The one who says I look like her sister.
The one that is small and happy and knows what it's like to love and lose.
Rosie.
It fits, her name it fits her.
And I sit in the blue chair across from brown hair piled on top of a heart shape face.
And I spill, my heart it spills through my mouth and through her yellow hoody her heart listens and it understands.
And her heart leaks out too.
The desires they come out in hushed words as if we speak them too loudly the small hope we have of their fulfillment will dissipate.
And I ask to my self and to her
"How do we do it? How do we do this desiring, this soul deep longing and the heart felt delighting?"
And I've wondered it for a while but I've pushed it aside.
But sitting curled up across from her it comes out and the question sits between us.
And then it's obvious.
We don't do both because of the doubting.
The doubting it shows again.
The darkness that claims bits of my soul that press me closer to Jesus or press between us.
The wave of doubt I am learning to kiss because it presses me hard against the Rock of ages.
And our voices they agree, blue eyes and I, If we desire something good. Something our heart longs for a long time for and he says it's good and I see it's good and it never comes, then what?
And we dip heads to floor and we ask. We ask about the desiring and the doubting.
Our minds are so much like the Israelites "have you brought us to the desert to die!?" And Peter, brave Peter delighting to defend Jesus to hack off the ear of the servant....
And maybe that's why our doubts are there. Because they are misplaced desires.
Food that was the desire of mammas in the desert. Mammas with starving babies. Not a bad desire, the desire for bread was good, but the doubt that's where it went wrong. The doubt that God would deliver brought demanding words from doubting hearts.
And Peter, to defend Jesus, confident of Jesus victory and ability to conquered how it was shaken when he hung on a tree. But that hanging it was the conquering. The hanging on the tree it is where Peter could hang his delight. But instead Peter doubted the Jesus he had delighted in and then he denied that he had ever delighted to sit with the Christ.
And me where do I hang my hope of delight? Does it hang with the God man filling desires by dying?
And Rosie the one behind the counter that toasts bagels and brews hot cups of strong coffee and was strong as she watched her sister fight for life and her desire for the cancer to die and her sister to live.
I asked her one time if she loves Jesus and she smiled and only nodded.
And I sit and I watch her and I think of the delight that fills her eyes and the hole in her heart and the Jesus that fills her.
And I think of the one who fills me. He filled ocean and fulfilled prophecies and has made me full with a feast in front of my enemies.
And I think of the unexpected ways he filled people with delight and fulfilled his Papa's desire for us to be included.
I think of how he finished in himself the need for sacrifice and how he fills the temple, me I am the temple aren't I? And he fills me and I am the priest, belonging in his presence because with his holes he has made me whole and not only presentable but present with Him, now.
And how presently my mighty warrior king is filling the night, filling the darkness with light dancing over me, delighting over me. And I am full of giddy, girly, childish delight!
And he the one who filled oceans and named each and every heavenly light now renames me "my delight is in her" and has put my new name on his scarred hand. What is there to desire that he has not given?!
And my heart it swells as I sit across from her, our hearts lie open and vulnerable over coffee and bibles and bagels.
And I begin to delight when I remembered that he delighted to adopt me, that he stayed on the despised tree to fill himself with the wrath that I should be crushed under.
And I delight knowing the bread of life is mine and the conquering warrior will win and I beg with confidence like the blind begged "Son of David have mercy on me a demanding, ungrateful sinner." Open my eyes to see what really is delightful so my desires they match your desires and my demands your demands.
So when I watch a woman with out a sister or hear about the man struggling to put food on his table or ask and wait and ask and wait for what seems like the best thing. Help me see so I don't doubt when my desires for what I perceive as "good" are denied or deferred.
Help me see that hope is abundant still, and not fear to desire hope. Help me to hear of your unfailing love in the mornings so my days desire that love and not another above you. Help me to remember how you delighted to crush my brother so I could be adopted and how my brother desired for me to be his inheritance. Oh the wonder is too much and I wonder how could I desire anything outside of these things.
But I do. So help me Son of David have mercy on me and my misguided desires and my misinformed doubts.
You are the most delightful and you the most desirable and my soul it longs to know it very well. Teach me when my desires birth doubt. Teach me to delight in you.
