Have Yourself a Crappy Little Christmas

" Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Let your heart be light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas,
Make the Yuletide gay,
From now on,
our troubles will be miles away.
Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.
Through the years
We all will be together,
If the Fates allow
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now."

Well, it has begun again. Our annual madcap quest for the perfect Christmas. Everyone is rushing about like crazy beings. Traffic snarls to a crawl. Lines in the stores try patience which is thin at the best of times. We buy and bake and decorate and cook with impunity. We've got to have the perfect tree, just to take it down again. We have to provide cakes and cookies to friends and neighbours near and far, who neither need them or want them. Be honest, how much Christmas baking ends up in the trash can? We gorge ourselves on excess food, and then guilt ourselves when it's all over and we step on the scale. Do we really enjoy all that extra food, or is every mouthful swallowed with a spoonful of guilt, like the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down? We attend this party and that, this concert and that, this service and that, because it just wouldn't be Christmas without. We spend money we don't have (think trillions of dollars of personal debt we Canadians are carrying collectively) to buy gifts people don't need. Whee, what fun (in sarcastic font).

Every year, when it's all done, and we collapse, exhausted, fat, bloated, and broke, we promise ourselves that next year, it'll be different. But it's not. And if it is, if we actually dare to step out of the craziness, we become something of an oddity. Like the Utah mom who "cancelled Christmas". She's all over the news. Some are applauding. Some are criticizing. But everyone is noticing. Because, let's face it, for most of us, it's never really different. Despite our pledge to join the "Advent Conspiracy", we end up sucked into the vortex.

For those upon whom different is forced, there is enormous grief. Or guilt. For the family that truly can't afford gifts for their kids, Christmas is hard. For the family who has lost a loved one this past year, and is facing a Christmas without, Christmas is hard. For the single or the widow or widower or divorced who may face a Christmas alone, Christmas is hard. For those who have to work on Christmas Day, Christmas is hard. For those for whom family dynamics are complicated and messy, Christmas is hard. Which means that Christmas is hard for probably 95% of the population. It's hard for most of us, but we pretend it's wonderful.

Why? Why is it that every year, we are struck by the madness that is December? Why is it that every year, we get caught up in the quest to create the perfect Christmas? Perfect gifts, perfect decorations, perfect family, perfect food, perfect services, perfect loveliness, and it had better snow just perfectly on December 24. Perfection is such a demanding taskmaster. It sucks every joy out of life. It fills me with discontent, with anger, with striving and grasping and trying to control things over which I have no control. The search for perfection is so pointless. In this broken world, it just doesn't exist.

That's why we celebrate Christmas.

Because in this broken world, perfection doesn't exist. People get sick and die. Relationships are shattered by anger and misunderstanding and unforgiveness. Families are torn apart by addictions, abuse, selfishness, and apathy. Weird Aunt Mildred is just weird. Uncle Louis is nasty. Joe over here drinks too much and Sally is a gossip. And me? I am impatient, cynical, prone to brood, prone to pessimism I try to disguise as realism, quick to worry, quick to fear. My faith is shaky at best sometimes, and my life is frayed around all the edges.

That's when Jesus shows up -- right in the midst of my brokenness. He comes in the middle of the night, to a vagrant carpenter and his sort-of wife. He arrives in a barn, in the middle of blood and afterbirth, sheep crap and dirt. He comes into the most imperfect Christmas ever. No decorations except dung and dirt. No food except animal food. No gifts. Not on the night he was born. He had to wait two years for those. And the guests to his Christmas party would make Weird Aunt Mildred and Uncle Louis seem normal.

He comes because our world -- my world -- is not perfect. He is quite comfortable with mess. He doesn't mind brokenness. He loves Weird Aunt Mildred and Uncle Louis. He even loves me.

So I'm not going to try to create a perfect Christmas. I'm not even going to feel sad or guilty for my less-than-Christmas-card Christmas. Instead, I'm going welcome Jesus into my crappy little Christmas. I'm going to welcome him into my broken relationships, into my first-Christmas-without,  into my Christmas that follows a year of disappointments and hurt. I'm going to welcome him into my messy, mixed-up, anything-but-perfect life. I think he'll feel quite at home.

And right in the middle of my crappy little Christmas, as I look around at the hurt and heartache, I will marvel at the thought that he came. The wonder of his coming shines all the brighter against the backdrop of my mess. Oh, the baby, born in a barn, for me! For this very mess that I am in right now. It's not perfect, and that makes it perfect. Because he came for the imperfect. He came for me.

I am beginning to love my crappy little Christmas, even when my heart isn't light, when there are no golden days of yore, when my faithful friends who are dear remain in their graves rather than at my side at Christmas, and my troubles are pressing in. I know this: I am thankful beyond words that he came in a mess, for the messed-up people of this world. I am so grateful that there is no part of my crappy Christmas that surprises him or is beyond his ability to redeem. That's why he came. I am blown away, simply blown away that he would want to celebrate Christmas with me. It moves me to tears. Happy tears. I can't offer him fine presents or figgy pudding, perfect decorations or perfect anything at all. And he doesn't even care. The wonder of that is breathtaking. It makes my Christmas fairly perfect, in all the right ways.

"What can I give him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man
I would do my part;
But what can I give him?
Give my heart."

Heartache

"A winter's day
In a deep and dark December;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island."

It's not quite December, but it's close. The view outside my window is definitely wintry. And the way I'm feeling today, I wish I was a rock. I wish I was an island. It would be so very easy to go back to building "walls, a fortress deep and mighty that none may penetrate". It would be easy to bury myself in my books and work, to hide myself in my room, to touch no one and allow no one to touch me. It feels so tempting.

Because life hurts. Relationships hurt. And sometimes, like today, I wonder if it's worth it at all. Is it really worth it to invest time and energy and emotion into a relationship that, in a heartbeat, in a breath, just ends? Except that it doesn't end. It leaves nerve endings, raw, still firing, as if a limb is still attached when it is not. How do you scratch an itch that isn't there? How do you soothe an ache in a hand that is gone? My head knows that it's over, but my heart can't seem to remember. My head tells me it's not forever, but my heart just feels a pain that goes on and on.

I miss her. Oh, God, how I miss her.

The thought drifts through my head, If I had never met her, I wouldn't miss her now. It was easier before, when I was locked up behind my walls, in the days when I touched no one and no one touched me. It was less painful in the days before I took those first, stumbling, tentative steps toward trust. It didn't hurt so much back then. I didn't feel much of anything back then.

The thought drifts through my head, Maybe it isn't worth it after all. Maybe learning to love and trust is just a sham after all. "If I never loved, I never would have cried." It's too late to do anything about it now, because I did love and I got hurt, but I want to cradle the severed limb protectively, and make sure something like this never happens again. I find myself looking with fear at all my other relationships -- what if it does happen again? You can't tell me it won't, because you don't know that. It could. And the anticipation of further pain is enough to tempt me to withdraw behind walls so impenetrable I will not be hurt again.

I can't eat; I'm not hungry. I eat mindlessly, mechanically, just for something to do, to distract myself.

I can't sleep; I can't shut off my thoughts. I want to do nothing but sleep, hide under my covers and never get out.

Instead, I get up morning after morning, I slap on my together-face, I face a world that has little patience for grief, and I find myself wondering, Maybe I should never have taken the risk.

And missed all those coffees at Tim Horton's?

Missed the smell of her perfume when she hugged me?

Missed all the cards that came in the mail, covered with stickers, which always seemed to arrive at just the right time, which sought me out from behind my walls, and dared me to trust and to love?

Missed experiencing Costco for the very first time with her?

Missed her laughter, her smiles, her prayers?
Missed her passion for the Lord?

Missed the hours she spent, investing in my life, only to go back to what she coaxed me from?

Just because it hurts now?

