Paper Hearts

I see myself scurrying along a shoreline. I'm holding paper hearts to my chest. They look like something a child has cut out for a school project. I'm dropping them here and there and stooping to pick them up as they fall. So far, so good. 

This image washed over me. It rolled over my conscious mind as I sat here, the last bit of a live worship song playing on YouTube. The last few piano notes trailing, the chorus softly repeated.

It wasn't a vision from heaven. No. It was a deep yearning to return to the ocean at sunset (I live hours away). It was a deep yearning to return to the simplicity of childhood (mine and my sons'). It was a deep yearning to hold fast to the treasures I learned in all three places. It was a desperate longing to be whole again. All of this captured in a flashing image. The beach at sunset.

Where is the beach of my heart? Where does the Holy Spirit lap like the waves that kiss the shore? Where Does He roll over me? In my quiet place, the pen of my computer in hand. The place where words, those instruments that hardly wrap themselves around thoughts so ragged, jagged and wild, line up in an order that others can decipher. Every one of us has walked the wilds of torment, hardship, grief, pain. When you are raw with it, you can hug the summer wind and it seems to have nettles. So happy, so happy, that expression, whether by words, whether by art, whether by tears or by hard work, can start the healing, hope-filled journey back to normal strength! God is in me, around me, and for me. He is so able in every place in which I am decidedly not. This is such good news. 

There will be laughter again. There will be joy again. There is love and there is peace now. There is the unique fellowship of the Father, of the Son, of the blessed Holy Spirit. I am alive in them and they in me. I cannot fail in this place of supply. I can only soar. I can only soar.

On a Shard and a Prayer

 

Tonight I am feeling the weight of loss. Asking myself to hold my chin up feels as if someone suggested that I dig a huge hole in the center of my heart, fill it with sand and light a cheap birthday candle. "There," my armchair therapist might then say, "warm yourself, your emotions, with that. And, oh, by the way, a sub-freezing, Antarctic-style wind is about to blow through there. But you'll be ok. Just ask Norman Vincent Peale."

Truth be told, any consolation feels about that effective long about now. I am shell-shocked by recent developments with people I hold dearer to my heart than life itself. I can do nothing to help or to save them and so I am feeling adrift in a WIDE OPEN ocean of sorrow. I can see no end to the dark gray, wind-whipped waters. My raft is a shard from the boat of "WHAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE." The life I imagined was a beautiful houseboat and I am holding one small, ragged board. My dreams for my future, as relates to these loved ones, is dead and dark, at least in light of the current season. The current season, for that matter, could be classed as a never-ending night at the movies...gothic horror, that is. 

I cannot see an end to the pain. While I can see a place of peace looming as close as my bed upstairs where I will curl into a ball and ask God for sleep, the pain will be in my shoes as I slide them on in the morning. It will knife me from every corner of every day for some time. It will rise and fall as I watch other people enjoy milestones, revel in their own family normalcy. It's not to be for me. Not in the future that I can see from here. There is no island of comfort, at least not from the standpoint of circumstance, in my line of vision. I'm trying. I'm looking. When a soggy wave lifts me up I strain for the shore, but I don't see one yet.

If you think I don't have faith, you're very wrong. I'm just being real. Because being real is the first step toward accepting what I can actually change and what is far, far beyond my control. Accepting what I can control and working to do that, is another step toward healing. And every step will bring me closer to Christ, although pain has a way of driving me into His arms like nothing else ever, ever does or could.

Other people's choices are like ships that ram us, roll over us, threaten to make us extinct. Our own choices are, however, far more powerful. One choice in particular. The choice to submit to God. He will never leave us. His Word is firm on that point. If I thought I had to look at this situation without that certain knowledge, my strength would utterly fail and I would not attempt a walk to the finish line. I did ask Him today, whimpered a plea, that, like King David, I could see His goodness in the land of the living. Meaning that I could see something good happen on this old fallen earth. Something that would lift my spirits so that I won't lose heart, as David suggested would have happened if he had not believed that he would see God's goodness here, in the midst of our earthly affairs. I know that my soul does prosper, and it will be as healthy as I allow God to make it. What I need is an earthly, tangible sign that He sees me and He cares about the practical and even the things that are passing away but touch us so strongly now. Stay tuned. I know He will and I will share!

Sparrow

 

This morning I feel a bit like a tiny bird who has, inexplicably, survived a hurricane. Bloodied, bruised and battered, this little bird sails limply down into a yard and waits. For what, no one really knows. A neighborhood cat? A cruel child with a bat? A good citizen with a net and a cozy mudroom with a heat lamp and some soggy birdseed gruel? At this point, like the bird in my illustration, I don't really want any of it. 

The good Samaritan might have some yummy vitamin C of the Word of God, or really robust and healthy prayer. I need those things but, at this moment, I'm too weak to take in much of them. Maybe a drop. Maybe two. Maybe all I need is to be placed on a high shelf for a few hours and allowed to begin to heal on my own. Maybe that time will allow God's restorative powers to seep through the cardboard box of my isolation in the mudroom and I'll start to heal organically. Yes, that's it. Outside the mudroom, life goes on. The neighborhood cats stalk their prey. Disease rots other birds. They fly into windshields. The weather sweeps them away. Before I head back out, I must gain some strength, or my fight will be short.

