I've been
restless these days.
Maybe it's
spring fever.
I've been
keeping the house cleaner than I have in months; a dish barely touches the
bottom of the sink before it gets washed and I've almost run out of wood
cleaner for the floors.
I keep
wanting to buy things- a patio set, with a rug and an umbrella, and plastic
glasses with yellow lemons printed on them.
Instead, I
gave Keith the green light to buy a new lawn mower and two minutes later his boots
were on his feet and he was out the door, on his way to purchase one.
It was the
more practical purchase anyway. He had to start his old mower with a pair of
pliers, and the lawn was already getting shaggy looking.
He returned
with a Toro mower equipped with a Honda engine, which, I was informed, is the
cream of the crop in terms of push mowers.
So as you can
guess, the lawn looks very nice right now and all yesterday, I could faintly
smell cut grass through the open window. I caught him lovingly polishing the
engine with a rag.
At Wal Mart,
they had a sale on baby items. I stood in front of the stand for the fliers and
looked at the cribs and baby seats.
"Look! A
sale on baby stuff!" I informed Keith, when he appeared with our cart.
"We
don't even know the age of the kid we'll be matched with," Keith cautioned
gently, still thinking in terms of international adoption.
"It'll
be a newborn," I reminded him. "The birth mother will choose us while
she's still pregnant."
When someone
chooses us, which is months and months away. It's tempting to start slowly
buying stuff for a nursery, just to have it ready- but it's too early to start
that.
I feel like
I'm waiting on everything.
Despite my
restlessness, it's clear to me that Jesus wants me to continue on in this quiet
waiting place.
I've been in
this quiet waiting place now for about a year or even longer, if one considers my time
in Kentucky to be waiting. I think it was. I was just then entering into
it kicking and wailing and angry.
At that time
I could not know it, but God was pulling me into the quietness
that comes after grief in order to meet with me in a deeper way than He had
before.
I watched a
sermon by Henry Nouwen and in it, he said that, like the bread Jesus held in
His hands, we are taken, we are blessed, we are broken and we are given.
We are broken
before we are given.
Last night, I
think it was, I was caught by the line in the last chapter of Matthew: "He has gone ahead of you into Galilee."
I thought of
Jesus on that solitary journey, newly resurrected. I wondered if He had been
filled with joy at everything He saw as He walked along- freed from the burden
of His Passion, everything new and fresh and full of light. Almost as though
everything that He had declared good at the beginning was so deliciously good
all over again.
In that same
gospel, the two women see Him and He says to them, "Rejoice!" (Though
it's interesting to me that it's in the New King James Version that His
greeting get translated this way. Others have Him saying "Peace be with
you," or simply "Hail!")
I had a dream
like that a few days ago. I dreamed of His death and burial. In the dream, I
found myself on a path, a grassy path on a hillside.
Earlier in
the dream, I had been running down that path, full of shame, and finding torn
pieces of my wedding gown alongside it. I kept gathering them up in my arms, in
horror, hoping against hope that I would still be acceptable for the sincerity of my heart.
Now in the
dream, I found myself on the path again, only I didn't have time to worry about
what I was wearing, because I saw Him, alive, walking down the path. I knew it
was Jesus. I knew He had risen from the dead.
I went
running to meet Him and He opened His arms to me. He was so full of joy. He
knew me.
"Is this
My little one?" Jesus said, laughing.
When I woke,
I re-lived that moment in the dream over and over again- that moment of mutual
recognition and joy.
It's an
astonishing thought, isn't it, that we can bring Him pleasure of any kind? That
it is possible for us, as C.S. Lewis puts it:
"To
please God... to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness... to be loved by
God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a
father in his son- it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our
thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is."
-The Weight
of Glory
So it is.
March 12, 2012
Unpublished
I saw this
verse in one of the blogs I read:
"Even to
your old age, I am He,
And even to
gray hairs I will carry you!
I have made,
and I will bear;
Even I will
carry, and will deliver you."
-Isaiah 46:4
This verse
has been in my head a lot lately, especially this part: I have made, and I will
bear...
A couple
times lately, Jesus has said to me, I
created you.
And at first,
I didn't understand why He was emphasizing that so much.
Then, I
realized that He is taking responsibility for me: I am His creation, His work.
He is
reorienting me to my deepest origin, which is Himself. It humbles and exalts at
the same time, because I can boast of nothing, and yet I am given everything.
Everything that I am is a gift, and I belong completely to Him.
All my flaws
are temporary things, but even more than this, they are also are gifts and my
greatest teachers. The flaw which bothers me the most has the greatest
potential for growth.
This is the
thing I have been learning, but I haven't learned yet how to put that in
practice. I know one
thing though; to get value out of my flaws, kicking against them does not work.
That's an exercise in futility.
The flaws
that I notice the most are a lack of faith, a lack of mercy, a lack of charity,
a lack of humility. Another words, distrust, judgment, selfishness and ego
driven thoughts.
Sometimes I
get angry at Jesus.
"Clearly
I can do nothing about these flaws!" I tell Him. "If it were up to
me, I would have destroyed them by now! I would have cleared them out!
Obviously, I can't do that! Only You can do that, and for some unfathomable
reason, You aren't! So this is Your fault! Why won't You get rid of these
already? Why do You make me live in the middle of this? Why won't You heal my
soul? Why is it taking so long? Gah!!"
But He is the One who calls the things that are not, as though they were.
He says,
"You are finished," when clearly I am a work in progress and all my
dust has not settled.
Sometimes I
hand Jesus a fault -a thought or emotion- that I do not want. I hand it over to
Him, and not only does it go away, but I feel Him take my hand in His, a firm,
warm and loving grip.
What He is
saying is, you are Mine. Even as you are,
you belong to Me.
It makes me
marvel, and the warmth of His love dissolves the tight bands of shame that had
wrapped me round and constricted my heart.
Last night, I
felt His love and closeness. This was so delicious that I did not even want to
pursue the line of my thoughts, I threw my thoughts away. I rested quietly in
Jesus.
It was as
though I were curled up on His chest, like a kitten, like a small one, with my
head on His shoulder, or it was as though I lay under the shadow of His wings,
or under the palm of His hand. I was warmly surrounded and upheld and cherished
by Him.
"You
made me for Yourself," I reminded Him, happily.
I made everyone for Myself, Jesus said lovingly.
This thought
did not diminish my experience of being loved completely by Him. I thought it
might, that I might feel crowded by the inclusion of every other person, but
instead, as I thought about it, it did something different.
It made me
feel more secure. My God would never make throwaway people, He cares deeply,
definitively, about all the work of His hands.
He doesn't
love by grades. There’s no caste system, there are no special favorites.
Everyone is loved to the very fullness of love. Everyone is delighted in.
"I am
surrounded by love!" I told Him in wonder. "I am rich! I am a
cherished woman! I am surrounded by love." This thought
kept coming back to me, as I wondered over it, how it was that I was delighted
in and loved.
"I am
Your girl," I said to Jesus, and paused to try and ponder something. In the pause and before I could complete my thought,
Jesus said- you’re My sister, My spouse.
My thoughts
stumbled at this, at how ridiculously young I was to be such a thing, in terms of spiritual growth,
maturity, strength, perfection I was.
"But..."
I said to Him weakly. I reached out to Him, for confirmation.
You know that you are, Jesus assured me, reminding me of everything He had taught me.
"But to
be Your spouse means I must be grown up," I said nervously. "And I'm
not... but... I will be!" I finished, realizing it.
In thinking
about being His own entirely, I realized how possessive and protective Jesus
was, and how close He always was, watching over me
and guiding and teaching me. But then it seemed so strange that Jesus would put anything
He cherished so much down here, and not kept safe in Heaven.
"But why
would You leave Your own down here, in this place?" I asked Him honestly.
