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Bloody hands drip crimson

with ache and regret,

I broke the very thing

I tried so hard to protect

Flood after salty flood

cannot wash away

this guilt and all my shame,

these shards opening a vein

Dripping drops of love

that should be treasured,

yet now are spattered

about, given unmeasured

But whoever measured love?

Who taught it to go by rule?

Who said it wasn't messy?

No one—no one but a fool

A different fool am I,

who aches for doing right

and crushing joy

in the heart of a broken boy

The Darkling Thrush

Photo by Ankhesenamun on Unsplash

I leant upon a coppice gate

          When Frost was spectre-grey,

And Winter's dregs made desolate

      The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky

      Like strings of broken lyres,

And all mankind that haunted nigh

      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be

           The Century's corpse outleant,

His crypt the cloudy canopy,

      The wind his death-lament.

The ancient pulse of germ and birth

         Was shrunken hard and dry,

And every spirit upon earth

      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among

                      The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

      Of joy illimited;

An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,

      In blast-beruffled plume,

Had chosen thus to fling his soul

      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings

      Of such ecstatic sound

Was written on terrestrial things

      Afar or nigh around,

That I could think there trembled through

      His happy good-night air

Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew

      And I was unaware. 

— Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush

Can you see it? A barren field, grey skies, lowering clouds, and scraggly weeds whipping in the wind. The year is closing, and for Thomas Hardy, the nineteenth century was closing; buried in crypt like a corpse. Everything looked bleak, grey, gnarled, and worn out. 

Though much of 2020 was fairly normal for me at a daily life level, it was not without its pall. A dear family friend taken in death—the mother of my best friends growing up. No Holy Week and Easter Sunday gathered together with fellow believers. Nine months of not being able to worship side-by-side with other believers. The death of Mike Adams. The bleak reality that there is no longer free speech in America. The sudden removal of one of our delivery drivers, someone who had been on our route for years. Normal-person-sickness cancelling our Christmas plans with extended family and friends. 

Break-ups. Ageing. Cancer. Suicide. "The ancient pulse of germ and birth / Was shrunken hard and dry, / And every spirit upon earth / Seemed fervourless as I." My sister described her normal-person-flu symptoms as leeching the colour from life. "Everything seems grey and un-enjoyable." Being sick is like that, insipid, uninspired, listless, and dull. Christmas felt like that for me, even though I was (blessedly!) with my immediate family. The year 2020 felt like that for many people. Like a corpse outleant o'er all the land, like weeds against a flat, grey sky. Colourless. 

At once a voice arose among

   The bleak twigs overhead

In a full-hearted evensong

    Of joy illimited. . .

In the midst of death, decay, and listlessness a song of joy breaks over Hardy. The singer isn't a young bird, a hearty bird, a colourful bird. It is "An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small, / In blast-beruffled plume" who has "chosen thus to fling his soul / Upon the growing gloom." We often think of children being resilient or hues of colour in a bleak setting. And they certainly can be... But what I love about this turn in the poem, what made tears streak down my cheeks today, was that this was an aged, frail thrush. There is no freshness, no innocence here. He knows hardship. Yet he full-heartedly flings his very soul out into the gathering gloom.

I don't know what 2021 will bring. But I'm tried of being told it will be dark and fearful. It may be. Given the evidence of how the masses have been led by the media to believe outright lies, how the Left is openly saying they want to put people in "re-education" camps (sound like Hitler pre-WWII to anyone else?), and how Christian companies are being dropped by their credit card services for having normal Christian morals, I don't anticipate that 2021 will be better than 2020. It may be much, much worse. Things I never thought could happen in America have happened, are happening. . . I'm not sugar-coating that or denying what could be.

But. 

      But I want to be like that frail, weather-beaten, aged thrush.

                      I want to fling my soul out into the gloom of the gathering storm.

