the war on woman and how hand holding is the only way to win

Sliding into the red padded booth across from the girl with the perfect teeth and sandy blonde ponytail. We laughed at how my "2 minutes" isn't actually a measure of time but me saying "I'll be there... And it won't take too long." But you can definitely be sure it will take more than 2 minutes.

We order rice and crispy rolls stuffed with veggies. And chicken with thick brown sauce that we drowned in white sauce. That isn't even really white, but whatever. 

And she jumps right in. No small talk for this one. She pulls out her heart and lays it right next to the water cup condensing a pool of water onto the table. And with that I pull out mine too. 

And she talks about the emotions she wishes she felt. The repentance she motions through without any heart level mourning. Does that mean there's a lack of God? A lack of grace? What do we do when we the seed of Jesse produce fruit of the flesh? When what has been put to death walks out of the coffin? How do repeat offenders keep stretching out our hands for grace? 

Walking to her car we stop at her trunk and pray for deliverance for a girl who believes in God but works to appease him. A girl no stranger to depression and anxiety. Who's heart is heavy under people burdens and family burdens and life burdens. Who's soul has not been sheltered from evil but exposed and abandoned to it. In only 17 short years of life she has seen enough to be convinced that she is not loved. 

And I nodded and said it again. Because my heart could not hear it enough and her heart needed to know. And she laughed when I started because she knew what I was going to tell her.

I told her about the God that pursued us- us the weak one. He pursued us- the dust equivalent ones. He disarmed sin's power over us. Defeated the grave's claim to us. Gave love's forever security to us. I told her about the Piper quote I can only paraphrase- “When God is put at the center of a woman's heart like the sun is the center of our solar system causing all of the planets to orbit in their proper place. So God placed properly causes orbit to occur correctly."

And driving away I kept thinking of how many daughters are weary of stretching out hands and asking -again- for grace. How many daughters are learning to orbit correctly. I kept thinking of the daughter I had met and how it wouldn't stop coming out of my mouth, "She's so tiny" It echoed over and over as I looked at the closed-eyed, sleeping baby sitting in my arms.

Content.

Asleep.

Here.

Hers.

There was so much I wanted to tell her like about the time that her momma and I sat on the porch before either of us could even drive to the other's porch and decided real friendships are the ones where you can sit and not say anything and the silence isn't awkward. And I still think about the wisdom in the thought that a friendship that can meet silence and not shy away that is a moment worth noting, a friendship worth nurturing.

I wanted to tell her that high school best friends are not old enough for babies... that I wasn't sure we would ever be old enough to raise another soul. Introduce another life to how life works. 

I wanted to tell her about the time her wild sleeping momma and I shared a too small bunk in the woods and talked too late and laughed just enough to make our abs hurt.

I wanted to tell her that this was best time to hold a baby. Christmas time.

I wanted to tell her that she has her momma's cheeks and her daddy's nose and that she would be beautiful.

I wanted to tell her about the day her momma was adopted and got a new name and how she let me pick the new middle name. And the only name I could think to label her momma with was Grace- "To favor."

I wanted to tell her that just a few dozen hours ago the God of the whole universe, who has planets to orbit and seasons to change, and store houses of snow to let out, and lighting to give orders to and ocean shores to manager. That God? He had just been knitting together the cardiovascular system that would give her a life time of heart beats. That he was making, planning out a life for her heart beats. 

I wanted to tell her that he had designed an Eco system that has yet to collapse and the milky way we are yet to understand and a universe we can't find the end of. That God? He was hand picking out and putting on individual finger prints for all ten of her hand crafted, teeny fingers.

I wanted to tell her she was fresh from the hands of God, fresh from the heart of God.

Instead it just kept on repeat, in a small voice "She's so tiny.

Maybe it was holding that baby or listening to the girl in the red padded booth or begging God to open eyes to his love for his daughter. Maybe it was sitting in front of the best cup of mint chocolate chia tea listening to a girl who was just a freshman in high school now talk about first dates at a university miles and miles away. Whatever it was this is the question that comes when I pray for the girls coming behind me, the woman walking beside me. How do we raise daughters who don't stop reaching for grace, don't stop short of remembering how the God-Man sat in a womb and stumbled through first steps and learned a trade and walked on water and stretched naked and shamed and utterly abandoned on his own tree so that only grace and mercy and goodness reach for her. every. day. Who then reached past death and claimed back his own life so that he could give her. The one born dead. Breath.

