Lighting my own flame

I pre-ordered my friend's book, even though I didn't want to read it. I pre-ordered it right in the middle of losing my own faith, her book about losing her faith...and finding it again. Faith has long since ceased to be a cultural acoutrement of habit, tradition, stand up-sit down formalities. It survived thousands of years that way, by being necessary to people. Necessary because they couldn't read for themselves perhaps, necessary because whole nations grasped desperately at religion as a form of collective salvation from unknowns both here and in eternity. In the performance-driven, every man a minister evangelical movement, we are no longer silent participants in a army of anonymous believers who join us for that hour and stare forward. Then you could hear the rumble of hundreds of hands dropping hundreds of kneelers, the scratch of a thousand shoes tucking under pews, the awe of the silence when every head bowed in confession.

Norms shift and traditions change. We have always lived in a society where questions were welcomed. You get to choose, the Pilgrims said. We have never been Catholic or Protestant solely based on geography here in the new land. Everyone seemed to politely ignore that we are still born into faith, held there by the glue of family and social pressure. Many of us silently protested, our shoes slow to scrape under the pew. Our heads the last to bow.

Evangelicals pull you out of your seat and demand your participation. I suppose that's how I, perpetual doubting Thomas, got brought into the fold finally in my 20s. I had held church and especially church people at a distance since I was raped by one at 7 years old. My acceptance came grudgingly, and really I only laced my fingers into the church's embrace because I wanted to support my beloved little brother.

I lobbed fireballs of religion along with the rest of the church crowd. I did so out of fear. I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want life on earth to be the end. I didn't want to be barred from some place of joy just because I was stubborn and unconvinced.

Does it count to believe if you hold part of your heart back, as afraid of faith as you were of not having it?

Yes, I was on fire once. I turned off parts of my mind and my heart and I jumped right into the flames on purpose. It was my last-ditch attempt to belong. I got 10 years. A decade of wearing the right clothes, keeping a daily prayer list, reading through the Bible according to this plan and that. Wearing the pages out in my search for answers. I walked the walk, I talked the talk. I didn't know what to say to the pain in the eyes of my friends, so I leaned hard on phrases like, "Let go and let God," "Be still and know," "We'll have all the answers in heaven." My girls wore dresses. I wore my hair longer. I tried to smile more. We spanked. We "trained them up in the way they should go" with no regard for who they were, the children gifted into our marriage. I wasn't a steward. I was a matriarch standing proud on the promises. Part of being on fire is knowing the right answers, being so sure of yourself (because it's God telling you how to be) that no one outside the church can question any of it.

Through cancer, grad school, my daughter's brushes with death, losing a son in the midst of the worst of it - the flame of faith stayed lit. It was my only hope in those days. I was clinging with desperation. I consumed whole books of the Bible on sleepless nights praying to get the WHOLE answer, not just little crumbs of it from this passage or that. Some of the tissue-thin pages ripped where tears landed over and over again.

I remember the subtle soul shift that happened the night I was diagnosed with cancer at 28. I was in excruciating pain that God apparently didn't care to relieve. I had begged - everyone I knew was praying, in fact - that it wouldn't be cancer. This couldn't happen to me. But it did...and after I wrestled myself down back into the dark bottle sealed up at my center, I opened my hands and said I accepted it.

I thought trials would be the stepping stones on the way to the top of the mountain. I was numb to the erosion that was happening every time bad news rained down on us. Like a movie-set town in the 1950's, the sets were slowly collapsing in the bad weather. I pushed on them delicately at first, picking parts of my life I hoped I could change on the down-low, without the church noticing.

I quit wearing dresses. I started letting my kids decide what to wear. I started grad school and talked about becoming a nursing professor. For a while I stood still in the stream. Then, I took one brave step against the current.

As I've walked back up the stream, back to where I started when I was just me, the fire slowly went out. There are many reasons. Some of which could be temporary. I'm not a promise-maker at 34. I know how little I know. I am okay with only having answers for today and letting tomorrow arrive, come what may.

There is a little flame flickering again. It's different. It's not blowing over me like wildfire in California and I dry tinder in it's path. That's religion. To say I've lost faith because I ran away from the wildfire is to say I've lost an element of the human experience entirely. I still have faith. I just believe in something other than the church.

