expectations are suffocating.
how do I get breath knocked back in to my lungs that are tired of trying to breathe? because this is both a void and quicksand that I am trapped in, so I need a lifeline and oxygen, a gulp of air and a grip, I need someone who believes I will make it through this - alive - someone who won't let me go under. a rough piece of wood is offered to me, there's an inscription nailed to one end I can't read, there's only one crossbeam, so it doesn't look like much of a ladder, is this all the help that is coming for me? I don't even know how to grab ahold of this thing. I see a man standing at the other end of this wood, his wrists are scarred, and there's a knowing in his gaze: he's been to hell and back, too, and yet still finds life worth the living. I want to know his secret, want to know just how he remains standing for me, what his reason is for being present with me when no one else even noticed I was drowning, how did he notice the choked up plea screaming out from the heart of me, will he stay or will he leave, I almost think I hear him say a few words, it sounds like he says "come to me," or is it "I've come for you, to set you free"? it couldn't be, it couldn't be either one, not spoken directly me, but he's still standing, still has his gaze set on me, there's a word on his lips, it's my name, it's my name, he really is here for me, he calls my name and he's reaching towards me with so much calm authority, I reach and then pull back, how did he find me? "I've been here for you all along" then why am I drowning? "I don't force entry" why do I see you now? "Sometimes in pain I am seen more clearly. You asked for breath and the breath I died to offer you is everything" your scars "Declare it is finished. Declare death is done reigning even here." how, please, I still don't understand "The breath I have to give comes with faith, come to me, I will give you rest" rest. I've never known a day without striving "You can find rest in me" it doesn't make sense but I believe him, I'll risk it, what do I have to lose, so I touch his hand, and I'm still being squeezed, but he's closer now, right next to me, his heartbeat is a steady rhythm, a low drumbeat I can feel just as I feel this unexplainable warmth and peace washing over every single dry and dehydrated part of me, just this peace, peace, peace, peace, it takes time, but eventually I realize I am breathing, this man walked into the void, the pit, to be with me and now I'm breathing freely and I think I believe he loves me Crowds. There are always these crowds around you, masses of messy people pressing in, jostling and yelling and straining - how can I be anything but lost among them?
I am drained dry, empty and ostracized. My body has been bleeding for a full dozen years and no one, not one person, has helped me. I've paid all the fees and sought all man's wisdom and it has left me hunched over here, still bleeding, still unclean and unable to come into the temple courts to worship as I long to. But there's something about you, man in the middle of the clamoring crowds and messy masses, there's something about you that gives me hope. So here and now I will push through, I will go low, I'll crawl my way to you if it means I can touch but the hem of your cloak - I don't know what I expected, but the powerful love that just moved through me was a stronger and kinder embrace than I have ever felt in all of my days. Your voice cuts through my awe, "Who touched me?" I did, my Savior, I did, my King. You stop and meet me in the middle of this swirling crowd and hear my whole story. You ignore your disciples anxious looks, they think you are needed more elsewhere and urgently, but you stop all the way to see and hear me. And then you say to me, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” I will, my Lord, I will. I will go in peace and in awe of your love for me. "Lighten up."
Accept your light, lift my head up to see the sky above, release my fierce grip on my false belief that I am the one who grows things. Labor though I must, I have to also rest and trust that it's true that all the growing is up to you - Maker of all things. You brush the dust off my shoulders. You pour your cool water on my hands, head, and heart, and use your shirt to clean the grime off. You take your time getting the mud out of the cracks in my hands and the grooves in my mind and you pause at my heart: "Beloved, your heart is already clean." You touch my mind again, revealing the places I've been deceived, "You are loved. You don't need to create enemies with your assumptions; they are distortions. You are free. You carry my freedom. Your confidence in me breaks chains. You are already free. You are already clean." You hold my gaze. Firmly. Gently. You hold my gaze. You smile. You laugh and dump the water over my head so I'm drenched, then pull me close into a hug. "You are not far from me. I never withdraw or hide my face from you. I always keep you this close to my heart. You're always this close. Your heart touching mine. Abide. Find your rest in me." I've fallen apart before
And what I've found Is that your love Keeps me around Your love surrounds me Patiently Your love reminds me Your blood speaks a better word Than all my pain Your love remains Faithful And you've always loved this way You opened my heart to the beauty
of pure worship to the beauty of just looking at You and singing You opened my heart to the beauty of humility to the beauty of posturing my self in awe of you You opened my heart to beauty to the worth of quiet strength to the saturation that comes from waiting to the substance of walking in faith You opened my heart You opened my eyes You revealed Yourself to me You saw through all my performance You transfigured it into realness By the light of Your glory in me I had the chance to be at my dad's church last Sunday for the service. What I witnessed again that I've witnessed so so many times before was the ways my dad lives and loves like Jesus.
