There is a happy ending

{please consider pressing play below prior to reading}

The tree trunks are black as coal from the night rain, threading through the chartreuse of leaf buds. The heaviness of magic is in the air this spring, flowers springing up from the cold earth so recently blanketed in snow. Everything about this May feels weirdly foreign, irredescent with a touch of the unreal.

Perhaps this is what comes of accepting a reality you don't feel at home in. Ever since leaving church 2 years ago, reality has slanted toward pain. Two years have seen a definite decrease in the number of those we can joyfully live life with. Two years have included the most painful period of self-doubt of my life. Two years have brought me to the Throne with questions and contrition and brokenness like never before.

Sometimes, when we struggle with depression, we shy away from the painful parts of life. I don't like to let sad thoughts or memories in. I don't want to acknowledge the suffering that has cropped up here and there in my life story.

But where we would be without psalms? Laments? Dirges?

The music of life falls flat without the melancholy moments. There can be no crescendo to joy, to ecstacy, without the contrast of the deep, dark pits of sorrow. It is one of the things most difficult to understand about heaven: although we long for the day when there are finally no more tears, it is hard to imagine not getting bored in an eternity without the challenges and chaos of life here on earth.

What if? What if we can remember it all? What if we will spend heaven contrasting God's glory with all that is wicked, evil, wrong in this life? It's a new perspective: if our sorrows here on earth are the great interlude of pensif before the last everlasting song of triumph...if this is true, I can suffer longer and harder here on earth knowing a reprieve is coming.

I can stand the separation from my sisters and brothers of churches past. I can live through depression. I can handle the various never-ending tasks of motherhood. I can make the next meal, clean the next dish, with gratitude that passes all understanding because this life is temporary.

It is not the end. It is not even the middle. It is barely the beginning. And it will not last forever.

Traveling from pain to glory

Here is the joy. Here in this moment, this place, this space. And fear is a thief, a joy-monger, launching into the moment to devour the gifts at your feet. You may think fear is not the enemy when it's just soaring in the periphery of your vision. It only takes one glide for it to dive into the present and scare off the kids and birds and leave you alone with it's devious face, it's cackle of triumph. 

I hold a turquoise cross tight in my grip, bending it's soft form between thumb and forefinger. I do this because the ache in my hand keeps me present in the moment, instead of soaring off with fear for wings. For emotions are as fickle as the April weather here in Wisconsin, and fear could drop me from a thousand feet high and crush me on the pavement far below. Choosing this moment, with whatever it contains, sometimes isn't so attractive. Last night, in a group, I didn't want to be present. But I grabbed my cross from my purse, and the bite into my palm forced me to stay nailed to my chair, body and spirit. That cross keeps me on the ground instead of floating off into the tornado of grief above me.

I think of the Savior lugging His heavy cross up the hill at Golgatha, Place of the Skull. Did the bite of the slivers into his shoulders striped from beating keep Him on the ground, keep His mind from wandering too far into the future? Was it mindfulness of the weight of the moment that kept Him going that last day? I follow the path, with my small cross in my hand, and the snaking line His cross ground into the dust is sometimes hard to find. I only know it's on the ground, not in the sky, and so I pin myself to moments and find the path now and then, and this is how you get from one place to another. From one emotion to the next. From pain to glory.

"Here"

Repetitious light

Therefore encourage one another and build up one another... I Thessalonians 5:11a

Courthouse stairwell

Few have mastered it: not only leaving their spiritual life as a light on a lampstand, but lighting other souls with the fire burning in that lamp. In public especially, it is hard to know how much to fit in, and how much to allow yourself to be different because of Jesus' transforming power.

Let me be the mirror, a reflection of Jesus as I walk through the world in another culture these next two weeks. Although the reflection is darkened and defused by all the corners it goes around in my soul before emerging for the world to see, let me be marked by my stalwart faith in my Maker rather than a dispassionate faith.

