His Patient Pursuit

Every day for the past couple weeks I have woken in a place of tenderness and tears.  Jesus is doing a new thing in me, and sometimes, the depth of that is overwhelming.  Sort of a “meltdown” kind of overwhelming.  

As we walked through the sweets and spice isle today at the grocery store, my little guy also had a meltdown.  Seeing this I sat down on the cold white tiled floor, opened my arms wide as he cried while waiting for him to choose, my embrace.  His choices previous to this were part of what led to the meltdown… but this moment would go no further without him feeling once again, safe.

Meltdowns always make us feel a bit unsafe inside… don’t they?

As we sat behind the blue cart, right in front of the spices, other carts moving slowly down the aisle, I slowly rocked him back and forth, and began to quietly pray.  He cried… I wanted to cry… and almost did.  After about 15 minutes of holding and rocking, we were on our way.  Everything was just right again.

Until I went to pay for my groceries.  

“You are such a kind man to your customer’s,” I told the older Indian man who was full of welcoming cheer and kindness.  “Aw, you just made my day, honey.” he replied in a tone of joy and comfort.

While unloading my cart he was ringing up my items.  “I have a limit of (and I named an amount) to spend,” I told him.    As we continued on, he saw that I went over my limit, while still having one last item on the black belt.  An item I didn’t need today, but saved in case I had enough after everything else to get.  The kind man saw this.  He suddenly entered in a discounted code for a coupon that was exactly $5.00 off my total, bringing it just one dollar below my limit.  I had no coupon.  He just typed in some numbers, and suddenly it was five dollars less.    

I saw this.  He said nothing about it.  I said nothing, but in my heart I knew I would make sure I said something as I left, inconspicuously so that the previous customer didn’t pick up on what was just given to me, “in secret.”

Swiping my money card through the machine the total came back as owing a balance of $13.67.  I didn’t understand.  My money card only took so much of the total.  Why?  I suddenly panicked thinking, “Oh, no, I have spent all of what was in the account.  I can’t swipe it again as he suggested, that will put me in the negative.”  Being now in panic mode about not only do I not have the money in our account, not only is our account depleted, but now I have to rummage through these bags and put back thirteen some dollars back.  

“How much does she need?” said the woman who looked old enough to be my mother.  I immediately said, “Oh, no, that’s okay.. really, it’s okay.”

“How much does she need?” she asked again.  She then proceeded to hand the man $15.00.  I turned to her in tears and hugged her. “You must know Jesus,” I whispered through my tears.  

“Just enjoy it!” she replied.  “You have no idea the deep work He is doing in me, really… this is so incredible.”  I told her.  “Oh, enjoy it, and don’t make me cry.” as her eyes were outlined in water.  

The kind Indian man at this point is putting all those grocery’s in my cart and steps around my cart and reaches to give me a hug, and pulls me close and says…”It’s a beautiful day out there today, the sun is shining.  You go have yourself a wonderful day, it’s all gonna be okay!”  

I was weeping in this mans shoulder… I felt my tummy moving from the crying.  I was so loved in that moment.  

I had a meltdown.  And that woman and man, scooped their love around my heart right into theirs and loved on me.  Strangers… seeing something of a moment where the fragrance of life, the spices of such love, immediately fill a moment.  Others were watching, too, just like I’m sure they were in the aisle with Seth.  I didn’t care.

What I gave Seth in that moment, was given to me… one hundred fold.  Or so it felt.  

Now, you want to hear a secret?  The really amazing part that I have not yet shared.  Seth drew me a picture the other night, well for Daddy and Mommy and then decided he wanted to give it to Daddy.  Which was so sweet.  However, it was a picture of birds flying in the sky next to a big tree that looks to me like an Oak Tree.  If you know anything of my writing on this blog, you know that birds are one of the primary ways He, Jesus, has been getting my attention and speaking the past going on, 3 yrs. now.  

Do you know how many birds are in that picture, Seth drew?  FIVE!  Yes, Five!  Do you know what the number five means, Biblically?  

Grace!  Grace!  Grace!  Grace! Grace!

This was two days ago.  Do you know what the number two means?  Agreement!  Agreement!  

He used two people to agree to bless me with His grace today.  

He came and embraced me in a moment that was heading into a panic meltdown, but He redeemed it into a meltdown of receiving His grace.   

As I walked away from that moment, in my snow boots and tears melting down my face… I was overwhelmed by His love… His Fathering love… the very kind of love He has been slowly drawing near this little girls heart with.  

Last night, He showed me that He is sitting in front of me.  He is wanting to sit there as long as it takes for me, to make a choice.  He is sitting down on the cold white, tiled floor.  Where there is a little girl who has been in a dark corner for over three decades now.  She is scared… she is overwhelmed, and she is having a meltdown.  

But, He… is not afraid of her meltdown.  He is sitting there with His arms wide open, waiting for her to embrace His love for her.

And her to embrace the little girl she left behind.  

Today, … was a picture of, a glimpse of… that embrace.  In the color and faces of the unexpected.

I need to still respond to that invitation He is making to me… and it’s a process.   A process that I in part have run from.  

But, He is so sweet in that He won’t let His kids run to long… before He meets them somewhere along the road.  It will be many different faces, and packages, that He sends, before I trust Him again.  

And, when I do… I will too, need to confess my sin in that lie I believed.  That I couldn’t trust Him.  Even if it is on a cold white tiled floor.  Waiting for His deeply broken girl to choose, His healing embrace.    


 

Bending Back

I started to read “The Reflective Life,” by Ken Gire.  In it he explains that to reflect, is in essence to, “bend back something."   

I had many questions, after pondering this word.  How does one “bend back something,” when bending reveals only pain?

How do you reflect on something behind, when that reflection is full of so much hurt and sorrow, and covered in all the could have, should have, and might have beens?

How does one stand at the edge of a shoreline facing oceans, seeing only waves too high to surf, currents too strong to swim against, and a drowning almost so crushing, that seeing the surface is only a mere hope?

Or when you wake into a new day, standing at the shores of an advancing sun, watching it dance like diamonds on ripplets of lapping waves, do you not sense the coming of mighty winds and storms, so familiar, so inevitable? Thus, fearing such sacred moments so very known, yet breathing winds of air forming an unknown, as it blows mystery yet to come, a tide stronger, a lapp harder, as it always does.

It seems the moment one takes to embrace, stopping long enough to hear the song that sings atop whatever moment you're in, fades more quickly than that moment for which the song, is no longer heard, Tides having already, turned. Or perhaps the melody of the storm, is a sound for which we recognize more quickly, than the harmony one struggles to hear, in the calm, before the storm.

I long to be cast away into those moments that play harmonies, for my melody has become heavier.  A burden.  A song one should never have to, listen to.  A lyric full of solemn melody’s.  Scarce in harmony’s.

Why are we drawn to the harmony in songs?   

Harmony brings enhancement, dynamic. That sending of chills up one's spine as angelic, a heavenly presence they hold. Melody, a continuing constant, always there directive leading you thru to where you are going. It often is what everyone can pick up on easily, without difficulty.

Harmony, however, is for the more advanced ear and eye. You'd think one who has lived the melody's I have, would be equipped and advanced enough to be promoted to songs of a much sweeter melody.  Harmony’s ushering in the angelic into what at times has felt, demonic.

Melody tells the story.  Harmony, gives one hope when the story feels lost, alone, and abandoned.  It reminds one of the fact that, there is something else involved, someone else involved. And that something or someone, being good.  Have you ever tried to listen to harmony alone?  It has no impact, no purpose. It is no longer needed, when on it's own. In fact, it is even unpleasant to hear, without the foundation of melody giving it's perfect connection to make.

And so, is there something to see, in all this reflective writing for me?

Perhaps, it is to see that the harmony that has layered itself thru the canvas of my life, is that which only comes with the scenery of melody, I have lived.   The very song that has been the story, of my life.

Perhaps, it is not for me to figure out why.  Perhaps, all I am to do, is to decide what to do with the melody, given me. To listen for the harmony’s which can only be sung, over the melody’s of my life.  That the angelic meant to be heard in my song, would be found.  To learn how to dance, within the song of my life, as a harmony dances over melody.  That cadence in a song, where its rhythms rise and fall, notes sung in a harmony that can only be sung; over that- melody.  

This, is my bending back.  

This, is my cadence.

Where melody and harmony are found in the story of my life.  And maybe, if I am quiet enough to hear, still enough to see, I might just hear the greatest Harmonizer of all, singing over me, with all the angelic hosts, letting me in, on a few more notes of the melody’s yet to come.  So that, I may find hope- where otherwise no hope was found, at all.

Written in 2005

That's The Deal

Sometimes I don't know if I am afraid of who I am, or afraid of who I'm not. Sometimes I don't know if I hate myself, or just what I'm afraid I will become, or perhaps even more, not become. Sometimes, what hurts the most is what this brutal world of experience forges one to submit too. And, yet somehow, this becomes the very place, for which one finally submits to the safest place of all, and this is in the shawdow of our creator, the center of our suffering. The center of His intimacy.

Although the shawdow often does not appear as one of safety, but of death, destruction, desolation and often despair deeper than the deepest of valleys, this very place has the defining moment of becoming the one place for which we truly see that He is God, and we are not. Where the center of His heart lies in the desire to be in the center of our very soul. The one place for which our hope is either crushed, or strengthened. Crushed by the elements experience may, will, and does bring. Elements that either break us, and ironically, make us stronger. Or perhaps the far more common course taken is that of the one whome this moment causes them to run from the very purpose this elelment is intended for. This is the greatest tragedy of all.


C.S. Lewis said this,

"When I was a boy I chose safety, When I was a man, I chose suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then, that's the deal."

 It is this choice we are all faced with. It is in these moments we grow from boy to man. In these moments we are strengthened in our very brokeness and suffering. Strengthened to accept that our only hope is in Him alone. He being the very one who's gone before, any and all experience for which either will come, or has come, to pass upon me. These are the gravel roads, the muddy waters, the sandy planes, the jagged edges, the valleys, ascents, and all other terains in which we find the fingerprints of God, the center of all He is and has to offer.

 The problem is not in the journey, for that is the gift. The problem is an eye problem. Where our blindness and resistance to suffering hides the beauty of intimacy and grace. It is in this problem, I learn and find vision, those things that make up faith. And it is in this very place we find the center of all we've become, and are becoming. The center of who He is. What He is longing and working for us to be, a reflection of His Son.

Here is a clip from the movie, "Shadowlands." 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3PUhrvAxyg