. I just don't want to be alone right now. 

He's the only one with his phone on him that I know of, and I feel bad for asking him to find me in the girl's bathroom, but I am really starting to be scared. My face is going numb and my heart is pounding so hard and I'm struggling to get enough breath. 

When he comes, I don't know what to tell him--and all my words are slurring anyway. Don't call 9-1-1, I don't think my family can afford the ambulance. I am hot, I need air. I need to breathe. Can you find my inhaler? I am cold now. Yes, water would be good, but I can't hold the cup. I can't move my hands. He carries me like a doll and I hang limply and I want to cry but I can't even do that. I am panicking and I know I need to control my breathing but nothing seems simple anymore. It's like I can feel the world spinning and it is uncontrollably fast and I think I might throw up--

It passes, eventually. It always does.

Thursday. So, we're pretty sure that what happened last night was that you had a seizure. The words hit my chest like a sack of rocks. This changes everything. I shouldn't be driving alone. Next time it happens (she hurriedly adds an if, but I just don't know anything anymore), I have to get to the emergency room and get an MRI--what does that even mean? Could I have swelling in my brain? I have a migraine and my face is still numb--is that normal? What is normal anymore? Am I going to pass out? Am I going to have another--another seizure? 

God?

I enter into the abyss of unknown. This is the first time I have actually thought that this illness could legitimately kill me. Is the floor moving or am I falling? Why is the left half of my body numb? 

When should I worry?

My brother is worried sick and he can't drive his train--he asks the other engineer to take over. My sister is up in the middle of the night ranting. My parents are asking why God doesn't seem to answer prayers. I am sitting on the couch and the fear is clutching at every part of me. 

Things are rushing by me and I am standing in front of this insurmountable wall, and I'm scared that seven times around and it still won't fall--

I can't do this, God. I can't do this. 

"This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek." Hebrews 6:19-20

Everything has changed. Yet--nothing has. God is still God. I am still His. He hasn't forgotten, He hasn't abandoned. This is just another trial, one that seems to last for an eternity, but it is, indeed, temporal. I will not let this end me. I will not let this end my hope. I will not let this end my faith. Beneath the waters, I will rise from the ashes of defeat. The resurrected King is resurrecting me. I choose this. I choose Him. 

"Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel: 'My way is hidden from the LORD, and my just claim is passed over by my God'? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, neither faints nor is weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall, but those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint." Isaiah 40:27-31

When there is no strength left in me, when I have a seizure in the bathroom, when I am utterly alone, when I don't know how this thing is going to work out, when I am scared out of my mind, when I feel like they're all going to move on and leave me behind, when my body is roaring with pain, and when I come to die...

Give me Jesus. 

It's enough. 

Heavy

I feel heavy, which is better than yesterday. Yesterday I just felt empty. Yesterday, hope was tugged up from the earth, uprooted and tossed aside. 

It will grow back, she said. She meant the trees and bushes back at the best place on earth, but I knew it also meant my hope, so when I peered into my garden, I was not aghast. I kneel now and gently pull the seeds from the old plants and press them into the earth. It will grow back. 

Sorrow curves its way around my heart, sometimes tight, like when I tried to sing and my voice would not stop shaking no matter how hard I tried. I am grieving, deep, deep within my heart, there where there are no words. I know that God is good. How many times have I said it to myself? In the morning, when the sunrise is breathtaking, and in the evening, when I am hollowed out and gasping for breath--God is good. God is good, and He means to regrow, to renew, to rebuild, to repair. This sorrow lasts the night, but joy comes with the morning--joy beyond anything we can fathom here and now, because He will restore the years that the locusts have eaten. 

Is there not still hope? Cling to it. Cling to it at the breaking, at the taking of everything that you love. For these afflictions, light and momentary, work for you an eternal weight of glory that remains to be seen. Wait on the Lord, wait patiently for Him to renew your strength. 

My breathing comes, slow and shallow, tasting smoke and wanting to cry, but I'm still too dehydrated. I feel heavy, and so I fall heavily into the arms of my Savior. This year has taken so much--I have nothing left to rely on but Him. So I will praise Him from battered lungs, from torn lips, from aching, aching heart, I will praise Him. 

The Taste of Rain (I Will Not Forget)

I am not strong. I am reminded of that fact constantly, each morning as I take in a few breaths of the cool morning air and listen to the birds chirping--and swing aching legs out from underneath the covers and crawl up the stairs, humbled by another sick day. 

Amid the overwhelming weight of weakness, it is hard to remember. It's hard to grasp fully onto life when it seems like everything that I think about revolves around the cursed world--the one ringing with death. Don't forget resurrection, my soul whispers. 

