Hungry for the sunrise

It is the eve of the Triduum, Maundy Thursday, and I am hungry, starving, ravenous for the Man of Sorrows in Gethsemane. I go first to my church, and it is holy and sacred there. I walk up with head bowed to receive communion, the Bread and the Chalice, and the women serving say it quiet in the dark sanctuary, "The body of Christ, broken for you, Genevieve. The blood of Christ shed for you, Genevieve." I eat and I drink, but I am still hungry, soul-hungry.

I emerge from the dark sanctuary to a glorious sunset that speaks of the holiness of this night. Two thousand years ago, Jewish followers of Christ preparing for Pentacost. Jesus, washing dirty feet, serving bread and wine, speaking of the mysteries of faith.

I go to another church. Recite the Creed, pray on my knees as they do here, take communion. They say again, "The body of Christ, broken for you. The blood of Christ shed for you." In silence at the end, the altar is cleared, the lights are dimmed to near darkness, and most go out in silence. I stay on knees aching and pray for deliverance, as He did that last night.

Good Friday comes, and work is hard and long, but the hunger in my soul remains. I go to another church, not mine, and sit in the dim sanctuary where the cross is now draped with black and the only light is that of the sunset coming through the stained glass windows. Tonight is about the Cross, the moment when Christ took the sins of the world upon His ravaged body and willing soul. A familiar hymn is sung, and I am still singing it still today...

Jesus, Lamb of God,

You take away the sins of the world.

Have mercy on us.

Jesus, bread of Life,

You take away the sins of the world.

Have mercy on us.

Jesus, Prince of Peace,

You take away the sins of the world.

Have mercy on us.

Grant us peace.

Miserere nobis.

~Agnus Dei (sung here in Latin), English translation, based on John 1:29~

Another church. I kneel again. Ask for the continual redemption He promises for our daily lives...so different from the solitary moment of salvation, when we choose to be followers, believers. What I need today is the power of the Holy Spirit who came to dwell in me at that moment of salvation - I need Him to help me resist and to turn away from sin and to count blessings instead of spewing cursing. Continue to work out my salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). A friend's words whisper in my quiet mind, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6).

This, my friends, is the hard road of sanctification...the red road of Gethsemane upon which we are slowly freed from the clutches of sin that so easy crowds in and crowds out...this depression, this spiritual battle, this day. It is redeemed already, yes - but sanctification, like salvation, is entered into by choice, and it is work. Sanctify: to set apart for sacred purpose, to free from sin, to purify.

To work out one's salvation is to be hungry, for we are never filled. It is to ache with emptiness, for we are not yet perfected. It is to count successes and to grieve failures, to be broken over and over again for the sins of self and the sins of the world. And yet...Jesus said it there, hanging bloodied on the Cross, to the thief who had no hope of a lifetime of sanctification: paradise. At the end, paradise. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we will be free at last! (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

We process through the stations of the Cross, singing as we go: behold the wood of the Cross, on which hung the Savior of the world. As I bow in the dark church empty of Jesus, even the statue of Him carried out as it was to the tomb, my thoughts turn to His journey in those 3 days between death and resurrection. I am shattered with thankfulness. Filled with hope. Truly, all hope rests in the resurrection, the sunrise of Easter Sunday and the empty tomb. For what have I to fear if not death itself? As I fast in vigil tonight, it is with hope and an expectant soul: for sorrow may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.

"Broken"

Joy vignettes

She is Esther, the beautiful brave. She walks humbly, asks her brother, playing King, to raise His scepter. I smile. The stories are seeping in.

The day is gray and bitter cold, and we pack swimsuits steaming and shorts and tennies and head to the Y. They master the climbing wall, perfect their Tarzan yells on the zip line, swim until they are too heavy to float any longer. I smile. I've done a good thing. They've been happy for hours.

It's past bedtime. It's like herding cats. Suddenly they all re-appear after a long silence in their bedroom. Apparently they weren't sleeping, they were staging a Weird Pajama Contest. Rosy wins. They trundle off to bed, and their laughter trickles down the stairs and fills the space between you and I with warmth instead of emptiness. It's been a good day. What else can you say when most days don't end this way? 

