The road ahead

Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted. (Sylvia Plath)

I've fallen for the promise of a mirage a hundred times. Ran toward it, only to have it escape me like a handful of smoke or dreams. And so I've learned to live here in the now instead of staring at the road ahead. I suppose graduate school trained me to always look ahead - and of course, work demands it, too. Life demands it. But not every moment of every day.

I used to daydream while I worked. My mind rarely came back although my hands were hard at work. I watch my students, in the lab practicing skills, in clinical helping real people. It's all so new to them, they are completely absorbed by the mental part of the task before them.

I teach them life is messy, even nursing. It's better to make a mess on the floor and clean it up later than it is to endanger a patient. I think this goes for all of life: people, relationships, they are always paramount. When I was a young mom, I had to have a perfectly clean house to have a friend over. How many visits did I miss because I was focused on the mess on the floor instead of the face of the person begging for my attention?

The children come with when we go to the lab on weekends. They take blood pressures, they do CPR, they like to put tubes in and out of the "fake people". It is their favorite place at the university (well, maybe 2nd only to the vending machines). They are here in the now but also hard at work on their futures.

I am on a road to change. I can see the vista in front of me is quite different than I imagined. And the mirage? Yes, I'm tempted to run pell-mell toward it, leaving all else behind. But this time I'm wiser, older. I'm walking slowly, testing it out. Is the freedom and peace I seek really there in front of me? Or is it perhaps beside me in these moments, just waiting for me to notice.

Upside down and backwards

Do you ever look down and see the stars beneath your feet? Do you ever look up and see your feet? Does your world ever get that confused?

Sometimes I think I look for alien landscapes through my camera lens because they seem the most familiar. Living the charmed life in a first world country, with husband, house, and (okay a few more than the requisite 1.5 kids and a dog) children and pets. How could I possibly be confused about who I am and where I'm supposed to be?

Life does not follow the charted line like a map. It's a poem in the midst of it's writing, a novel without an ending, a movie whose whole plot will be forever defined by the happily ever after or bittersweet that comes in the final scene. I suspect most people live happily with that ambiguity. Otherwise I wouldn't feel so alone.

Worst of all, sometimes I'm afraid I'm confusing everyone else just because I'm confused. My daughter comes into my room this afternoon with her punk rocker haircut, her flannel lumberjack shirt (her favorite) and skinny jeans. She's sad, her eyes say it all. They never want to play my game, she laments. And as I look at her pout and wonder what to say, I realize I am less alone than I think. "Do you ever feel like no one understands you?" I ask her, gathering her beanpole frame into a hug. She nods into my shoulder. "I feel that way today, too. How about if we cuddle and see if that makes us both feel better?" And so, in the midst of the mess and the schedules and the work to be done, I took a nap with my youngest daughter. The one whose brain infection has made her an entirely different - and wonderful - child.

I wish I could tell her it will be okay. That it's okay to feel like you don't belong. That you'll be a great person anyway. I could tell her all those things - but they're aren't whole truths. In reality, it hurts to feel alone. There are times you would sell all you have to be able to look into someone's eyes and be known all the way down to the last particle. Known - and loved.

As I undress memories I've hidden in the darkest corners, so sure no one could understand, so sure no one would love me if they knew...it is a confusing time. I am back in touch with all the ways my life hasn't fit in, hasn't been accepted, hasn't been loved. I feel it tinging my days, that old familiar sensation that what is and what could be are so vastly different.

Revisiting confessions

Guilt, shame, despair, grief. Emotions entangle and threaten to drown out hope. Haven't I been here before? Haven't I confessed these sins?

Yes, I have. And He says they're forgotten and washed white as snow. Why, then, does my heart still bleed dark red sin, spewing a history, a litany of unforgivable details onto the fresh snow of today's vista?

