love stories: the purse - part III

Before reading this post, you may want to read Love Stories: The Purse - Part I and Love Stories: The Purse - Part II. For Emily.


Why do I have to be something for them? Can't they just love me where I am? Didn't Jesus die for me when I was yet a sinner?

The tears welled up, spilled over, ran hot frustration, soul-seared anguish down my cheeks.

I didn't intend to write more about The Purse. But it seems God wasn't - isn't - finished telling me that love story yet.

Sunday's drive took us past our grocery stop, past the beach, past the church we've begun to visit. It took us into conversation, a sharing about love and cherish and how much he wants me to feel treasured and how I don't because I wall me off and try not to think about love most of the time, even though I think about it all the time.

We talked of love, of need, of our high-need baby who demands of me all the time and of our baby who opens his heart up to me so that I can't help but respond.

And we began to talk about God and His love, and burning questions met cool air and thoughts I'd not encountered about behavior and how it affects others and how easy it is for us to fall into behavior-oriented expectation and leave real love so far behind in the dailiness of our survival.


God isn't a Purse for meeting needs. He is a Person.

He is Love.

Love requires nothing of her, nothing of me. But Love hopes everything for us. Bears everything from us. Believes all things are possible - even the redemption of our souls. Love hoped and believed and bore so much it sent Him to a Cross to die and live again to take the weight of our condemnation. Love lived our life, knew our desperation, grasped our need, died our death once for all.

His Person met our person. This is love, relationship, face to face, hand to hand, heart to heart, a person meeting a person - where they are.


When I carried The Purse around with me, I felt strong enough. My need to be needed opened small doors into the lives of others as I parceled out anything I could give. I didn't need to be broken. I didn't need to be fixed. I was the fixer. The Purse was my performance. The "love" I gave wasn't love at all.

As The Purse became too much to carry and I couldn't meet the needs I saw, I reached for justifications. No one was meeting my needs the way I would have met theirs. Didn't they see how empty I was? I grew heavy with bitter, reacted against everything they said about love, walled myself silent, learned to say "no" because it was healthier for me.

I slow-broke into heart-realms only Love could see behind the prickles and thorns and lashing-out.

"For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

- Rom. 5:6-8

It was in the tears He met me. In the screaming, weeping real of me, He made His love known to me, love that reached into my dust and my bitter and taught me to move again, however stiffly.

I have begun to learn that giving isn't meant to be a burden I carry, that love isn't about the shoulds or the needs or the obligation. The love I was giving before was all about that. I hated love then. I didn't want it from anyone else.

But God - His Love frees. It justifies freely, forgives quickly, without reproach. It opens doors and opens hearts to the becoming-one that Jesus prayed in John 17.

I am coming to see that love is intentional. It must be, or it could not bear, believe, hope, endure all things. It is not an "I give you this, so you will give me that in return" (did I really live in that expectation? forgive me, you who knew!). Love says, "If you never change to be what I want you to be, still I have given to you."

Jesus died for the whole world. God so loved the whole world that He sent Him.

The work of God is to believe Him, and Jesus Christ who He sent. A Spirit-work accomplished in grace, faith that is the gift of God.

His work is not need-meeting.

My work is not need-meeting.

It is loving as He first loved me.

Oh, that I might know the fullness of His love...


(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

unwrapped - lifting my hands, my heart to Love

People don't give you gifts to obligate you to them; they give them to let you know how much they love you. They don't expect the thank you - they just want to know you appreciate their love.

Because giving makes them as vulnerable as receiving makes me.

This was the conversation that started me down a different road a few days ago. What he was saying, what I got out of what he said. This was the conversation that made me think about God, about my response to Him and His gifts, about how hesitant I am even to thank Him, lest He notice how much I like something and take it away from me.


Thanks that used to flow like gushing water no longer pours from my heart, but pools silent as I internalize my excitement over special things. I say everything but how much I love something, someone, Someone.

It's going to have to overflow sometime. I wonder if it does, won't I drown in it?

dear God. this is my pouring out.

It's not so pretty as I'd like it to be, this mess of a life, God.

I fell asleep trying to talk to You. Things get stopped up around grace, around responsibility, around confession. I don't think I have been shutting You out, but I've not been actively seeking You. I know because I don't feel consumed with You, though I can't escape Your still voice in me, constantly reminding, speaking of Your love for me.

scattered and blurry and beautiful

this is life sometimes.

this is my life right now.

this is the beauty that is.

hello, weekend.


(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

breathe

The baby is no longer sleeping through the night. I think he is on a growth spurt.

I get up early with him, put him back to sleep, find some quiet time that is just for me. I stay up late too, after the kids are asleep, to find some quiet time that is just for us.

We played Yahtzee last night. I retooled my photography blog yesterday. It is still unfinished. I've not had time to choose something for branding the site yet. It's not a big deal; I'll be getting a flash site after my wedding in May.

I've not been very active on social media this week. I am measuring time, trying not to measure time, being more vigilant here at home where Piper is into the pantry or the refrigerator every ten minutes or so. (I think she is also on a growth spurt.)

I have been breathing too.

love stories: the purse - part II

These stories-in-parts challenge me. I leave my thought half-written for a week or two, and mentally continue to write and think through the topic. I can't dismiss it, and the waiting-on-the-writing grows me. Before you read this post, you may want to read Love Stories: The Purse - Part I. I'll be picking up from there.


Need-meeting isn't always love. And it is love that fills us up, that nourishes relationship, that changes a life.

There is a breaking that happens when you love. A shattered vessel, a broken heart, glory poured out into dust, soaked up, spread around.

Love is not need begging need. It is not a well-stocked Purse designed to secure fulfillment - for self or for others. Love is a giving that expects no return and wildly hopes for a response.

Love is not being God to others.

We love because He first loved us. When we do love, really love, we love others as He loved us. It has something to do with falling into His love, with being full up with Him who is Love.

A purse can be dropped, emptied. There is no end to Him.

enough

I woke this morning thinking about grace. I think I fell asleep thinking about grace. About accepting it, living in it, owning it. About how easy it is to lose sight of it.

Easy because I sometimes don't know what is true.

Easy because I don't have courage to stand when I do know it is true.

Because living by faith in the Son of God is harder than trying to crucify myself dead enough to deserve to live.

Christ is either enough or God is a liar.

And I don't think God is a liar.

...

Every other day these last two weeks, I have rammed up into issues with my identity. Part of me says this is because I am not doing something I am supposed to be doing; this is because I am willfully sinning. But the "sin" has no name for me to confess, and the "supposed to be doing" is so vague I wouldn't know where to begin.

