Winter white

It's April and the snow just keeps coming. I can't escape the analogies out my window every day. Snow covering mud, the old deer carcass on the front lawn, the mighty roaring rivers through the culverts from all the melting. Snow settles over all and the earth quiets and stills beneath her blanket. All ugliness is forgotten and lies buried invisible again.

Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause. “Come now, let us reason together," says the Lord: "though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be eaten by the sword; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” (Isaiah 1:16-20)

The red road to Galilee is covered with white. The bloodiness of weeks past is covered over by God's infinite grace.

Choices monumental mark this road of forgiveness. Will I accept it, as freely as it was offered? Can I find the strength to seek joy and to do good, to turn from my own oppression and free others in the turning? 

Easter in the snowdrifts. Bright colors dancing across the white driveway up to family celebration. I can hear each tiny snow crystal hit the ground, dance up off it and fall again to become part of the earth's down comforter on April 11th. Slowly each little crystal melts from the warmth of the earth below, and all become one, and then will be the melting, and the joining with the roaring rivers through the culverts and rushing out onto the fields to make ready for planting. I long to join. To become one with the One great love our world has known. To rush out to make ready for the planting and the harvest. I turn quiet and stoic, exhausted but ready. For such a time as this I have endured.

Soul notes

Behold, I have not given you a spirit of fear, but of peace. (II Timothy 1:7)

When I am an old woman

and you come

my skin will be as wrinkled as cottonwood bark

each groove a story, a scar

battlewounds of the war

and you will see my pain

like a roadmap across my body

and you and I will both wonder

how one could walk 

through fire

and only get this burned

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

When I am an old woman

and you come

my eyes will be transparent

windows to the soul

and in the brown will be peace

forgiveness love

each wrinkle written on my skin

transmuted into blessing

and you and I will both wonder

how one could walk

through fire

and never lose hope

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~
 

Keeping the critics

Criticism is poison dart whose effects linger long after the words are slung. Some bloggers call their critics "trolls", and disregard them or even unpublish their comments. I'm just not comfortable operating that way, in a rainbow world where I've skewed reality in my favor, keeping only those who agree with me around.

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That doesn't make criticism any easier to handle, though. I went looking for advice last week as I tried to sort through some criticism, and several wise friends told me to look for the nugget of truth in the muddy mess before cleaning it up. I found it, thought about it all week, and I think it will affect how I write and think in the future. The next step is forgiveness for the hurt that accompanies receiving criticism - and hopefully forgiveness on the part of the person who I offended. Colossians 3:13 says, "Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive."

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Criticism comes and goes. And there are certainly people who "troll" blogs just to stir up trouble. How do you handle criticism of your writing - your life? Does it make a difference to you whether the critic is an "IRL" friend or a random blog reader?

It's the little things that make or break us - Life:UNMASKED

There are times when you carry on. And times when you don't. All through my doctoral studies, it was a mixture of this...a push/pull of carrying on and giving in, as I struggled through cancer, adjusted to life with a child with significant special needs, and attempted to keep up with my studies all the while. Then there was that moment, May 18, 2012, in the humid South Carolina air, when two esteemed professors lifted the velvet and satin hood up and over my shoulders and pronounced me "doctor". It took longer than expected, but I still got to that crowning moment, despite the many times when I couldn't carry on at all.

One would think my trials were over. After all, I hit cancer remission in February, and I, foolishly, thought this would mean smooth sailing in the health department. Ummm, not so much! Radiation and the damage of cancer itself still lingers in the body past that arbitrary date when the doctor tells you there is no longer evidence of the tumor itself, and I found myself battling bouts of pneumonia throughout the spring and summer.

The lowest of low came on my eldest daughter's ninth birthday. I felt as though I earned the "Worst Mom of the Year Award" as I told her, with tears streaming down my cheeks, that she would either have to celebrate her birthday party without me present, or we would have to cancel and reschedule the whole thing. We had planned a big bash at the local minor league baseball game, and she was to throw out the hallowed first pitch of the game. But there wasn't a moment of hesitation between my tearful explanation and her emphatic answer: if it couldn't be celebrated with me present, she wanted to postpone it. So, instead of celebrating at the ballpark on the sunny August afternoon, she snuggled in bed with me all day, me wheezing and coughing from pneumonia, taking inhalers and praying for rest between bouts of coughing fits, and she perfectly content to spend the day just how she spent her very first birthday - cuddling close to Mama, no matter how "unlovable" I felt at the moment.