A few noteworthy examples:
There's a lot more I could say about my dad and how he looks like Jesus, moves with the Spirit, lives out the Father heart of God. All I listed above isn't new for him, it's deeply ingrained in how he loves. And it's a joy to be his daughter. “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”
Ephesians 6:12 ESV May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Two years ago, in May 2019, it felt like I finally started to breathe and see light again after several months of drowning. A combination of things had dragged me to a point of near hopelessness. Stress was a big one, self-imposed, circumstantial, and heightened by the lies of the enemy that everything was urgent and I was failing to keep up. So then hopped in imposter syndrome. Real rest, sabbath, was not a part of my routine. I let myself get so busy doing things that I neglected being present in life-giving community. Looking back at journals, there was also a day that February where I felt I heard the Lord say it was time for my words to be released - and then things got harder. I don't want to spend too much time on what it was like, lest I romanticize the darkness, so in summary I had days where I was incapacitated by the feeling of being overwhelmed and just cried and couldn't even work. Other days my emotions were a pendulum swing: high high high and then a crash of despair. Other days I just felt empty. So if you're in one of those spots today and you're reading this: I am sorry. It's really scary to feel swallowed up and I'm really proud of you for remaining, for standing firm, even if that looks and feels like crumbling. There is room for you. You are wanted. You are valued. You are loved. I'm writing this today to encourage you that the lyric from the musical Les Miserables, "even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise" is true, and there is hope for you. Everyone's mental health and healing journey is unique, and also "the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy" (Revelation 19:10) so while your path into hope may look different than mine, it is the same Spirit and the same King and the same Father who I believe brings healing to us all in His time and ways so I will now testify of how He rescued me. The most pivotal thing was the grace of having Holy Spirit dwelling in me. In the lowest moments when I wanted to let go, Holy Spirit didn't let go of me. He wouldn't let me forget the times I had seen God's glory, felt His love personally, caught glimpses of the beauty of His kingdom. Quietly, steadily, Holy Spirit kept burning in me, alight in the middle of my shadows. The next was community: family, friends, coworkers; I had people who saw me in my mess and chose to to sit with me, feed me, listen, hold me, wipe my tears, help me learn grounding, went with me to the doctor. People who saw the best in me when I only felt the worst. People, living and looking like Jesus, who were patient, kind, kept no record of wrongs, always hoped, always trusted, always persevered in loving me (like 1 Corinthians 13). In and through community I also took the steps to take medication for a season to help restore balance to the areas of my body that were not functioning properly. And over time, things began to get brighter again. In the last two years I have hit days and weeks and hours again in which it all felt dark and empty and void. Every time so far for me, when I have asked Him about those times, Jesus has shown me Himself present with me. When I was crying on the floor alone, He was on the floor sitting with me. When I felt rejected, He so gently reminded me that on the cross He bore the pain of rejection fully, so He understood. And currently, as I am trying to learn what it really means to have hope, substantial hope, hope that means something, He reminds me that "Christ in me is the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27), so I will proclaim Him above everything. Mental health issues and imbalances and pain are real. It takes bravery to remain and keep living, because we have a real enemy who wants only to destroy and bring chaos. Even so, we can be of good hope. For we as "dear children, are from God, and have overcome [the enemy] because the one who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). Jesus, the Son of God, took the weight of all the sin and darkness for us on the cross, fully and completely, so that we could walk in the light. He said, "It is finished." and it is. We have been told since His resurrection and ascension and the coming of Holy Spirit to dwell in us, that God is constantly praying for us. Praying that we would know Him. Praying that we would live fully present with Him. Praying that our lives in unity with His would bring God glory. By grace through faith I believe that the cross is enough for me and that it is enough for you, too. Thank you for taking the time to read this. My hope is that through this kind of transparency, the Holy Spirit would speak to you, wherever you are at, and you would hear the ways He speaks the truth to you in love. There's no shame in real love. There is grief and mourning in their proper space, but there is no despair. Jesus is our blessed hope. He sees you. He loves you. He wants you to know Him, because to know Him is to be in relationship with a love like no other love we can know. A love that genuinely changes things and mends broken hearts with true peace and rest and presence. I'd be honored to pray for you specifically about anything. I'd be honored to help direct you to places to get inner healing and therapy/counseling. In His kindness and wisdom, God has the most holistic view of healing: He wants every part of you free, so He partners with people to make that accessible to you, with patience, in love. Grace and peace to you, friends, brothers, sisters, from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. With love, Faith “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.” Ephesians 6:10-20 ESV “O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether. You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it. Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me. If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,” even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you. For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.” Psalm 139:1-18 ESV “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.” 1 John 4:7-21 ESV You said not to worry
About what I'll wear You said not to worry You'll always take care of me You'll always take care of me You said not to worry About what I'll drink You said not to worry Living water runs deep in you Living water runs deep in you You said not to worry About what I'll eat You said not to worry You are the bread I need You are the bread I need Bread of Life Kindly offending my pride Tearing down self-sufficiency Bloody wine Flowing right through my veins I'm being transfused by your grace Clothed with Christ Fear falls fully away This new life Divinely erasing all shame Provider You come through every day May your glory Be the center of all my praise Turn my heart To face your light and your gaze Slow down to notice Me
I am not the blur you perceive Me to be I am not a swirl of activity, I am Love You can stop and take ahold of Me I want to be your anchor I want to be your friend I ask:
"Jesus, how do you not break in our lack of response to you?" He responds: "I did, Faith. I do. I let myself be broken open on the cross for you. And then I said, 'Father, forgive them.' And then I said, 'It is finished.' And it is." |
AuthorI write to process. I write to explore. I write with the hope of sharing truth greater than my own. Archives
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