Land that Drinks in the Rain

Land that drinks in the rain 
often falling on it 
and that produces a crop 
useful to those for whom it is farmed 
receives the blessing of God. 

Hebrews 6:7

"Land that drinks in the rain..." soaking it into its soil, perhaps becoming a soggy, messy mud.

"...often falling on it..." in one rainstorm after another, days and days of rain. 

"...that produces a crop..." of fruit underground that cannot be seen for perhaps many seasons to come.

"...useful to those for who it is farmed..." Is the crop useful to the saturated ground?  No, but the crop may bring nourishment and healing to others, including those who tend the fields, plow the ground, and wait for the fruit.

"...receives the blessing of God."

With both hands, I await this blessing, this promise.

Holy God, pour down your blessing with the rain.

Twenty Questions

It was a late night ride to the airport.  Jammies on (almost) everybody.  I was banking on them falling asleep. 

They even warned me as such: "Mommy, we might fall asleep."  No worries, kiddo.  Rest your weary head.

A few miles down the road, one of my sons asked, "Mommy, why did daddy die?"

"Because he got really sick really fast, and the doctors couldn't save him."

"Yes, I know that part." He has heard this answer before. 

"But why, Mommy?"

His brother joined the inquisition with solidarity.  "If God is powerful, why didn't he save our daddy?  If doctors couldn't heal him, why didn't God save him?"

An important question, my little men.  When children have encountered this degree of tragedy, they are not assuaged by simple, pat answers.

"I don't know, guys.  I really don't know why God didn't save him."

"Did God want Daddy to die?"

Okay, God.  I'm going to give this my best shot.  Please speak through me.  Only you know the answers.  And my kids are asking.

"Honey, God didn't want Daddy to die.  I don't think God wants anybody to die.  I think he wanted us to live in a perfect place where nobody gets sick or dies.  He created a perfect world - do you remember who lived there, in his perfect garden?"

"Mary and Joseph."  A good guess.  Another biblical couple, much more at the forefront of our minds this time of year.

"No, it was Adam and Eve."

They pipe up to tell the story, their words and impatience tripping over each other.  It's hard to differentiate who knows which part of the story.

"And God forgot to tell them they couldn't eat from the tree, and the snake said they could, and all snakes are bad and want us to do bad things, and they ate the apple because Eve said so."

Um, sort of.  Give or take a few important details.

"Well, guys, God didn't forget to tell them not to eat from that tree.  He told them.  And he asked them to obey.  But the snake tricked them, and they chose to eat the fruit even though God told them not to."

"They didn't obey, Mommy."

Ah.  These are terms we understand.

"Right, kiddo.  They didn't obey.  And as soon as they took a bite of the apple, God's perfect world wasn't perfect anymore.  Sin came into the world when they disobeyed, and sin has been hurting people ever since.    Daddy didn't die because he sinned, but he died because there is sin in the world.  Sin makes us sick.  It makes us sad.  It makes people die."

"Did sin make Jesus die?"

Oh, these questions.  Where is a theologian when I need one?

"Well, Jesus died to rescue us from sin.  But God didn't save Jesus from dying, and he didn't save Daddy from dying.  God let it happen."

"And two other men died with him." 

"With Daddy?"

"No, with Jesus."  Someone has been looking closely at the pictures in Sunday school, I see.

"They did.  And one of them said right then, right before he died, that he believed Jesus was saving the world.  And Jesus said, 'Okay, then, I'll see you soon.  When you die, you'll be with me in heaven.'"

"And so that man is in heaven?"

"Yes."

"And so is Daddy?"

"Yes."

There was silence in the car.

"Okay, Mommy."

Thus concluded twenty questions that countless people invest their lives studying.
 
(And I had thought the little boys would fall asleep.)

Listen (...again).

It has been a year since I said these words, spoke them to an audience of hundreds, with my wedding handkerchief in my hand and my brother at my side. 

As I listen, I feel like it's someone else talking.  Who is that girl?

It's good for me to listen again.
To hear my voice,
to hear the scripture,
to hear the poetry,
to hear the truth.

Perhaps you heard this a year ago.
Or perhaps we have met since then.

I invite you to listen (...again).

Unnatural, Unspeakable

I cannot explain it.  It is unnatural.  Unspeakable.  Beyond human logic.  Entirely supernatural.

I am doing okay.  I really, truly am.

