Warmth and Wisdom

So I was sitting on my porch this morning rolling around in my anguish, studying Daniel and crying out to my God. The focal passage this morning is Daniel 2:20-23. These are Daniel’s words of praise to and about God after He revealed to Daniel king Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and saved his life and the lives of his ‘famous’ companions (think fiery furnace).

Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him. I thank and praise you, God of my ancestors; You have given me wisdom and power, you have made known to me what I asked of you, you have made known to us the dream of the king.

I was thinking about what I wrote yesterday and how I seem to have a knack for making people uncomfortable. I often (pretty much after every post) seriously consider not continuing to post. Particularly now in this place of intense questioning and doubt. I ask myself ‘Are you just a big fake? Are you going to lose this battle for your faith and turn and run like you did before? Why are you letting people see this your wounds and this fight so intimately?!’ 

  

The answer came like a beautiful warm beam of sunshine breaking through the clouds briefly warming parched, icy tundra. “Because you do trust me baby girl. You know I’m going to win. You know this will come full circle. You let people see the pain so that they will be able to see the miracle.”

My heart is screaming, screaming, screaming right now! I do trust Him. I do! Down in the depths of my soul I do. I can question and wonder and dig because I believe that below the destruction and the shattered remnants of my life my foundation is still there.

He’s big enough. He’s big enough for the anger and the pain. His Word is trust worthy enough for any amount of in-depth intense study I can muster. He is in no way intimidated by my searching because He knows Who I will find.

I praise God for this moment of warmth, for this moment of clarity, for this wisdom that is not my own.  

Desperate

How is it that I left my bed for all of 3 hours today and I’m utterly exhausted? The world seems more and more foreboding every day. The thought of interacting with another human being clenches my heart with anxiety. I’m so tired.

It’s weird to know that my increasing pain scares people. Apparently my ability to put emotions on paper is disconcerting. Honestly, what I write isn’t even close to the depth and breadth of what’s going on inside. It couldn’t be captured with language, layers upon layers upon layers of fractured consciousness embedded with still-explosive shrapnel. There are some places inside me that I still can’t touch. They’re like white hot metal. I try to get a grip but the burns are too severe. It’s just not possible. I sometimes turn to these places for brief seconds, like testing the heat of an iron with your fingers. I despair because I don’t think they’ll ever cool to a point where I can touch much less diffuse them.

I was reading a ministry blog today. The author is experiencing a season of deep pain. She didn’t divulge details but she explained how God fed her through the sermon at her home church that Sunday. The sermon was about being in a place of needing God, of being powerfully aware of that need and how that is a blessing. Surprisingly I did not throw my computer across the room (though I contemplated it). God has been speaking to me about thankfulness, about adopting an attitude of thankfulness to Him NOW. I’d be a big fat nasty liar if I said I am there. The last two mornings I have uttered prayers of thankfulness through tightly gritted teeth. I absolutely don’t feel it but I’m trying so so hard to follow His lead. I’m trying to trust that if He is prescribing thankfulness it is the bandage my hemorrhaging heart needs. I hope that at some point the prayers of gratitude will flow from my heart rather than being pulled painfully and grudgingly. Honestly, if that day comes it will be a miracle, literally.    

One of the comments on the blog read “Oh the joy and the freedom of being face down in desperate need, awaiting miraculous provision.” My first thought was “yeah, wait until you really suffer.” I get an attitude sometimes about people throwing words like “desperate” around. I’m trying to reel that in but I’m not always successful. But this comment struck a chord with me because it sits exactly where I used to be… where I am no more.  

One of my greatest fears is that I will never love Him like I did before, with the wild abandon and open joy. I trusted Him, completely. I really did. I don’t now. I want to but I don’t. Did I just say that out loud? Yeah… I want to fall back in love with my God but I honestly have no idea how.

What do you do when all the “right answers” don’t work anymore? I don’t know but I’m going to the source and relearning everything I ever thought I knew about my God. I want to know who HE says He is, not what my church tradition teaches or what I want to be true. I need to know what is true. Jesus says God’s Word is truth.

I am face down in desperate need…  

Dreams and salt flats

I spent the morning on my porch, sobbing and talking to myself. Yes, nutter… you should be used to that by now.

Last night I begged God for a night with no nightmares. All I could say was “please, no nightmares, please, please, no nightmares.” I would be lying if I said I was confident that He would give me what I asked. Afterall… I’ve never cried out so desperately or fervently as I did for Damon, then he died.

