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