.love

One day I'll make a real post. I promise.

But I couldn't possibly say what I feel any better than Anne Lamott already has: "I just love the guy. I love Jesus - it's that simple."

I am overwhelmed by love these days. I can't contain it. I cry because I am so overwhelmed. It is beautiful.

I am thankful for all of you.

Everything Changes

I received a word from God today. This doesn't happen often, in fact, it has never happened so directly as it did today. I think the friend I sat with at church probably thought me insane because there was nothing in the message that should have prompted me to burst into tears as I did. It is time, He said.

I knew immediately what this meant - how my life from that second on will be different and I must do the things I have been avoiding doing. I cried for the majority of the sermon, half-praying, half-meditating on the words I was given - it is time.

Here, in its entirety, is the message I received today.

Jessica Jean - dearest daughter, beautiful girl - it is time. The season for growing yourself is past - time now for giving more of yourself than you knew you had. Time now to plan and prepare for the life I called you to. Time to stop thinking and dreaming, and time to start doing. Stop ignoring the challenges I am calling you into and accept them. You have been so faithful to give me the big things, but it is time. Surrender all. Take up your cross.

Friends, I'm not sure what to do with this message, but I know: everything must change, and everything has changed.

Pray for me, please, my friends, as I wrestle with what these words mean. I am praying for you, too.

Love.

Little Lessons

I have been attempting to write a blog entry for a week now. The words refuse to come and I am frustrated because my moods don't seem stable for long enough to figure out what I'm feeling. So instead, I am going to write what I DO know, and provide a list of the things that God has taught me over the past month.

• Run because you can - and Jessie never will.
• The hardest part of a daily spiritual walk is actually opening up the Bible.
• Addictions, no matter how small, only serve to put you in chains.
• The story had to happen the way it did.
• Amazing things happen when you make yourself vulnerable.
• If you know who is in control - there's no need to worry about anything.

I've also been reading a lot of the Bible lately. I am ashamed to say that until this month, I spent far more time reading theological texts and commentaries than I did reading the actual Bible. I will admit that I did not always enjoy reading the Bible - I think I complained a LOT while I read Isaiah (which gets better, by the way) and some of the books of the Bible I could gloss right over without ever reading again. But then there were those books, chapters, passages that jumped from the page and immediately nestled themselves in my heart for safe-keeping. I'd like to share those, too.

Whether you turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." --Isaiah 30:21

Stop doing wrong,
learn to do right.
Seek justice
encourage the oppressed
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.
--Isaiah 1:16-17

For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to divide soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. --Hebrews 4:12

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. --Galatians 5:24

But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. --Phillippians 3:20

My heart swells just thinking of them.

That's not me...

I arrived at work on Monday morning and was surprised by a gift. It was marvelous in the fact that it was so completely unexpected. A small loaf of pumpkin bread (my favorite!), a halloween treat bag, some lotion, and a very sincere thank you note.

The gift was meant as a small thank you for all the great work I have done with the young girl I nanny. She has cerebral palsy and the first week or two were rough. She is intensely attached to mom and dad and screams when they are new people to deal with. In the note, the family thanked me for my "positive attitude and abundant energy" in working with Jessie.

I smiled when I read this, not because I was in any way proud of myself, but because I knew I was doing my job. I knew that I had finally managed to get out of the way and let God do His work.

If you don't know me that well, perhaps you don't know that "positive attitude" and "abundant energy" are not terms that could have described me at any point in the last eight years. "Suicidal" and "negative" were thrown around a lot. "Disturbed" or "depressed" were extremely common. But positive? energetic? Never.

I was worried when I took this job - and that worry only increased the first two weeks when there was barely a half an hour that Jessie wasn't screaming and crying. I didn't have the patience for this; I couldn't love this baby; I couldn't do this plus a second job. And finally it hit me: I can't do this job, but HE CAN.

And so I begin every morning with a prayer as I drive to work. I ask God to empty me completely and fill me with His presence and that I can have strength without end to do His work with this amazing little girl. I ask Him to help me remove myself from the picture, to not let my tired, frustrated human body get in the way of what He can do. And He has been so faithful. The result is a love I didn't know I could have for a child with special needs - and a baby who is growing stronger by the day under the love of and care of many people doing God's work.

Jessie laughed yesterday - I mean really laughed, not just her usual giggle. Five minutes of absolutely unbridled laughter as I tickled her at play group. What a sweet sound of heaven it was.

Poetic Justice

That title means nothing, by the way. And I have so much more to say, but I am exhausted and heartbroken and drained beyond belief. And I had no idea when I agreed to babysit tomorrow night that it was going to be a NINE HOUR AFFAIR. So much for a day off.

This is the poem that I mentioned in my very first blog post. Not Dickinson, but not terrible. But then again...I'm biased.

Good night, my loves.