Joy comes in spurts and fleeting moments. I turn my mind into sticky tape and cling to that joy. Let the tears wash down the slippery side. 

Here's to the moments that make up "good days".

A joyful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones. (Pr. 17:22)

Muddy praise

I watch as they bend heads together like flowers drooping in the autumn sun, finding it - their delight. Their voices cascade like a waterfall one after another.

Fingers point and minds find truth. It's just one afternoon of hard work, one afternoon of me poured into them in a long drought season of shifting roles and friends in deep need. We learn about aquifers. Bedrock saturated by one long rain.

All it is - a bucket of muddy water and a colander full of rocks and sand and sticks - and we are explorers of the earth's secrets, full of wonder at what's buried far beneath us and sustains us every day.

I see myself here, delighted face, pouring my muddy water onto the Father's deeper beauty, His deeper plan, and He filters it and shapes it, and what I've offered back comes through crystalline, gem-like, sparkling in the sun.

So I bend a knee at the Bedrock and offer my muddy voice in praise, for He is the water that quenches the very thirsty and the sustenance for those whose need is greater than the world's supply.

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (John 7:37-39 ESV)

"Voice"

Putting God in His box

I believe it is He that sends the snow crystals floating on the swirling winds, cascading into piles of glitter, transforming our world and lighting the nights with reflection. I can credit Him with that mystery.

Fire. Where did that come from? Just like the breath of life from His lips into our nostrils, it's lit by His miracles. I stare at fire for hours. And think about Him. I credit Him with that mystery.

The sun rises a flame every morning.

And sets in red and gold every night. And though I've searched science and I know enough physics to understand the earth spinning around the sun, I can't come up with any other beginning than a creation. A miracle. That I credit to Him.

I see the figures of the monks and the apostles and the theologians and the saints of old, marching timeless through stained glass. I wonder how many of them doubted. I wonder how many of them saw that there was mystery. If they ever stumbled and staggered under doubt.

If He has the power to create; the power to make things grow; to change the state of water; to direct the seasons; to push the sun up every morning and pull her to bed every night... Why don't I believe He has the power to change me? Why do I think this power over sin I hear about is for someone else, that I am the hopeless case, the one who can't change, the one who is beyond His promise?

I've been praying for years: Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief. (Mark 9:24) I thought I was praying about believing in things like creation and sunsets and tulips blooming and babies growing. But what if what I was really begging for was an answer to my lack of peace? The turmoil in my heart? The pain I can't speak of anywhere, to anyone? The pain I cut away on my arms at 19 and beat into my shins with boards when I was 9 and slammed my head against pavement at 16? The pain I tried to make physical so it would be less about my heart. Less about my sin. Less about my desolation.

‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: On the day I cleanse you from all your sins, I will resettle your towns, and the ruins will be rebuilt. The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. They will say, “This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.” Then the nations around you that remain will know that I the LORD have rebuilt what was destroyed and have replanted what was desolate. I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it.’ (Ezekiel 36:33-36)

That day He cleansed me from my sins? That was on the Cross. That was on the day I believed, when I was four. That day I was rebuilt, cultivated, become like the garden of Eden, fortified, inhabited. He has spoken. He did it. 

I memorized these words as a child, in a small Bible church in Silver Bay, Minnesota: "Come now, let's settle this," says the LORD. "Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow. Though they are red like crimson, I will make them as white as wool." (Isaiah 1:18) My whole life I've pictured it. Soul white. Then sin. Now crimson again. Then washed white as I confess. But the truth is, it's white. Always white. Forever paid for, forever washed clean. The shame that washes over me when I fall in sin again is designed to draw me close to my Father, to give thanks for the forgiveness that has already happened. Not drive me away. Not keep me weary and desolate and alone. It is the false shame heaped on me by a cunning and carnivorous Evil that tries to keep me in that place where all I see is blackness and scarlet, as far as my eyes can see. To see my sin again, although I am forever washed clean, as impossible to overcome.