But are you living with guilt that doesn't belong to you? You say, "Look at what I did! I deserve to feel guilty. I knew better, but I did it anyway." So you pound yourself with guilt and condemnation. It may be guilt for recent sins or for sins of the past. What does God say about this guilt? Romans 8:1 makes a simple declaration—“There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” So why the confusion? Christians live with guilt that doesn't belong to them? We live by our feelings instead of God's truth. When we feel the flood of guilt, we assume God agrees with our feelings. "I deserve to carry this guilt. Look at what I did! How terrible!" Once we have confessed our sin, God will no longer use guilt or condemnation to remind us of our past. He wants us to enter His freedom, His peace-completely free of condemnation. The familiar and much loved promise of John 3:16 is followed by this powerful declaration. Jesus said, "For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned." (John 3:17-18a NIV) True guilt is designed to lead us to repentance which leads us to God's peace in our hearts. So why do I Still Feel Guilty? The enemy-Satan-wants to rob you of God's peace and joy. He comes with false guilt, which feels exactly the same as true guilt from God. So how can I know if I'm feeling true guilt from God or false guilt? How do I know if I'm living with guilt that doesn't belong to me? You must use God's truth to evaluate your feelings of guilt. You must examine your heart and ask, "Have I truly repented of my sins?" You may want to write down the specific memory that is flooding you with guilt. Then put it to the truth test. Have I already confessed this sin? When did I confess it? Was I truly sincere? Have I been completely honest with God? If the answer to all these is "yes," then you can stand on the promises of 1 John 1:9 and John 8:36. If you confess your sins, He promises to forgive and cleanse you-not 2 months from now-immediately. If you have any doubt about the sincerity of your previous confession-confess it again and then instantly claim God's peace and forgiveness. (from Living Free)
 

Living by my feelings instead of the Truth. Wow. Does that describe the month I've had, or what! Feelings, feelings, feelings. Truth feels like an amorphous fog in a dark room. I can't grasp it. Can't ground myself with it.

I read these...John 3:16, Romans 8:1, John 8:36; I John 1:9. There is one thing I haven't done, though I've wanted to for over a year. There is one person I harmed that I could not say "I'm sorry" to. Regardless of this, I have to grip the TRUTH that I have been forgiven. I acknowledge the guilt, the shame, the despair - but I will not walk as though they rule my world. They don't. He does. And HE has set me free.

So walk free...
I can put one foot in front of the other...
Someday, I'll truly walk into His freedom.
Today, all I can say is that I'm walking down that path.

I have failed you, I have failed you

I have lost my way, lost my nerve

I’ve failed you

 

But I love you, how I love you

I have turned my back, left you last

but I love you

 

O setting sun don’t sink before I’ve found my heart

Heart don’t give up now while there’s still time

Time don’t beat your old retreat stay a little while with me

til I’ve looked the whole thing in the eye

 

I have waited, I have waited

for the big reveal, the even keel

I have waited

 

But there’s no one who makes it all come true

Just altars gathering dust while we bow to them

O night bring all your shadows and your silence

Silence make a hostage of my mind

Mind bring on your trickery

Black dogs nip on at my heels

til i’ve looked the whole thing in the eye

 

Swing low, sail high

 

All my days will rearrange to say I love you

O setting sun don’t weep for all the things you lose

morning comes as sure as it must die

dying is such mystery

yet I wonder will it be

when I’ve looked the whole thing in the eye

~Swing Low, Sail High, The Wailin' Jennys~
 

Wrestling the void

Sometimes it seems that I will be eternally stuck in Ecclesiastes.

The deepest and wisest thinker on earth seemed to be able to at last free himself from the tears over all the sorrows and fears of all the tomorrows and eat, drink and be merry. I am still in the working it out phase. But I understand when he declares all life meaningless. I so get that. I get it so much I run from it. I'd rather be a sobbing mess than a devil-may-care meaningless.

I have two mysterious dry patches on my cheeks where tears have too often pooled over the past week. I've dropped a quick 10 pounds. Yesterday in class I was on a panel of professors and had to tell about the most painful or scary medical error I'd committed. {That was fun.} Today I sat with my friend as we read through her pathology report. She asked me why some people just never seem to catch a break. I shook my head, and more tears. What answer have I? All I have an answer for is the hope I have, not an answer for catching breaks. 

I sit down on the cold walnut piano bench every night, no matter how late. I sing the songs, no matter how high, no matter how my voice breaks. It seems natural that it should break. Because I'm weeping words really, just set to music. My fingers are stringing together a prayer, a lament, a whisper, a groan, a feeling, a question in the crescendo and decrescendo of notes forming diminished chords and minor thirds. Father, I come, quiet my soul...Everything I once held dear, I count it all as lost...Lead me to your heart through my darkest hour...

