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True friends keep our secrets. Tell us their secrets. Remember my birthday! They know who "Oma" and "Opa" are. They always make sure I'm included in fun things. They know when I'm sad and ask me why. When I am sick, they call to check on me. (From Daring Greatly, Debunking the Vulnerability Myths by Brené Brown)

Sometimes I think that, if I smoke one more cigarette, he'll leave me. But he doesn't. He stays, and works hard, and is kind and gentle with me. He sees me either with rose-colored glasses or with more clarity than I, preferring to focus on what is not my fault rather than what is.

Sometimes I think that, if I confess one more thing to my parents, they'll give up on me. But they don't. They stay, and help, and they're courteous and soft-hearted with me. They don't see the me I see: they see some other woman with far fewer faults and far more victories.

They welcomed me into their family with open arms, and shocked my socks off by standing right beside my parents when I went a little off the deep end. They remember every important date and celebrate successes instead of mourning failures.

They are a whole family of cheerleaders who jump in to take kids or offer a place to hibernate to or be there for those 2 a.m.-awake-on-the-porch moments to talk things out. They share the same positive traits with which they douse me in kindness, although my relationship with each one is different and marvelous in it's own way.

She and I have been doppelgängers since I was a child, and her spine tingles when something is going wrong in my life - medically or emotionally. I am thankful for her phone calls during those times, when I don't have to explain how I'm feeling. She already knows.

She and I have been smoking buddies for 17 years. I've lived vicariously through her travels and her singleness and her grandiose dreams. She always sees the good in everyone, and it's no different when it comes to me, struggling or not.

She and I have lived on opposite sides of the continent for almost all of our 12 year friendship, but loooong phone calls and letters and emails fill in the gaps, although there is always that ache for an actual in-person visit! She is my leader when it comes to homeschooling and parenting a family of little girls, and her sweet already there son shares the name Caleb with mine. She is willing to face my dark sides and my greatest fears, but is always foraging for a way out, a rescue, a redemption, trading my heavy burden for a light one.

They are the brothers I've always loved, just as mischievous, debating, and entertaining as they've always been. They brought me sisters when I had given up hope of ever having one, and each buoys me in a different way. They are present - physically, emotionally, in prayer - whenever emergency descends upon us. They are connected to me irrevocably: I feel that all of us in all our forms are bound together like the souls connected by a red thread in Chinese mythology.

Never mind that she is older than Grandma. If she has a day off, she often finds time to spend in my living room, folding laundry, hugging kids, and talking things out with me. It is her way of broaching a difficult subject: gracefully, tactfully always, she helps before she opens on the subject. She always has words of wisdom to shower upon me.

If nothing else, losing hundreds of "acquaintances" in my church "family" clearly identified for me who my true friends are - and demonstrated just how strong and resilient the bond between each of us is. Nothing I've done has pushed these people away. They're here to stay, here to love instead of judge, offer help instead of condemnation. I'm thankful for my tribe.

And above and beyond all else, I'm grateful for the close-knit little family He's blessed me with, despite my shortcomings and all the sins of my life known by Him for all eternal past and future. I'm thankful He is helping me work out my faith crouched down to connect with an injured child, sanctifying me grain by grain during this time of hard sanding. I'm thankful my husband is the lover of my soul - that I have two Lovers of my soul. 

My cup runneth over.

The narrow escape

I have been in the hospital for four days. Dealing with chronic illness lays your soul bare and opens an ear to the whispers of evil. There are times when you go dancing with the inner demons, the triumphs of sin in the expanse of your life. You lift the ruby red blanket of Christ's sacrifice and allow those demons to jump back out from underneath, cackling and carrying you on their backs down the path of dangerous thoughts. I am not good enough. I am not worthy of the life I've been given. Look at all these awful things I've done! Do they not condemn me forever? Am I not marked as a wicked one?

