You are not alone today if you are part of the body...

I entered the room late.  I sat down and was aware that I had forgotten to brush my teeth and that there was dirt under my nails.  I was also aware that my toddler wasn't there to chase.  She wasn't there as a beautiful distraction from the focus- or in a more accurate view- as a sweet reminder of the focus of why we come together every mid-week to talk about scripture, to strain for a glimpse of creator-God through the mess of living.  I felt like I was missing an arm or something and that the uniform of motherhood had been removed for a instant so that all could only see me- me alone as I someday will be if the growing pains keep coming and the visages of my children continue to change like all do.

As we begin to share I start to think that maybe I am not alone.  I try to be an island.  Islands are beautiful, you know.  At least the vacation variety.  The sand is white and the water is blue and crystal clear and you can see to the bottom.  The weather is perfect and you get to lay on the beach and nobody bothers you when you drink your margarita.  You even get to read books and work on your tan without getting sand in your teeth and the sunscreen doesn't somehow get into your eyes.  You might even gingerly stick your toes in the water or wade and you will not have to have any crowds staring at your backside even though it is bikini worthy.

But I am not an island and my waters are rusty colored from red clay mud.  There is no sand in sight, only grass and sticks and stones.  And I am definitely not the vacation variety.  My backside, frankly, needs some stair work and my skin is pale.  And I cannot even remember to brush my teeth and I know that any open container at the beach tends to inevitably get sand in it anyway. I cannot drink a margarita, because I am nursing my daughter and reading a book is a luxury, not unlike my counterparts, that I rarely have. The weather is stormy and beautiful and unpredictable and I am more like a limb on a tree than an island.

We share some more.  The limbs on the tree.  We are all part of the beautifully made, twisted strength, all connected to the trunk and lifting our leaves and our fruit, one beautiful creation.  A body that cannot be dismembered to live.  Piles of dead branches and rich layers of rotting leaves around us speak to this truth.  We cannot see past the mess of our lives to the richness of Christ if we cannot see past ourselves...I cannot see without becoming part of we.  And really it is so much better.

I didn't get to be alone in my own little thoughts with a margarita and a book or feel the tanning power of the sun.   But I tasted the wine of suffering and questions and felt the bitter warmth slide down my throat.  I  ate the bread and felt full even though I hadn't had dinner.  And I started to see past the veneers and see people for who they were- not whether they were beachworthy or not.  And it didn't matter in that moment whether the girl next to me had pearly whites and a perfect manicure.  She was my sister.  Or that the man next to me had attended seminary.  He was my brother.  And none of us were alone.

"There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave or free, neither is their male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."  Galations 3:28, NIV

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

Constancy and pain. . . why the two go together

Its been ten long months of writing less than I'd like and having so much to say. . .

Sometimes you feel like what you have to say just doesn't matter or cannot make a difference.  Like everyone will just assume you are spewing platitudes from a place of not really knowing pain or suffering.

I am not that old to many and ancient to youthful eyes.  But I've lived long enough to figure a few things. . .we all have our personal pain, our skeletons in the closet, demons that torment us and crosses to bear.  Also, most of us are just trying to bungle through the mess of life and look like we've got it together.

The counsel of someone I trust:  "Be brutally honest with a few, cordial with the rest."  I see the wisdom in that.  But most of us aren't even being brutally honest with a few.  Most of us are just keeping our pain to ourselves, taking care to protect it from prying eyes or loving ones that might fill with concern for us.

 He isn't making it go away.  He promised me this tribulation.  He is whispering "Be of good cheer. . ."  But I haven't quite got there yet, Lord.  And what about my Father who is in pain every day or my beautiful friend who is aching?  And I cannot do anything to stop it.  I haven't accepted that cheer is a trait for us.  Then I read the definition and it includes one little word, confidence.  Confidence has to be placed in something or someone or no hope exists.  And I place my hope in him because even though the pain isn't leaving. . . He never is.  There is no cure for our plight.  There is always personal pain, and for it there is only constancy.  There is only one who is continually constant.  And I cling to his hand.

Skeletons. . .just this year I went to another and confessed.  Confessed my sins and asked for forgiveness.  Grace shone its light on me.  The wronged person smiled, and simply shook off the past, brushed aside my guilt and lightened my heart.  And I drove away thanking God for mercy, grace and forgiveness.

 But for some there will never be forgiving words no matter how they strive.  And their skeletons lay in the closet, cluttering up space.  Taking up room where other things could be. . .things for life.  A rain coat that they could put on their backs and an umbrella to take the tears rolling down from black sky.  And they could go to a quiet place and wait for the storm to pass and they might even enjoy the sound of the thunder and feel excitment when the treetops burned from the lightning striking and finally feel . . . ALIVE, not dry and old and forgotten like the bones they hide.  And they wouldn't be so focused on the closet anymore, because everyone knows that isn't where treasures are kept or shouldn't be at least.