She believed in me. She believed there was something in there, something beyond all the prickles and brick walls that was worth loving, that may have been sleeping but hadn't yet died.  She believed in me. And try as I might, no matter how desperately it hurts now, no matter how cold the wind blows or how high the snow drifts today, no matter how barren things look outside my window, there is some part of my heart that insists that spring will come again. There is laughter beyond the tears. There is joy beyond the grief. Maybe, just maybe, there is joy even IN the grief. Maybe there is joy in the grief because hope refuses to die, and because to feel grief, as terribly as it hurts, is better than to feel nothing at all. To feel grief means I have felt joy - and love, and I don't want that to sleep in my memory. I don't want to forget spring.

I miss her. Oh, God, how I miss her.

The thought drifts through my head, If I had never met her, I would have never loved her. She would never have loved me. And that causes a pain far greater than the grief I feel now. To have never loved her? To have never known she loved me? That would have left me in a a Narnian-like, cursed "Always winter and never Christmas."

But I did meet her. Thankfully, in God's great providence, I did meet her. The curse was broken. I cannot go back. I cannot now "not love". He used her to wake my heart. I will not live in constant fear of it happening again, (though it might) because every winter of grief marks the end of a wonderful spring of renewal, a summer of growth, and a fall of harvest, and every winter of grief will be broken by a new spring. Some winters seem to come too early -- who wants snow in mid-November? Some winters seem to last too long -- late-April blizzards are so disheartening. Some winters are deep and cold and it seems we are constantly digging out from wave after wave of snowstorms. But the curse is broken. Spring will come. Fear must melt. Hope must live. Love must live.

"A winter's day

In a deep and dark December."

But the curse is broken. Christmas is coming. And the memory of spring breezes thaws my heart.

I am not alone.

And it's ok to cry.

Mere Academics

I read an article in the newspaper today that got me thinking. It was about a researcher who suggested that there is evidence to suggest that the Ebola virus may be airborne, and on the off-chance that it is, those who are caring for Ebola patients should be wearing full respirators rather than just face masks. His suggestion was soundly refuted by a chief medical officer who said, "Besides, there likely aren’t enough respirators to go around, something an academic . . . doesn’t need to consider . . . . Researchers have the academic luxury of making comments that don’t have an impact in the real world." (Quote from LFP, October 15, 2014)

I'm not going to talk about Ebola. There are plenty of people who know far more about that than I do. I'm not going to talk about whether or not health-care workers should be wearing respirators. I have no clue. But I am interested in the intersection between "researchers and academics" and "the real world".

I work in an academic setting. I have even been called an "academic" and a "theologian". And I have been repeatedly puzzled by the insinuation that there is this enormous divide between "academics" and "the real world". Somehow, academia is fine for pie-in-the-sky, ivory tower dreaming, and academics and theologians are out of touch with reality and not quite "normal". They have the "luxury of making comments that don't have an impact in the real world". Really? Is that what people think? Do they really think that I and other "academics" (I hate the very term) go around saying stuff just for the sake of hearing our own voice and to show off how smart and wonderful we are, without thinking about the practical implications? Do they really think that being an academic somehow protects us from the common lot of humanity, that somehow our world of ideas and research insulates us from love and heartbreak, joy and heartache, the wonder of a sunset, the delight of a child's laughter, sickness and health, birth and death, fear and courage? Do they really think that the world goes by us like a stream around a rock while the rest of humanity is carried along like sticks in the current? That we'll be safe in our ivory towers from things like loss and pain and cancer and Ebola and death?

Because that's a pile of crock. Which is an entirely non-academic way to say that I am as human as anyone else who walks this earth. If I'm ever tempted to hide in an ivory tower (as others might hide in booze, drugs, sex, work, shopping, TV shows, romance novels, approval, family, etc) life has a way of knocking down the tower and burying me under the rubble.

I love ideas. I have thought about Trinity and divinity, about ecclesiology and eschatology, about the finer points of total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. I have wrestled with the sovereignty of God, the will of God, free will, and the problem of evil. I have thought about heaven, the new heavens and the new earth, resurrection and death. I have a new stick to chew on pretty much every week. It is honest, deep, and academic wrestling. I have read the Word, and words about the Word. I have learned hard truths, truths which are difficult to live. But just because they are difficult to live, just because sometimes the ideas that I think make me feel bad or stretch me out of my comfort zone, does that make them luxurious ideas that don't have an impact in the real world?

I don't think so. I think it makes me more acutely aware of the complexities of this wonderful, horrible world in which we live. It makes me responsible to line the real world up to the truth, however complicated that might end up being. I love ideas. I love thinking about them and discussing them. But a big part of what I love about them is exploring their implications. I live with those implications as certainly as anyone else who draws breath. Perhaps, dare I say it, I live with them more, because I have thought about them hard.

So don't talk to me about an ivory tower, about "living in the real world", or about academic luxury. It's a stack of nonsense. The logic goes like this: Ebola might be airborne, so we should use respirators, but we don't have enough respirators, therefore Ebola probably isn't airborne. Or maybe this: God calls us to sexual purity, so we shouldn't have sex before marriage, but I really love the guy, therefore when God calls us to sexual purity, he wasn't talking about sex before marriage. Or this: God is totally sovereign, so everything that happens is in his control, but I can't accept that he was in control of this horrible thing that happened to me, so maybe he's only sovereign over the good stuff and not the bad stuff. We cannot talk about academic ideas without understanding and living with the implications. It betrays the very academic integrity we cherish. It is not academic luxury to discuss complicated or uncomfortable ideas. What is luxury (or downright foolishness) is to discount the ideas as mere academics just because the implications are hard to implement.

There is no such thing, at least in my world, as mere academics. There is a such thing as ordinary people who live fully, love deeply, hurt profoundly, cry and laugh with liberty, who think about and discuss big ideas with life-changing implications, and who then seek diligently to make those implications a reality in their lives, no matter how tough that is. From there, they teach those ideas to others, so that they, too, can fully enter into the mix and mess of following Jesus faithfully in an unfaithful world.

On the off-chance that the researcher was right, and I had to care for an Ebola patient, I would want a respirator.

Wouldn't you?

Worth It All

I got a new CD recently, by Meridith Andrews, called Worth It All. The title song contains the refrain, 

"I"ll let go of all I have just to have all of you,

And no matter what the cost, I will follow you.

Jesus, everything I've lost, I have found in you

When I finally reach the end, I'll say, 

'You are worth it all. You are worth it all.'"

It's worth a listen. You can do that here. I've been listening to it over and over. It's made me think hard.

There are people around the world at this moment for whom this song is profoundly and literally true. My brothers and sisters in the Middle East are letting go of everything they have to follow Jesus. The cost is high -- all their possessions, their homes, their jobs, their families, even their lives. The world seems paralyzed about what to do. There seems to be a lot of posturing, shouting, disapproving, even a few aerial bombardments, but basically, the world is standing by, albeit in horror and disgust, unsure how to proceed. In the meantime, there are people who are letting go of even their lives to have Jesus.

I've been praying for months now to have all of Jesus. Well, at least to have more of Jesus. I don't want to stagnate. I want to know him better and trust him more this year than I did last. I want to feel his love for me more. I want to see him answer prayers more often, in more profound ways. But what I have felt is not more, but less. Or perhaps more, but more of hurt, silence, and sadness.

I experienced unexpected circumstances. The phone call at night that no one wants. Days of waiting for tests and procedures. Long and lonely drives up and down the highway. Long and lonely hours in a hospital waiting room, wondering what was happening. Desperate cries of prayer to God for the trust to believe he would do something if I asked, in the face of a fear that he would be silent. It all worked out happily, but it created a shock wave that has yet to subside. Life is short. It is fragile. There is nothing certain. Sometimes the people you expect to "be there" just aren't. And death is just a heartbeat away.