I have been living under a burden of undefined expectation.

And it's a heavy one.

I am Eve lately. Believing I can be more. More than God created me. More than I already am in His grace. If I could just grow faster, deeper. Isn't there an acceleration program for Spirit-work?

I want my life to be "Christ plus..."

sunday morning

He is risen indeed...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

becoming - continuing the ramble

it is part of a becoming, isn't it?

i am not now, but I will be.

the words that spill out are so much dross from silver being refined.

...

i half wonder what my readers must think when i leave up posts such as i have written recently, when i so publicly display my questions and worries and doubts about God. if i have so many issues, it seems miraculous that i should believe Him at all.

or, that might be the point.

that i do believe Him, even when i feel i can't act on it. here i live, human, daring His wrath because i dare to trust His love that provides me such grace to fall. not that i want to fall. it is grace to fail too, grace for tired and trying to do too much in my own strength. grace to let me learn to look first to Him instead of wishing Him away.

which i spent much of yesterday doing as He reminded me to be gentle with pip, to not heap burden on burden - oh, how i want to hold things over her right now! i wished God away, wished His love away, because i wanted to be angry.

...

and i spent today in pursuit of an empty hope. it was so stupidly shallow i won't bother writing it here (do you see, there ARE things i hold back for embarrassment!). pete offered me more understanding than i could give myself - he said, "it's something you could look forward to that isn't what you always have right now."

i try not to duck. but i have been ducking. trying to perfect this and that and - did you notice that other thing? i've worked on everything from favicons to icons to buttons to watermarks in between discipline and nursing over the last few days. the shame of it is that i don't feel i've accomplished anything at all.

it is silly for this restless heart to try to force its own rest.

...

i have been shutting things out. trying to still the roaring in my head. trying not to look at ________ or at _________, trying to remember that they didn't start where they intimidate me now, realizing that they must have had some sort of becoming too.

tonight i let it go for a while. quit trying to think it out and make it better. went to "wommuhtt" with my family to pick up some dinner and a "huggabugga" (piper loves going to walmart; she saw a wendy's on the way and asked for a hamburger). i watched some scrubs with pete (when he wasn't policing piper) and talked with bredon for a bit (he loves his conversations with mama).

do you know, b has the sweetest poochie lip i've ever seen? when his daddy is holding him and he sees me, he pulls it out and lets me have it: "mommy, how can you let this man hold me when you're right here?!"

i value my dinner times. they are shorter than they used to be. i'm adjusting.

...

so i am neither here nor there; it has not yet been revealed what i will be when God is finished with me. the seed must fall to the ground and die before it can live again and bear much fruit.

i thought the dying was done. i hoped it was over, anyway. it's so... uncomfortable.

yet it is also beautiful, blown by Spirit-wind from the stem where i cling into the current of God-love known and God-love lived as i test this newest trust.

crucified, yet alive. a piercing paradox from a Master who became a servant, the Life who died, Love Himself who was hated by those He loved.

i don't have a heart for God, not lately, not most days. my own passion waxes and wanes, and i find it waning this week. He requires so much of me, it seems. still, i sense His heart for me, and i feel hope that i matter to Him, that He doesn't simply work in spite of me. i wonder if my prayers do make a difference to Him, if they are more than basic conversation or vending machine access, if He really wishes to take my heart into account in how He works out His plans for me.

you know. the plans for a hope and a future. the plans He has for His people.

plans. not wishes.

plans.

...

i'm not okay with sitting here, deciding i've arrived and this is the end, so i'd better conform to the highest ideals or accept my utter failure.

but i'm okay with becoming.

there's lots of room for hope in that. room for beauty. i feel silly admitting how i want that, how it has nothing to do with my outward appearance and everything to do with a quiet, God-stayed heart He is growing out of scar tissue.

my words seem to spill in what seems a long sigh - sometimes frustrated, sometimes tired, sometimes easing into rest.

He meets me here, too much for me, enough for me to approach Him for mercy, for love, for rest.

I Am who is I Am takes my dross makes me real like Him.

Yes, I am becoming.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

they shall see

Night comes here, again. The evening passes too slowly - and too quickly; I don't have time to capture time that is spinning away from me as if the hands on the clock have come alive. They wave at me, taunting.

I glare.

I can hear the laughter. Time waits for no one. It would define my life in missed opportunities and vague regrets, chain me to its cogs and tell me always of my failures.

It is hard for me to remember that I will not have one moment forever, terrifying to realize that while I am still, the world moves on and it does not need me.

I wonder, does it see me standing, staring, trying?

I am restless tonight.

...

There are too many things I cannot do.

Household chores require many steps; I have a bigger house now. It is not as clean as it should be.

Getting meals sends me chasing circles around myself in the kitchen. I am often interrupted. I never eat without distraction anymore. I don't always take my pills. This is not a good thing.

I am defined by need. Surrounded with it. Defeated by it. My own needs overwhelm me; how can I meet these others?

Strength perfected in weakness...

I try not to think. It is another thing I cannot do. No - I dare not.

You know how they tell you not to look into the sun, or you will hurt your eyes? It is like that for me with God right now. It is an almost-delicious terror, the awe-struck sort of immobilizing fear produced by an encounter with something - Someone - who lives beyond your control.

I've had the feeling once before: one time before I knew Pete, he refused to let me pay him for something he had bought me. He was immovable. I could not change his mind. I learned early to respect him. He knew who he was.

...

The picture was accidental. I was shooting macro, not landscape - detail, not light. As I clicked the shutter, the camera zoomed past my focus into the sunset.

Here is glory, surrounded by blackened sketches of my inadequate attempts at improvement. Here is glory, exploding uninvited past my defenses. Here is glory, unacceptable, unwanted, filling my eyes, bypassing my control - a lens telescoping to eternal against my will.

...

Piper constantly wants "up, Mommy!" Bredon wants to be held whenever he is awake. I resist their restraint; my heart hurts so.

Do I push God away too because I am touch-tired?

I do not want to push any of them away, but I do not want to embrace them either - not God, not Piper, not Bredon. They ask too much; I am not enough.

I worry that Piper will be scarred for life. I struggle within myself. I should let her know how she is loved, but angry comes easier, and she is always in trouble lately. I can't help berating her. I can't stop berating myself. I love her so.

The days fly by and Bredon is already three-and-a-half months old. I can't stop time.

