Wrapping words around His Word

It’s a good thing Easter is a season, because Lent was loath to let go. The week before Easter, my brother-in-law died. Before the suitcase was unpacked after his funeral, a very dear friend died in the early morning of Holy Thursday. And Good Friday was cold and dark and a little scarier than usual this year.

Easter bloomed with sunshine and the promise of hope, but my very tired eyes squinted in the glare of the brightness, and all I really wanted was to sleep a deep and untroubled sleep. It would be yet another week before that sleep came.

“Dig deep,” she said, as I drove the familiar expanse of Route 29 to the hospital two hours away for another consultation with an injured child and an expert doctor. It was the second time I’d done the drive in three days. These appointments, so necessary and so important, were wedged between travel and funerals and the biggest holiday of the Christian year. 

“Dig deep and soldier on; you can do it.” 

She meant well. She really did. What I needed, though, was not to dig deep. My strength couldn’t come from inside of me. My strength — if I was to indeed soldier on — could only come from a deep and abiding trust that God has a plan and that plan is good — even for me, even in a season of sorrow. But how? How to draw upon His grace and His promise in order to have strength for the battle raging around me?

With words.

Somewhere in the haze of those intense weeks, two of my grown children had a sticky situation with a third person. It was a sad misunderstanding that left all three of us searching for answers and trying to make sense. I turned it all over in my weary brain for a couple of days, and then I pulled out my Bible and began to read and write. And write and write. The words spilled fluidly onto the page, making sense of the mess as they appeared in black and white. God’s Word, wrapping itself around my words, shoring me up, parenting for me. This was the way things should work. All the time.

I am a word person. I encounter God in His words. His Word. When I put pen to paper and interact with the Word, I make it my own and I can carry it around with me throughout the day, taking infusions of grace from it as I need them.

So, I took up the habit of carrying Him around with me — my Creator in the Word. I figured if I can’t make sense of it all, the Lord of the universe can. Mornings found me in Isaiah, grabbing hold of a verse and making it mine.  I've long had a quiet time habit that I still really love a lot, but this was different. First I’d write the verse in a journal. Then I’d write it back to myself, telling myself who God was and what He said. Then, I’d carry the journal with me everywhere and allow God to remind me as needed. It is real and tangible and personal. It is a habit that I have made mine forever.

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name and you are mine” (Is 43:1).

You are God. You are the God who hung on the cross and chose to die for me. You have done the hard work. For me. You know my name and you call to me, using it. Even though this world seems to be arbitrarily spinning in every which direction, you are personal and intentional. You are calling my name. I really can hear you.

“When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers they shall not overwhelm you” (Is 43:2).

I see what you did there, God. You came right out and wrote the word “overwhelm” into your message to me. I trust you. When I feel overwhelmed, I will remember that you are with me and that you promise this raging water will not overwhelm. I’m not going to drown, even if it feels like it right now.

“Fear not, for I am with you. I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you” (Is 43: 5).

I’m actually driving from the east to the west to take care of my offspring today, Jesus. But since you know no boundaries of time or space, I suppose I understand your point. You keep telling me not to be afraid. These dear, precious children I love so much are yours first, and you know my heart. You have me. And you have them, too. 

“You are my witnesses,” says the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He” (Is 43:10).

You are working in my life, God. In these extremely stressful days, you are alive and well, showing yourself to me. To me. So that I may know you better, believe you more, understand how much you love me and tell the world that really, truly God’s got this.

(Many thanks to Sara Hagerty, author of Every Bitter Thing is Sweet, for teaching me to pray this way. I've read this book four times in the last month. I truly cannot recommend it enough. A truly personal story, written with eloquence and exquisite grace, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet begs the reader to deeply ponder how she really sees God and then to contemplate how God sees her. While it is a story of infertility and delayed dreams and adoption, it's more than that. It's the story of leaning hard into God and being surprised to find Him enveloping and intimately knowing and loving each of us. it's about finding out that God is good to me. Everyone should read it.)