If there’s a man with a vision to recognize beauty
in places and faces the rest have passed by
If there’s a man who can meet with the queen
and stay warm with a beggar the very same night

a man who would pour himself out for a stranger for years for no kind of pay
let me know his name

I wanna know that man
I wanna know that man

If there’s a man without a wallet or looks to explain
why these masses of people wanna follow him around
if there is something compelling if he’s saying
something they know they’ve gotta know more about

a man who could love like a mother
and die for a world instead of saving himself

I wanna know his name

Oh, I’d be a fool to go on acting like it’s unimportant
it might take a little more faith to imagine him away
to walk the other way…….Oh Oh

If he came
if he lived
If he died
if he lived
If he IS

If there’s a God who would enter humanity
to capture the love of a rebel like me
I want to know his name
I wanna know that man

~Christa Wells' I Want to Know That Man~

Scattering seed

I look down at my rainboots, covered with yellow seeds. About every 6 years, we re-seed the field that lies between the front lawn and the sentinel sumac in a line along the road. A parable runs through my head as I keep scattering seed.

...when a great multitude were coming together, and those from the various cities were journeying to Him, He spoke by way of a parable: 'The sower went out to sow his seed; and as he sowed, some fell beside the road; and it was trampled under foot, and the birds of the air ate it up. And other seed fell on rocky soil, and as soon as it grew up, it withered away, because it had no moisture. And other seed fell among the thorns; and the thorns grew up with it, and choked it out. And other seed fell into the good soil, and grew up up, and produced a crop a hundred times as great.' As He said these things, He would call out, 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.' (Luke 8)

The field looks perfectly normal from the porch, different native and hybrid grasses covering the area evenly.

As I sit in my swing many times each day - my quiet, safe place to reconnect with God and throw out the threats and despair that lurks, always ready to steal my thoughts - I have noticed the bird activity. It is very distinct. The birds will only land on certain things.

And those certain things are the free growing wild plants and grasses. Never, out of the thousand or so birds I've watched, has one landed on the humanly produced grass.

They land on the wheat grass.

They land on weeds.

Around the thorny bushes, there is always a patch, dead, nothing growing.

The thorny bush has taken it's territory and killed anything that might threaten it.

Man-hybridized grass is beautiful, shiny and thick.

But nary a bird lands in it.

The children make nests in the man-made grass, and a thorny plant takes up residence in the fall. Covered in burrs, she assures that no other plant or person will come near her.

Bumble bees and butterflies flock to the few colorful wildflowers left after our last planting.

I think of myself as a Christian. Did I spring up and do I flower and spread because of authentic connection with God? Or am I the man-made stuff, beautiful to look at, but worthless when it comes down to it. It is easy to put on a showy Christian front on Sundays, but there is that whole week intervening. I want to be the man throwing seed on good, fertile soil. And I want to be planting the kind of seed that will be a sweet fragrance to the Lord.

And those beside the road are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their heart, so that they may not believe and be saved. And those on the rocky soil are those who, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no firm root; they believe for a while, and in time of temptation fall away. And the seed fell among the thorns, these are the ones who have heard, and as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to maturity. And the seed in the good soil, these are the ones who have heard the word in an honest and good heart, and hold it fast, and bear fruit with perseverance. Now no one after lighting a lamp covers it over with a container, or puts it under a bed; but he puts it on a lampstand, in order that those who come in may see the light. For nothing is hidden that shall not become evident, nor anything secret that shall not be known and come to light. (Luke 8)

I have four very important seeds. I'm off to water them.

Please take time to watch the beautiful video to this song on Vevo.

She spins and she sways
To whatever song plays
Without a care in the world
And I'm sitting here wearing
The weight of the world on my shoulders

It's been a long day
And there's still work to do
She's pulling at me
Saying "Dad, I need you

There's a ball at the castle
And I've been invited
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone...

She says he's a nice guy and I'd be impressed
She wants to know if I approve of the dress
She says, "Dad, the prom is just one week away
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone

She will be gone

Well, she came home today with a ring on her hand
Just glowing and telling us all they had planned
She says, "Dad, the wedding's still six months away
But I need to practice my dancing
Oh, please, Daddy, please?"

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
'Cause I know something the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
'Cause all too soon the clock will strike midnight
And she'll be gone