And next comes November.

My soul is weak

My heart is numb

I cannot see

But still my hope is found in You

I’ll hold on tightly

You will never let me go

For Jesus, You will never fail

Jesus, You will never fail

Simply to the cross I cling

Letting go of all earthly things

Clinging to the cross

Mercy’s found a way for me

Hope is here as I am free

Jesus, You are all I ever need

and I am clinging to the cross

Even darkness is as light to You, my Lord

So light the way and lead me home

To that place where every tear is wiped away

For Jesus, You will never fail

Jesus, You will never fail

What a Savior, what a mystery,

You were crucified, but now You are alive...

Voicelessness

I wake up with my hair on fire

I need something to water me down

I can’t keep walking on this wire

I gotta move, I gotta come around

~from Only Love, Grace Potter~

I am comfortable with the short end of the stick when it comes to emotions. I am practiced at numb, I am good at comfortable, I've made my peace with distant. I am in a recovery group called "Wounded Heart" for abuse, and the stronger emotions are there on my list. Anger. Disgust. Passion. Delight. Joy. I wake up with my hair on fire, and I need something to water me down. It's not the shower I often forego to tend the children needy around me. It's not some emotional salve I've bought in this world. It's the Word, washing away the torrent of my anger and my fears.

I sit in a friend's church and listen to a sermon on the Beatitudes. And the passage I am memorizing rises out of the red letters like a sentinel flag of freedom:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you." (Matthew 5:9-12)

Peacemaker. It's been one of my "labels" since childhood. Always, always I try to find a way to make peace. Even if it means placing contempt on myself, taking blame, shifting it onto my shoulders, freeing others from it.

I am also an expert at compassion. I learned it as a nurse, but built brick walls between the compassion I felt and the tragedy of others. Sparing my own heart. Keeping my wounds silent, secret, fulminating in their dark places where only God and I could see the depth of the pain in my soul. I have known compassion as a mother, and I've gone about it methodical - what is your problem and how can I fix you? I haven't sat in emotion with my kids. I regret the moments I've been nurse/mother instead of mother, the hen who gathers her chicks and dries tears as tears slide down her own feathered face, regretted the ache of my children that I cannot join, for fear of cracking open a box grown pregnant and dangerous with years of keeping the lid on it.  I don't join in emotion with my husband, except for those God-given moments of married oneness when often it is tears, tears I know not whether they are of joy or sorrow or repentance or miracle. When he is angry, I am calm. When I feel rejected, I pile it onto my shoulders like the embers of the past, burning but burning on calloused skin, skin leathery and impenetrable from years of piling on embers and scarring the shoulders.

I've heard the whistle in an empty bottleneck that breathes life into the truth that I cannot comfort myself. I've bathed myself in the carcinogenic smoke billowing from my cigarette, a sorry patch for the anxiety of spirit deep within. I've seen the despair in the empty bottom of a pill bottle, knowing the false peace offered there has expired until the next refill date.

Now, I watch the man stumbling home from the bar where he nurses his wounds, and I wonder if he hears the empty whistle of the bottle just emptied, if the wounds are already seeping darkness back into his soul as he staggers home incoherent.

I watch the smokers huddled in groups outside buildings where their self-medication is not welcome, and wonder if they feel like rejects, know that this quick kill of pain will dissipate in seconds and leave them marooned on their island of no hope.

I take my antidepressant faithfully and wait for the monthly refill.

In the midst of it, my hair is on fire. I feel angry. I feel grief, deep grief like the grief when someone dies and you cannot be with them and it kills you second by second as the wracking sobs herald your powerlessness. I've felt passion unfulfilled and hatred at those who won't fulfill it.

I am on fire.

Your pain seems insignificant in the grand spectrum of the world, of reality, of history. Japan washed over with waves of devastation, and you bring your paltry sorrow to the Mercy Seat? You ask for justice when others mourn what was taken by a force of nature, something they never saw coming, the grief penetrable, visible in every picture emerging from a nation wracked with grief? You cry over your miscarriage. You ask for justice in your city. You beg for Him to take your cause in a meaningless dispute? Yet He is God who hears all, loves all, and is forever the protector of justice and love.