The hands on the clock spin faster. I am dizzy watching. Where is my rest? Does God even care? I don't want to look at Him. Surely He has cause to castigate me.

...

I think I have never been so stretched. My desires are many and varied. My goals are simpler: "Get through today."

Is this all life is, a getting-through? There are others living now; I know it must be more than I can see right now.

Seeing. I take pictures almost every day, but do I see? Do I really see? It is possible to look and look and look and never see, I think. Did you know even blind people can take pictures?

...

The words, hardly strung this morning, tumble out now, relieving some of the day-pressure, easing heartache and sorting feelings out of frustration.

All this pouring out, this honest - it embarrasses me to write, but I have to write, because keeping it inside is killing me - this pouring out makes for a purer heart. That is what it is, you know, a pure heart. Spread out and open before the Lord, before others.

...

I wrestle now with God, like Jacob. I remember he would not let go until God blessed him. Until God broke him, He did not bless him.

I fight the breaking; I am so tired. It is one more thing - one thing too many. One most important thing.

God is near to the brokenhearted.

...

Yesterday, my friend Anne shared a story with me that I had missed.

Jesus sent Peter and his friends back to sea after a night of unsuccessful fishing. He told them to toss the fresh-cleaned nets over the side again - in full day, when there should be no fish.

The empty nets were filled; the number of fish nearly sank two boats.

Peter looked at Jesus and said, "Lord, get away from me, for I am a sinful man."

Dear God, please leave me until I can bring something more than this...

Jesus replied, "Follow Me..."

...

"Follow Me." Two words follow me into night.

"Come to me, you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest." Rest for this restless heart.

"My commands are not burdensome..."

There is room now for His voice. Condemning sentences pinging off heart-walls have slowed and quieted.

"He will rejoice over you with singing; He will quiet you with His love."

I chance a look in His direction.

His mercies are new every morning; I am not consumed.

Why am I nothing again today? When did I start thinking I was something again? I cannot be broken. I cannot fail them. I cannot fail me.

He is faithful even when I am faithless. He cannot deny Himself, this God who is not a man that He should lie.

...

Easter is coming; I cringe at tradition this year. I need real. I am real. I need no reminders this holy week.

He is here, the living Word, piercing my soul, offering His hand. "Come, follow Me."

Where?

He does not answer. He knows I know.

To see God.

He waits for me. The clock hands blur out of focus.

...

"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God."





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

in the mind...

To regard the imagination as metaphysics is to think of it as part of life, and to think of it as part of life is to realize the extent of artifice. We live in the mind.

- Wallace Stevens

These words make me both squirm and nod.

Imagination plays a huge part in life. It is imagination that finds beauty in the concrete, that reveals what could be in the dust and toil and grit of what is. It is imagination that gives life to words on a page, that expands the meaning of poetry, that works and reworks our understanding of the world every day, every time we are confronted with something new.

It is imagination that helps us know and be known,

It is my imagination that helps me dream. It is my imagination that allows me to picture myself doing things. It is my imagination that allows my perfectionism, and my imagination that helps me to receive grace.

Even Scripture is full of images and descriptions that appeal to the imagination. God will use anything it takes to describe Himself to us, to get our attention and give us a picture of His love.

We live in the mind.

And sometimes, we die in the mind too.

...

Every time it happens, I hope it will be the last.

The dark closes in on me. My head starts spinning, my stomach clenches, the fear rushes in. Often, it begins with the realization that I am not who I imagine myself to be. I stare hard and honest into my life, and I begin to loathe it. Gratitude goes out the window; I can't see God.

I spiral downward into depression intensified by my physical limitations. I feel as if I must literally blow apart in all directions.

My walls are stripped; my defenses are breached. Nothing I tell myself relieves the sensation that I must be what I do not want to be.

I'd rend my garments, toss my clothes, if I weren't concerned about physical modesty. My soul has been bared.

I am exposed.

Naked.

I vomit words and honest; pretense is worthless.

There is no escape.

...

It is never the last time, because I fight. Because I am often like a cornered, wounded animal lashing out at its helper - it does not matter what compassion is meant.

I fight by trying to keep myself out of situations where I may be vulnerable. I fight by criticizing others for how far short they fall of what I have attained. I fight, justifying my position, validating my existence and work.

And I am always right.

Until I find out I am wrong.

But that is human nature.

That is not humility. Human nature leaves little room for transformation by the renewing of the mind.

We live in the mind.

...

When I was younger, I went to church looking for God.

You would think I could have found Him there.

I didn't.

By the time I figured out that all I needed to please God was Jesus - every single day - my heart had been kicked around, knocked up, beaten down, and strangled as Christians I knew attempted to make me conform to their idea of right.

The lies I swallowed about God were many.

And they don't leave easily.

The condemnation they carry for me is debilitating.

I barely trust other Christians now.

We live in the mind.

...

Perhaps I make too much of reality. Or rather, sincerity.

It is the excuse I use to dismiss others who would speak the truth. If their lives don't reflect what they are preaching, I write them off. It is safer that way.

Yet I write here at my blog things that I struggle to live every day. I write about loving my family, and I hold back the stories of the times that I deliberately choose to secret myself away from them. I tell of Pete's love for me, but I don't share how I know: he is still here, in spite of my frustrated ranting against the God I'm not so sure about as the One I share here. He knocks at my heart and tells me who I am with patience and kindness I don't deserve.

I write here about grace, but I sit in church and withhold it from others as I watch them worship and preach and pray. I am so cynical, nitpicking the things I know - and I know a lot - writing whole sections of sermons off, writing God's people off.

Because I was hurt. Because I am afraid.

If I am hard enough, perhaps I can escape.

Yet here I encounter His Spirit.

I have been in few churches where He has been so free to move. Omigoodness He is free to move here.

I cannot hold back my tears. I cannot help but be humbled.

I try to hold Him off, push Him back, but He is answering prayer, prayer that He would speak to us - to me - what He wishes to speak. It is not the words of the sermon echoing in my heart. It is His words, His Word. Jesus who is raising my eyes to His wounds and His Life. Jesus who is my justification.

Jesus who can judge me. Jesus who doesn't.

My confession comes with the tears.

I am naked before Him here. I cannot hide from Him. I must acknowledge Him.

I must reckon myself dead to my sin. Reckon myself alive to God.

I live in the mind.

...

My understanding of God is too often limited to who I imagine Him to be in relation to who I imagine I am.

Saul must have been ignoring some pretty obvious God-things before he became Paul on the road to Damascus, when God opened his eyes to behold Jesus, asking him why he was fighting Him.