I experienced sudden loss. The email that wrapped cold fingers of dread around my heart. Days of waiting. Long and lonely hours, desperate cries of prayer for God to intervene, for him to do something only he could do, stunned disbelief when, it seemed, he did nothing at all. It didn't work out happily, and while the first wave was still crashing over me, the second wave caught me and thrust me under before I could catch my breath. Life is short. It is fragile. There is nothing certain. Sometimes you don't even get the opportunity to say goodbye, to say, "I love you," to say, "You meant the world to me and God used you in ways you will never know." Sometimes the people you expect to "be there" just aren't. And death is just a heartbeat away.

I experienced deep hurt. Days of waiting with an aching, aching heart. Desperate cries of prayer to God to intervene, for him to do something only he could do, and once again it seemed he did nothing at all. Desperate clinging to him, refusing to let go, refusing to stop believing that he loves me. I'm almost getting used to feeling like I'm drowning. Life is short. It is fragile. There is nothing certain. Sometimes the people you expect to "be there" just aren't. Death is just a heartbeat away.

All that fragility frightens me. The people I love the very most can be gone in a heartbeat. How do I dare to love? My heart already hurts so much, how could I stand another blow? Sin is so very close. I can put things in place to keep myself accountable, but even those things can fail in a heartbeat. How can I be sure that I will not fall away? I know God's grace is sufficient, and his forgiveness is profound, and I'm certainly not trying to be perfect, but I know my heart. I know there is no besetting sin into which I could not fall if I am not on my guard. And oh, my Jesus, I do not want that. But I don't know anymore how to stop it. I once thought I knew, but I don't anymore. I don't know anymore how to dare to love, how to dare to trust, how to dare to live a holy life without it breaking my heart.

Then I hear about Christians in the Middle East who are dying for their faith while the world stands by in impotent rage. What if it comes here? What if a man hidden beneath a black mask held a sword over my head and told me to give up my faith or die? What would I do? Because it could come here. Someday, it will come here. There was a time when I thought I knew what I would do. There was a time when I was sure I would give my life. I want to believe that still. But I'm not sure anymore. I'm not sure I'm sure of anything anymore. I'm not even sure sometimes who I am. "I'll let go of all I have just to have all of you?" Will I? I'm not sure how much more of my heart I can give without there being not enough left to keep going.

I have kept singing the song. Over and over. Not because it expresses what I believe. I have been singing it because it expresses what I want, desperately, to believe. I want to know, to really know that he is worth it all. He is worth the uncertainty, the loss, the hurt, the fragility. He is more precious because of it. I want to know that.

Then last Sunday, the preacher asked, "What if you got to heaven and heaven was everything you thought it would be, with the streets of gold, the jewels, all your loved ones, perfect loveliness in all things? (Well, that's sort of what he said, but I'm ad-libbing.) What if you got there, and it was all that?" I was listening to him and my heart cried out, Oh, I can't WAIT! I was thinking of a world without black-robed beheaders, without cancer, without heart attacks, without hospital waiting rooms and funeral homes and hurt and tears and brokenness and struggles with sin. Honestly, my heart was beating faster, dreaming of that moment. And then the preacher said, "What if it was all that, and Jesus wasn't there?" In that instant, tears sprang to my eyes. In that instant, my heart broke. In that instant, I knew.

If Jesus isn't there, no matter how great it is, it's not heaven.

If Jesus isn't there, I'd rather be here, with a broken heart, with Jesus.
Because he IS here, in the midst of it all.

And I'd rather have Jesus.

Because he is worth it all.

"When I'm there in your glorious presence,

Every knee is bowed before you.

Hear the sound of heaven singing,

You are worth it all.

All the saints cry, Holy, Holy!

Angels singing, Worthy, Worthy!

Forever I will shout your praises,

You are worth it all."

To The Very End

Have you ever noticed how some people just never give up?

The husband of a friend of mine just biked from Vancouver back home to southwestern Ontario. Over 4000 km. Up and down three mountain ranges. Across the prairies. Through the Canadian Shield. Kilometre after kilometre after kilometre. Pedal stroke after pedal stroke after pedal stroke. For four weeks. He just never gave up.

I would have quit. I would have hit that first mountain range (if I made it that far) and my backside and legs would have been sore, and I would be tired already, and I would have looked way, way up, and it would be too hard, and I would quit.

Or the four guys who decided to row across the Atlantic Ocean, from Senegal to Miami. Yes, row. In a rowboat with no motor or sail in sight. They almost made it, too, until a rogue wave capsized their boat and sent them scrambling for their life raft. They had gotten pretty much nine tenths of the way across. Six weeks alone in the Atlantic Ocean with nothing but water and sky surrounding them, kilometre after kilometre after kilometre. Oar stroke after oar stroke after oar stroke. For six weeks. They just never gave up.

I would have quit. I would have rowed for two days and realised I could still see the African shore from whence I had come, and my backside and entire body would have been sore, and I would be tired and seasick and claustrophobic (think of being with three other people on a tiny rowboat), and I would have looked way, way out into an endless sea of blue, and it would be too hard, and I would quit.

Most of us would quit. But some people just never give up.

I'm beginning to see that people who don't quit are the exception.

We buy a gym membership and within two months have stopped going.
We start a diet, and it lasts two days or two weeks or two months, and then we go back to eating the way we always did.
We start saving, and we save until the next shoe sale.
The people who start a thing and see it through to the end, who not only begin well but end well, are the exception rather than the rule. Most of us just don't hold on to the end.

And while I might, and do, give up on many things, there is one thing I pray that I never give up -- my faith.

I realise that statement opens up a massive theological debate that has raged for hundreds of years. All the Calvinists are crying out, "You can't lose your salvation! Salvation is based on the divine election of God, and if God sovereignly decrees to redeem you,  you shall be redeemed. Period." I get that. I believe it. There are enough texts in Scripture that speak about God's election and my salvation that I can't not believe it.

But then there are the texts like Hebrews 6:4-6:  "It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance." It's not the only text that suggests that we can fall away. And while we can debate the theoretical nature of that falling away (we can fall away, but we won't), it is enough to give me pause. It is enough to make me say, "There is one thing I pray that I never give up -- my faith." I want to hold on. I want to persevere. I want to finish well.

And that's what the author of Hebrews is driving at, too. He goes on to say, "We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, so that what you hope for may be fully realized. We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." To the very end. Day by day, step by step, moment by moment, until Jesus calls me home. It's not enough to say that I'm never going to lose my salvation. I can sit in my comfortable chair on my soft backside and rest in my comforting Calvinist theology, but the fact is Scripture doesn't allow me to do that. "We want you to show this same diligence to the very end. We do not want you to become lazy."

Trust me, I want to quit.
When I want to be happy and God is more interested in my holiness, I want to quit.
When I want what I want and not what God wants, and the two are not the same, I want to quit.
When I want to entertain this thought or this dream, even though I know it's not "obedient to Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5), I don't want to take it captive. I want to give it free rein. I want to indulge in it. I want to make excuses and think that God will understand. Surely he wants me to be happy. What harm will it do? I'm tired of trying to fight it. If God doesn't want me to think this way, he should just take the thought away. It's not like I don't believe. I still believe. Why should I have to be so holy, when Tom, Dick, and Harry, Sally, Sue, and Samantha get to have their fun and God doesn't seem to mind? It's just so hard!

And it is. It is hard. It makes me want to quit. It makes me want to entertain the thought that, after all, I'm saved, and I can't lose my salvation, so now I can just live my life the way I want. Like a normal person, not like some whacko holy judgmental Bible-thumper who can't enjoy a naughty little thought or habit once in a while. What harm can that do, anyway, when my salvation is secure?

"It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age and who have fallen away, to be brought back to repentance . . . . We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end."

One of my profs once said, "A saving faith is a persevering faith." How do I know I'm elect? Because I am saved. How do I know I'm saved? Because I persevere. But if I do not persevere? If I deliberately and willfully choose to walk away, to indulge in sin when I know it to be sin just because I want to? A saving faith is not a one-time prayer. It's not the faith of yesterday. It's not the faith of tomorrow. A saving faith is a persevering faith. If I do not persevere, perhaps my faith was never a saving faith.