Not in recklessness, not because I've given up, not because I'm saying "Oh, to Hell with it!" and calling it quits. I am not. I will not. I want to—God help me!—throw my soul out into the great big world and let it be a note of beauty, a moment of colour, a breath of inspiration, and a glimmer of Hope.

If ever there was a moment in my lifetime with "So little cause for carolings / Of such ecstatic sound" this is it. I've personally had worse times. But this is bigger than my own griefs. This is a gathering gloom of national, global proportions. And I want to put my finger in the dyke, if only as a brief stopgap, a clear note in the pre-storm silence of "Some blessed Hope, whereof [I know] / [Yet the world is] unaware." I want to sing "In a full-hearted evensong / Of joy illimited." And that means, to be clear, that I want my soul to be filled with Beauty and Truth, which both flow from and point to Jesus—the Word without whom nothing that exists would have been at all. There is no limit to the joy which flows from Him. Let there be no limit to His joy "trembling through" me, either.

“...that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

— Mary Ann Evans (aka: George Eliot), Middlemarch                 

Messy Christmas

The branches have traded

Their leaves for white sleeves

All warm-blooded creatures make ghosts as they breathe

Scarves are wrapped tightly like gifts under trees

Christmas lights tangle in knots annually

While many people are wrapping up their Christmas lights rather than untangling them from last year, some more traditional churches are just entering into the celebration of the Christmas season. For them, Christmas begins on the evening of December twenty-fourth (since the Creation, days begin the evening before—think of Genesis 1:5: "...and there was evening and there was morning, the first day" etc.), going through to Epiphany on the sixth of January. 

This year, snow fell like shimmering garments on tree arms a week before Christmas. Yet for many of us, by the time the day itself rolled around, the sun had melted the tree robes and we were down to shirt-sleeves and thin sweaters. I love snow, but who decided that it is “necessary” at Christmas? 

Our families huddle closely

Betting warmth against the cold,

Our bruises seem to surface

Like mud beneath the snow

Some kinds of "snow" feel necessary... We want the blanket of "nice feelings" at Christmas to mask the cracks in our families of origin or in our marriages, in our loneliness and in our broken spots. But holidays have a way of hitting our bruised places. An argument in the car on the way to a Christmas gathering reminds us of the scores of fights we've had all year. The question, "So, are you seeing anyone?" (and you know they want to add "yet" at the end of that query) rankles when you're tired of being alone, or you've recently broken up with someone, or you feel somehow lesser because you in fact don't have someone. Sometimes the bruise is cruel and bone-deep: someone is missing in the pew at midnight mass with you; there is only the memory or shadow of someone you dearly love hovering at every crowded table, making it feel incomplete. 

It is a muddy, messy time, this Christmas. Messy Christmas. That is the phrase my phone auto-corrects to instead of "merry" Christmas. I laughed the first time happened. It struck my cynical side as humorous and morosely accurate. The mud of the Fall still lurks beneath the snow of the now-but-not-perfected redemption. But clean slates are coming. . .

So we sing carols softly

As sweet as we know

A prayer that our burdens will lift as we go

Like young love still waiting under mistletoe

We'll welcome December with tireless hope

Hope. Christmas is replete with Hope. God joining to flesh in a miraculous marriage. The Redeemer was born. Happy, sentimental sigh. 

But the crushing reality is that the Redeemer wasn't born as an adult. Things didn't change when He came. Yes, there was the flash of Heaven, opened to the shepherds. There was a great sign in the heavens, leading the wise men. Then, just like the previous four hundred years, there was a lull. Silence. Hope was born...but He wouldn't be revealed for another thirty years. 

I wonder if the shepherds were like fourteen-year-old me: not subtle, hanging around wherever I could—whenever I could—to be around the guy I was crushing on. Or did they cease hoping? Certainly, unflagging hope is hard to cultivate, especially when your hope is placed in the wrong thing, the wrong outcome, or the wrong person. Those shepherds waited for thirty years. Did they continue to hope? Did they connect that awe-filled night years ago with the peripatetic rabbi stirring up the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Jewish people, and the Romans?