He was so right - until he learned he was wrong.

God blinded him to open the eyes of his heart. How often does God blind me to open mine?

Sometimes, all I can see is two choices: endless darkness and despair, or talking to a God I am often not certain I trust.

I cannot spin past this God, obscure my face from Him, hide my fear.

His compassion for me is incredible.

It is so necessary.

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?

- Micah 6:8

I learn to love His mercy. To be humbled at my need for it.

It is one thing to say it; artifice demands that I do. Being "a Christian" demands the artifice.

But the Life I live by faith in the Son of God - it requires the real.

Nothing is inexorable but love. Love which will yield to prayer is imperfect and poor. Nor is it then the love that yields, but its alloy…. For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more; it strives for perfection, even that itself may be perfected—not in itself, but in the object…. Therefore, all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love’s kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire.

- George MacDonald

It requires the naked. The rending of my heart.

...

Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

- Phil 5:1-11

Reality confronts imagination, and my own ideas of God are rearranged as I behold Jesus.

In Him I live and move and have my being.

Crucified with Christ, this is how I present myself a living sacrifice. As I am laid bare before Him, He changes my idea of Him, changes my way of understanding. How can one help but be transformed when confronted with this chastening, refining Love?

...

If you made it to the end of this post, thanks for sticking with me.

I'm slowly digging through some things that have been happening in my heart recently, in between kids and meals and health and general survival stuff. The processing is landing here - I hope you don't mind. I'm not meaning to be a wet blanket; I just have to get this stuff out.

Somebody's praying for me. I'd ask you to quit, but His work is good, if uncomfortable, right?

Shallow-ish post coming soon. I promise. ;-)





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

please pardon my dust

"Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh." (2 Cor. 5:16)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from dust
in His image, in
His own likeness.

He breathed His Life, putting
Word in empty mouth so that

He could have conversations.

"Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer." (2 Cor. 5:16)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from dust
One in His image, in
very nature God.

He breathed His Life, putting
Word on silent Cross so that

He could have conversations.

"Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation." (2 Cor.17-19)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created from stone
a new soft heart, to
fill with His Spirit.

He breathed His Life, pulling
Word from empty tomb so that

He could have conversations.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Then He who sat on the throne said, “Behold, I make all things new.” And He said to me, “Write, for these words are true and faithful.” (Rev. 21:1-5)

In the beginning, God
created.

He created new dust for
heaven and earth to
fill with His presence.

He brought His Life, sending
Word to reap the old so that

He could dwell with man and
have conversations.

The air was heavy most of the day here. Thickened with tension, fraught with child cries and voices that I know are not in the air but in my head.

Cries that carried need. Voices that carried shame.

I stepped silent around them, breathing hard, breathing deep, swallowing cries and frustration and the internal screams not meant for air.

I planned and re-planned and worked and re-worked and accomplished absolutely nothing at all because I was too distraught to move beyond necessity today, because my back ached and my head ached and my eyes ached from the unshed tears behind them, tears held back by confused anger. Anger held in, stopped up by fear.

...

"Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage." (Gal. 5:1)

Stand fast...

The words catch on the fear in my throat, choking me. How dare I think that I should stand fast?

I know this Gospel. I know this grace. I know what redemption is. I know what it means that I am reconciled to God.

Yet I hold Him at arm's length. Close enough to keep an eye on what He is doing, far enough to keep Him from tearing my heart open. I want to give my all to Him - really, I do - but the fear that thickens the air, that holds back the tears, the fear traps me. I utter the words on repeat, "I don't want to..." because I don't know what else to say.

Everything is "Christ, but..." in my head today. I feel that the Cross is not enough. That His coming was nothing, really.

But everything that is not of Him must be stripped away.

Even the good I mean to do.

...

The words spin and scatter and gather and fly now. They come with tears as I begin to pour my heart into the air that is heavy. They spill out and speak desire that is good, fear that is caging, wild hope that is true.

"You ran well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?" (Gal. 5:7)

Yes. I ran well. I know I have lived this Truth, that in Christ I live and move and have my being.

My being that is too small for this great God. My being that is dying to dress up a little more, deliver a little more, surrender a little more before I come before Him. Oh, I do not want to need His mercy this time! I want to like the me I bring to Him.

So He lets me stew and watches me fall, waiting to catch my frightened heart.

"You ran well..."

"Stand fast."

I gather my courage. More words spill before Him, and before my husband who came early to hold me, to listen to me breathe hard and fast and hurt and scared. Words about prayer, about inviting God into our house, about doing only the things He has set before me now instead of preparing for China and martyrdom in thirty years when I just know He will require it of me.

...

My testimony is this: Jesus Christ and Him crucified. This is the grace, the Gospel, the mercy, the Redemption I own.

Here, I am not trapped. Jesus despised the shame He bore - MY shame - and He does not impute it to me.

I am not what I want to be. I am what I am, by the grace of God.

And what I am is a mess. What I am does not take the photos I want to take. What I am does not (and cannot most times) do the housework I want to do. What I am is too often afraid to love. What I am does not stop the words when they should be stopped, does not speak them when they should be spoken.

What I am is dust. Dust, and a broken heart.

...

"For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Cor. 5:1-7)

If you read my blog and think I am something, know this the truth: I am nothing.

I have spent much of the past weeks soul-searching - as much as one can soul-search beneath the constant hue and cry of my two - and I know that what I give and what I do and what I write will not be what I am hoping to give and do and write.

Because you see, I have been patterning my nothing after others who have done what I wish to do, and in the end it comes to nothing without Jesus for me, and my yoke of bondage is my own misplaced desire to be like them and not like me who God created and re-created and called good. If we all say the same thing, we become shadows of one another, and the best and brightest shadow is still a shadow - when we are really earthen vessels filled with the weight of a glory that is not meant to be earthbound.

He is so much There, and does not seem to be here at all. Yet the things that my heart knows call me to walk into what my eyes do not see, and my mess is propelled forward by faith into a Life I dare not seek in my own strength - who am I to know what Holy and Righteous is?

"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." (2 Cor. 5:21)

...

I cannot live the future now.

God asks this of me today (and I have been afraid to listen): to draw near to Him. To look at Him. To open my heart to an intimacy to take me beyond the limits of my imagination so that I will know that whether I live or die, I will be in Him.

There is a question that has been niggling at me recently, an inane question that offers more direction than I thought I needed: "Am I a blogger who writes or a writer who blogs?"