Yet silent. Hand over mouth, trying to put the cap back on the bottle of emotion, trying to figure out where God intends me to spill this. Where does this emotion fit, in a world of Godly mothering, wifing, friending, daughtering?

It comes to me like an epiphany through the mist on the roadside and the mournful drip of the snow through the trees as winter breathes it's last mournful foggy breath into the warm wind of spring.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of need. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. Be still, and know that I am God. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. (from Psalm 46)

I remember the song sung in clear sweet soprano at the funeral of a child for whom I let down the brick walls built to protect my compassionate heart, a child who walked fearlessly through the gates of death and into the arms of Jesus, right in front of my eyes.

Be still and know that He is God

Be still and know that He is holy

Be still, O restless soul of mine

Bow before the Prince of peace

Let the noise and clamor cease

Be still and know that He is God

Be still and know that He is faithful

Consider all that He has done

Stand in awe and be amazed

And know that He will never change

Be still

Be still, and know that He is God

Be still; Be speechless

Be still and know that He is God

Be still and know He is our Father

Come rest your head upon His breast

Listen to the rhythm of His unfailing heart of love

Beating for His little ones

Calling each of us to come

Be still, Be still

~Be Still and Know, Steven Curtis Chapman~

When you feel powerless. When you feel rejected. When you feel like you have completely lost your voice. When there is nothing you can say to fix it, to make it better, to make it right. When there is nothing you can do to destroy the lies being spread around. When you feel vulnerable. When you feel weak. When your passion brews up a smoking, billowing fire of anguish deep in your soul.

You have a voice.

You are not powerless.

You are right. You can't fix it.

Sit there. Feel it. Let it sink in.

And know there is always someone listening.

Always someone who will have His revenge for the righteous.

Always someone standing for the victim.

Always someone participating in your pain.

You are not alone.

Your voice cries loud to heaven, to the One who hears. Your spirit groans when words fail you, and the Holy Spirit transmutes those wordless depths to the One who hears (Romans 8:26). The One who cares. The One whose holiness takes your speechlessness and turns it into the power of life itself (II Corinthians 12:9).

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)

Echo in a dark valley

There is no end to this story

No final tragedy or glory

Love came here and never left

Now that my heart is open

It can't be closed or broken

Love came here and never left

Now I'll have to live with loving you forever

There's nothing here to throw away

I came to you in the light of day

and Love came here and never left

Christ-ones see echoes of Christ in the ashes everywhere. This song by the dark, beautiful, belated Lhasa de Sela would be my song to my Savior. She speaks elsewhere of le Diable j'ai choisi le plus (the Devil I have chosen, "La Confession") and Je n'ai pas peur de dire que tu me fais peur avec ton espoir et ton grand sens de l'honneur ("I am not afraid to tell you that you scare me with your Hope and your huge sense of honor").

Road trips to and from Rochester provided lots of time to listen to music - and lots of time to ponder what to listen to when children listen along. I grew up on a steady diet of jazz, classical, and sacred hymns, and infused that mix myself with everything secular I could get my hands on by middle school. Believe it or not, Christian music was worse in the 1990's than it is now. There are few musicians - even today - who play contemplative, jazz-infused music, with the possible (and notable) exception of J.J. Heller, who is overplayed because of her unique offering. Her music is similar to the strangely laissez faire but sunshine-infused Indie soundtrack of Juno. A young pastor reflects on the plethora of poor quality Christian music releases and ultimately quotes Madeleine L'Engle:

If it's bad art, it's bad religion, no matter how pious the subject.

Ultimately, God assures us that, if Christians are silent and void of praise, even the rocks will cry out! Is it too difficult to draw connections, then, between the lyrics of secular artists and the great Truth of the universe? So, what makes the mix at our home? There is a lot of the blues, a lot of jazz, some country, even some metal and rap. Who knew that Bible verses are paraphrased by Linkin Park ("I will never be anything 'til I break away from me"), Pearl Jam works faith out on their knees, and former-rebel Sinead O'Connor is now putting Psalms to melody?

