Need | A Salvation Story Imagined

Recently God helped me to more fully understand the depth of my need for His work on the cross – that even if I could stop Him, I wouldn’t, because I need Him to save me and to save everyone I love. This was hard to express and when I sat down to write it, what came out (below) was unexpected. Please don’t freak out that the “Judge” is a woman. I’m not questioning God the Father…it’s just creative writing.

I stand, hands clasped tightly behind my back to stop them trembling. There is no noise to muffle the pounding in my ears, against my ribs, in my stomach. Breath comes fast but not fast enough.

Concentrate. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Somewhere nearby, a crow is cawing. Gray clouds shroud the sun and a cold breeze bites at my ankles.

I fix my eyes just above her head, on the words engraved in the stone wall behind her, “Justice Shall Prevail.” Though I’m staring at the stones, I can tell she isn’t looking at us. She examines the scroll before her, reading every word. When she looks up, her face is hard and cold, like metal. She’s here to judge me. To judge us all.

She doesn’t ask if we are guilty or innocent. She already knows.

To my left, stands everyone I love. To my right, looms a crude wooden platform and behind that, a pile of stones so tall that it casts a shadow over us. There is no one else, save the Enforcers. No one to condemn or defend us. The record speaks for itself.

My children, two boys and two girls, old enough to answer for themselves now, stare ahead as I do. Except for the youngest. He looks hard at the ground. Silent tears roll down the cheeks of my oldest daughter. I can feel her crying.

“Guilty as charged!” The judge’s voice hits me like a bullet. “For rebellion, treason, betrayal and murder. You know the penalty.”

For a moment, I can’t breathe. But I will not move. I will not turn my head. The judgment is no surprise. I know. We know – we all know – what we have done.

Except the youngest. “We’ve done nothing wrong!” He shouts. “Mother, tell them! We’ve done nothing wrong!”

My eyes burn. I open them wide to keep the hot tears from spilling out. In a moment, they will take us to the platform, lie us on our backs side by side and strap us down so we cannot move. Then they will pile stones upon us – stones equal to the weight of our crimes – until we are crushed to death. But what scares me most – what hurts me most – is that my own son seems to have forgotten the difference between right and wrong.

His screams grow louder and the judge bangs her staff against the stone wall and the Enforcers scramble toward him and a sob threatens at my throat and then I hear him…not my son…but him.

“I will pay!” He thunders. “I will pay for their crimes!”

Silence once again engulfs us and I snap my head to look behind me. He walks toward the judge, meeting her eyes with his. A plain, simple man in appearance, but something about him is different. He is determined yet tender. He stops between me and the platform.

I am frozen in place. The judge’s eyes pierce the man as she asks, “Do you know the cost?”

“You know that I do,” he answers softly.

I watch something like sorrow pass over her face as she warns, “I cannot stay with you.”

“I know that, too,” he whispers.

For a moment, she looks away but then turns her face toward him again…softer now…not like metal…but like, like love. Is that possible?

“Thank you,” she says.

“You’re welcome, mother,” he replies.

Mother? I stare, forgetting to breathe. Then he looks at me for the first time and I feel as though I’m melting beneath the warmth of his eyes. It’s like I’ve known him all my life, as though he is my brother, my father, my friend. And I can hardly bear the thought of him taking my place. My chest aches and I before I know what I am doing, I find myself on my knees in the dirt, crying, “No! No!”

He rests a strong hand on my head and whispers, “But you cannot pay. Even your death will not be enough.”

I begin to sob and I don’t understand my own tears. I cling to his bare feet, my hair, soaked now with tears, falling around my face, and all I know is that I never, never want to be separated from him.

“But you can’t!” I’m shouting now.

“I am the only one who can.”

Between sobs I plead with him, “I am a traitor. A murderer. All my life, I have been lost, confused. But, but, but now you’re here and when I look in your eyes…I’m… I’m not lost anymore. Please! Please don’t go!”

“If you try to pay for your crimes on your own, you will die and we will be separated forever. But if I pay for these crimes that I did not commit, I will live and we will be together again.”

“How can that be?!”

I hear the judge’s steady voice, “I wrote the law and my son will fulfill it.”

“How do I know? How do I know you will return?!” I demand.

He puts his hand on my chin and turns me towards him, brushing the hair out of my eyes, “I came here today to save you.” He pauses, shifting his gaze to each of my children – even the youngest, who looks defiantly at the ground. “And to save them.”

Dread, sorrow and shame overwhelm me. Grief and desperation ravage my body and I can’t get air. And I know…I know that I need him…this man with eyes that see into my soul…I need Him to die…so that I can live and so that I can be with him again.

“Do you want me to save you?” he asks.

I look down, clawing at earth with my fingernails, “Is there no other way?”

“There is no other way.”

Helpless, I collapse, “Then, yes. I need you to save me. I need you to save them.”

“Yes. You do.”

He takes my head in his hands, bringing my forehead to his lips before stepping away. Afterward he speaks to each of my children, though I cannot hear his words.

Finally, he looks toward his mother. She turns and walks away.

Alone, he climbs to the platform and lays himself down in the shadow of the stones…the stones that should have crushed us all…the stones that will now crush him.

As we all watch him go, it is my youngest son who weeps the loudest of all.

One of my new favorites by Hillsong…

October 26, 2013 0

I Am Not Enough

I am not enough. I will never be enough. I am inadequate. Completely, desperately inadequate.

I sit at the counter and feel the weight of those words pressing down on me, pressing me into the counter top. I am unable to push back.

Why do these thoughts oppress me when they are true? The truth sets me free. But this…this is hopelessness and shackles and life draining from my limbs and air leaving my lungs. Somewhere deep in my thoughts, this truth harbors a lie. What is it? What am I thinking?

I search my mind. God, help me search my mind. I think about how I think about me.

