The Point of it All July 15, 2008

Something happened to me today that changed everything.  Something I sort of knew shook loose from my head and slipped down through and got lodged deep inside my heart.  

That something was this.  Every single dream, every wish, each random longing, each fleeting fantasy, every daydream, each sadness, every hope, and the sum total of all the angst I feel, have felt, or will ever feel is no more than a simple expression of a singular truth.  My heart was meant to love God.

Desire justly recognized, understood, and set free turns like a heat-seeking missile toward God.  And in the turning it is transformed until sorrow and joy are stirred and churned and dissolved into a solution of hope and satisfaction and the heart pulls closer.

Trust me on this.  Set your pain free.  We know deep down that things are not what things were meant to be.  We grasp for love because God longs to draw us to Him.  We seek solace in food or drink or sex because God means to comfort us with divine compassion.  We hunger to be seen, sought after, or respected because God stamped His image on our souls and waits patiently to unveil His glory in us.

I saw God today.  I walked with Him.  And for a moment it all made sense.

Unexpected Grace July 5, 2008

I went to the river to find beauty.  I was hoping to catch an intensely beautiful sunrise to salve the sting of a bitter disappointment.  But the dense cloud cover from a brooding storm made the event a royal let-down.  The resignation in my heart spoke first.

‘Par for the course’,  I thought.  Have you ever seen a young child disappointed?  Unfamiliar with the possibility of failure a child makes his plans without a remote consideration that he might not get what he wants.  When I see such a child watch the object of his affection slip away I can barely tolerate it.  ’That kid needs to toughen up’, I like to think to myself.  You just can’t be so vulnerable.

How quickly the ambivalence of cynicism rears its ugly head against desire’s fearlessness.  Excuses spring up like weeds.  Sour grapes.

Two swans sliced their way across the river without a ripple — one directly behind the other.  I immediately thought of God and me.  I so wanted the swan in the back to catch up to the leader, to experience the intimacy I desperately long for.  As I watched the gliding race, the gap between the swans would shorten then widen again without warning.  I watched in frustration, until I understood the truth.  The point of my life is not how close or how far I feel from God.  The point of my life is that I follow Him.  Wind and current and a hundred conditions I can’t explain can pull and push and pressure me to give up hope.  But like the swans I saw on the river, the glory and grace of my journey is to glide along with my eyes on Him.  As I turned to leave the two swans were resting in the shallow water together — face to face.

Father’s Day Cards June 14, 2008

One of the things I miss the most about having an ongoing relationship with my Dad is buying him a Father’s Day card.  Instead this year I decided to go buy a card that expressed my gratitude to my true Father and Creator.  Although I didn’t have a plan for how to deliver it I couldn’t resist the urge to go pick one out.  It turns out I couldn’t narrow it down to just one card, so I bought three instead.    

Here we go:

Card #1

Outside: Fathers who believe in their daughters give them the courage to succeed.

Inside:  Wherever I go, whatever I do in my life, I always know that you believe in me and that makes all the difference in the world.  Happy Father’s Day.

My thoughts:  I like this one because I like to think about the fact that God believes in me.  One of the best responses I ever heard to atheism was when someone said, ‘I don’t believe in God’ and someone else said, ‘that’s OK because He believes in you.’

Card #2:

Outside:  My Dad, my HERO

Inside: For teaching me the things I needed to know to get along in this world, for treating me with kindness and respect, for loving me through every phase of my life, especially when it wasn’t easy.  I couldn’t thank you enough or love you more.  Happy Father’s Day.

My thoughts:  This one reminded me how God always stood by me even when no one else did.  He loved me when I wasn’t easy to love and His kindness and respect is teaching me true compassion.  “But God demonstrates His own love for us in this:  while we were still sinners Christ died for us.”  (Romans 5:8 NIV)

Card #3:  

Outside:  It’s little things that make dads heros, things not often seen, sacrifices made while living out each day’s routine,

Inside:  It’s little things a father does, the things he knows he must, the ‘being there’ when each day’s through, the love that builds up trust.  And though there’s not a list of every single thing he’s done, the heart remembers and gives thanks for each and every one.  You’ve always been there for me — and since Father’s Day is here, I wanted you to know how much I admire you, how much I love you, and how proud I am that you’re my dad.

