Wednesday Morning Musings.

    Oh what a sunrise this morning. And what a morning it has been. I groggly woke up and instantly realised it was unnervingly light outside. Between opening my eyes and reaching for my phone to see the time, my stomach seemed to disappear. 7:40, it read. And I won't repeat the next word that came out of my mouth. You see, that is the time that I need to leave the house.

    Thanks to the wonder of lighting speed showers and wonderfully efficient mothers, I was out of the house at 7:58. Coffee in hand.

    This whole time, I was muttering to myself, 'I can't believe I forgot to set my alarm last night....God, why? You know I love waking up and having time to get ready....And read with You over breakfast' (that last comment might have been my foolish attempt to guilt trip God....bad move, even if it is true). Cause you see, I do love it. Especially when I'm stressed and lacking sleep.

    It was as my face hit the frosty air with a snap and I saw the breathtaking sunrise that He began to speak. First, it was a whisper of His delight in delighting me with beauty. Then, as I walked (ran) to the station, the tones became more distinct....'I'm faithful.' As I stood on the platform, I remembered what I had prayed the night before. The stress was illogically creeping up on me again, closing my thoughts and making my heart do odd things, my whole body tensing up. As I was about to turn off my light, I had cried out, 'Lord, You know how hard it's been for me to fall asleep lately....please, You are faithful. Remind me? Please, I know I can't make this go away, so I'm just going to have to choose to trust in You. Please help.'

I asked to be reminded of His faithfulness.

   So, as I am sitting in a crowded, commuter-filled train on a normal Wednesday morning, the God of universe, space, and time, has chosen to draw near to me and remind me of His goodness and faithfulness towards this fumbling daughter. He woke me up. God was my alarm clock today. So the answer to my queries about why He'd take away my usual time with Him? A smile. A smile comes from His face as He says, 'I wanted to reveal my nearness in a new way. I've got you. Safe and secure.'

    The knowledge of His love towards me is too great for 8:38 am. He never changes and He never fails. Great is His love and faithfulness. My doubting, anxious heart has been quelled and calmed. Quieted in the sea of stillness, trusting once again....on that journey of trust....it is constant, yet full of beautiful sunrises of God's unchanging, never ending loving-kindness.

Incarnation

Incarnation

The cloak of flesh upon Him came,

Corporeal wholeness of perfection.

Slipping through the gates of earth,

His otherness enters time, diminished.

The glory of His eyes are dimmed,

His feet leadened, dust clinging on.

Constrained vastness of presence,

Holiness heard in the cry of a babe.

With heights of favour and depths of scorn,

He'll grow in wisdom, eternal and sure.

Picking up His father's iron and wood,

The carvings of His path will begin.

Hands of splinters and eyes of salt,

He speaks and loves and hears.

Not ease nor comfort shall He know,

Longing and pain haunt Him ever.

This crownless Prince will carry

The load of humanity's shame,

From east to west He'll rend the curtain;

Bringing home the lost and broken.

The paradox of body and soul,

In humble majesty shall endure.

History's fabric rewoven with grace,

In the oneness of God and Man.

Yet for now, the whispers take form,

As the Great Coming is heralded.

Almighty dwells here, Emmanuel,

And the universe reverberates resurrection.

Our King - our glorious, majestic, humble, tangible, King - overflowing with love and grace for us all.....has arrived. What a cause to rejoice.....

Safety.

What is my object in life? I hide away, afraid to step out. I mark and label boxes, and place inside the unacceptable parts of me. They are stacked neatly away. Just in case of a fire. Is my object, then, safety? It certainly is safe to hide away. I can walk quite normally about, unafraid that I might be seen.
Oh dear. To be seen. That would plunge my heart into turmoil. Would I be unacceptable....or worse....Would I be unintelligible? So much of who I am seems to be lost in translation, that it becomes easier to hide away. To forget parts of me. To masquerade as someone else. Some one understandable. Quantifiable.  
But oh what a dead place safety is. What a damp, dark habitat my soul becomes. And oh how tired. To unpack those boxes and remember my self would demand vulnerability, persistence, and freedom. Things I cannot have on my own. 

And maybe that's the point. 

In the act of opening, I must trust in someone greater to love me enough to give me the freedom to be persistently vulnerable. To be able to trust in those who say they love me. Then I can pull out the artifacts from the boxes and set them back in their places. 
Safety. It's dangerous and alluring. Lonely and deadening. Vulnerability and trust? Painful and honest. But beautifully freeing. 

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Unlovely Love.

Do you ever sometimes feel like the very worst version of yourself? I do. And then I'm reminded....


Unlovely Love
The unlovely parts of me,
    tumbled deep within my soul,
 call from the hidden furrows
    entrenched in cloud and mist.