Tonight, as the words come, I know the answer.

I am a writer who blogs, and it is time for me to step back into my place - MY place - and write again, instead of trying the "blogging" thing.

Several months ago, I went searching for a community who knows God - and I found it. I found you. And you and you and you. And I have been deepened and encouraged, and I hope it will continue.

But I may not be commenting so much on other blogs as I have. I may not reply to every email or track my stats or link up elsewhere or follow too many prompts or Tweet endless links as I have.

I suspect the nature of my posts will change a bit too - when I write, I write for me; I write what is deep; I write what is Him in my dust. I have nothing else.

The voices tell me that is "self-centered," but I am feeling stronger this evening, more ready to stand, more ready to claim the free that is mine in Jesus so I may bow at the throne of Grace - instead of ducking my head, anticipating the blow.

...

What does it mean, that God destroyed the gap between Heaven and earth when Jesus became man and died and rose again?

Death, where is your victory?

I breathe out slow now. Long, and slow. A sigh, but not a sigh. An acknowledgment. That God created me the way He meant. That He does not mean to crush me, but to guard me, to hold me safe in His love. That the being I have in Christ is so much glory and not so much dust.

My flesh and my heart fail.

The groaning is a given.

My spirit is waiting for that face-to-face conversation. The one where I see Him. The one where I become like Him.

God, that's gonna be so good...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

a self-portrait: covered

The words were little more than a sigh.

She inhaled, exhaled, and still there was nothing, nothing but air and wishes, and not even that, if she was honest. Words don't breathe until they are said, until they are formed on the tongue, until they slip from lip and sing across empty space. And wishes, well, they need definition, and definition requires words.

So she sighed.

Her feelings were scattered, splintering in every direction but straight, focusing here, then there, trying to be everywhere at once, forgetting that omnipresence is better left to God-who-sees. The feelings were like that; they didn't remember so much as they should.

She didn't know what to say, so she couldn't write. She took pictures, and they said a great deal too much, and didn't say quite enough.

Grace is a slippery thing, she thought.

No, no it's not.

Again she sighed. Tried to focus her thoughts. Gave up. Sighed again.

Today, she didn't know who she was. Was she pastels and tulips or bright and daisies? Or was she somewhere in between? Was there a place for all of it? Why did everything seem that it needed to be compartmentalized? She felt she might blow apart with the things trapped inside.

God was so near some days; He was near now - she knew His presence. But drawing near to Him required a little bravery on her part. A little trust. A lot of truth.

She wasn't afraid of the wrathful God of Revelation; her heart thrilled at the blazing rescue executed by the fiery-eyed Son of Man from whose mouth came the Word of God that seared her soul. There was no wrath for her, no fear there.

But rejection - even the possibility - it asked faith of her. Faith that Jesus was enough. That grace was sufficient for her to come to Him and rest when she was weary. It seemed she was always weary.

She had heard that she needed to do more, to be more than she was. The voices in her head - the loud ones that lived on her mental tickertape - they said that God required more of her or else. The "or else" was never defined. She lived in fear of that dropping ball. Sometimes the prospect was too much for her. She hunkered down, shut out the world, dived beneath the radar of God-who-sees.

Ironically, she never escaped His gaze.

His wisdom wasn't supposed to be confusing.

She couldn't live a lifetime in a moment.

She couldn't change herself.

Everything was muddled without considering Jesus. She'd never be enough.

But there He was. Jesus, her free. Her Spirit-sealed guarantee that God would not reject her if she drew near. His gaze seemed suddenly more welcoming.

Her feelings focused; she needed to hide for now, but not from Him. In Him. In that secret place of His presence where there is no need for definition or caveat or explanation. She'd be safe there. Covered.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven,
Whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity,
And in whose spirit there is no deceit.

When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groaning all the day long.
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer. Selah
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah

For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to You
In a time when You may be found;
Surely in a flood of great waters
They shall not come near him.
You are my hiding place;
You shall preserve me from trouble;
You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will guide you with My eye.
Do not be like the horse or like the mule,
Which have no understanding,
Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle,
Else they will not come near you.

Many sorrows shall be to the wicked;
But he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him.
Be glad in the LORD and rejoice, you righteous;
And shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

- Psalm 32

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

A Post About Piper

She's so serious here. Trying to figure out the camera with the sensation of mother-love that comes all too little lately. I borrowed her for my 365 project today.

I'm working in a self-portrait angle this year, and three days into it, I'm certain it's going to be a stretching experience. I view myself in pieces right now. There is writer-me, depressed-me, insecure-me, loved-me, mama-me, person-me. The feelings ram against each other; my stay is not in my mood.

But this is a post about Piper.

She has grown so much. I hardly believe she is two anymore. Her homeschool-mama sitter sat Pete down after fencing recently (my husband is teaching fencing again, and taking Piper with him) and told him that she is operating at a four-to-five-year-old level. This report made one rather bad day of mine a rather good day at its end.

With her growth comes an expanded capacity for trouble.

I have an aunt who reads this blog who will cringe at this next photo:


Piper destroyed my grandmother's chair yesterday. I inherited a few small things from Grandma, things I treasure more than I should probably treasure earthly possessions. They're right up there with my camera in emotional value. Probably more so. This was one of those.

I didn't know it until I went into the living room to take a little time with her and found the pieces scattered all over the floor.

And mama-time went out the window.

Because I had told her. And I know she is old enough and responsible enough to know that she was not supposed to tear the chair up.

So I yelled, as all good mad mamas do. And I spanked her. As most good mad mamas do. And I sent her to her room, because I was too angry with her to not keep yelling, and I needed a little help with my self-control.

I didn't know what to do. When love rams up into loss, how do you react? What course of action can you take?

By now the baby was hollering to be fed, so I pulled him out of his bed and nursed him, fuming, frustrated, trying to figure out how to fix the situation - not the chair, the broken relationship. The relationship I had just knocked over the foul line.

I was still fuming when I heard her door open. I steeled myself, determined to keep my quiet, as she padded into the kitchen, crying softly.

She laid her head on the arm of my desk chair, on my arm resting there, holding Bredon as I nursed.

"I'm sowwy, Mama. Sowwy, Mommy."

Now it was my turn to cry. My anger dissolved. How did she know?

I got to forgive her. And then I told her I was sorry too, for yelling, for my angry. I told her I loved her.

And she moved on.

Childlike, childish - it was okay now. She could play again.

I sat and watched her, amazed, stunned at her tender heart.