I believe every person is beautiful just the way they are.

I believe violence is the product of our blindness to someone else's value and beauty.

I don't believe in predicting the future.

I believe my value and my importance are inherent in my humanity and displayed when I love others. I believe the same thing about every one.

I believe in equality. Freedom to be just who we are.

I can't make myself believe in an entire cosmos unseen, a benevolent creator who is all-powerful, ever-present, interested in each of us to such an extent that we receive daily punishment or grace from this god.

The fire that lights me now is tended by my own two hands. It is my own fire. I built it. Nothing is consuming me from the outside. No more wildfires. Because I am on fire for something new, humane. And fire can't pass over the same ground twice.

Visit my friend Addie's website to view more synchroblog entries

As one saint goes marching in

I've held 50/50 chances in my own two hands, flesh of my third daughter lying silent in the sleep of coma, doctors hovering in full biohazard gear, telling us of damaged neurons and people who don't wake up from infections like these. I've lived 50/50 chances in my own bones, almost 5 years now of a cancer journey, and I am passing that first hallmark on the road to survival, on to the next, the 10 year mark, when I have just a 50% chance of still beating cancer, still having a beating heart, still being here.

A friend died quietly on All Saint's Sunday in the peace of her earthly home, and while she walked away from us, she was welcomed on another shore by others who'd been waiting there for her return to another home. Today is her funeral, yesterday her wake. I touched her cold hand in the casket last night, a new friend gone quickly from my life. The nurse in me saw the sore on her nose from the NG tube, the reddened finger from the oxygen probe. The signs of cancer's battle still visible after death. She faced that last battle with a smile on her face, with courage, with hope. I held my tears back while I was in her room, because she was brave and I didn't want her to see that I am not. Today at the funeral, her body was gone. An urn stood at the front of the church instead. It was a little too quick, this ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I stared at the ceiling, the stained glass windows, let the music carry me away to the top of the church, so I could numb the tears and flee the fears, keep myself together in front of my peers.

We all hold death somewhere silent in our cells, but mine can be pulled out and measured in a test tube of blood, quantified in numbers, just how much death is there stalking me this year. How much treatment will be needed to keep it at bay. How my chances change every time they test my blood. I have my Scriptures that have become my mantras: sufficient unto each day are the troubles thereof...my hope is in you, maker of heaven...redeem the time...with God, all things are possible...

If God is for us, who can be against us? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (from Romans 8)

I live in moments, I breathe in small joys, I am mindful of that which is set before me in this present time - the class I am about to teach, the task I am about to accomplish, the piece I am playing on the piano, the painting I am working on, the children who throng me and demand all of me. But it is a practice, all of this. A way to keep pain and hopelessness and paralyzing fear at bay. A Holy practice of obedience, because He tells me to carry His light burden, to walk in peace and not in fear; to walk and not faint, to believe in things much bigger than the landscape I can see with my own two eyes.

I hide tears behind closed doors. When I am doubled over with grief, I do so alone. I don't want to gather my children into these moments and darken what days we have together. I don't want to bring my husband in to the gates of my vast suffering. I struggle to let even Christ be with me in my Gethsemane nights. How can I say I have hope, how can I believe all these promises I have listed, and still be so overcome at times by the weight of death that hangs so heavy on my heart?

Several times throughout the Bible, God mentions the measure of our years at 70 or 80. My coworkers at the University see me as "young blood", 33 and maybe 40 years of a career ahead of me. Will that come to pass? Will I see my daughters and son at their weddings? If I make it to 20, I will be in the 3% that beat the odds. My children will be the ages of my friend's, her brave children, brave like her, who shed barely a tear today as they celebrated their mother's vibrant life and spoke of her deep faith. Will I have "fed" my children enough of my faith by then, by that 20 year mark, that they can be so brave? Will they be braver than me?