Hope can be hard to cling to in the darkness, but that is precisely where we need it the most. Where we need Him the most. Thirty years before the Rabbi began calling fishermen, the ancient, long-awaited seed of promise was sown, becoming a tender shoot in Egyptian and Galilean soil.

"...For you [John] will go before the face of the Lord to prepare His ways,

To give knowledge of salvation to His people

By the remission of their sins,

Through the tender mercy of our God,

With which the Dayspring from on high has visited us;

To give light to those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death,

To guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:76b-79)

Hope. It comes in through those very cracks we long to cover. He enters into our broken places. He is gentle with our bruises.

Let our bells keep on ringing

Making angels in the snow

And may the melody [of Hope] disarm us

When the cracks begin to show

Like the petals in our pockets

May we remember who we are

Unconditionally cared for

By those who share our broken hearts

_______

The table is set

And all glasses are full

The pieces go missing

May we still feel whole

We'll build new traditions in place of the old

Cause life without revision will silence our souls

Last year, table after table was set, glass after glass filled. But the gaping hole of grief gnawed at me like an insatiable, unwelcome guest. Every table felt incomplete. There was a strange distance between me and everyone I was around. Like I was in a glass bubble and could see them, but I could touch them, couldn't really hear them. Those layers show up in many ways at various times, but all last Christmas I felt it. I couldn't enter fully into anything, because I wasn't whole. I am still not whole. I will always carry in me a bleeding wound. And it will only grow as the number of empty chairs rivals the number of full ones. And one day, the perpetually bleeding bite from grief, from death will kill me. Then I can fully enter in to the Kingdom come, to the City of God and the Feast of the Lamb. Strange how a fatal wound precedes life. 

The missing pieces haven't gaped so glaringly this year, but the numbness is still floating around. My heart, mind, and body are all topsy-turvy this season. The missing pieces can never be filled—but sometimes there is a new friend waiting in a vacant church pew; there is an old friend who remembers the ache with you, and even carries it with you for a bit. 

So, let the bells keep on ringing, making angels in the snow. And may the melody surround us, when the cracks begin to show this messy Christmas.

"Snow" by Sleeping at Last (Ryan O'Neal)

Invisible Friend

Raw tears
run to clenched jaws
and angry fears...

'This is your own fault,
your foolish choice'
whispers that
nagging voice

'You chose to care,
chose to listen,
now you'll tear.'

Tear into pieces
by unreasonable
expectation,
unseasonable...

Why does it never 
align? My desires
left severed

Just a friend again,
just someone to spill
your thoughts on—
invisible still

You know, I'm so
dissatisfied in the role
of come and go

Tired of being unloved
and unseen,
yet feeling small
and mean

Wishing gladness
to any friend
is not sadness

Or it shouldn't be.
Who have I become?
To be ungenerous
to anyone?

Dry eyes,
turned down, ashamed
of my lies

I've lied to myself,
that I am okay
when I'm not,
not today

And not any other,
without beholding
my Lover

Who may not appear
by my side,
but He will be
my faithful Guide

Truth will not
staunch the blood,
it spills hot

Healing could arrive
in this life,
but I may have to bide
until the Kingdom

I choose to love,
choose to care,
with Help from above

If that makes me
a lonely fool,
choosing to rejoice
rather than being cruel

Then let it be,
my only prayer:
Blesséd, blesséd, blesséd be He.

Echoes

Sorrow, sorrow everywhere

splattering world headlines with its stare,

making worry-lines on the faces of

those I love, and some I've yet to know;

yet sorrow is the strand that binds us,

find us, weaving us into God's ancient tale

Broken, broken everywhere

within our hearts, or bodies hale;

cancer cells and expectations stale

growing unchecked can usher death—

brokenness devours both body and soul
with all its demands it is never full

Heart ache, heart break everywhere

and many are the ways to cope—

mothers cry, their faces aging,

men grow sober and waste away,

heart-hungry, not for food, but for hope,

dying for want of the Water of Life

Echoes, echoes everywhere

of Eden and of the Fall—being God

is our desire, to have and to control;

to cry out, "I don't love you anymore!"

and have it reverberate in all divorce,

in every act of our damned selfish wills

Bleeding, bleeding everywhere

from hands and brow, feet and side,

from the broken hearts of those betrayed;

death presses on mortal men, they are afraid...

