It's raining;
I can hear the soft sound of it outside the windows.
I love March.
When I lived in New England, March was the month when spring was a private
and personal affair. It had to be looked for. A person almost had to believe in
it, in order to see it.
Down here in
the South, spring goes public in March. In fact, spring has been announcing
itself all last month- all through February, if you can believe it. Already,
there are purple and yellow blossoms to be seen in the park.
Keith has
mowed the back yard already and we're researching patio furniture sets on line and
dreaming about the pool. He was unable to resist throwing a pool toy into the
cart the last time we went shopping.
I've been
thinking about a nursery these days. It's a soft thought, a tendril of hope,
like the scent of lilacs that comes drifting through the open windows in late
spring.
It's possible
that I might need a nursery in this house, might decorate and stock one- with bits of soft
clothing, like tiny, striped socks, little stretchy caps and lots and lots of
ridiculously small diapers.
Who knows how
long it would remain empty before it would be used. There's no telling. Who knows who might choose us
as adoptive parents, or why. But it's out there, a possibility.
Whatever
happens, I trust the One who keeps and carries me. He is all that I am to
receive, and my cup, as David wrote so well.
March 2, 2012
Unpublished
Last
night I was reading my new book, "The Weight of Glory," by C.S.
Lewis. His deep reverence for God, comprised of both fear and longing, was
obvious in every phrase and metaphor.
I became
nervous, as I read along. I wondered how I dared be so familiar with God; it
seemed so wrong. How dare I!
It came as a
shock to me to remember that I hadn't learned that on my own. There was never a
day when I thought, I would like to spend my entire day being carried in the
arms of God, let me go about making that happen.
Oh sure, I
longed for it. But I never would have dared ask for it.
As a matter
of fact, Jesus had to persistently and patiently coax me into accepting His
love and affection. It took Him weeks of loving on me before I abandoned myself
to Him. It was as though I had more regard for His dignity than He did.
He led me to
texts that made clear His yearning and humble heart, His extraordinary love of
us, His desire to carry us and be in close and authentic relationship to us.
When I
insisted I wasn't perfect enough for Him, Jesus taught me that it was His work, that of
making me perfect and acceptable. It's always His work.
No matter
what protest I came up with, Jesus countered it- with Himself.
That story is
written out in the blogs that I mostly didn't publish, from last fall.
I remembered
again something which is probably perfectly obvious, but there it is. I
realized that humility is really nothing more nor less than acceptance. It's
simply saying, "Yes," and then falling into it without reserve.
Humility
doesn't make us less than what we are, it makes everything that we are a gift.
Last night, I
was thinking about life. I withdrew myself from the "heavenly music,"
as Amy Carmichael puts it, and planted myself on solid ground, in physical
reality.
It was like
standing in the marble hallway in Korea, where I taught my English classes.
When the students were running or walking down it, the echoes were tumultuous-
of their voices, their shoes. It was nothing but sound.
When the
passage was empty, the remembered tumult deepened the present silence. It
seemed, in the rare moments of quietness, to be impossibly still.
That's what the physical world was like when I lowered my
head, and listened. There seemed to be nothing around me but the electric light, the
frosted glass of the mirror, and the rush of water. It was impossibly still and I could still hear the echoes of His presence all around me.
I thought of
the quiet March evening outside the walls of the house, damp and chill and the
night sky and the planets and stars that swung through it at such vast
distances.
I thought of
the mysteries of birth and death; those thresholds to some place far beyond
what we know, as though we stood only on the mere threshold of the rest of life
itself.
In the
silence and in the light of that perception, God seemed to be impossibly huge
and unseen and beyond comprehension. He was large enough to encompass every
physical thing stretched out to the limits of my perception, and human history
as well, and each human heart.
Then it was
as though my spirit were warmed. It was like watching water take on a glow of
light.
I was warmed
with the light of recognition. I knew again that this vast God, the only God,
the Beginning and the End, has a name, a face, a human history- Jesus.
We don’t have
to stare into the dark, impossible depths of eternity to see God. He is right
next to us, with us, in us, all the time. God is recognizable, Jesus is with us
and we with Him.
Is that not
the most astonishing fact of all existence, of all life itself?