Now the day approaches for her "make-up" birthday party, and once again, I am under the weather. I had an unexpected root canal yesterday, and for reasons unknown to my dentist, they are never able to successfully anesthetize my lower jaw, so I underwent the procedure without Novacaine. Who would think that a procedure on a TOOTH would nearly incapacitate me with pain, even the next day? I am skeptical about tomorrow as well - the day of the much lauded party!

As I rub the sore jaw and take pain meds, mulling this over and planning how to go about baking cupcakes and preparing party favors in between my work hours today and tomorrow, I am comforted by a much-loved passage of Scripture that reminds me that even my tiny TEETH have a function and are part of a smoothly functioning whole. I am reminded that they are numbered and counted precious by my Maker, and that He cares that I am in pain today. And here, on the precipice where life feels utterly unmanageable, He is ready to shoulder the load of my cares, and to walk with me under this Cross, however silly a Cross it may seem.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (I Corinthians 12:21-27)

Hosting Life: UNMASKED for Joy in This Journey today. Joy is in Sri Lanka with World Vision; be sure to visit her blog to see all the posts from the blogging team and keep up with their amazing trip!

Did you write a Life:Unmasked post this week (if you’re not sure what that is, go here to read more)? Link your post below (direct links to Life:Unmasked posts only – all others will be deleted). Please include the link back to this post in your post, http://ow.ly/di8oR and invite others to join in. The more the merrier!  Feel free to copy the button code below to add the Life: UNMASKED image to the bottom of your post. When you’ve linked up, try to visit at least two of the other posts linked below and leave a comment. I will do the same!

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Stretching toward each other

It will be their 39th anniversary in a week. I remember nights from my childhood when they fought. My dad's temper flaring, my mom refusing to be a doormat. Somewhere along the way, my dad pinned up verses, a poem, an Ann Landers column, faded newsprint now, hanging like flypaper from the bookshelves right above his computer. Those thin papers have been there for years. You wouldn't think something so insignificant could change a man's heart. But slowly his tongue softened, his words melted, and the space between them shrank. Oh, he still flares up sharp when things aren't planned out just right. But one look from my mother, and he begins to concede, backpeddling, trying to take it back right while they are still talking it over.

My husband swears. A lot. I wish he didn't. And I pull away, push away even, glare with my sharp brown eyes, chastise him without words. I like to think I never put him down in front of the kids, as if they can't read eyes as well as words. But I'm fooling myself. We're stretched thin in the same places my parents were in these trying times of raising small ones, their voices interrupting, drowning us out sometimes, leaving little space for peaceful, lingering debates, pushing us into small spaces of conversation and turning up the heat.

We stretch our hands out toward each other just as my parents did. I put up verses on the window sills. He memorizes one about the power of the tongue.

Our tenth anniversary is a few weeks away. We are one quarter as married as my parents. One quarter as grown into one another. In forty, will we be mellowed into routines of concession and forgiveness as they are?

There is hope. I see it whenever I visit their home, in the flypaper thin Ann Landers column hanging from my dad's shelf. His stretching toward my mother. I feel Aaron stretching toward me. I need to stretch toward him, forget this pulling away. Forget the wounded animal hurt, forget nursing wounds. Love covers a multitude of sins. Weymouth said, Love throws a veil over a multitude of faults.

Love each other as if your life depended on it. Love makes up for practically anything. (I Peter 4:8 The Message)

Linked up with Lisa-Jo on the prompt, "Stretch"

In the Aftermath: Shunning Part 4

Tereasa's Story: Part II
Tereasa is the author of His Pen on My Heart, where she blogs about freedom in Christ, healing from spiritual abuse and raising special children. She is a story teller, painting pictures with words and drawing the reader close to her heart. Her desire is to encourage those who are hurting and point all to Christ, the healer of our broken hearts. The abusive church she and her husband were a part of with their children is not related to any denomination and she wishes to keep the church's identity anonymous. You can read more about her family's escape from an abusive church and their journey to healing in Reflections of a Survivor. To read Part I of Tereasa's story, click here to read yesterday's post.

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The days that followed  our escape confirmed that our decision was right. We were love bombed for a week.  If they had been permitted by the shepherd, members would have driven four hours to bring us back to them. Our phones rang incessantly and our email inboxes were filled with pleas to return. The pain of their cries was almost unbearable. Words of love were spoken, but ever so subtly the conditions were made. “Be people of integrity… Repent and return... Love the shepherd and follow the teachings… Follow the order of God and hold to the statement of faith.”

Threats were also made in the form of concerns. “What will happen to your children without the protection of the community? How will your marriage survive if not planted in the church?”  Guilt was used along with fear, “You are forcing the church back into immaturity… You’ve hurt the body of Christ… You’ve allowed Satan into your hearts.” They even used their children to write us letters begging us to return! The ultimate threat which locked the door came in a final email, “We’ll know soon whether or not your leaving was God’s will.”