Where do you hear the echoes of God's Word? What blasphemy do you deny access to your home, the ears of your children? Do you have a favorite radio station or music mix? Those who listen to secular music may appreciate the Glimpses of God column from Christianity Today as a place to start discovering hidden sheaves of wheat among the tares of the music scene.

When mourning chills again

I don’t think the book of Job is about suffering as a theoretical problem — why do the righteous suffer? I think it’s about suffering as a practical problem — when (not if) the righteous suffer, what does God expect of them? And what he expects is trust. When the righteous cannot connect the realities of their experience with the truths of God, then God is calling them to trust him that there is more to it than they can see. As with Job, there is a battle being fought in the heavenlies.

Trust in God, not explanations from God, is the pathway through suffering.

~ Ray Ortlund on the Book of Job

I cannot connect the reality of this experience to truths of God that I hoped for in this circumstance - mercy, hope, love, joy, peace. My spirit shrinks from the idea that it reflected justice, sovereignty, some unknown grace. I still can't bring myself to throw away this pregnancy test, nor the note that accompanied it. I found it perched on the same window sill, where it was abandoned as I rushed Amelia to the hospital with encephalomyelitis the very day after I took the test. I returned home from surgery, the remains of my baby neatly excised, slice, and stored in paraffin wax blocks. And there it was: unmistakable proof that it wasn't a bad dream, it wasn't just a mistake or a test. It was my reality. A miracle...and a mirage...a magnality...and a manqué. Yesterday I spent much of the day processing again, and wondering why it just won't go away. Wishing I could shrug pain and memory off my shoulders like the shroud it resembles. Wishing it never happened. Wondering what pain will enter in next.

I walked into Saver's on Friday, on a mission to find something for the a fun weekend in Ashland with my brother and sister-in-law. On a whim, I prayed as I walked in the door - for cross country ski boots with a three-pin binding pattern. For under $5. After searching the store unsuccessfully for both items I was in search of, I found these hideous blue cross country boots in the bottom of a barrel full of skis. To tell the truth, I don't even know why I looked there. But I did, and there they were. Perfect size, perfect fit, perfect binding system, but with no price tag. I brought them to the front and the clerk priced them at $2.99. Just a little wink from the heavens, one of those thousands of ways I mentioned last week, the ways that God proves himself to me. I suppose I could embark on my first voyage in these boots assuming that I will break my leg. After all, I do eat too much and I'm probably out of shape, and I suppose it could be justice or sovereignty for me to break my leg. Against the odds, I instead feel a sense of hope.

He's unpredictable, this God I serve. Some days the gifts crowd around my soul, and I am warmed and filled by God's goodness, grace, extravagance, mercy. On others, it is losses that creep in and I look around and see ghosts and pale shadows, dust and cobwebs and bottles of tears, and I see God's shoulders and back instead of His face. I emerge slowly from that cold place, and the chill remains on me for a time. I think it is simply the chill of death and grief and separation. While my lips praise the God who saved me from these things in eternity, my body mourns the losses that are still the consequence of the sins of this wandering soul and the entire world.

I choose, simply and quietly and sometimes even resignedly, to trust in God. Not in explanations. Explanations fade and are lost when the circumstances of today are but a thin memory. God will never fade, nor forsake, nor fail.

Even now my witness is in heaven; my advocate is on high.

My intercessor is my friend as my eyes pour out tears to God...

(Job 16:19-20)

Nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

~ written by a sinner like me::Leonard Cohen, 1981

Today I am comforted by other struggling sinners, and the Word that washes away fear and doubt. Fullers' soap strips me bare: scours, scrubs, bleaches, and beats me. But leaves me clean.

But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:

Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the LORD of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.

Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. (from Malachi 3)

Shaking things up

Here once the Deluge plowed,

Laid the terraces, one by one;

Ebbing later whence it flowed,

They bleach and dry in the sun.

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson, My Garden

The sun-bleached images of late winter wash over my soul and reveal the new structure God has built in the last few months.  New terraces for hope and solace.  New supports for faith and fear - the good kind of fear, the fear that is awe of the Holy.  I am pondering Haiti, and disasters, and what they tell us about the face of the God we cannot see.  What does it mean to be planted in a prosperous culture, and what is our burden as Christians...even as people with humanity and empathy...to do for those who suffer great losses with few resources for recovery?