Through the sobs that wrack me on my drive home, loosed finally in the silence and privacy of my car, away from the eyes of others, I turn up the music and let myself come back to my body, this body filled with fear today. This body that watched a friend fall to cancer in a month's time with little warning. This body that can't imagine doing it half as well as she did. This body and mind that don't want to go there yet - home. As much as I long for heaven, as tired and worn out by life's struggles and cancer's lingering effects as I am, I have so many things left undone. So many things to finish. So many lives left to touch and mold and cherish. The voice of a friend sings me home to my yellow house, the home I want to stay in for ever so much longer...

when I was a child I held my mother tightly

then i grew taller and left to follow my dreams

I went after my dreams and some of them brought me delight

But they didn't bring me everything i hoped they might

I fell into love like a skydiver in the clouds

It wasn't enough no we couldn't sustain it ourselves

All the things i pursue

Well they stay for a season

Then everything moves

Everything moves oh

My towers fall

But you aren't leaving me

cause everything moves but you

I trained my body to run and not be weary

I worked and i read how to raise a better family

Then i bought a good house on the safe side of town because i could

And as long as my life stays like this i'm feeling good

 Until my bones become brittle against my will

My heart is home oh to make the earth stand still

You are a tree always in bloom

You are a hall of endless rooms

A living fountain springing up

I'm satisfied but never done

I'm never done

With you

~Christa Wells, Everything Moves But You~

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. (I Corinthians 15:54-58)

Mist

You drive through it, fog lights on, and all the familiar landmarks are foreign. Only the blackness of the tar in front of you assures you that you are on the road. You slow down. You search for the familiar. You drive beyond your headlights and it is trust that propels you forward, the moving car in the wilderness of white, the waiting for protection, the begging for a clear ravine where you regain your boundaries.

Your vision is dimmed in the mist. You aren't certain of what you see...or whether you'll see it in time.

You stand in the fog, and the horizon has disappeared. Only the faded glow of the moon is visible. The trees are mere shadows, and your house is dark and distant, just a few feet away.

But you hear in the mist. The lone whistle of a distant train. The faint crow of the pheasant pleading through the darkness. You smell the mud, the sap running, the fecund woods breathe life that you cannot see.

You feel the thrum of traffic, the crackle of the frozen earth beneath the sheepskin boots, and the surety of terra firma frozen beneath your soles, the suck of the mud in the trenches of the driveway.

You smell the earthy air, the wetness. Your lungs pull in promise of daylight, promise that this is just a season of dimness.

You know it will dissipate in sunlight, burned clear by the warming rays of the spring sun, the breaking of day destroying the desolation, misdirection, confusion.

God's Word. Sometimes it's shrouded in the mist. You can't latch onto your purpose, and read Scripture skewed through misty eyes, and wonder when daybreak will burn off doubt and confusion and despair.

The reality is the horizon is still there. You see the lights of home glaring through the fog, and you home in and point yourself in that direction. You know clarity is just moments away, through the dark misty night and the fog that confounds.

You look up at the dim reflection of the moon, the craters disappearing in the glow of condensation, but there it is...the moon, the lone star flickering through, the visage of hope in a night of uncertainty.

He's there. Whether you see Him or not. Whether the Word is shrouded in mystery, whether the verses cloud together in heaps of gray, whether hope seems far away and tenuous.

The cold rises up from frozen earth and envelopes the whole world in conundrum, the conundrum of your pain and your grief shrouding His rescue, His provision.

Look for home. Smell the give of earth melting to promise of harvest. Hear the whistle in the dark, the whisper behind you that breathes, "this is the way, walk in it." (Isaiah 30:21) Don't be lost in the sensory fog, the vision lost, the purpose shrouded.

Keep reading. Read on through the mist of the Psalm that speaks uncertainty and find yourself, finally, in the conclusion of praise. Praise for mist and mystery. Praise for unseen glory and shipwrecked humanity.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
(from Psalm 139)

Read on to the praise, the purpose, the glory. For in the mist, He writes our story, shrouds it from our own eyes, so that in the end, it is He who garners worship and praise. When I am in the mist, He is seeing all. When my dreams...my horizon...are shrouded, they are still there, present in His promise, protected by His love, written already in His book, all these misty days of my life when I struggle to sense Him, to sense my direction, to sense my path.