My thoughts:  I often think of the mind-boggling ways God built love and beauty into the universe.  Human beings will never be able to catalog the depth of His work, but those ways of His that I’ve stumbled across have made my life worth living.  I am proud to be a daughter of the King!

 

Happy Father’s Day!

God’s Masterpiece April 2, 2008

 

C. S. Lewis in The Problem of Pain wrote: 

 

We are, not metaphorically but in very truth, a Divine work of art, something that God is making, and therefore something with which He will not be satisfied until it has a certain character. Here again we come up against what I have called the ‘intolerable compliment’. Over a sketch made idly to amuse a child, an artist may not take much trouble: he may be be content to let it go even though it is not exactly as he meant it to be. But over the great picture of his life—the work which he loves, though in a fashion, as intensely as a man loves a woman or a mother a child—he will take endless trouble—and would, doubtless, thereby give endless trouble to the picture if it were sentient. One can imagine a sentient picture, after being rubbed and scraped and recommenced for the tenth time, wishing that it were only a thumbnail sketch whose making was over in a minute. In the same way, it is natural for us to wish that God had designed us for a less glorious and less arduous destiny; but then we are wishing not for more love but for less.                                                                                                                                                              How this gem of truth has resonated with me, bringing peace and healing deep within.  To give God my blessing to do His good work in me according to His glorious design.  To be whole and wholly His.  To experience His tender and passionate love — His pains-taking labor on the canvas of my soul.                                                                                               Thank you Father!

The Father’s Compassionate Heart February 21, 2008

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;        he rises to show you compassion.        For the LORD is a God of justice.        Blessed are all who wait for him!  (Isaiah 30:18 ‘The Message’)God has been awakening something deep inside me that I’ve been protecting myself from for many years.  I have become aware, partly through this blog, that my particular wounds have cut me off from God’s compassionate heart.  Unable to feel compassion for myself.  Unable to accept compassion from others.  Unable to feel authentic sympathy for people.  Unable to believe that the words spoken by Isaiah could represent how God feels toward me.  He longs to be gracious?  He rises to show compassion?  I wish there were an easier way.  But intimacy, friendship, relationship, love… are just meaningless words unless we can share our pain as well as pleasure.  God wants honesty from me; and I’m trying my best to get there.

The Things we do for Pain January 27, 2008

We get drunk to numb the pain.  We get high to forget the pain.  But when we sober up the pain is there waiting for us.  We eat compusively to cover up the pain.  We throw up and eat more because when we stop the pain is still there.  We push the pain away.  We deny it.  We belittle it and fool ourselves away from feeling it.  We feel nothing.  We are empty.  We are numb.  We slice and cut our flesh to focus the pain.  We pick, bruise, and bite ourselves.  We pull out our hair.  We spend money.  We shop.  We gamble.  We go into debt to push away the pain.  We hide from love to protect our hearts from suffering more pain.  We accept less, we expect less, we settle for less to assuage the pain.  We look for love, we long for acceptance, we seek after glory because we fear the pain.  We fear that if we for one moment give our hearts a voice we will be lost in it.  We will be overtaken in the waves and we will lose our very soul. 

We have forgotten our Savior.  We have forgotten that He has promised to hold us up and guide us through.  We must believe that we can feel and not get lost.  That He is faithful to love and faithful to strengthen and that in the end He will wipe away every tear from our eyes.    

Prayer blocks January 14, 2008

Why is it so hard to pray?

The typical excuses apply.  He already knows.  Why bother Him?  He’s too busy.  I’m too busy.  But for wounded hearts there’s something more.  Our struggle with intimacy also (or maybe especially) applies to our relationships with God.  When someone we trust violates our trust we initiate measures to protect ourselves.  Accusations take root deep within us.  Accusations against other people, against ourselves, against God.  Peace dissolves.  We prepare for the worst.  Our prayers, if we pray at all are cynical lists of demands and complaints.  Fodder for a large, impersonal ‘suggestion box’ in the sky.

Yet kept alive within our hearts a courageous voice cries out for something more.  To share ourselves without fear.  To know.  To be known.  To emerge from the complicated system of devices we’ve invented for the purposes of relating and interacting.  To be ourselves and not to be alone.