Times like these, my humanity is the biggest thing in my windshield. "Let God be! Let God be!" The religious voices in my head scream this day and night, denigrating my frailty and erasing my stamina. But today, just for today, I'm going to sit on the shelf in the mudroom of heaven on earth, feeding on the peace that only God can give. He gives it a tiny therapeutic drop at a time. I picture Him bent over my spiritual hospital bed, adjusting the I.V. very, very carefully. He's calibrating just how much healing I can take at one time. He's not asking me to get up and run down the street, proclaiming His praises, though I know that one day I most certainly will. He's asking me to see if I can open my eyes today. Can I track the movements of His hand? "Ok, that's enough for now. Go back to sleep, my child. I will check your nourishment later. Maybe we will sit up on the side of the bed tomorrow."

It means everything to me that my Savior is gentle and humble at heart. In Him I find rest for my soul. (Matthew 11:29). In the darkest of valleys. In the deepest of oceans. In the heart of the hurt. In the forest or fire. I won't be lost forever. I am not lost now. I won't be utterly forsaken. I am not now. I just hurt and I need to heal.

What Now?

Woke up this morning utterly exhausted. Went back to bed two hours later. It's just not possible to take in all of the headlines. The mainstream media is reporting a different universe from the one I'm living in and the one being detailed on the conservative sites. That particular universe is strange enough. I go out and see entire families in surgical masks. Makes me want to stay in. Both sides are in high fear-mongering mode.

On social media, the fighting is so intense that, each time I put my phone down, it's as if I've shut the door on the trading floor on Wall Street for a moment. So much cacophony. The bitter rancor has leapt into my soul. I see posts and comments that simultaneously make my blood boil and send fear coursing through my veins. How could anyone believe that? Why can't they see the larger picture? Do they not see where we are ALL headed? These thoughts have dominated my mind for several weeks. 

At first the "shut-down" felt like a vacay. People were excited about it. I myself enjoyed cooking and relaxing without any pressure to leave my cocoon. Weeks later and faced with the prospect of a world that is opening so slowly (and this is not a comment on that, as I am not a doctor or a scientist)  that businesses are being ground to powder, I am not enjoying much of anything anymore. What we thought we had, as a nation and, via domino effect, the world, is no longer in place. We are left with a large bag of uncertainty. It's like getting the "mystery gift" at a flea market. Could be a cruise for two, could be a vacuum cleaner of questionable origin.

Churches are, as yet, unable to meet in any meaningful fashion. The body of Christ has relied on phone calls, texts and video chats. They are great, but I want to see people again! Who doesn't?

I've always known that God is my source, that the world is uncertain. But it seems as if, on March 15th, the uncertain world went into freefall. We haven't hit bottom. I would be happy to see us land somewhere, anywhere, even if we're balanced on a precipice. Everywhere I turn, people of God are issuing prophecies and proclamations. Some hit my spirit as right-on, others just scare me to death.

The only way that I know how to navigate this horrific mess is to unplug from the 24-hour news cycle. Rest my phone for a few hours a day. Walk in nature. Pray. Control what I can. Live one day at a time. We may be smack-dab in the beginning of sorrows that Jesus talked about. Could very well be. Scripture teaches us to live ready for the second coming of Christ. Am I? Are you? 

Can the Church Stand Some Balance?

Music moves me in insane ways. Can take me out into the ocean of worldly desires. Can leave me weeping on the floor. Can also, thankfully, lift me to spiritual heights. I have to watch what I listen to very, very carefully.

Blogs can become very ego-centric. What I just revealed is true of most of us. I believe music is what ushers in the Holy Spirit's presence in a worship service. I read that in a book recently. The teacher who wrote it said he had seen the anointing for other ministries and gifts flood in when the music in a service was right. Something about that rang very, very, very true.

What we dismiss as window dressing is very often a necessary ingredient in the on-going struggle we are all engaged in against the world, the flesh and the devil.

What I don't want to find myself doing is worshiping with all of my heart and then fainting on the hot sidewalk of "real life." Most people find doing the practical things to be the easiest part of serving God. I find the emotional and relational side of life, praying, praising, encouraging others, relating to them and to God, to be the easiest. It's the doldrums that suck the life out of me. I'll lay hands on your and pray. Just don't, for pete's sake, ask me to bring you a casserole on such-and-such a date, hot and ready and to remember the salad and rolls, too. Please. Don't.

I know the Lord needs all of us in the grand scheme that is His plan. Sometimes we right-brain people want to dismiss the left-brain work and vice-versa. It's wrong. All of it. I'm going to challenge myself today to strengthen my left-brain while enjoying the fruits of my creative personality. After all, great ideas with no follow-through adds up to a large zero.