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

When I thirst

I can't mess up God's plan. My failure doesn't ruin me and my achievement doesn't elevate me. This whole thing, life, is not about me or you, it's about Jesus. The story of His love is reflected in the lives of His people, not by what they do, but by what He does with what they do. Grace twists sin into something that reflects God's love and mercy. ~Serena Woods, Grace is for Sinners

One thing I learned in the psychiatric ward is that God's word is precious to the thirsty. Not the prideful, the upright, the perfectionists, or the theologians. While it may be precious to them, it is through the testing of faith by fire that we learn to long for that long, slow drink of God's streams of living water.

I was thirsty the whole time I was there, poring over Scripture from Lamentations to Revelation, on a treasure hunt to find the gold He'd left there for me in this verse, that verse. I saw it in the biker who read a pink Bible for 3 whole days before returning it to me. I saw in the hunger of one woman's eyes as she longed for the answer to her question: when have I pushed my Savior too far, enough that He'll refuse me, just like everyone else in my life has done?

The answer to all of it is Grace. Simply Grace. God gave it freely, gives it freely, and we just drench our thirsty throats with His liquid gold. It's so much less about what you're accomplishing or what you're achieving, or even dreaming or dreading. It is simply the act of giving thanks for what He has given you. Whether it be your 1,000 Gifts list from Ann Voskamp's miraculously glorious idea, or recognizing your thirst and quenching it. Sometimes I thank God for a cigarette, the 5 minutes of absolute relief from anxiety and tumult of spirit one cigarette brings. Sometimes it is for the sun that I praise, those golden, long unharvested rays of spring soaking deep into my core and warming me from the inside out.

And what if you're a perfectionist like me, brought to her knees through inability to be perfect? Or a theologian unable to unlock the true meaning of a Scripture, even after studying the Hebrew and the Greek? What if who you are right now is upright, righteous? Is there no sin you repent of? Nothing for which you can give thanks that you did not do with your own two hardworking hands and a heart beating overtime to God's drum? What if you are proud, of those accomplishments, the medals you earn on the way to the Throne? When we get there, some will burn into nothingness, others will remain as gold, silver and precious stones (from I Corinthians 3). The same fire burns for the works of the righteous, the proud, the "perfect", as it burns for the homeless, those in rehab, those struggling with nightmares, curses, and laments. All men created equal. God loves us all, and grace conquers all.

In the deep of this pit, I soak up His words that He needs me, wants me, believes me, has redeemed me and called me worthy. Worthy to carry His words to a thirsty world. What are you bringing today to the thirsty world? I am just bringing my jumbled brain, my social anxiety, and my heart on fire for Christ.

O soul, are you weary and troubled?
No light in the darkness you see?
There’s light for a look at the Savior,
And life more abundant and free!

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Through death into life everlasting
He passed, and we follow Him there;
O’er us sin no more hath dominion—
For more than conqu’rors we are!

His Word shall not fail you—He promised;
Believe Him, and all will be well:
Then go to a world that is dying,
His perfect salvation to tell!
~Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus, Helen Lemmel, 1922, sung here by Alan Jackson~

Unfinished made perfect

Her very first journal entry ever read sad.

It's fall 2010 and it's hard for me. My mother has cancer and my sister Amy has epilepsy. My brother Caleb is hard to take care of and Rosy is hard to please. September 28, 2010

 I talked to her about finding the silver lining. About thankfulness as a choice. Encouraged her to add a few lines. In red, below the black pencil of pain, another sentence is added. The sentence that really breaks my heart.

I'm thankful that my mother and Amy are still here. 

I have this idea in my head of who they are, these four children. I know this: they bear the image of God, they are full of creativity, passion, justice, beauty. And they live in a broken world, and side by side with the characteristics of the image of God they bear, there is pain, brokenness, confusion, anger, hopelessness and despair. While I want all my mothering moments to help them live out the path God placed them on, I have to accept it. As a recovering perfectionist, this is the hardest thing to be okay with: the fact that I will inevitably leave them with a hole for a Parent who is perfect, perfectly loving and good and constructive in discipline and criticism and fills them with love, joy, peace, patience, perseverance, meekness, humbleness, and a desire for self-control. I want Him to say of them what He said of the men chosen to carve the Ark of the Covenant:

I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, to work in every craft. (Exodus 31:3-5)