I AM not enough. I am NOT enough. I am not ENOUGH. I never will be. I never was. I learned that long ago. I remember crying out to God to rescue me…to fix me. I knew there was something wrong with me. As a child, a teen…I did not wonder…I did not ask. I knew. I was deficient, defective, Less Than…

Less than what? Less than what I should have been. What I could have been. I failed. I am a failure. Should have been what? Could have been what? Enough. I should have been enough. I should have been adequate. I should have been complete. Strong.

But I know…deep within me…in the cold, dark place…I know, I couldn’t have been enough. Because I am broken and I am a sinner.

Oh, but I should have been! I should have been enough. I should have been Good. Strong. Complete. Independent.

That last word almost slips by. Out of the corner of my eye I see it…drifting off into the distance…trying to sneak away…but I caught it. My mind draws that word back and lays it out before me. Because that’s a word that doesn’t belong. Independent. That word doesn’t live in the space I share with Jesus. That word has no place here.

But I feel it: my desire to be independent; to be good; my anger at having failed. I hate that I need help…that I need to be rescued. And I begin to untangle the lies from the truth.

I am not enough.

Finish that sentence, Nichole.

I am not enough…on my own. Truth.

I never could have been enough. Truth.

I never could have been enough…because I am defective. Lie.

How is that a lie? My sin, my brokenness, my failures and misdeeds clamor and clang down the streets of my life like a Mardi Gras parade…refusing to be ignored. I should have gotten it right. But I am a failure. I am defective…a disappointment…weak…

You never could have been enough because you were never meant to be enough…on your own.

Truth.

I feel the freedom. The pressure easing off my back, my chest. I breathe.

I need God, not because I am defective, but because I was never meant to live without him. I was made to need Him. We were made to need Him. And yet we come into this world thrashing and gasping for air…desperate to survive. Selfish…to keep the breath for which we struggle, to hold this life..to own it…to be something…on our own.

On my own, I am not good – not because I failed – but because I could never be good apart from God. I was not created to be on my own. On my own, I am nothing…maybe something worse than nothing.

I am not a failure. I just am. Truth.

I am needy. Truth.

I am weak. Truth.

I am broken. Truth.

And that is exactly what He wants me to be. Truth.

On my own – like independent – those are words that have no place between Jesus and me. His Spirit and mine. We are one. I will never be on my own. I cannot be on my own.

I am His. Truth.

Everything He gives me, which is all of Him, is endless. I don’t need enough – I have everything. I have more than everything.

I am complete. Truth.

I breathe in this truth. I am light and hope finds its wings. The truth sets me free.

I am free. Truth.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-11

One of my all time favorite songs. Hey fellow Scots, dig these bagpipes:

September 5, 2013 17

A Love We Cannot Fathom

The other morning as I was praying for a friend, these words just poured out onto the pages of my journal. About halfway through, I realized that this message is not just for one particular friend (though it is certainly for you, my dear) but for all of us. Happy Easter, my friends.

What if we just stripped away all the theology, all the questions, all the seeming inconsistencies of life … and just let Jesus love us?

What if we took a step back from our toil, set down our work and opened our hands. I would like to sit in a chair – perhaps a rocking chair – and rest my tired feet and aching muscles. And then, what if we just sat back with nothing left to do but receive His love?

No need to labor over this or that. Forget about if you’re doing a “good enough” job. Stop fretting over whether you said this right or thought that right. Just stop and let Him love you.

Because His love just is. There is nothing you can do to change it. You can’t increase His love or decrease His love. His love has no limits – past, present or future. His love is perfect, bottomless and complete. God’s love just is.

So what if instead of thinking about love, trying to figure it out, you just sit back, relax and open your heart?

You may say that you don’t get it – this love. You wonder, how can you receive His love when you can’t even fathom it? Here’s the thing: you will never truly be able to fathom the depths of His love because it’s His love… and He is God.

But you can experience His love. You can receive His love.

When you were a child, you didn’t understand or fathom your parents’ love. How could you? An infant, a toddler, a child, a teenager can’t know what it is to love with a parent’s love. They can’t even begin to understand such love.

Oh, but they receive it! Like a dry sponge, they soak in every ounce of love their parents will give them.

And so it is with God. We don’t have to understand His love….we just have to receive it.

He loves us. Whether we love Him or not. His love never changes, never runs out, never gives up. His love for us, for me, for you… just is.

And this love is more faithful, more powerful, more rich and deep and warm and consuming and freeing and nourishing and redeeming and forgiving and compassionate and nurturing and constant

and merciful and gracious and fierce and healing and completely free… than any love we’ve ever known.

His is a love we cannot fathom. But it is a love that is ours.

Let go of your toil. Let go of your work. Let go of your need to figure it all out. Let go of every last shred, every little thread, every tiny cord of control. Let go so that you can open your hands and receive.

Let go. Let go. Let go. And let Him love you. Let Him have you.

He waits. He waits at the gates of your heart for the moment you will turn the lock, pull back the heavy doors and let Him in.

He waits. He longs to give Himself to you. Receive Him. He is yours.

March 28, 2013 7

Answers

“I am intellectually empty and vacant.” Those are the words one minister spoke to his congregation last Sunday. Not as a man without hope, but as one honestly acknowledging that he had come to the end of himself. There was nothing that the intellectual, rational part of his being could do with the tragedy of Newtown, Connecticut.

We are all a little desperate today.

The following, somewhat paraphrased, quote from the movie Love Comes Softly, keeps running through my mind:

“When we’re hurting, we spend an awful lot of time looking for answers, when what we really need is comfort.”

I believe we need that truth now more than ever.

Now, as the shock wears off and the anger surfaces. Now, while we search for someone to punish. Now, when we are grasping for reason. Clinging to frayed hopes for humanity. Now, as we race to protect our children and ourselves. As we try to control the uncontrollable, rationalize the irrational and console the inconsolable.

