Stumbling Words to Express

I grasp for words to describe the feelings.

I wander in my mind and wonder at how to express.

Knowing that with every word comes misunderstanding,  and yet...

I want to speak and show forth.

 

So intensely sad and disappointed and yet so calmed.

Perplexed and confused and yet keenly aware of being known and seen. 

Anger and frustration at my fingertips, yet an offering of belly-laughter alongside.

Will I wake up from this nightmare?  Or tonight know the peace of dreamless sleep?

 

My soul still hasn't caught up with my body.

Are we really still here, suffering with this reality?

Knowing that every day holds the potential for better or bad.

This world falling apart at the seams, tearing apart into fragments.

 

I grasp for words to communicate the Presence.

The depths of peace and hope and the undergirding Truth.

The Word that whispers sweet breath that I can almost smell and taste. 

I want to speak of the doubt and the drought and the faith and the filling. 

 

I need to speak forth, to be on display.

Me, us... him,   we... we are jars of cracking clay.

Glory poured in and itching to pour out. 

This glorious procession... me a member of the great band of witness... 

 

we are....

Weary and wonderful.

Beautiful and broken.

Downcast and lifted up.

Confused and cared for.... 

I grasp for words to express.

Just As He Said

His Word is such a gift to me!  Like daily meals, I take it in and expect it will nourish and feed.  

Some days the meal is just that---simple bread.  ...with thanksgiving, I read/eat, swallow and pray, and move about my day as it feeds me, with me hardly aware of it's inward working.  

Then, other days, it just tastes so so good.  His Word touches my mind and heart in a way that is 'bang' or 'wow'... so similar to that tasty bite of a really good burrito or a ripe strawberry.  

Then there are extra special days, when His Word jumps off the page and pierces me with precision and light.  …like those "wow" meals that stick with you...  A meal you might think about the next day, or even a meal you might recommend to others, will definitely cook again, and talk about at a dinner party or share with a friend.  

Today these words jumped off the page and sweetened my tongue:  "...they found things just as He said they would be" (Luke 22:13)

Just as He said.  

I had just finished journaling the phrase "the work of God is to believe [Jesus]" (John 6:29) and was struck again with the idea that we all, EVERY believer has the same job.  We all have the very same work in common.  Every day we need to believe Jesus.  That is our job.  That and "love Him with all our hearts, minds, souls and strength".  These are the main work points on our job description.  

…doctor, lawyer, brick layer, waitress, professor, cop, politician, artist, and teacher...  we ALL have one clear job:  love God and believe Jesus.  

The disciples believed Jesus when He told them that the exact place to celebrate the Passover meal would be given to them (Read Luke 22:7-13) and they found it 'just as He said it would be".    We can believe His words, follow His direction and He will come through. 

Following this lovely, delicious moment of His word I began thinking of the things He has told me... told us.  I began prayerfully wondering if I was believing Jesus today.....

I am going away now and am preparing a place for you and will come again...  (John 14:13)

If you abide in me, you will bear much fruit.  (John 15:8)

Peace, I give you.  My peace I give to you. (John 14:27)

I will be with you always, even until the end. (Matthew 28:20)

I will make my home within you.  (John 14:23)

You will have pain in this world (John 16:33)

Jesus has promised these things and so many more.  And, the full revelation of Scripture offers an overflowing bread-basket of abundant promises to the followers of God.   We have a feast of truth in which we can trust, believe and find our hope.  

He will come back.  He leaves me peace.  I will have pain in this world. He abides in me and will be with me to the end.   He has overcome the world and will make all things new and right.  I will be hated by the world.  I can not be separated from His love.  He began a good work in me and will bring it to completion.  He knows all things and works all things together for my good and His glory.  In the midst of pain, fire, storm, or flood, He is with me and I will not drown or burn.  

Today, I remember and I take You at Your Word, Lord Jesus.  

I will find things just as You said it would be.  

Just as You said.  

Lament Response

It was deeply, dark-clouded and a fiercely windy day.  While walking, no... stomping..., my way up the green, muddy hill, I asked the Lord, "Are you really with me?"  

This day was just another day in a string of hard days... my husband lay ill in bed with Covid.  He still suffered and we were waiting, praying, hoping for sickness to leave.  Days on days... weeks getting lost into months.  This illness and it's horrible touch lived with us every moment of every day.  

I had ventured out into the rough weather to get some fresh air and stomp out my prayers, my grief, my frustration, and my pain.  Muddied, wet, tired and emotional, I had the passing thought:   I am with you always... 

With you always, Stephanie...

With irritation and despairing tone, face upturned to the dark clouds, I shot back...  "Are you really with me? Really!?  Right here, now?  Are you really with me?"  

Lament is not my forte.  It is not something I normally do... nor have felt comfortable doing most of my Christian life.  My personality and my upbringing have not encouraged emotional outbursts, to be sure.  But, it seemed lately, that without lament...  with out this ever-increasing honesty with my Jesus...  I would run dry.   It seemed necessary and right and very good.  In these days, lament had become my doorway, my window, ...my deep well which accessed living water.   I was thirsty and God was teaching me to tell Him how very thirsty I was.  Oh!  How very thirsty I am!   