I have delighted in the music, the festivities, the wrapping and the giving.  My heart is light and full.  I'm smiling.

What is that old adage? "Shared joy is double joy; shared sorrow is half sorrow."  I have felt the measure of this equation in my deepest moments this week, when my heart could breathe because someone else (many someones) carried my load.

The anniversary of this week feels dear to my heart, but not crushing to my spirit.  In some moments, it has felt as though I walked with someone else through the loss of her husband a year ago, not that I lost my very own.

(Disassociation?  Perhaps.
Effective cocktail of meds?  Perhaps.
My name on the breaths and prayers of the invisible, anonymous you?  Most certainly.
Sheer grace of God?  Absolutely.)

"May it be unto me as you have said."


"Emmanuel, Emmanuel.  God incarnate, here to dwell."


"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

Go tell it on the mountain: we have had a Merry Christmas.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Let Every Heart

Joy to the world,

the Lord has come.

Let earth receive her king.

Let every heart prepare him room,

and heaven and nature sing.

I am realizing that I always thought of this lyric as my reminder to set aside the wrapping paper, shopping lists and bows, to slow down with the glitter and the ornaments, long enough to make room in my heart - for even a moment - to remember that this season is about so much more.

I know now: sadness will take up every inch it's allowed.

This Christmas could easily pass with my heart wrapped entirely in grief and gray.  As I listen to this song, it causes me to think differently.  

To make room in my sadness for joy.  

To allow my darkness to be soft enough to be aware of the light.  

To let sadness step aside sometimes.

To remember - for even a moment - that this season is about so much more than death, loss, and heartache.  

(Because I could very easily give my holiday to those three.)

May my broken heart prepare him room.

* * *

"May his light shine in our darkness and may I be ready to receive it with joy and thanksgiving." 

~ Henri Nouwen

The One I Learned to Know

It's great to be known.
There is a dance in knowing - in the pursuit of the dozens of details.

The lyrics that matter,
the way she takes her coffee,
the way he likes his eggs,
what it means when she smirks that way,
what it means when he clears his throat that way,
how she taps the steering wheel with two fingers,
how he gestures when he's most emphatic,
the way her face changes when she doesn't want to cry,
what he's thinking across the room,
when it's time to leave the party,
yellow roses or white daisies,
lemonade or iced tea,
beach vacation or mountain getaway,
when to speak and when to listen,
what matters most and not at all.

I learned to know Robb,
the million lines that connected his dots.
There are a million I never learned.
Our rough patches popped up when we stopped finding each other interesting,
when we thought we had learned it all.
Then it was time to leave town and let a new environment teach us a few new things.
Now, as I wait to see him again,
I feel like I am learning him all over again.
In some ways, he makes more sense to me than ever.

I learned to know Tucker.
As he grew inside me,
folded in half, sitting in my pelvis,
his head bumped into my ribs.
He got hiccups every afternoon.
When he was born,
I knew the roundess of his head,
I knew those hiccups that still came every afternoon.
I had learned to know him.

I learned to know Tyler,
active as a litter of puppies swimming in my stomach.
The pointed chin on the ultrasound screen,
the pointed heels in my sternum.
He folded up when he slept.
When he was born,
I knew that chin, I knew those heels.
I held my folded, sleeping bundle.
I had learned to know him.

Waiting is a period of learning.
Pregnancy,
engagement,
long distance friendship,
Advent.
Waiting is learning.
The longer we wait, the more we learn.

Henri Nouwen writes,
"Just as a mother feels the child grow in her and is not surprised on the day of the birth but joyfully receives the one she learned to know during her waiting,
so Jesus can be born in my life slowly and steadily and be received as the one I learned to know while waiting."

May he be the One I learn to know.

Somehow

Someday soon
we all will be together
If the Lord allows.
Until then, we'll have to muddle through 
somehow.
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

~

Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full on his wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
in the light of his glory and grace.


It is likely that I never would have wed these two songs.

And yet they are the perfect marriage
of my right hand and my left,
my heart and my mind,
my hurt and my hope.

Your Name?

My nails were dry and my manicurist was massaging my hands and arms with warmed cream.  (I contend that this is worth the price of admission.)  As she kneaded my forearms, her thumbs came across the tattoo on the inside of my right wrist.

She paused and looked to me.  "Is this your name?"

She is a lovely Vietnamese woman, she will perpetually look 19 years old, she is fluent in broken phrases, and her accent is contagious.  After an hour with her, I think in her voice all day long.

