A time for Hope

Hope.

I woke up this morning thinking it.

If It was a color? Pink. (Yes, this is how my brain works.)

It looks like light filling the corners of this house where I grew up with warmth.

Or the eyes of a friend, giving me courage to keep speaking the messy words.

It sounds like the song on my radio, God’s fingers reaching places the words can’t.

Like a friend, speaking belief into my dark places, sharing the fellowship of tears and prayer.

It feels like hugs.

Like magical healing kisses from mom or grandma.

Like tummy flips and swing sets.

Like Easter morning, and the sound of this most beautiful and bewildering question:

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?” (Luke 24:5)

Hope is alive.

“Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans 7:24, 25)

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,” (1 Peter 1:3)

When you forget how to sing

On Palm Sunday I sing with a friend ancient words strong and sure.

Ashira el Adonai
I will sing to the Lord

And we did.

We sang in the language of His delivered people.
For we too are the delivered.

We sang of how He leads His redeemed.
Because we are the redeemed.

Yes, on Sunday I sang with the multitude of my triumphant Redeemer.
And on Monday fear freezes praise on my lips, and failure melts my heart.

I cry and pray and wait, for the One who comes in the name of the Lord to save me, even from this place.

Have mercy on me Lord! I do believe, help my unbelief!

Today I capture reminders of new life from an early spring.
As I step in close to borrow branches heavy with blooms, they offer more than I expect to find.

Consider the lilies of the field and learn thoroughly how they grow; they
Neither toil nor spin. Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his magnificence
(excellence, dignity, and grace) was not arrayed like one of these.
But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is
Alive and green and tomorrow is tossed into the furnace, will
He not much more surely clothe you, O you of little faith? (Matthew 6:28-30 AMP)

Didn’t Jesus say if His image bearers could not (or would not) sing His praise, the rocks and stones would not be able to keep quiet? I cut another branch.

The earth is satisfied with the fruit of His works. (Psalm 104:13 NASB)

So why not these flowers? Today I look and listen for their testimony, together with the cardinal, the budding trees, the sky.

I fill jars with abundance and realize, creation sings His glory unafraid. Without restraint.

Day after day it speaks out;
night after night it reveals his greatness.
There is no actual speech or word,
nor is its voice literally heard.
Yet its voice echoes throughout the earth;
its words carry to the distant horizon.
(Psalm 19:2-4 NET)

For the days you forget how to sing, ask.
Ask the One who opened the eyes of the blind to open your eyes first, and then your ears.
To the song that already fills the cosmos.

And one called out to another and said,
“Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts,
The whole earth is full of His glory. (Isaiah 6:3 NASB)

Lord fill my heart with the boldness of the rocks and flowers. Fill these trembling lips with Your praise. I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief, and in Your mercy let me join this song we were created to sing.

Elementary Watson

Some days living the moments looks like hanging on.

Hanging onto the Word. Asking for mercy, again. And again.

And some days, I need all the reminders I can get that He is here. And He’s not going anywhere.

Last week one of those reminders came in an unexpected place. From Sherlock Holmes. I know, right?

For those who have seen the movie, you’ll have pictures to go with these words. For those who haven’t, hopefully the words will give you some idea… and I’ll try not to spoil the whole plot for you if you still want to go see it.

Like any good story, this one has a good guy (Holmes of course) and a bad guy. In typical bad guy fashion, the brilliant professor Moriarty is looking for a way to strike his equally brilliant adversary where it hurts. So he sends his minions after his best friend, Watson, who is happily and obliviously on his way to his honeymoon. But soon it becomes apparent that he and his new bride are in serious danger.

At the height of the chaos, much to their dismay, their eccentric detective friend arrives on the scene, and the chaos only seems to escalate from there. As they dodge bullets and explosions, clinging to the edge of a train moving at full speed, an angry Watson yells at Holmes, (basically) “why did you come here and drag us into this?”

And while they hang on for their life Holmes finally and firmly offers his explanation, “They’re not here for me they’re here for you!” As the truth begins to dawn on his friend he adds, “fortunately, so am I.”

Those words, have stayed with me all week. Lately it seems I can feel the enemy breathing down my neck. This enemy knows he can’t beat the hero of the story. He already tried and lost. So what’s the next best thing? Go after the one He loves.

And some days, we don’t even see it coming.

We listen to the deadly whispers, “maybe we really are just too much for God.”

Or maybe the poison sounds like, “did God really say… it is finished? You think grace is really enough, for you? You’re never going to figure this out, you might as well just give up.”

And we keep swallowing, all of us wanting to be like God, not realizing that freedom comes from admitting that we’re not.

And so, our enemy, “the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” 1 Peter 5:8.

Our enemy is ruthless, and he’s here for us… ready to devour us.

“Be self-controlled and alert… resist him…” 1Peter 5:8,9.

To Watson’s credit, he was prepared for the unexpected. He had his weapon. But he also had something else. The good guy.