I want to take it back, what I said to her about the silver lining. This autumn of the Second Heartbreak has taught me about accepting where I'm at. Being okay with who I am today. Understanding that this person, the person of this moment, is the redeemed beloved of the everlasting King. Not the person I will be when I complete the tasks on my to-do list, or read the latest book I'm reading to understand myself, or finish my Bible reading challenge, or love my kids really well for just one single day (or hour, for that matter). This. moment. I. am. made. perfect. by. the. blood. I need to see that in my children, too - the hurting girl who should just be comforted for hurting. Not every moment is a teachable moment in the way I have conceived teaching. Maybe what she needs to learn in this moment is Grace. Undeserved favor. Maybe I need to teach her more about what it means to stand before Him redeemed, here and now, and less about the habits of character that mold a perfect little Christian. To see Christ in brokenness.

To my journal-wary girl, the one who hasn't yet written a second entry, I have something to say. Not a correction this time. I want to say to her, I see you. Just the way you are right now. And I agree with the Lord of the universe: I think you're wonderful, and worth my sacrifices, and beautiful in your pain. I love you more than words will ever say. More than life itself. You are my beloved, my Katrina.

...............................................

And because I can't resist, a few more from our late-night, craziest-parents-of-the-year skating session in the dark:

Linked to Ann Voskamp

Blinded, blurred, borne

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;

he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.
Selah
~ Psalm 62:5-8 ~

I sat with my Bible open but blinded by tears. On my knees in new ways, my heart broken into a million new and tiny pieces when my baby died a year ago...the baby who was such a miracle that first day. Cousin-twins for a second time running, my sister and I burgeoning with babes at the same time, living an eighth of a mile apart, sharing every joy and wave of nausea, the unpacking of the baby clothes and the stocking of the nursery in expectation. Dreams awakened, not by my own idle thoughts, but by the miracle of life itself within me. A year later, I still struggle with the intentional awakening of my desire, when He, in His omniscience, knew that desire would be burnt on the flames of loss in a few weeks time.

No guilt in life, no fear in death/This is the power of Christ in me/From life's first cry to final breath/Jesus commands my destiny. The darkest days of my grief quickly passed, like the fleeting breath that was a few weeks of pregnancy, a fleeting shadow remaining and new tears welling up when I hold my nephew, Robert, conceived that same week as my son, Theodore. One babe born in this world, one babe born in heaven and borne forever in my heart like a heavy stone. In looking intently at that pregnancy, I focused too much on a reflection, neglecting to turn my eyes upon the source of the glory, the miracle. I saw only the gift, and not the gift of  God. With words, I praised Him, but my heart was frozen and my eyes remained fixed on the promise of another child, not the promise of another child for eternity. In this lapse of eternal perspective, I forfeited the joy in large part. Promise blurred with tears, hope squelched by sorrow.

Not that it's easy to keep eternal perspective...as if just by recognizing my error, I can erase my grief, quell my tears, staunch the flow of anguished pleading words at the Throne when I pray. I believe God supports grief and is with us in grief. He grieves with us that this world is cursed because of human sin. But He has also lovingly, lavishly provided the solution to our problem: Grace. His own Son, sacrificed on the cross, so that death will never be the conqueror. 

And as He stands in victory/ Sin's curse has lost its grip on me/ For I am His and He is mine -/ Bought with the precious blood of Christ. Death for my babe, whose last recorded size, on the pathology report, was 2.45 centimeters long, has been swallowed up in the grave of Christ, when his disciples and the soldiers found an empty tomb. My tears are swallowed up in the gift of life eternal granted by the spilling of His holy blood. 

What heights of love, what depths of peace/ when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!/ My Comforter, my All in All/ here in the love of Christ I stand. For God, out of sorrow flows joy. And that is the gift offered us in the blood of His son. Believe this miracle happened as reported in the Gospels and other historical texts of the time, and for you as well, out of sorrow will flow joy. That is the power of the blood.

That is the promise of the Gospel. And that is the life I now live. I am redeemed. My unborn child is redeemed. And someday we will both be resurrected and reborn to a life of joy that will never end.

When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.
Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel,
and afterward you will take me into glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Those who are far from you will perish;
you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; 
I will tell of all your deeds.
~ Psalm 73:21-28 ~

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*Song lyrics excerpted from In Christ Alone, a modern hymn written in 2002 by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty. 


Post from the archives, written November 28, 2009. A few new words from the added experience and grief of a year without my son. New photos from churches in Minnesota - a yellow Methodist sanctuary at sunset in Rochester, and Native American Catholic space lit in morning in Naytahwaush, Minnesota.