HE HAS OVERCOME.

I am clean.

Lord, let the scales fall from my eyes so that I see this truth, live in this truth, live like the redeemed. (Acts 9)

There's a girl in the corner

With tear stains on her eyes

From the places she's wandered

And the shame she can't hide

She says, "How did I get here?

I'm not who I once was.

And I'm crippled by the fear

That I've fallen too far to love"

But don't you know who you are,

What's been done for you?

You are more than the choices that you've made,

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes,

You are more than the problems you create,

You've been remade.

Well she tries to believe it

That she's been given new life

But she can't shake the feeling

That it's not true tonight

She knows all the answers

And she's rehearsed all the lines

And so she'll try to do better

But then she's too weak to try

But don't you know who you are?

'Cause this is not about what you've done,

But what's been done for you.

This is not about where you've been,

But where your brokenness brings you to

This is not about what you feel,

But what He felt to forgive you,

And what He felt to make you loved.

You've been remade.

Did I really write this in March of 2010? Because I don't remember it. I didn't learn it very well. I need a do-over. Ever feel that way about your blog posts and what God has shown you in the past? In times of newly fierce trials, these old truths sparkle again from the mine fields, and I stand in awe all over again at what Christ has done.

Linked up to Joy today

Vice and Victory

Facing temptation can feel like a lonely battle. It happens mostly in our heads - the play back and forth between the idea and the resistance. We imagine we are alone, the only Christian to ever face this particular struggle, the only one who's ever been ensnared and enticed by whatever evil we are staring down.

Christ came to this world to resist temptation. If He'd never faced a test of faith, the purity of His life would have simply been divine, rather than the human/divine He came to show the world. We share with Him in victory when we face down our demons and emerge unscathed: though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (I Peter 1:6-7)

In these difficult days of first breaking the habit, I cannot stare down a single cigarette without succumbing to temptation. What would I do if I were on a mountaintop with Satan, offered power over all the world? (Matthew 4:1-11) I can imagine all the reasons I would justify my relent - I could bring the world peace; I could feed and clothe all the orphans; I could heal every crumbling marriage and protect every child from abuse. As I reflect on Jesus' temptation in the wilderness, it is unfathomable to me that He, using eternal perspective, knowing that all these small salvations would be accomplished in the greater Salvation of the cross, could turn Satan down and say, "Not yet."

“The nature of Christ’s salvation is woefully misrepresented by the present-day evangelist. He announces a Saviour from Hell rather than a Saviour from sin. And that is why so many are fatally deceived…there are multitudes who wish to escape the Lake of fire who have no desire to be delivered from their carnality and worldliness.” (A.W. Pink)

One cigarette craving at a time, I am privy to the grace of the Cross that not only saved me from hell, but daily sanctifies me with undeserved favor, undeserved strength that I can forever draw from the everlasting well of Living Water. When I feel alone, I call to mind the much greater temptations that Christ resisted for the love of my very soul. Would the Savior who suffered the cross on my behalf not hold my hand as I walk free of earthly temptations? Does He not desire freedom for all He loves? True freedom - the kind that eradicates temptation from our consciousness and sets our feet on the solid ground of the call and response of greatest Love?

When I sit on my swing in the clean summer air, longing for the deep breathing of the cigarette, longing for the physical release and the relaxation it brings, I call to mind the greater struggle that is faith meted out in the midst of our failures. Facing down the tangible and momentary reward of giving in to sin for the eternal reward is well worth it. Even when all I can muster is a caveat about the immediate health benefits, He is beside me, walking with me, and reminding me that even He walked this hard road once.