“They’re not here for me they’re here for you! Fortunately, so am I.”

Am I the only one whose heart pumps a little faster when the hero makes statements like that?

Because you know… this changes everything. This makes all the difference.

Overwhelmed by Crazy Beauty

I LOVE taking pictures.

Of nephews with faces smeared with goodness.

Of love. Wrinkled. Familiar. Faithful.

Of life. Together. New.

Of surprising beauty. Here. Now.

But by far, some of my favorite moments to capture with eye, lens, and heart… are weddings.

In spite of my predictable panics the day before, the fear that comes pounding… the “who do I think I am’s” and it is their wedding day and what if I mess it all up?

In spite of my last-minute scouring of the internet for inspiration from “real” photographers.

In spite of the decision-making that comes with the job but doesn’t seem to come naturally to me.

In spite of limbs and hands that start to cramp by the end of the day.

I still love it.

I love waking up in the morning with empty cards and open eyes, asking God to fill them both with glimpses of His glory. His beauty.

I love ending the day scrolling through pictures, occasionally squealing with delight, and almost feeling as if I’m looking at someone else’s work.

Because I am.

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do,” Ephesians 2:10.

And my job is just to capture. Because He has already created.

Looking at these pictures, my heart aches at glimpses of such crazy beauty.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Why are we so captivated by the way of a groom with his bride? By the way she can’t stop smiling, glowing?

Could it be that these moments in our lives that make us feel so alive, that make our hearts ache for more…

Could it be they’re shadows, glimpses of a greater reality?

I dare you to believe it, because it’s true.

“I will rejoice greatly in the LORD, My soul will exult in my God; For He has clothed me with garments of salvation, He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness, As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.” Isaiah 61:10.

And if these, His shadows, are bright enough to set our hearts on fire, how much brighter must the light of His face be?

If you like the shadows, go to the source… and prepare to be amazed.

“For God, who said, ‘Light shall shine out of darkness,’ is the One who has shone in our hearts to give the Light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ,” 2 Corinthians 4:6.

It is Good

“It is good to give thanks to the LORD… to declare your lovingkindness in the morning and your faithfulness by night,” Psalm 92:1-2.

Daylight blurs in a flurry of activity. I am pulled and I push, and when I still I think of all that’s left undone.

When I relentlessly push on to the next thing, how much do I miss of what He’s already done? The ways He’s carried me this day?

And when I think of all there is to do, I keep wondering how I can really justify taking time for this. To stop the spin long enough to pound out a few words on a keyboard?

In the morning I eat living bread, what I know I will starve without.

I ask Him to command His love to me all day long. And He does.

But do I stop long enough to say a simple thank you at the end of the day?

Do I think I can live without this deep, sustaining knowledge that He is faithful?

Lord, make your faithful love the theme of my last conscious thoughts and my first waking moments… that I might recognize Your signature in every moment in between.

Grateful

For every-morning-new mercy.

For grace upon grace, beautiful drops coming gentle, steady, hopeful, soothing parched ground and hearts.

For skies transformed in front of me, rolling gray turning into golden glory and all the colors of His faithfulness.

For grace pricking the heart again, and eyes leaking disbelief and joy.

 

 

Because before He hovered over waters,

Before He turned chaos into order,

He made a plan to enter my chaos.

Planned to cover up glory with corrupted skin,

So He could fill this mess of flesh with all His glory.

Decided to crazy-love all of me, the crazy-ugly.

Lord give grace! Keep awake.

Let this awe never grow numb.

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),” Ephesians 2:4-5

 

Living Parables

We sit under the stars, our voices mingling with the crickets song.

We linger here long into the night, and I tell her how time seems to stand still on nights like this, and our hearts feel it. This ache to be free of time.

She smiles and remembers that someone once said we are surprised by time because we were not made for it.

And in this timeless space, I share stories of what’s been pressing hard on my heart in my pieces of time. She does not scold or lecture, but listens.

And when she opens her mouth, there are tears in my eyes. She does not speak to me, but to another on my behalf. “God, you’ve promised to give us wisdom. Show us what to do. We desire to follow you.”

While I speak of hard hearts and murmur about what to do, she takes the real action. Immediately. Without hesitation.

Now my heart burns as tears sting, and I struggle with words of repentance, confessing my functional unbelief. Always complaining, never praying. Always forgetting what is most needed to truly change the world.

A few days later I read how Jesus taught his friends about prayer, “Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart,” Luke 18:1. 

I smile and think of my friend. A living parable.

And what kind of grace is this that He should choose to teach us with such gentleness, such compassion? “Let me tell you a story. Let me send you a living story.”

And did He not send us Himself in the same way? Does not the Beginning and the End cry out to us, “Let me be your story. Find your life in me.”

Lord let it be so. Teach us. Help us. Have mercy on us. Make us living parables, our life telling the story of Your ability in our inability, Your perfection in our failure, and Your beauty in our flaws. By your grace and for your glory alone.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth,” John 1:1, 14.