the Comforter

There are very few things in the physical world that relieve stress for me as effectively as fresh air and sunshine.  I have spent an hour lying on the picnic table in my parent's yard.  Water and weather worn the old table is as solid as ever despite its peeling blue paint.

I take deep breaths, inhaling woods and grass and wind swept earth.  The clouds are amazing in symmetrical rows lining powder blue sky.  

My muscles contain memories, anxiety, emotions galore.  The sunshine softens my tight back and shoulders and neck and I seem to exhale raw emotions that I didn't know were there.  The tears come...

I haven't cried for a long time and forgot how good it feels.  I need a good cry.  The tears have been bottled up for what seems like ages.  But it has only been a few years since I've actually felt tears come in more than a few drops here and there.  A few years too long.  I am sure there are some more in there somewhere waiting to release the good, the bad and the ugly.  I wipe them away without a sense of finality but with some relief. 

Sometimes life is hard and I long to hear from God- not in the pages of his word or through the advice of a friend.  Not even in a group of believers when the spirit sweeps across and touches us all.   I want a personal conference.  Face to Face.  

In the past ten years it seems that certain aspects of life have just weighed upon me.  Yet at the same time, I have felt joy greater than I ever have.  I credit that to the entrance of two special people through my life. . .lives that began within me and now have a shape of their own.  I also credit that joy to a deepening of love for my husband.  

But with greater joy comes deeper pains.  Childbirth comes to mind.  24 hours of labor and a naturally painful pushing phase with a joyous end and a joyous little girl.  Six weeks of anxious hovering in the neo-natal ward and a rapidly growing ten year old boy-miracle.  

Marriage comes to mind.  15 years of loving a man and not wanting to take any of it back.  15 years of becoming one.  And to do that you have to feel some pain amidst the joy.  No matter how much you love each other it requires striving- striving against the flesh and sin and the world.  Striving together for unity and love.

Love.  Greater love sometimes - no always- equals deeper wounds.  And the only thing that comes to mind is the cross- and my Jesus who hung on it for me. . .

And this is where I hear the voice of God today.  Not in the way I wished but still and small and whispering through the grape arbor.  "He was wounded for your transgressions and by his stripes you

are healed."  All thirty-three years were hard because he loved deeply and gave everything.  I know he is reminding me not to say "look what I did for you and all you can do is cry for yourself"  I know he is simply loving me.  He is reminding me that he understands.

He shouldered not only the iniquity of one but of all and he took the punishment.  

In comparison I suffer because of the sin of a few- myself, and those closest to me.  And yes it hurts, but the point is. . . He knows what it is to suffer.  He is present with me.  He loves me and understands.  He comforts me.  The Comforter HAS come and he is mine and I am his.  He does not scold me for crying.  He comforts me and holds me in his arms.  I know I am never alone.  

I also know that my pain is to be shared.  Not bottled inside. Shared to feel community and be community.  Shared to help other and yes, to help myself (gasp).

 As he comforts me, I must comfort others. Giving more, loving more, sharing more, submitting to the needs of others more to heal myself.  To heal my comrades in Christ.  Sharing through God and allowing his son to live and love and suffer through me.  Sharing to draw closer to my first love, my Father, and my friend.  Because to love him I must experience all of him, not just the joy but also the pain.

"He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:  and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised and we esteemed him not.  Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows!!!  Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed."  Emphasis mine.

Excerpt from Isaiah 53, KJV