I keep thinking about the story of Moses holding his hands high and how weary he got. How Aaron and Hur came beside him and held his arms, so his hands could stay outstretched. Could stay aiming at heaven. How desperate the situation could have been had Moses tried to stand alone. How the war was only won because of hand holding.

And then it hits me. Stops me. This is the only thing that will win. Hand holding is the only way to raise daughters and build sisterhoods and love other woman. 

Hand holding is the only way to win when we squeeze into jeans post-Christmas. I need a reminder that I am not defined not determined by the number on a scale but by the one who came and numbers every hair on my head- the self-sustaining, self-determined, solar system creating God has counted on my dust-equivalent head.

Can we put this truth under arms- Fear is just a lie. Fear is just the lie that God's goodness ends. The lie that God’s love isn’t with us, isn’t for us. But fear, it doesn't work as long as we have hope. Hope is just the alert expectancy that you, that I, us, we will never be shortchanged. Not when cancer claims days from ones we love. Not when sin lures hearts away from security, from Jesus. No, even when all these things happen the truth still hold us- we will never be able to round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into the lives of his kingdom citizens. 

When post-Jesus-birth-celebrating we try to remember one resolution we were able to keep. When the voices of failure whispers how this year was no different, no good. we need a hand holder to come and whisper how he makes everything beautiful in its time. How he makes everything work for good and the revealing of his bigness. How a man in prison and a barren woman and a prostitute and a wife abandoned to the desert all came to the end of life and said “He is good." 

We need to be reminded that nothing- not years wasted or loud voices or deep debt or stacked odds or death beds or bad marriages or hurt friendships or disillusioned dreams or hopes disjointed- nothing overwhelms like grace can overtake. 

And us? We'll be tempted to bring the victory pre-maturely, self-indulge to play the spirit convict-er, the eye-log remover. 

Us? We're no spirit-fixer, no messiah-stand-in, we're story tellers.

And I'll tell you about the time I was a bull in a china shop wrecking people’s lives and how one life laid down started to fix the broken around me, inside of me.About the time the God-Man laid down his life and picked up my sin. So I can now lay down my self created expectations of other people and pick up their burdens, take them to Jesus and watch together what he does with heavy things. 

And I will learn to see what he does with heavy, hurt hearts only when I have learned to lay mine open before the Heart-Maker. No hiding. No pretending. Laying it open by opening my mouth and telling him what really goes on inside of me. The fears the hesitations the short comings. Trust me, this is something terribly ugly. 

 Here's the truth about ugly. We label ourselves with that word and many like it. My pendulum swings from self conceit to self loathing apathy.  We label our very souls things that we would never dare utter. We think about the labels we would never dare mention. The truth about our identity, the truth about our reflection that looks back- no label cuts deeper than nails pierced right through.  Nothing labels me except that I was a rebel and now I am Christ redeemed. Nothing.

When we're tempted to hide, to pull blood stained hands behind our back. To gloss over the way our tongue cut a soul to pieces or the lie that put a band-aid on cancer. When we're sure no one can ever see that part of us, the messy part, the stained part. We need hand holders to remind us that no shame exposes like grace can expunge. No sin can hide like the Savior can seek and find so no sin sticks because Christ stayed on that tree. 

If we can ever get over this quote please someone put it back under arms “The Gospel of Jesus Christ announces that because Jesus was strong for you, you are free to be weak. Because Jesus won for you, you’re free to lose. Because Jesus was Someone, you’re free to be no one. Because Jesus was extraordinary, you’re free to be ordinary. Because Jesus succeeded for you, you’re free to fail.” These thoughts bring an inner sigh of relief. The daily grind makes me feel my need for Christ.”

Hold hands and raise this as truth to ourselves. There's a lot of winning she can do because her sexuality is powerful, her words are powerful, but that there is nothing more power-filled than a woman laid low on her knees asking for the kingdom to come where she already is. So God does this thing, he tells us to ask for things he wants to do, is doing, will do. Confidently then lay low, ask for lots. Can I come lay low, ask lots with you? 

 And when we doubt because we can't find his hand, can't see the writing on his hand, the working of his hand. Can we hold up each other's hands with this truth. We can always trust the heart of God, because that is never hidden. Because in Christ- the one crucified- everything that is for our good gets a resounding "Yes!"  from God. 

