When the house breaks down

Simple fix-ups and cover-ups may have sufficed in the past
But when the foundation of the house shakes
and the pillars collapse
there is no choice but to rebuild

And with the rebuilding process
strength is renewed
There is a new shadow of grace to be found
Not all is lost

There will be rooms for conversation again
the sound of praise flowing through the halls
and the fragrant sweetness of trust will fill the house
Not all is lost

What seems barren and broken now
will be full of promise and joy
and the house will truly become a home
Not all is lost

Thanksgiving 2017

Until fairly recently, I hated the word "seasons" because seasons connoted change, and change is something I measured based on circumstances. But my circumstances, both internal and external, started sounding like a broken record. The so-called "hard season" stretched longer and longer, and I broke the anticipated snap with nervous laughter, concluding that  this season is just my constant reality: a reality that is often filled with meltdowns and breakdowns. 

But as I go through my usual coping cycle (akin to that of a 2 year-old) consisting of flailing arms and unrestrained yelling, I come to a screeching halt. Placing His hands on my shoulder, He reminds me that we aren't there anymore--we are, in fact, entering a new season. Circumstances may look the same, but I have changed. With every breakdown and heartache, He has quietly sown seeds of hope, and they are starting to come to fruition in the oddest way. Without me realizing, He has engraved an awareness that I know I could not have conjured on my own. I realize yet again that faith comes from the assurance of hope grounded in the reality of Christ, not my perceived reality. 

And I look around to see that I've outgrown my shoes. My clothes don't fit well anymore. There is a stillness in the air that makes room for gratitude and grace. Gratitude for the people who help me see that knowing and feeling can be mutually exclusive. Grace to see that uttered platitudes can still be filled with the best of intentions. 

On my best days, I hope to hold all of these things and let them grow in me. But like clockwork, I know I will fall into forgetting; things will start to look cloudy and gray. So here's an early thanksgiving to seasons ahead where He'll dust off and love me back together again. 

Remembering the recovery process

It's easy to forget, but when I do remember, it's all still very vivid: the pain, the cumbersome recovery process, and the grace in it all. I still remember not being able to tie my hair, needing the aid of my sister to even put on a jacket, and wincing every time I tried to slide out of bed. Although these things are relatively trivial, it still made me think about how frail the human body can be. It was also a very tangible reminder of the grace I've received and continually need. In our weakness, we can rest in His strength. 

Gloria in Profundis

There has fallen on earth for a token
A god too great for the sky.
He has burst out of all things and broken
The bounds of eternity:
Into time and the terminal land
He has strayed like a thief or a lover,
For the wine of the world brims over,
Its splendour is split on the sand.

Who is proud when the heavens are humble,
Who mounts if the mountains fall,
If the fixed stars topple and tumble
And a deluge of love drowns all-
Who rears up his head for a crown,
Who holds up his will for a warrant,
Who strives with the starry torrent,
When all that is good goes down?

For in dread of such falling and failing
The fallen angels fell
Inverted in insolence, scaling
The hanging mountain of hell:
But unmeasured of plummet and rod
Too deep for their sight to scan,
Outrushing the fall of man
Is the height of the fall of God.

Glory to God in the Lowest
The spout of the stars in spate-
Where thunderbolt thinks to be slowest
And the lightning fears to be late:
As men dive for sunken gem
Pursuing, we hunt and hound it,
The fallen star has found it
In the cavern of Bethlehem.

-"Gloria in Profundis" by G. K. Chesterton 

This is one of the most hauntingly beautiful poems I've read--the perfect advent poem.

The Mystery of the Gospel

11 Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— 12 remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise,having no hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. 14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility 15 by abolishing the law of commandments expressed inordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, 16 and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. 17 And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. 18 For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. 19 So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, 21 in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

-Ephesians 2:11-22

Waiting in the "not yet" - Healing

The "already but not yet."
Facing the "hasn't been."

Instead of simplistically dichotomizing things as black or white, the Lord's allowing me to see the gray. And as things start revealing themselves more in a spectrum of grays, I see that I can hold different truths--one does not threaten the other. I notice this in various aspects of my life, and they all seem to point back to the biggest parallel: the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus.

There is the joy and triumph of the resurrection, but there's also the weighty theology of the cross--the waiting, the mourning, the silence.

Especially in this day and age where tragedy is far too commonplace, we are called to a paradoxical posture of fully mourning without dismissing hope. To hold both the cross and the resurrection just like Jesus did when he wept upon hearing that Lazarus passed, even though he knew full well that Lazarus would rise again.

There is an appropriate time and posture for everything. Holding this, I ask: Lord, what do I do in my questioning about healing?

I see the truth that healing in the name of Jesus is both biblical and possible. He's given us the authority, and we can place our faith in a God who is able and mighty. But I also see the truth that we are in the "not yet"--that the healing doesn't always happen in the "now," and my concept of time is far more limited than God's. In His timeline, healing and redemption of our bodies always comes. Always.

Maybe not now. Maybe not in this lifetime.

But there must be some intrinsic value in the waiting and longing, where true intimacy is often formed and the hidden parts of one's heart are unveiled and made vulnerable. Enough value where there's no need to paint things over with simple platitudes or parrot the phrase: just have faith.

Maybe it's not just "faith" that we need, but simply being present in the waiting. And though waiting and mourning are temporary, He calls us to mourn with the hurting because it is part of the inbreaking of glory. In the waiting, we are becoming who we are--fuller and more defined as He's crafted us.

It will always take the power of Jesus to bridge our already but not yets.
The present parallels that are set before us, both simple and complex.

Lord, help me walk with thee. 
Help me to be fully aware of the now
but never forget my Home. 

Waiting in the "not yet"

"To approach the cross with too much faith, to stand in its shadow with certain confidence of Easter light, is finally to confront no cross at all, only the unrepentant echoes of our religious noise. Amid the creation which groans for redemption, the church must stand as if before Easter: open to its inbreaking, but unassuming of its prerogative. There, in the community of victims and witnesses, the faithful silently wait together for the Kingdom of God." 

-Karl Plank, Mother of the Wire Fence: Inside and Outside the Holocaust