Something About Good

I've had so much time to think recently, and not so much time to process my thinking, to bring my scattered thoughts to real. But something is coming clear, something about inadequacy, my own God-gifted inadequacy.

The only solid thing that comes to me is this: that God has been very good to me and I have not deserved His goodness.

It is something about having a child whose high needs I can never fully meet. Something about her needing God too - for life, for help, for love, for discipline. It something about a place to begin teaching her of His care for her.



It is something about letting go, and about holding on, an almost-wish that these young, small days would last longer because I cannot get close enough to the smiles, the cooing, the giggles, the uncertainty, the pleas for time with Mama that will just never be enough.



This something is about a really big God. A really, really big God whose wrath is overpower, whose wrath will one day drive those who hate Him to curse His name without repentance. It is something about being held by this God, something about a strong love, eyes that burn like fire, a King on a white horse, a Gospel and a testimony that draws my eyes upward, outward, into Him who is Spirit and not like me.

Have I made Him too small in my need to justify myself, my life, my inadequacy?


It is my inadequacy that teaches me to embrace His power. It is my empty that begs His full. It is my dust that requires His glory.

I see so well where I have failed and where I must not fail. I try so hard to perfect myself, to be unbroken, to do the right thing every time. It is too much for me. I will never be enough. Not for this loving of my children, not for this serving of my powerful God. I can never cover all my bases.

If not for Christ, I would be destroyed. This something I cannot quite describe is at once terrible and comforting. It goes beyond all I have ever known, lives in a realm I cannot finger or photograph, draws me from the daily into the eternal and helps me trust a Person who provided for my redemption from this body of sin.

The uncontrollable pain I own in child-bearing, the transition and change in life that sends me spinning out of my comfort zone, the unrequited longing I know for my husband, time slipping through my fingers like so much sand - these are the gifts of His goodness to me, the painful, beautiful etchings of life under Adam redeemed in Jesus.


I cannot pretend to understand.

I can only be overwhelmed. Only offer up my thanks, wordless thanks that is more than emotion, that draws all of me up into Him, that bows me down before Him, and the eyes of my heart wonder beyond the dim reflection at the mystery that will be no more one day when I behold Him.

I can only taste this goodness that I will never be enough to earn.

...

Shared in the blog carnival hosted at Bridget Chumbley's One Word at a Time today.





(Images © Informal Moments Photography)

What's In His Name?

Her name was Bethany.

It was such a big deal that her name was Bethany. It still stands out in my mind. I get into names.

She said that God had given her that name.

She said that she had known God intimately, the way I wanted to know Him.

She said that God had taught her to surrender fully and completely.

She said a lot of things.

But she never mentioned the name of Jesus.

...

Want the rest of the story? I'm guest-posting for @katdish today. Click over to "Hey Look, a Chicken!" to find out how God used my encounter with Bethany to reveal my own incredible need for Jesus.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Eve's Redemption

Eve was created to be Adam's helpmeet, his ezer kenegdo, his strong helper, his life saver. But it was Eve who was deceived by Satan, who took of the fruit, who offered it to Adam.

Adam's life saver offered him death instead of life.

And she is blamed for this, for the entrance of sin and death into the world, and her daughters are blamed for this. She is abused and rejected and dominated and subjected and devalued by Adam.

But where Adam blames Eve, the woman God gave him to be his help, God held Adam responsible for his own choice, and in Adam, all man is under sin. All who are born of his seed are born into his death.

How devastated Eve must have been! She had betrayed Adam, succumbed to Satan's deception, failed at the thing for which she had been created. She was a life saver who had invited death for her husband. I live with this sense of inadequacy every day.

This Christmas season, as I was preparing to give birth to my son, as I visited and revisited Mary's experience, I discovered something more than Eve's failure. It was in Mary that Eve finally met her full potential, finally realized the reason for which she had been created.

In Mary, Eve delivered the Son of the Holy Spirit, slain before the foundation of the world for Adam's sin. She birthed Jesus, the second Adam, God-in-the-flesh who would not only save her, but who would be her husband's salvation.