I won't. 

A chronic illness cannot steal my life from me, because my life belongs to Him who turned death backward and proclaimed salvation. 

And so, this year, as Spring has come softly and lovingly, I have relished it. I smell deeply the air filtering through the new green leaves and must be reminded again that that which dies comes to life again--if, in patience, we tend the fields we are given. My field may be my body, now aching, now breaking, now frustratingly slow--now a seed that will die and be resurrected in newness, when I shall run and not grow weary, walk and not grow faint. 

It rained this afternoon. I turned my windshield wipers on and breathed in the humidity and let the sound bring rest to my soul. Peace--surpassing understanding. Surpassing the tangible reality of joints that hurt or a body that groans to be made new. Surpassing frustration at uselessness and the rugged memory of cruel dreams. Surpassing me and my temporary circumstance that seems so inescapable but is, in reality, just a blink in eternity's eye. 

Why? 

Why are you cast down, o my soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God. Psalm 42:11

My soul takes refuge in my God--all the more so when my body fails me, for there is no comfort in my flesh right now. But God does not fail, nor will He be shaken by the tempests that rock me. He remains steadfast and sure, He in whom I shall put all my hope, the Lord who brings rain in its season which gives each open heart the substance to grow. Without trial, we would remain easily bent and tossed to and fro by every wind that arises. 

But when you are bent to the earth, desperate in soul or body, frustrated and aching--remember. Remember Spring, when the lilacs are blooming and the rain comes in bursts. 

Remember that on the third day, Christ rose again and He is coming again soon to reclaim His bride. 

Light (Let There Be)

I've been trying to fit words into the empty spaces between what I show on the outside and what resides in the depths of my soul. The things there are hard to dredge up these days, for I have already tasted the cost of vulnerability and I shrink from it still. And so I hover somewhere over my heart, somewhere between the physical world around me and the desperate rawness of emotional reality. I forgot, somewhere along the line, what it was like to feel, to really feel. Things like passionate love, deep sorrow, hopeful excitement, visionary faith that longs for flight and more than that--believes in it. I left those emotions behind, kept in a box somewhere in the attic of my soul, gathering dust.

When things hurt enough, you let them go. It is the natural human reaction, when burned, to release. And yet, here I stand before the refining fire of the Lord, willing myself to go in, to be burned and purified, yet afraid of the flame. Go in, says my spirit. Run, run far away, says my flesh. Once bitten, twice shy. I shall not fall in love again today.

I finger the blinds in the church. It is quiet--I am alone, but I am not alone. Golden sunlight cascades in, gently dipping behind the mountain. When it is silent, I feel as though the air around me becomes like a thousand tiny bells, ringing soft, magical tones. My head, for once, is silent, and so I listen to everything and nothing and I watch the sun slowly set. There is beauty. I am starting, once more, to see it, to grasp it in my heart and let it warm and fertilize the soil of my soul. Wonder is beginning to sprout up in me, and I delight in it--but cautiously. I hope that one day all of this hurt will only serve to bolster the beauty that I behold, but for now I still struggle with cynicism and with the walls that I would build to keep my heart safe and sound. But here in the church, there is only sunlight and the sound of bells and if I suck in, air enters my lungs--I am alive and it is well with my soul.

The Spirit of God hovered over the black void. Let there be light. And there was. Light so bright that it scattered shadows in an instant, bursting apart the prison of nothingness. But as He hovers over my fragile soul, He is gentle, coaxing out the light like a sunrise, soft and slow, yet glorious. My whisper grows stronger with each day, I will not die, but live and proclaim the works of the Lord. 

I stop at the light and distractedly flip through radio stations. My heart is quiet within me and I am relishing the simplicity. I retrace my steps on the radio as I register a song that I know and deftly turn the volume up. And as You speak... a hawk swoops down in front of me, wings outspread in breathtaking flight. A hundred billion creatures catch Your breath... it does not disappear, but continues to dip nearer and nearer to earth, as though it was there simply for me to behold its beauty. Evolving in pursuit of what You said...I lose myself in its flight and I encounter God without the confines of words. Just beauty, Just wonder. Just awe at His nature, revealed in a red-tailed hawk functioning as it was designed to by the Creator. If it all reveals Your nature so will I... the light turns and I reluctantly release the moment.

But my heart will not let go. I find that, buried under layers of callous, it is still beating, it is still tender, it is almost, almost ready to learn what it means to love again.

It's Not Pointless

I am tired.

The groan comes from the shallow shell of myself;

It is all that I have to draw from.

I am tired and my bones ache.

There is no profundity to this thought, no depth,

No clarity, just mud that I dump from my bucket,

Unable to serve it to the least of these for there is no cold water left.