"Oh, no, no, that's not my name."

"Someone's name?"

"It says 'betrothed.'  It means, 'promised to marry.'"

She smiled, clearly unsure of what I meant.

Her thumbs gently massaged the letters. 

"It your name," she said.

Yes, actually, I thought.  In a very real way, you are right.  It is my name.

Mobility

"Do you want to be healed?"

These words echo in my mind today.  When gifts I have prayed for come to be, I come face to face with whether I really wanted them in the first place.

Jesus asked this before he healed the man who couldn't walk. 

I wonder if there were more to the dialogue.

You sure you're in?
Because I can fix this.
But a miracle requires mobility in response. 

Sometimes it's easier to expect the worst - and receive it -
than to keep my heart soft enough to acknowledge the healing.

Their Only Parent

I think I feel most overwhelmed with single parenting when I am worried for my children. 

I sit at this coffee shop, and I cry over their hearts, their learning, their impulses, their grief, and their needs.  With nobody to say it to, nobody who will carry this quite as deeply as I do, though few come very nearly close.

I am their only parent.

Today, my heart aches for Tucker, who has always learned differently than other children, absorbs silently, and shows little of his knowledge to the people who need to know.  I ache for the spirit in his heart, the needs of his mind, the wounds in his soul.

I ache for Tyler differently, on different days.  Today, my heart bleeds for Tuck.

And then I am reminded that I am not their only parent.

His Creator knows his heart.
His Counselor knows his worries.
His Father holds him close.

And this is the God to whom I pour my heart today,
that He will allow the world to see my son
only as his gracious Father allows others to see him.

I am his mom. 
I am not alone.
Neither is Tucker.

Attached to the Signs

Being thankful is not telling God
you appreciate the fact that your life is not in shambles. 
If that is the basis of your gratitude,
you are on slippery ground.
Every day of your life,
you face the possibility
that a blessing in your life may be taken away.
But blessings are only signs of God's love.
The real blessing, of course, is the love itself.
Whenever we get too attached to the sign,
we lose our grasp on the God who gave it to us.
Churches are filled with widows who can explain this to you.
We are not ultimately grateful that we are still holding our blessings. 
We are grateful that we are held by God
even when the blessings
are slipping through our fingers.

~ C. Barnes

Downcast

Sundays seem so happy, so chattery. 

"Greet your neighbor.  Stand and sing.  Take the hand of the person next to you."

Where can I sit if I really don't have that in me today?

"Perhaps your heart is heavy.  Perhaps you're struggling today."

Yes.  And yes.

I have always loved to worship alongside my family and friends.  There is no greater movement than the outpouring of hearts together, I am convinced.  But now everything seems so happy, so loud, so overwhelming.

I stay as long as I can.  The discipline is good for my spirit, and I have my six-year-old who sits beside me, watching and learning.  In teaching him, I hope my heart will learn anew.

I cry easily in worship.  In other seasons, I cried from the spilling fullness of my heart.  In earlier months, I cried because I could feel the absence of my life's companion beside me, the silence of his voice singing with mine.  Now, if I feel enough to cry at all, I cry because I long for the joy of it all.  I once cried because Robb is not here; now I cry because I am not there.  I no longer want him back.  I want to join him where he is.

I know a new kind of worship, and I find it most inviting when I am quiet and alone with the Alone.  When I join the throngs, it all feels so hard to keep up.

This morning, I praise the Lord who does not demand a pace. 
I praise the Shepherd who will leave the flock to find the lamb who is lost, the one that cannot keep up.

I praise the Lord who has come to me.

~ ~ ~

As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while men say to me all day long,
"Where is your God?"
These things I remember as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go with the multitude,
leading the procession to the house of God,
with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
among the festive throng.
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

Psalm 42

State of Preparedness

The question is not, "Do I have time to prepare?"
but "Do I live in a state of preparedness?"
When God is my only concern,
when God is the center of my interest,
when all my prayers,
my reading,
my studying,
my speaking,
and writing
serve only to know God better
and to make him known better,
then there is no basis for anxiety or stage fright. 
Then I can live
in such a state of preparedness and trust
that speaking from the heart
is also speaking to the heart.

~ H. Nouwen

Creating Space for Glory

I have a speed-up slow-down relationship with the words of Henri Nouwen.  I want to read quickly to immerse myself in the beauty of his words, but it is so potent that I must slow down if I am to digest it all.