Oh, and I'm heading back to Charlottesville again. Prayers most definitely appreciated. 

The Grim Reality of Betrayal

There is so much in the Gospel of the days leading to the Crucifixion that makes me squirm. When I read it, and I put myself in the scene, I wonder what I would have done. Would I have stayed awake in the Garden of Gethsamane? I’d like to think so, but I know well all the times I’ve fallen asleep, both figuratively and literally. At every turn, in the account of those last hours, there is the betrayal of Jesus’ closest friends. 

Judas is the ultimate betrayer. With a kiss, he handed his friend over to the enemy. He knew how his betrayal would hurt Jesus. He gave his assent to that kind of pain. Still he did it. Christ knew that Judas would betray Him, and He chose to be betrayed. With Judas’ kiss, Jesus allowed Himself to enter into the pain of every one of us who has ever been betrayed by a dear and trusted friend. Where to turn when someone we love betrays a promise or a vow or our trust? Turn to Christ, who knows the anguish of that particular pain. See Him walk unflinchingly in its reality. 

Christ had the power to have the earth open up beneath Judas and his conspirators and make it all go away. He chose to stand and be delivered unto them instead. Moreover, He used Judas as an instrument to complete the work He’d come to do. God redeems betrayal. God can use the times we are betrayed to bring about His greatest good.

Then there’s Peter. When I read the account of Peter’s denial of Jesus, I literally feel that awful feeling in my stomach that creeps up into my throat and makes my face flush with shame. He was so close to Christ. He had just promised never to deny Him. And there he stood in the busy crowd, protesting that he didn’t know Jesus—not just once, but three times.

Three different times, Jesus’ best friend claimed he didn’t even know Him. The placement of this event in the Gospel and the literary drama surrounding those moments of emphatic disassociation lead me to believe that God thinks this moment is very important for us 2000 years later. It is pivotal, enduring Biblical literature, to be underlined and starred and pondered in our hearts. When we do that, we find that Christ is particularly tender toward those who have been betrayed. Clearly, He is also poignantly merciful toward those who betray.

Perhaps you are scanning your own memory now, thinking of any time you could have stood with Peter, lurking outside the courtyard, cowering behind a pillar and lying straight up about a friend. Nothing? What about the crowd that called for Barabbas? Were you in it? One day, were you faithfully walking alongside a friend as did all those people as Jesus entered Jerusalem to shouts of “Hosanna,” only to find yourself shouting “Barabbas” just a few days later? Perhaps you didn’t shout it. Maybe you were swept along in an online discussion and you just quietly clicked “Like,” nodding your assent as the crowd said things they’d likely never say in person. Or perhaps there was no crowd at all. Instead, there was just a fleeting comment to only one other person — a betrayal of a confidence, an offhand whispered bit of gossip. We betray one another. And every time we do it, we betray Christ.

Betrayal requires intimacy. We cannot be betrayed by someone unless we have made ourselves vulnerable by drawing near to them. Christ models for us the intimacy and the betrayal. He lets us see how much He loved His disciples, even though He knew they would deny Him. Peter was so faithful when he was close to Christ. When he separated himself, just a little bit, and believed himself to be anonymous in the crowd, he sinned. We know that his sin deeply grieved him. And we know that Christ forgave Peter and trusted him again. 

To get to Easter, we walk through the grim reality of betrayal. We see there that God calls us to repent of our own sins of betrayal and to forgive those who have betrayed us. Even as we forgive, we know that only Christ is the perfect friend. Only He is without blemish or blame in a relationship. He beckons us beyond the darkness of human failing to the hope and promise of Easter and to true friendship in Him.

Into the desert with our lies

Lent can be a long stretch of time for some of us. From every corner comes the call to repent — the exhortation to make a full accounting of our sins, to see our messes in the light of day. Some of us are very good at that. Some of us go to the desert with Jesus, intending to spend Lent in His company, and we get distracted by the devil.