But glory! Blood atones from the Sorrow-Man,

Redemption shouting into God's story

Intimate with Brokenness

show me who i am and who i could be.
initiate the heart within me
until it opens properly.

slow down, start again from the beginning.
i can’t keep my head from spinning out of control.
is this what being vulnerable feels like?
. . .
i’ll run the risk
of being intimate with brokenness.

—Ryan O'Neal
{Sleeping at Last—Son}

Is this what being vulnerable feels like?

Did I need to be broken in the same way—yet different than before—to initiate, to resuscitate, my heart? Does numbness have a deep wound at its root and as the cause for its flight? So often healing begins with kindness or conviction, never with condemnation. It is condemnation that inflicts some of the deepest scars, the broken places I can't heal myself. But conviction is the breath of the Spirit blowing on me, making my stone heart flesh again—like Aslan breathing a stone creature alive.

Conviction is a tearing apart from what I have conformed to, grown around like a vine about a tree, as flesh around shrapnel. It hurts like hell to unwrap from that lie, that action, that cover I've let become part of myself.

Conviction is a tearing-up over my brokenness, my sin, how I have wounded the Father who loves me. The kindness of conviction comes in humbly seeing anew my Lover, Who does not divorce me—put me away from Him—but Who calls me by His name. . . Who calls me Belovéd, though I have played the whore, chasing other gods.

If the broken things have to be healed at the root—have to be met in the brokenness—then I'll run the risk of being intimate with my brokenness. Growth germinates in the ground of healing, in the soil of holiness. Healing takes time. Holiness is a process. Just when I think I'm finally learning, I find that my brokenness is deeper than I ever knew or suspected. I find the healing just beginning in places where I think I should have healed long ago. I get frustrated at all the tiny shoots popping up where there should be at least slender birch trees—if not a steadily-growing oak or two.

Why have I made so little progress in the span of my thirty-some years? I should be so much farther along by now. But I'm not.

I could stomp and be angry that all I have are these little shoots. . .Certainly I am disappointed that my crop is so immature. But I will choose to be glad, to give thanks that growth is happening at all. I will give thanks and offer up these tender shoots to the LORD as a firstfruits offering. I will let Him do the pruning and the nurturing of these habits that He is reordering to help me image Him. I will take joy in the work He is doing, not dwell on the years the locusts have eaten.

I'll run the risk of being intimate with my brokenness. . .

Enough

Enough! I've had enough! 

Much of my life I have felt inadequate because I don't nuance and parse things with the wisdom of my discerning (intuitive) friends. I'm not wise. I lack depth. I try to cover up my shame in that by being intelligent, but my cover is blown after only a few rounds back and forth in a debate. Rather than going any further, which feels futile to me, I just quit. 

I have a bad habit of quitting. Quitting conversations, quitting ideas, quitting when something gets hard and I don't care enough to keep trying. 

Yet I have climbed mountains, when once I swore I'd never again climb even a foothill. By the grace of God (through other people) friendships have grown, even when they have shifted—I want to learn to do that better. All that to say, there is hope. Hope that I will persevere.

Still, I don't nuance—I say what I mean, not thinking how deeply and widely it might be misconstrued by someone who does parse every word a thousand miles down the line. How do I explain that, "Nope, I'm not that deep, I just meant this thing on the surface level as far as my nearsighted eyes could see in all directions?" But I am ashamed to admit my ineptitude. I shudder to know how often I have made others feel inadequate in who they are or how they process—because I despise being treated that way.