It is not a small thing to understand that you were made a woman on purpose. Intentionally female. And that your hand crafted gender given to you is meant to display the glory of God in the sacrifice of his son by sacrificially giving his life for his bride.

Could these be the things that we tell each other, these the things that we start rehearsing now to tell the ones coming after us, walking beside us?  

Come with me, come and let's see the one who put holes through his own hands and see what sits next to the hole. The name of a daughter, a woman who will win the war when he comes back to claim victory. Come let's hold hands, let's watch our dancing, warrior king win.

for the isolated, the broke, the silent

When did silence become saintly?

When did bravery equal hiding our brokenness?

Who ever convinced some of us that isolation was okay?

Come.

Come to the group of us broken being restored.

Come.

Come because Jesus isn't marrying a bride in pieces, because the body he has is not one characterized by amputation.  

Come.

Come because being honest about your feelings doesn't mean you're telling the truth.

Come.

Come when you forget and we'll remind you that you're apart of us- the rebels redeemed, the prostitutes pursued, the foreigner enjoying kingdom freedom. 

Come.

Come because silence doesn't make you a saint, and hiding brokenness does not make you braver and isolation is never okay.

Come.

radical isn't us out to save the whole world, radical is about us spending our lives like the broken bought by God

There's only one week until I turn 23 and it may not seem that old but to me... well it just does. 

And at night when I go home and lay on the couch and read about a 23 year old half way across the world 

 I can’t believe that it has been over a month now since I patted my sweet friend’s head as I said goodnight to her small frame on my couch. I can’t believe it has been over a month since I sat behind her in the hospital bed holding her body in the only position that was comfortable in those final hours.

And truth be told, in the late night hours alone with the Father on the cold, hard floor of my bathroom, I have beat my fists against the smooth tile and against my strong Father’s chest and I have sobbed it until the words won’t come, “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

We fought so hard.

It’s not an easy thing, you know, to wake up from 100,740 hours of sleep to be greeted by your own 23^rd year of life.

What exactly do you do with a soul, a body, that’s 23 years old?

It is her little boy’s sixth birthday. We had talked for weeks about the party we would have, with a cake, but that was when they still lived here, when his mother still lived. Instead, I drive across the bridge to where he is now being raised by his aunt and a kind neighbor. We bring the cake. We sing Happy Birthday and he is ok and the kids have fun and are happy. And as we drive away and all smile and wave, I cry.

I didn’t want the story to end this way.

Are there things that soul should have seen, should have accomplished, should be accomplishing?

When you look at goose bump covered, cold legs and realize they've walked a third of their projected life and you wonder what exactly they've done.

I wrote the ending in my head and it was the ending where my friend gets better, becomes strong and healthy, and is able to move out with her children. It was the ending where they get to sign their names on the bottom of our table to be remembered as friends who lived here and fellowshipped with us and we would all cry happy tears as we served them their last meal before they headed out to their new life healthy and whole. In the ending I wrote, I didn’t have to look 4 children under the age of ten in the eyes and tell them that their mother died in the night as I bounce their baby sister on my knee to keep her quiet. In my ending I didn’t spend every hour of 5 consecutive days fighting and fighting and fighting for a mother to get well and end up clinging to my best friend as we lower a body into a casket.

But His voice comes strong, steady, clear, “Child, this is not the end.”

And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed and they were seeking to bring him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when He saw their faith He said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”

What do you do when eternity wakes you up and reminds you of your own mortality?

What do you do with a flesh and blood heart that’s been stuffed with the intangible, cosmic eternity?

Could even one-hundred twenty three years of beating contain something so massive?

And I crack an egg into a cast Iron skillet.

An egg.

That’s exciting.

8,395 mornings, and all I'm doing is opening an egg into a pool of butter. 

And I tell Jesus- “More than anything, this year, I want radical.”

I think about the book I can't get through, at this point can't even start, because every time I start there's something so discontented in me I can't sit still for long or go to sleep easily or see my corner of the world properly. 

She's 23 too. And something about that just drives my craving for radical even more. 

Every time I read another blog entry I want to sell it all and go, just go. I want to make it count. Not one more birthday spent reaching for radical.

Instead I pull black/brown mascara across my top lashes.