But as soon
as I said that, I felt bad. I remembered that He had created this world in
order to be inhabited- He created this world specifically as our setting.
And I
remembered what Jesus had said to me before, that He put me here for
transformation- to be finished, to be deepened, to be tried like silver. I felt
Him listening and loving me as I thought through this.
"Well,"
I amended, "You made this place for us, and I am here for perfection, for
transformation, for the humbling of the soul, all these things."
In that
moment, I felt afraid, thinking of the necessary pain of this.
I will never leave you, Jesus assured me, and I finished the
thought for Him- “… nor forsake me!" I finished, reassured.
March 13,
2012 Unpublished
The sky is
slowly turning this weird yellowish green as I write. I keep forgetting that we
still live in tornado alley.
Last night I
realized it's been six months since I decided one day to read the gospel of
John. Such an impulsive decision, and it changed the entire atmosphere of my
life.
Some of it I
haven't exactly enjoyed, like the blogging.
Maybe people
think that I'm making all this up, so I can feel better about myself because I
can't have children, or something. Maybe they think I'm straight off my rocker. This still makes me feel badly from time to time.
But what can
I say? I would be lying if I had said it hadn't happened, and as it is, I only
share a small percent of how I know Jesus and the lessons He's taught me.
And it's not
like I'm the only person who hears His voice. In fact, I'm following a few
blogs written by other young women who also are struggling with infertility,
who hear the quiet and loving voice of Jesus.
I kid you
not. It is true. It makes me wonder.
Last night I
was thinking about this- about how weird I must seem- how bizarre, how out
there.
You are Mine, Jesus replied firmly.
It made me
laugh: Great. And that's exactly why I’m weird!
March 14,
2012 Unpublished
Last night, I
thought of our birth mother, that unknown woman whose life will forever after
be entwined with ours, our fates joined together. My heart went out to her as
though she were my sister. I knew He is close her, as He is to me.
I remember
when I was seventeen or eighteen, and feeling with a kind of certain dread that
God would deny me children- that I would be infertile.
I thought
Jesus would do this because I wanted children more than anything else and I
figured He would take away my deepest desire so that, through the suffering, I
would be drawn even more deeply and completely into Him.
Can you
imagine? I can't make this stuff up.
That's why I
was so angry at Jesus in Kentucky. I thought, "How dare He actually do that?
How could He do that to me, on top of everything else?"
Now, what can
I say?
Have you ever
noticed how often Jesus asks people, "What do you wish?" or
"What do you want Me do to for you?"
He asks this
a lot, and people are not shy about stating their desires. They tell Him.
I thought
about that. I thought, "Jenny, what do you want in life?"
To be a
mother was such a deep desire that I could not articulate it, but it was a part
of me, as it always is. I also thought, vaguely, about getting a story
published, one that would speak to other people.
Then I
imagined myself calling to Jesus, as Blind Bartimaeus did, from the side of the
road. I thought of Him standing still and calling to me and I thought of myself
going to Him, and Jesus asking me, "What do you want?"
I knew there
was only one answer I would ever give to that question. I knew that I would
throw myself down at His feet, hold on for dear life, and pour out my desire
without reserve:
"Entreat
me not to leave You, or to turn back from following after You; for wherever You
go, I will go; and wherever You lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my
people, and Your God, my God.
"Where
You die, I will die, and there will I be buried. The Lord do so to me, and more
also, if anything but death parts You and me.” (Ruth 1:16-17)
That verse:
"Delight
yourself also in the Lord, And He shall give you the desires of your
heart," (Psalm 37:4) looks differently to me now.
It seems like
a self-fulfilling prophesy. When He comes, how could I not delight in Him? And
in so doing, how could my heart's desires be anything but for more of Him?
So then that
verse became like a spiral stair that winds right into the heart of God. It
takes me right past all the other things that at one time seemed so captivating,
so necessary.
Not that I
won't ever have them. Sooner or later I will become a mother, and it is quite
possible that a book of mine will get published at some point in my life. But
they are not at the deepest heart of me.