And something else caught me. She didn't doubt my forgiveness once she knew she was still loved. She received the mercy she'd asked of me.

I don't even do that when I ask it of God. I'm too busy kicking myself for needing the mercy in the first place.

Wow.


Talk about lessons in abundant living...





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

His Mercies Are New Every Morning...

(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Tuesdays Unwrapped - Grace for Two Little Hearts

"And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work."

- 2 Corinthians 9:8

I've been at my computer since about 6:15 this morning. I have started three or four different posts. And I am getting nowhere.

It is now nearly 8:00, and I've got this plan to spend my day mostly away from my computer. I have two little ones who need me a little more than they've been getting me over the last few days, and I need a reset.

Maybe a day off will help to clear my head. Because the words sure aren't coming right now.

So if you wonder where I am and where my writing went, I'm spending my grace unwrapping these two today.





...

My friend Emily at Chatting at the Sky hosts a weekly "noticing" party - giving us a chance to unwrap and share the little gifts (and the big ones!) God gives to us in the midst of our dailiness.






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Patience to wait when there is nothing clear

The morning was unusually quiet. Purposefully scheduled. A week's intention rising from months of wishes, years of preparation - reparation, really.

It was time.

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea:
A great High Priest, whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on his hands,
My name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heaven he stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

Clothing myself in this grace, and fixing make-up, hair, and nice-ish clothes that fit my post-pregnancy frame, I climbed into the car with husband and babies, trembling a little in soul.

I'd not faced this yet. Was I ready? I had known forgiveness myself; had I forgiven yet? Could I even acknowledge the hurt that had driven me away, acknowledge its source, open my heart again to the possibility?

Yet I had gained so much from my time away. I found Jesus. I learned to speak His name, albeit quietly yet - still I am so tentative to stand fast in Him. I learned deep what the Gospel is, what it is to me.

Maybe I could just stay where I was, leave off the horizon that drew closer the longer we drove.

I shed a few tears past the lump in my throat, trying to talk, listening, strengthened, quietened by worship, by heart-vision:

When Satan tempts me to despair,
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look, and see him there
Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died,
My sinful soul is counted free;
For God, the Just, is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

My hunger deepened, fellowship-hunger whetted and refined over months of interaction with people who know Him, people who live in different places than I live, who receive the same grace I have come to know.

They had not inflicted the wounds I had suffered.

There were others who had not, either. We were going to meet them. There was fear, rising, falling, like heart-palpitations.

Then we were there, and there was noise and greeting and hasty introductions echoing too loud around foyer and fainting, determined heart. Piper was happy to stay and play - a change from her must-have-Mommy cries of the past - and I slipped into a seat, with my hand in Pete's, my baby at my feet.

I didn't know the songs; had I been gone too long? No, I wouldn't have chosen or remembered them - they were a bit wishy-washy for my taste. The lump in my throat was too large for singing anyway. I looked around, wishing for a familiar face.

And I encountered Jesus.

There He was, Immanuel, God come in flesh, Holy Spirit templed in the dust around me, in the dust in me. I was not the only one in the room receiving His grace. I was not the only one who knew Him. He was here.

There were tear-tracks in my make-up now; Pete gave me a tissue. I had forgotten my purse.

"Humble us... Show us what You want us to see today." A prayer I prayed, because my spirit knew I must, because His Spirit in me responded where I had no courage. And show me, He did.

It wasn't the sermon about money, preached by a pastor younger than me. (Oh, I felt old!)

It was this: that I could not say that "I adore" Jesus, when others were singing and saying they did, truthfully from their hearts; I still measure my love for Him - I know much; I consider myself accountable, because with me it is all or nothing. There is no in-between.

It was this: that I could not look down on them because of the grace I myself had received, in which I was that moment dwelling silent on holy ground.

It was this: that I had dismissed. (It hurts to write these words.) That I had judged. That I no longer had to judge, because I was no longer judged - not by Christ, not by the One who could judge me.

I was confronted with Love, the love that sent my Savior - their Savior - to cover me in His righteous. My reactionary fears were shattering, left as ashes in my mouth, the tears I was shedding, healing tears, welcome restoration.

Behold him there, the risen Lamb,
My perfect, spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I Am,
The King of glory and of grace!

One with Himself, I cannot die
My soul is purchased by his blood
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ, my Savior and my God!

And He had not wasted my fear-time, wasted me. Instead He had come to me, met me where I was, afraid as I was, opened me to His heart and given me brave grace to live and to give what will be my whole life one day when I wake satisfied in His likeness. He had taught me to worship, to joy in His goodness, to labor and live and deliver my work for His glory, learning to do the will of God from my heart.

He was more than a Sunday morning worship time, more than a sermon application, more than small group and potlucks and Sunday School. He is more. He is Life. He is my life.

I am not yet what I will be. How can I be less patient with others than He is with me?

We have none of us arrived, but when we see Him, when we see Him as He is, then... Then we will be like Him.

Twila Paris sings, "This is the Faith, patience to wait when there is nothing clear..."

With faith not my own, I waited on God; here He bent low to wait on me.

...

Shared in this week's "One Word at a Time" Blog Carnival at Bridget Chumbley's blog.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

When Barren is Beautiful

Thank you for this thorn embedded in my flesh;
I can feel the mystery, my spirit is made fresh.
You are sovereign still and forever wise;
I can see the miracle opening my eyes

To a proud heart so quick to judge
Laying down crosses and carrying grudges.
The veil has been torn -
And I thank you for this thorn

Thank you for this thorn, fellowship of pain
Teaching me to know you more, never to complain
Thank You for this love planted in my side,
Faithful patient miracle opening my eyes.

I never thought I'd say it without reservation,
But I am truly grateful for this piercing revelation
Of a proud heart so quick to judge,
Laying down crosses and carrying grudges -
The veil has been torn,
And I thank you for this thorn

And if You chose to take it, I will praise You
And thank You for the healing in Your name.
But if it must remain, I thank You for Your rod
Evidence of Father-love for a child of God.

I join You in the sorrow,
So much less than You have borne,
And I thank you, really I thank You...
Lord I thank You; I thank You for this thorn

- Twila Paris, This Thorn

I hever saw myself posting this song, or even echoing it from my heart until today when I found myself humming it, voicing it, singing it during a diaper change.

Yesterday's words were for me. I meant only to give voice to myself and my struggle, meant only to shovel out some of my personal winter to make room for some spring.