Through the pain-filled birth of a baby, by the sword of death that pierced her heart as she watched her God-Son die in Adam's stead, Eve found her redemption.

Eve had failed, and miserably - but God... Ezer kenegdo indeed...

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Tomorrow: Related thoughts on Adam... (Because Pete and I got to talking, and I wanted this to be a short post... Maybe I'll make Pete guest post - or at least take the credit for his train of thought here!)

And you just must forgive the continued use of baby pictures here. I've got a one-track mind behind the camera right now.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Two

These are my children. I cannot help the absolute wonder I feel looking at them together like this, learning each other in the way babies do, with a simple acceptance that "you must be part of my life now."

Sometimes, it takes seeing it like this, through my lens, processed before my eyes and under my hand, to make it real.

Is this what God felt at creation, I wonder? Was it a capture of something He had dreamed about, had foreknown? Or was it at incarnation, when He clothed Himself with the dust He'd made to live and be and feel as we do?

What glory He gave up to become a man, a helpless infant. What glory does He now deserve? Can we possibly know its measure within the bounds of our human imagination? Even imagination is not enough to describe Him.

What is man, that He is mindful of him?

Two lives given to me, two little faces that bear some of my image, two little hearts to steal my heart, and love that takes my breath away...

I am not enough for this - but oh, how beautiful!







(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

A Long Comment - The Cost of the Gift

Katdish, one of my new blog friends, guest-posted over on Peter Pollock's blog today, and I started to leave a comment that grew into a book, so I thought I'd post my thoughts on her post here, instead of filling their writing space with all my hot air.

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I told my sister yesterday that one of the most incredible things I have gained in this last year of waiting for God is a deep understanding of my own need for a Savior. Every day.

When I began seeking Him, I wanted to do it "right," to understand and surrender to Him daily, constantly engaging and remembering the magnitude of what He'd done for me. But it got old. Really old.

You see, the Gospel has no value to you until you yourself have need of good news. It's not about doing right. It's about hope. It's about a Savior who came to clothe us in His own God-holy so that we are not destroyed.

You know how it goes, though. The more I tried to grow and change to be like Him, the less I saw of Him, the harder I fought against what I believed to be His will for me.

It wasn't until He brought an end to my own efforts to please Him - and still loved me! - that I saw what I had been doing. I realized I wasn't just lukewarm - I wasn't even ever burning for Him! My "passion" for Him was wrapped up in my own idea of right and righteous and holy - and from my own perspective, I was better than you all!

I tumbled off my own god-stool and hit the ground, HARD.

Once I realized I could not shape or drive my own passion, could not justify myself, could not sanctify myself, I found myself looking up at God, going, "now what?"

"Wait on the Lord," He said. "I will complete the work I have begun in you." There was a whole lotta "I love you" in there too. The kind of "I love you" that said, "I have shown you my love in this, that I sent My beloved Son into your flesh and let Him die your death."

It no longer works for me to write or think or approach anyone with the perspective that I am anything. I can't get around the incredible heart-aching daily understanding that I have absolutely nothing to offer God or anybody else if Jesus didn't live and die and arise. I have SUCH need. Sometimes it seems that all I am is need.

It is not remembering the cost that has changed me. It is the recognition of my own desperate need for redemption - and His loving desperation to redeem me. This everyday remembrance of grace both humbles and ignites.

I wrote once that real love means entering into the life of another, looking through his eyes, feeling with his heart, walking in his shoes, dying his death. This, Jesus did for me. This, I am only beginning to learn to do for Him.

At this point in my life, it's not the "cost of the purse" that makes the difference to me. It's how much I need the thing. That, and the fact that the need has been met.

I can't believe His incredible grace.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Realizing the Baby

Every year at Christmas when we were growing up, my sister and I set up our family nativity scene together. We argued out which figurine needed to stand where, spent hours figuring and refiguring the perfect set-up, complete some years with leftover pine needles, stuffing-snow, and Christmas lights.

I own it now, because I'm the oldest of our eight. Because Mom got a new nativity scene. Because I have a home and a family of my own now.