“What does radical look like here? What does radical look like in a stable job with benefits and a brick house and pounding pavement in hot pink runners for fun and leftovers after ever dinner?”

Here’s the thing about radical though;

Radical is about Anna-eyes. Eyes that see Jesus like the woman who saw him, a boy-sized body, in the temple when others rushed passed- rushed past the Lamb from God to bring sacrifices for God.  

Didn't Nazarene, carpenter Jesus show us radical isn't about where we live, radical is about how we love.

Radical is the fact that relationships are reality and the reality of that is that there are no interruptions in a day there are only people Christ lives in or died for.

Radical isn't about abandoning our North-American-modern-marvel-burdened-life for the good ole' days or the simpler life, for thick Amazons or dry deserts or thatch roofs or dirt floors. Radical is abandoning self.

The only way to eradicate self love is to contemplate the love of Christ and then comes the acting like Christ. Because all radical Christianity is first rooted in relationship Christianity — with Christ and His children.Right where we are.

Radical is done with loving Jesus without obeying Jesus.

Because wasn't the difference between the sheep and goats what they did and didn't do?

And what is the will of the Father for us, the fearless flock, to do? It's love, to love our neighbor and our God. Not just affection love, action love. 

Radical is loving the people who make us bleed- really, truly, fearlessly loving them because we don’t have anything to loose. Because his love is in us and for us, his life blood going through us so not even the most dreaded, painful, deepest wound can bleed us dry.



This is how we do the radical Christianity by looking at the wounding and warring and winning of Christ. 

First, He forgave their sins. First, He secured the eternal. Because really, what is a few more years of walking in comparison to an eternity of worship and sins all forgiven?

Death is not the end. Then end was when He hung on a cross and rose from a tomb and I asked for life, and Life is what He gave. Better, glorious, eternal Life. In those final hours, I held my friend’s head, and I watched her chest heave as her soul first laid eyes on His face and I could nearly feel His breath on mine. And no, I do not know His ways, but I know Him. I know Him. And I do not just lay my friends before Jesus for physical healing but that they might know Him too, that they might be saved. And Katherine, she knows Him.

We fought so hard. And still we won. He won.

Radical here isn't about proving our worthiness but being transparent about or weaknesses.

Because radical isn't always about going across the world, but about us going to our knees. 

Radical isn't about leaving a mark, it’s about living  lives marked by the fact that this isn't all there is; the material, the tangible, our health, our happiness, our goals, our immediate good, our comfort. There's this inheritance that's being kept in heaven by God himself for me. For you.

This week I take a two-month-old baby to the doctor to confirm that he has a terminal skin condition that causes burn-like blisters to cover his entire body and will ultimately lead to his death. There is no treatment. I wrap and dress the wounds because I know how. Because keeping them clean will prevent infection and anemia from blood loss and prolong his life. But I recognize that prolonging his life will ultimately prolong his suffering.

I take a grandfather from our community in for a check-up. Cancer. It is everywhere. They give him a few months, weeks maybe. We try to make him comfortable, and keep him company. We tell stories of a Father who would send a Son, the only sacrifice that could absolve all this sin, the only blood that could wash us snow white. But part of me still wants to fight. Still wants to research, still wants to explore other options, still will not believe that this is it.

Radical is more than doing, it's becoming.Radical is me the rebel, unable, unwilling to keep the law now the righteous. Mary, the righteous.

Radical isn't us out to save the whole world because what flesh and blood human could do that? No, radical isn't about saving anything, radical is about spending our lives like the broken who were bought by God with no fear of his Kingdom defaulting or his economy of grace going into recession.Radical isn't about living in poverty, radical is living in any circumstance like our treasure is in heaven; untouchable, unshakable, unbankruptable.

There is something so sacred about the fight for life. I believe that God wants us to fight. There is a focus that comes from being so close to death, a clarity, a purpose. My heart that still fought for Katherine and believed for her healing even when my mind knew there were no more options cries out that this can’t be it, this cannot be the end, there must be something else.

This is the audacity of hope.

We fight and we wait and a watching world says, “Why hope for life in a world of death?” And we know the answer. My heart is right. This isn’t it, this is not the end, and there is something else. His life is better.

Our fight is not for this life, our fight is for eternity. 

And my skewed, off kilter view of radical is almost always equated with suffering but Oswald Chambers he reminds me 
          
                  "To choose to suffer means there is something wrong, to choose God's will and suffer is a different thing." 