Today, writing from here, I am nearly wordless at the depth of the response. I look at your words poured out in yesterday's comment box, filling my email inbox - words of encouragement, affirmation, identification. Words and prayers and Scripture and hope to refresh me, to make me feel young again, to let me know that there is still life to be had, to reach for my heart with yours and wrap it up and send it heavenward.

I have said thank-you so often lately, I can't help but respond with grateful all over the place. I am still with amazement today.

Today has been a slow day, a quiet day, a sunny day with March winds in January bearing growing excitement for us. It has been a day for making room, for choosing trust, for having and holding and trying again.

His mercies are new every morning, I learned in my first round of depression, when every night I fell into bed feeling I'd failed, knowing I'd handed in my miracles. They are still new, every morning.

This is what His faithfulness is.

I can't begin to describe it for you. It is simply something I know.

Last time I walked this path, I wanted what I wanted - the assurance that I would not lose, the end of my pain for crying out loud. God Himself was not reward enough for me. I was alone because I chose my isolation from His grace.

I am not alone this time. I could not have written what I wrote without the new knowledge I have of His love for me.

When I wrote yesterday, I could not thank Him for this, but today I step gingerly into praise. I learned last time not to feel guilty for the good days.

Worship aches out in breath today, in not-so-studied bed-making and hair-doing and nursing and diaper-changing and in writing and in cooking, which I have done.

There are not words adequate for this grateful, for this sense that God cares - He really does.

I look outside, absorb the sun and the blue and the trees and the glory of the morning traveling into noon and into early evening. The smile comes deep, peace that barely curves my lips, peace that lightens my eyes.

He has borne my burdens; you have borne them with Him. He has enriched my soul; He has used your words to do it. He has given me a good day; He has given me Himself.

Should it stun me that I am not wasted after four days in the dark? Should I be so amazed that I am not destroyed?

I am.

And I am, quite frankly, humbled. It as if I am seeing the world through different eyes today. I keep blinking, trying to make sense of it all, trying to figure out what to do with this "enfolded" feeling, with this "surrounded" feeling - this safe that isn't even a feeling so much as it is a faith.

I don't understand why I should feel beautiful like this. Why I should feel cherished like this. Comforted like this. Quieted like this.

Who am I to deserve such treatment?

Slowly, I learn now to pray.

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


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





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

Thorn

I don't want to publish this post.

I haven't wanted to write it.

Writing it would make it real.

But writing it would make me real. And I need that. I need to be real right now.

I need to write off my excuses and face the creeping deadness and bring it out into the sunlight and expose it there. I need to write it here, during my me-time, because it is all the me-time I really get.

I'm barely getting shower time lately.

I need to write it while I can write it, corral it, give it a place so it doesn't rule me, spinning round and round in my thoughts and my head and my heart like the storm that came through last night, whipping rain against window and wall and roof.

Enough is enough. I can't hide anymore by changing the subject.

...

I am a very open person, but there are two topics I don't talk about with anyone but my husband. One is the topic of my first love. The other is my depression.

It was odd to realize this yesterday while I was talking with Pete. Odd to realize that I've been deliberately avoiding writing from where I am over the last week or so.

Repost an old post. Guest posts are a good idea. Keep it clean. Keep it shallow. Your readers don't need to know what is really going on. Just cloak it here. It's not a lie.

But I know it is a lie. I know because I care too much about what you think. Because I've suddenly found myself checking my statcounter and comparing numbers and trying to come up with ways to promote my blog so I get more traffic because I want to be just. like. somebody. else. And it's no one in particular. Just those somebodies I've run across who get a million comments or a thousand visitors a day.

I got about a thousand visitors one day two weeks ago.

So I've been putting my make-up on here. Covering up my blemishes, making me pretty, dressing up and putting conclusions on this barely-dressed me that is really shell-shocked, struggling, staring, weeping, working, waking.

I am trying to believe that what I am presenting is the real me and it is wanted, while I am hiding away the mess that I am, sweeping up my dust, creating myself one more place to hide.

I cannot do that here.

...

Four days of clouds will do it to me. And they did this last week. It doesn't matter what I do.

The first day, I will turn all the lamps on in the house to warm it, drink tea, cuddle in blankets with babies, write poetry.

The second day, it gets harder. I try to have a good attitude. The crying grates more. I start losing patience with Piper. I grasp at grace.

On the third day, the fog sets in. Doing anything requires herculean effort. Focusing my thoughts beyond putting one foot in front of another is almost impossible. I start to feel fat. Ugly. Lazy. I start to notice that I'm not seeing my kids. The condemnation-whispers intensify.

By the fourth day, I'm almost non-functional. I spend long periods of time staring into space, trying to figure out what I need to do to stand up, put my clothes on, get food, take care of babies. I feel wooden, frozen. The guilt is overwhelming; condemnation roars at me. I have no energy to answer it. I pray for sun.

Additional factors worsen the freeze. The new diet I have to figure out for my gallbladder. Tailoring that diet even further for the baby's thrush. Curling up inside because I know his sick is my fault, and why can't I just get this right. Raising garlic and B dosages and setting off a deeper herxheimer - for both Lyme and Candida.

And every time I herx, the depression deepens for a week until my body adjusts to the new treatment levels.

I can't cry.

...

I register things internally that I can't express. I photograph the light so I can see it on cloudy days. I write my rememberies while they are fresh so that I have them in words, etched in my mind so I can look back and remember what was on the other side of these closing walls.

I try to see Piper, try to see Bredon, try not to look at Pete because I know it is happening again and I am so, so sorry that I can't fight it away every day. Ignoring it doesn't work.

It must be engaged.

I read others' stories of their struggle with it, and I acknowledge it deep but I don't admit.

It must be engaged.

I write about everything else in my life, because I don't want my readers to think it is so hard here, because it's not so hard here every day and this is not the sum of who I am.

But it must be engaged.

And so I am writing it here. I am bringing out my unmade face with the circles under my eyes, the slack expression, my thrown-up hair, frumpy clothing, my post-baby-squared body. I'm writing out the unmade bed, the toddler-toys all over the house, the dishes that I don't do, the laundry I barely notice until I realize how much Pete is doing for me, for us.

I'm opening the door, because I can't keep it closed any longer. This needs to be real. I need to leave my denial behind and spill out the dark the same way I need to spill out the fun and the light and the shallow.

I didn't start this blog for the whole world. I started it to write what I couldn't say. My goal here is not to cloak me or present someone I am not. What good is Jesus to you or to me if I write outside my humanity? What merit does my grace-description hold if I don't share my need of it?