Is it wrong not to pursue everything to the last degree? What if something isn't meant to its last degree? Then it would be wrong to chase it there. I take things and ideas and people at whatever depth they are presented to me. I compare their words and actions. Both matter. But I find that actions matter more to me—especially other people's actions. When they don't match, I believe their actions more. But of course, my own actions should matter most to me, because those are the only ones I can change. I have high ideals and I fail to meet them. My own actions tell me that ideals are hard to practice, but still I expect other people to live up to their ideals. Alas for inconsistency!

I want other people to grow, and I want to grow. Yet, sometimes all I can see is my past failure or someone else's behaviour pattern—and I despair of growth for any of us. Is growth impossible? No. In fact, growth is probable. But some obstacles feel insurmountable, some broken things appear irreparable, and some growth requires me dying to my self—and I can't hold those crucifixion nails up to my own hands. . .

. . . How quickly I forget that I don't have to grow of my own power. How rapidly I lose sight of the fact that I am not the one nailing my sin—with its passions and desires—up to the cross. How often do I function like I believe I can save myself or fix myself—or be good enough to measure up to whatever standard I don't meet and think I should? 

I am inadequate. 

I can't live up to my own ideals.

I can't live up to someone else's ideal version of me.  

So I quit trying to live up to a false ideal...even if I feel damned by everyone else who effortlessly processes the way they do because they were created to do it that way. I process the way I do because I was crafted thus, why isn't that enough for me? If that is how God shaped me, shouldn't I seek to process in the way He gave me? Why do I grasp for what I don't have, can't do, as if He gave me the wrong thing? 

God didn't make a mistake. 

He didn't make a mistake...so why do I treat Him as if He did? Why do I treat myself as if God made a mistake and I just need to try harder to be like all of my intuitive friends? Most of them don't actually mind if I don't process the way they do—so why do I mind? Because I've been led to believe that processing like a sensor is somehow lesser. It is how "simple" people, dumb people, process. And God forbid that I fall into those categories, because I fear them. I desperately fear them like the pit of sheol. 

But doesn't God take the foolish things of this world and show His wisdom through them? Doesn't God confound the wise through the simple? Why am I so afraid of being the very thing God says He uses? Why am I afraid to be less than enough? 

After all, I will never be enough. I can never save myself...or fix myself. I am not adequate. I want to grow, but I will never be the ideal thinker, the ideal Christian, the ideal woman.

If I only ever think on the surface, then may it be whatever glimmer of God's thoughts I can learn to think after Him. If I must expose the fact that I am simple and foolish, then please, God, show Your wisdom through me.

LORD, I am a vessel—the ignoble one. Let me serve Your purpose well. Help me to stop saying, Why? Why have You made me thus?

You don't make mistakes.

You made me Yours.

And being Yours...

...is enough,

and much

more.

A Slow Heal

Sometimes I catch myself smiling wide,
catch myself laughing at my sister's puns,
being glad to greet family and friends,
sometimes I catch myself not
thinking of you. . .

Then the smile freezes, the laugh cuts short—
Gladness still wells up over loved ones,
but there is an undercurrent of sorrow—pain
slices my heart all over—I bleed—
thinking of you. . .

The aching loss burns at my blue-green eyes,
eyes you looked into my soul through—
this is the Fall, this searing streaming that runs
heart-deep when I catch myself
thinking of you. . .

Sometimes I catch my breath over Beauty,
catch myself missing so much of you—
but sometimes I find that Beauty begins to heal,
I learn to live life, even when
thinking of you. . .

Perspectives

"Why me?" I hear her moan;

"Why this broken mess?"

"Why am I all alone—

toiling daily, while he's free?"

"Why, why, why, God?"

"Why me?"

"Why me?" I look above;

"Why do You never quit?"

"Why do You love, love,

love me? You never flee,

You take delight...Why, God?"

"Why me?"

"Why me?" I hear her cry;

"Why all of my friends?"

"Why doesn't someone try

to love me in all my debris?"

"Will no man choose me, God?"

"Why me?"

"Why me?" I look around;

"Why his lavish love?"