Radical isn't about suffering, radical is about seeking.  So instead of being Marthas busily slaving, serving a feast to the bread of life could we be Marys who seek out God? Could you and I be the ones who don't just settle in suffering for the gospel but are gripped by the power of the gospel. Suffering will come, people will die and abandon and reject. But we don't seek those things, we seek Christ. 

And when we're gripped, when we are bursting with the thought that I have hope in God. When we are gripped tight by the gospel, then could we preach the gospel and use our words and our hands and our heart because they are all necessary.

We wanted to let you know that our friend went to be with her Maker. We wanted to thank you for praying. And we wanted to encourage you that the fight on this side of heaven is not over yet. But we look at the pain and the suffering all around us and strange as it is, our hope only grows. We know Him and so we lift our heads to the Life-Giver and say, “We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and our hope does not disappoint us because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit.”

Here’s to hope, friends, a hope that does not disappoint. Keep fighting for the Gospel, keep fighting for Life, because He has already won.

Radical becomes fearless and tangible when this is its anthem-  “Nothing is wasted because God’s glory is always being worshiped.” 

for the fearful flock

Pulling out the black yoga pants from the bottom of a mound of clothes I wasn't sure needed to be folded or washed... and there might have been clothes going to goodwill in there. One more thing on the mental to do list. 

I woke up ready to tackle a Saturday full of packing and cleaning and phone calls and a friends house warming party and food shopping. 

Pulling back into spot P5, I took bags of groceries inside and decided to clean out the car that still has 4 payments left on it and a transmission that has started to stall and jerk. "Just make it to February" I told it and patted the dash. Dragging the third trash bag of "stuff" into the open living room scattered with half packed boxes and empty cereal bowls. I dumped the mix of papers and clothes and crumpled receipts and empty vitamin bottles and a jean jacket I was sure I had lost. Digging through and sorting the mound into smaller mounds. 

I pulled out the yellow piece of paper with faint blue lines and black ink. 

My heart started to pound. 

"Don't be anxious" 

I opened the next envelope, from back in June from the State about the late car tax.  

"Where did these envelopes go? How was I just now seeing them?!"

I started to panic when I started to pile them. Unexpected expenses that did not fit into the tight budget I had just spent an hour meticulously outlining. 

And I heard it "Mary, you always do this. If you would just pay attention. If you were just organized. You always mess something up don't you. You ARE a mess. You are a mess. You ARE a mess. 

There was something very done inside of me. The gusto and energy I has started the day with was far, far gone. 

"John, I just need John." 

His number wasn't in my newly wiped IPhone, and neither was the address where to send my car payment or the electric company I needed to call and pay or the number for my drgoup girls I needed to call about Saturday's early morning trip to Pretty place. 

I started to suck air harder and it was like trying to suck cold molasses through a straw. Black spots started to show up and my heart raced so hard I could hear it in my ears. I hated this, so much. The panic and anxiety that so easily stole my breath and I seemed to give into easier and easier lately. 

What was it that I had read about anxiety attacks?

I yelled it in my head as loud as I could "STOP!" 

Pacing up and down from the front door to the back sliding glass door. I yelled it over and over 

"STOP" 

"STOP" 

"STOP" 

And what was the next part? What was the next thing that article had said to do? 

Positive self talk.

I started but all I could hear was the resounding "You are a mess, Mary" 

"Jesus, could you please tell me something true?" 

Nothing. Nothing at all.

What was something I knew? Something I had seen just a few hours ago. 

I said it out loud

"Fear NOT little flock (why?) because it is your Papa's delight to give you the kingdom." 

If any group had a reason to be terrified it's the little, bitty lamb. So God looks at us like a baby lamb and then says to us "Fear not" He's not saying "There's nothing to fear!" He's not saying "Fear not, you're pretty tough!" No. Jesus is pretty honest "Life is scary, you're not going to make it. But don't be afraid you've got a really good dad." Fear is conquered by Father.

You're Father's a rich and generous king. Your Father's kingdom has nothing to fear; lack, thieves, decay, insufficiency. You re father has proven faithful to stinky, nasty birds and one-hit-wonder lilies.

The command to "Fear not" isn't about keeping up face, it's not a power play. The command, the invitation "fear not" is really the promise that God has provided for us. He has provided peace when circumstances prove turbulent. He has provided truth when mouths and thoughts speak half truths and "if" and "but". He provides hope- a confident expectation for those of us who have vision with out optimism. 

Breath out. Fear stop. Father's here. 

for the single girl, the upstaged girl, the on stage girl

I stopped mid turn and heard her from 2 months ago "Mary, don't be that girl"

Nothing in me wanted to be that girl; the one who notices wedding season and hurricane season conveniently share the same space on the calendar. The one cynical and impatient of and for marriage. So instead of turning to my plus one and bemoan the fact that I was done with weddings and sweet, well meaning, already-marrieds grabbing my wedding attired shoulder, winking and with a mischievous grin telling me I was next or asking if I had met the mysterious and slow-to-arrive "one". Instead of being that girl who noticed the ones better dressed, better life preped. Instead of turning to acknowledge in that moment that I felt I would always be upstaged. I watched the glowing, raven haired  bride carry the ivory/white dress down the aisle on her slender frame.



Monday morning the blogs started showing up and their cry was very similar

“Don’t be that girl”

“I’m glad I wasn’t raised to be that girl.”

“We’re sorry to that girl”

“We don’t want to raise our daughters to be that girl”



We can apologize to Miley, we can apologize for Miley. We can refuse to become her, imitate her or raise daughters like her. We can recognize the confusion she displayed and the brokenness she couldn’t hide.



But can we be honest?



At some point in our female life, we’ve been that girl. You have. I have.



Confused. Broken. That girl who longs for attention and affirmation and acceptance, the girl who will use religion or men or money or the comfort of food or sleep or future plans of a family or a diploma hanging on the wall or deep cuts into red veins to get it. 



Miley has this heart level belief that something on that stage, that night would make her that girl in a way nothing yet had.



You want to blame it on bad parenting, you want to blame it on a broken childhood, you want to blame it on being a Hollywood child star? 



I’m not really into psychology, but it kind of seems to have had its part, doesn’t it?



But I think there’s more; I think it’s something much more common. Something that lives in the heart of a girl raised in Carolina suburbia. Something that momma’s with beautiful babies and educated woman with impressive jobs and the girl married to her high school sweetheart all have the capacity for, the bent towards, the fight for, against.



Maybe we don’t strip our clothes off on national TV. But can I be honest, can we be honest. Miley used the stage she has to get what she wanted.



How often does my 20 something heart look to the next stage of life and say it will give me what I want. “Once I’m that  girl. The married one, the educated one, the self-disciplined one, the mothering one, the beautiful one, the liked-by-people-one.”



Do you know what echo my heart and the girl Miley have in common? That God is not sufficient for the moment. That there is a stage that will satisfy me. A stage of life, a stage of understanding God, a stage of understanding life, or being disciplined enough, happy enough, educated enough. A stage with the right people and me doing the right moves.  Satisfaction will come from being that girl.



And do you know what else? We both wake up Monday morning to critics retelling, rehashing the disappointment of the stage, the disgrace of the stage. We wake up to people saying it was our parent's fault, our childhood's fault, our fault.



The truth? We all started out just broken cisterns trying to hold water, graves dressed up to look beautiful and inviting, whores in wedding dresses. No stage changes that. No stage walked to receive a diploma. No stage succesfully navigated. No stage of life.  



Believe that with me? Rehearse that there was a little girl lost, a little girl who chose enmity with God. And He looked at and chose matrimony with her. We walked out like the king in the emperor’s new clothing, like Miley Cyrus after she shed her bear costume. We paraded naked, and proud. Look back to the beginning; God himself put clothing made of animal flesh on the shamefully exposed. Why, because one day the Lamb of God would himself come clothed in flesh to re-clothe the hidders, the fallen, and the blamers with the garment of rightness and praise and gladness.



Rehearse this; the rebel, the runner would watch God-Son walk a hill carrying wood for his own bloody sacrifice and say “I want her. The one parented wrong, the one parading proud, the one disfiguring my design of femininity, the one marring humanity with her ridiculous sin show, I want that one.What will I do with her? I'll put her in the whitest wedding dress and vow to love her. I'll teach her how to play the background and glorify me in the foreground. I'll be so satisfying that she'll have more joy in me than that girl who's center staged." 

For the Days You Would Rewrite the Story

Sleep crusted eyes open to darkness and I look to see that it's not even 3:30am yet. I see the icon that says you've written me back.  