There's not so much drama over where to put things. I finally repaired the broken-winged angel with superglue, fixing my old clay-and-Elmer's patch job. I don't worry about things like pine needles or stuffing-snow. I simply put things where it makes sense for them to stand - no analysis needed.

When I set it up this year, Mary caught my attention. Mary, whose heart-pondering celebration of her Baby's birth left her kneeling before her Son, cradling God.

This year as I wait for my own baby boy to come during the Christmas season, I find myself kneeling quiet with her, pondering all the joy and sorrow and love and pain that must be with this new-life-coming. It is a soft-spoken celebration, a tender God-reminder of Immanuel, God with us, God with me...

As I weigh my own desire to clasp my new baby to my heart, I find Him stirring the same tenderness in my heart for Him, and I begin to understand how precious He is, how love for Him begins for me not at a Cross, but at a manger, where a mother once touched and smelled and kissed and caressed God-become-flesh for me.

I find this waiting time His gift to me, a reason to celebrate.

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Breathing Through

The night passes in five, ten-minute intervals.

I am conscious that I am resting, drifting in and out of dreams and silly head-stuck songs, aware of baby-movement, of womb-tightening that has not stopped for hours.

It is an almost-normal night. There is a full moon. Pete wants to rest early; Piper napped at five, so she is awake. She plays with my hair, sticks her fingers up his nose. She giggles when my fingers find her chin in the dark, and I giggle too, and she giggles again, and we both have the giggles. Pete is grumpy. I cuddle her close.

Soon.

The midwife has been called. She is resting too. I am glad not to disturb her tonight, worried that each contraction will be the last, that I will be embarrassed because I did not know - again.

But I know. It will be soon.

Morning breaks quiet, and still they come.

I eat. I drink. I remember another morning like this, so nervous. Mom and Dad came in the thunderstorm the night before. We slept and woke and waited almost all the next day. And then Piper came, and I was a Mama.

I am not less nervous now.

Pete has left for work early, to take care of some pressing things, while Piper sleeps and labor comes slow. I breathe through as I sit, willing the baby to drop a bit, hoping to hold him soon. He was busy last night.

The pain comes low, insistent, then eases. I surrender to it, last night's shock-shivers lifted. I consider how this pain - of all pains - begs me to my knees; I wonder how I will meet God there today.

I hope it will be today. This can go on for days, they say.

I open my hands, mutely asking His nearness, His entrance into this journey of mine. The tears aren't from the labor. They are longing welling up, vulnerable seeking sufficient.

And I can ask this, for the labor of another mother brought God human into our life. Into our death. To bring Life that is God with us.

The full moon sets; the sun rises through clouds.

I wait for Him.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

By Grace - A Restless Heart Seeks Rest

An Anonymous Critique

You are. such. a navelgazer. which means. self focused. always thinking. about yourself. under. the guise. of thinking. about God.

sorry, kelly. i'm leaving. never to read your blog again.

You failed.

-MI

Words that greeted me from my inbox this morning, an anonymous comment left on Monday's rather brain-fogged post. Cruel words calculated to wreak heart-havoc. A voice of accusation, condemnation, dismissal.

They sink deep.

I've heard them before.

They don't affect me the way they once did.

I know they don't carry the weight of Jesus-come-in-the-flesh-to-die-and-be-raised-to-Life-again. The spirit behind the words doesn't understand grace that frees to cling to a Savior.

I know what I am. I am a navel-gazer. I am self-focused. I am human.

But I don't seek to disguise myself by talking about God. Really, the fact that I talk about Him at all gives testimony to His work in me.


A Place in God's Heart

You see, about a year ago, I gave up altogether on God. The idea of being crucified with Christ, of having everything I wanted stripped away from me with no promise of reward but God Himself - there was no appeal in it. Why should I try to serve and love Someone whose stated care for me is entirely based in His own glory?

I almost hated Him then for wanting to use me when I had the sense that the God of the Universe did not really care about me at all.

Thus my heart was grieved,
And I was vexed in my mind.
I was so foolish and ignorant;
I was like a beast before You.