I also asked Him to wake me early if He wanted to talk. Several times over the last month I have set my alarm to commune with Him before the world and my boys rise. I almost always turn the alarm off, roll over and go back to sleep. There’s something about an alarm that just brings out the rebellious in me. This is also often when the nightmares come…

He woke me, with a dream about Damon. His daddy handed him to me and he curled into me like he always did. I kissed his blonde little head. He was dressed in a white dress shirt, a vest and a tie… an outfit I’ve never seen before in my life. He looked adorable. I held him and I felt whole. The dream lasted seconds and I could feel myself waking. I fought it, then my eyes opened. I laid there staring at the window, grey morning light filtering between the blinds and grasped for the feeling of him. I didn’t move for a long long time. I replayed the dream, afraid to breathe, afraid it would pop like a bubble and be gone.

Still holding my breath I made my way to the porch. I sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed. I talked myself through some painful questions and thoughts and cried. I miss him. I would stay in that dream forever and never wake if I could. I would die.

After a while the world around me started to stir. Neighbors started emerging from their homes to pick up the morning paper or go to work. I surveyed my peaceful middle-class neighborhood awash in early morning sunshine and thought. I thought about how deceptive this world is that I walk through every day. I thought about how dangerous, how deadly that deception is.

Hanging above one of the exits at the building that houses the college ministry offices of my church is a sign that reads “You are now entering the mission field.” By and large we don’t believe that. I mean honestly, do I live my life as if I enter a mission field every time I leave my house?

I believe more and more that the prosperous west is one of the most challenging mission fields and one most desperately in need of missionaries. I think in most places people are aware of the pain and futility of this life but here we feel secure. We have ‘stuff’ and medical advancements and enough to eat. The horribleness of a fallen world rarely penetrates our ‘happy bubbles.’ We’ve insulated ourselves. We’ve convinced ourselves that it won’t happen to us and shut down to anything that says it might.

I’ve been studying Daniel. Daniel, the teenager who stuck to his God even when he was taken captive by a foreign nation. Even when his name was changed from one that means "God is my judge" to one that means "Bel will protect" (Bel was a Babylonian god). Even when he was freely given all of Babylon’s indulgences. Daniel, who stayed pure in the midst of a society so similar to ours. A society that valued beauty, youth, intelligence and weath above all. Sound familiar? Our culture is very Babylonian, very selfish, very superficial.

In Isaiah God speaks to Babylon. Here He characterizes the attitude of Babylon. In Isaiah 47 verses 8 & 10 God says “You say, ‘I am the only one and there is no other…’” characterizing the selfishness and self-absorption of this nation. But the continuation of verse 8 bit me hard and hasn’t let go. The verse in it’s entirety reads:

Listen to this, you pleasure-loving kingdom, living at ease and feeling secure. You say, ‘I am the only one, and there is no other. I will never be a widow or lose my children.’

This attitude of “nothing bad will ever happen to me” was a characteristic of Babylon, a nation entirely in opposition to God.

Don’t get me wrong. How I hope you never become a widow or lose a child!!! And I like my neighborhood. I like the mowed lawns and the sidewalks and the three bedroom two bath houses. I like the neighbors walking their dogs in the evening and I know we enjoy religious freedom in this country that is unmatched, even now. But we won’t always. Even before that comes I wonder if we are willing to recognize the pain, the brokenness, the fear that lives in our hearts and the hearts of those who so desperately need our God.

Feel free to take my words with a grain of salt, heck, take them with a whole salt shaker… or the salt flats themselves. Better yet, take them to Him and see what He has to say about it. After all, my voice calls from the insulation of the four walls of my house, which I rarely have the courage to leave. Last night after experiencing what was apparently “take your brood of children under four to Chik-fil-a” night I curled into a ball in the dark and went nearly catatonic, then sobbed. So, again… salt flats and all that.

The thing is, people need God. The real God, not some watered down version that only works from a pew. If we aren’t living for Him, if we aren’t transparent how will they ever find Him? Jesus lives in me. If I’m not transparent all anyone can see is me.       

Nightmares

How do you survive when everything in you is trying to die? I don’t know.

I had another nightmare… Damon was dying and I was screaming for someone to help. I was begging him not to go. He was in my arms and I was watching him go.

I have these nightmares often. We’re always in a hospital and I’m always screaming for someone to help. No one ever does.

As if the memories of the living nightmare weren’t enough, now I struggle through the images my mind conjures up night after night. I’m so angry and broken and exhausted. I miss him. I miss my son, my child, my baby. Once again, language fails… there is not a word for what I am. Broken isn’t it, torn is closer but still not deep enough, not raw enough, not horrible enough.