We hear all sorts of temptations. Beginning with the simple recounting of a conversation gone awry or a stray thought of envy, we are led to evaluate and analyze each conversation of the day or every spoken word or fleeting thought this week. I should have said that differently. I should have held my tongue altogether there. I should not have spent so much time lingering in that coffee shop, clicking through Facebook. From there, we think of the to-do list with more than half its items yet unchecked. We remember the dust bunnies under the bed, the clothes at the bottom of the hamper, the fact that we called for takeout twice last week.

And now, the tempter in the desert is hissing loudly in our ears. Not good enough. Not patient enough. Not organized enough. Not diligent enough. The hissing reaches a wild, unfettered crescendo. Not enough. Never enough. Never will be enough.

The accuser is taking up residence inside our heads, and he is speaking to us in our own voices. We hear him talking; the things he’s saying — we are allowing him to say — are things we’d never say to another person. We’d never be so unkind, never be so accusatory, never be so relentless. Somehow, though, the self-evaluation of this season has given way to well-entrenched habits of self-recrimination. We talk to ourselves inside our heads in ways that would astonish people who hear us speak aloud. 

The enemy has taken up residence, and it’s his voice that is drowning out God’s. God calls to repentance along the path to forgiveness. The devil just holds us in the bottleneck of accusing. There is no progression to reconciliation. Again and again, he accuses. His voice, if we let it, grows so loud that we can’t hear our own, and we certainly can’t hear God’s. All we can hear are the dark lies of the serpent. 

The light is on for us.

Photo credit: Christian Foss

In the quiet of the confessional, we speak aloud the fruits of our genuine examinations of conscience. Then we hear aloud the words of His forgiveness. Forgiven. Finished. 

Stop the internal conversation. The things which are truly sins have been forgiven by the Savior on the cross. The rest of that incessant babble in our heads? The accusations that tell us we aren’t good enough for God? Not sins at all. Those are the words of the devil. 

Fresh from the confessional, we replace those words with His word. 

“So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new. All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making His appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." (1 Cor 5:17-21)

Every time the evil one hisses lies inside our heads, we square our shoulders and speak confidently, “I am a new creation.” Every time, until it fills the spaces where the lies once festered. 

And the silence of Christ’s peace will be our Easter joy.

Peace that Passes Understanding

“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God: and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” Philippians 4:6-7**

It had been eight days since I last saw him. This season of work travel and children scattered far and wide and aging parents has us stretched thin and missing each other. He found me upstairs in the furthest corner of the house, away from the late evening hum of teenagers.

"You look worried," he said.

He hasn't seen me in over a week and the first impression is one of worry. First, that's very perceptive. Second, oh dear, where is the peace that passes understanding? I am a creature of habit. I like to settle into rhythms, to work out kinks, to make life run along familiar, predictable tracks. 

But it doesn't.

Just as we figure out one stage of life, we move to the next. Life shifts and lurches and sometimes the fault beneath my feet nauseates me as it violently rocks. I want to make sense of all of it--to understand. And I want to be understood.

I have more than twice the number of children as my friends with large families. This life of extravagant abundance of souls doesn't look anything like the fundamentalists of my 20s and 30s said it would. Those lies reverberate some days: What's one more? There's always room; babies don't need much. They can sleep in a dresser drawer, padded soft. If you're diligent and organized and intentional enough, the Lord will bless your efforts and you will meet all their needs, all the time. And my favorite: Homeschool them. Invest the time--all the time--when they are little, you won't have any of society's teenage ills under your roof as they grow. We know that's not true.

One more is one more. And even when it is added to six or seven or eight, it is another whole person on whom all the many aspects of good parenting must be bestowed. I want to offer to my friends who have two children and seem bewildered by my present challenges the explanation that everything they do for theirs--everything they feel--I do just as much with each one of mine. 

A baby might be made comfortable in a softly padded dresser drawer turned into temporary makeshift cradle for a very little while, but when he is fourteen years old and six feet tall, he needs a bed. Oh, and there will come a time that he will outgrow his shoes every three months, so it's a good idea to start saving for that right around the time that you transition him out of the dresser drawer.