But what about Demons. . . aah. . .some laugh.  But I envy them.  The ones who never fought depression so black it is like a hole.  The ones who scorn weakness.  The ones who never watched someone they love fade away to a housing for dread.  Dread that doesn't make sense to anyone else that is seemingly sane. 

The ones who swear all of life is black and white and if you cannot handle it then you aren't even on the right page. That if you aren't feeling sane then maybe you aren't living right. That being mentally ill or sick or tired is a sign that you are deficient.

That you just need to read your Bible more or pray harder or longer.  Like simply doing the "right" things will make all wrongs right.  Like reading the Bible and praying are rituals and not really for growing and abiding in love, but just activities for the self righteous and those untouched by suffering, yet.

But we aren't heard for our much speaking.  We aren't promised healing from all wounds. . . And sometimes belief is all that's left.

Today is a good day.  A day when I realize that my life doesn't hinge on my sanity, my past, the future, the faithfulness of others or the digits on my bank statement.  A day when I realize that my faith isn't a magic salve.  But it is a power that holds on to me, even when I'm too weak to hold back.  And for that I will trade everything. . .

Yeah, I'd like to know I will never suffer in the grip of anxiety again or that I will never cry over the shell of someone I have loved again.  But that isn't promised.  Just constancy.  Just abiding.  Knowing that He is there and let's face it - that others who are in the flesh are here.  A physical touch that makes all the difference.  Because His hands and feet are only felt through us.

Lord,  help me to be constant for someone else today.  There are so many times you have whispered sweet peace through thinly veiled insanity, when no one else knew how low I was.  When all seemed right to the world but all was very wrong and I was too scared to get help. . . You were there.  Help me to have eyes to see those around me who hurt and to reach out.  To abide, to "continue without fading or being lost".  To comfort those with the comfort I have received from you.

Still holding your hand,   Tara

Not just memories

The ground lies exposed after the first cutting of hay, stubble replacing the swaying stalks of field grass.  Smells of dried grass and rain impregnate the air.  I inhale and I remember.   Each smell evokes the memories encased in this flesh and bone.  I remember sweat soaked t-shirts, bare arms speckled with the chaff of the field.  I remember hot vinyl seats of an old red pickup truck as it lurched through the field.  I remember the smell of Grandpa's old milk jug filled with well water.  I remember cool breezes on the top of the load as I rested on itchy bales. 

Summer wind whips up my hair and cools the damp on my neck.  I smell more than memories in the layers whirling in the air of this field.  Each memory contains something more base, the Bedrock of all that is good and gentle and kind.

Strange how God reveals himself . . .  He is always there but we do not always have the ears to listen or the eyes to see.  He can take us back decades and remind us that all we loved was because of His touch.  All the good we remember is Him.  He is in the form of everything lovely and pure and rightly the object of filial affection.

Within the wind is the call of the primitive, untainted by history or man.  It is the call to remember who I am and for Whom I was created.  When I recall childhood memories I recall the very essence of God.  

For every smell, every sight, every sound, every touch is inculcated with the Maker of all my senses.  He is in all and through all and over all.  He is within every step and in every thought and every recollection.

"God, that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;  Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us:  For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring."  Acts 17:24-28, KJV (emphasis mine)

Sinkside security

Hands in sudsy water. . .

I wonder how many times I have done this, not the dishes, but the guilt. I wonder how many times my heart has been submerged in it until it becomes wrinkled up like a prune. I am remembering childish fascination over my wrinkly toes and fingers after a bath. I was thrilled as only a child could be with being wrinkled up like a raisin.

I wonder when I started obsessing over my every move. When was my first awareness of the terror of the Living God? I struggle to recall but I cannot. The memories aren't specific- long ago they fused into my personality like bolts that fused the hardback pews to the country church floor. Churches where I became aware of the power of God, His Holiness, His Love, His grace.

Somehow I narrowed in on the Holy part. His contrast. His snow white beard and blazing eyes...his voice of many waters, His wrath for the disobedient. I became a child of Israel running from the Mount, pleading with Moses to speak for me instead. Anything was better than face to face. I was foolish enough to think, arrogant enough to believe that I could follow the letter, the grafted commands. I would follow but only if I could stay safely hidden from the ever watchful gaze, the eyes that roamed to and fro. I knew the law meant death. But death seemed safer than the Great Awakening. Who wants to awaken to who they really are in the view of a Holy God?