I sit in my livingroom, tears streaming down my cheeks, as I write this. My husband and my son go about their lives around me, completely habitualized to my endless weeping. Don’t misunderstand, my man cares deeply but for us this is ‘normal.’ Isaiah is use to this. The aftershocks never end. 

Redemption

I’m battling. Every day is a battle to stand in my faith. Every day is hand to hand combat and most days I’m too exhausted to rise from the ashes. In the days of old when someone was in deep mourning they would shave their head, dress in sackcloth and imbue cover themselves with dust and ash. I read a story recently of a father who lost his precious daughter. He shaved his head in mourning and let his beard grow. I’ve seriously contemplated shaving my head… there’s just something so right about it, to be shorn, to be obviously different. Apparently the nearly two foot tattoo that stretches from my hip to my chest isn’t enough. The bracelets and necklace and orange shoes and shirts aren’t enough. I could paint myself orange and it wouldn’t be enough. There is no enough. There is no symbol of mourning bold enough to express the loss, the pain, the ache, the confusion. But don’t be surprised if I turn up with some crazy looking something going on. Maybe I will dye my locks orange…

Recently I’ve been painting. My creativity tends to explode in times of distress, writing, painting, building… all ways my pain is expressed. I’ve been so restless. As the pain builds and the questions swirl I swing wildly between a complete inability to move, a paralysis soaked in tears, to hours of constant activity. Yesterday I spent 5 hours hunched over the same painting carefully tracing each line, utterly lost in my own head. It was here I listened to Nehemiah. Beautiful Nehemiah.

Today as I run circles in my head and process and process and process what I’ve heard something occurs to me.

The last weeks have been the hardest in terms of keeping my eyes on Jesus. I’ve been so confused, so angry, so wounded as reality sinks in. I don’t understand. For an “intellectual” this may be the worst part of grief. I’m an academic. I work things out. I figure things out. If things don’t make sense I research and dig and design experiments until they do… and they always do. I’m a scientist by training. God designed the natural world in beautiful order. It makes sense.

Now I’m up against the worst horror of my life and no amount of digging or thinking or tearing myself apart will make it make sense.

So what keeps me bound to my Yahweh? I’ve been asking myself the same question. Why am I still here, at Your feet when You have done this horror to me? Why do I still cry out to You, reach for You, long for You? Why can’t I turn away?

In Nehemiah the people assembled to remember. They assembled to remember Israel’s past. I guarantee Hollywood’s got nothing on the Old Testament. There is more scandal, pain, rebellion and sin in the history of our ancestors than any playwright could imagine.

Yet, there is also more love, redemption, compassion and longing of the Almighty for His chosen people. The more I dig into our spiritual heritage the more I am struck by the voice of Yahweh calling to His children “Come back! Come back!”

There are passages in Jeremiah that make me weep with the ache I hear in my Father’s voice. “What fault did you find in me that you would leave me?”

So, there is my answer. Redemption.

I once was lost but now I’m found.

I remember my pit.

I remember who I was. I shudder to remember. I want to forget. I want to sweep her under the biggest heaviest prettiest rug I can find and pretend she never existed. I hate her…  but the memory of her is a gift. Today, tomorrow… the memory of who I was without Him saves me.

I don’t understand. I don’t understand!! But I know that I know that I know that HE changed me and that I never but never want to be her again.

I am redeemed.        

Nehemiah

I spent the better part of the day today in Nehemiah. I’ve heard his story before… well part of it anyway. I’ve heard, somewhere in some half forgotten sermon, that he rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem. Maybe it was a VBS or Sunday school lesson. I don’t know but as always the Word says so much more than our words.

My spirit does not often stir lately. I don’t know if I’m journeying through a season of hardness, if I’m just to exhausted and wounded to move anywhere, even in my spirit, or if there just isn’t anything that penetrates the pain. Likely it is a combination of all three.

Today, my spirit stirred.

I imagine it a bit like a person who lay on the edge of death, too exhausted to process or grasp any pieces of information that penetrate the fog…  but then a sweet familiar voice grabs something inside and for a moment there is a whisper of consciousness.

I do so dearly love the Old Testament, the stories of the old covenant.

Nehemiah describes the Israelites reclaiming their heritage after rebellion and exile. Oh how I can relate! They, working together, rebuilt the walls of sacred Jerusalem. Everyone worked, Levites, Priests, leaders of tribes, the people of Tekoa, merchants and goldsmiths, Shallum and his daughters… each on their own section of the wall. How beautiful!! How beautiful! Oh you should read it.

The local rulers are intimidated by the Jews rebuilding Jerusalem’s walls. They taunt and threaten them. Nehemiah claims God’s protection and provision AND assigns half of his workers as guardsmen. I love that. The Word says that with one hand they worked on the wall and with the other they held their sword.

