Noah, me and 40

Reaching this age used to be embarrassing.  At least that's how adults seemed to celebrate turning forty.  I'd like to think I witnessed in them some kind of maturing into humility.  It felt more like fatalism.  Be sure, I've got the wrinkles and grays and "such" but those changes chisel away at pride in a different way.  They don't usually leave one grateful or in wonder.

One way I've celebrated reaching forty is recognizing it's come at this other juncture in my life - during a sabbatical and transition in work.  I get to enjoy all the changes, all together.  No sarcasm.  In this time of rest, I get to remember how truly abundant my life has been, and becoming forty becomes an honor.  I'm also left deeply grateful when I remember I cannot give this life nor take it away. . . .

Which brings me to Noah.  And wonder.  God decides he'll do away with an overwhelming majority of his own creation.  And Noah?  He gets to ride out the catastrophe in a boat.  Why? He walked with God. Go back about 500 years, when Noah is given his name, which means he will comfort.  Sure enough, he was found to be a comfort: to the grieving heart of God.

Can we imagine it? The One who can and did release all the waters of existence to destroy mankind: could he have found rest in one man? The waters recede, life starts new.  God finds pleasure in Noah once more and decides to make a covenant with all people, for all time, declaring:

“As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”

 

It's as though God himself found a new reverence for life.

This poem could be about life, about the ark and flood, or any time, any man.  It's also about me and my forty.

forty days 

forty nights
forty years 

forty gifts

one today
for every day
forever rain pouring down

pouring out pouring in 

from the depths bursting forth opened gates 

flooding up to the heights lifted high

on we walk with our God

favor found above the ground

i have always liked roller coasters

we held a third day of prayer at our community college last month.  like the previous spring and fall, we set up a tent in the middle of campus and invited anyone who desired to join in the 12 hours of nonstop prayer.  to see our communities turned upside down by the love of Jesus, we know it'll start with our praying.  so we gather people to seek the Father's heart.

this journey in prayer has been surprising, like our fourth child coming.  at first it seemed the sound rhythm of bed rest had continued after his arrival, especially since my recovery took longer than expected.  however, the demands of a newborn (in an already full house) drained away any sense of rest.  most days i felt over-stretched, incapable.  i had hoped for a steady, straightforward climb toward wholeness and "normalcy" but a roller coaster ride describes it better.  he's four months old now and it's still up, down, and all around.

like me and prayer.

weeks back, God showed me how i forget prayer in the times when desperation nags and haunts and leeches.  somehow i forget why i pray and to Whom i call.  when i reach helpless or hopeless, i have quit prayer because there's a crooked belief that if i'm not "enough" my petitions won't be received.  i think i should be stronger.  i'm ashamed when i get ugly.  i compare myself to other moms or the mom i was before.  i believe i must first brush myself off, correct my attitude or remember the bright side, and i miss my Father's heart.  i believe my composure will grant me acceptance in his presence and he just might answer, even rescue.  

then i read Spurgeon's words, depicting a different posture and making me remember:

"oftentimes a poor broken-hearted one bends his knee, but can only utter his wailing in the language of sighs and tears; yet that groan has made all the harps of heaven thrill with music; that tear has been caught by God and treasured... think not that your prayer, however weak or trembling, will be unregarded."

that day, the day i read how "God not only hears prayer but also loves to hear it," i began again to practice this kind.  a fever came on me, for no known reason.  for several hours in the evening i was home alone with all four kids and physically feeble.  emotionally so frail, i simply said, "i cannot do it." and he carried me through.  climbing into bed later on, i dreaded facing the overnight.  i only asked, "heal me," and before dawn my fever broke.

yet i have forgotten again.  i've struggled a lot before and through the holidays and i am back to dismissing this simple prayer.  another lesson i have failed to learn.  i recall sitting in our first prayer tent a year ago.  distracted and disappointed, my hopes for a stretch of quiet had been dashed.  not as i planned, i had my toddler with me and she needed my attention and had her own plans.  i remember tasting the irony.  even then, God was showing me my ignorance, how i limit prayer and limit him and me.  he had started me on a new journey of rest.  it's one that i'm still on, a ride that hasn't halted, where he's teaching me to just and always be with him and to know how much he longs for me.

i don't know whether yours is like a roller coaster, but this is one ride i pray won't stop.  even if it's up, down, or all around.  i want to let him gather me toward his heart and my prayers are where it starts.  would you ask with me, that i'd begin again and not forget so quickly?

in the meantime

i'm sure i'm not the first person to think of it. how befitting is the phrase, in the meantime. i laugh.
i also tremble.

in the meantime? it's what we do when we are waiting. hoping. looking forward to something else. something more. sometimes it is something longed for, for such a long time. or other times, it is an answer we may not want to come, an event that we fear. this stretch, this span, these moments for us become mean when we feel them as cruel, miserly, unmerited. mean time.

we are a stubborn, persistent, demanding humanity who forgets this world is not ours. not forever. we forget Whom it is Who made time and lives wholly (holy) outside of time. we are a people who forget the promise:

"I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." (Jeremiah 29:11)

in actuality, it is only our capacity to wait that is mean - poor, limited, low - while Scripture teaches unapologetically that all of this life is a waiting. Read all of Romans 8!  Here's just a portion.

"All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good." 

will we allow the waiting to make us mean?
and by that i mean humble enough to receive our future.

let my heart sing, my soul dance!

while i listened to Third Circle yesterday, one song hit me right where i am.  i must have left the song on repeat eight times. and though the lyrics ring out promise and the music is jubilant and light, i wept. and wept. every time it played, i wept.

there is plenty to mourn in this earthen existence, and a few of my past and present sorrows surfaced while the song washed through me. but it was the Answer to those sadnesses that made me cry so profusely. consider the verse: 

Lord, I cried out, I cried out to You

You answered me in Your mercy

Your anger was fleeting

And now I will dance in your favor all my life

my heart has been nurtured in the fold of God's people for more than three decades, yet it took a long time before i began to understand this standing that i have, this favor.  it's an unending favor before God only because of the sacrificial love of Jesus.  only Jesus.  when we are faced with pain or grief and our crying out becomes our (sometimes last) attempt at relief, he answers.  in mercy, he answers.  the circumstances may not change, he may not remove the pain, but his presence becomes unmistakable. 

the longer i live, choosing to believe in God's delight over me, the more times i find i'm able to dance through troubles and to sing despite my affliction.  hear me.  i do not pretend all is hunky-dory, put on a mask of happiness and stuff my truest feelings away in a cold corner of my soul.  no, no, please no. i am learning to cry out.  i am learning to accept that my brokenness, my failures, my hurts and my questions are no less important to my Father as my devotion, my triumphs and my personal growth.

this is how God turns our weeping into dancing - not by literally sweeping away the "bad" and promising nothing of sin or destruction will ever infect our lives again.  instead, he declares with promises never-ending, that all that he is is ours.  all of him.  we are chosen sons and daughters, from whom he will withhold no good thing! what better position for experiencing joy than in sad times?  what better way to find life but in the face of death? what better chance does light have to shine than in the darkest of all places? what other way can healing be possible than when there is a wound?

the flood of tears from my eyes was at once both a declaration of hurt, frustration and regret and a song of utter gratitude.  what joy it is to be free to release all of it to the skies!  i live every moment, in the fair and in the unfavorable, under a shower of Mercy and Love.

Let my heart sing for you

And not remain silent

Let my heart sing for you

Turn my weeping into a dance


So dance, dance my soul

There's no reason for you to weep

So dance, dance my soul, 

Make music to your King

------------------

"Dance, Dance" by Kate Hurley, Michelle Patterson.  Registered with CCLI.

day five

 

piety's strain

trying

to sift out

disappointments

You waited till i found

letdown wasn't put out

and put down striving
till i found You waiting

this day was one peppered with frustration over my bed rest orders, despite the fact that i had the privilege of being so "confined" in a beach town at a lovely b&b. with the frustration came guilt, then the foolishness of trying to right myself for the (hidden) fear that God was shaking his head at me and my whining. he is not so, mortal with ploys. the truth about him looks more like this (Isaiah 30:18):

     the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
          he rises to show you compassion.
     for the LORD is a God of justice.
          blessed are all who wait for him!

* * *

poem written by c. l. atkinson

design in me

the little ones fed and occupied, two loads of laundry down, dishes cleaned, dinner planned. i was mopping floors while pondering this recent fixation on remaking the rooms in my house. we've lived here nearly two years but the renovations and decorating and other processes have been, well, a process. most of my walls are still bare, poor walls. however, i've been given new license to jump in. i've gotten in over my head and i'm LOVING it! even though it's still ninety-nine percent in my head...

i am a "closet" designer. there's vivid recollection of dreaming up outfits for myself - in my head - as a preteen. and i can spend hours and days exploring color or texture with absolutely no goal in mind. did anyone else have one of those groovy drafting kits for home interiors as a kid? i pulled mine out many years later, wishing i had an adult version. in fact, my favorite part of playing in the woods as a child was designing imaginary houses from the tree limbs and roots, shrubs and fallen sticks. as deeply satisfying as creating lovely spaces for my family with a near-imaginary pocketbook!

these kinds of pleasures energize me. ask kenn. i am a different person after looking through photos of beautiful things. and that's what i asked God about while cleaning the floors - vibrantly fueled by the images of what my living room could look like one day. the question pains the artist and it hardly matters that countless have asked and answered it before. we all dance around the subject in our own way. isn't this just frivolous?

so while mopping, God reminded me. he's [a] Designer. i hadn't really forgotten, i just hadn't heard it from him lately. he said something like, "you know that word about the lilies, right? i clothe them on purpose. and what about every other masterpiece of mine? i know you don't think all that beauty is a waste. night and day you find me there, in created things. what would this planet, this life be without the splendor i've shown? or even without the treasures man has fashioned?"

when will my little heart learn? God has made me like himself. and creating is somehow my way of sharing my Beautiful with others. that is never a trivial, frivolous thing.