Both love and fear were used as a means of control.  Their attempts to have us return were no different than their attempts to make us conform. The use of control and power to manipulate others to serve oneself is abuse.  In living there and by leaving there, we were spiritually abused.

Upon leaving the community, we returned to our previous hometown. Close to family and friends, far from those who loved us conditionally, we have a better chance to recover. The process has not been without grief and fear. All of us, including the children, have had to work through very intense emotions.

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Even though we are far away, we continue to live daily with the community.  They have been with us in our dreams and in our habits. Healing from spiritual abuse is like tending a garden. With consistent labor, the weeds decrease. Occasionally, surprises break through the soil and need to be removed before they grow and take over what is good.

We often feel like we’re nearing the end when another depth of hurt or another hurdle of healing must be faced. Perhaps, this will always be the case. The experience is like any other, a part of who we are. When circumstances arise, we come to new levels of healing.  It will be like climbing a mountain in a circular fashion.

There will always be things that trigger remembrance. Honestly, I do not want to forget. I love the people we left behind.  Nothing will change that. While I do not intend to purposely walk back into their lives, I do hope to be available. I hope that when another leaves, I can be there for support.
Next week I will be in a place where a chance meeting is possible and part of me is afraid.

It is not the first time I have feared, though.  The last time I was afraid, I asked the Lord what to do.  He reminded me that there is no fear in love. 

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.”  – 1 John 4:18

It is the very verse by which the shepherd taught that if you fear, you do not love.  I now know that I need not fear punishment because I am in Christ who is love and it is by him that I am perfected.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” - Romans 8:1

If I ever run into anyone from the community again, whether it is next week or next year, I will stand confident in the love of Christ.  I will offer that love, as well. It will not be natural for me to do so, but it will be possible by the grace of God. I will do this because the freedom I have found in Christ is more than I deserve.  When others are shunned I will be there to hold their hands as they recover.  I will help them tend the garden and climb the mountain.  


That is why I am so thankful for this series. If you find yourself in a place of fear and confusion… If you feel that you are alone and wonder if you will survive life beyond abuse and abuse and shunning, there is an entire community of bloggers who have walked the path before you and have overcome.  You are not alone. 

"I've watched how lies can die in foregivness" - Witness, Nicole Witt
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This post is part 4 in a series on shunning in the Christian church. If you have a guest post to share, please find me at http://TurquoiseGates.com and leave a comment or contact me to let meknow. Please refrain frm rude omments directed t owardthe brave who have stepped forward to explain these painful chapters of their live. If you have a post, old or new, about shunning or church discipline, please link up below so we can read YOUR story!

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Is unity as reachable as repentance?

It's a dark and rainy day in Wisconsin, and I am hit with a severe case of the post-Thanksgiving cum se, cum sa blues. I realize I've done this to myself with too much turkey gravy and pie, coupled with my choice to watch a Hitler movie last night and read about Rwanda this morning. 

I've been thinking a lot about cookie cutter solutions to life, how we tend to latch on to the vision God gives us that sets us free, and prescribe it for every sufferer we encounter for a while. I do this myself, take the things that healed my marriage and, assuming the things were the magic key, tell others about them. I do it myself as I try to employ Ann's key to spiritual freedom to my life, counting up small joys and trying to make a similar ladder out of them as I try to climb out of cavern created by a painful leave from one church and the painful joining of another.  

What if what works for one person is not how God will free another? I face this hard truth as two dear friends go through divorce, and slowly realize that perhaps God is allowing divorce in their lives to set them free. I face it again when death's door opens for a patient, and that is how God heals them. I would love to jump on the Prosperity Gospel bandwagon, and believe that God heals all people in this life if only they trust Him enough. My life experience fights tooth and nail against that theology, showing me time and again that instead, God moves in mysterious ways. Speaking of mysterious, I never thought I'd change my mind about Rick Warren after reading The Purpose Driven Life, seeming so full of that false theology. But what if he is also changing, growing, learning as he leads a large church in California and begins to dive into the world market of suffering as a missions minded pastor? 