- Psalm 73:21-22

God destroyed my limited concept of Him. My world went silent, a strained silent listlessness that gradually eased into "wait."

In the waiting, I began to see that He is more than I can define. Or understand. Or manipulate. Or control.

And I saw something else. That His love for me prompted God to come to earth as a Man and die. For me.

Yes, I am self-focused.

We who love Him love because He first loved us, and gave Himself for us. If we are all honest, we must admit that our only point of reference for the reality of His love is - and must be - based in our own experience and understanding of what He did for us individually.

To say otherwise is to leave our humanity behind. To dismiss our need for grace. To grasp equality with God. To raise ourselves to a position to judge the weak and the fool that God has chosen for Himself.

I am the weak. I am the fool.

Yet I am not ashamed.


Good News Most Sufficient

"I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ..."

- Philippians 1:6

To be holy as Jesus is holy, to be perfect and complete in God's sight, this is a work no one knows how to complete but the God who Himself is perfect. It must be His work, for all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags.

The knowledge burns within my soul as I scribble here my daily ponderings, my rambles, my random. As a fool, I do not seek to cloak myself or my sin; as weak, I do not try to hide my questions or my oft-misplaced desires.

When I consider God, I do consider myself. I consider who I am in relation to Him, who He is in relation to me. And He often calls me to realize Him outside of me, but even this leads back to my heart, which responds to Him with worship. I am at times undone by Him.

Every word I speak is not His. One post from my blog does not encompass the whole story of this girl who once wanted to be something for God. Her story got rearranged. Now, she knows He will be God in spite of her.

And yet He died for her. He has chosen her to know Him. Given her this faith that she could not dredge up in a million years of trying. Predestined her to good works. Given her His Spirit as a seal upon her heart.

Oh yes, I have failed. Oh, thank GOD I have failed.

You see, I know all is not lost.

I have been redeemed already. I am being sanctified. I may give thanks for self-focused things when I am brain-fogged and still learning to speak again of God. I may live my whole life in the dust that I am and walk by this faith He has given that He Himself is my perfection, knowing that Jesus became sin for me so that I could become the righteousness of God in Him.

This is all my glory, this Christ who took on flesh. He is the Good News that brings me boldly to the throne of Grace to freely obtain mercy I have not deserved.


Faith Not My Own

"Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Likewise you also, reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

- Romans 8:8-11

It would be ludicrous for me to say that this reckoning happens overnight. It would be a lie for me to say that I am every day overwhelmed by this Gospel.

But this Eternal God, the Alpha and Omega I AM who is both Beginning and End - He does not live on my daily schedule. He exists outside of time, and His work begun in me is His to complete.

I feel like a child before Him sometimes. Puttering around at His feet, living in my dailiness, changing diapers, writing words from my limited perspective, cleaning house, preparing for a new baby, learning to pray, learning to notice His goodness in my life and giving only small, self-focused thanks when He gives me something I want.

By the grace of God, I am what I am.

"Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

"What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

- Romans 8:26-35, 37-39

I - who am nothing - have known His faithfulness, so much greater than my small faith, faithful from this God who swears by Himself and keeps His Word.

I am willing to wait for His promise. And this, I know, is Him in me.

Forgive my earth-puttering, please. He is still at work.

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This post also linked at Holy Experience for Walk With Him Wednesday. It is a little off-topic, but this is what His advent means for me, how it changes my life. This is why I seek Him.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Under Grace

Growing in Grace

Does "growing in grace" mean that I am to grow in my understanding of grace, or does it mean that I am to grow up into Christ covered by grace? Perhaps it's both, for growing in my understanding of grace is essential to releasing myself into it for God to complete His work, perfecting in me the image of His Son.

Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.

You therefore, beloved, since you know this beforehand, beware lest you also fall from your own steadfastness, being led away with the error of the wicked; but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

To Him be the glory both now and forever. Amen.

- 2 Peter 3:14-18

To Him Be the Glory

Sometimes I wonder what effect my choices really have on what God thinks of me. I don't think He needs me to be one way or another - after all, I didn't choose Him - He chose me. Not only did He choose me, He called me out for His own glory, just as He did not call others out for His own glory.