What suffering says about prosperity

These days are filled with trouble

And the nights feel like they’re all getting longer

These days are dark and grey

Like that storm rolling in across the water

There’s a strong wind blowing

I push on it pushes back

It’s a hard time

But I know I’ll get through it

Just gotta lean into it

This ain’t where I thought I’d be

If I could I’d stop it now and I’d rewind it

But this ain’t where I’m gonna fall

If there’s a way to fight

I know I’m gonna find it

~ Lean Into It, Little Big Town

Moments with my nephew - the "cousin-twin" to the baby I lost - in the morning sun.

Today, in church, I listened with questions swirling: am I experiencing the blessings and benefits of being a child of God?  To outward appearances, perhaps not.  I'm tired.  The dark circles around my eyes, the pallor in my cheeks, grows more apparent every day.  Common viruses have a more significant effect on me than they should.  I should be young and healthy.  Right?

My mood a little gray around the edges from the low thyroid function, I am grieving my baby again.  Missing that warm, slightly sweet baby smell, the arms touching your neck through the night hours, the newness of smiles and giggles that take over your baby's whole frame and put him into a tremor of delight.  I am mourning the losses of Amelia...the new needs she has, the needs I fear will always be there.  I watch her frozen in time as her friends grow and advance.  Watch her intellect stumble backward as the days pass.  Celebrate the tiny victories...the one letter remembered, the twisted smile when she can trace her bean circle with her index finger in a non-seizing moment.

What are the blessings and benefits of being a child of God?  What are the reasonable expectations I can have, as His child?  Health?  Is that a bare minimum?  I've struggled with this question ever since I was 14 years old and I fainted dead away during devotions in our living room, surrounded by my family.  I screamed it in my mind when I heard "heart failure" for the first time at 17.  As my fingers curled tight around an invalid driver's license, and my mind searched for ways to continue to grow up when you can't even drive yourself to class, I sighed the question for the millionth time.

I never really got a clear answer.  I am still asking the question.

It's just one of those things; Scripture gives you conflicting glimpses of the answer.  I've never been rich (but again...by whose standards?  In the U.S., we are barely middle class.  In the rest of the world, rich beyond imagination, with a beautiful home, three vehicles - however old, food and clothing in abundance).  Yet in Proverbs I read honor the LORD with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase; So your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine. (Proverbs 3:9-10) And III John 1:2 states the prayer, that all may go well with you and that you may be in good health, as it goes well with your soul...which indicates, by inference, that one might not experience good health as it goes well with the soul.

In John 10:10, a verse often quoted by the Prosperity Gospel's adherents, says I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.  What does abundance really mean?  Is it wealth, or health?  Success, relationship bliss, a good marriage, good friends, laughter around a campfire, children who never disobey, a family that goes on to accomplish great things and bring honor to your name?

At times, even the ever-comforting 23rd Psalm mocks me. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.  He restores my soul.

But read on, and you see David walking through the valley of death and dying.  What if the table prepared before me in the presence of my enemies, the annointing of my head with oil, the goodness and mercy that will follow me all my life...what if they aren't tangible?  What if the feasting table of peace God prepares for me when all the world howls about me, when my stomach is hungry, my clothes worn out, my body beaten, the battle with cancer raging and my duties as a mother overwhelming....what if it is that feast of the mind when I shut my eyes and a Scripture surrounds my thoughts and takes them captive and quiets them?  What if it is a spiritual feast, not one of money or possessions or health or beauty or success?

What if I conquer my enemies by being so defeated by them that the only thing shining out of my broken body is the Grace of God, the peace that passeth understanding?

What if the annointing of my head with oil is the annointing of cancer, the vote of confidence from my Savior that I am up to this task...this task of trusting Him when everything goes wrong and I find myself alone in the battle, cut off from friends and family, with only an Invisible One on my side?

What if the goodness and mercy is simply the strength to withstand the awful torments this world will hold until the day He quietly grants me the freedom to cross that golden strand to the place where at last, forever, my suffering will be done?

And what if they are tangible, but they aren't the tangible prosperity that the world expects?  What if the table and the annointing and the blessing and the benefits are the simple things like my nephew's sweet breath and dimpled fingers holding the thick cotton of my shirt during an impromptu nap?  What if it's the late night moments reading a story to Amelia as she recovers from the seizure?  What if it is just moments, and glimpses, and random pleasures that dot this landscape of weeping and weaning and weariness and woe?