It's not merely a theological question. It's not about a theological system. It's about the choices I make today, in this moment. Choices to obey rather than to disobey. Choices to follow rather than to fight. Choices to do things God's way even when it hurts, or it's hard, or it's exhausting - and it can be all of those things. Choices that recognise that my choices do matter, that somehow, even though God is supremely sovereign over my life, he has created me with free will, and I must be diligent every moment and to the very end to exercise my free will for him and not against him.

Because it does matter. It matters supremely. I know me. I know how easy it is to quit.

And I pray to God that I never quit.

"Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,

Prone to leave the God I love.

Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it,

Seal it for thy courts above."

Sanitized Communion

I'm afraid this is going to be seen as criticism. It isn't meant to be so; perhaps it is more a sense of wistfulness that urges me to write. Perhaps it is the teacher in me that sees an object lesson going strangely flat. I'm not sure what it is, exactly. But it strikes me that, in most churches in North America, we have lost a great deal of the symbolism of Communion. Not in the words that we say, so much, or in what it means to us, but in the rich symbolism that Communion represents.

We talk about how Jesus took the bread and broke it and told his disciples (and us) that his body was broken for us on the night that he was betrayed. We talk about how his blood was poured out for us. It is such a brutal reality. And then along comes this plate with sanitised little wafers which aren't bread and aren't broken and are hardly big enough to even feel in your mouth, let alone break, and a tiny cup of grape juice which isn't poured. Maybe I'm particularly thick-headed, but it takes two leaps for me to get from the elements I hold in my hand to Jesus' sacrifice. I hold this little bit of styrofoam which has no taste and no texture, and I have to think, Oh, yeah, this bit of non-food is supposed to represent bread. And the bread represents Jesus' body. This little swig of juice is supposed to be poured. At least there's enough in the cup to actually taste.

I know that technically it's not about the elements at all. I have celebrated communion with real bread and real wine, with wafers and grape juice, with matza and grape juice, with matza and wine, even with some sort of non-descript pap-bread-like substance and strawberry pretend-koolaid. I get that different cultures and different religous backgrounds use different things. I know that some people think the bread should be bread, and others think that the bread should be unleavened. Shoot, we could have a rip-roaring fight over the elements that ought to be used in Communion, and back it up with chapter and verse, and split denominations over it. First White Bread with the Crusts Cut Off and Welches Only Community Church. I'm not interested in any of that.

But I've got to say that one of the most meaningful Communion services I've ever been in wasn't even in a church. It was at school. (Which could start a whole new argument, but I'm not interested in that, either.) There was a single loaf of bread. We were told about how Jesus' body was broken for us, as the loaf was broken in half. But then we were also told that it was because of our sin that Jesus was on that cross, that as I took bread, breaking off a piece of that loaf, it was a symbol of how my own sin broke Jesus' body. I stood in front of the person holding the loaf out to me, waiting for me to rip a chunk of bread off, and I could hardly do it for the breaking of my heart and the tears in my eyes. I felt such grief at the thought of my sin necessitating Jesus' suffering and death. But I also knew I couldn't walk away. To reach out and cause violence to that loaf of bread was not just admitting that my sin caused violence to the body of Christ, it was also confessing I had appropriated the salvation it represented. It was confessing that he died for me, that as surely as I was about to take that bread and eat it, so surely had his body been broken to warrant my salvation, that I was in him and he was in me. In that one moment, I was reminded afresh of both the horror of my sin and the wonder of my salvation. We poured out the wine (it was actually juice) from a pitcher, into Dixie cups. We saw it fall, red, wet, into the cups. It was visceral and real. We drank, more than a swallow. One loaf. One pitcher. One Body. Broken. Poured out. For me. There was nothing magical about it. It wasn't really Jesus' body or blood; it didn't impart to me salvation. But it was profoundly meaningful; reminded me of the wonder and cost of my salvation, and encouraged me afresh to hold on until he comes again.

Oh, I get it. Germs.  All those hands touching a loaf of bread. I get the whole 21st century fixation on sanitation and germs. I grew up with a single cup, and while I suppose it might be possible that wine kills germs (although I'm dubious), it sure doesn't wipe the lipstick off the cup. I'm not interested in going back to that. Sharing a cup with a long row of people grosses me out as much as it does the next person. Having someone touch a common loaf after he or she's just blown the nose would turn my stomach as much as it would anyone's. I get the logistics of pouring out Dixie cups with juice (or wine) for an entire congregation. I am not willing to get into fights over grape juice vs. wine vs. water, leavened or unleavened, wafers or crackers or bread or rice balls. I don't know how to change it. But it does make me a bit sad to think that there is so much symbolism that we may be missing simply because we are doing things in a way that makes us most comfortable. We have so sanitised Communion that what was at the first an in-your-face reminder of the sacrifice Jesus made for us has been reduced to a wafer so small I almost need to lick my finger to get it to adhere (and what would THAT do for the germ situation!) and a cup of juice that is barely a mouthful.

The Jewish people at Passover eat the bitter herbs. It's hot horseradish. They have to take a big enough mouthful that the horseradish brings tears to their eyes. It's a reminder of the hard labour they did in Egypt. They dip parsley into salt water and eat it. The water is salty enough to taste, and remind them of the tears they cried in bondage. In Jesus' day, they still watched the lamb be killed. They watched the blood pour out and remembered that it was because of the blood of the lamb that they were saved. They ate the bread and they drank the cup, the very bread and cup Jesus took and said, "This bread is now my body, and this cup is now my blood -- a new covenant." It was an object lesson they could see, smell, taste, touch, and hear. It enveloped all the senses. The symbolism was thick and real. We've come a long way since then.

Communion doesn't just look back. Jesus told his disciples that he wouldn't drink the cup with them he drinks it new with us in his Father's Kingdom. Communion looks forward. It reminds us that he is coming back. Every time we take Communion, we "proclaim his death until he comes". The next time we celebrate Communion, it could be with Jesus in his Father's Kingdom. Next time in New Jerusalem, at the wedding feast of the Lamb.

I hope they serve more than a crumb of a tasteless wafer and a swallow of juice.

Holding On

I started 2014 with anticipation.

After two years of wrestling with God, I had come to a sense of peace and resolution. I felt a new level of trust, and with that trust came a sense of expectation that something new was going to happen. A friend spoke words of hope that filled me with excitement. He prayed I would see God working in me and through me in a new and fresh way. I felt like I had come through a wilderness and was about to enter into a promised land. In January, I began a wonderful small group Bible study that spoke about just that: believing God to deliver us from slavery, believing him through the wilderness, and believing him to enter into the promised land.

So I was excited. The last two years had been dry. Oh, my faith had never been in any danger of slipping. I knew that I knew that I knew that I loved The Lord. I studied and taught and prayed. Through all that drought, I held on, believing that it would come to an end. I worshiped. I wrestled. I waited.

And waiting is hard. It is hard to maintain that long obedience in the same direction when every footstep feels the same as the last. The journey wasn't particularly rigourous or painful, but it wasn't particularly joyful or exciting, either. It just was.

Now, I'm not one to base my convictions on what I feel. I'm not going to stop reading my Bible, praying, or going to church just because I don't "feel" anything. I'm not going to quit doing what I know to be right and good in pursuit of a religious high. In fact, I can get downright suspicious when there is an outpouring of ebullience and arm-waving. Mostly when I feel God's Spirit working, he brings me to my knees, not to my feet. I know that God is working even when I don't feel it experientially.

Regardless, I started 2014 hoping for a new sense of closeness with God, a new sense of his delight in me. I wanted the drought to end.

Instead, I have found myself struggling harder than ever to hold onto my faith. I'm not going to let go. I'm not. But, six months after that first flush of anticipation, I have found myself dangerously exhausted, stressed, and close to emotional burnout. There has been one significant loss or upset after another, things that have broken my heart and caused me to have to re-evaluate the very things I believed God was calling me to. I longed to hear God speak to me and know he was listening to me. Instead, I find myself wondering if I have ever heard him in the first place.  I longed to feel God's delight. Instead, I have found myself clinging precariously to the belief that he didn't hate me. I longed to feel his closeness. Instead, I have struggled to refute the lie that he was throwing me aside and kicking me on the way out. All the truths I have held onto in the two years of drought, all the truths I wanted to embrace with my heart and not just my head, I have found myself struggling to believe at all, let alone feel them.