The Jews of ancient times ascribe Lamentations to Jeremiah, the "weeping prophet". In my darkest times of soul distress and distrust, the words of this book scream like dervishes confirming my worst fears about myself:

All who honored her despise her, for they have seen her nakedness; she herself groans and turns away. Her filthiness clung to her skirts; she did not consider her future. Her fall was astounding; there was none to comfort her. All your enemies open their mouths wide against you; they scoff and gnash their teeth and say, "We have swallowed her up. This is the day we have waited for; we have lived to see it." As if it were a feast day, you call enemies to terrify me on every side. (from Lamentations 1 and 2)

I've danced in the minefields for one day too long. I am weak and weary. If I were writing a Psalm, I would repeat the words of David, Do not cast me from Your presence, but grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me. (Psalm 51:11a & 12b) I gather things around me, books, Bibles, my thumbprint cross, the tattoo on my wrist that says, Choose life (from Deuteronomy 30). As talisman against the darkness.

I think back on this present trial, the worst of it 8 weeks long now, and there are a few things to rejoice in. I suffered 8 weeks of impulsive thoughts pushing me toward the place I have chosen not to go, and at the end of the 8 weeks I chose triumphantly with all the weapons at hand. I believe this turning, this repentance - the Hebrew word  שׁוּבָה transliterated "shubah", meaning a return or a turning away from - is counted by God above as gold, silver, and precious stones.

I return home stronger, although despair and hopelessness still nip at my heels. I have seen redemption worked out in my life again, and I have lived to tell the story, I love to tell the story -  because I know 'tis true; it satisfies my longings as nothing else can do (I Love to Tell the Story, by Arabella Hankey, 1860's).

Are you dancing with your demons? Are you surrounded on every side? May the blanket of white snow that is Christ's covering salvation return your demons to dust, and may you find peace in the sanctification of the Holy Spirit. My prayer for myself, and for you.

"After"

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"

Magic mama

How many years have I stood amongst the carefully groomed rows of pines on this family farm, smelling evergreen as I suck oxygen, trying to keep upright and keep that smile on my face? It's not been easy, these last 5 years, plagued with illness, to keep up traditions. Maintain the magic. Be present with my children for each and every landmark of childhood when every cell in me is crying out for my down comforter and a long winter's nap.

Mary must have known this bone-deep fatigue, teetering atop the donkey all the way to Bethlehem, heavy with child. Holding a promise deep within, yet struggling in her humanity. Maybe it is this way for mothers everywhere. We know we must keep on, to savor the seasons with our offspring, to carry out His promise, one foot in front of the other.

So we trim the tree, hang the stockings, keep all the family traditions alive in spite of ourselves. Even something as simple as buying Little Debbie snack cakes and putting them on the snowman platter is enough to undo me sometimes in the late November dusk. But they are always there, and now they are a part, inexorably, runes of ritual for these four of mine. Be faithful in the little things, He said in the Gospels. Who knew He might mean Little Debbie cakes and decorating a tree? I feel sanctification growing up from my bones like hope from the spring eternal.

I can't ignore the reverence, pride on their faces when the living room is transformed. Every ornament, hung carefully - we huddled over it, remembering who gave it and when and why it is special. Tears flow over ornaments from loved ones passed on, favorites hung at the top of the tree in the "safe zone".

This is what has happened because of Cancer. Before, I was the methodical mother, practical, task-oriented. I used to clean in every spare moment, especially in the late afternoons. Now I am often in bed, recovering from something. Yesterday, we caught up on The Voice, all under my down comforter together, vivid conversation almost drowning out the power vocals streaming from the laptop on my desk. Last night, the man of the house on call and away to the wee hours, we staged a sleepover. Two in my room, and two in the front room, in front of the Christmas tree, chattering to each other until midnight.