"It overwhelms, astounds,

builds up, inspires, sets free."

"Why" I whisper, "Why, God?"

"Why me?"

Is Nothing Wasted?

They cut down half the tree at the first turn on the trail up to Red Mountain. It was an aspen or poplar of some sort, and I had had many a thought whilst gazing upon it. Half of the tree is clothed in green leaves, but the other half was mostly dead and bare. 

The juxtaposition of life and death had snatched my attention several times on that hike. Sometimes reminding me to be thankful for the beauty of life when seen in the shadowy presence of death. Sometimes it reminded me that I am like that tree - full of life where God has come in, yet plenty of dead branches of sin still needing to be removed.

When I saw that the dead half of the tree had been chopped down, my first response was to check the tears rising in my eyes. Why should I be sad that someone removed a tree that was sapping life from the living half? Would I be sad if God just cut out all of my sinful deadness and removed it? No, that is ridiculous. I rejoice when He clears out the deadness inside. But sometimes -- always, I think -- it hurts when He prunes away my sin.

Sometimes we must endure unbearable hurt. We must recall that pain is not always a result of our own sin. All sorrows and hurts can be used for our good, though I cannot always remember that when I am walking through the depths of the valleys. 

Today has been one of those days where I want to bear someone else's pain, but I cannot -- it is too much for me, and it does not alleviate them. When I looked out over the city from the foothills tonight, I realised that the hurt I feel for my friend, though it seems crushing to me, is only the hurt of one person amongst those thousands. One hurt among the billions across the globe. I cried out to God, asking how He could possibly bear the brokenness that fills His world. Then I walked home past that brokenness. And it revolted me, rather than melting me, which I think sin ought to do. Yet I want to move beyond the repulsion to the point where I can lift broken things up to God, the only Redeemer and Re-creator.

The Lord reminded me several times tonight that He is making things not like they were, but better than they were. He is not only restoring us and the whole world, He is re-creating us. There is hope, beyond those darkest moments, most vile atrocities, and heart-shattering pains. How do I know? Because one day it was true to say that God was dead, and we killed Him. Because He became our sin, and His own Father turned His face away from Him. Then He turned death upside down. And one day, He will do that for us, too.

The hurt that broke your heart
And left you trembling in the dark
Feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope's a lie
But what if every tear you cry
Will seed the ground where joy will grow

And nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted

It's from the deepest wounds
That beauty finds a place to bloom
And you will see before the end
That every broken piece is
Gathered in the heart of Jesus
And what's lost will be found again

When hope is more than you can bear
And it’s too hard to believe it could be true
And your strength fails you half way there
You can lean on me and I’ll believe for you
Give it time, you will believe it too

Nothing is wasted
Sometimes we are waiting
In the sorrow we have tasted
But joy will replace it
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our redeemer
Nothing is wasted

~ Johanna

To Love is to Name

To love anyone is to hope in him always. From the moment at which we begin to judge anyone, to limit our confidence in him, from the moment we identify [pigeon-hole] him, and so reduce him to that, we cease to love him, and he ceases to be able to become better. We must dare to love in a world that does not know how to love.

~ Madeleine L’Engle quoting a French priest in Walking on Water (pg 112)

This quotation is staggering. It has gnawed at my heart since I first read it several weeks ago. When we reduce someone to a label, we effectively terminate their ability to change or become better; both in our own minds, and often in actuality.  We assume someone cannot grow, cannot improve, cannot be anything other than that little title with which we have branded them. In this suspicion we begin to treat that person as if they really are that one thing, as if they can never aspire to be a multifaceted human being.

Goth. Punk. Prude. Gossip. Ringleader. Hyperactive. Emotional. Holier-than-thou. Type-A. Shy. Geek. Blue collar. Hoity toity. Snob. Redneck. Intellectual. You have a mental image for each one of these words, I daresay. Once you classify someone (as if they are a science experiment!), you reduce their humanity to one facet, rather than seeing them holistically.