Pete and I have been reading through Genesis with Piper before bed. She's not really interested yet - Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are right up there with Mickey Mouse and Curious George in her estimation. While she may not be engaged, her parents have been talking a bit about the lives of these three men.

Abraham had a relationship in which he walked with God. Isaac seemed to do okay without thinking much about it. Then there was Jacob, who really was a scumbag when Esau appeared to have a sense of honor. Yet God said elsewhere, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated."

Why would God choose a deceiver like Jacob? Why would He appear as an anonymous man and wrestle with him, tell Jacob he had prevailed against God and man, bless him and care for him, even though he was pretty self-focused and disinterested in relationship with God, except when he needed Him?


A Relational Center

When I was growing up, I asked my dad what made us different from other people who believed in God - what set us apart from the "religious" and authenticated our faith? His answer, "We have a personal relationship with the Lord."

I know now that is a more radical concept than I believed then. Even people who talk about "personal relationship" are too often focused on a legalized approach to "right and wrong" without considering our Helper, the Holy Spirit, sent for us after Jesus' return to heaven. So many churches I have attended preach right and wrong, simply assuming God-relationship. But the insidious fact of this legalism is the neglect of the Gospel, and the Gospel is everything.

The whole point of Jesus' Cross-work was to reconcile us for relationship with God. This relationship is made possible by His Spirit, speaking to us the mind of the Father, teaching us eternal things Jesus didn't have time to teach in His short ministry here on earth.

Too many times, I have wasted spirit-energy in self-searching instead of trusting God to search my heart as only He can do. Too many times, I have trolled down a do/don't list that tells me how to make God happy with me instead of reconciling myself dead to sin and alive to God.

Too many times, I have overlooked the fact that I have been crucified with Christ. Instead, I choose to wear a sin-cloak that is no longer mine to wear, thinking that I can get light out of an LED flashlight I'm throwing randomly around in the dark.


What Shall We Say, Then?

The choice that is left to me is not simply right or wrong. It is life or death. If I believe Jesus, I may choose to consider myself dead to sin and alive to God, or I may choose to subject myself again to a yoke of bondage.

God has much to do in me yet, but He knows and remembers what I often forget in my sincere but sometimes-too-pressured desire to please Him - that I am dust. That my dust cannot handle all of His Godness at once.

I need to grow beneath the shelter of Christ-grace: my death His, my sin His, His righteousness mine, His life mine. Even my faith is not of myself - it is the gift of God - and why should He have chosen to bestow it on me?





(Images © Informal Moments Photography)

Because He Holds My Heart

I had just whispered into kitchen-quiet, "God, I wish I wasn't so sensitive..."

The comment wasn't left to hurt or to discourage, but the heart had wounded before, and the innocent words brought other, shouting voices tearing at a peace that sometimes seems all too fragile.

Once in a while, a piece of music opens itself up at just the right moment, pointing into a vulnerable spot with healing that brings hot tears and sweet release. It's the stuff my favorite songs are made of. Music sometimes reveals faith I can feel, the place where what I know opens who I am to who He is, piercing through doubt and fear.

Here is one I just heard at Dianne's blog after she left a comment on my last post, perfectly timed to touch a soft hurting spot in my heart, God who is I Am reminding me that He is He is Abba for my spirit too, and does not give more than I can bear.

Daybreak: I Recognize Desire

For background to this post, you may want to read Friday's post, Trusting Love: A God-ramble from a Broken Heart

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I didn't always doubt love.

Once, I trusted easily. Too easily, it seemed.

That was before God let my heart break...

He let it break like a wave on the shore, leaving sand and shells and foam and litter behind to fall back into the sea and break again against Him, tide flowing in and out, a restless broken heart always seeking rest, never still until He stills me.

By the time I finished, the realization that I'm still aching for His love - in spite of everything I've been through with Him! - left me bemused, disillusioned.

I think I should have noted that I have been here before; I am always here again, because I do not do the things I want to do, and the things I don't want to do, I do.