It is so important to remember that really, this is not the end of the story.  The story is not done until you take into account the everlasting peace of Heaven or the never-ending torment of Hell.  Whatever I may suffer here on earth, there is always Heaven to forever compensate the imbalance in the scales.  This is not where I'm going to fall.  I'm going to lean into it.  I'm going to believe that the suffering is the blessing and benefit of being part of this family of God.  I'm going to keep coming to grips with the fact that abundance might mean living my life in relief: the blacks and grays in the snapshot of my life - the suffering and torment and mourning and loss - forever only a contrast that lends richer beauty to the pure white of Christ's grace, sacrifice, redemption, and the eventual, eternal healing of all the wounds I sustain and wars I lose here in this bittersweet, beautiful, brief life.

I live abundantly because He has shown me exactly what I might lose, and has forever made it more dear to me because I know that it is only a gift and never to be taken for granted.

Deliver us from evil

We had an amazing weekend camping with our friends and co-leaders from small group, the Bergs.  They brought swords for all the kids and we had knights and princesses slaying dragons, storming gates, and defeating giants throughout the campsite all weekend long.

In the early morning hours Saturday, the campground was hit with a storm of amazing proportions.  We were awakened by the crack of a tree getting hit by lightening somewhere near by, and huddled in fear and awe as electricity arced over our tent ceiling and we were showered with sparks.  Later, when Katy and I left the relative safety of the tent to use the bathroom, we found that our tent was surrounded by a 3-5" lake of water and a swarm of toads fleeing the monsoon-induced flooding.  Aaron commented that it seemed almost Biblical, this storm we were riding out in a flimsy nylon boat.

We survived the night.  We woke in the morning and heard the news that a truck a mere 50 feet from our bed had been struck and completely destroyed by the lightening bolt.  We toured the paths around our two campsites, and found that the bolt had first hit a tree about 30 feet from the Thul tent, then traveled through the root systems, exploding and burning the roots and leaving eruptions in the earth like an earthquake.  We had felt the static electricity, and it did seem to cause me some trouble with my pacemaker and Amelia a day of clustered seizures.  The neurologist confirmed that abnormal exposure to electricity can briefly worsen seizure disorders.  Luckily, the electrical system of my pacemaker seems to be functioning fine.

We had planned to borrow a metal pop-up camper from a friend, but plans fell through at the last minute.  I wonder now if we would have been hit if we had been connected to the ground with a large metal jackstand.

Despite the odds of being struck, we were.  The fingers of electricity traveled beyond the Berg's tent, between our tents, and beyond our tent.  Three fingers, like claws in a desperate attempt to grasp us.  Defeated - the fingers spread out and our tents slipping through.  Despite the odds of surviving a direct hit, we did.

With every passing day, this string of trials seems all the more absurd and indescribable, even to those of us going through them.  Aaron and I agreed, in the dark of night last night, as we reflected on this weekend: we are glad the Bergs can corroborate our story.  It doesn't seem believable.  Who goes through what we've been through, and then gets struck by lightening?  What is it we are up to...as a church, even as a family...that garners such an uninterrupted and focused attack that comes at us from all angles?  Is there something about our mission, the church plant we've recently taken part in as a church, what we're teaching these children, that doesn't sit well with evil?

As we come out of an amazing and refreshing weekend, we are hit again with more trials and more blessings at home.  My pacemaker incision is infected, and I spent the evening in the ER getting a big dose of IV antibiotics.  Now I am on an oral antibiotic and need to go to the cardiologist again tomorrow to have the incision looked at.  More appointments sucking up time.  Amelia's seizures are still clustering after the lightening strike over the weekend.  Would you pray healing for us?  Would you keep both her and I lifted up in prayer?  I am faced with surgical revision of my pacemaker pocket, living without the pacemaker for a few weeks while I receive antibacterial treatments deep within to treat the pocket in my chest.  In addition, I am at risk for an infection of my heart muscle.  Amelia broke both of her cheekbones in her fall last week, and will need surgery on her nose if she suffers another injury to it.  We need protection.  We need Jesus.

This morning, Caleb accepted Christ - at least, we think he did.  When one of our babes does this so early, we watch for months, not sure whether to believe their belief or not.  So far, not one of the children has surprised us, though.  Katy got saved at almost four; Rosy at three; and Amy and Caleb both at around 2 1/2.   Time will tell.  I praise God for Caleb's sweet words in prayer this morning.  "Dear Lord, thank you for this day.  I sorry I do bad things.  Tank you for sending Jesus to pay for my bad things.  Tank you for saving me from my bad things.  I want you save me, Jesus."