“It seems that more than ever the compulsion today is to identify, to reduce someone to what is on the label. To identify is to control, to limit. To love is to call by name and so open the wide gates of creativity. But we forget names and turn to labels... If we are pigeon-holed and labelled we are un-named.”

 ~ Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water (pg 113)

I say 'you' above, but I am  not exempt from the classification game. There is a particular person whom I have, by my actions toward her, never allowed to be fully human (in my mind). I put her into a box with a label or two scrawled on it, and filed that box on the shelf. The problem is, by my actions, that person has been stunted. She behaves as if she believes she is what I (and others) have labelled her. In so doing, she imprisons herself to be only so many little labels. This is her choice,  of course, but she may chose better things if more persons believe her capable of them. She might be named if she were loved well and lived in light of that love.

Yet another difficulty arises when we attempt to (or succeed at) pigeon-holing someone: persons do not fit neatly into a box, even if pigeons do. Persons are messy, unpredictable at various junctures,  and unique from every other human being in certain points (from DNA to fingerprints and beyond).

What kind of Love names someone? What Love is this, that allows persons to become fully alive?

But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine. 

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you. 

For I am the Lord your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Saviour; I gave Egypt for your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in your place."

 (Isaiah 41:1-3)

God speaks thus to Israel in ancient times, yet He offers redemption to more than just this select group of persons. More than 600 years later He offers not nations for a ransom, but His only Son to be the Saviour of the world (I John 4.14). God Himself is Named --  not labelled, but Named. What is the difference? A label is something someone puts upon another, not allowing them to be more than that. To be Named is vastly different. Naming is an action, a calling one up and in to greater things. 

God is the only One with the authority to Name Himself, calling Himself "I AM that I AM" to Moses. Throughout Scripture He reveals His character through various names and actions: Wonderful Counsellor, Almighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, God with us, Saviour, Holy One of Israel, Redeemer, Healer, Judge, Creator, Keeper, Warrior, Strong Tower, Refuge, and myriads of other names. God also Names us, He calls us to be who He made us. He calls us image bearers, children, friends, servants, belovéd, holy, priests, and many more names. 

Through God's love we are able to Name others, to call out in them those things that mirror God. Through indifference, rejection, and labelling we un-name persons. Will you join me in seeking to Name others this year? It will require a lot of humility in asking others to forgive you for un-naming them. It will require vulnerability to love others, even when they do not love you. It will take copious amounts of patience and perseverance to show God's kindness to some people. And none of those things come naturally to us in our fallen state. Loving others, Naming others, will require asking God for the above qualities, and seeking His strength to be made perfect in our weakness.

“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine.

(Isaiah 41.1b)

~ Johanna

An Empty Page

Sometimes I walk through life giving thanks for the obvious blessings God has given. Other days, I stare at the empty page before me and think how it mirrors life... Empty. Dull. Meaningless. I am afraid to love, because if I love someone or something, it can be taken away from me, it can cause me pain.

Love often goes hand-in-hand with pain, sorrow, and loss. I feel the depths of sorrow and suffering in love because I have felt its heights of joy and goodness. Just like I hate death because I know what it means to live. 

However, that same empty page is full of possibility. It may begin as a blank sheet, which has no meaning, but it is ready to receive whatever story the Author sets upon it. An empty page is malleable, ready to be shaped by words of despair and lies, or by words of hope and truth. Sometimes there isn't a whole lot of hope in facts, but I do think there is hope in Truth.

This day finds me staring at the white page, wondering what the Author is about to pen. There are some less than pleasant facts rearing their faces before me. Yet there is hope in Truth. I am a little afraid of finding out how painful love is. Yet I would rather take the pain if it is the price for knowing the greatness of that love.

I find it no 'random coincidence' that in the 12 days of Christmas, today is the day set aside to remember the 'holy innocents' - the young male children killed by Herod when he tried to destroy Jesus. Death is a result of sin; sin is the result of the fall; and it is this very thing that Jesus came to set on its head and turn backwards. Death will be swallowed up in Life. And all manner of things shall be made well.