The unlovely parts of me,
    are dark and twisted things.
 intent on veiled silence,
    yet crying in the cold.


The unlovely parts of me,
    wreathed in fear and shame,
 quieted by failures numbered
    and lost in darkened moors.


The unlovely parts of me,
    first drew your heart to mine
 through the fog of doubt,
    the torch glimmered amongst the trees.


The unlovely parts of me
    collapsed in numb dampness
 I fell, enfolded in your arms.
    the light flickered at our feet.


The unlovely parts of me,
   all broken, shattered, tired,
 sat there, with you, in the glade.
   In stillness. In peace.


The unlovely parts of me,
    began to dissolve in warmth
 icy fingers tingled with sence,
    awoken to movement and touch.


The unlovely parts of me
    breathed in the breath of Life
 my soul, in lyrical freedom,
    became the birdsong of dawn.


I find that my soul, though it is filled with shame, longs to be seen. So intent on being silent, yet crying out with no sound....longing to be heard. And you are heard. You are seen. We are loved. Even the unlovely bits. Jesus has a messy love for us. It doesn't conform, and it is most certainly not convenient. Sometimes it demands that I accept it and believe it, when all I long to do is stay curled up in an over-sized jumper in a cold corner. He loves me at inconvenient times, and in rather inconvenient ways. I want to believe the worst, He speaks the best over me. 


It's taken a long time for me to let myself accept His love, or the beginnings of it. My perfectionist aims starved my soul for the very thing it craved, telling it, 'This is off limits. You don't deserve this. Don't eat of it. Put it to the side, unwrapped, like a longed for and delicious piece of dark chocolate.' I was treating His love like an elaborate French dessert, rather than a warming soup or a sustaining piece of fresh bread. His love is definitely both (it's what we need and it's so much more - a delicacy). But in my twisted and tangled desires to be perfect for myself and all those around me, I starved myself from the very SOURCE I desperately needed. Like I said....twisted and tangled. Is your heart craving love? Is it shriveling up and dying? I found that in telling myself that His love was off limits, that I must strive and DO to earn the right to stand before Him (cause heaven forbid if I came to Him broken and vulnerable!), it was then that the very parts of my soul that made me ME started to die. Without sustainance, we die. 


When I open my hands wide to receive Love....Oh my. The relief and joy my soul feels is akin to one who, after hours of trying to wash a permanent stain out, is handed a clean and vibrant new shirt....of one who climbing the same mountain for years turns a corner that was there all the time and realises that the need to climb is gone....the view is right there before her. 

It is in this act of surrender that I realise afresh how great and beautiful Jesus is. I wish my broken words could describe Him, but they will always fall short. I can't wait until I can see Him face to face. Until then, it's in the quietness and stillness that I'll know and remember....He is Lord. And our Lord is Love. 


My soul rejoices in His unlovely love.

Woman, why are you crying?

Do you ever find that in amongst the daily-ness of life, you lose Jesus? Somehow, I lose my Saviour and I wake up dry....Starved for love. Or maybe you feel like Jesus' presence has been taken away from your life? Snatched? And you don't know where He's gone.

Maybe I look for Him in the wrong places. In tombs. And that's why I feel empty.
Mary was the same....She went to the last place she saw Jesus. She was dwelling in the death of her Lord. Not realising that Sunday morning had already come and the Resurrection had happened.

'Then the disciples went back to their homes, but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and she saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.
They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"
"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "And I don't know where they have put Him."
At this, she turned around and SAW Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus.
"Woman," He said, "Why are you crying? Who is it that you are looking for?"
Thinking He was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried Him away, tell me where you have put Him, and I will get Him."
Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward Him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!"
Jesus said, "Do not hold onto me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.'"
Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news, "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that He had said these things to her.'
(John 20:12-18).

I love that all Jesus says to her is simply her name, and then her eyes are opened and she can see Him before her. I love that I can simply turn around, turn a corner, and You are there. You lift me up even when I have given up. Jesus you are FAITHFUL to us. You don't meet us in tombs, but You call us out of them into life.

He asks you, in the most gentle and humble way, 'Why are you crying?' For me, I was weeping because I had lost the only satisfying love I have ever found, and I was wasting away. It's so easy to do, whether it's on holiday or in the day to day sameness of routine. But the strength, enduring, and persistent love of Jesus overwhelms me. It will aways and forever astound me why He constantly and consistently seek me out. And what can I say in response?

A quiet 'Thank you.'