Now – when we are searching, desperately searching for answers, we must remember where to look.

I have wrestled with pain before – pain that the world can do nothing to ease. I have searched for answers. I have railed against God. Pounded on His chest and screamed, “WHY?!!!”

Then God asked me: “What answer would satisfy you?”

So, I imagined the God of the universe standing before me and saying, “Nichole, you have suffered because ______.” But every word I used to fill in the blank fell short of my expectations. No answer sufficed. Every time – every time – my response was, “Well, you’re God. Surely you could have done it another way.”

Some pain is too deep, some things too extraordinary to understand.

20 children shot dead and hundreds more traumatized, scarred for life. Surely there was another way!

When Job lost everything he had – family, health, business, friends, position in society – he cried out to the Lord for an answer. The Lord answered out of the storm. But probably not in the way Job expected:

“Brace yourself like a man;
I [God] will question you [Job],
and you shall answer me.

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
    Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
    Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
    or who laid its cornerstone—
while the morning stars sang together
    and all the angels shouted for joy?”

Can you just imagine His booming voice, like the rushing wind or crackling thunder? Continuing like that for several more chapters, (Job 38-41) God’s answer hardly seems like an answer at all. It rather seems like…a rebuke.

But what answer would have satisfied Job? Would he have actually found comfort in knowing that God allowed Satan to sift him like wheat?

God is so good. He knew what Job needed better than Job himself.

Instead of speaking to Job’s intellect, God reveals Himself to Job’s heart. And Job responds:

“Surely I spoke of things I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me to know….

My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you.
Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”

God didn’t give Job an answer. God WAS the answer.

Finally, Job surrenders. He stops his frantic search. He lays down his quiver of accusations. Throws himself on the ground and vomits up the bile of his bitter, grieving heart. He has seen the Lord and at last, he rests. At last, he finds comfort.

Grief, sorrow, pain. Harbor these waters of affliction and your wells will turn bitter and run dry. But let them flow, let your tears rain down, seek comfort in the arms of your Father, and there you will find the waters of life. (Oddly enough my blog last month was about grieving. You can read it here if you would like to explore this topic further.)

To my grieving fellow Connecticutians and Americans, what arrows are in your quiver? Strung on your bow? Acts of retribution? Making someone pay? Judgment? Or acts of morality? Giving financially to victims? Social activism? Or acts of self-protection? Fear? Isolation? Not all of these things are bad, but do them – even the “good” ones – without receiving comfort and you will be like Job, like I once was, perhaps even like the perpetrators you despise – weary, bitter, empty and isolated.

Can you admit, like the minister did, that you are intellectually vacant? Can you fall at the feet of the One and Only Answer you will ever need? Can you let Him be enough? Because He Is. He Was. He Will Always Be, the only Answer that satisfies. The One in whom all questions fade away.

This is one of my favorite songs and as music often does, it says more in 3 minutes than I could in a thousand years.

December 18, 2012 11

Healing Rain

I Had a Dream….no really, I did!

I was with my youngest daughter, Christina, and a friend. We stood in a vast, barren landscape of dry, scraggly hills covered with natural debris. I didn’t look at the sky but it must have been sunless, because everything was gray, ashen.

I am bent over a pile of withered, cracked branches – branches much longer than I am tall and about the thickness of a baseball bat. The branches are so dry, they’ve begun to turn white. I kneel down, curious. Lifting up a few branches to see what lies beneath, I notice they’re stuck in some sort of gray mire. An old riverbed! The mire reeks of decay.

I lift my head. To my left are three dead owls.

Nothing lives here.

I stand and look around. I see now – the hills and valleys are actually the stony banks and dry beds of countless rivers and creeks. Each one filled with desiccated branches. Everywhere my eyes scan: parched, lifeless land.

A moment later, I am at an old farmhouse. Not mine. My grandmother’s? My mother’s? I think we’re on vacation. My entire family is there. Even my grandparents, who’ve long since passed.

My grandma’s in the kitchen. There’s a child sleeping on an over sized chair. Is it Christina? Or am I seeing myself?

I step out the screen door and the sky looms heavy, oppressive, dark. Drizzle dots my skin. I sigh and think, “Ugh, rain. Another family vacation day ruined.” Then I remember the dry riverbed. I put my hand out to catch the drizzle. “No. Not enough to make a difference.”

Next, I am standing outdoors. Christina and I are by the street, facing the white farmhouse. She seems younger in my dream. My friend stands in the yard, facing us. Behind her there’s a little vegetable garden. And I have a sense that my grandma is watching us through the embroidered café curtains of the kitchen window.

It starts to rain. And pour. And pour. For a moment I am disappointed. Rain on vacation.

I look at the ground beneath my feet. Mud. So much water the ground can’t hold. My skin, my hair – soaked. What a mess! What a…

I remember: The dry riverbeds. The barren wasteland. This rain – it’s falling there too!

I turn my palms heavenward and lift my face to the rain. Rain will quench the parched land and fill thirsty riverbeds. Perhaps the rain did not come when I wanted, as I expected, but it came and it is good.

What do you do with a dream like that? What do you make of it? I would love to hear your thoughts. It has been a couple of weeks and God is still speaking to me about it.

I should tell you that this dream came on the night of Tuesday, November 6 – Election Night 2012. Hmmmm….

I should also tell you that our church is in the midst of a spiritual emphasis we call “Pray for Reign.” Together, we are praying for God to reign in our lives, individually and corporately, and that His spirit would rain down on us and on our land.