You calm the storms at night
You turn the dark to light
You're everything and that
is who You are

My savior
my healer
redeemer
that is who You are
creator
my maker
my father
that is who You are

Finding the Gospel

Take a long hard look at my face

Take away the things I can’t replace

Take my heart, go on take it away

I’ve got nothing to say

Take away this sense of regret

Take the things I need to forget

Take the mistakes I haven’t made yet

They’re all I have left

I don’t want to be the one who lets you down

All I did was run myself around

I wish I could have seen through your eyes

Maybe then I would have realized

I’m the only one who’s bleeding

For the things I never needed

The things I never needed

Take a good long look at yourself

Take the weight off everyone else

Take the hardest blow that was dealt

It’s all on your shoulders

~Things I Never Needed, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals

Bottling Cedar Gables Chokeberry Port with my parents late Saturday night.

The Gospel comes through loud and clear sometimes, and there it was, playing on Pandora on my Black Keyes station. A new artist I discovered, and added because I thought she sounds kind of like a country version of the Black Keyes. Aaron and I have made a game out of this: the objective being finding the most references to the Gospel hidden in the secular world around us - movies, music, television, billboards, newspaper and online written material.

Click to link your post to mine if you, too, have found a Gospel reference in an unlikely place.

Hearing the call

The naked wood, bare and brittle and dry, is as much a part of the tree's life as the sap's rising in the spring. The Lord is still in charge, still moving in mysterious ways even when He gives the enemy of our souls permission to trouble us...To ask why implies a conviction that there is a reason somewhere. Somebody must be responsible for this.
~ A Path Through Suffering: Discovering the Relationship between God's Mercy and Our Pain, Elisabeth Elliot

Did you know I was a librarian? For 8 years? It was my first job - a volunteer position my mother finagled for me at the local public library at the age of 12. I learned Dewey Decimal, card cataloging, and became intimately (and fearfully) familiar with the dusty, cob-webbed annex in the attic of a century old building on our town's tiny Main Street. In college, I ran the reserve library - the place where pre-Internet students went to request microfiche copies of articles in scholarly journals, where I was connected by telephone and fax data line to millions of librarians elsewhere in an spiderweb of data strung along hard wires the world over. Books have been passionately, intimately wound through the song of my existence since my earliest memories of childhood. They are the friends I still turn to in the darkest solitude and grayest dusk of days of trial.

There is one book that has quietly trumped all the others I've read: it's sophistication, nuance, provocation, hilarity, command, and humility intrigue me. It is, of course, the Bible. The Living Word. I didn't quite believe in it's power for so many of the years I read it. I read the hollow words of promise that didn't ring true at the time: so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:11) I pondered the esoteric words of John 1, and wondered if anyone could ever understand it: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. Has anyone ever reckoned this statement? Has anyone ever understood it?

Why do we, as a culture, a society, a world, still cling to words that seem so meaningless and centrifugal? Why does this one book still command so much attention from me, an intelligent, cynical, wounded, floundering human being? What is there, in these confusing words, that rings true to the core of my being, that demands a response, that begs me dig deeper?

I am not alone in the world. I am held every night by the dearest, sweetest, hardest-working husband. My neck is held gently by baby hands, little feet cling to my hips through the day and the long dark night. Children clamor about me for love and attention. Even in death, you could say I don't have fear: I've left something on this mortal clod to be recognized, valued, admired. It isn't emptiness that baffles me, but rather that sixth-sense that there is something in that dark void. Someone. Someone who appeals to my rationality, my emotion, my intellect, my curiosity. It is the recognition that to ask why is to imply that there is someone responsible. There is something bigger, larger than the scope of my life, grander than the conglomeration of those who surround me and support me.

Amy Carmichael says that underneath are the Everlasting Arms. When anesthesia kicks in, and you are left crucified on a meaningless physical cross, stranded on an operating table with your fate sealed in the hands of a error-ridden surgeon and a team of human skill and mistake, underneath are the Everlasting Arms. You don't go into the void alone. You don't come to without sensing that deep, everlasting, conquering presence that has sustained you and held you through the hours of darkness and the months to come of suffering and healing. He is there with you. Forever. Whether you realize it or not. I am not - this selfish human form I inhabit - the purpose or reason for any of this. He is. I don't live or die for narcissism. Blogging isn't about what does or does not occur in my life. It is about how I am held. How I am loved, extravagantly. How grace is poured out, mercifully. How vigilant, kind, sovereign, just, omniscient this God is, who I serve.