The mass grave I visited in El Salvador comes to mind in strobe-like flashes, images I'll never get rid of.  I remember the late night up watching the personal video one parishioner shot as they attempted to dig his wife and son out of the rubble.  I remember how deeply I felt how little I had to offer, despite my training and prosperity and faith.  The incalculable loss still weighs heavy.  I remember open fractures I feebly tried to cast four months after the fact.  I remember gangrene, and pain, and a woman with a baby inside her swollen abdomen that had been dead for at least a month.  My body hasn't carried those burdens.  It's quite possible it never will.  But I carry the burdens of all those people in my soul, in my mind.  Turning them over like confusing little stones I've picked up along the way, stones I can't fathom the origin of, stones I can't find a place for in my brain.  I have no way to categorize or make sense of tragedy on this scale.

We are fundraising, in February, to support a mission team from our city that will make several trips to provide medical care to the Haitians.  I would have gone, in years past.  Now I will work hard with other talents to send others.  It's a hard thing to do, because I so desire to go with.  Anyone who has known the exponential spiritual growth and level of connection with God that mission work sometimes brings will understand why.  Yet right now He calls me to be faithful at home.

How to face the Creator who spared but one family from the great flood?  The Creator who leveled Sodom and Gommorah, and followed through on His promise to turn any one who looked back into a pillar of salt?  What questions could I possibly bring to the Throne regarding Haiti, when that Throne issued the downfall of countless cities and tells us to watch for famines and earthquakes as His return grows near?  Some days, I distinctly dislike serving the awesome God I serve.  I wish He were a little less awesome, a little less flamboyant, a little less sure of Himself.  A little less "God" and a little more human.  I remember thinking the same thing about my parents in my teens - "seriously, can you tone it down a bit guys?  You're embarrassing me here!"  But that is the very thing that demands my respect, demands my praise.  God doesn't apologize for who He is.  He is not a cuddly teddy bear God.  He is a just God who will do whatever it takes to draw a sinful creation back in for the hug you're afraid to accept.  For me, the tug on my heart is to worship and repent.  The tug is also to remember that my days - and the days of us all - are not numbered by us; they are numbered by God, and we know from the recorded history of man that they are, indeed, like a vapor (James 4:14).  My head is spinning today as I contemplate this nugget I came across on the Mars Hill blog:  Do you presume on the riches of His kindness, forbearance, and patience, not knowing that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?  (Romans 2:4)  As I contemplate Haiti and all the disasters that have come to pass just in my lifetime alone, it is hard to say I believe in a merciful, loving God.  My only answer is that I know in my heart it is true, it breathes of the deepest truth, deep down in the soul.  Yet, ...my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.  (Isaiah 55:8)

I am seriously thinking of switching us to rice and beans for a few weeks in honor of the Haitians and their traditional diet, now forced by poverty.  We'd probably save a few hundred dollars to donate. We'll see what my husband - the carnivore of the family - has to say about that! Anyone want to join me, and put the proceeds to Samaritan's Purse?

Reconciling a complicated God

I was in too much pain to sleep, so I read Jeremiah.

Behold, I will lay before this people stumbling blocks, blocks against which they shall stumble; fathers and sons together, neighbor and friend shall perish. Rejected silver they are called, for the Lord has rejected them...the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of His wrath. (6:21, 30; 7:29)

In times of sorrow, suffering, anger, questioning, how do I reconcile verses like these with verses on which I lean on for strength:

• Behold, I will never leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5b);
  
• Blessed is he whose sins are forgiven, who trespasses are not counted against him (Psalm 32:12);
• though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me (Psalm 23:4);
• the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6)
• 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. (Romans 8:38-39)

How is that the same God we worship for His mercy, love, grace, self-sacrifice, joy, kindness, beauty also be the God who rejects, destroys, causes us to stumble, is angry, just, and perfect?

Am I so arrogant as to think that my sin is forgotten because of any merit of my own? Rather, it is because the Father's gaze is fixed on Christ's sacrifice rather than my piddly, proud, pinching, puny and palinological sin!

Confusing, so confusing. Comments would be much appreciated!