Cancer turned me into a magical mama and their childhood is filled with wonder and memories of adventure and out-of-the-ordinary instead of me mopping floors and keeping a perfect house, a perfect homeschool. Cancer unlocked the door to some secret passageway in my heart - one that remembers the magic of childhood and lives it, with them.

Here's to wonder, during Advent and every day of our trialed years.

Written on Lisa-Jo's prompt, "Wonder"

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

He sees me on the path

It's made for work, the heavy leather of a saddle. Embossed with roses, a humble piece of equipment made beautiful. As am I, worker for the glory of Jesus, yet the jewel in His crown.

As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit. Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope; today I declare that I will restore to you double. Then the Lord will appear over them, and his arrow will go forth like lightning; the Lord God will sound the trumpet and will march forth in the whirlwinds of the south. The Lord of hosts will protect them, and they shall devour, and tread down the sling stones, and they shall drink and roar as if drunk with wine, and be full like a bowl, drenched like the corners of the altar. On that day the Lord their God will save them, as the flock of his people; for like the jewels of a crown they shall shine on his land. For how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty! (from Zechariah 9)

The scarlet of Christ's blood has washed me white as snow (Isaiah 1:18). Yet there are three stages to this salvation: redemption, sanctification, and glorification. Though He sees me through the image of Christ, and no longer will send me to the waterless pit as punishment for my sin - for I am the believer redeemed! - I walk now in the sometimes arid path of sanctification. I am the piece of metal, willful, sometimes wicked, hard and rough edged, in the refiner's fire. He is bending me like a bow to transform me into a weapon for His army. I feel the fibers of self as they break to bend, I feel every clang of the blacksmith's hammer on the metal of me fired red hot.

He sees me when my eyes are dead, when my sadness overcomes. When I am penitent and when I am simply overcome by my own blackness.

He sees me as I go about my work, and guides my hand as I bend to teach four young lives everything that is of Him, from the glorious infinity of math to the endless possibility of language and the beauty and variety of art.

He sees me when I bend in prayer, shape this body new on a rubber mat with my French hip hop blaring and my children dancing around my prone back bent like that bow He is forming me to be.

He sees me when I am dirtiest, inside or out. When I've labored hard only to discover a new crust of dirt that needs to be scrubbed with His fuller's soap. What once was filthy rags, He turns to silver and gold that will never perish in the testing fires of the judgment on those last days.

He sees me when I feel the rejection of the world, when I cling to cross and the crutches of my own making to forge ahead on the golden trail, lost in the woods of depression and shadow of memory.

He knows the peace and heartbreak that live together in the soul broken over beauty. He sees behind the closed eyes and knows the words stuck in the clenched lips, sees the heart that has been bruised and labeled and torn, sees the mind that races and craves and empties and fills.

He knows my crazy uniqueness. He sees beneath the hat brim covering face bent low. He pours out my tears when I squeeze eyelids tight, and bottles them forever like the precious perfume of obedience and repentance.

He loves me through hands and hearts of others, He clothes my nakedness with grace. He turns my sorrow into dancing, my suffering into glory, and leads me ever onward toward glorification, that glorious day when I will put off sin like a set of old bones, and walk into the double portion He promises for my sacrifice and pain.

Oh, how I long for that day when I am free as a six-year-old girl dancing in the clearing, jewelry snapping like castanets around the neck that scorned them for so long, a robe to replace the hoody I hid in for two decades.

He sees me and knows me, and has turned my wretchedness into unconquerable beauty and strength through the blood of the cross - redemption. He bends me and breaks me and gives me a sickly heart and cancer and a daughter who is damaged so that I might learn to put off self and put on Christ - sanctification. And someday, I'm going home to the land where there will be no more tears, where I'll carve my snowboard through clouds and sit on the singing stars and forever sing with them and the angels glory to His almighty name - glorification.