I am rebuilding the ruins of my life. Well, actually I’m starting to begin to think about contemplating  rebuilding the ruins. I dang well better do it with one hand on my sword and with armed warriors at my back.  

In the course of this amazing story that I can’t even begin to do justice the chosen nation of God comes together for the reading of His Holy Word. They assembled, the men and the women and the children who were old enough to understand (I wonder who was keeping all the littl’ns?). Then, Ezra read the Book of the Law of Moses. When they saw him open the book they all rose to their feet. Oh how this stirs my spirit. They had such reverence for God’s Word, these thousands of people rose together as one just at the opening of the book!

They read from the Book of the Law of God and clearly explained the meaning of what was being read, helping the people understand each passage. – Nehemiah 8:8

Beautiful.

The people wept. Hearing the Word read aloud brought them to tears!

Their leaders bid them celebrate such a beautiful and holy day, rather than mourn. So, the people celebrated.

Then, the leaders got together and examined the scriptures more closely. They discovered that they were supposed to build shelters to live in for an upcoming festival. So you know what they did? They got off of their bums and went and got the materials and built their shelters. I love it. They read it, realized they weren’t doing it so they went and did it. Beautiful.

So much happens in this book , and it’s so well…. Yeah beautiful. But here’s my last stab at capturing what only the scriptures can do justice. After their festivals and celebrations they came together and remembered. They recited the history of their ancestors, good and bad. They purposely remembered their heritage. They remembered the faithfulness of their God. Not in only in the quiet of their minds but aloud in an assembly of the peoples. They credited God with His mighty acts and they didn’t even kind of gloss over Israel’s sins. They acknowledged why they had  been captives in Babylon and… here’s the beautiful part… they repented. They confessed their sins. They called their elders to sign a binding document and as a nation swore to honor their Yahweh. 

  

It stirs me. This stunning picture of what our spiritual ancestors did. I believe this book is a prescription for worship and Yahweh reminded me today that nothing soothes my soul like worship.

Worse

I should have known it was coming.

I haven’t watched TV since Damon died. It’s too shallow… and often too painful. Well, I take that back. The TV was on constantly in the first weeks, particularly when I would have to lie down and try to be still; when I would try to let sleep take me but I wasn’t really watching.

When I lay on the couch with the computer in my lap and watched four hours of House Hunters International and Color Splash I should have known. I should have seen the water getting sucked from the shore as the Tsunami barreled toward me. I didn’t. I was too busy running from the pain. Head in the sand, butt in the air, wham!

I didn’t spend time with God that morning. Hardly spoke to Him all day.

It’s really hard to be that connected with Him, connected enough to feel His presence, and not open every door and window. I knew… I knew what was waiting. I knew the calm of the past few days was coming to a crashing, crushing end. I ran… hard.

I recently told a friend something like “You can run from it but you will just be exhausted and unprepared when it catches you. When I have to face a new memory of Damon’s death or a new season of my grief I always run for a while. It’s just too awful, too painful. But then I gather myself, root myself in my Shield and I turn and face it. It’s never easy, or even ok but I don’t want to be caught.”

If only I could follow my own stinking advice! It's just so exhausting to do it over and over and over again. To face the horror over and over and over again. It caught me. I had not rooted myself in my Shield. As my dear friend says, I had not lowered my “anchors.” I spun and twisted and was pummeled by the waves. I’m still reeling, grappling for footing before the next onslaught.

The same questions race through my mind and I scream “Where are You!” again and again.

I remember a father describing his grief, saying that the perception is that the first months are the worst. “I don’t know about you” he wrote “but it got far worse after the first months.” I read that soon after my own child was ripped from my life. “No, no, no!” I thought “there is nothing worse than this. Please God, tell me it doesn’t get worse!” I stopped reading that book that day. I couldn’t face the next hour, much less the looming possibility of “worse.” I didn’t want to know what was next.

It gets worse… and worse… and worse. There has been no end to the worse.

The first seasons of grief have eased, the shock, the fury, the bargains… they still linger and manifest in surges, whispers and explosions but they are extras in this act. Reality takes center stage. Every day it’s sinking in. This is real.

There is nothing worse than beginning to realize… this. is. real.  Or maybe there is. If there is one thing I’ve learned it’s that the worst can get worse.  

Enough

I imagine at some point people will tire of hearing how much my life sucks. I fancy most people already have. We don’t tolerate pain or bad or even real for very long. I get so sick of the “christianese” way we describe “bad.” We have “tough times” and “struggles” and “difficulties.” This makes me want to throw things. Read the Psalms. God didn’t sugar coat the awfulness of this life. Why do we so dishonor those who suffer?