I do still believe. There is nothing else to do. He alone has the words of life. Despite it all, I still do believe that he is God, that he is on the throne, and that all that comes from his hand is goodness. Despite it all, I still love him. I can't help it.

And I still believe that he loves me, that I am who he says I am, that I can do all things through him, and that his Word is alive and active in me. I am still hanging on, desperately, to the hope that my friend's words will yet be prophetic, and that I will see God working in me and through me in a way that I have not yet. I still believe, but it is an elusive thing. If I sit very still and don't concentrate too hard, hope drifts into the corners of my heart and dances on the edges of my mind. But the moment I turn to look at it, it disappears like a Magic Eye image vanishes the moment you try to look at it and not past it. When I turn to see it, it's gone, and all I can feel is an aching void of loss and hurt and disappointment.

So I am trying not to look. I am trying to rest. I am trying to believe that hope will one day move from the edges and dance in my heart again. I am trying to resist the fear that it will always be as it is now -- ephemeral flashes and glimmers without substance, ever ready to flit back into hiding. I am trying to resist the fear that this is as good as it gets.

But if it is? If this is as good as it gets? If I never feel God's delight in me again, if I am left to only know in my head that he does love me, that he does delight in me, because his Word says that it is so, and he does not lie? If that is what it is to be?

So be it.

I'm holding on.

I'm not letting go.

Jesus loves me, this I know, 

For the Bible tells me so. 

Little ones to him belong. 

They are weak, but he is strong.

Like Those Who Have No Hope

It was an odd Easter. And while, for many people, the cries of, "He is risen! He is risen indeed!" are fading from memory at approximately the same rate that the remnants of the Easter feast are disappearing, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it this year. Thinking about what it really means. Thinking about what difference it makes - outside of the Easter weekend.

A lot of what I heard this Easter weekend hurt this year.

"Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling over death by death.
Come awake, come awake!
Come and rise up from the grave!

 "Oh death! Where is your sting?
Oh hell! Where is your victory?
Oh Church! Come stand in the light!
Our God is not dead, he's alive! He's alive!"

-Matt Maher, Christ is Risen

True words, all of them. Amazing, affirming, victorious words. They capture the joy of the Resurrection, and normally, I would rejoice to sing them. But this past weekend, I sang them through tears of sadness.

Because the day before Good Friday, I attended the funeral of someone I love dearly. I would love for her to come awake, come awake, come and rise up from the grave, for her to call me up and say, "Let's meet for coffee." But it is now several days after Resurrection Sunday, and she lies in the grave. I can feel the sting of death in the sting of the tears in my eyes, in the ache in my heart, in the way my breath catches when I have to remind myself yet again that she is gone.

It strikes me that we are very quick to rush to Resurrection Sunday. We bypass the pain of Friday and Saturday, keeping ourselves busy with preparations for the big dinner and the Easter egg hunt. We anticipate the choir and the new Easter dresses and the family gatherings. We can hardly wait to shout the victory cry.  He is risen! He is risen indeed! We read Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians 4: " But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep." It is a stunning word of hope. Because Jesus died and rose again, we also will rise again. But I wonder if we read the words, ". . . that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope . . . " and act like they mean, ". . . that you may not grieve."  Period.  I wonder sometimes if, in our attempt to express our hope, we do not allow ourselves or others to grieve.

But the disciples grieved. They ran from the horror of that day. They sat in stunned silence, huddled together, every fibre of heart and soul aching from the loss. Perhaps it was disbelief. They knew Jesus would rise again, just as we know our loved ones will rise again.  He had told them he would. Perhaps they truly had forgotten what Jesus had said, or doubted him. Or perhaps it was the agony of watching someone they loved so dearly being torn apart, suffocating on a cross, being laid in a grave. But perhaps it was disbelief.

Except that Jesus grieved, too. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He wept, knowing full well that in mere moments, he would call Lazarus back from the dead. He wept, not because he doubted Lazarus would rise again, but because at that moment, Lazarus was dead.

At this moment, my loved one remains in the grave. It is the Saturday between Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday. I know she will rise again. I know there is hope. I know that Jesus has risen as the first-fruits. The truth is, my God is not dead.  He is alive. He has trampled over death by death. I know that. I embrace it, perhaps this Resurrection weekend more than ever. I know it is my hope. And someday, my dear friend will come awake and rise up from the grave. But not today. Today I miss her. And I find myself sitting in the sadness of the Saturday in a world that insists on rushing through the celebration of Resurrection Sunday.  It is the already-but-not-yet reality of the Kingdom of God -- already inaugurated but not yet consummated. I have hope but still grieve. The sting of death may not be unto death, but it still smarts.

The calendar tells me that Resurrection Sunday has passed, but my heart is still in Saturday. I know the Resurrection is coming. I know it with all that is in me. But this is my Saturday, and I'm not going to rush through it. When I allow myself to feel the pain of the loss, it makes the wonder of the reunion all the sweeter. Sitting shiva on Saturday makes the wonder of Resurrection Sunday even greater.

Tribute

I lost a reader this weekend.

She read my blog faithfully.

She read my blog not because she thought that what I had to say was so clever but because she loved me. She always wanted me to write a book. She thought people would want to read what I'd written. I always laughed her off. "I'm not writing a book," I'd say. "I'm not writing a book!" This blog was my concession to her, my way of saying, "Ok, fine, if you think I should write, I'll write in this isolated little corner of cyberspace." (As if there can be anything like an isolated little corner of cyberspace.) But it was my testing-ground, a way to continue to hold her off while exploring the whole writing thing and see if there was anything to it.  "You should write a book," she'd say, and I'd say, "I'm not writing a book. I have a blog."

But she's not going to read this entry.  Or any other entry I might write.  Or any book I might write.  Because this weekend, she died.

She was diagnosed with cancer just 10 days ago.

And she's gone.

Just like that.

It's hard to explain what she meant to me.  She entered my life at a time when I was very broken, very vulnerable. Brand-new in my faith, I was struggling to learn what it meant to be like Jesus, what it meant to leave the brokenness of the past behind and become who He was calling me to be. I had walls around me so thick and impenetrable I had been told that life was easy for me because I didn't have feelings.  I did.  I just hid them well.  But she looked past that. For some reason that to this day I cannot fathom, she cared.

So I began the journey to trust.  It started with a letter, the old fashioned kind, with pen and paper and a stamp.  I mailed it off, and immediately berated myself for my foolishness.  As if she cared.  As if she would even care. I should never have mailed it.  If my arm had been long enough, I would have reached into the red mailbox to pull the letter back out.

But she did care.  She wrote back.  And I wrote back, and she wrote back, and I wrote back . . . . Each time, I shared a little more, opened up a little more, let her see a little more of my heart.  Each time, I became almost physically ill after I dropped the letter in the mail, wondering if this was the time that I told her too much, shared too much of my heart, and that this time she would turn from me in disgust.  I felt like I was throwing stones in the well of her grace, and I wondered when I would throw a stone so big that it would fill up the well and her grace would not be enough to cover it.

But it never happened.  Every time, her grace rose up to cover the stone. At some point, I began to realise that it would never happen.  For whatever unfathomable reason, she just cared. Under her care, my heart began its journey to healing.  I saw in her a model of Jesus. I knew that her grace was his grace poured out through her.

And she continued to care.  Letters gave way to emails.  There were visits over coffee at Tim Horton's in between.  There were phone calls and car rides and tears and prayers.  Oh, there were tears and prayers.  She moved.  I moved.  I moved again.  She and her husband began wintering in Florida.  Emails gave way to Facebook.  Coffee at Tim Horton's became far less common as distance separated us. Others entered my life and my heart to walk alongside me through the next stages of my journey.