I assume that even His "yes" will eventually become "no," so even the good gets rejected, and I am afraid to accept what He gives. The bad lesson pain too often teaches.

My surface-grievance is become habit, and I ramble and bumble my way through feelings and theology and what-I-know-that-I-know. I share the scribbled questions without resolution.

Faith doesn't require my answer - but I look anyway.

I ran across this last week, and wondered if God was trying to convict.

There I was minding my own business, relishing some bitterness about my grandmother, and the Holy Spirit broke into my thoughts with an unusual assertion... that I was being an idolater, putting myself up on a pedestal in an act of self-worship over and against my grandmother.
- L.L. Barkat, excerpt from an interview at Holy Experience

Nothing moved in my spirit. Just a still and quiet "wait."

A friend left this in her comment on Friday's God-ramble. Surely, this must be His confirmation of conviction.

One of the most telling Scriptures in support of this fact is "You shall have no other gods before me." If I say, "God, I can't be happy without such-and-such," I am essentially telling Him there is something I want more than Him.

- Excerpt from Christy's comment

Again, I looked inward, searching, asking God to search. But no. Still the quiet, "wait."

"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ--the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."

- Phil. 3:8-11

I read, and reread, and something soft and real and alive with joy pinged in my heart, ringing like a clear bell through the too-familiar clamor of the questions. Something that had nothing to do with "He gives and takes away" and everything to do with "blessed be the name of the Lord."

A year ago, I didn't want Him at all. Oh, I had no choice but to believe He was there, being God. Some things just are; He is one of those undeniables.

But I. couldn't. choose. Him.

My reasons were many: perhaps then it entailed some of the idolatry detailed above; perhaps it was my humanity, sin striving against Spirit for an assumed right.

Thus my heart was grieved,
And I was vexed in my mind.
I was so foolish and ignorant;
I was like a beast before You.
Nevertheless I am continually with You;
You hold me by my right hand.
You will guide me with Your counsel,
And afterward receive me to glory.

- Ps. 73:21-24

I tried to push Him away. He was too much for me, for my heart. His kindness seemed only to hurt me more. He could not be my greatest treasure, the object of my desire.

Do you remember how Hezekiah laid his enemy's letter out before the Lord? Sometimes, I have to do this with the questions, with my feelings, say "this is what is here, God. I can't figure it out."

In Jesus, "sin shall not have dominion over [me], for [I am] not under law but under grace." (Rom. 6:14) As I acknowledge His Life in me, I know I have done - and can do - nothing to earn this grace to doubt and fail. I lay me out in front of Him, and sometimes in front of the world, embarrassed at my humanity, my foolishness, my easy disillusionment.

Finally, on the heels of the wait comes a phrase from a prayer, a quote mixed up in the whisper of desire... "how high, how wide... the love of Christ."

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

- Eph. 3:14-19

He is not holding out on me as I have feared. He is granting me Spirit-strengthening. Love-grounding. The questions I have shared are the beginning of comprehension - of width and length and depth and height - the beginning of knowledge of the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge...

And the ping of joy ringing in my heart?

I actually want to know it. To know Him. To be filled with it - all the fullness of God.

Somewhere in the struggle - or in pushing the struggle away and being still and letting Him be God - my desire has changed. Somewhere in my quest for relationship with Him, He has become the object of that desire. Knowing Him means finding a Person at the end of my questions, learning to trust His heart instead of my experience-concepts of the God of the universe.

It is the most surprising thing to me, this awakening realization of desire. I no longer own a "want-to-want Him." I almost don't want to want Him, because it leaves me so vulnerable. But like a woman who has fallen in love, I just know He's the One who is meant to hold my heart.

And here I am, being invited into His.

I think He expects to take my breath away.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

tension

A friend whose heart I love asked recently if I am ever torn between writing and photography.

I answer that sometimes I am one, sometimes I am the other - I feel so much, so deeply. I write to express feeling I have that seeks words, write to discover what it is I am thinking. As I write, I become.