In Him, you are not your sin. In Him, you are not your dirt. In Him, you are hidden and your iniquity is made clean by your identity and your identity is in His purity — and when we are our worst, His white hides our dirt best. (from Ann, in her beautiful piece, When You Feel like Your Life's a Mess...The Real Truth About Your Dirt)

Linked with Shanda's On Your Heart blog hop

Vices and Virtues

We line up our treasures of the soul, memories a string of pearls, moments like seashells on the rough hewn timbre of the past. All life is virtue or vice, high palisades of glorious success and deep valleys of sorrow, sacrifice, and succumbing. Under the microscope of our own conscience and the sharp light cast by the Holy Spirit on our soul, our vices loom large and clear. We pass the glory of our delights and our shining moments on to the Savior to whom we credit them. Yet we claim our failures as our own.

This double-edged sword of perspective can reduce we Christ-ones to hopeless peons in the struggle against sin. If we do not share in glory with our Creator, and wallow in our dismally dark moments, we are forever stuck in the mud of loss and lethargy. For how long can we struggle against the chains of sin if we never allow our souls to ascend to the mountaintops with Christ in our triumphs?

I started smoking last April, a desperate attempt to drown out the triple demons of flashbacks, nightmares, and anxiety. The deep inhale, the slow exhale became the rhythm to which I dragged myself out of the emotional mire. The dirtiness of a soul whose dark corners remained unredeemed seemed congruent with the stink of the smoke I wrapped around me like a cape. And with the vapors of toxin, I insulated myself against a cruel world, pushing out other Christians unsure what to make of a daughter of the King wrapped in the shrouds of soot.

The time has come now, a year later, to walk away from this shroud. Tobacco was created by God, and yes, I think it was used by Him to help me through a tenuous time. But now it has become a vice - a habit unfitting for a temple of God Himself. I never struggled with the habit of it as an occasional smoker since my college days. But now that it is ingrained - especially as my relaxation, my joy, my moments alone - it is proving more difficult to quit. I glue verses to the doorpost, to the porch rail by my swing. Reminders of why the time has come.

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have received from God? (I Corinthians 6:19)

It is time to put my money where my mouth is. To line up treasures instead of tortures. To claim freedom from sin through the power of the Holy Spirit, who liveth in me...for the law of the Spirit of life has set me free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:2).

Amy's treasures from the sea, lined up on the surf breakwater.

As I walk free from these chains of sin, will you walk with me? Post a comment here to tell me of your prayers for me, visit my Facebook wall in the coming days and weeks to encourage, send me an email with a personal prayer you've offered up for me? Do you have a vice you need to walk away from, too? Let's do it together - tell me how I can pray for you, either publicly or privately. I, Genevieve, your sister and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus...I want to stand with you and join you, that we may both go free from the chains of darkness and walk in the light together. (Revelation 1:9, paraphrased)

Linked to Imperfect Prose

and the Life:UNMASKED project

and Thought Provoking Thursdays

The emperor's new clothes

That month of waiting, as May turned into June in my first year of cancer, still weighs heavy in my memory. Cancer in some ways seemed like an awakening, as if the Holy Spirit that I had inoculated myself against finally reached critical mass and began stirring inside in ways I could not ignore. Along with cancer awoke a dream for my life, a vision of the person I might become, goals and ideas that I'd never lent time to consider.

And when He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come forth." He who had died came forth, bound hand and foot with wrappings; and his face was wrapped around with a cloth. Jesus said to them, "Unbind him, and let him go." (John 11:43-44)

I read this, and think, there were a few possible options here. It seems a bit absurd that Lazarus emerges still mummified in his grave clothes. They probably stunk, for one thing. For another, could this poor guy even see where he was going? Then Jesus commands the confounded family and friends to unbind the man - naked beneath - and let him go. Somehow I doubt they came to the tomb with fresh clothes for the dead relative they came to mourn.

Jesus, who raised him from the dead, certainly had the power to command the stinky wrappings to drop as Lazarus stood up for the first time since his death days before. But instead He allows the dead to rise wrapped in the reminder of that very death - the grave clothes and the cloying spices used to preserve the body in those days.