I can't bring you to the trough if you don't want a drink. I can't open the Book to blind eyes. I can't speak to a deaf heart. What God has spoken to my heart, I will faithfully echo. What He sings through every melody of my life, I will harmonize. What He cares for, and loves, and heals, and serves, I will proclaim.

Without him, I am just a bare bones body on a funeral pyre. Without him, I am hopeless in a desolate world of pain. Without him, I am simply a legacy of a few generations, a voice of suffering in a world of complacency. I am just a cancer-ridden woman in a sea of healthy, shocked acquaintances who read my words and weep for my pain and move on for their sanity.

Don't weep for my pain.

Don't move on for your sanity.

Find out about this Word that changes and heals you at the core of your being.

Get to know Him.

Learn to love Him.

Live to serve Him.

Die for His glory.

Don't just let this be words that pour over you and never soak in.



He is calling.

Calling you.

Using this broken reed

I walk with bare, hushed feet the ground
Ye tread with boldness shod;
I dare not fix with mete and bound
The love and power of God.

The bruised reed He will not break,
But strengthen and sustain.

~ John Greenleaf Whittier, paraphrasing Isaiah 42:3 in The Eternal Goodness

In the past week, my blog has been viewed in 25 countries and territories, including U.S. & Alaska, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, India, Indonesia, Norway, United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia, the Netherlands, South Korea, Bahrain, Bahamas, Dominican Republic, Serbia, Jordan, and Singapore. The Internet is a powerful tool. John Piper speaks out about its potential use in advancing the Gospel. It is sobering to view the statistics to my own humble site, that has grown out of my personal pain and struggle into a way of connecting with people all over the world. Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth; Keep watch over the door of my lips. (Psalm 141:3)

Lament & proclaim

A phone conversation with a friend reminded me today that some separations are worse than those in my life of late. Imagine being ideologically opposed to your dearest loved one, with hardly a hope for reconciliation and an eternal future of being torn apart. While I was in physical isolation from my family, we shared so much using other forms of communication. The cry of my heart was tempered, the long low, plaintive wail of a lone violin crying out in solo for a moment before being rejoined by the symphony. But those who are eternally destined for a different home than those they love...their soul doesn't cry or weep, but is rent in two, the relentless crescendo of a hurricane beating in on a lonely, evacuated shore of endless sorrow. My grief was a season and theirs a lifetime.

Imagine yourself standing in a boat on the Bering Sea. Your comrade is struggling in the surf, tossed overboard by a rogue wave of ice and sleet. At your feet is rope that has been blackened by the salt water, the ragged fray of the coil in your hand biting into your grip. You don't know where the rope ends, and whether or not it is actually anchored to anything on board. Would you hesitate to throw the lifeline to your friend, unsure whether it will hold his weight, or whether it will be long enough to reach him? Can you imagine his consternation if he were to watch you, contemplating all the unknowns about the rope you hold, while he sinks for the second and third time, struggling against the tide, his heavy gear inexorably pulling him under?

Christ is the rope. Many of my friends and loved ones are the drowning man. When I proclaim Christ to them, I do it completely and wholeheartedly out of love. Because I am on the ship forever, and will be willing, until I die, to toss the rope of salvation to anyone drowning who will reach their hand out to grasp it. During this season, it is foremost on my mind daily. Our culture has sold the idea that Christmas is a season of benign good cheer, and incessantly batters us with images of handshakes, group hugs, smiles, and comfort food...or worse, materialistic shopping, giving and gleeful shrieks over presents...neglecting the undeniable Christian Christmas imagery. Christmas is, after all, about Christ - and while modern Christianity has bought into the idea of inclusion, touting Christian love as mutually exclusive to Christian witness, Christianity is also a divisive and exclusive faith. I hear this in Christ's own words, He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters. (Luke 11:23)

Speak Christ in love to those who listen...and perhaps those who will not...this Christmas. Pray, earnestly, for the salvation of lost souls. Let your heart swell with the hurricane of loss and love felt by those closest to them, let the waves of pain beat the shore as you beg for grace and a beseeching call to be spoken in their own heart this Christmas season.

Nails, spear shall pierce Him through,
The cross be borne for me, for you.
Hail, hail the Word made flesh,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

This, this is Christ the King,
Whom shepherds guard and Angels sing;
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.
~ What Child is This