Broken and Faithful

Tuxedo in the closet, gold band in a box
Two days from the altar she went and called the whole thing off
What he thought he wanted, what he got instead
Leaves him broken and grateful

I passed understanding a long, long time ago
And the simple home of systems and answers we all know

I keep wanting you to be fair
But that's not what you said
I want certain answers to these prayers
But that's not what you said

When I get to heaven I'm gonna go find Job
I want to ask a few hard questions, I want to know what he knows
About what it is he wanted and what he got instead
How to be broken and faithful

Staring in the water like Esops foolish dog
I can't help but reflect on what it was I almost lost
What I thought I wanted
And what I got instead

I want to be broken, peaceful, faithful, grateful

These are lyrics from quite possibly my favorite song writer ever, Sara Groves.

How true these words are. How they are the cry, the anthem of my heart!

I truly have "passed understanding" a long time ago. I still have the instinct in me that tries so desperately to understand why things happen the way they do. I still want things to make sense in their neat little boxes. I want explanations. I want a+b=c.

But in my short life, it has become quite apparent to me--that search will be in vain.

We are in a teaching series at church right now about this whole idea.
Believing in a God who is "in the space after the question marks."

About how we tell God, "Fix this! Fix this! But if you're not gonna fix it, at least make sense of it."
And so often, he simply does make sense of it.

What if learned to be more like this song implies?
Broken, yet faithful.
Broken, yet grateful.
Broken, yet peaceful.

Our brokenness does not have to go away.
We do not have to fake it.
I am broken.

The truth is, when we don't get what we wanted and when we don't get what we thought was really good and we really thought it was from God-- well then, we are broken.

But is there a way to be faithful, grateful, and peaceful inside that brokenness?

Is there a way to look at "what we got instead" of what we wanted and be grateful with that? Be peaceful about that?

I believe there is a way.

Reteach a Thing its Loveliness

The bud
stands for all things,
even for those things that don't flower,
for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;
though sometimes it is necessary
to reteach a thing its loveliness,
to put a hand on its brow
of the flower
and retell it in words and in touch
it is lovely
until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;
as Saint Francis
put his hand on the creased forehead
of the sow, and told her in words and in touch
blessings of earth on the sow,
and the sow began remembering all down her thick length,
from the earthen snout all the way
through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,
from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine
down through the great broken heart
to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering
from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:
the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

--Galway Kinnell
"Saint Francis and the Sow"

Lemonade

I've been attempting to "make lemonade" recently.

It's really quite strange how that cliche line has been playing through my head so frequently these days.

I found myself telling people, or telling myself, "Oh you know, just trying to make lemonade out of the lemons."

Foolish. Silly. Cliche. Lame.

That's what I think after I say that, whether audibly or inaudibly.

Nonetheless, it is true.

I am making lemonade.

Some days it is sweeter than others.

Some days its plain sour as heck.

Some days it has that perfect taste of sweetness with a touch of sour at the end that leaves no doubt that this lemonade was made from fresh, REAL lemons.

And is there a better kind of lemonade than the one made with fresh, real lemons?

I think not.

If there is one thing I have learned in my short existence on this earth, it's that we can always, always make lemonade out of lemons.

In fact, there is nothing else we can do with those lemons except make lemonade.

Well, there is the option of squeezing it on your salmon, brocoli, salad dressing, or a plethora of other delicious uses for lemons in cooking that simply makes your food 100 times more incredible.

Point is: lemons by themselves--not so good. Lemons mixed with other things--DELICIOUS.

Sometimes, you get really hard lemons.

They are incredibly difficult to squeeze.

It takes two hands.

It takes rolling it around on the counter for a while.

It takes a lot of work.

But does that dismiss the fact that lemonade is still possible?

I think not.

Sometimes--ok, many times-- I don't want to make lemonade.

Many times, I just want to suck on the lemon itself.

Screw lemonade.

Forget the sugar.

Give me the frickin lemon and watch me make faces.
I don't want sweet.
I'm mad and I just want a lemon!

Sometimes that's okay.

But after a couple of days, your mouth can only take so much and you just need to bite the bullet and make some frickin lemonade.

And you enjoy it.

And you savor it.

And it is splendid.

"Seperation"

Your absence goes through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.

--W.S. Merwin,
"Separation"

As I read
these words pierced my heart
again and again
as I read and reread
again and again.

How humorous it is when we stumble upon the most apropos of words at certain moments that have never before been brought to our eyes.

Redemption?

This is what I'm meant for.

This is abundant life.

Going to sick, dark people, places, and situations and bringing life to where there seems to be little of it.

I have no power over a person's eternal state. Whether they go to heaven or hell.
That is only is God's hands and I am naive and prideful to think that I determine where they go.

Plus, who knows when that time will arise for them. Today or 50 years from now?

But, not only can I, but I am MEANT TO BE Jesus' hands and feet in the current hells that people are living in. Right now.
Today.
This moment that you are reading this.
Literal hells.

Take everything you've learned about hell and try to wrap your head around the fact that people are living in that right now--some physically, some mentally, some emotionally, some spiritually.
And for many of these people, they have all of those kinds of hells at once.
Right now. Not only when they die.


And Jesus said to be his hands and feet and be apart of bringing them redemption and salvation.