The dishes are getting washed, but my mind is elsewhere. It roams to Him. My deliverer. The God who reaches for me, who longs to look me in the face. If I would just open up the door so heavy he would come in and eat dinner with me. How many times have I been cleaning frantically within and left him? Too many to count. I can see his eyes. Will they hold sadnesses? Does he think " O ye of little faith.". I know not. His thoughts are not my thoughts. God in the flesh is in the heavens now. But he dwells with me too. This I cannot deny. I hear a sweet whisper...

"if any man be in Christ he is a new creature..."

Years of sermons pile up in my head, stacks of sermon notes, slipping and sliding into each other, jumbled. I pick a page and scan it. . . "Salvation Is Forever Camp vs. Yes, You Can Backslide Camp". I smile. This one actually brings back fond memories of debates with Baptist schoolmates. That was before I realized I didn't know anything. We took the arguments to extremes, of course.

"If you cursed and then died that night do you still think you would go to heaven?"

"Why would someone who was really a Christian curse?"

I can imagine our less sheltered friends rolling their eyes. Our arguments were so simple - black and white like the print on this page. We've had more time now to test our security in Christ. I hope my friends are feeling more secure than I am in this moment.

"Old things are passed away. . ."

I ignore it at first but the whisper is getting louder. I want to let go, but it is hard. Somehow I still try to be in control. Pride is hard to wash away - a little like stubborn grease. I cannot believe that after all this time I'd rather stay in the dirty dish water with the letter of the law. At least dirt is something I understand. Dust
to dust. It is so familiar but I need to get out of the water. My heart is wrinkling.

"What if there is something between us, Lord? Is there anything I need to fix to be right with you?"

Hesitations. . . Even if there is something He can deal with it. I Know I am not single. But I must hide inHim., not from Him. Stupidly, I am still in the water. But the water is dirty. It needs changed. Voice calling me out - the voice of rushing water carries within it the living water.

"Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. . ."

I dig around for the sink plug.

"If any man be in Christ he is a NEW creature. . ."

The water starts to to funnel down the drain. I grab the spray nozzle and rinse all the evidence of the filth away.

"Behold, ALL things become new."

"Let go my child. My grace is sufficient."

I take hold of Him.

Today, I refuse to let theology make me insecure. As my Baptist friends would tell me, my security has nothing to do with me. I just open the door. Even that was made possible by Him.




"But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all surpassing power is from God and not from us.". 2 Corinthians 4:7, NIV

No more convictions...

Birds singing outside my window... the Sunday after Easter, 36 Easters and I'm still not sure I understand. Do I really understand the resurrection? Tradition takes hold of me daily. My husband says I'm ruled by my convictions. He makes it sound so good- like someone I'd like to know. But I know the fear, the anger, the doubts that rule over me. I know I met Jesus. In the basement of the Second Baptist Church one morning. Mrs. Anderson talked quietly about the cross, about Jesus dying for me. And I felt his presence. I felt remorse, even at the age of seven or eight. I knew he died for me. I had never felt so free and clean. I floated above the sidewalk on the way back to class. 28 or 29 years isn't really a long time. But it seems that way. And all I can think about is what have I done? Have I done anything to show my allegiance? There comes a time when convictions aren't enough. Convictions don't make you love someone. Convictions don't bind up the wounds of others. Convictions walk around the traveler lying in the road. Convictions don't serve with joy. They stand their ground. They are the heralds, the moral compass of the group. But they leave you a little cold. A little misunderstood. And further from the little basement in the second Baptist Church. And they make you more grounded to the sidewalk on the way back to class. Fast forward and all I can think about is the past. The way I felt back then - the way I want to feel now. Alive! Resurrected! Clean! I know I don't have to go back. I just have to reach out. Reach out past the dishes. Reach past the piles of laundry. Then there's my son.. A beautiful gift. I have to reach past my pride. Find the freshness of a new parent. Strip away the convictions, the traditions, the expectations of others in my traditional bubble. Spare the rod and spoil the child they say, but what about "Thy Rod and Thy staff they comfort me?". What about "goodness and mercy"? What about Grace? I ask you,Lord,to pick me up out of my puddle of self-righteousness. And instead of placing my feet on solid ground,I ask you to help me float. Float above my expectations for my son and myself, above the dirty sidewalk of my anger , above the bully inside of me that desires to force my son to do right instead of leading him gently like a shepherd by the still waters. Instead of gently making him to lie down in green pastures filled with the flowers of encouragement, the nourishment of acceptance. Help me to lead him to you, and in the process, find you myself. Again. Amen.