Back when Pray for Reign began, I fell in love with this song Waiting for the Rain by Misty Edwards:

“..I’m waiting in the desert, just waiting for the rain…”

This weekend, I had the privilege of being with a friend while she grieved. As I watched her cry, God gave me a sort of vision: I glimpsed dry riverbeds, like the ones in my dream, deep in her soul. And they were being watered by her tears. The beauty of it took my breath away. The eyes of my heart began to see…to understand grief differently:

Loss of any kind leaves an empty space in our hearts. If we hold on to that loss or run away from it, that hole becomes an dry, decaying ditch. What water is left, sours from the rotting branches of bitterness – those worthless things we use to fill our hollow spaces. Then it happens again…and again, so that one day, we look around at the expanse of our souls, and see acres upon acres devoured by loss. An emaciated wasteland.

Nothing lives here.

“…oh but I won’t leave this desert, until I see the rain…”

More often than not, God won’t bring back what was lost – people die, dreams are dashed, life changes, friends move away, bodies grow weak. All this life…it’s just a letting go.

I have wrestled with this. I have burned with rage. I have desperately asked. I have silently cried. Then came peace – or at least the hope of peace: Nichole, every empty cavern, every hollow grave, is a place for Me to enter. Everything I take away, creates more room for Me.

This life is loss. I can rail against reality – rail against Him – or I can accept what’s true and give Him space to rain…to reign.

“… I can see the clouds gatherin’ now…are you ready…are you ready for the rain?”

Are you ready for the rain? When God sends it, will you let it fall?

Will you?

Because the rain that fills our dry riverbeds will not fall from the sky. The rain that soaks our shriveled souls, will fall from our eyes. Our very eyes.

Grief is a gift from God. A well to the deep healing waters of heaven. Let Him rain.

Lament your loss. Mourn what’s missing. Cry out in your pain.

I had a dream. God reigned.

See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19

November 19, 2012 7

Promises

Promise me you’ll never leave. Promise you won’t tell. Promise to help me, no matter what. Promise you’ll never hurt me. Promise you won’t turn your back on me. Promise you’ll never give up on me. Promised me you’ll never forget.

Promises. We ask for and give them so easily. What does a promise mean to me? To you? Why are promises important?

For the last month I have been reading about promises kept, even at the most difficult times. About soldiers who risked their lives to save a woman who had earlier shielded them from the sword of her own countrymen. Not only did the soldiers save the woman, but they rescued her whole family as well. In the midst of a raging battle, the soldiers fought their way down city streets, back to her home, bringing her and her family to safety. They did this not because they loved her, not because they were a search and rescue team, not because they feared her. The soldiers rescued her because she asked them to and, in gratitude of her mercy toward them, they promised her they would. It was as simple as that.

I also read about a nation tricked into making a treaty with a neighboring village. The villagers claimed, rather convincingly, to be something they were not. The nation would never have entered into the treaty had they known the truth. Even still, when the national leaders discovered the deception, they honored the treaty. One day, a coalition of five enemy states attacked the village. Without hesitation, they called on the very nation they had deceived and pleaded for military support. As a man of his word, the national leader agreed. He then traveled with his entire army throughout the night until arriving at the village. The next morning, and for what seemed like days, they waged war on the invaders and successfully defended the villagers in perhaps their most difficult battle ever. Why? Because in allying themselves with the villagers, they had made a promise, of not only peace, but of unity.

Promises. What kind of promises have you made? Have you ever been tricked into making a promise? Or maybe you just feel like you didn’t get what you bargained for?

I read about another promise. The promise of a father. He was the father of the two soldiers and of the deceived national leader. The father had raised his children to be strong, faithful, compassionate, wise, loving, patient and honest – not because he told them to, but because he too was all those things. Their father had never made a promise he didn’t keep and he never would. In honor of their father, these sons did the same. A promise made was a promise kept.

For the last month or so, I have spent most (not all, but most) of my writing time deep in preparations for our summer play and camp. I have so much I want to write about that I’ve begun to envision the topics piling up before me like a stack of sweet pancakes just waiting to be devoured. But there is no time for self-indulgence, there is a script to be written! So, in an effort to be faithful to my blog and my commitments at the same time, I have combined the two.

By now, some of you recognize the soldiers, the woman, the leader, the villagers and the Father as characters from the book of Joshua, and our focus for this summer’s program. These last few days, as I think of the story of Joshua, I see a sweeping account of a Father’s faithfulness to his children and his determination to keep his promises, no matter what the cost. As a testimony to their Father, the children live with the same passionate, sacrificial integrity.

Do I take my promises and commitments seriously? Will I honor my commitments even when they fail to meet my expectations? Will I keep my promises, no matter the cost? Am I aware of how my faithfulness reflects on the Father who risked everything for me? The Father who promised He’ll never leave. Promised He won’t tell. Promised to help me, no matter what. Promised He’ll never hurt me. Promised He won’t turn His back on me. Promised to never give up on me. Promised me He’ll never forget. That’s a Father worth keeping promises for – am I willing? Are you?

Something to think about!

February 17, 2012 6

Unexpected Gifts

Do you remember that Christmas present you always wanted but never got? I found mine while reverently flipping through the Sears Wish Book, eyes wide, excitement bubbling through my veins. I circled the picture over and over, practically cutting a hole through the paper with the tip of my pen. Then, when I showed my parents, they promptly informed me that a Barbie Dream House was not in the budget nor would it fit in our two bedroom apartment. Even after a letter to Santa and some earnest prayers, come Christmas day, among all the presents under the tree, there was no Barbie Dream House. So goes life. Sometimes, we ask for one thing and get another.

Most of the time, such disappointments are small and quickly forgotten. But at other times, they hurt. Imagine the child who wants a set of paints or a guitar but the parents keep buying soccer balls and shin guards. Might such a child wonder, “Do my parents even know me? Do they care at all?” A good and genuine gift – material or not – is one that says, “I know you and I love you. I know you and I love you.”