I love this life. I wouldn't trade a single moment of those 81 months of pregnancy (all those overdue babies making up for the one who came three months early, so that my average is just about nine average gestations). I wouldn't trade 22 years of diapers, sometimes three children at a time. And I definitely wouldn't trade more than twenty continuous years of nursing babies. I've loved every hour spent sitting next to a child as she figures out how to make sense of letters printed on a page. And yes, I've loved the hours behind the wheel of a car, with a teenage boy as my front seat companion. It turns out that I've gotten quite the musical education by allowing them to choose the station and spin the dial as I drive to soccer or basketball. We moved from Matchbox 20 to Blink 182 to Brad Paisley to Taylor Swift to Ed Sheeran--each boy in succession tuning me to himself at the radio controls. It's been quite a ride.

But I thought I'd have it all figured out by now and instead I'm still surprised that the sheer numbers dictate that nearly every day, there will be something new to wrestle. I want to understand. I want to flip to the end of the book and read the last chapter so that I can let go of the tension and relax into the middle of the story.

And I want to be understood.

Me, the crazy lady down the street with all the kids. 

I am worried. Times nine. 

And He tells me to be anxious for nothing. Nothing.

Come; crawl up on My lap. When you are tired of being the grownup and when you just really want someone to take care of you, turn your face expectantly to Me and see that I hold peace. Make supple your heart. Soften. Ask. Come humbly to Me and know that I see you.

I know your needs and I understand them perfectly.

Already, I know. 

And I will stand guard.

Are you worried? Can I pray peace for you, too?

Every Good and Perfect Gift

THINK

Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17

PRAY

I'm committing this day to seeing the gifts you give, Lord. All of them. Open my eyes. 

ACT

Peter Kreeft writes, 

"All the things in this world are gifts and signs. As gifts, they point beyond themselves to the divine giver. As signs, they point beyond themselves to the God they signify and reveal, as a letter reveals the writer. And since God is love, the one thing everything signifies is God's love to us. The whole world is a love letter from God...

...This way of looking at things, as gifts and signs rather than simply as things in themselves, is not our usual way of seeing. Try this new way for just one hour and see the difference it makes. See the sunrise not as a mindless, mechanical necessity but as God's smile. See a wave not just as tons of cold salt water crashing down on the shore but as God's playful action. See even death as not just a biological necessity but as God tucking us in at bedtime so that we can rise to new life in the morning.

This is not a trick we play on ourselves or a fantasy. This is what the world really is. It is just as true to say that every snowflake is a gift of God as it is true to say that every cent in a father's inheritance is a gift to his children. It is just as true to say that every leaf on every tree is a work of art made by the divine artist with the intention that we see it, know it, love it, and rejoice in it, as it is true to say that every word in a lover's letter to his beloved is meant to be seen, known, loved, and enjoyed. This is not fantasy. What is fantasy is the horrible habit the modern world has gotten itself into, the habit of thinking that what the world really is is only atoms and chance, only what the senses and science reveal, the view that everything else is mere subjective fancy."

Do you see the gifts in your world? What does His love letter to you say?

~*~*~*~

If #morningrun blesses you, please share the image so that others can find us here?

Motherhood can feel like the loneliest vocation in the world. Surrounded by children, who frequently bring us to our knees, both literally and figuratively, we can be overwhelmed by isolation. Mothers need community. We can be community for one another. We can encourage on another and hold each other accountable. If you like these short devotions, please share the image and send another woman here. And when you're here, please take a moment to pray with another mother who is visiting. Leave a comment and when you do, pray for the woman whose comment is just above yours. Just a moment--blessed--will begin to build community.

I like to pray when I run in the morning. Often, I listen to Divine Office and pray Morning Prayer or the Office of Readings. Then, I just take up a conversation with God. I'd love to pray for you! Please leave your prayer requests below and we can pray for each other, no matter how we spend our morning prayer time. Meet me back here tomorrow and I'll share the ponderings from my #morningrun.