...

I suppose I could journal it, instead of putting me out here for examination and suggestion and judgment. But as long as I can hide from it, I don't have to acknowledge it, and for me the writing of it makes it real. The saying of it, the sharing of it clears my head. It takes the swirling, toxic phrases that play on repeat and turns the light on them, revealing them for the lies they are.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians of a thorn in his flesh that God didn't remove.

I know the depression is my thorn.

I am struggling to understand how God's grace is sufficient. I know it is for me. But I need it to be sufficient for Pete and for Piper and for Bredon.

This is not the way I pictured my life.

But it is what it is, and part of living my life means living this too.

I hope, as always, that you will pardon my dust.





(Image © Informal Moments Photography)

About Dad: How God Fathers Me

I've been thinking about my dad this week. Trying to remember what I know of him that I haven't been told. Wondering what relationship do I have with him, really?

I've always been pretty independent. As a child, I had my own ideas about life. My own decided way of doing things. It was usually the hard way, my dad would say.

But I remember needing him. He was the only one who could take out the splinters I got in my fingers and toes. "Pop's Splinter Shop," he called it, teasing me every time that he was gonna charge me a nickel I didn't have for his services. As if I would have paid him for doing something he was supposed to do. I knew he was joking, but part of me always wondered...

When I got older, Dad tried teaching me to let my teenage emotions roll, "like water off a duck's back." It never really worked with me. I was determined to have my emotions. I learned instead to control them when needed, then process and deal later. I'm a venter, a rambler, and once I get stuff out, I don't feel it anymore.

But I was talking about Dad.

...

In college, I called Dad a lot. So much so that Mom thought I just didn't care about her. I just didn't have much to say to anyone in college. There was so much going on internally. Most of the time I already knew what I needed to do to fix the thing I was calling about. I just needed Dad to validate my decisions.

I have realized in recent years that I was a pretty decent manipulator. I could talk Dad into just about anything - or he simply let me have my head, figuring he couldn't tell me what to do. He and Mom tell me they never really could.

Relating to my dad on any sort of emotional level is difficult. My dad is so pragmatic. It's the Langner in him. I know it, because I have the same pragmatism. I learned it from my grandma, his mom. There are places he reserves for Mom, feelings he just can't find a place for, things he just doesn't feel at all.

Just before he walked me down the aisle at my wedding, he leaned in and offered, "this is your last chance to back out." It wasn't what I wanted to hear. But it was definitely what Dad had to say. He wouldn't have been Dad otherwise and that would have been weird.

When I was in labor with Piper, Dad was cracking jokes that I wanted to hear, but you can NOT laugh in labor. Ask anyone who has done it. You need those laugh-muscles to end the pain. I asked him afterward what he'd been feeling. He said he was fine. He'd done it eight times with my mom. I found out from my mom recently that he loves babies.

I look at pictures of Dad and me when I was a baby. I see things in his eyes, in his smile that I don't recognize. Things that Mom said she saw again after Pete called to ask permission to date me, court me, marry me. She said he was walking around the house, happy.

I had a hard time picturing it.

...

Bonnie at Faith Barista wrote yesterday of "Looking for My Real Father." She shared excerpts from a book she has been reading about how children tend to view God through the lens of what they have known from their parents, from their dad.

I never call God Father. Not in relation to myself anyway. Jesus is God's Son, God is Jesus' Father. I simply don't consider the fact that I figure into that equation.

But I do, whether I realize it or not.

For years, I lived believing God loved me on a purely intellectual level. My response to this love was duty, and the sense that if I performed well, He would give me what I wanted. It was a rather detailed system I had worked out to manipulate the God of the universe into being what I thought He should be.

It wasn't that coherent. But it was how I lived.

God shattered my illusions with the reality of His deep, consuming love, love that wouldn't let me live in my misunderstanding of Him, love that required me to accept Him on His terms, the Truth of Him, the all of Him that spoke out of the whirlwind to Job and asked him if he really knew who God was, the God who came to Job as a man to show him the man wasn't enough to comprehend God's ways.

I can't yet call this God Abba.

...

When I go home, I know my dad is happy to see me. He holds my children, asks for hugs once in a while, and his eyes smile when he looks at me. If I dare to look into them, I see a question that is never asked, a little bit of awe, a deep affection that is never voiced.

I see my "Daddy."

But I'm grown up now. I'm not supposed to need a Daddy when I'm grown up.

And I'm good at being grown up. Most of the time anyway.

But sometimes when I cry, I miss knowing that things were okay because Daddy said they were okay. Because he was home or he was at work and things were normal and under control and Mom could call him and make things better during the day and he could help when he was home at night.

Suddenly, I realize that this is what I can't release when I think about God. This childlike understanding and trust of His sovereignty. The hope beneath my tears that everything is okay because He is God and He is at work and I can call Him and He will come for my heart.

He'll dig my splinters out free of charge, and put a band-aid on it to help me feel better. He'll whisper His words to me when I wished for something else. And because they come from Him, they will come to mean more to me than I could have known when He said them.

...

I pulled Dad out onto the dance floor with me at my wedding. Dad doesn't dance. I knew he felt awkward. But he came with me and went around a few times and smiled and cracked a few jokes I don't remember, in his way.

He offered me himself with that gracious acquiescence to my heart.

This is why grace means so much to me.

...

God loves me and gives to me and fills me with good things in spite of me, in spite of my frequent, childish misunderstanding of His Person.

This is why Jesus' life and death and resurrection is so vitally important. His condescension of God into flesh was driven by an incredible love, a deep Father-affection revealed in the setting aside of His God-glory to become like me, to dance with me where I am. This is grace, His Father-waiting and teaching and helping me to comprehend what I will never fully know until I meet Him face to face - when I will see Him as He is.

I get only glimpses of my dad that I can know as an adult. As a grown-up, I am learning to relate to him on an adult level. But my child-heart still thinks of him as "Daddy." I wonder if I will ever grow up.

With God it is backward. The growing-up means becoming more childlike, becoming like Jesus, the Son of Man who deeply trusted His Abba, Father.

"Abba, Father," he said, "everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will."

- Mark 14:36

Greater love...

...

I watch Pete forming a relationship with Piper now, listen to her "Daddy!", laugh at the giggles and excitement only he can produce from her, and I wonder what questions she will have about him someday. I wonder how she will be disappointed by him. I wonder what she will learn of God through her relationship with him.

I hope she will know how much they love her.

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






(Image © Informal Moments Photography)