But always, I knew she cared. Always I knew that she prayed. Always, I knew she read my blog.

She was just scheduled to come home from Florida. I was so eager for them to come home so I could see them again. Coffee at Tim Horton's -- even though I don't drink Tim Horton's coffee much anymore. She would have told me I need to write a book.

But she died this weekend. There will be no more coffees at Tim Horton's, no more quips on Facebook, no more emails. She'll never read this blog. Worst of all, she's not there praying for me anymore.

I know she's with Jesus; she loved him so.  I know I will see her again; that is the promise of Easter. But I'm stunned. I'm heartbroken. I think I'm ok, I tell myself I should be ok, and then I'm broadsided by sadness and want to sob out loud.  I can hardly believe that she's gone. She has meant so very much to me.

I lost a reader this weekend.

Far more importantly, I lost a prayer warrior, a mentor, a model, a reflection of Jesus. This weekend, I lost a friend.

I hope that, from her eternal perspective, she knows how much I love her.  I hope Jesus shows her how he used her in my life. 

I hope it brings glory to him.

Because that's what she would want.

Breaking the Cycle of Slavery

I remember listening to the stories of the Israelites wandering through the wilderness and messing up over and over, and thinking, How could they? How could they be so dumb? How could they be so disbelieving?

They got to the Red Sea and they grumbled.
They ran out of food and they grumbled.
They ran out of water and they grumbled.
They ran into enemy forces and they grumbled.
They ran out of food again, and they grumbled some more.
They got to the land of promise and they grumbled.
They grumbled and complained and moaned and whined until every last one of them was dead in the wilderness.

How could they be so stupid? After all, hadn't they seen God working? Hadn't they seen his mighty acts? Of course they had! So how could they be so miserably thick-headed?

But the more I've thought about it, the more I've lived, the more I've begun to understand.

For four hundred years, they had been slaves in Egypt. For four hundred years, they had been owned by the Egyptian slave-masters. Every waking moment was regulated by their overlords. Their backs were ripped by the whips. Their blood and sweat and tears were drained in the brickyards. Their children were snatched from their arms and killed by the sword or thrown into the river to drown. For four hundred years. There was no one alive who knew anything else, no one alive who even knew anyone who had known anything different. No one who could say, "When my grandfather was a little boy, we were free." The best they could say was, "There was a time, long, long ago, when we were free . . . " but no one knew anyone who remembered it.

And in all of that time, God seemed silent. He allowed their backs to be beaten. He allowed their best years to be spent under the lash of the Egyptian taskmasters in the Egyptian brickyards, until they were bent over and broken and buried in the sand of Egypt. He allowed their children to be snatched and slashed and buried in the river. For four hundred years he watched his people suffer and he did nothing -- nothing that they could see.

So they walked out of Egypt that Passover night with a 400-year-old memory of tears and torture, oppression and persecution, and, perhaps most painful, 400 years of the seeming silence of God. A bunch of plagues, a spectacular crossing at the Red Sea -- those things don't immediately erase a 400-year-old memory. They don't. When things went wrong, it would be easy to think that the things that had gone right were a fluke. When suffering flared back up, it would be easy to think that God had forgotten again. It takes time to build trust -- even with God. I'm not saying it excuses the grumbling. It doesn't  justify the unbelief. I'm just saying I understand.

It's one thing to be physically free. Physical freedom can happen in an instant. In just one night, a Pharaoh can repent and a people can walk free. In just a moment, a person who has been a slave to sin her whole life can be set free by the blood of Jesus Christ. She can go to bed a slave, and wake up free.  In just one moment.  But it's another thing to learn to think free. It takes days and months and years to uncover patterns of slave thinking and to confront it and reject it. It takes time to renew the mind. At first, the fear is natural. It would require a deliberate looking past the evidence to believe that God can be trusted.

But there comes a time when the cycle needs to be broken. At some point, it begins to require a deliberate looking past the evidence to continue to hold onto the fear. The 400 years of slavery have shaped me and marked me. The marks of the whip are still on my back. The scars of the chains encircle my wrists. I can still feel them there. But to allow the years of slavery to continue to hold me is to deliberately pick up the chains and put them back on.  The memories of slavery may still be fresh, but there are new memories:  memories of a sea separating, of a rock splitting and pouring out water, of bread falling from heaven, of a mountain enshrouded with smoke and thunder and earthquake and flame, of an enemy falling back in defeat.  Memories of presence and provision and protection.  Those new memories must be acknowledged, counted, and clung to, not allowed to sink in the swamp of a slavery that no longer exists except in my head.

At what point does that time come? I don't know. For the Israelites, it came between the time they grumbled and snakes entered their camp and the time, very shortly after that, when the priests set foot in the full-flood Jordan and watched the water curl back, and the people crossed over on dry ground.

I used to think the Israelites were stupid. If they were, then I have been equally stupid. Sure, there are always difficulties that have about them the feel of the years of slavery. Sure, the years of slavery have left their scars.  But memories of presence and provision and protection abound. It is time to leave the fear behind. 

It is time to step into the Jordan.

A Rant

First it was random lists of colours.  Blue.  Black.  White.  Polka-dots.  Purple.  Nude.

Then it was cryptic comments that verged on lewdness.  In the kitchen on the floor.  Right by the front door.  On the backseat of my car.

Now it's the makeup-free selfie, which I post and then nominate someone else to do the same within 24 hours.

Somehow, taking a picture of myself without makeup and putting it up on Facebook is going to raise awareness of breast cancer.  Just like posting the colour of my underwear was going to raise awareness (and make all the men look like fools, which, of course, makes it so much more fun), and posting the place where my purse is currently resting was going to raise awareness (and make all the men look like fools, etc . . . ).

Oh, I know, the original point of the makeup-free selfie was supposed to be accompanied by a donation to a cancer society, and some people are still doing that, but let's be honest: most of the selfies I've seen posted have dropped the annoying donation bit and are just selfies "to raise awareness of breast cancer".

Seriously?

So I post a picture of myself without makeup, and I get dozens of comments about how wonderfully naturally radiantly beautiful I am.  How did that help anyone except me?  How did that bring awareness about anything except my own face?  How did that make one bit of difference in anyone's life who is actually struggling with cancer?  How do I think that taking and posting a picture of myself without makeup is somehow worthy of the struggle of cancer?  That it helps anyone know what it's like to hang over a toilet throwing up from the chemo treatments, to watch my hair come out in handsful, to watch my face swell up from the steroid treatments, or my lips and tongue become covered with sores, or be wracked with hiccups so deep and painful they strain every rib in my body?  How does it help to bring awareness to the fact that every step outside my house is a danger because the chemo has destroyed my immune system, and you insist on not being vaccinated for preventable diseases and won't stay home when you're sick?  How does it bring awareness to the anxious moments of waiting to see if the latest round of drugs has continued to fight this ravaging disease, or if the disease is overwhelming the drugs?  How does my collecting positive comments about my makeup-free face bring any kind of awareness to the pain of watching someone you love wither away and age a hundred years in one right before your eyes, and there is nothing you can do to stop it?

It doesn't.

All it does is make me feel good about myself. And how on earth did I become so vain and concerned about my appearance that I think that showing the world my bare face is somehow a brave and noble thing to do?

What about instead of perpetuating slactivism (the illusion of making a difference when you've really done nothing) we actually got out there and made a difference? 

What if we sat by the bedside of the cancer patient and held his hand while the drugs dripped into his veins?
What if we brought meals to the families of those whose days are eaten up in cancer clinics?
What if we donated money for parking, so the families of those patients could actually afford to park at the hospital?
What if we gave money, and gave generously to organizations like the Canadian Cancer Society or the Terry Fox Foundation?
What if we got off our backsides and tied on our running shoes and did the Terry Fox Run in September, or the Run for the Cure in October, or the Relay for Life in June?
What if, when we saw on Facebook that people are involved in these events and collecting funds, we pledged -- as quickly as we took a makeup-free selfie and posted that?
What if each one of us did just one of those things?