Oh, come Lord Jesus, come! (Revelation 22:20)

I need you to soften my heart 

To break me apart 

I need you to open my eyes 

To see that You're shaping my life

All I am, I surrender

Give me faith to trust what you say 

That you're good and your love is great 

I'm broken inside, I give you my life

I need you pierce through the dark 

And cleanse every part of me 

I may be weak 

Your spirit's strong in me 

My flesh may fail 

My God you never will 

~Give Me Faith, Elevation Worship~

Linking up to Bonnie and Ann today,
amazed I'll get to see them both next week!:

Sweet dreams

We cover up for some rest.

Close our eyes.

The breathing slows...

And sometimes sleep is sweet.

And sometimes it isn't.

Right now my sleep, when it comes, is the playground for dark dreams.

And if your strife strikes at your sleep

Remember spring swaps snow for leaves

You'll be happy and wholesome again

When the city clears and sun ascends

~Winter Winds, Mumford & Sons~

It's no fun to be in dark places.

But here is where sanctification happens,

when we fall in love all over again

with the God who preserves us even when He doesn't rescue us.

Here's to the soon coming of spring.

Please don't hit me when I'm down

It is hard, hard, hard to have cancer for 2 1/2 years and not be healed. I have heard from so many - even those I trust and love - rebuke instead of grace and love. Yet the Bible is so clear: the faithful suffer - Job, Paul, Jesus. Suffering - even big, huge, one-upon-another trials - is not in and of itself a sign of sin. There are nights I lay awake, laying my heart bare before the Lord in prayer. Spending hours in the living room trying not to disturb my family as I pore over Scripture and weep into my Bible. Is this my fault? Could I solve this problem somehow, through my own actions? Do I need to increase my faith? Change a sin habit? Let God "in" somewhere I have hedged Him out of? At times, I've had to table the issue, lay it to the side, and just put one foot in front of the other.

Not only have we been asked to live with cancer. To watch our daughter brought to death's door and come out of a devastating illness with injuries that may last her whole lifetime. To walk the daily walk of those suffering illness...a wife who hates resting spending countless hours unable to lift herself from her bed. A husband doing dishes and laundry instead of pursuing hobbies or his own chores around the house. Children who have a mortal dread of the hospital and emergency room, because they've been there countless times to visit, watching the adults they love and trust crying out to Jesus for healing that does not come. There is little that is fun about this life. There is joy, yes - but entertainment seems like a distant memory from the past. Daily we sacrifice to learn through this trial.

We've given up so much more. We've had to walk away from relationships we treasure because of our inability to see eye to eye any longer on this issue. Suffering is not popular in a pop Christianity culture. It isn't easy to explain. There's no 30 second sound byte that encompasses this issue. It's hard to preach that people may have to lay their lives down for the sake of the Cross. Are we willing to put feet to the words of I Corinthians 4:12? ...we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure. We've found comfort in our darkest days in the amazing growth God has provided through this string of trials. There are few we know who understand the place He has brought us to.

"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." ~ Charles Spurgeon

We've all been guilty of judging others. At times, we have to vote with our feet, and that inevitably involves decision-making, judgments, discernment. What if we confined our judgments to our own actions, and kept them out of our words? How many wounds would we avoid inflicting on those we love? God says not to judge others now...it's not time yet! Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God. (I Corinthians 4:5) It's of note to me that this verse ends with us receiving commendation from God, not condemnation. Didn't He already mete out the condemnation to the One who hung on the cross? And how can we discern what happens in the hearts of others? We can barely make those calls about our own hearts - knowing our internal monologue, struggles, and victories.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. ~excerpted from Romans 8

The miracle of this is that I can let loose my expectations of human relationships, and let go of my guilt for cancer and my daughter's illness and our continued trials, because I am free in Christ and I am loved by Christ. He satisfies what no man can, He heals what no medicine can, He loves when all others cry condemnation. If I die alone in this world, yet clinging to Christ, I will die rich. It will be worth it all. All the suffering, the sacrifice, the anguish, the Bible pages bled through with tears and the nights of lost sleep and the pain and the bone-numbing fatigue. All this is so much less than what He silently suffered for me, before I ever praised His name or lived a day for His glory.

