Friday April 22 2016

 
                                     Friday April 22 2016

 
            This plunging into the past, this prodding and probing of old wounds hurts so badly, and the healing and progress feels so terribly slow.   There is no end in sight except a new beginning.    There is no resurrection without death. I know that after this battle I will walk with a limp, and the choice between humility and humiliation seems at times too much to bear.

             Like a shaft of lightning the Sword of the Healer flickers through the gloom;  the piercing truth and beauty of his words captivate me, providing just enough
rays of light to keep stumbling forward in the dark, trusting that one day every uncertain step will have brought me safely home.                

Sow to yourselves in righteousness, 
reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: 
for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.

        Hosea 10.12 

3.27.16

                                      Sunday March 27 2016


You precious girl...
I love this family of yours.         
Your brilliant children... 
And Tony--  I love him from the bottom of my heart. He has come a long way since you married him.


 

      This pale blue dot is a little bit colder without my grandfather in it; his softly beating heart and the kind words of his last months warmed my world more than I knew. I'm older since he left- quite a bit older, and he's only been gone two weeks.

      The afternoon sun turns Naomi ' s hair to gold while it warms this light-drenched corner of our living room. She is warm, resting against me, her small breath soft in the stillness.

      I miss him. There's an odd, puzzled ache in my soul when I forget his absence and then remember it afresh. His blood flows in my veins, but more than that, we are a part of the same ancient Family; his Father is my Father, his Brother, my Brother.
 
   We will all be together one day, in that clear, sparkling Dawn. Soli Deo Gloria. To God be the Glory.
     

            But go thou thy way till the end be:                              for thou shalt rest, and stand 
             in thy lot at the end of the days.

                        D A N I E L  12.13

March 4 2016

                                                       March 4 2016

                     A thousand times pierced  

And yet once again

 Every last and final thrust

Hurts more than the first

       Always it feels like the last time- the last drop of sorrow in an over - flowing cup. And yet, is it not darkest just before the dawn?            Crying out in the dimness, a small brown-eyed girl in a brown dress comes to me; sits beside me; lies beside me. Just a baby- how is it that she can acknowledge grief as it should be acknowledged? Blessed are the meek,  for they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Promise heaped on promise in this precious Book, all true, all tried, century upon century. 

         Like Christ, Adam chose to die rather than forsake his own. Was the fruit bitter, like death, in his mouth? He chose Eve over Truth- undeceived he took the fruit, undeceived he ate of it. How hard it must have been to walk the Earth in darkness, in questioning and uncertainty after Eden's firm clarity of life and purpose. How many times he must have wondered what it would have been like if he had chosen differently, if he had sought and
trusted his Friend and Father instead of taking his life into his own hands.
   Only Immanuel, God With Us, could die to blot out what we have done. Only Immanuel can offer the grace to say no to sin.

     I've always thought of good and evil as opposite ends of the same spectrum- that if you chose good, your path would lead you farther and farther down the road from  evil. I see now that good and evil are parallel roads, and that each individual person is always only one step away from either good or bad, cleanness or filth, and they must walk this road to the bitter end, fighting and overcoming until we take our last breath. The Son of Man, the last Adam, went before us. 

         I will not leave you comfortless:
                     I will come to you.

                          John 14.18

February 2 2016

                                            February 2 2016

                  A pale blue-green wall with a golden mirror behind an old hospital bed, clad in blue-striped seersucker sheets and with my grandfather resting on it. Resting is too loose of a word- he is restless, this man, and twitches in discomfort, even while making wry jokes about himself.
   What to say to someone about to head out on a long journey? Everything has been said before, and the echoes seem sad and empty.
      "Do you want to pray with him?"   My beautiful grandmother seems restless too- I don't think she thought death would look like this... like this frail old man, his white hair sticking straight up and his chest, thin through his t-shirt. I didn't either. I've always  been insulated from death; this is the first time it has loomed into my life and I don't know what to do with it. Some things are so vague to me, and others startling in their clarity- This man is going on a long journey, and he's never coming back.
    Everything I wish I had said to him, and everything I wish he had said to me, will have to wait until I too wake to a new Day, a place where time is no longer an enemy, where nothing is false or hurtful or static.
         It seems like his world is getting smaller, so small- the length and breadth of a hospital bed. I know that actually his world is expanding- it is just about to explode outward into Eternity, where everything he got wrong or thought wrong or did wrong will be made right. He will be made whole, and new, with new thoughts and pleasures, no distractions from the One who Answers; the One who Calls.
         There is something a little exciting about it, and I taste it only for a moment as I pray with him. I don't know how aware he is, but I can tell he is being gracious to me. I know he is trying to speak truth at last, trying to bless his children and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.              Thank you God for these last days- may he have a sweet and peaceful end, surrounded by those he loves and those who love him.                                        

             A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.  By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. 
                         John 13: 34-35

January 2016

           
                                             January 2016

      Naomi. It means Pleasantness, and from the first she has lived up to her name. She is   springtime to me, and light after darkness, her small silken heels rose petals cupped in my hand.  
            She nurses contentedly, singing her Nursing Song- a tiny humming sound, but music to my ears.  Her middle name means  My God Has Answered, because I know who she is; a gift from the One who answers even unspoken prayers.
                                                                                                                 
                                             
         " ....For from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words."

                            Daniel 10.12

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

                             Isaiah 58.12

Winter 2015

                                                     Winter 2015

                My mind stuck in a tiny circle of despair, I felt alone, rejected, the betrayal like acid on my lips. Then it came- that beam of Starlight in the great dark.
       Just to taste a little of that anger, a small sip of the Holy wrath of a righteous God, crying out as He saw their sin made me stagger back, shocked; but something broke inside me.
       I didn't have to be angry, to be bitter, to justify; He saw the sin and wept and roared on my behalf, He knew each wave and ripple, every repurcussion of those nights, every lie and twist and half truth. And His anger was pure and clean, not marred as mine is by revenge and hatred and fear.

        The weight of the world, the weight of that cliff in the dark fell from my shoulders and I could cry again, washed white as snow with His blood, His human, divine, necessary blood.      The Lamb a Lion, roaring in rage. A humble man on a humble tree, saving the world one moment at a time.

        The sun shall be no more thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the LORD shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.

      Thy sun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for the LORD shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.

Isaiah 60:19-20

December 2015

                                                   December 2015

Eleanor, screaming, her little body stiff with anger and confusion. 

Why am I having another child, when I can't even do a good job taking care of the ones I have?               

Eleanor, lying beside me in the floor for hours, sweetly playing with the nativity characters. "Baby... Mommy... Daddy..." she says, pointing. Small white sheep clasped in dimpled fingers, tiny goats, a tortoise, and cream colored horses with stiffly flowing manes. The light is reflected off her face, her beloved, contented face.                                  

                                                 

Because they aren't yours.  They are  Mine.               

I know one of the first things my children will have to do is forgive me for all the mistakes I've made and will make. It seems sometimes like having a Christian parent has been a stumbling block in my own walk with God; how could someone claiming to know and love Christ have been so flawed, made so many hurtful choices? They will have to ask this question, just as I have had to ask it, and may He answer it with his swift and gentle kindness.