I am the same. He resurrected when He gave me new life...salvation from my sins. But the grave clothes clung, the spices still wafting pungent...shame, self-righteousness, old views about myself and about God, the tendency to seek after pleasure and joy in places that will never fulfill the hidden depths of my heart. As the years go by, He desires me to throw off those stinky old wraps, the vestiges of my death, now a thing of the past. This journal has been a safe place to become aware of the grave clothes still clinging, to begin the process of unwrapping.

Have you ever injured yourself and experienced the tangible fear that comes when removing the bandage for the first time? What will the broken limb look like, what about the stitches, or the old blood, or the decaying layers of skin? Have you paused as you imagined the pain of ripping the bandage, now embedded, from the sore wound? Wrinkled your nose to avoid smelling skin that hasn't been bathed in a week or a month or two? This is what it's like to take off grave clothes that have clung for a lifetime to your soul. Character traits that have been part of you so long you thought they were an integral part of you, not something you could throw aside. Yet Jesus says that we can throw aside those parts of ourselves that do not reflect Him - sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry...anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips - and put on His character like a set of new clothes.Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. (from Colossians 3)

Just think. This is the the solution every person who bought a self-help book in the past was really looking for. But applying the knowledge here if you don't know Jesus, don't have the Holy Spirit living in you and renewing you, is as futile as trying to improve your sense of self-worth while you stay with the man who beats you to a pulp every day. You've got to get a new boyfriend. His name is Jesus. He is the Lover of your soul, and the perfecter of the weak, and the source for everything you've been searching for. If you're still battling the abuse of a love affair with yourself, or trying to emerge from addiction, anger, low self-esteem, loneliness...even if you think you're doing pretty well, but you keep hearing about Jesus and wondering what in the world I'm talking about: believe. Just choose it. Then trust Him to perfect the work He begins in you. (Philippians 1:6)

Here are a few verses for you to consider, and to enjoy if you have already accepted God's free gift of salvation:

Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. (Acts 16:31)

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. (I John 5:13)

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him. (John 3:36)

I noticed recently that some versions of the Bible change the word in the familiar John 3:16 from "shall" to "might". I want you to see the difference between the two:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

"Might" seems so much less certain than "shall".

If you have questions regarding what I've written today, please contact me. I am putting my e-mail address right here, on the world wide web for anyone to see. Email me at gmthul@yahoo.com.

***a humble repost from the archives of 2010, during some of the very darkest days of my whole life, following our painful leavetaking from a beloved church

Back to Black

Our black lab sits by my swing, panting in the warm autumn sun. Black soaks up the sun, I tell my curious daughter. That's why she's hot.

And then it hits me. What if black soaks up the Son?

Over the past few days, my sin has been pummeling me like an attacker with a baseball bat. I know who wields the bat and thought up this beating - Satan. But my part in it is paralyzing. I did those sins that haunt me now.

Wave after wave hits me, and I know exactly what God is asking me to do in allowing this pain back into my life. He wants me to confess some very specific things to some very specific people. This is so hard. I would rather heal in the dark, by myself, locked in myself. I don't want to open up my storm-battered heart to others because I am so afraid of the next blow.

But recovery is like the morning sun just kissing the maple hill, a glimpse of what and who I could really be if I go free from this torment of years gone by.

Like the lone golden leaf in a sea of wet rocks, yellow against black, a glimpse again of the beauty that I hold within right alongside those stinking sins.

My world is peopled, not silent. I have to engage to be part of this life. What if going free from my past sins means my daughters will never do them? What if I allow God to reshape my black heart into a mural of His glory?

I believe He allows Satan to pummel us so that we are brought to the place on our knees, tear-stained faces contorted and starving for His mercy. I so desperately want the connection with Him to grow stronger until we are two beings pulsing on the same wavelength. What if the blackest of hearts is the one who appreciates most the gift of His scarlet blood making us white as snow?