Now to him who is able to establish you in accordance with my gospel, the message I proclaim about Jesus Christ, in keeping with the revelation of the mystery hidden for long ages past, but now revealed...so that all the Gentiles might come to the obedience that comes from faith— to the only wise God be glory forever through Jesus Christ! (Romans 16:25-27)

The search begins

Yesterday we embarked on our search for a new church. We are praying, desperate and broken on our knees, that the peace that passeth understanding directs us in the way we should go. With a long history of painful church experiences behind us, we feel somewhat like we're stumbling along blindfolded. How do you recognize a healthy church? Which doctrinal points are on your "absolute" list?

Did not our Lord pray, "that they may be one, even as we are one?" (John 17:22) A chorus of ecumenical voices keep harping the unity tune. What they are saying is, "Christians of all doctrinal shades and beliefs must come together in one visible organization, regardless...Unite, unite!" Such teaching is false, reckless, and dangerous. Truth alone must determine our alignments. Truth comes before unity. Unity without truth is hazardous. Our Lord's prayer in John 17 must be read in its full context..."Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." ~ Charles Spurgeon

The Gospel. Grace. The Apostles creed. These stand like the columns undergirding the structure, the concrete footings in the Rock. They are our absolutes. Beyond that, things get murky. There are many beliefs within Christianity that don't cause division - young earth/old earth, free will/election for instance - and a whole host of lifestyle decisions that are left wholly up to the individual and aren't defined as doctrine at all - stay at home/working moms, public/private/home education, big house/little house, white collar/blue collar, clothing preferences, piercings, tattoos...

So we enter this incredibly confusing time with only one note of confidence playing sweetly and constantly in our souls: Holy Spirit. He whispers, and we hear it. And so we know that, with that note of confidence playing constant, we will recognize the home of fellowship God has already prepared for us.

Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and falsehood grapple; who ever knew truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter. ~John Milton

I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth: And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord, Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, Born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried: He descended into hell; on the third day he rose again from the dead; He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghost; The Holy Catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body, and the Life everlasting. Amen.

Joy comes

Lamentations 3 - God poured on the trouble and hard times. BUT, there's one other thing I am remembering that gives me a grip on hope: God's loyal love couldn't have run out, His merciful love couldn't have dried up. They're created new every morning. How great your faithfulness! I'm sticking with God (I say it over and over). He's all I've got left.  God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks. It's a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God. It's a good thing when you're young to stick it out through the hard times. When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don't run from trouble. Take it full-face. The "worst" is never the worst. Why? Because the Master won't ever walk out and fail to return. God's got my back.  ~ from A String of Pearls, a group of women reading through the Bible from cover to cover this year and discussing it online

When things look black, I still know God is with me (hasn't He promised never to leave me or forsake me?).  But it is easy to give in to the hopelessness of life on a cursed earth.  It is easy to believe that nothing will ever come out right here on this whirling piece of granite.  Yet, He is so often merciful, greasing the wheels of these messy relationships we humans face here on earth.  Tonight was more proof - proof that looking away from the person you are experiencing conflict with and toward the Throne, where all can be redeemed, forgiven...that relieves the pressure and reminds everyone that you are on a common mission.  I am thankful tonight to report that my heart is at peace.  God is good.  He is so good to us.  And I am praising God to serve side by side with people who are willing to cloak themselves in humility and look toward the Throne for counsel when the road gets rough.

Lord I have a heavy burden of all I've seen and know

It's more than I can handle

But your word is burning like a fire shut up in my bones

and I cannot let it go

And when I'm weary and overwrought

with so many battles left unfought

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard

I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars

And when the Saints go marching in

I want to be one of them

Lord it's all that I can't carry and cannot leave behind

it often overwhelms me

but when I think of all who've gone before and lived the faithful life

their courage compels me

when I'm weary and overwrought

with so many battles left unfought

I see the shepherd Moses in the Pharoah's court

I hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord

And when the Saints go marching in

I want to be one of them

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad

I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul

I see the young missionary and the angry spear

I see his family returning with no trace of fear

I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights

I see the sister standing by the dying man's side

I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor

I see the man with a passion come and kicking down the door

I see the man of sorrows and his long troubled road

I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load

And when the Saints go marching in

I want to be one of them

~When the Saints, Sara Groves~
(to download the album, click here)

After the storm

In the dark of the midnight,
Have I oft hid my face;
While the storm howls above me,
And there's no hiding place;
'Mid the crash of the thunder,
Precious Lord, hear my cry;
"Keep me safe 'til the storm passes by."