I say we because I try (and usually fail) to remember that there was once a time when I wasn’t this bleeding, broken, twisted mass of a human being. How would that Jodie have reacted to the debilitating sorrow of someone like me? Honestly, probably not all that well.

But the thing is people are hurting, really hurting, in all different ways and for all different reasons but the pain and the bondage is real. When are we going to get real? When are we, as the body of the all mighty Lord of our lives, going to stand up and say ENOUGH!!

When are we going to take a good hard long look at ourselves and admit this isn’t working!! This is supposed to work! It is for freedom that Christ has set us free brothers and sisters, so why aren’t we free? Freedom doesn’t come at baptism… the potential for freedom does. We are saved when we accept Christ, when we proclaim Him as LORD AND SAVIOR, but freedom takes work.

No one wants to follow a bunch of rules and regulations. No one will become a mighty warrior because they are running from hell. We become mighty warriors because we know in whom we have believed! We are not meant to spend our tenure on earth with our tails tucked between our legs fearful of the world around us. Are you kidding? Who’s your Daddy? 

  

2 Timothy 3 describes the end times. God tells us that the people who do not know Him will hold to a form of godliness but deny its power. There is power in the blood brothers and sisters. Why are we denying its power? Why are we walking around with our empty cups begging everything and everyone to “please please fill my cup” when we have the fount of living water? There’s a name for this. God described it vividly in Isaiah and Jeremiah. It’s called idolatry.

I recently read something that struck me. Beth Moore says ‎"a few days ago I again saw the best advice the world seems to have: 1) don't sweat the small stuff 2) it's all small stuff. It’s not all small stuff. Worldly philosophy is forced to minimize difficulty because it has no real answers... Only through prayer are we washed in peace." - Beth Moore (emphasis mine).

Why do we minimize suffering? I think it’s because we secretly believe our God is not really that big. If we believed we served the God of the universe, the God for whom nothing is too hard who imbibes us with His holy power we would not shy away from that which seems insurmountable.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. – Acts 1:8

Joy cometh

The last few days have been hard. They’re always hard, some more than others. If we’re being honest I don’t even measure my life in days. Sometimes the meter stick is as long as hours but usually it is closer to minutes.

God has been very tangibly near. Again, He is always near, God is close to the brokenhearted (Ps 34:18), but there are dark, terrifying moments when I can’t feel or hear Him. Lately, He’s been speaking. He’s been teaching. He’s been challenging me. Most days I barely have the strength to rise from bed, have panic attacks when I must interact with too many people or be ‘functional’ for too long and the pain gets bigger and bigger. These ‘normal’ things seem insurmountable. Yet, He faithfully gives me the strength to rise to His challenges. They do not feel overwhelming. They feel invigorating. He breathes His life into my dead body. He is doing something… I can feel it…

It’s frightening to say that, for a number of reasons. I know that soon I will descend into the oblivion that is agonizing, horrifying pain. God’s work will not cease but I, again, will not be able to see or feel it. I also shy away from the desperation of those who love me to see “progress.” It feels like pressure to “get better.” This perception in most cases in probably entirely unfair but, there it is.

Even in the dark there have been smiles the last few days… moments of true joy.

My beautiful Isaiah lights up my world. Frequently he, in his innocent way, reminds me. He reminds me that this world is not my home. He reminds me of Damon, of happy sweet memories. God knew what He was talking about when He talked about childlike faith. I love how his assertions of truth come seemingly out of nowhere. There is no preamble, no hedging, no ‘let me prepare you for what I’m about to say.’ He just says what’s on his heart. Listening to him talk to God soothes my soul. Today he asserted confidently that we should NOT call our house ‘home,’ we should call it our house because heaven is our home. I agree wholeheartedly.

This morning my husband serenaded me with “Baby’s got her blue jeans on.” My man is a born and bred Texan. He is country through and through and I love it. He is also the most brilliant person I know, sometimes annoyingly brilliant. He remembers everything he hears or reads and can recall and explain just about any biological concept. You may not believe me but I tell you the truth when I say it was his mind that I first fell in love with. He challenges me. I positively melt when he throws a twangy “I recon” in the middle of a description of cellular respiration or the beauty of the Taipan. So when he crooned “aw the girl can’t help it” with a hand on my knee and his patented crooked smile my heart burst open with joy.

These moments are like bread crumbs, glimpses of God’s promises. He is showing me that even in the face of the most horrible thing I couldn’t imagine He is faithful. Joy cometh (Psalm 30:5).