I came here tonight with a mission

To confess what I'm trying to hide 

But here in the hour of decision 

I'd rather give you the company line 

There are secrets I don't want to tell you 

And wounds you might not want to see 

But they keep me bound to my sorrow 

And I really want to be free 

And you're the one holding the key

You don't have to give me an answer 

An answer is the last thing I need 

There's no magical cure for this cancer 

I just need you to listen me 

'Cause you're the one holding the key 

We were made with these hearts 

Meant to be open 

Then we locked them away 

Afraid of being broken 

But we're given each other to set it free 

And you're the one holding the key 

This dark room is perfect for hiding 

But I don't want to hide anymore 

You can't force the light here inside it 

But you can help me open the door 

You're the one holding the key 

We were made with these hearts 

Meant to be open 

Then we locked them away 

Afraid of being broken 

But we're given each other to set it free 

And you're the one holding

The key to the truth 

Of what's really going on 

Your listening ear 

Is the grace of God 

Love will take the shackles off 

But you're the one holding the key 

We all need it sooner or later 

A safe place for telling the truth 

I'm happy returning the favor 

'Cause I'm holding the key for you
~Jason Gray, Holding the Key~

Spectator

First, take a little kid. Any age, really, but for me it was at 7 1/2.

Before my mom told me about puberty.

Before I had any grid in which to put sexual acts or information.

So, it happened. Sexual abuse. Seven years later I locked it in a Pandora's box and put it under my bed. Over time it became invisible even to me. I never thought about it and I certainly didn't think I needed to be healed from it. It was just something that happened when I was a kid.

Add to that the sins I entered because of the abuse. I had a lot of trouble with sexual orientation, but I just thought it was because I was a bad person and my bad was leaking through in sexual areas.

Now you've got a Pandora's box of long-standing abuse, wrapped neatly in the grotesque shame and guilt you feel for your own sins since. That is one ugly box you've got there. Even more abhorrent (and hence, invisible) to you than before you wrapped it in shame and guilt.

Then something happens, triggers memories, all those untold memories of evil and all that wrapping paper of guilt and shame you don't know how to dispose of. Maybe it's a smell, like it was for me. Maybe it's an object, a photo, retelling a childhood story, or seeing someone who looks like your abuser. For me, one whiff of a smell sent me swirling downward in a spiral of despair. Spiraling along with me, now glaringly visible, was the box in which I'd stuffed the worst memories of my life.

I was haunted my flashbacks and nightmares of both my childhood abuse and a rape I experienced while in college. I didn't know how to stop them, so I tried to leave this world. It was too painful to go on. The behavioral health professionals who tried to treat me didn't know how to get rid of them, short of keeping me in a constant blurred state using tranquilizers. My family and friends could only tell me how valuable I was to them, how much they loved me, and how much they wanted me to keep fighting and live.

Venus and her moon

Nobody knew what to do about the consequences once the box was opened. A pastor helped me with the guilt and shame, but I was still left with frequent paralyzing flashbacks and nightmares all through the night, so horrendous that I often woke up kicking, yelling, or crying.

And then something magical happened. I talked with another of our pastors, one with a story much like my own. Tears and stories birthed his question for me: Do you have compassion for yourself? My answer was swift and sure, "No." I am a perfectionist of the highest order, so much so that my house is often a mess because I've given up on trying to make it perfect.

What he said to me next turned out to be the key to stop the flashbacks in their tracks. I needed to focus on the child in those flashbacks, not the abuser of whom I was still so scared I hardly breathed during the flashback. I need to have compassion for that child, imagine giving her a hug after it was all over, and telling her how sorry I was that this happened to her, something that should happen to no one and perhaps least of all a pre-pubescent child.

I tried it. It felt awkward. But the emotion was immediate release. Of course I have compassion on that little girl. Of course I'm sorry for what happened to her. And my abuser now lies powerless, buried in a sea of Grace that has stripped her of her weapons and her vengeance. I type these words now, and look for a prayer for that child in the flashback. The Book of Common Prayer Lectionary for June 10th is Psalm 102. A prayer of one afflicted as he pours out his heart before the Lord.