I feel as though I wake in the bottom of Joseph’s pit,

When he, rejected by his brothers, groaned and rubbed his back

And ran his hands through his hair, Why, why?

Why have you forsaken me?

What use is the favor of his father here in the hole where all hope is lost?

What use is his heritage in the halls of Potiphar, now a slave?

What use are his talents in the prison cell as he waits, year after year,

For the butler to remember him?

Yet quietly, Joseph was faithful, and under the mercy of God,

That which was for evil intent was used for greater good,

Not just saving Jacob and his sons but preserving the line of the ultimate Savior,

Who would be born of the tribe of Judah, who sold his brother for silver—

So that the stage could be set for the Man who would hang upon the cross,

Tired, with bones aching.

So this is not pointless.

I place my palms on the ground and grab it, digging my fingernails down,

I drag myself forward and scream into the dirt,

I am tired and my bones ache but I am going to believe

Beyond a shadow of a doubt that this—

This is meaningful, this is doing something,

I am held firm in the hand of mercy, in the hand of grace,

In hand of the One who rose from the dead with healing in His wings

Because He allowed Himself to be torn and broken and battered,

Not just in body, but in soul as his closest friends forsook Him and fled,

As even His Father turned His face away.

He did not have his hand forced, rather he chose the hardest way,

He chose to bear His cross and to take upon Himself the fullness of sin,

The wrath of God, that He might go about the ministry of mercy,

Fully poured out for salvation, for love, for grace upon grace.

It was never pointless, never worthless,

For it held life for all in the balance—

Each moment of agony was a word in the story of how God so loved….

God so loved…

God so loved…
I know that it is true. I know it deeper than I know my pain,

So though my body works against itself, though I have nothing to give,

I will give my nothing to the One who makes dry bones come to life,

And watch to see what He accomplishes, for He is making me new.

Love That Lets Go

All is quiet and I drive into the waves of fog rolling over my windshield. It is cold and it is silent and I am learning how to let go. My hand leaves the wheel and travels up my forehead and through my hair--

I do not want to.

How long have I wrestled over this one thing? I white-knuckle grip everything from material possessions to friends to football games, and I wonder why my hands always hurt and my shoulders are always tense.

Love lets go. I hear it as a gentle whisper, but it seems a harsh shout to my soul, for I am hardened--a stiff tree with roots that tangle around rocks for fear of being uprooted. Love lets go--

I do not want to.

If I let go, it will fall and fade into painful memory laced into regret. No. No, love fights. Love grips. Love--

Kills.

Or is that love? Is it idolatry with a poor mask?

Love lets go, and still I do not want to.

I am tired of losing things, so my pockets are full of seeds, their lives dormant because I am unwilling to let them fall into the earth, where they will die. Death. So much death. So many graves that must be dug--no. I will keep them as seeds, perfect and pointless in my pocket. I will not let them go--

I do not want to! I hate this! If I let go, I will tumble into the abyss of unknown, unseen. And when I hit the ground and feet at my chest there will be empty ribs--alive, but loveless.

Love lets go? I speak the hard words to the fog that parts to make way for my headlights. Gently, it gazes into the tumult within myself. Gently, it tugs. Gently, it thickens just enough to carry in the words--

Love lets go.

Love

        Lets
  
                Go...

So that it might learn, instead, to be held in the scarred palm of the Savior. And planted there, it dies, breaking the body of the shell in groaning resurrection, and then, then love grows into a shelter that bears fruit within its season.

Deeper Still

Deeper, deeper still.

My heart quavers at the yawning depth before me.

All I see is blackness, pitchy and thick,

And onward, into that dark, my path leads on.

Deeper, deeper still, my Jesus is calling me,

And sometimes it seems a cruel calling, for it is the calling to more pain,

More disappointment, devastation—

To embrace and grip ever tighter to the webs of pain that crawl through my bones—

Tighter still to the gaping wound that remains open in my heart,

For to love—

To love is to be in pain.

To love is to be left open and vulnerable,

Your pain on display for all the world to see and judge—

And tear still more.

Deeper, deeper still, says the Savior,

And the rugged cross tears the flesh on His shoulders to ribbons,

The crown of thorns sends beads of blood dripping into His eyes;

He stumbles, and as He hits the ground, His lips mutter,

Deeper, deeper still

Is My love for you.

Deeper still? Deeper than these rivers of blood pouring from your side, Jesus?

Deeper than the agony of separation that tore you from your Father’s arms, Jesus?

Deeper, deeper still.