------

where are you?
i reach out to you in the darkness
and the emptiness envelops my arm
swallows it into the void

unsatisfied, the void reaches out to me
the arm that was once mine
(but which now belongs to the void)
touches me tentatively
and lays its fingers to rest on my chest

worn fingers stroke my heart
interrupting its lub-dub of life
and creating a pattern too familiar to me
(lub-lub-lub-dub---lub-lub-dub)
of fear and death

once mine, the hand under the
power of darkness
grips my heart
and wrenches it from my chest

i open my mouth to scream
--nothing
the vocalization of my fear
silenced before it could begin
you do not hear my cries

but you know how i wish
to cry out
for i see you there
in the corner just beyond my grasp

your eyes, with their eerie,
otherworldly quality
reflect the fear and pain in my own
you see my pain
and yet you do not help

you expect me to come to you
i, who am in the control of
powers darker than you are light,
am supposed to come to you.

i reach once more with the hand
still in my control
spidery fingers reaching out desperately
for contact and assurance.

as a child, i was taught
that You are a constant--
unchanging
unmoving

but there, in the darkness,
in the grips of something i neither
know nor comprehend,
i am positive

i see You take a step back.

Homecoming

I sat yesterday in the choir loft at the church I was baptised in. It was a strange sort of turn of events, singing with the choir I watched for so many years from the pews. Well, perhaps "watch" is too strong a verb - I was sitting in a pew with a baby (because even at age 7 I loved kids) and only glanced up occasionally to make sure my mother hadn't dropped dead while she was singing. (She never did, by the way - she was singing two altos down on Sunday.)

But while I sat in the choir loft, I was swarmed with seemingly silly memories of my time there. Of volleyball and girl scouts and Sunday night Hymn Sings. The last one hit me like a ton of bricks - I could remember exactly where I sat on those Sundays (always the fifth Sunday of the month) and which song I would request. Hymn 593. I haven't picked up a Methodist Hymnal since I switched churches in 1996, but I could still remember the hymn number. And in case you don't have your hymnal handy, I've reprinted the words here. I've left the chorus to last - I remember belting out those words with the sort of faith and promise only a child can deliver. It is my fervent prayer that I can again discover that unfettered faith.

Hymn 593: Here I Am, Lord

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard my people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin,
My hand will save.

I, who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear my light to them?
Whom shall I send?

I, the Lord of snow and rain,
I have borne my people’s pain.
I have wept for love of them.
They turn away.

I will break their hearts of stone,
Give them hearts for love alone.
I will speak my words to them.
Whom shall I send?

I, the Lord of wind and flame,
I will send the poor and lame.
I will set a feast for them.
My hand will save.

Finest bread I will provide,
'Til their hearts be satisfied.
I will give my life to them.
Whom shall I send?
Chorus
Here I am, Lord. Is it I, Lord?
I have heard you calling in the night.
I will go, Lord, if you lead me.

I will hold your people in my heart.

Amen.

Yesterday

I watched a beautiful movie tonight. It broke my heart. It was a Zulu-language filmed called "Yesterday," which is also the name of the main character. It follows this woman, a young mother whose husband is away in the city for work, as she gets devastating news that changes her life, her marriage, her relationship to her community.

Africa has, for many years now, held a special place in my heart. This is due in great part, I believe to the AIDS epidemic and the way it ravages lives and leaves families torn apart. This movie reminded me of that, but also gave me new insight into just how heart-breaking a situation exists over there.

Yesterday confronts her husband about the news of her diagnosis - and he beats her. She returns home, leaving him in the city, where he stays until he is forced out of his own illness to see a doctor. He returns home to his wife, already thin and bearing the classic lesions of a man whose body is ravaged by AIDS.

Rumors fly in their small community and when the news that John has "the virus" is confirmed, the community demands his exile. What if he bleeds on us? What if he makes us all sick? Get him out! Yesterday visits a hospital in town, hoping to find a place for her husband - but the waiting list is already many people long and they will not have a bed for months.

And this is the part that broke my heart more than anything else: Yesterday scoured the countryside looking for pieces of scrap metal. She dragged them, herself already ill with the virus, into a field and built a hut for her husband where she could nurse and attend to him in his dying days. The aftermath of AIDS - the orphans, the sick children, the hospitals - has always been alive in my mind and heart. But the present reality - the people who are rejected by their friends and family, who are suffering with no one to lay a healing hand on them - had never struck me before that moment.

My heart is so broken by this thought that I don't know if I have any more thoughts tonight. Pray for Africa, friends.

Dearest Lord -
Be with your children in Africa tonight. Pour out your grace, peace, and love on their wounded hearts and give them the strength to carry on. Open their hearts to your word as you send your servants to them. Let them know there is a place for them in your kingdom, where they will no longer by burdened by the illness and brokenness of this world.
Amen.