What a strange place for such a sweet gift of friendship to be given. Watching the grace filled, articulate, sweet sixteen year old peel away brightly colored paper and pull up precisely placed tissue paper. You offered me the seat to your left and I slid in to watch the array of color pile around the blond I use to tuck in bed at night when I babysat.

I ask about the boy writer gifted with words and you tell me. And you ask about my running and I laugh and tell you the funniness of my ambitions. And your perfectly ringlet curls wrapped in black and strands of grey move with ever head motion as you listen and respond and then hug me goodbye. 

And now, here, I read your words about the story telling you are about to embark on. The monomaniacs task of putting ink to paper and tell of the couple that gave up freedom for Jesus in Iran and long to give more. And you tell me about the story you hope to read on the other side of the border and my heart it stops for a moment. As I read the weariness the warring has brought to your heart. 

And I don't know exactly what to say back. 

I want to grab you flesh to flesh and tell you if I were the story teller it never would have happened this way. I want to tell you that you would celebrate sweet sixteen with both of your daughters instead of only one. I want to tell you that if it had been my plot her beating never would have stopped. I would tell you that she would not have been beaten breathless by words from classmates. 

I would tell you that.

But we are not the story teller and more than I want to tell you I would change the story I want you to know each line, each dot and dash is purposeful.

When you and I sat in those chairs near the edge of the circle and we talked about the king. The king who was dying and asked for more years and God gave him more heart beats more breath. Then his son led Israel in more evil then any other king. Didn't we say that we are not good story tellers at that point? 

And I think about your story and my story and the difference a year can make and the difference words make in creating our story and The Word who came to flesh so our characters could be apart of the kingdom building plot. 

And I tell you these things because my story needs to hear them too. 

That there is no condemnation (why?) because the Spirit of life has set you free. 

The glory that is coming, the place and time and presence that we are longing to be the right now, here, present it doesn't compare to today's suffering. 

And I write that tentative... What weight does a mommas heart hold when she can't hold her baby. Can you imagine a filling bigger than the empty? Can you even imagine that... and can you hold even a partial image of how sweet the days coming will be when you've tasted how bitterly days here can pass. What weight of glory is waiting for the weary that is heavier than what we've carried here? And the despised suffering that brings the desired waiting and longing for the coming glory. And your heart knows this doesn't it?

And your heart it knows this that the God of the whole earth would come and adopt us. How? Through loosing his child to death. Can you soak that in, write it on the parchment of your beating heart. He not only adopts you, renames you 

"my delight is in HER"

"sought out" 

"a city NOT forsaken."

He would do that for us and then would comfort you from a place of knowing, experiential knowing, what it's like to morn the sleeping of a child. 

Would give you hope for your child loss through his own child loss.

Why? So that in all these things we can be more than conquerors; in tribulation, in distress, in persecution, famine, nakedness, danger or sword.

How. How do we more than win? One day when the things that have been conquered come to serve us. When creatures and angels and yes, even death one day serve us, benefit us.

There's this thing I come back to this Isaiah promise "Even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear; I will carry and will save."

So while you work to weave words into a story remember the weaving that is intentionally being done in your story. That in your heart there was this rebellion, the enmity and the author had to put himself in the story to undo our rewriting. And as each person frantically works to leave their mark on the pages of life, desperately trying to not be forgotten. To captivate those reading for centuries to come. We bring brokenness and ruin to the plot.

 I want you to know the author is not only the masterful word arrayer he is also the main character and we are thankful because that means he is the one who will resolve the climax of sin and dying with his own brutal betrail. I want to tell you that because this story is all about him and at no point in the story do we fear being written off or forgotten. See the author, my friend get excited, the author is not only the resolution to our plot twisting he is the redeemer who triumphs. 

But this thing happens and we get to parts of the story and realize there is reading to be done. And I heard about it, about the weeping John did in Revelations because there was no one in heaven or on earth who was found worthy to read. 

And you and I don't we weep sometimes in this story because of the words read and words not read and the unworthiness to put eyes to paper.

But then this thing happened  and the Author steps up and the angel tells John 

"Weep. No. More. because the Lion of the Tribe of Judah has conquered and has been found worth to open the scroll and read from it." 

Worthy to read from it and infinitely sovereign and good in his unfolding of ink to paper in writing it.