My heart, still frail, quavers also at the sheer amount of love

That has become the yawning depth before me—

Deeper, deeper still—fall deeper still in love with Me, says the Christ,

Step out onto the path of love—My love, the love that was nails upon the cross,

Nails through my palms,

My love that will tear you apart—

And remake you anew.

Let me tear into you—

Deeper, deeper still, My love.

Gentle are my hands, but there is much work to be done yet,

And your healing will be your battle cry—

Guttural, from the very core of your agony,

But it is a cry of victory, not of defeat.

Be brave and take heart,

For though your body is wasting away,

Your soul is drinking from the wellspring of life,

Deeper, deeper still.

No More Despair

No more despair. 

The words linger like smoke in my lungs and I cough them out. How could I have known, without traversing the trenches of the battlefield, that hope comes, not like sunlight but like dirty hands, scraped up knees, battered ribs? Hope hurts.

Despair doesn't hurt. It doesn't feel like anything at all, just another empty room that is comfortable enough to die in. It is hollow and barren and cold and I do not want it. No more despair. 

Such a battle mantra, said on the edge of the unknown. I wish that I could promise you that the worst was behind us, that we weren't headed into the fray that promises blood and bruises, wounds deeper than you have yet experienced. I cannot promise the easy road to the fields of lush green, but I can promise you that the view from the top of the rugged mountain is breathtaking. Broken things are more beautiful than you could ever imagine when they have been pieced together by the One who is making all things new.

I promise you that all of this? It's far from pointless. The pain threading its way through your body and crippling your attempts at waking up in the morning, this deficiency in your mind that feels like a prison to block out beautiful things, these wounds from friends who don't know what they're doing, these sobs that pulse through your bones when you try to worship--it's not meaningless. Instead it works in you, it breaks you but in its healing it makes you stronger, it callouses your hands and feet yet keeps your soul tender--it is working in you a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. 

Take up hope, weary pilgrim. Let it grow roots into your tenderness, pushing down so hard that it feels like you are dying. Let it plunge deeper still until it upturns your fears for you to face. Cling on still harder when it disappoints you, when you are left pacing the empty sanctuary, wrestling with the One who would save you. Do not let go.

For this is the hope of glory--Christ in you. Oh my soul, it has always been enough.

It's Okay

from Pinterest

It is from the depths of brokenness that you start to truly be able to see. How could the blind man worship the Lord for receiving his sight if he had not first been born blind and struggled through a world of darkness? I must ponder this a moment--or an eternity. The question is often posed--how could a good God allow bad things to happen? I toyed with answers when I was a little younger and a little more hot-headed--less tempered by life happening to me. I have shoved all of those answers aside however to focus on something else--something perhaps less "theological", but more keyed in on the actual point of the Gospel, which is the perspective-altering person of Christ Himself. I can argue myself hoarse and still not prove my point, yet Christ came and He did not argue--He was. His whole life was a demonstration of His character--of love, of holiness, of sacrifice, of lovingkindness, of mercy, of justice... And all of His life was aimed toward one thing--death. He stepped in time with brokenness, was one who knew darkness well, and became the Man of All Sorrows, weeping for the loss of Lazarus, weeping in the garden for the pain (yet setting His eyes on the joy) set before Him. 

Why does God allow it? A murdered Son? An innocent Lamb led to the slaughter? Perfection met with reproach? 

Can we, for once, be stunned to silence? Not to deny the pain that we experience--for we know it deeply, and scars etch our hearts and engrave our souls. But perhaps the brokenness causes us to finally see like the once-blind man--not men as trees, walking, but Christ Himself, broken beyond belief upon the cross--for what? Because He so loved. In the breaking of His body He gave thanks and gave it to His disciples. He did not begrudge them for taking of it because He freely gave it. So if we could only look beyond that shattered soul of ours--to see more than broken pieces; to see the way that they glitter in the light of the Son because He is making all things new. What if we took our bodies--because we are, after all, one Body, and that is Christ's--and broke them and gave thanks, and then gave. The human tendency is to respond to brokenness by pouring inward, by nursing our wounds, by waiting until we're "whole" again before we reach outward. Yet Christ, even upon the Cross, dying, looked out and said to John, "Behold your mother," and to Mary, "Behold your son." John, beloved disciple, take care of my mother. Mary, take care of my friend. 

So. What if God allows brokenness not because He's powerless to disallow it, not because He's cruel, not because He doesn't care--what if He allows it because it helps us to know better the depth of love--true love, sacrificial love, the greatest love which is to lay down your life? What if He is simply breaking our shell so that He may enter in and renew all of the decaying soul that we are afraid of? What if the rain makes the trees grow deep roots? And if that is the case, then every broken heart has more meaning than a seed, planted in the soil. 

I will wait and I will watch for the Spring.