From
eternity, God expressed Himself, and the Word was with God and the Word was God
and the Word was with God from the beginning. His purely, fiercely overflowing
creative love and desire for relationship are inherent in His very being, as
expressed through the Trinity.
They made
every other thing, and took great delight in doing so. This is our
deepest origin; this is our beginning- we begin with a God whose very nature is
to be in intimate relationship.
When I went
to bed, I was still a little anxious, wondering if I was being irreverent
toward God, by being so personal and so intimate with Him.
It did not
help when I read in Deuteronomy how God audibly spoke to the people of Israel,
and the leaders came forward and asked Moses to listen for them, lest they die,
because they had heard the voice of God.
And God was
very pleased with that!
I thought, what?
I thought, what?
God was
pleased that they should withdraw from Him?
But then I
couldn't help but notice what He says to Moses:
"But you
[Moses], stand here by Me... ."
-Deuteronomy
5:31a
And I thought
of the verse at the end of that book:
"And
there arose not a prophet since in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face
to face..."
And yet,
Jesus declares John the Baptist to be the greatest prophet.
After all,
Moses might have seen God face to face, but John knew God as his cousin. They
might have played together as children. John baptized the Son of God.
In the same
passage, Jesus declares that the least in the Kingdom of God is greater even
than John.
Think about
that, for a moment! Your intimacy and position with God is greater even than
Moses.
Or, what God
said to Moses, "But you, stand here by Me," He says also to you now.
In fact, what
He says to us is- you are already seated with Me in the
heavenly places- your life is hidden in My life.
No wonder the
least in the Kingdom of God is greater!
I was reading
along and, I felt Jesus draw near and settle in beside me.
Oh, how
joyfully I welcomed Him! How relieved I was to feel again His close, loving
presence, after all my anxieties.
In my spirit, I wrapped my arms around Him and held Him tightly, and Jesus breathed on me, and I curled up and nestled in. I yielded to
His presence and to His possession.
Then I was
anxious all over again, it swept through me, this knowledge of my human
imperfections.
I make you fit for Me, Jesus said firmly.
And in joy
and relief, I leaned my whole self on Him and into Him, for Jesus is the Rock of
my salvation, and on Him do I lean and in Him I take refuge. There is no other
Rock.
I am getting more able to calling Him Husband. I'm growing into it.
Earlier that
day, I had been leaning against the back of the couch, watching TV. I watched
how one young lady was vibrant and beautiful on the show. She shone on the
stage. It was as though she was born to be there, it was as though it were her
element.
And I thought,
how wonderful, how marvelously that speaks of the glory and splendor and
brightness of God, that He should also create a daughter who reflects Him in
that way! Her nature came from His; she was created in His image, and her
talent is His gift to her.
I felt
Jesus come softly up behind me. I felt Him wrap His arms around
my waist and put His head close to my ear. In loving welcome, I leaned against
Him. His tender love and tender good humor soaked into me.
Do you want that? Jesus lovingly asked. (I think He asks this because He wants us to become aware of what is in our hearts. He already knows.)
"No,"
I answered immediately, warm and secure in Him. "I love who You made me to
be. I want only You."
March 3, 2012
Sorrow Within Embrace
As soon as I
woke up this morning, I felt Jesus take me in His arms. I felt His love soak
into me.
"Hello!"
I said, in surprise.
I thought
about how we would have guests today, and wondered if it was going to be maybe
a rough day.
"You
will be with me," I said, with confidence. "I can do nothing without
You."
I read
something that threw me off a little. I felt weird, like a weird person, and I
remembered that article about hyper-sensitive personality types, and how that
comment probably wasn't even about me and yet had affected me, and as I
remembered this, Jesus leaned down and wrapped His loving arms around my
shoulders. I leaned back against Him in sudden relief.
"You
made me this way," I remembered. "I am safe in You."
Last night,
as I rested in His loving presence, my thoughts drifted around and at one point
they drifted to the sexual abuse.
A line of
thought I don't normally dwell on drifted in- that of my being the unprotected
one, the unloved one by God. Others were kept safe by Him, were allowed to keep their innocence, but I was not. I was
not protected.
Normally,
lately, I feel a sense of encompassing gratitude when I consider my abuse.
Because I have a small sketch of how extraordinarily it will be transformed by
Jesus at the end of this life, I am very grateful for it, because of the glory
it will bring to Him.