Hear my prayer, O Lord; let my cry come to you! Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress! Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call! My heart is struck down like grass and has withered; I forget to eat my bread. I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop. All the day my enemies taunt me; those who deride me use my name for a curse. Let this be recorded for a generation to come, so that a people yet to be created may praise the Lord: that he looked down from his holy height; from heaven the Lord looked at the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners, to set free those who were doomed to die, that they may declare in Zion the name of the Lord, and in Jerusalem his praise, when peoples gather together, and kingdoms, to worship the Lord. He has broken my strength in midcourse; he has shortened my days. “O my God,” I say, “take me not away in the midst of my days—you whose years endure throughout all generations!”...you are the same, and your years have no end. The children of your servants shall dwell secure; their offspring shall be established before you. (exc. Psalm 102 ESV)

I buy an ugly little stained glass panel at Saver's. Because it is what I need to remember today, as I face depression now without the fear of flashbacks, and rebuild what has been torn down in this season of discovery and tragedy. I need now to focus on rebuilding. "All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today."

The last sigh

My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you...Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me. By day the LORD directs his love, at night his song is with me—a prayer to the God of my life. Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. (from Psalm 42, emphasis added)

Don't give up on me
I'm about to come alive
And I know that it's been hard
And it's been a long time coming
Don't give up on me
I'm about to come alive

No one thought I was good enough for you
Except for you
Don't let them be right
After all that we've been through
'Cause somewhere over that rainbow
There's a place for me
A place with you

In every frame upon our wall
Lies a face that's seen it all
Through ups and downs and then more downs
We helped each other off of the ground
No one knows what we've been through
Making it ain't making it without you
~Train, I'm About to Come Alive~

Depression. Do you know how much fake guilt is piled on when you are struggling with depression? You feel as though you are worthless, not the person you once were, losing your identity like sand off the dunes in the gusting wind.

My mother potty trains my son (which I thought was impossible). Teaches one child to read fluently (English at least). Keeps my house sparkling clean while I am away. Bakes and cooks for us. If there is such a thing as a supermom (I have yet to meet one), there should be a supergrandma title, too.

Sounds great, right? But I did not get to do it. Even worse, there's that evil hissing whisper in one ear that says I couldn't have, even if I'd been home.

Sorting summer laundry and getting the winter stuff out and organized took me well over a month, during which time we did not a table to eat on because it was covered in clothes. My recovery group leader comes out for two days and we get all the winter put away and summer actually in drawers.

Doctors, therapists, even family - they're encouraging us to put our kids in school next year to lower my stress as I finish my dissertation.

I FEEL LIKE A FAILURE.

That lie follows me around like toilet paper hanging off my shoe. And when I realize it, I wonder why no one told me. Don't they see the failure??


I contemplate the erosion of my faith, my identity, and my ability to self-love, all because of a little disorder called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Is God big enough? He says He is, and His word is infallible. The juxtaposition in this Psalm is not lost on me: sighing, somberness, and in it the request that He show love to us and give us joy.

 For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. (Psalm 90:9,12 & 14) 

 

Do I have the willpower and desire - zeal -  to trust Him again? I'm working on it. Running the race, hurdling the hurdles, weathering the storms, singing in the rain. Every sweet joy, from tea parties to the smell of tomatoes when you first open the can...numbered and recorded as the monuments I will look back on from this hard time. I need to remember the joy in the midst of the sorrow.

They heard my groaning, yet there is no one to comfort me. (Lamentations 1:21a)

And in the end, He will stop the sighing. One bright and glorious day, I will sigh no more. Forever after, I will instead lift my voice in song to praise the King who loved me in my deepest, blackest days and sent me gifts and signs to remind me of His constant presence and pursuit.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. (Rev. 21:4)

Serve God love love me and mend

This is not the end

Lived unbruised we are friends

And I'm sorry

I'm sorry

Sigh no more, no more

One foot in sea, one foot on shore

My heart was never pure

And you know me

Love - it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,

It will set you free

Be more like the man you were made to be.

There is a design,

An alignment to cry,

Of my heart to see,

The beauty of love as it was made to be

~Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons~