And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.

Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won’t rot, I won’t rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won’t rot.

And I took you by the hand
And we stood tall,
And remembered our own land,
What we live for.

And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

And now I cling to what I knew
I saw exactly what was true
But oh no more.
That’s why I hold,
That’s why I hold with all I have.
That’s why I hold.

I will die alone and be left there.
Well I guess I’ll just go home,
Oh God knows where.
Because death is just so full and man so small.
Well I’m scared of what’s behind and what’s before.

And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

And there will come a time, you’ll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair

But all and all, we’re pretty solid, you and I.  I would totally hold your hair back in a crisis.  I adore you.  I do.

So, I wanted to say thank you. For meeting me here so faithfully after all this time, through all these trials and all this joy.
For rescuing me from despair when my life fell apart.
I am so humbled that you come. And that you make it okay for us to be who we are.
You are like family to me. I couldn’t be more blessed by having you in my life.
A few goodies and links to say thank you!
I made this banner 2 Thanksgivings and 2 kitchens ago and hope to make time to print it out again this year. Link up in the comments if you print it and post about it!

The pdf files for the letter are here for you to download and print.
G in Give
I in Give
V in Give
E in Give

T in Thanks
H in Thanks
A in Thanks
N in Thanks
K in THanks
S in THanks

Here are some links of food I’m making, in case you need a few last minute ideas.

Obviously, this list isn’t complete.   At least my family hopes not.

But these were easy to find and I hope all your dishes are wonderful and tasty!

Chocolate Banana Cream Pie by Emeril—don’t make it until Thursday, it doesn’t ‘keep’ well.

Green Bean Casserole–-Alton Brown (an alternative to the cream of mushroom version)

Red Velvet Cake—Cuisine at Home  (I’m making the one from Cuisine at Home, which has no online link but it’s close to the one I linked to.  It’s made in 2 8×8 pans and then the cakes are sliced in half to make a 4 layer cake.  The sides aren’t frosted so you can see the red—it looks amazing!  I made the cakes already and froze them and will ice them on Thursday.)

Parker House Rolls—Martha Stewart  (I make these every year and they are amazing!)  Make on Thursday.

Vicki’s Olive Salsa—appetizer    (Stevie LOVES olives and thinks it’s a downright disgrace not to have olives on the Thanksgiving table.)

Crab Rangoon Dip—appy (new for me this year)

Oyster Dressing-–Pioneer Woman   (I make sausage dressing too but I LOVE oyster dressing and so does Grannie.   And I think we’re the only two but try it and lemme know!)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins—I already need to make another batch!  They disappear so fast and are perfect for a lazy after-Holiday breakfast!

And here’s my fail proof turkey method—–LOW and SLOW.    We don’t eat until 6 pm so my timing is based on that.  If you plan to eat at noon, you need to put that baby in the oven at 2 or 3 am.

I start with a 20-22 pound turkey and soak it in a salt water/apple juice brine either overnight or at least for a few hours.  (about a half handful of salt and one container of apple juice and then submerse in your sink by filling the rest with water.      At 6 am, I turn the oven on 300 while I prepare the turkey.  I pat the turkey dry and stuff it with sausage stuffing.   I them rub softened butter over the outside skin.    Put into the oven and leave at 300 for an hour and a half.  Then reduce the temperature to 250 and cook for several hours.   At around noon, I check it to see how we’re progressing.  If it seems to be cooking along very well, I often turn the oven down to 200 and leave it for the rest of the afternoon.   Sometimes, I turn it down to 200 but after checking it at 3 pm, if it’s not starting to fall apart, I increase the temp back up to 250.    There has never been in the history of the world a juicier turkey.

LOW and SLOW.

It’s the key to all of life.

******************

I leave  you with this prayer for the home!

Lord God, our home is among the most precious gifts we receive in this life.

We realize this all the more as we remember our Lord Jesus. He set aside home and family. Having no place to lay His head throughout His ministry, he chose to sojourn among those He came to save. We prayerfully invite Him to dwell in our earthly abode even as He continually invites us by Word and Sacrament to dwell forever in our heavenly home, which He prepares for us.

Make us ever grateful for this shelter from life’s storms.

Keep this house always the home of comfort, joy, peace, and forgiveness.

According to Your will, protect this home from the spiritual assaults of Satan, but likewise make our home a fortress against the calamities of nature and the wickedness of sinful man.

Grant us the virtue of hospitality, the joy of harmonious living, and the blessing of gathering around Your Word and bringing our families’ prayers before You.

May all who dwell in our home be blessed by Your presence and Your peace,

and may all who go forth give thanks for the grace they receive from You, through us, Your dear children

We receive Your loving kindness in our home as a reminder of the eternal home we inherit through Your Son, Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray.
Amen.
{prayer taken from the Lutheran prayer book which can be purchased at Concordia Publishing House.}

Sweet blessings on your  home this Thanksgiving season.

And what am I doing, you ask?  And just why haven’t I posted in well over a week?

Well.   That’s a real good question.

And here’s what I’ve got for ya.

I’m hunkered down, that’s what.   Trying to learn enough Latin to teach it to my children and  just tucked in to home right snug and doing what moms and wives around the world do everyday.

*****************

You know the list.   Laundry, cooking, dishes, schooling, a wee bit of knitting, a whole lot of reading and even the noble task of rearing young girls in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.   It’s quite noble work but it’s so easy to despise it.   To wish it away while daydreaming about grandiose plans and schemes.

Today, I choose to relish it.

I hold the laundry tight and inhale extra long and think about the love that is modeled when a woman washes the same clothes over and over, day in, day out—-almost touching something sacred—-this washing and consecrating of materials things for a noble and good purpose.   The renewal that comes from being clean.   My heart aches for that washing too.   Perhaps it’s a blessed thing, this daily rhythm of life. We love the grand scale, the best days, the shiny things.   The bright newness of God’s blessed restoration.

But what about all those ordinary days?  Where is God then?

He always chooses the ordinary things to do his greatest work.

He chose bread to feed us. Water to wash us.   A baby to save us.

He is no despiser of the small days.

It is in them that we see the key to life.

Not in falling in love but in loving everyday,  with clean socks and warm soup.

Not in that one blissful day of childbirth but in the birth of each day, one a time, where the daily routine teaches us to depend on our Father,  who has made no provision for tomorrow—but only today, in this daily bread.

Perhaps this thing I’ve come to dread—-this daily drudgery—-is in fact my greatest teacher, in disguise.

Teaching me to live in this moment.  With these children.   And this sacred work.    It’s really all there is.

Today is the day of salvation.

So, I hold on tightly to little hands.   And I stir the soup.   And I fold the towels.

And I say thank you for this work, this calling.

And for this blessed ordinary day—where grace and mercy rain down and turn water into wine, drudgery into vocation, and curse into blessing.

************

In His incarnation, Christ has knit creation back together and sanctified our flesh, our mundane.  He has redeemed for us all the ‘actual textures of physical life’ and granted us the ‘full extent of the  mysteries of the incarnation and all that flows from it, and all that make our mortal life fruitful once more.”

“The incarnation took all that properly belongs to our humanity and delivered it back to us, redeemed.  All of our inclinations and appetites and capacities and yearnings are purified and gathered up and glorified by Christ.  He did not come to thin out human life;  He came to set it free.   All the dancing and feasting and processing and singing and building and sculpting and baking and merrymaking that belong to us, and that were stolen away into the service of false gods, are returned to us in the gospel.”

(quotes taken from Evangelical is Not Enough by Thomas Howard, first quotation paraphrased and links all to podcasts of  Issues Etc.org )

I wish you blessings in all of your ordinary days!

xoxo,

edie

Post-Edit: I have the best readers in the world and when Laura sent me this email last night, I thought I’d share it you and then see if I can find a willing pastor to comment/answer her. I love that she is wrestling with the words and their meaning and I’m always willing to learn. You can add your two cents if you’d like too

Edie,
Your post today was beautiful, well-written, and brought a tear to my eye. And it touched on some things I’ve been mulling over lately. I’ve been thinking about this idea of all things being sacred–of finding the spiritual in the mundane things. I’d love to know what you think, since I think we approach our understanding of Christianity and the church from similar perspectives.

I’m wondering about the conflating of sacred and secular, or of sacred and all of life. I’ve read others writing similar (encouraging!) things. I certainly appreciate and recognize the reality that God works in all of our life–through the mundane and the routine and the little things. But I wonder if that is the same as a thing being sacred? I wonder if our sacramentalizing all of life actually may cause us to care less about, to lose our wonder at the true sacraments ordained by Christ and the special grace of which they are a means. Maybe it is just a matter of semantics and I’m thinking too much about this. Maybe it’s just because I was an English teacher and I get really interested in the words we use and how the usage changes, but maybe the usage does affect the way we think and then finally what we believe.

Just my two cents, for what it’s worth. I love your thought-provoking writing, Edie. No need to respond unless you want to.

Love to you,
Laura
the given life

Thank goodness, it’s intermingled with intense joy but,  for most of us, there’s a  cross or two to bear.

That’s why I’m thankful to hear the gospel regularly and clearly.

It’s the message for all time, for all occasions, for all people—–that we are poor miserable sinners, all of us,  but that God, in His mercy and love for us, sent His Son to be punished in our place so that we might live forever with Him in a new creation.  It’s a grace that we can neither earn nor merit, lavished on us by our Father.  He loves us. He sympathizes with us.  He understands the deepest groanings of our hearts. He forgives us.

You are forgiven!  You are free in Christ!

That is the message for baptisms, for weddings, for funerals,  for your death bed, for the ten year memorial of 9-11, for every  single Sunday.

Today, more than anything,  we celebrate the death and resurrection of One who took our brutal punishment and set us free—-so that when all the towers finally fall—–we rest in the One who has always held the whole world in His hand.

He fights our enemies.   He comforts our sorrow.

He gives us life, salvation and forgiveness.

We understand our own suffering and the pain of those around us only through the blood of Christ.

This grace given to us is free in Christ, but it wasn’t cheap.

It cost Him his very life and we live in gratitude for His gifts.

So, yes, we are thankful for our soldiers and for all the heroes of 9-11.   We owe them a debt of gratitude. Their suffering is unspeakable.

But only Christ can rescue us from our true enemy and our faith and trust rests in Him and Him only—the One who understands our heartache and wipes away all our tears.

*******************

Comments closed

We’ve been at First Lutheran Church in Knoxville now for almost exactly a year.   Lutherans don’t change churches very often or easily so it was quite a bold move for us. Our new pastor counseled with us at length and we all prayed that the situation would resolve itself so that we could return to our home church.

It did not and he agreed that we should proceed with moving our membership. The process took awhile but we couldn’t be happier.

We drive an hour each way  to church every Sunday and pass no less then 50 churches on the way.

I can say with confidence that I don’t think I have ever heard better preaching.   Our pastors preach law and gospel every Sunday without fail.

The message is ALWAYS Christ and His finished work on the cross on our behalf.   For that, I’d drive much farther.

There’s no “you can do it if you try harder” or “10 steps to a better you”.    There’s no fancy sermon series.   They faithfully follow the lectionary and preach from the biblical texts.  It is classical christian worship.

Every single message,  every single Sunday is about Jesus and His love and grace extended to us sinners.

I sit in the pew in awe and often in tears.    I keep waiting for the ball to drop.  The gospel every Sunday?   What a precious gift.

And I’m no stranger to sermon-stalking.   In fact, I’ve listened to more than 30 sermons (online) of various preachers in our area over the past few months.

I’d say that Jesus was the focus of about 3 of those sermons.   Maybe 3.   Jesus is usually given honorable mention at the end of the sermon.   Kind of an “oh by the way….”

It’s become my hobby because as I look back over the years, it’s amazing how little Christ-centered preaching I’ve been privileged to hear.

Why is there such a drought of preaching the gospel?   It has become so vogue to talk about everything else but Christ.

Why are churches trying so hard to be hip and forsaking the very thing that they have been mandated to preach?

Jesus did not say,  ”Go ye into all the world and be hip and tell some cute stories and give people ten ways to make them better.”

He said to preach the gospel.   It’s the church’s only message.

And yet, we seem to have forsaken it for the wisdom of the age.

We don’t bat an eye.    We like the practical life lessons.    We like knowing there’s something we can do.

It’s our natural theology to be given a to-do list and to keep track of our progress.   That may be fine psychology but it’s not christianity.

The gospel is crazy.   The gospel makes no sense.  The gospel is counterintuitive to everything we know about the world and ourselves.

The gospel is foolishness to the world.

And sadly, too often it seems, the gospel has become foolishness to the church as well.

We mistakenly think that it’s the lost person who needs to hear the gospel and once we’re saved, we must move on to bigger and better things.

There is nothing bigger.   There is no other story to be told.

The story of redemption is all we have.

We need desperately to hear the gospel.

Why?   Because we can hardly believe it.    I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wrap my mind around it.   I need to hear it often and clearly.

It is the ‘power of God unto salvation’.   It brings life and forgiveness and salvation.

And we need our pastors  to remind us  and reassure us over and over and over again that  Christ died for us.

That He loves us and has forgiven us and has marked us in our  baptism as one of His own.

The law is meant to kill us, not to give us something to do.

Then once the law has plowed us under, Christ’s forgiving word makes us alive again.

Those precious words that we are literally dying to hear—–” your sins are forgiven.”

“Beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

********************

If it’s been a while since the sweet preaching of the gospel refreshed your soul,  you can find it here and here and here and here and here.

What a debt of gratitude we owe to those faithful pastors who continue to preach Christ despite temptation on every side to preach something else.

And to Issues Etc.—–thank you for tireless hours of catechesis and sermon reviews.

O Christ, Lamb of God,  embrace me with Your love, and forgive me all my sins. Your death brings healing to my soul, peace to my mind, cleansing to my heart. If You would mark iniquity, I could not come for my hands are unclean, my lips are sullied, and my heart is blackened by sin. But beholding You bleeding, despised, forsaken, dying, pierced, I come to be cleansed and forgiven.

O Christ, Lamb of God,  grant that I may hate sin and wickedness more and more as I behold You in Your great agony. My grateful heart today finds hope in Your words, comfort in Your promises, and salvation in Your finished work on the cross, by which You have overcome sin, Satan, and death.

O Lord, have mercy.  O Christ, have mercy.  O Lord, hear my prayer.

Amen.

Blessed Good Friday to you.

xo,

edie

prayer for Good Friday taken from the Lutheran prayer book.

There are still days, since the fire, that I feel like an Israelite wandering in the wilderness.   Lonely and unsteady and heartsick.

Today is one of those days.

Rebuilding a life seems like impossible work.   Some days, I’m not sure I have it in me.

This wilderness is nothing like home.   Sure, I have everything I need and more.   And yet, I long for anything from the past—something to remind me of what once was.

Rebuilding a house is one thing.  But rebuilding a heart?  That’s another story altogether.

I have beds and chairs and tables but it’s all undone.  Just like me.

I have that vague temporary feeling that I’m staying at a roadside inn, waiting.

Waiting for the house to be built.

Waiting for the insurance.

Waiting for the ache to stop.

Waiting for something that never comes.

Or perhaps waiting for someone—-to tell me how to do this.

I don’t know where to start.  What order to do it all in.  Do I need lamps and shoes and quilts or just courage enough to show up at the Lord’s table for  the Bread of life?

Is it too late to wonder if this is all just a bad dream?

Do I just march on with life or is there time to fall apart?

********************************

There are breaks in the hazy despair and I find myself  excited about the new life.

It’s such a picture of our life in Christ, the dying and rising.

But sometimes, in our desperateness, we just want to take back what we’ve lost.

The new life forces us to trust in Grace that’s not our own.

The new life leaves us vulnerable,  without a true home, without the comforts of our idols.

No wonder the people of Israel  wanted to go back to Egypt.

I’ve turned my nose at the manna too.

This bread of heaven seems a meager substitute for the feasts I was accustomed too.

And that’s when I see it.    The ingratitude.    The self-pity and the  selfish wanting.

If I can’t learn to be thankful here, in this wilderness—–with this manna, will I ever know the true joy of going home?

Is that why He brought me here?

To show me that true  joy only comes with gratitude?

That gratitude is not a mere  feeling—–but that  it comes on purpose.   When I open my hands to ALL His gifts, even the manna.

The Lord  must build the house, or they labor in vain that build it.

So today I  pray:

Remake me Lord.   Rebuild me with the multitude of Your tender mercies.   May Christ be the chief cornerstone of this house.   And when I   fill it with the idols of this world, I ask you tear it down again and start anew.      Strengthen me in the waiting.  Comfort the aches of  body and soul.   Feed  me with the Bread of heaven and for the sake of Christ, forgive my ingratitude.  Restore to me the joy of my salvation.   Remove this heart of stone and make it new.   Amen.

Today, the concrete walls will be poured and the girls and I will go watch.  I’m reposting  this video from the Nester—-my dear sweet friend.   On days like today, it brings me so much comfort.   Thank you for your prayers today.  Comments are closed.

Thank you for those who came to the live chat last night! It was fast and fun and maybe we’ll do it again some time. You can view the transcript here.

Lent begins this week on Ash Wednesday and lasts 40 days with it’s culmination in Easter.   This is a repost from last February {and the February before that!) and will explain Lent in further detail for the newcomer to the season.  My thanks to Pastor Will Weedon for allowing me to republish part of his post.

“Lent begins with this realization. That we are a people in exile. That we are wandering far from our true home.

And thus the beginning of  repentance isn’t merely the terror that one finds in wandering in a strange land; the beginning of repentance is homesickness.

Lent teaches us to fess up to how often  we settle down in the land of our exile as though it were our true home; attempting to still the yearning the Spirit has created by throwing at it physical or    psychological pleasure, and how it never works.”

courtesy of Pastor Will Weedon

Lent is a 40 day period leading up to Easter that is characterized by prayer, reflection, repentance and often fasting, then culminating in the celebration of the resurrection and the feasting of Easter. It roughly mimics the 40 days Christ retreated to the wilderness and wrestled with the devil. Many evangelicals reject ‘lenten’ observance because it’s just too Roman catholic and because there is no mandate for it in scripture. As a former evangelical, I can say that I’ve spent 30 years enjoying the ‘feasting’ of Easter without the penitential and preparatory time of Lent  and I wish I could go back and change that. I find that one of many benefits of following the traditional church calendar and being in a liturgical church is that nothing gets overlooked.

It’s a methodical way of proceeding through the scriptures and it prevents such things as quickly glossing over the celebration of Christ’s resurrection without spending time in quiet reflection of His death on the cross, the mental anguish and suffering which took place while He was in the wilderness, and the details of the events of His life during Holy Week. It’s like walking in ‘real time’ with Him during the last weeks of His life. Is Lent discussed or commanded , per se, in the scriptures? No, but penitence and fasting and prayer are  and what better time to observe a more rigorous christian discipline than as we reflect upon the last days and weeks of the life of Christ.

And we all practice degrees of discipline already. Lent is the spiritual equivalent of physical exercise for the body. The body gets stronger when we demand much from it—not when we always ‘give in’ to what it wants. The same is true in disciplining our children. Because we love them so much, we demand what is best for them, which is often not what they, in their immaturity want for themselves.  In C.S. Lewis’ The Problem of Pain, he puts it this way:

“It is for people whom we care nothing about that we demand happiness on any terms; with our friends, our lovers, our children, we are exacting and would rather see them suffer much than be happy in contemptible and estranging circumstances. God has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense………The Church is the Lord’s bride whom He so loves that in her no spot or blemish is endurable.”

Though the analogy breaks down when taken to extremes, God compares our relationship to Him to that between a parent/child. And Lewis, in his book, compares our being brought into God’s family to a very ‘badly brought up boy’ being introduced into a decent family. When they see traits in this child that are detestable, Lewis says ‘they not only hate it, but they ought to hate it. They cannot love him for what he is, they can only try to turn him into what he is not’.

…we are at present, creatures whose character must be, in some respects, a horror to God, and as it is, when we really see it, a horror to ourselves.”

God our Father, despite our unloveliness, has given us everything we need and has clothed us with the righteousness of Christ, but we, like Adam, want to ‘clothe’ ourselves. Lent is a time to strip down; to take off the filthy clothes of our own righteousness and to let our Father give us from His hand what He knows we need.

It’s like the picture of Stevie teaching Emme to fish. We learn from our Father by spending time with Him. There is much He wants to teach us and much that needs to be changed in us. But more than all that, He wants to give us Himself—-knowing that we were created for relationship with Him. And  nothing will satisfy the deepest longings of our soul save Our Father’s perfect love.   Lent is time to retreat with Our Father. To confess to Him that we have wandered so far from home and that we have become far too ‘comfortable’ in the pleasures of this life. To confess to Him how utterly dependent we have become on everything, but Him. And He will gladly ‘receive’ us back with open arms:  not because we demonstrate to Him our growing discipline and holiness,  but for the sake of Christ and Him alone.

A few stray thoughts:

1. Lent is a time for penitence and reflection and the practicing of christian discipline. It does not make God ‘more pleased with me’ and is not a ‘good work’. God is pleased with Christ alone and good works are those things which I do in service to my neighbor.
2. If I purpose to ‘give something up’ for Lent and then two weeks later find that I fail and can’t keep my lenten discipline, God is not disappointed in me. God is pleased with Christ and thus pleased with me when I have faith in Christ. I am a sinner who fails and sins constantly. And my failing is not a surprise to God.
3. If I keep my lenten discipline to the ‘tee’, I must be careful not to try and convince myself that I’m ‘more spiritual’ or holy than before. I have been freely clothed with the righteousness of Christ and am only learning to ‘fit’ into clothes that were given me by God.
4. We must also be careful not to view our discipline as ‘suffering’ and remember that Christ suffered on the cross for our redemption and we do not get to choose our own suffering (by giving up, say diet pepsi for a month).
5. It is a good exercise to occasionally deprive our bodies, to not give in to every fleshly desire. We are so often slaves to our own bodies and teaching ourselves discipline in any area is often met with resistance.

I leave you with another quote from Pastor Will Weedon who kept me from seeing Lent as a season where ‘I work hard to become more holy’;

The holiness into which you seek to grow has already been given to you, whole and entire! It’s yours in Jesus Christ, the gift of His righteousness  fully bequeathed you in Baptism, and constantly renewed in you by absolution and the Holy Eucharist. Through these wonderful gifts, we get to GROW  in the apprehension of that which is already our own, learning to live more and more from it, more and more from union with Christ and less and less  from the old self. So it is not that holiness grows in you; it is that you grow in holiness! Getting used to whom God has made you to be in His Son.   There’s real effort here, of course, but the effort is working at resting in Him who works all things through us. I don’t overcome sin by my willpower (ha!),  but by the strength of Him who has united Himself to me.

I have been unbelievably blessed since I started blogging and using various other modes of social networking.  I’ve made wonderful friends.  I’ve been  inspired in countless ways.  And I owe you a debt of gratitude for how you’ve encouraged me and shown God’s love and grace to me.    But the internet can quickly suck you into a black hole where you’re left wondering where the last 2 hours went.  During Lent, I’ll be going ‘unplugged’ (no blogging, twitter or facebook) for parts of the season to rest, refocus, reenergize.  I’ve said it before, the internet makes a great servant but a poor master.  I’ll try to finish answering your questions from this post in the next few days and then will sign off for a while after Wednesday.   I will  be praying for you.  I wish you a blessed Lent.

You might find these  podcast links helpful.  The Gospel-Driven Church, Dr. Micheal Horton , Ash Wednesday and the Season of Lent, The Sermon on the Mount with Carl Fickensher,  The Parable of the Lost Son with Bill Cwirla all brought to you via my favorite radio program Issues,Etc

Kyrie Elieson

]]> http://www.lifeingraceblog.com/2011/03/lent-for-the-newcomer-learning-from-my-father.html/feed 67 http://www.lifeingraceblog.com/2011/02/bend-it-broken.html http://www.lifeingraceblog.com/2011/02/bend-it-broken.html#comments Mon, 14 Feb 2011 15:23:11 +0000 edie http://www.lifeingraceblog.com/?p=1094

In all my desolate,

Above every dream

And throughout the cold parched  night

You stay.

Wild and fierce, flaming light.

Winding every piece of this mess  into hope.

Crushing these doubts with water and wine.

I see You like this only in suffering.

Pain has clear eyes.

I am learning that there is only one kind of gift that comes from Your hand.

You twist everything into love.

You burn down walls I build and  card-houses too.

Your streams of mercy rush in

Tear it clean down, wash it all new.

Because You know how to love your children.

And your best gifts come strange.

Teach the stone heart  to say thank you for this winter-grace.

And bend it broken again.

And again.

***************

Video of Mat Kearney singing ‘All I Have’, taken by yours truly in Nashville

my favorite line, dedicated to my valentine
“Tired of the same song everyone’s singing
I’d rather be lost with you instead.”

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from Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

We are perplexed to see misfortune falling upon decent, inoffensive, worthy people—–on capable, hard-working mothers of families or diligent, thrifty, little trades people, on those who have worked so hard, and so honestly, for their modest stock of happiness and now seem to be entering on the enjoyment of it with the fullest right.  How can I say with sufficient tenderness what here needs to be said?  It does not matter that I know I must become, in the eyes of every hostile reader, as if  I were personally responsible for all the sufferings I try to explain……But it matters enormously if I alienate anyone from the truth.

Let me implore the reader to try to believe, if only for a moment, that God, who made these deserving people, may really be right when He thinks that their modest prosperity and the happiness of their children are not enough to make them blessed:  that all this must fall from them in the end, and that if they have not learned to know Him they will be wretched.  And therefore He troubles them, warning them in advance of an insufficiency that one day they will have to discover.  The life to themselves and their families stands between them and the recognition of their need;  He makes that life less sweet to them.   I call this a Divine Humility because it is a poor thing to strike our colors to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up “our own” when it is no longer worth keeping.  If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms:  but He is not proud,  He stoops to conquer,  He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is “nothing better”  now to be had.