I think that’s why we’re often confused when we ask the Lord for one thing and He gives us something else. Doesn’t He know us through and through? Doesn’t He love us more than anyone ever could? Scripture tells us that God gives good gifts to his children – we just have to ask. Then why do we ask for work and find none? We ask for friends and are still alone? We ask for healing and death comes anyway? We ask for answers and are left with more questions? What then?

Lately, I have really wrestled with this. It’s not that I think He can’t hear me. I know He can. And it’s not even that He’s silent. In fact, He’s talking to me all the time. But sometimes I feel like we’re having two different conversations. I ask for an apple and He answers with an orange. I ask in English and He answers in…well…God language.

One particularly frustrating night, I picked up the book Beyond Opinion. After flipping to the chapter “The Role of Doubt and Persecution in Spiritual Transformation” by Stuart McAlister, I skeptically began reading. What? Doubt? Me? Never! To my surprise, I found some nuggets of truth, a new perspective, and it’s radically altering how I view the Lord and my relationship with Him.

Do you remember what happens between Moses and the Lord in Exodus 33? I consider it one of most beautiful moments in Biblical history. At first, the Lord, angry with the Israelites for their rebellion, tells Moses to take the people and go on without Him. Like a forsaken lover, the devastated Moses shamelessly protests; the Lord immediately and lovingly responds. With an almost palpable tenderness, they lay bare their hearts, declaring their love and devotion to one another. In that moment, raw with vulnerability and heavy with expectation, Moses realizes that nothing else will do but to know and be completely known. Boldly, confident of his lover’s love, Moses beckons to the Lord, “Now show me your glory.” Time almost seems to stand still.

With passion for His beloved, the Lord agrees…but there’s a twist. The Lord only allows Moses to see His back, lest Moses die. I don’t know about you, but I might have been disappointed, hurt or even angry. After such an intimate exchange, how could God not know what Moses really wanted? The usual, standard answer would be that the Lord was protecting Moses – and that’s true. The Lord did protect Moses and He did it with moving, powerful, symbolic, almost prophetic imagery of the coming Christ. (I could write a thousand paragraphs about that, but not today!) There is no doubt that the Lord was protecting Moses, but perhaps there’s even more to it than that.

What if what Stuart McAlister, Alister McGrath and Martin Luther believe is also true? That God was indeed showing Moses his glory because God’s glory is present even in “the back parts of God”. Perhaps Moses, and we alike, must be “forced to turn our eyes from contemplation of where we would like to see God revealed, and to turn them instead upon a place of which is not our own choosing, but which is given to us. We like to find God in the beauty of nature, in the brilliance of an inspired human work of art or in the depths of our own being – and instead, we must recognize that the sole authorized symbol of the Christian faith is a scene of dereliction and carnage.” (McGrath)

We want to see God’s glory….just so long as that glory is powerful, beautiful, awe inspiring…and safe. Yet the core of our faith rests on Jesus, who was humiliated, violently tortured, brutally murdered and abandoned by his Father; the same Father in whom we’re asked to put our trust. Are you willing to look at that God? Do you want to see all of Him?

God isn’t neat, tidy, predictable or tame. Just think of Jesus for a minute. He showed up in some unexpected ways, didn’t He? After entering the womb of a poor, unwed, teenage virgin, He was born amid scandal and worshiped by mystics and the dregs of society. He acted in some unexpected ways, too. The Israelites asked for a savior who would conquer their political enemies, bring national freedom, and raise Israel up to rule over all the earth, eternally. But the King of Kings preferred to socialize with outcasts and eventually submitted to humiliation, defeat and death on a cross. Through means no earthly soul could predict, the Lord attained complete victory, spiritual freedom and eternal life for all people who would receive it.

So, when you contemplate the miraculous work of the cross, do you, like me, see the Lord’s strength and glory prevailing in spite of Christ’s suffering, humiliation and defeat? I once envisioned Christ as somehow outside of it all. But He wasn’t…if anything, He was more present, more alive, more aware of His experiences than we who live with veiled hearts have ever been. Christ wasn’t victorious despite defeat. He was victorious in and through defeat. He wasn’t strong despite the appearance of weakness. No! He was strong in and through His weakness. And He wasn’t glorified despite his humiliation. Rather, He revealed His glory in and through humiliation. In the cross, and even in the manger, we find that “God reveals himself through a contrary form. It is the back of God, which is revealed – but it is God, and not another.” (McAlister)

Recently, while meditating on God’s glory as revealed through the degradation of the cross, I imagined Jesus there – beaten, broken, humiliated and hanging on a tree. He looked like any other brutally tortured, dying man – but He wasn’t any other man. He was God. All the power of the universe, wrapped up in the flesh of one man, and nailed to a cross. The Lord, the Mighty One, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, a picture of human weakness. Then this word came to mind: vulnerable.

In Jesus, the Lord Himself became vulnerable – vulnerable to all that mankind could throw at Him. And it was in and through that very vulnerability that He rescued a cursed creation. Sometimes the Lord reveals his power with a mighty arm, but at other times He places us, as He did Moses, on a Rock, hides us in the palm of His hand and then shows us a side of Himself we’ve never seen before. He does this because He, the Great I AM, longs for us to know Him…all of Him…even the back parts.

Suddenly, I am overcome, breathless at the thought that through some divine mystery, I might actually encounter the Lord in and through my weakness and suffering. That in those cold, dark places, if I watch with the eyes of my heart, the Lord will reveal Himself to me. That He and I, for a moment, might share even a thousandth of the intimacy experienced between the Lord and Moses.

Can I be that vulnerable? What do I need to do Lord? And I hear: “Give. Give. Give. Give, yourself to Me.” The Lord knows us and loves us. He gives us, always, the perfect gift: Himself. We may not always get what we expect, or even what we asked for, but we always get Him. And for once, I see the possibility, I long to respond and give Him the only gift I ever can: Me. All of me. Warm, expectant and trembling ever so slightly, I find myself whispering, “Lord, show me your glory.”

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. I Corinthians 1:27

December 22, 2011 10

Winter’s Coming but Spring is Here!

I know so many people who look forward to, and even cherish, the cool, colorful autumn season. For me, the warm colors, rich smells and cozy sweaters are just a harbinger of things to come. There is not a

crackling fire bright enough to dispel the coming darkness or hold back the icy winds that I dread so much. Truly, truly, I dread the arrival of winter. I could list a thousand reasons why and at the top would be exchanging flip-flops for bulky jackets, open windows for cold hardwood floors and the sound of crickets for the hum of the furnace (cha-ching!)….but what I dread the most, what weighs on my body like a heavy, lead jacket, is that each day the coming winter snatches another two or three minutes of sunlight from my eyes.

To you this may sound absurd, but for me the trouble begins as early as October. One day I am my normal self, and the next I can barely drag myse

lf out of bed in the morning. After lunch, I fight valiantly – mostly for the benefit of my employers and coworkers – to keep my eyes open and mind alert, lest someone find me slumped over my keyboard and drooling on the week’s worship order. Before dinner, I frequently fall asleep on the couch which inevitably leads to an evening battle with insomnia and then…sleep, sweet sleep, just 10 more minutes, please! Some mornings, the only thing that gets me out of bed is telling myself that I can sleep again in 12 hours…eight, if things are really rough. How sad is that?

There are plenty of studies out there that define this condition and even some supposedly effective therapies, but expensive solutions for feeling tired quickly take a back seat to braces, college tuition and new tires for the car. So this time of year, you will find me counting down the days until December 22, when the sun starts rising earlier and setting later. As of today, there are 66 more days on the downhill. 66 more days of sliding headfirst into the abyss. 66 more days of darkness. I empathize deeply with our ancestors who worried, year after year, that the sun might sink below the horizon and never return. Had I lived back then, I likely would have joined the chanting and dancing and whatever other rituals thought necessary to summon the sun back up into the sky. Oh, the things we take for granted…like the air we breathe and the sun rising faithfully every day!

You may think I’m exaggerating but seriously, what other season is universally synonymous with death? When you read a book or watch a movie – excepting Christmas specials and Hallmark Channel Valentine’s movies – you know the barren trees and gray skies signal nothing but heartache. I poke fun but the reality is that every October a part of me goes to sleep while the rest of me longs for those spring days when I will once again feel fully alive. Yet the worst part of all is that the tiredness from lack of daylight brings with it a real and genuine sadness, a heavy heart and physiological pain I can’t escape.

The steel skies and withering grass remind me all too vividly of the cold, barren winters of my heart – particularly seasons of loss and grief. Leaves, far past their youthful days, give in to the relentless winds and let go, falling slowly to the earth. How many of those whom I’ve loved, have done the same? The winds blow through me and, for a moment, steal away my breath…the emptiness is so consuming, even my chest feels hollow. Time does not heal all wounds. The scars remain. Tell me something new. Tell me something of hope.

Over our recent Columbus Day weekend, we New Englanders were given the rare gift of bright, sunny, 80 degree weather for four beautiful days. My husband and I spent one of those days working in the yard – weeding, trimming and getting ready for winter. Only it felt like late June. I pruned dead branches and leaves from our lilac bush, careful not to snip the buds which are already set for spring. After I finished with the lilac, I visited my azalea and rhododendron bushes. I knew better than to clip anything from those early bloomers, and simply stood there for a while, wondering at the plump, promising buds. Swiftly, but not abruptly, the world seemed to stand still – like God had stopped the sun in the sky or pressed the pause button on his giant remote. Time felt suspended and my feet, unmovable. It was one of those moments where you can almost hear God whispering in your ear, “Pay attention.”

Tell me something new. Tell me something of hope.

Have you ever experienced that instant when something you already knew or had seen a thousand times or had recited to others over and over, suddenly became real to you? Before you knew, but afterward you understood. Before you believed, but then you received. That’s what happened to me. It was as if God had been cultivating the soil of my heart for that perfect moment when I had turned just enough for him to slide his shining blade beneath my armor, enabling him to skillfully and painlessly plunge into the hollow of my heart a new and precious seed of truth. Immediately, the seed took root and filled my chest with a peaceful warmth.

My heart, my mind, my body – all were still. Warren Wiersbe said, “Nature preaches a thousand sermons a day to the human heart.” I listened. I listened and my soul was still. Silently, I received the promise which God revealed to me through the autumn buds of a spring-blooming flower. Even in winter, we are never without the certain hope of spring. Before the first frost touches a single petal, before the biting winds blow or even one snowflake falls, God places spring in the heart of his handiwork. On every bough, a bud, and in every bud, a flower.

I stood motionless, full of wonder and gratitude. God had just spoken – sweetly, tenderly, directly to me. He knows my weaknesses, my fears and my doubts and he doesn’t roll his eyes at me, or tell me to suck it up. Instead, he meets me where I am, with his arms offering comfort and in his hands, hope. ‘I know you are dreading this coming season, Nichole. I know. But it won’t last forever. Look here! I have already prepared the flowers for spring. See! Evidence! A sign of hope for you. My promise of spring for you.’ There are only a few times in my life when I have genuinely, tangibly felt God’s love – this was one of those times.

Yet, this message, however personal and pertinent, reaches far beyond the seasons, into the place of promises eternal. In this world, there are a thousand winters – winters of the heart and of the soul, winters of the mind and of the body, even winters that bewitch and blind our spirits. But in every winter, even the winters of sorrow, bitterness, darkness and defeat, we are never without the certain hope of spring and the peace, joy, life and victory that it brings.

Nature declares the glory of God and through creation we catch sight of the Creator, and of ourselves. Who is God, and who are we to him, that He would not leave us to doubt or despair, but rather allow us a glimpse into tomorrow? What compassion! What grace! Before winter even begins, a glimpse of spring. As darkness falls and the storms rage on, a glimpse of hope, a glimpse of heaven.

No, time does not heal all wounds. The wind whips around my shivering bones, and frost settles on my skin…yet long ago, when my heart wandered in the darkness of an enchanted winter, God planted there the first seed…the Seed of eternal spring. A ray of sun, warm and bright, pierced the darkness and slowly, the ice packed around my heart began to melt. The spell was broken, the endless winter ended. Though the coldness comes, its icy fingers have no hold on me. Yes, scars remain and sometimes, the pain still steals away my breath. But I rest in knowing there is no winter God has not written, no abyss beyond his reach, no one lost he cannot find, no darkness he has failed to light, no sorrow for which he has not prepared a Spring.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities-his eternal power and divine nature-have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. ~ Romans 1:20

October 18, 2011 11

Trusting in God’s Goodness

You know that point in a movie, where two people fall in love but there is a secret between them? They look into each other’s eyes, he touches her face, she leans in for a kiss…but all the while someone is holding back. Even we, as an audience hold back too. As long as there’s something between them, the love relationship is incomplete. Usually it’s something silly, like the girl isn’t really a princess, or she is a princess and is pretending not to be. Or the guy isn’t really a superhero…or maybe he is a superhero posing as a clumsy reporter. Silly or not, there’s a morsel of reality in there somewhere. Because after all, in fact after the fall, there is always something between us.

When God first spoke creation into the world, including the universe, the earth, the animals and us, he pronounced it “good” – good because he created it, good because he made it so. But then after the fall, we became painfully aware that on our own, apart from God, we lack goodness and light. We are naked and ashamed. We deal with this painful awareness in a variety of ways. The first thing Adam and Eve did was cover themselves up and hide. Sound familiar? Maybe if I dress myself in good behavior and never let anyone see the real me, maybe then I’ll be OK. Or instead of hiding my sin, I’ll expose it to the world, thinking perhaps that if I can make my behavior culturally acceptable, then I won’t have to feel bad about it anymore. Or maybe I’ll just try to be the best at being “bad”.

A friend of mine recently loaned me the book, Give them Grace by Elyse M Fitzpatrick. In it, the author writes that before the fall, God bestowed on people a benediction, a blessing: “It is very good.” Since the fall, we have been consumed with trying to recover that “goodness”. Our striving for morality, power and success are merely attempts to bestow the blessing of goodness on ourselves. We even compete for it. I try to be better than you, and if I think you’re better than me, I’ll try to find ways to knock you down. Like Joseph and his brothers, for example: Joseph was a “good” boy, but his brothers were “bad”. When Daddy favored the “good” boy, what did the brothers do? Why they tried to kill him, of course. Sounds extreme but jealousy and anger and attempts to harm (whether physically or emotionally), those aren’t such foreign concepts, are they?

When and how will we ever be “good enough”? When can I come out of hiding? I’m tired of dressing up in morality, which weighs like a heavy coat in the summertime. I want to be free…to live, to love, to dream, to be me. But I will never truly be free as long as I am trusting in my own goodness…proving my own worth…or just trying to get through a day without every bit of goodness and light sinking into the black hole of shame that seems to reside deep inside my gut.

Trusting God’s goodness sounds simple at first: “God is good. All the time!” or “God works all things together for good.” Neat little packages that sum up all of life’s problems in seven words or less, no questions asked. Until the day comes when you can’t ignore the questions. Why did God allow my brothers to sell me as a slave? Why am I in prison for a crime I didn’t commit? Why are my parents divorcing? Why did God take my father from me? How can I keep my house when I’ve been out of work for a year? Why is there so much pain? And more and more pain? Then I find myself crying out, “Come on, God! You are the creative master of the universe. Surely you can find another, easier, better way to work it all out for good!”

So what does it mean to trust in God’s goodness? I don’t have all the answers…I may not even have any, but I will at least share my thoughts. First, and foremost, we trust in God’s goodness because we have no goodness of our own in which to trust. All my attempts at goodness will fail, and ultimately, the weight of dragging that morality around will wear me down, making me self-righteous and bitter. God’s goodness is my only hope.

Second, trusting in God’s goodness means recognizing, believing and accepting that everything he has ever created or done, he has intended for good, and that he is still in the process of working that all out …. for good. Before the fall, he called his creation good. And since the fall, all of history has told the beautiful, majestic, sweeping romance of his passionate love for humanity and his creative work to restore his creation to goodness. He loves his creation. He loves us. He longs to restore us to himself, to his goodness. If God’s intentions towards us and towards all of creation are good, and if his ultimate plans are good, then what questions are left to be asked?

Maybe life is a lot more like a Dickens’ novel than I previously thought. Think about how his novels begin….with all sorts of odd characters and subplots….so many, that after several chapters you read a name and think “Wait, who is this guy?” only to find out he’s already appeared twice, once 75 pages ago and once 120 pages ago…and you still aren’t sure how he’s related to the main character. As you trudge through chapter after chapter of seemingly unconnected story lines you find yourself asking, “What on earth am I reading? Will he ever get to the point? Is there a point, at all?!” And then, as the book nears its ending, Mr. Dickens, in his usual fashion, masterfully weaves each story line together into one beautiful masterpiece, so rich and warm and touching that you nearly find yourself standing atop a mountain shouting “Beautiful! Marvelous! Wonderful! Every word, every letter, every moment spent was worth this ending!” Well…that’s how I feel, anyway.

All of creation – past, present and future – is God’s novel, a love story that often masquerades as a mystery. Whether we like it or not, we are living, breathing characters in his story. We don’t always appreciate his style and we’re often confused, wondering about the meaning and importance of certain characters and events, questioning motive, conflict and purpose. We anxiously await the next event, anticipating all the possible outcomes. We laugh, we cry, we lament, we rejoice.

Unlike Dickens’ characters, though, we have free will. Even though God holds the pen, he invites us to write our story with him. Every day we face hundreds of choices, some big and some small. And somehow, those choices matter. The mysteries mount as we consider that God is not only the Author of Life, he is the main character! Add to that, the fact that he exists outside of time, and therefore, already knows the ending and we are nearly convinced that this is nothing more than a sensational mystery novel.

But wait, don’t give up! God’s novel truly is a divine love story. Right now, we are just living in the mucky middle of a long, complicated story, fraught with mystery and suspense, in which every detail – every jot and tittle, your choices and mine, good and bad – He, in his creative power, will work together for good. For his good. For my good. For your good. I know that you’re anxious and afraid, or bored or worn out or angry or hurt, but God is good and he loves you. He knows this is difficult for you. He entered the story and lived among the snarling weeds and creeping darkness. And in his mercy, He told you the ending, so that when the “night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long, and you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong” you could take hold of his promise that He has already overcome the world, remember that He has loved you with an everlasting love and look forward to that day when he takes you into his arms and wipes away every tear from your eyes.

If you know all this and believe all this, but you’re still holding something back, ask yourself why. (I pose these questions to us all – whether we’ve taken that first leap of faith or not – because we are, each of us, still in the middle of our story, his story.) Are you trying to hide something from the Author of Life? He already knows…and he loves you anyway. Have you shut the door of your heart because you fear being hurt again? That works for a while…until the cupboards go bare and your heart is starving and you’ll eat anything except that which really satisfies. Or are you believing a silly lie? After all, why else would the daughter or son of the King settle for a life wandering the streets, digging through people’s trash for food and sleeping on the cold, hard pavement? Your Father, the King of Kings, awaits you. In fact, he’s running toward you with his arms open wide, eyes sparkling, because after all, he’s got a party planned, a feast prepared and your name is written on his heart. No more wandering. No more settling for scraps. No more lies. No more holding back. You are the prince. You are the princess. Your superhero has come. Ridiculous? Nah. We all know that truth is crazier than fiction.

July 20, 2011 2

Life is Pain (Revised)

At first, I thought it strange that on the same night my 18 year old daughter went to her senior prom and my 11 year old daughter returned from her first overnight, school field trip, I found myself reading an old poem I wrote to my grandmother before she passed away. Then these words drifted through my mind: this is the long good-bye, somebody tell me why. I think these words, despite the rest of the song’s lyrics (The Long Goodbye by Brooks and Dunn) which are about a failing romantic relationship, speak to a timeless truth of life and loss.

I’m not sure when I first understood that my children are not really mine. I’ll admit, I am a little slow when it comes to the obvious. So while most of you probably knew early on that your children are gifts from God, entrusted to your care for a season, I naively assumed those moments would last forever. The mommy-hold-my-hand moments, the mommy-bake-cookies-with-me moments, the mommy-can-we-color moments, the mommy-your-my-whole-world-and-i-never-want-to-leave-you moments. Those moments. Do you remember them?

Tonight, as I watched my oldest drive away from me and toward a life that she lives almost entirely apart from me, I couldn’t help but remember that in a few short months she will leave for college. And while I rejoiced with my youngest that she conquered her fears of sleeping away from home, a familiar sadness settled in my soul. Here she goes…she’s on her way too.

A child’s primary goal is to leave her parents. From the very start, even in the womb, the main purpose of her development is to get out, get away, separate and live on her own, apart from me. The child who once shared my body, who was quite literally “bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh”, emerges, sits up, crawls, walks and then at last, runs. And while she returns at first for a steady hand, and later for a steady heart, those moments when I see her walking toward me grow further and further apart. She is going, she has always been going.

How is it that life should be so much about good-byes? You may say I am being extreme, but think on it for a moment. Can you name a person in your life that you will not, at one time or another, have to say good-bye to? We lose everyone unless they lose us first. Perhaps the Dread Pirate Roberts was not just spewing works soaked in bitterness when he said “Life is pain…anyone who says differently is selling something.” I believe he was expressing a timeless truth.

I’d like to take his words one step further and suggest that life is pain because life is loss. This is the long good-bye. I’m sure there are lots of philosophical and theological conversations we could have as to why but that is not my reason for writing this. I do not live as a person with no hope, no compass, no anchor. I know the way and I know the answer. But even in the light of eternal hope and glory, we walk in the shadow of death. I need not fear. But I hurt. Everyone hurts. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something. Don’t buy it.

Please don’t mistake me for a cynic! Rather, I like to consider myself a realist – a Christian realist, if you will. If we ignore the truths, even the truths of this world, how can we honestly interpret our reality? Even more so, how can we genuinely relate to others, especially those who don’t have the hope of Christ? There is great danger in minimizing life’s struggles or buying into the notion that as Christians we have to slap a smile on every situation.

So, my message to you (if I must have one) is that perhaps, rather than railing against the painful realities of life, rather than running from, ignoring or burying pain, rather than seeking revenge or retaliation, rather than raising our fists at God, we would be better served by deeply and honesetly accepting the truth that life, while filled with joy and daily miracles, is also fraught with loss, pain and suffering.

We waste so much energy denying reality and battling that which we can not change. Maybe instead we could let go and let the pain wash over us. Maybe we would find peace in Jesus’ words: “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) Maybe then we might see that God leaves no void he isn’t planning to fill. That all of the empty, aching caverns left behind by life’s losses, are potential reservoirs crying out to be filled by the only thing that will ever eternally satsify.

May 16, 2011 9