Salvation: being apart of saving people from their current hells and trusting their eternal states with the Powerful One because you've done all you can by sharing your time, resources, comfort, and love with them. (I think that this is all Jesus said to do, really. He didn't say you have the power and judgment to send people to heaven or hell eternally, right?)

Redemption: Find the darkness. Open your eyes and look for the horrible people, places, and situations. And figure out what would be light to that darkness. Figure out what would be just a piece of making that messed up stuff a little more whole. What could bring a little beauty to that rubbish? (that is why I posted that picture above: there is a tiny beautiful flower amongst the rubbish we were about to burn in Uganda. I couldn't pass up that image. I pasted it to my journal because it is the image of my own life: a tiny piece of something beautiful amidst ashes.)

Maybe this is a little more easier (and biblical): figure out what you would want someone to do for you if you were_________. (Fill in the blank with any of these: being forced to have sex with people; being beaten every day; enslaved to an addiction that you hated and wanted out of; had no opportunity to an education; forced to sell drugs for your mom since the age of 9 and now "that life" is all you know; forced & brainwashed to kill people at the age of 10; had no idea what a mother or a father was; were just released from prison for a terrible crime you regret but now no one will accept you back into society; had a deadly disease that ate away your organs so you couldn't help anyone or take care of your family; had no water whatsoever, etc.)

Figure out what you would want people to do for you in those situations. (this shouldn't be too hard, its not a trick.)
Take some time to research what the Body of Christ around the world and right around your town is already doing.
Ask the Lord what he wants you to sacrifice (not just financially) to be apart of the Kingdom of Salvation and Redemption.

Simple. (ha)
No rules.
No boxes to fit yourself into.
No boxes to fit Jesus in.
No right answers.

Just ask Him.

Take some valuable time. Be open.
Sacrifice.
BE about salvation and redemption.
Those 2 words that have lost meaning because we throw them around so much.
(so redefine them for yourself if you need to. I had to.)

You want abundant/full/intoxicating life?
What if we stopped trying to figure out what seems natural and comfortable and figure out what Jesus talked most about and did the most?
It seems that will fill you.
And intoxicate you.

Do whatever you need to do to figure it out.

Go through the Bible.

Look at Jesus' life from different perspectives.

Pray pray pray.

Ask the Lord to show us in ways we've never known before.

Research what's going on already.

Pray.


I simply can not think about the undeserved, unconditional love that my Daddy has poured out on me;
I can't think about the people he's used in my life to show me that;
I can't think about the fact that I continually spit in his face and turn from him and yet he POURS out grace on me and blesses me and gives me immense joy anyways;
I can't think about the redemption/transformation of the way I think, the way I love people, the way i do life, the way I struggle through deep, dark things---I can not think about all of that stuff and not feel a beautiful, deep, joyful compulsion to share those same things with people who HAVE NO IDEA they can experience this too!

I'll close with this:

politics or love
can make you blind or make you see
make you a slave or make you free
but only one does it all

and it’s giving up your life
for the ones you hate the most
it’s giving them your gown
when they’ve taken your clothes

it’s learning to admit
when you’ve had a hand in setting them up
in knocking them down

love is not against the law
love is not against the law

are we defending life
when we just pick and choose
lives acceptable to lose
and which ones to defend

‘cause you cannot choose your friends
but you choose your enemies
and what if they were one
one and the same

could you find a way
to love them both the same
to give them your name?

-good ol D. Webb


(this post was originally written 3 years ago but I stumbled upon it 
and it stirred my heart again so I tweaked it and reposted it as encouragement
for myself. Writing things down is good for the soul to look back on.)

Stones of Remembrance

I am thankful for a heart that remembers.

I am thankful for the truths the Lord has etched upon my heart.

You do not know what you truly believe until you test it through the flame.

As I walk through another valley with my eyes melted closed, wobbling and shaking, how peaceful and merciful it is to reach out and feel the sensation of my hands upon a rock, grasping a staff, clutching pillars.

A sigh of relief ensues.

I hang for dear life.

Ah, I need not take on step further unless clasping these pillars!

The eyes of my emotions and flesh may feel sewed shut, full of darkness and unknown, but the hands of my spirit grasp onto the rocks of the foundation my faithful Father has laid all around me through 24 years.

I know not where I am stepping.
I know not why I ended up on this path, nor what happened to the well-lit, comforting one I was one. (How did it just disappear right out from under me and then I landed on this one?)
I know not where this path leads.

But as I wobble along,
with eyes locked shut,
I can trust.

For I have the rocks, the pillars to cling to.
The rocks and pillars of remembrance.

Just as the Jewish fathers and mothers before us set up as God commanded.
What a sweet, necessary command of the Lord.

Etched into my own stones are words like:
"Remember: He took you through the black hole in your soul 3 years ago."
"Remember: He took you through deep death and loss."
"Remember: He took you through a tremendously broken heart."
"Remember: He took you through a foreign country completely alone."
"Remember: He took you through lost and scattered dreams, plans, and hopes."
"Remember: He is faithful. Every time, He is faithful."
"Remember: He takes ashes and turns them into something beautiful. All. The. Time."

And though my eyes can not read the stones, my spirit feels the words of Remembrance down into my heart.

And I wobble along.

Holding tight to the pillars that continue all the way down the path. . . .





These two posts are Pillars of Remembrance that I can look at and hold fast to:
A Hope and A Good Future
A River of Blessing