As I read about Warren's PEACE project in Rwanda, a movement designed to change church planting from an extraneous solution to world spiritual poverty to an intrinsic one, involving only the shareholders of that church instead of the financial aid and support of Western churches, I am intrigued. Director Odendahl (PhD and Doctorate prepared) writes eloquently about the project, stating in his conclusion that Saddleback Church desires this project to be 

"one in which Jesus' prayer that all of them may be one, Father...so that the world may believe that you have sent me (John 17:21) becomes a reality; a partnership that truly empowers all partners and transforms individuals and communities. It is a journey towards a partnership that integrates national aspiration with cultural appropriateness while calibrated against the Biblical mandate of being the body of Christ where each member needs the other." (from Mission Frontiers, November-December 2011)

I didn't think much about cultural appropriateness when I was working in medical missions, beyond not drinking beer where women don't and wearing clothes considered modest in the culture I was visiting. In retrospect, however, a host of issues with medical missions have concerned me, even down to the medications we prescribe and the way we expect people to manage their health and prevent disease. I think about how proud I have been, to assume that a northerner from snowy Wisconsin could assume to understand the healthcare needs of people living in the tropics. The PEACE project, part of a host of post-post-modernism movements that seek to critique and change the poorly executed mission work of their forerunners, is admirable in it's goal to refine and improve church planting and associated mission work in impoverished countries. My admiration is balanced, though, by the mindfulness of my friend Joy's current blog project, 12 Causes for Christmas. She is striving to decrease competition between aid associations in the U.S. and increase awareness of the diversity of opportunities for missionaries and supporters.

In that spirit, I am tempted to revisit my younger naïveté, believing once again that it really is as simple as serving. Maybe the differences between us that seem cavernous under the microscope of critique are really very small when seen with the naked eye of love.

Maybe I am only as different from the tropical nations I served as snowflakes on the tongue. Maybe joy is just a small step from grief, and unity a hop-skip from discord. Maybe it is all as simple as repentance, turning yourself around right where you stand, refusing to look upon the deadness of sin and focusing your eyes instead on the Grace of the Cross.

Linked up to We're All on the Same Team: 12 Causes for Christmas

Sea grass

Seagrass holds the natural sand dunes that perform as dykes against the powerful ocean for seafront homes. It is illegal to harvest it. Unless you are Gullah, a group of African-Americans who have maintained their culture and language for over 300 years now. They speak Geechee, a creole language that developed out of African loanwords and the English vernacular of the 1700's.

I met her in the open air market that once served as a slave trade hall. She is quiet, and I admire her baskets (most priced over $100) and ask her if I can take photos of her hands at work. She nods with a toothless grin, and we muddle through a conversation in English and Geechee as she asks if I'll send her my photos. Sure, I can do that, I say. She takes one of her brochures and writes a name and street address on it. No e-mail for this relic from days past.

Her hands are weathered, but not calloused. A beautiful golden brown. I admire her scar-free hands and wonder how the little Gullah girls learn the art of braiding sea grass without scratches or scars.

I think back to my embroidery lessons with my Aunt Shera. If I had tried to embroider by myself, I would poked myself a million times with that nasty needle. But she showed me how to hold the sampler just right so I would never get that sudden and disappointing prick.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:3-5)

Another basket braider sits back in her booth, only her feet and knees showing as she weaves at an amazing pace. I buy a trivet from the toothless friend I made, and she tells me how the tails of the sea grass left unbraided will release the scent of the ocean when a hot pan is placed on the trivet.

Always teaching. We younger women teaching our brood, older women of faith handing down wisdom and technique, saving us from some of the inevitable mistakes of motherhood. Timely advice is lovely, like golden apples in a silver basket. (Proverbs 25:11)

Looking over my photos, I am transported in awe to the market where fifty or so women, girls and boys weave every day. This women was simple, peaceful, setting her hand to her work with vigor. So today, with each dish put away and each batch of laundry safely in drawers, I follow her example, in the little things. Faithful in the little things. That He might give me much in days to come.

My thoughts wander as I go about my day. There is much to forgive, much to take joy in, much to lift in prayer. Help me practice the art of worship at work this day, Jesus. Only in You can I truly make the small things matter.

What if you can't forgive?

Some of the pain is leeching out, day by day, the soul pain, the kind you can do nothing for. Friends lost slowly become benign memories, and are replaced by the sweet faces of those who ran toward you in your darkest hour.

Dam on Chippewa River, near paper plant

II Corinthians 2:4-10 has been a beachhead for my sanity throughout the conflict as we left our last church. The simplicity of God-given forgiveness confuses the intellectual, and sometimes even the person doing the forgiving. It is a supernatural experience to have God's love flowing out of your heart in an unstoppable rush when common sense should leave you reeling from the damage done. The assassin of your peace does not know one key component to this God-breathed forgiveness: with God there is nothing, short of true blasphemy, that could sever His love for both offender and offended. And another thing: both offender and offended will be forever changed as you engage in Spirit-led forgiveness, outside of the apologies, or the repeat offenses, or even your own feeling on the subject. God's Word has transforming power.