It is when I do not feel at all that I go looking for the pictures, stretched like a string on a violin, waiting taut for the stroke of the Master's bow, the touch of His fingers creating melody for the lyric of me. This is when I simply am.

These last few weeks have been picture times, woven in color and gray and white, in glorious simplicity and straightforward complexity that offers no words for becoming, just moments for living.

And I am human, seeming to focus too much here, too little there, on a pendulum swing I can't resist because this is what being means. This is what it is to have a soul that is alive, a Spirit teaching God-acknowledgment and thought-captivity, always searching for evidence of Him placed around me so my glory may be in knowing God, that He is the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness on the earth.

I feel nothing and everything at once, and there is too much for me to grasp, so I rest and putter and pause and ponder and wish there were something at once more and less profound so I could define it, me, Him - and get back to what I want to do tomorrow. Yet I am aware there is much I don't know, much I don't understand, much for me to wonder at about His Holy - what do I really know?

Sometimes I confuse settling for rest and put passion away. The daily tired begs for smaller vision; Jesus felt this too, walking dusty through one crowd of expectations into crucified obedience - into which I am called. His Spirit in me seeks that oneness with the Father which He knew, which He prayed for me.

Oh how I begin to understand the unsettled ache of His desire...

God.

Today I am stretched among worlds
I dangle here with my arms between beauty
and capture
and life and art.
The colors of life You have given me
and a world who does not see
and a world who does see.
To left or to right
or to upward or downward,
I decide where to turn
And I don't.
I am stretched out and frozen
And hoping my reach won't exceed
The boundaries of Your dream
for me.
I discover and revel
In glories here
But I don't wish to trade
Your Life
for these that I hold in my hands.

So if You have a purpose
In stretching this heart to claim
All the world for Your own
In words
or in pictures;
In colors to frame
All I can of Your love here in time;
Or in touching a small hand,
And sharing a moment
Uncaptured
But full and alive -
I need grace and elastic
And You to sustain
And seconds and seconds and seconds.
I open my hands
And stretch out these arms
I hold all I can see up to You
to capture
So I can be free

And stretch out my life to hold You.

- A Repost from Dec. 20, 2008

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

this grace

It seemed at times there was never a chance at grace, really. "Saved" from one right way into a different, higher right, the true way, the "straight-and-narrow" (which turned out to be wider than many imagined, because it took no work of the Spirit to get there). Just worldview and logic and argument and a good act that wasn't quite an act because it was sincerely lived and believed.

Of course it involved pride-breaking, admitting to disagreeing perspective, trading old perspective for new pride, safety, control - but never true God-humility, that broken, contrite heart-sacrifice where grace-growth is born at the feet of God - no, at the end of His extended scepter.

And so they inflicted the same wounds they received, because the wounds were never identified, treated, healed, never broken open and bled out to mingle with the blood of the One who already bore them in His own body. Instead, pain was covered over with answers and empty God-explanations no one can really be serious about making, no matter how sincere they intend to be.

The meeting was essential for accountability, but most always He was late to arrive, as if He was putting off His visits, salvaging His Name for something holier, something Truer, wishing to introduce Himself as who He was, I AM, the beginning and the end of life-grace breathed from His own God-nostrils into the dust of His Son, into His Spirit meant to hold His own for Him until the day of Redemption.

And that was it - there wasn't a chance outside of Him for grace, no breath without Gospel that is Jesus Christ crucified and alive and full of grace and Truth. Not a chance outside of God-given faith that could not be dredged up or imitated, for who really has faith in a certain Hope these days, when it doesn't hold a certain requested result?

No one has grace for this but Him, for yet a little while, as He is finishing the work He began, spilling over God-patience into the Love that He is and out onto His Chosen who sometimes think they are doing Him a favor with all their good intentions.

For He knows what is not yet seen in His Spirit, that grace and good works and true love is found in knowing Him, and that way is narrow, and discovered rarely without Spirit-help as He reveals I Am to those who think they already are.

I lived here once, and I have been given this grace to not know and this grace to know now.

But the living there...

--------------------------------

Also visit Amber and L.L. Barkat for a bit more on grace and a giveaway...