So, stomping up the hill, my face lifted, my honest response to the whispered Scripture, "I am with you always"... was tear filled retort.  Really, Lord?!  Are you really with me?  

Like a flash, I had His response.  Instantaneously, I heard one clear word quietly whispered to my heart...  Within.  

I am within you, Stephanie.  

Like lightening, the flash of truth filled me with the ever living water and it was another piece of manna.  Food for my days, for the weeks to come... for the days that would turn into months. 

Whatever would come, I felt my courage rise.  My faith was filled with His Presence and I knew...  

I am always within you, Stephanie.   

So much closer than with... even closer than walking alongside...  My Jesus is within me.    His Spirit lives and abides IN me.  Closer than my very breath.  

Paul tells us in Ephesians that Jesus makes "his home within us".  Jesus, Himself, tells us His Spirit abides with us and within us... (John 14)   I believe we spend too much time looking up and out for Him... seeking Him outside of ourselves... seeking Him in the skies (where He also dwells, just to be clear!)  We need to remember that He is within.  

Jesus said in John 16:5-16:  "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. In a little while the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you….If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him."

His home is within us.  And, all fullness of life and joy and peace lives in Him.  If we are lacking, He is not.  He will give to those who lack.  Do you need wisdom?  Ask Him... He is full of it and He lives in you.  Fullness of wisdom abides in you... abide in Him!  Do you need patience?  or love?  Or do you need joy today?  Ask Him, He is full of it... and He lives in you.  

I walked home that day... that dark, pounding day with a full heart.  I was full of Him and His truth.  He responded to my lament.  His loved welled up and filled my heart and mind with more of Himself.  

The difficult days continued onward... days turned into weeks.  Weeks fell away to months...  In fact, as I write this, we still live with the reality of this horrible illness.  We've stopped counting time passed.  But still ...and still...  that piece of manna ---within----feeds me.  

Just to be clear, I don't hear from His Spirit these type of "words" often--- this is why I call it manna.  Or, better yet, I should call it a feast.  He feeds me manna from the Bible and I collect what I can for each day.  His Scripture is my daily bread.  These special moments--- these flash moments ---are like a feast day.  

Even when I don't feel it... I can remember the taste of the feast.  I know it to be true.  

He is within me always, even until the end of the age.  

My Ballast

After a whirlwind, messy, upsetting dream filled with too many faces, too many needs, so many things to do and all while needing a shower and in my pyjamas for all to see... dreams are a funny things...  I woke up in a rough state of mind.  

Heart pounding, heavy laden and a hot mess...  I made my way down to my 'quiet time' space in the early morning hours.  As usual, I started my time by opening and playing "Pray as You Go".  Barely listening, the cob webs of faces and mouths that needed feeding began to clear away from my mind...  The dream waves began to slowly subside.  But, still, I began to think about the worries----the 'shoulds' and 'musts' and 'oughts'--- that had been pulling at me the past days.  Obviously, this dream was a good picture of the tugging of needs and my inability and struggle to get it all done.  

As my mind was tossed about by the litany of concern, I could feel my irritation and frustration mounting.  'Just leave me alone' was the feeling (is there one word for this 'feeling')!  I could feel my heart lament and the complaining beginning to rise.  Lord, I can't make everyone happy!  Father, I can't hold it all or feed them all or make them all right.  Maybe like my dear compatriot Elijah, I was basically saying... "I've had enough, Lord.  I am all alone here and these expectations just wanna kill me!" (big-time paraphrase from 1 Kings 19)  

Psalms of complaint and lament were welling up in my heart and waves were beginning to crash again 

...and then... in the background, the lovely voice on the Pray as You Go (oh! yeah... it had been playing the whole time while I ignored it) says, "If there is something that is a concern or a weight, maybe you want to ask the Holy Spirit to give you a different perspective".

A different perspective.  

Stephanie, can you ask Me for My perspective?  

Yes, Lord, I want Your perspective...  Please show me what is true and how to see this differently.  

Instantly, as I prayed, I could feel a slight shift.  One bite of manna and I was fed.  He answered and I was seeing just a bit differently.  It was like light shaft opened over my heart and brain and there was more balance and calm.  I was able to see the 'shoulds' that had been annoying me in a totally different light.  I began to see differently.   It was today's miracle!  

It was like my boat was thrown off kilter and the Holy Spirit was the ballast that brought me stability and centered me.   When I asked, He balanced me.  What a gift.  (Ballast is material that is used to provide stability to a boat.  Insufficiently ballasted boats tend to tip or heel excessively in high winds.)

On the heels of seeing a bit more clearly, I had two thoughts... 

   

First, how does anyone live life without the gift of God's Spirit bringing truth to their minds and hearts?  What a gift, Lord! 

And, then the second thought, ...oh! oh, man! I live my life all the time without the gift of God's Spirit bringing truth!  How often do I bounce around my day in a hot mess and heavy laden?  Lord, I need to do this even more!

Lord, help me to ask You for help more often.  Father, help me to abide in Your love, Your Presence and the gift of Your truth.  Spirit of God, thank you that you long to 'right me' and be my ballast.  I want to ask You more.  Teach me to pray!  

He offers us Himself as our ballast.  He offers Himself as my moment-by-moment answer to any whirlwind or hot mess I find myself in---awake or asleep.