I am thankful for Life, and for love so deep that it hurts... And for a Love Who was 'hurt' for us by being separated from His Father... So that we might never have to be.

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

~ II Corinthians 5:21

~ Johanna

Pressed, but not crushed...

"Remember, however, that to be breakable is not the same as to be perishable."
~ G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Chesterton pens the above line in a chapter labelled "The Ethics of Elfland" in his superior little book Orthodoxy. (Project Gutenberg has the entire book on-line for free, see above link. You can even download it to your Kindle.)

I thought of Paul describing all of the punishments he had endured for the sake of Christ, how he was pressed, but not crushed, persecuted, but not abandoned. And then the line from Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" came to mind. So I have been pondering what it means to allow God to break me, while knowing He won't discard me.

I go back to Chesterton's thought: God has made us imperishable, yet breakable. Why? He has built us with frailty in us (need for food, sleep, etc.). Why? After all, in Him there is no frailty, no shadow of turning, no going back on His word.

The Psalmist understood that we were built with frailty in us when he said,

"My heart was hot within me;
While I was musing, the fire burned.
Then I spoke with my tongue:

'LORD, make me to know my end,
And what is the measure of my days,
That I may know how frail I am'."
~ Psalm 39:3-4

God is so different from us, yet He not only knows that we exist, He knows us! I am overwhelmed with this realisation... That God would know us, care for us, draw us in to the most intimate fellowship with Him under the shadow of His wings. It is too much, He is too much!

That is my thought for today, God is too much. He is far more than 'enough'. He is beyond the scope of our greatest imaginings. When we remember how great God is, how good He is in spite of circumstances, how kind and patient He is, we find that we can be pressed, but we are not crushed. We are breakable, but not disposable or perishable. Let us be breakable in the Father's hands, which is the safest place to be broken.

~ Johanna

Exposing the Lies of Lust

Hello new territory...

Normally my blog is a place where I discuss books (usually older books, at that) or things God has been teaching me through circumstances, etc. Today, however, I want to talk about an issue that churches are not dealing with: the struggle women have with lust.

Lust is not only a 'male problem' - it never has been. But we have been raised to think it is only guys who struggle with knowing where to set their eyes on a summer's day (one of my friends always said that summer was 'sidewalk season' because it was the only safe place to look). We are told that only men have a black thought-life, and only males are stimulated by scantily clad women on billboards or in the windows of Victoria's Secret.

But the secret is that women struggle, too. Probably not in the same way that men do - men and women think and process differently, of course. Yet lust is a human sin, not geared towards males alone. I have found this to be the case time and again with the girls I encounter... And I would be lying if I didn't say that those billboards, et cetera are distracting to me, too. Few churches (very few, in fact) address the issue, making young women feel like they are alone in their sin, having nowhere to turn in getting help.

Here I will turn things over to someone who has thought this through and polished her writing a bit more (okay, a LOT more) than I have. Please click the link below to read the full post. It isn't long and it is eye-opening.

We need to clearly teach that lust is a human condition, not just a masculine one. Knowing God's glory is at stake, we need to create humble church cultures where secret sin is not kept in the dark, but rather brought into the light...

...The roaring lion waits in the cover of darkness to attack what he finds there, but "whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God" (John 3:21).

~ Carolyn McCulley
Lust: Not for Men Only, 22 July 2011

Words for Life

"Every acceptance of [God's] will becomes an altar of sacrifice." ~ Hannah Hurnard



"Faith looks up with open hands. 'You are giving me this LORD? Thank You. It is good and acceptable and perfect.' " ~ Elisabeth Elliot



"There is always enough time to do the will of God."
~ Elisabeth Elliot

Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean;
I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols.

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you;
I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes,
and you will keep My judgments and do them.

Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers;
you shall be My people, and I will be your God.

I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses.
{Ezekiel 36:25-30a}