What if we all chose to follow Christ, keeping our eyes FIXED on the prize, not watching our brother's footsteps to make sure he, too, is trodding the sacred path? (Hebrews 12:2) How much more we might accomplish for Christ's glory...and how much less we might hurt those believers among us who are already knocked down in the battle!

Life on the beach

It seems like such an odd place to make a home, yet there they are... thousands of blow holes in the rutted sand where the crabs make their homes deep.  The tides come in and go out, and leave patterns on the sand, yet the crabs hold on tight in the hole they've dug, eat what comes to them, and are perfectly suited to an environment of muck that would detest your average world citizen.

We walked a mile or so of the beach without the children one afternoon, hand in hand.  The difficulties of the week and the friction from separation washed away slowly as the waves lapped at our feet and we padded along on the granite-hard sand, packed by wave after wave.  Kind of like trials.  Those waves reduce the sand to it's minimum volume.  Wash away the dross of whatever sand refuses to be packed down.  Slowly erode the flatness of the beach with the tenacity and repetition only an ocean can boast.  We've been beaten down like that, Aaron and I.  Reduced to our minimum volume, the parts that refuse to submit slowly washed away, the weak parts eroded.  The sand of this beach used to be soft, may be soft again, I suppose...a playground for beach volleyball enthusiasts looking for a soft landing and some recreation.  But at the moment it's a hard packed road where no tracks are left behind.  It's a harsh strand of land.  Not a recreational destination.

Even on the hard-pack, He leaves little notes of beauty.  The funny curly lines between the crab's blow holes, a hash pattern of almost feminine beauty.  The straight marks in criss-crossed pattern where shells have rolled along the packed sand, leaving white trails where their sharp edges dug in as they were pulled back out to sea.  Iridescent bubbles floating along the remnants of surf in the tidal pools.  It isn't a desolate beach.  It isn't even uninteresting. 

Birds circle the beach, searching for prey.  Crabs and snails stranded, a fish if they get lucky.  From the air, their harsh calls criticize.  We've heard the birds circling our beach, the beach of marriage and love and life that has been packed hard by the relentless trials.  All kinds of harsh bird calls come our way, asking why we don't pick up and move, change something, get away from the waves.  Sometimes they even pluck things that we call treasures off our beach, carry them away, gobble them up.  Some question why the waves are so relentless here, why they come at all.  Isn't there something we can do?  If we were really devout Christians, wouldn't we be planted in a safe harbor somewhere?  As we are beat and washed and watch our treasures carried away by the waves, there is a sense of smallness, even sometimes hopelessness.  Yet there is rest, in the beat and retreat of each wave, when you truly feel the mighty hand of God.  His rest is not always peace, happiness, quietness, or assurance.  I found it, a grain of sand on an endless beach of human suffering, in finally learning who I am.  Redeemed, yes...by Him. Saved, yes...by His power.  Assured, yes...but only of heaven.  Prosperous, yes...if only in the jewels of my crown, never to be seen until that great day when we are brought home forever to heaven, where waves will never again drag away the dross, when the process  of reducing my self to minimum volume is complete.  Who am I to shake my fist at a Creator who planted me on an unprotected shore where the waves never stop coming?  Who are we, as Christian community, to say that the only logical home for Christians is in a harbor somewhere?

I rest beneath the waves.  I let go of my tight fists and let Satan pull away those parts of self and mind and body that will not submit to the forces condensing me.  Somewhere above, beyond the crash of the never-ending surf and the cackle of the birds, I hear the deep bass of a rotor beat.  The God of the universe is on patrol. While I lie beneath the waves, I may be bruised, perplexed, persecuted, struck down.  But He will never let me be crushed, abandoned, destroyed or in despair.  (II Corinthians 4)