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

One Unbroken Gaze - A Prayer

what a week I have lived, trying
since Sunday-success to make up lost time
like running the wrong direction
on an automated, forward-moving walkway, missing

love waiting for me, begging for my heart.

"there is too much to do," I say, "just
give me a minute more" and the minutes fly as
I get no further from where I began

And the trying is more than I can do so
I go away from grace and find me

empty,
swollen
with baby and with tears and with
disappointed expectations.

So I confess, and Love holds me free as
I ache down from my own pedestal,

still again in uncertainty
certain He is more than my need, more than my
limited gaze may see, that
trailing bit of God-Glory

Then I see Him, laughing, joyful
dust-and-God
tried in every way as I have been, in all ways
common to me, even bearing my heart-wounds
as God's heart broke.

"It is too much," I offer, unsure
of tomorrow-work, too afraid I am not doing
my part
to hold up His end of the bargain

Then, "I will finish the work I began,"
His joy grabs breath, for
He is alive

in my waiting.

I ask for so little, I think, but
He has more for me than
adequate situations that suit my
earth-fancy

and I am mere living sacrifice,
my life a prayer,
His song

about what my Author is doing today as He
moves my terminal-walkway toward
His heart

so I can fly.

-------------------------------

NOTE: I don't often watch or use artwork that portrays someone's impression of Jesus, but I decided to make a rare exception for this video today. Sometimes, it is only the Incarnation that reminds me that the God of the universe loves me, that He knows what it is to be bound by time after living eternal outside time, that ache of His created-image in me.

There were elements of this video that really touched me in conjunction with the song, Vicky Beeching's Captivated, that really spoke to me of Jesus' humanity, that gave me a small picture of the sort of Man He was, that painted a picture of how He must have affected His friends. I stare with them, half-wishing I had been there with Him then, grasping driving-down-the-road faith that brought me to quiet-praise yesterday as I got out of the house for a bit.

With Boldness and Meekness and Fear

"But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear..." (1 Peter 3:15)

I know what my hope is. But I am afraid to explain it. My answers (when I am asked) are short, given with the apologetic fashion I've adopted to protect myself from argument and offense. I am as afraid to defend my reason for hope as I often am embarrassed to speak the name of Jesus, even in writing.

Therefore, since we have such hope, we use great boldness of speech— unlike Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the end of what was passing away. But their minds were blinded. For until this day the same veil remains unlifted in the reading of the Old Testament, because the veil is taken away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil lies on their heart. Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

- 2 Cor. 3:12-18

I know this freedom. I know this Lord. But I am not as bold as I think He wants me to be. My "meekness," such as it is, is of the mouse variety. I close my mouth when His words burn within me; I do not disclose the passion that drives me.

I am ashamed of the freedom. Ashamed of the grace. Ashamed to set aside the letter and speak of Spirit-life. I am not responsible for your response.

I know the Gospel is not merely a seven-step "plan of salvation." I know the good news of the Gospel is Jesus Christ and Him crucified and raised to life. I know it is freedom and hope and joy and relationship with the only true God. I know it is walking in the Spirit away from the old that I was. I know the good news is that I have been justified; God has declared me righteous in His Son. I am dead to sin, alive to God.

But I do not speak. I am afraid. Afraid of years of teaching, of the control system we've put in place to keep us on the "straight-and-narrow," so aware of "the other side of God's love" - you know, the judgment part that we live in, ducking around beneath His radar, trying to be good.

He chooses the weak and the fool to display His glory. The mad ones who will live extravagantly, giving themselves away for Him, humbling themselves for glorious Christ-slavery, instead of self-or-other-approved righteousness.

God has given me a war-horse image of meekness, of the restraint of the freeing grace He gives. Held back by the bit, every muscle poised, straining ahead into the fray, guided by his master, powerful, capable, dangerous, meek. This is the meekness with which Jesus chased the money-changers from His Father's house.

The explanation is full, but simple. It is all Jesus.

Lord, may I not be ashamed to speak of what I know of You.

"...For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more." (Luke 12:48b)





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)