Till the storm passes over, till the thunder sounds no more,
Till the clouds roll forever from the sky;
Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand,
Keep me safe till the storm passes by.

Many times Satan whispers,
"There is no need to try;
For there's no end of sorrow,
There's no hope by and by";
But I know Thou art with me,
And tomorrow I'll rise;
Where the storms never darken the skies.

When the long night has ended,
And the storms come no more,
Let me stand in Thy presence.
On that bright, peaceful shore.
In that land where the tempest
Never comes, Lord may I
Dwell with Thee when the storm passes by.

~ "Til the Storm Passes By", Mosie Lister, 1958 ~

This was my favorite campfire song at church camp when I was a kid.  There is a great four-part harmony that is easy to pick up and I will never forget my dad strumming out the chords on his 12 string guitar the one year that he brought it along (always accompanied by his proviso and equivocating arguments prior to performance).  One look to the evening sky tonight reminded me that after the storm comes the beautiful sunset.  It is easy to get wrapped up in the immediacy and fear that comes with the storm clouds, under which we've been perched for so long.  I've been re-reading an interesting book on suffering - Polishing God's Monuments: Pillars of Hope for Punishing Times - which reminds me to look everywhere for signs of God's faithfulness, especially to the patterns of my own life and the world that surrounds me.  Though we struggle, he will never leave us nor forsake us, and upholds us and strengthens us until the clouds dissipate.  In fact, some of the best days of my life have also been the worst ones.

Hold me fast, let me stand in the hollow of Thy hand, keep me safe 'til this storm passes by.  My prayer.  Sustain me through this one, Lord, show me the beautiful sunset between, and prepare me for the next.

The Golden Ticket

The devil, who has for the most part ignored you up to that point since you weren't a threat, starts to take notice. And so do other people. Believers and unbelievers alike may become your adversaries. Remember what happened to the boy David when he decided to fight Goliath? His brother attacked him angrily. Then Saul, the king, challenged him, "You're just a boy." Then Goliath himself mocked David. In that moment, David had no supporters except the Lord. Get in the battle and see what happens. ~Tim Haring, April 30th devotional for Faithwalkers journal, available in it's entirety here

This has definitely been my experience. At certain points along this difficult road, as I follow God like a blind woman down a path I didn't choose that leads to a destination I am totally unsure of, I have felt overwhelming support and love from my community. At other points, that support has fallen away and I have been forced to wonder, "Am I even on the right road any more? Did I slip up somewhere?" I have to re-examine everything - my motives, the reasons I have faith I am on the right path, the signs God provided along the way, and most of all, my relationship status with God. Cancer, initially, was a huge wake-up call. All my priorities were shaken up like papers in a raffle basket, and, since the dust settled, nothing has ever been the same again. What I knew in my heart has become what I do with my hands: 1. God; 2. Aaron; 3. children; 4. blood family; 5. church family; 6. the lost. The challenge has been to sort through the various activities that fill my days and put them in their correct slot on the priority list. School, for instance, is particularly challenging. I believe it fits somewhere between church family and the lost - my reasons for going to school are to witness to the lost and to build the church family by going on mission as a nursing professor and being a voice of the church in the broader community. Adoption is another challenge - is that up there with children, blood family, church family, or is it an edict from God and something that should take top billing as Aaron and I pursue it together? These are the two activities that have undoubtedly drawn the most "heat" in the battle surrounding my life and my time and my service to Christ. School and adoption are two aspects of my life many people do not understand. Yet they are part of what Christ has called me to do, and I must "enter the battle and see what happens". I cannot, in good faith, table these things because it doesn't make human sense to pursue them. Aaron and I are in agreement, after long, hard examination, that these two things stay in our lives. We have to keep stepping forward on that, even if brothers, kings, and enemies oppose us and question our sanity.

A little book of collected writings on suffering, edited by Nancy Guthrie (who definitely knows her subject), has been a comfort through the latest onslaught. Corrie ten Boom recalls a conversation she had with her father when she was a child:

When I was a little girl, I went to my father and said, "Daddy, I am afraid that I will never be strong enough to be a martyr for Jesus Christ." "Tell me", Father said, "when you take a train trip from Haarlem to Amsterdam, when do I give you the money for the ticket? Three weeks before?" "No, Daddy, you give me the money for the ticket just before we get on the train." "That is right," my father said, "and so it is with God's strength. Our wise Father in heaven knows when you are going to need things too. Today you do not need the strength to be a martyr; but as soon as you are called upon for the honor of facing death for Jesus, He will supply the strength you need - just in time."

God has called me to face cancer, various other health difficulties, a child with special needs, graduate school, homeschooling my children, homemaking for my family, and pursuing adoption - all at the same time. He has given me the money for the ticket. Only He know how much strength I need to survive this - nay, to shine for His glory while doing these tasks. From the outside looking in, to friends and family and strangers who don't have the ticket for this train in their pockets, it seems impossible, improbable, unwise, fool-hardy even. But I have the ticket in my pocket - my Father has given it to me just in time to board the train. Now that I am on the train, jumping off would be the fool-hardy action! God is holding my hand and we are steaming along just fine.

I plan to type up an entire article by D.A. Carson titled "Dying Well". The verses he opens the essay with remind me to number my days and resolutely press on if I am sure of what God has called me to do. The entire passage is Psalm 90:3-4, 9-12, but verse 12 is what gets my attention: So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom. The wisdom and strength God is pouring into me is probably very different from the wisdom and strength He is pouring into you. We have different tasks for which He is preparing us!

Having your faith tested is not all sorrow, misery, tears, torment, agony! Charles Spurgeon states, "It is as great a mercy to have your salvation proved to you under trial as it is to have it sustained in you by the consolations of the Spirit of God." The old adage, what doesn't kill you will make you stronger, comes to mind. It's true in our marriages, isn't it? When our vows are tested by sin in our spouse, or sin in ourselves, we walk through that fire begging for the trial to be over, only to emerge on the other side realizing we can now trust those vows. We know now that they stand up under fire! So is faith that has been tested by suffering - I know now that I will not lose my faith, that I can walk bravely (albeit with tears and sweat and begging for grace and mercy) toward the day He has fixed for my death. I will not crumble. His strength holds me up. I have tested it now, and so I can believe all the more.

Finally, the story of Manoah and his wife - Samson's mother and father - keeps coming up in various conversations and books. I think God is teaching me immensely through that story, found in the book of Judges. God speaks to them, and their reactions are polar opposite. They hear from God, and develop a set of expectations. When life fails to meet those expectations, Manoah falters, and his wife ponders the whole situation and arrives at a conclusion on which she acts. Martyn Lloyd-Jones puts it this way:

Suddenly, everything seems to go wrong. The situation is perplexing and baffling and quite the contrary of what we had expected and anticipated. We seem to break down altogether and to lose hope entirely. We jump to conclusions, and almost invariably, to the worst conclusion that is possible in the given circumstances, the same assumptions as that which led Manoah to his worst conclusion, (namely) that somehow or other, God is against us, and that all we had so fondly imagined to be an expression of God's goodness and kindness was nothing but an illusion. In the midst of disaster and trying difficulties, the Christian religion, instead of acting like a charm or a drug, and doing everything for us, and suddenly putting everything right, asks us, nay rather commands us, to think and to employ logic. Manoah's wife understood that God is never capricious; God is never unjust in his dealings with us; God never contradicts himself and his own gracious purposes.

Finally, Lloyd-Jones concludes with lines that bring me such peace in this time when everything seems questionable, chaotic, unsupportable. You may not understand what is happening to you; it may seem, to you, all wrong. Trust yourself to him. Believe when you cannot prove. Hold on to his constancy, his justice, his eternal purposes for you in Christ. Regard these as absolutes, which can never be shaken, build your case logically upon them, remain steadfast and unshaken, confident that ultimately all will be made plain and all will be well.

For now, we are staying in the battle, and seeing what happens.

Healing

You cause the lame to walk

You open lips to talk

You calm the storms at night

You turn the dark to light

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

~ Desperation Band, Who You Are ~

I remember the time surrounding my original diagnosis with cancer vividly. I remember being very uncomfortable with God as Healer for a very long time. After all, I still - 2 years later - have cancer. I am not healed. It hasn't been dramatic. We read in Matthew 17 this week in church - the healing of the lepers. When I look down at my body, I still don't see the healing. But I guess I will start walking, as the lepers did, before the healing is evident. Trusting He is who He says He is.

There is powerful evidence of healing in the sum total of everything God has done, even in this short vignette that has been cancer. A timeline:

Cancer diagnosed ⇒ Healed by surgery 6/18/08

Lost voice 6/19/08 ⇒He "opened lips to speak" on 7/2/08

Cancer grew back ⇒Healed by radioactive iodine 11/08

~~~We praised God for no sign of cancer in March '08! ~~~

Tumor markers positive 12/09 ⇒We wait on Him for healing again

Meanwhile, reveling in the countless small joys He hands down in these syrup-sweet days of the freshness of the trial. Expectant...watchful...adrenaline rushing...leaning, trusting days of the honeymoon of cancer's reawakening.

My burning bush

Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,

nor stands in the path of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of the scornful;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and in His law he meditates day and night.

He shall be like a tree

planted by the rivers of water,

hat brings forth its fruit in its season,

whose leaf also shall not wither;

and whatever he does shall prosper.

~ Psalm 1 ~

Across the road, down the valley, where the trees grow tall next the little silver thread of Big Elk Creek, there is one lone birch that shimmers every evening in the sunset. Through March and April, this tree of diamonds delights my soul every day as I go through the hard work of keeping children content and cooking dinner, all at the same time. It is by far the most difficult hour of the day for me as a young mother. Yet, in these muddy months where there is little of beauty or refreshment on the spring horizon, God has lit up one tree like a jewel to bring me joy.

He says that His mercies never fail. By His mercy, we are not consumed. (Lamentations 3:22) To the ancient Jews, this probably meant something wholly different than it does to me today: then, it meant deliverance from armed enemies, food provided to the family table during a drought, safe passage to new grazing grounds. Because I have food on my table, a fully-equipped medical world at my disposal, a large house in which to live, no enemies at my doorstep...many would argue that I am no danger of being consumed by anything. But every day that danger lurks...through the difficult dinner hour, when I would much rather blunt my children's senses with a movie instead of conversing with them in their tired and hungry state. Depression, complacence, despair, irritation, over-scheduling, drifting through life, lowering my expectations. Those are the enemies that threaten to consume me as a 21st century Christian housewife and mother.

Many years have passed since those summer days

Among the fields of barley

See the children run as the sun goes down

Among the fields of gold

You'll remember me when the west wind moves

Upon the fields of barley

You can tell the sun in his jealous sky

That we walked in fields of gold

~ Fields of Gold, Sting ~

The whole field of corn husks in front of my birch tree sparkle as if you dropped nuggets of gold there. Just husks. Lit by sun. Somehow strangely beautiful. This is one of those visions of glory in our everyday world vista that plucks the heartstrings, and they vibrate to a bittersweet melody of joy that is so sweet it aches. Somehow this vision condenses for me all that has happened in my life:

friendships ruined,

heart failing, somehow healing,

hugging children who were dying,

feeling their last months soak into my soul like honey;

marrying my best friend,

birthing babies,

that painful, joyful metamorphosis of body and soul;

cancer, the cutting of surgery,

the years of living with it's specter;

baby girl slipping away,

baby girl coming home,

baby girl forever different;

another spring.

A glittering field.

A thousand sorrows;

a million joys.

Through it all, serving a Savior who takes my husks and turns them into glittering gold. A God who takes the last bit of my strength, energy, willingness, and infuses me with this sudden, thundering thing of beauty that lights up my kitchen night after night. The God who speaks through a burning bush, and tells me He is still there...and no, He is never silent.

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.