He has handed me a definition of glory, one that is shifting my thinking.

He writes:

We live because we share God's breath, God's life, God's glory.

The question is not so much "How to live for the glory of God?" but, "How to live who we are, how to make true our deepest self?"

Take this as your koan: I am the glory of God.

Make that thought the center of your meditation so that it slowly becomes not only a thought but a living reality.

You are the place where God chose to dwell... and the spiritual life is nothing more or less than to allow that space to exist where God can dwell, to create the space where his glory can manifest itself.

In your meditation, you can ask yourself:
"Where is the glory fo God?  If the glory of God is not where I am, where else can it be?"

Once you start realizing in this very intimate and personal way that you are indeed the glory of God,
then everything is different,
then your life takes a decisive turn.

I could go for a decisive turn, an uncovering of my truest, deepest self.

Here's to creating space for glory.

* * *

For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory
in the presence of our Lord Jesus when he comes? 
Is it not you? 
Indeed, you are our glory and joy.

I Thess. 2:19-20

The Gift of Remembering

So much of my everyday brings a memory of Robb.  Errands, routines, songs, commercials, scents, flavors, recipes, restaurants - it's an endless list.  I love when people tell me something they remember about him; sometimes they spark a memory I haven't thought of in a while, and sometimes they tell me a story I had never heard at all. 

It's a beautiful something, that gift of remembering.  So many things I do 'in remembrance of him.'

I have begun to think about how empty my days would feel if I had a checklist of tasks required to honor the memory of him.

Light this candle. 
Look at this picture. 
Follow this recipe. 
Pour this cereal. 
Fill this gas tank. 
Listen to this song.

All of those carry implicit meaning for me, a natural memory.  But they would quickly become meaningless if I considered them a mindless routine to ensure I had honored him.

I think of those words from Jesus: "Take this in remembrance of me."

I imagine his disciples and closest friends had no trouble at all - their minds were likely flooded with scents and sounds and tastes that brought him to the surface again and again.  They couldn't keep from thinking of him over a meal of bread and wine.

Perhaps we have turned this tradition of Communion into an empty checklist, when all he asked was that we come together, eat, and remember.

***

"How odd would it seem to have been one of the members of the early church, shepherded by Paul or Peter, and to come forward a thousand years to see people standing in line or sitting quietly in a large building that looked like a schoolroom or movie theater to take Communion.  How different it would seem from the way they did it, sitting around somebody's living room table, grabbing a hunk of bread and holding their own glass of wine, exchanging stories about Christ, perhaps laughing, perhaps crying, consoling each other, telling one another that the Person who had exploded into their hearts was indeed the Son of God, their Bridegroom, come to tell them who they were, come to mend the broken relationship, come to marry them in a spiritual union more beautiful, more intimate than anything they could know on earth."

~ Donald Miller

Even if I Didn't Hope for what I Hope

I am not moved, my God, to love you
By the heaven you have promised me.
Neither does hell, so feared, move me
To keep me from offending you.
You move me, Lord, I am moved seeing you
Scoffed at and nailed on a cross.
I am moved seeing your body so wounded.
Your injuries and your death move me.
It is your love that moves me, and in such a way
That even if there were no heaven,
I would love you,
And even if there were no hell,
I would fear you.
You do not have to give me anything
so that I love you.
For even if I didn't hope for what I hope,
As I love you now, so I would love you.

~ John of the Cross

"I have always taken these last words to mean,
Even if what I hope for is not what is going to be,
no matter what,  I would love the one who made me."

~ Madeleine L'Engle

Same Moon, Same Song

"Tonight, we will both look at the same moon."  Ah, the language of love.

Cheesy.

But encouraging somehow to the two who are far from each other, perhaps hours away, states away, a world away: there is one moon, and it can connect our dots.  The plea for something in common between two, far separated.

I encountered anew a familiar song this weekend, O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing.

It holds this stanza:

Glory to God and praise and love
Be ever, ever given
By saints below and saints above,
The church in earth and Heaven.

I remembered that plea for commonality.

Somehow I don't think Robb looks at the same moon I do at night. Perhaps he does, but I suspect his sky is far more celestial than the one I can see. 

But, as I sang, I wondered about him singing the very same song, along with me.  Just as we have sung for more than a decade of Sundays beside one another, still we sing together, the church in earth and Heaven. 

He is where he is, I am where I am, and together we sing.  Maybe the same song, sometimes.  Always to the same God.

He connects our dots.

An Anger This Deep

"I imagine it's hard to know what to do with these emotions you feel.  I mean, I'm sure you don't want to be mad at God, right?"

"Oh, I have no problem at all being angry with God."

"Really?  But what does that teach your children?  They are just growing the seeds of their faith, and aren't you afraid that you're teaching them the wrong things?"

I paused, thinking of the magnitude of the answer, the magnitude of the calling.

"You know, I think that's exactly what I want my children to learn from this: that God can handle anything they feel.

If God is,
and if he is the Creator and Sustainer of life,
then he is bigger than life,
and he can handle our response
to anything life hands us.

God can handle our anger, but life cannot.  If I get angry and hurt a friend, I may not get to keep that friend.  If I break something, I no longer get to have it.  If I do something to hurt myself or others, there are consequences.  Real, tangible, painful consequences.

I am trying to teach them that we get to keep God, no matter how angry we are at him.

We were dealt a bad hand, kiddos. 

But there will still be breakfast on the table tomorrow. 
And I will still get you to school on time. 
I will make sure you have clean clothes to wear.
And I will kiss you good night at the end of every single day.

I'm not angry with you.  I'm angry with God.  He can handle it.  He's really the only one who can handle an anger that runs this deep."

Radical Shift

Originally, I believed the acceptance of a loving God involved a sufficient but relative minor shift of attitude. After all, it was on so many people's lips.

The more I worked with it, the more I realize that the acceptance in faith of God's unconditional love was not only hugely significant, it required a major change of attitude . . . the major shift may be the images we have of God and ourselves.

How radically is our image of God reshaped if we take seriously the belief in God as deeply, passionately, and unconditionally loving us?

How radically must we rework our own self image if we accept ourselves as lovable - as deeply, passionately, and unconditionally loved by God?

~ God First Loved Us,
Anthony Campbell

***

Quia amasti me, fecisti me amabilem.
(In loving me, you made me lovable.)

~ St. Augstine

Just for Today

My anger has popped the lid off my conscience.

~~~

I am like a child who has been forbidden candy all her life, and suddenly she's at a candy store potluck. She can have as much as she wants, and nobody would really blame her.

And she would feel miserable and sick afterward.

~~~

"I don't want to color inside the lines anymore."
"Okay. So, don't. Color outside the lines, Tricia. Go all over the page. But don't fall off the page."

~~~

"Sure. We'll take you out. We'll keep you safe. You do whatever you want. We'll bring you home. There will be consequences and headaches you'll probably have to deal with, but if this is the therapy you need, we'll help you get there."

~~~

"I'm concerned that the decisions you make could haunt you more than the anger you feel. Let's keep your children in mind, Tricia. You've laid a good foundation. Please don't abandon that. They'll be angry someday too. Don't model the free fall off the deep end."

~~~

"Anger like this is common. You're right on track. In fact, it took you a little longer than I expected."

~~~

"What kind of woman are you? A real one."

~~~

"Put yourself in situations with boundaries. Dance. Go dance. Punch something. Paint."
"If I paint, it will be all black. An all black painting."
"Great. Make a black painting. And hang it in your home."

~~~

"You could. There are plenty out there who would take you up on the offer. Just not yet, okay? Just not today. Just don't decide this today."

~~~

"Anger has popped the lid off your conscience. It's not gone forever, and we'll still find it. It's just floating around instead of securely attached. And that's healthy and okay."

~~~

"Perhaps you should run. Run mad."
"I'll train for a 5K with you. Want to?"
"Yes, I think I want to."

~~~

Tricia, be honest, angry, frustrated, tired - be all these things; but please do not "free fall."
Cling to everything and everyone you must;
do not stop loving.
There is no rest in it.

~~~

"Therefore I urge you brothers,
in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices,
holy and pleasing to God -
this is your spiritual act of worship.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is -
his good, pleasing, and perfect will."

Romans 12

~~~

Show me. Remind me.
Let me offer my body as a living sacrifice.
Holy and pleasing to you.
This is my spiritual act of worship.
This is why I hold on, stay the course.
If only just for today.
Transform me.
Renew my mind.
If only just for today.

Because I'm angry enough for today and tomorrow.
And probably the next day.