Those things are costly.  They involve sacrifice.  They take my money, my time, my effort.  They break my heart, because I come face-to-face with cancer, and I see the pain it involves.


Surely it's not too much to ask.  Is it?

I don't care if people want to take and post makeup-free selfies.  There are plenty of photos "out there' of myself without makeup.  It's really not that startling, or that big a deal.  Go for it.  I might even tell you you look great, as, I'm sure, you would tell me.  The mutual admiration society operates well.  But please don't think that doing so, in and of itself, makes any difference for those who are fighting cancer.

I've seen the face of cancer.
It looks nothing like a makeup-free selfie.

Conversation With the Birds

We stood huddled this morning, my dog and I, in the wind and snow.  I had my shoulders hunched and my collar turned up.  She had her ears pinned and her head lowered.  Her dixie-cup ears tend to catch the wind and the rain and snow, so she clamps them shut against her head when it's inclement weather.

It is the first day of spring.

The first day of spring and we woke up to snow.  Again.  I waited in the wind for my dog to find the perfect spot, and I sighed.  I'm pretty sure the sigh rose from my toes.  Nothing around me looked like spring.  It was cold.  Windy.  Snowy.  It looked like another verse of the Song that Never Ends.  It just goes on and on, my friend.  Never changing.  Enough to drive one mad.

It is supposed to be the first day of spring and it's just another day of Endless Winter.

But something broke into my gloomy thoughts.

Birdsong.

Lots of it.

I heard the cardinals first.  Full-throated notes, the male serenading his mate in a spring love-song.  Then the hearty chuckle of . . . robins?  It took me a moment to place the sound.  I haven't heard it in so long.  But it was!  It was robins!  I searched through the trees and found them -- my first robin-sitings of 2014.  And then came the liquid song of a red-wing blackbird, gurgling through the air like a creek over rocks.  I found him, too, hanging onto the thinnest of branches, buffeted by the wind and snow, head thrown back in triumphant song.

"Birdbrains," I mumbled into my collar.  "You silly birds!  Fly!  Fly for your lives!  Fly back to where it is warm and safe and there is food to eat!  Can't you see it's not spring yet?  Leave now, while you can, before you freeze to death or starve to death!"

But they didn't listen.  They stayed right where they were, defiantly throwing their songs to the wind and the snow.  The words formed words, and the words spoke to my heart.

"But it IS spring!  Just because it doesn't look like it doesn't change the fact.  It IS spring!  You are looking at circumstances, and doubting.  We are looking to the One who has promised that while the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease.  You silly human!  What are you going to believe?  The things that you see, or the unfailing promises of the Covenant Keeper?  Where is your faith?"

I winced.  Who was the birdbrain?  Then I smiled.
And laughed.
Just a little, but the sound rolled past my lips and joined the chorus of birdsong, human harmony with the melody of the birds.

It is spring.  It really is.

Trust

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to face a trial in life with an unshakeable trust in God.

I wonder, because that is not my reality.

I do trust God, I really do, but it is a trust that is won through enormous effort every time again.  I keep figuring it should get easier, but it doesn't.  The speed to which I set the treadmill has begun to feel easier.  The weights I lift have begun to feel lighter.  But every time again, my trust comes with struggle.

I want to trust easily.  I think, Ok, I'm going to really trust God, and even as I say it, my heart quakes, because it feels like a challenge, like I'm drawing a line in the sand, or maybe he is, and that trust is going to be pushed.

And it is.  The phone call at night.

I think, Ok, I kinda knew something was going to happen.  I told God I was trusting him, and sure enough, he's testing me.  But that's ok, because I know that he's good and I know that he is who he says he is, and he can do what he says he can do.

But the news we get is worse than we first thought.

Ok, really, God?  Wasn't the first thing enough?  

Parking fees and gas costs begin to add up and push and strain on an already strained bank account.  The bills I had hoped to pay off just might not get paid off after all now.  I'll cut here and scrimp there and make it work.

But then my car starts acting up.  It starts acting up in exactly the way it acted up last time it cost me $500 to repair.  Seriously?  Seriously??

I want to trust God, I really do.  I am trying to honour him in this, do the right thing, and one thing after another after another is going wrong.  I feel like he's beating me up, that no matter how hard I try, it's never good enough. That thought drifts through my mind like a tendril of smoke, grey and caustic, but barely there, just out of grasp, floating on the edges of my mind.

I wave my hand and try to disperse the smoke.  He's not beating me up.  The Lord is not like that.  He's good, and he loves me.

Yeah, it's easy enough to talk about love, isn't it.  Not much to it when he doesn't show it.  The smoke thickens a little, and it must be getting into my eyes, because they're smarting and I can't stop the tears that gather.

But he has shown it.  He's shown it here, and there, and there, and there.

Oh, wow, yeah,that's good, especially when he could easily have prevented the whole thing from happening in the first place.  He's emptying your bank account and then throwing you chump change, and you say that shows he's good.  The pallor of the smoke is cutting off my vision, and my eyes are streaming.

No, I'm trusting him.  I know he hears my prayers.

Like he heard them before, when you so desperately needed him and he wasn't there?  Before I know it, I am surrounded by hell-smoke.  I am choking and gagging on a lungful of fumes, and my trust hangs like a tattered rag.

Why?  Why??  Why do I so easily and so quickly believe those lies that reek with the breath of death?  I know they're not true.

But I fear they might be.   It is the fear of a hundred years ago, another lifetime ago, the fear of a much younger me, begging God, pleading with God, crying out for God to act . . . but he didn't seem to hear, and she thought she wasn't allowed to cry.  Even when it hurt.  Even when she knew in a blinding millisecond of truth that half-dead isn't the same at all as all-the-way dead, that the dead bodies on TV don't look one bit like dead bodies; they look like living people pretending to be dead.  And bodies lying in a coffin don't look alive and don't look "good".  They look like dead people pretending to be alive.

But there is no pretending.  There is no halfway.  There is life.  And death.  And death, if not grieved, has a way of creating a wound of the heart which robs us of courage, of love, hope, and trust, of all that makes life good and glad and glorious.  Without realising, it confirmed what I feared to be true while I was still too young in the faith to know better.  You see?  God doesn't hear.  God doesn't care.  Submitting something to God means losing it forever.  And you just need to take it, without crying, without question,without grief.  Just take it.  Swallow it without a word.  The lies rained like blows, and I cowered, silent, swallowing it without a word, arms raised over my head to protect myself from the bruises, and I stayed silent.

But, oh, how it hurt.  Oh, how it hurt.

And because I never questioned, the lies never surfaced.
Because I never cried, there were no tears to cleanse the wound.
The hurt was hidden, but not healed.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to face a trial in life with an unshakeable trust in God.  It is not my reality at this moment, but I want it to be.  I want to trust easily.  When trials come, I want to be quick to fall into the arms of a Father I truly do know loves me, rather than hiding my hurt in fear.

The questions might be 20 years old, but I am asking them now.  The tears might be 20 years too late, but they are surprisingly quick to surface.  They will still do their work.  I know my Father will welcome them, and will heal the hurt.

I know.
He is my Father.
He hears.
He cares.
And I trust him.

This Thing Called Grief

Grief is such a strange thing.

It's like a living force.  It cannot be denied.  People say that time heals grief, but it's simply not true.  Time can create an illusion of healing -- that much is true.  Life carries on.  It resumes some kind of ebb and flow of normal.  I learn to laugh again, and cry.  I get up in the morning and go to sleep at night.  I work and vacation.  I pick up my old routines, or develop new ones.  I adjust to the "new normal".

But underneath the facade of normal, the grief lies simmering, an inexorable force which pushes me to react without thinking, and I'm not even aware of it.

I don't feel sad.

I don't feel like I'm grieving.

I feel like I'm doing fine, like life has carried on, and there is good and joy and love and life left to live.

But unless I have actively walked through the grieving process, allowed myself to ask the hard questions, and feel the anger, the pain, the despair, the hopelessness, the deep, deep fatigue, the sense of not caring about anything anymore, the disinterest in life, the sadness and heartbreak and disappointment, and the other myriad conflicting emotions that accompany grief, my heart retains deep wounds.  They lie buried, hidden from my conscious experience but affecting my subconscious reactions.  The feelings lie in wait, looking for the smallest break in the dike to burst out and flood my heart with tears as hot and hard as if the loss had just happened.  Unless I wrestle with the questions of why and why not and bring them to the only One who can provide any kind of answer, they continue to taunt and nag, like the faintest of whispers, raising doubt and fear at the least provocation.  Pushing them away does nothing.  Pretendiing they're not there is useless.

And grieving is far bigger than feeling sad.  It's far bigger than missing the person I lost, or the life I lost, or the dream I lost.  It's far bigger than learning to live in a "new normal".

It is more like a bloody, snotty, tear-filled, gut-wrenching, exhausting battle to hold onto faith in a good God who loves me despite all apparent physical evidence to the contrary.  My life was shattered.  My heart was splintered.  And God let it happen.

Pretending that battle isn't there doesn't solve it.  Pretending I'm not asking the questions does nothing but distance me from the very God I need most desperately.  He doesn't deal with pretend and masks.  He doesn't love my facade of faith and fortitude when inside I am broken and wondering why.  He loves me.  With all my doubts and fears and pain.  All my pretend does is push me away from him.

Neither does pretending God didn't let it happen solve it.  Either he is sovereign, or he is not.  If he is sovereign, he let it happen.  If he is not sovereign, he is not God.  There are no alternatives.

Ungrieved grief leaves me with a crippled faith, a faith that is strong when there is evidence that God loves me, but that is wracked with doubt and fear the moment life takes a turn for the worse.  Because I have never wrestled with the questions, every time something goes wrong, my heart immediately flies back there:  Does God really love me?  Then why does he allow me to be so desperately hurt?  Does he really have my best interests at heart?  If I care deeply about something, will he take it away?  When I pray most fervently, does he remain silent?  When my tentative faith attempts to answer with the truth, the questions fly up, hot and heavy, throwing in my face that ungrieved grief, those unshed tears.  Every new trial, every fresh loss only calcifies the old hurts.

But faith, real faith, is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.  Active faith believes God is who he says he is and can do what he says he can do even when I am still hoping, even when I cannot see it.  Genuine faith holds onto the knowledge that God is who he says he is and can do what he says he can do even when life turns sour.

I want that kind of faith.  I want a faith that isn't shaken by the blows of life, that believes God all the time even when I cannot see. I want a faith that dares to hope that he not only can, but will act in ways immeasurably more than I could ask or imagine.  I want a faith that dares to ask him to move so.  I am tired of a faith that trembles under trial and trusts for so little.

Which leads straight back into the heart of grief.

It leads back to the time when prayer was answered in a way that seemed cruel, and I became afraid to ask. Back to the time when the longing of my heart went to the grave, and I wondered why.  The time when I trusted for much and my heart was broken and my faith was shaken.

And I never cried.

But grief does not negate joy.

Asking honest questions does not mean I do not trust God.

Not grieving as those who have no hope does not mean not grieving at all.

I have grieved over other things.  Grieved, and forgiven, and healed.  And the shaking in those areas has stopped.  God did not abandon me.  He did not turn from me in disgust for my questions and my wrestlings and my tears.  He held me up and held me close.

So I'm going to go back.  I'm going to bring to God the questions I have never even consciously thought about but which are always close at hand when life goes awry.  I will cry the tears that have not been shed for 20 years. I am going to grieve unanswered prayer.  Unfulfilled longing.  The loss of a father I needed so badly.  The loss of a dad I loved.

He may not give me answers to my questions, but I know he will give me Himself.

It is a step of faith.

Thoughts While Sitting in a Hospital Waiting Room

Matt Redman's song, "10 000 Reasons is amazing, isn't it?  My, we like to belt it out.  Until it comes true.

"The sun comes up; it's a new day dawning.

It's time to sing your song again.

Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me

Let me be singing when the evening comes:

Bless the Lord, O my soul."

Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me.  The thing is, I don't usually expect anything to pass except a normal day.  I don't expect anything to lie before me except the plans I had all laid out.

And then the late-night phone call comes.

And in a matter of seconds, everything changes.

And I find myself sitting in a hospital waiting room, with a lot of time to think, and a lot of time to pray, and no mental space to do either, and blessing the Lord is not necessarily the nearest thing on my mind.  It's one of those times where I'm relying on the Holy Spirit to intercede with groans on my behalf, because, really, I have been struck quite speechless by the sudden turn of events.  My mind skitters and turns, latching onto the ludicrous, missing the most obvious.

I'm eating an orange, not because I'm hungry.  I haven't been hungry all day.  My mind is disconnected.  I know I like oranges.  I know this orange is a treat -- a blood orange, one I'd normally savour.  I peel it.  I section it.  I eat it.  Mechanically.  I taste nothing.  I'm not even hungry.  I'm eating it because I don't know what else to do.

I read a book.  I read all the words.  I understand all the words.  I turn page after page.  But I have no idea what I'm reading.  The words are merely white noise drowning out a little of the cacophony of my thoughts.  When I get through this, I will throw the book away.  I never want to read it again, even though I have no idea what I've read.

The time creeps by endlessly, one second at a time.  How can one minute stretch into a week? Is no news good news?  Is no news bad news?  Does it mean something's happened, and they're waiting until they fix the disaster before telling us?  Nothing is happening.  There's no disaster.  It's ok.  Oh, God, let it be ok.  It could be a disaster.  NO.  NO!!  Shut UP!!  God . . . !  GOD!!  How can my heart be pounding so hard and the whole world not hear it?  How can it be pounding so hard and it not just burst out of my chest?

The sun is setting.  When did the sun begin to set?  I just got here.  How long have I been here?  Has the sun been shining all day, and I have been looking out of the window all day, and I have never noticed that the sun is shining?  And now a whole day of sunshine has slipped by and the sun is setting, and still I am sitting here?  How did this happen?

Where did all the people go?  This room was packed when we got here.  There's hardly anyone left.  What were they all waiting for?  Why are they gone already and I'm still here?  Is there something wrong?  Is it taking longer than it should?  No, NO, NO!!  No, shut UP!  God . . . !  GOD!!  It's ok.  It's ok.  It's gonna be ok.

But I've been down this path before.  And it wasn't ok.  It was all so dreadfully wrong.

And there is grief still to be grieved.

It is amazing how experiences carve pathways in the brain.  Years can fill the pathways with dust and debris, but in just the right circumstances, the dust and debris are blown away, and the pathway lies exactly as it was left, with all its old potholes and roadblocks and undiscovered treasures.  The heart finds the pathway familiar and follows it without thought.The heart is not recognising that this is not the same path.  It looks and feels and sounds and smells so familiar.  It stumbles over the same potholes.  It misses the scenic vistas.  It follows without examining where it goes.  It assumes an outcome because it's travelled the path before. 

But it is a different path.  The old paths need to be examined,  not just blown over with the dust and debris of time, to come back to life like a dormant seed in the desert, waiting for the storm of life to water it and give it new root. Potholes and roadblocks need to be filled in with truth. Treasures need to be uncovered and enjoyed.  New outcomes are possible.  Hope . . . hope is possible.

And this song comes on:

"I’m tired, I’m worn.
My heart is heavy
From the work it takes
To keep on breathing.
I’ve made mistakes;
I’ve let my hope fail.
My soul feels crushed
By the weight of this world.

And I know that you can give me rest
So I cry out with all that I have left:

Let me see redemption win
Let me know the struggle ends
That you can mend a heart
That’s frail and torn ..."

Make it so, Lord.

Amen.