(A Sick Woman)

     Luke tells this story. It begins with a crowd, full of expectation of what Jesus would do and say. And into the midst of this crowd runs a desperate father named Jairus. His only daughter, who was only about twelve year's old, was dying. Jesus responds, and follows Jairus through the streets. As He walks, I imagine they are walking at quite a pace. But the crowds are making it difficult, they are pressing about Him on all sides....
    ....I then read these words, 'And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years, but no one could heal her.' These words make me pause. This woman had lived in isolation and shame because of her sickness. Her pain kept her in a place of devastating aloneness. What she suffered from was not acceptable to be around. Blood was unclean. She was dirty and unheal-able. For twelve years she was told (and no doubt told herself) again and again, 'You must remain in seclusion. You cannot be made well and whole. You cannot be free.'
The words and the silence, the shame and the disgrace, wearing down the last vestiges of her strength. 
     Then, somehow, she hears of this Man. This Miracle-Working Man, who has set people free time and time again. Perhaps it was the stories of the lepers (also excluded and isolated in their unacceptable pain), or maybe it was the blind beggar who was thrown out of the synagogue for defending Jesus' healing power. Whatever it was, it called to her downtrodden and seemingly faithless heart. It spoke of HOPE. And it was this Living Hope, this Word of Life, that drew her out of her isolation and depression. It called so firmly and overwhelmingly that she left her place of hidden shame and stepped outside. She broke the law. She went against the conventions of religion and society and showed herself, vulnerable in her sickness and pain. In a faith of desperation she steps out. 
    Not only does she step out, but she reaches out. She touches the very edge of His cloak, and immediately her bleeding stops. Jesus stops. He, in a persistent and intentional voice asks, 'Who touched me?'. People denied it; His disciples questioned the sanity of His inquiry. But Jesus remained persistent, 'Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me.'
    It is then that this woman, trembling, steps forward again. She knew in this moment she couldn't go unnoticed (so great was her sickness, and how obvious was her healing!)....But how scared she was still. Imagine. This crowd must have been overwhelming to someone who had been in isolation for twelve years. With an irregularly beating heart, still reeling (and possibly still overwhelmed in her unbelievable healing), she came forward and fell at Jesus' feet. And then in an act of incredible bravery she tells, 'in the presence of all the people', why she had come out from her pain and touched Jesus' cloak.....and how she was healed. Then Jesus says some of the most beautiful words anyone can hear. He says, 'Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace.' He calls this woman, who to everyone else was a stranger to Him,....He calls her daughter and He imparts a peace into her heart that completes the healing. A peace she's never known before. The beauty and depth of these words overwhelms me.

    Sometimes I think we feel like what we struggle with is not acceptable. We tell ourselves, 'I should know better. I shouldn't have to struggle with this. Why is this affecting me?'....I know that in myself there's a constant dialogue. It speaks of a standard of perfection that I try to live up to. And when I constantly fall short, when the hidden pains and sicknesses of my heart surface, I feel guilty. Guilty that I (I of all people?) struggle. I should be over this, shouldn't I? I feel unheal-able.

    But oh what lies those words are! What poisonous, deadly words those are that we can choose to listen to in the solitary moments and times of waiting in our lives. So it is then in a desperate act of vulnerable faith that I must step out. I have heard whispers and stories of the Healer....that His hands are gentle and humble and able to heal. All the same, it's scary, it's hard to admit your sickness and brokenness.....But the abandonment of self in that moment enables the freedom and healing of Jesus to rush into my life. 

    Yet we sometimes can't stop at stepping out (of the boat, of the house,....), but we have to then reach out. Ask, seek, AND knock.  And then we have to step out again. Do you know what gives me the faith to step out, ask, and to be persistent, though? It's what happens right after this story. Right after this woman is healed, a man comes up to Jesus and Jairus to say, 'Your daughter is dead....don't bother the teacher anymore.' And do you know? Jesus goes anyway. He says, 'Don't be afraid; just believe, and she will be healed'.  Jairus, having just seen a healing, decides to believe Jesus. And the daughter was raised from the dead. Jesus isn't 'bothered' by our sickness. He isn't 'bothered' in the matter of our healing. HE CARES. Oh how He cares.

    I don't pretend to know how healing works all the time, nor do I believe in a formula. But all I do know is this....I have caught a glimpse of this Man. This Miracle-Working, Word of Life, Living Hope....And He tells me to trust. He tells me to 'always pray and not give up' (Luke 18). He tells me that I will look back on this time and wonder, 'Why did I not trust and rest in You?' He longs to heal me, to bring me into freedom....Jesus? Help me to trust You.

'I remember my affliction and my wandering,
    the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
    and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
    and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed,
    for His compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
    great is Your faithfulness.
I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion;
    therefore I will wait for Him."
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him,
    to the one who seeks Him;
it is good to wait quietly
    for the salvation of the Lord.'
(Lamentations 3:19-26).