I will be a
living story, a living light and testament to His grace and glory and healing
and redemption. Not the brightest- others suffered a hundred times worse in
this life than I, but still, a very good story.
However, last
night, I couldn't quite reach that place of understanding. I was caught in the
sorrow of being left on the outside, in the dark, unprotected, not the
cherished one. Naturally, I felt the tender love and concern of Jesus as He
held me close.
I held myself very still in His close, loving presence. I dwelled and rested in it. I let my sorrow and sadness seep out into Jesus. I was just in the moment and in Him. He took all my sorrow and sadness, Jesus was with me in those emotions, I wasn't alone in feeling them, He felt them with me.
I held myself very still in His close, loving presence. I dwelled and rested in it. I let my sorrow and sadness seep out into Jesus. I was just in the moment and in Him. He took all my sorrow and sadness, Jesus was with me in those emotions, I wasn't alone in feeling them, He felt them with me.
After a
while, I felt my sorrow grow lighter, and I was aware only that I was in His
arms.
March 3, 2012
Yesterday was
such a deliciously windy day.
It started
out with solid cloud cover, but by ten thirty, the clouds were breaking up and
moving fast across the sky. I went out to check on the garden and was
immediately enamored of the weather.
Shortly
thereafter, I was out for a walk. Things did not go smoothly though. For one
thing, my ankle socks kept creeping down into the heel of my sneakers.
I tell you
what, there is no hindrance to a wonderful time of worship so effective as a
slipping sock. Eventually, I had to stop and laugh, and retie my sneakers. My
hair, by the way, is long enough that when I am bending forward to tie my
laces, the ends of it got caught up in the knot.
I cut the
walk short and headed home. The house seemed impossibly stuffy and stale and I
threw open as many windows as I could. All day long the wind moved sweetly
through the house.
Last night I
finished Amy Carmichael's devotional. I have a sincere and warm appreciation of
her, and a sense of recognition.
I have moved
on to my next book, The Weight of Glory, by C.S. Lewis, but that is much slower
going and sometimes I can't grasp his point. I can only read a small amount,
and then must put it down and think it through.
His longing
and deep reverence for God come through at every turn. I read this and thought
it quite beautiful:
"The
books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if
we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came
through them was longing. These things- the beauty, the memory of our own past-
are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the
thing itself, they will turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their
worshippers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a
flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a
country we have never yet visited."
-C.S. Lewis,
The Weight of Glory
March 5, 2012
Unpublished
I walked; I
sank into Jesus like the warm sunlight on my face. I remembered the night before,
falling into Him, into the truth that I am hidden in Him, seated beside Him in
the heavenly places.
And over and
over again last night, it was made real to me, so real that it swept over my
soul like a flood of light- I was with Jesus- right then, right there! I was on
His lap, in His arms. I could say everything I wanted to say, I could pour out
my soul to Jesus, face to face.
"I love
you, I love you, I love you!" I cried, throwing my arms around His neck.
And it was as though, from the corner of my eye, I saw His face, the curve of
His smile and His beard.
It astonished
me. I never think of Jesus as wearing a beard, even though I know He did have
one, because it is written that they pulled it out. Even when, in my
astonishment, I withdrew from Him, I felt His hand cradling the back of my
head.
Even when it
was so much that I could not sustain it, and sank back to the bed (this was a spiritual movement), I was upheld by Jesus. I knew that it was more true
that I was upheld by Him, than by the bed I was physically lying on.
Over and over
again, it hit me: I am with Jesus. Right now, right here, in this moment. It
does not matter what I can see around me. The deepest truth is that I am with
Him all the time, bound up with Him and able to speak with Him everything that
is on my heart.
At several
points during my walk, my joy at remembering how close Jesus was, how available,
filled my eyes were tears, and I had to pull them back in, because I didn't
want to end up crying on the side of the road again, in a compelling mixture of
joy and longing.
I was walking
and I felt Jesus come up behind me and toss me up into the air and instead of
drawing back, I leaned into it and it was as though I were not just caught up
in the air as one does with a child, a joyful toss, but as though I were
caught up by wings.
It was as
though I were soaring through the air and I almost faltered from the rush of
it, then I remembered the verse, they shall renew their strength, they will rise up on eagle's wings.