Overflow dam gates at the Chippewa River this week

Now is the time to forgive this man and help him back on his feet. If all you do is pour on the guilt, you could very well drown him in it. My counsel now is to pour on the love.  (2 Corinthians 2:5-8 Message)

Swirls in Chippewa River just below the dam

I'd be willing to guess that, no matter how heinous the offense against you, you do not want to be the one
standing guard, the spite of the offense in your rock hard heart, watching as the offender goes down drowning in the river of your contempt. So choose, sinner, to forgive in spite of. In this way, we will defeat Satan and champion our Lord, who delivers both the suffering and the accusers from guilt and shame and welcomes us all to the feasting table.

I was standing at the counter

I was waiting for the change

When I heard that old familiar music start

It was like a lighted match

Had been tossed into my soul

It was like a dam had broken in my heart

After taking every detour

Getting lost and losing track

So that even if I wanted

I could not find my way back

After driving out the memory

Of the way things might have been

After I'd forgotten all about us

The song remembers when

We were rolling through the Rockies

We were up above the clouds

When a station out of Jackson played that song

And it seemed to fit the moment

And the moment seemed to freeze

When we turned the music up and sang along

And there was a God in Heaven

And the world made perfect sense

We were young and were in love

And we were easy to convince

We were headed straight for Eden

It was just around the bend

And though I have forgotten all about it

The song remembers when

I guess something must have happened

And we must have said goodbye

And my heart must have been broken

Though I can't recall just why

The song remembers when

Well, for all the miles between us

And for all the time that's passed

You would think I haven't gotten very far

And I hope my hasty heart

Will forgive me just this once

If I stop to wonder how on Earth you are

But that's just a lot of water

Underneath a bridge I burned

And there's no use in backtracking

Around corners I have turned

Still I guess some things we bury

Are just bound to rise again

For even if the whole world has forgotten

The song remembers when

Yeah, and even if the whole world has forgotten

The song remembers when

My Gratitude Journal, this week, #657-660. Depression makes me so tired. I need to pull up my bootstraps and get back to faithful recording of those things that bring joy even through the dark days.
#657 The broken is bound up and cared for by the King of Glory.
#658 His blessings overflow our expections
#659 Unexpected day with good friends
#660 Melanie's wisdom, boughten at such a high price, helps me now

Honey in my cup

The half-moon hangs like a dollop of gold, the honey in the bottom of my tea cup.

It is late at night, past midnight really, and we are heading home from a night bathed in music.  Just me and my oldest girl.  She sleeps now, beside me in the front seat of our 1984 beater, bathed in the warm light of the dashboard lights.  I am surrounded by the glory of God in the nightscape, and my heart is at peace tonight.

It's been a few weeks since I felt His peace so deep.

My seven-year-old, with her delightfully still dimpled hands the only remnant of babyhood about this blossom of a girl - she lifts those hands into the dark haze of the arena as we worship, and sings aloud with all her heart, her two grown-up teeth glittering in the stage lights with two matching black gaps where the teeth haven't come in yet.  She smiles to the God she already knows so well, "Take me, take me as You find me, all my fears and failures, now I surrender...Savior, He can move the mountains, My God is mighty to save, He is mighty to save...Forever, Author of salvation, He rose and conquered the grave, rose and conquered the grave!"

And now, driving home under the last vestige of a yellow moon, my heart echoes the song, too.
Everyone needs compassion...love that's never failing...let mercy fall on me...
Everyone needs forgiveness...the kindness of a Savior - the Hope of nations...

It is so easy - so easy! - to forget that this is mine!  Compassion, love that's never failing, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, hope.  Has been mine, since I was five years old!  When the voices of this world crowd out the voice of your Savior, do you know the emptiness of loneliness and the dread that washes over you in the morning when you open your eyes?  He never intended you to feel this way.  It is unequivocally the consequences of the Fall.  It is so imperative that we find ways and places, as Christians, to constantly reconnect to our Source for love, mercy, forgiveness, and hope.  These days, I have been cracking my Bible open more than ever - but looking not for peace and comfort but for confirmation and reassurance that I am, indeed, on the path He desires for my feet.

But He is faithful.

The chords of the music pulled the cords of my heart, and I was bathed in His love as the hymns thundered around me last night.  Thank you, Lord, for finding a way to speak to me even when I find it hard to still my soul to listen.

Allegory: redeemed

Perspective is to flowers in a dark room as Grace is to love between sinners.