Is Grace Worth It?

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Elizabeth

I am always yearning for perfection. I long for this battle to be done, for the result of a war won to become more evident. I want my internal battle to be finished as well as the battle over this world of ours. I get tired, you see, of fighting. I want to love perfectly, to obey perfectly, to forgive perfectly.

I want our world to be able to quit fighting.

I want all of us to love perfectly, to love in a way that results in bodies getting fed, animals feeling safe, hearts being healed, trees growing tall.

I’m ready for the lion and the lamb to lie down together.

Yet if I had been born into perfection, I would never have experienced the gift that is grace. This grace-gift of being loved at my most unlovable, of being shaped into perfection at my most imperfect. Is it worth it? A hard question.

If I had been perfect from the start, I wouldn’t know battle and I wouldn’t know mercy. I would, perhaps, trust more in myself than in the One who made me. Are heights of joy made richer by the depths carved by sorrow?

Grace is having a commitment to – or at least an acceptance of – being ineffective and foolish. ~ Anne Lamott

I don’t know why this is so. I don’t know why we can only experience grace while being ineffective and foolish. I don’t know why we must experience battle in order to grasp this gift full of beauty. I wish it were not this way.

I do know that God does nothing by accident. I do know that God created with a purpose of love and I do know that someday His will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Is grace worth all of this?

There is much that I don’t know. And there are a few things I do.

Art credit: Illustration from Luther Bible 1769

The Beauty of Gray

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Elizabeth

The older I get, the more gray shades I see in our world. An expansion of colors, a deepening of my perceptions, these nuances that make my life richer are a bit astonishing.

It was much easier when the lenses I wear saw only black and white.

Life gets harder when you see things from other points of view. Straight lines get hijacked and carry you off to the unknown. Solid perspectives grow a little blurry and you begin to take a softer view of those you disagree with.

The more I meet people who were raised differently than I was raised and the more I read authors from other places and times and faith traditions, the more I begin to catch a glimpse of how much my view of God, of the Bible, of the world around me is colored by my own place and time and faith tradition.

Just as with every place and time and faith tradition, there is truth to be found and there is misunderstanding. There are many issues of our faith that I have been rethinking and restudying lately, asking God once again to teach me His way.

Issues like the role of women in the church and in the family, homosexuality, how science and the Bible fit together, what the inerrancy of the Scriptures really means. On some of these issues I am changing. On others I remain. Yet on all of these issues and more, as I read and study I realize something that is even more important than figuring out what is right and what is wrong.

No human here on earth is my enemy. We who claim the name of Christ are all trying to love Jesus and obey God’s words. Rather than those who disagree with me being the enemy, being the one who is deliberately misinterpreting God’s words, being the one who picks and chooses what they will believe, those who see things in a different light are just trying their best to follow Jesus.

Just like I am.

Perhaps they are interpreting Scripture incorrectly, but perhaps I am the one who is wrong.

Grace. It is easy to receive and devilishly difficult to dole out freely. I spend so much time wanting to get it right, sometimes from good motivation and sometimes from pride, that I quit looking at the person with whom I differ. I see black and I see white, and the sharp edges of truth keep me from seeing the gray shades of Jesus in the face of the person before me.

It is easier to look at the black and white of an issue, because to see the gray of a person is to see Jesus. And seeing Jesus is always hard. Looking at the face of Jesus has a way of changing you deep down where it hurts.

There is a reason why Jesus said that the most important thing is to love. Loving God and loving people is more important than getting it all right. He didn’t say it was the easiest thing. Most things with Jesus aren’t.

Loving others has a way of hijacking the straight lines of your life and carrying you off to the unknown. Loving Jesus has a way of blurring your sharp edges and softening the contours of your heart.

It is painful and it is frightening.

And those gray shades are beautiful beyond words.

Thanks to Kirk Sewell for turning the colors of my photographs into various shades of gray. You can see more of his work at http://photographybysewell.webs.com

Are You Going Home for Christmas?

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Elizabeth

Are you going home for Christmas?

It is, perhaps, a time of year when we most think about home. Many of us think back to a particular place, a place where we were given gifts of peace and compassion, grace and love. We think of those people, or perhaps one person in particular, who gave those gifts to us. Those who were not given such gifts had at least, perhaps, the dream of such a home.

We try, in our own ways, to create that sort of a home in our adult lives, yet it is difficult sometimes to believe that such a home can exist in this world, this world that makes it hard to believe in much of anything at times.

In every home, however, no matter how full of beauty and love, there is something missing. Something small but crucial. Perhaps we can’t fully describe what that something is, but we search for it and long for it our entire lives. It is something that gives us a sad and lost feeling, something that makes us feel a bit homeless wherever we happen to be.

This small but crucial missing piece is what the author of Hebrews talks about at the end of that great chapter detailing those who lived by faith. After naming some of the greatest heroes and heroines of our faith, the author writes,

These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

And so home is, after all, only where Christ is. Home is at the manger where even the oxen kneel at midnight. Home is at the foot of the cross and at the door to the empty tomb. Home is the place we will find when we finally know even as we are fully known.

I believe that…the home we long for and belong to is finally where Christ is. I believe that home is Christ’s kingdom, which exists both within us and among us as we wend our prodigal ways through the world in search of it. ~ Frederick Buechner

Are you going home for Christmas?

How to Give Yourself Grace

Posted on November 15, 2013 by Elizabeth

I’ve written about it before in this space, but since I will never act perfectly until the day I see my Lord face to face, I will just have to continue to write about it in hopes that this act of writing will somehow help me. Perhaps it will help someone else as well.

I want so desperately to follow Jesus without having to fight against myself; I want to do the right thing at the right time without a raging internal struggle; I just want it to be easier for me to obey. Will you join me over at Embracing Grace to talk about the grace God gives us even when we can’t give that grace to ourselves? I’d love to meet you over there.
(http://embracinggrace.net/2013/11/how-to-give-yourself-grace/)

A Flickering Flame of Light

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Elizabeth

Much of the time it doesn’t work out this way because this world is so broken and can be so dark, but every once in a while you are allowed to be a part of, or at least catch a glimpse of, something that points toward something more, something bigger, something so sacred that you want to cup it gently in your hands, speak of it only in whispers, breathe soft so as not to disturb it.

There is a boy. A boy who grows up. A boy who falls in love with and marries a girl. A girl who discovers she is pregnant with a son and fast on the heels of that revelation discovers that she is dying. There is a boy. A boy who sinks down. A boy who clings to his son in order to keep his face above the waves that are drowning him. A boy who continues to seek God even though most of the time he is not convinced that such a God exists and all of the time feels an anger toward Him that threatens to burn his heart into ashes.

There is a God. A God who longs to be found, who deals gently and softly with those who are wounded. A God who slowly soothes and cleanses and heals the heart of a boy using, in part, the heart of a girl.

There is a girl. A girl who has lost the mother she loves yet chooses to cling to the God who gifted her such a mother in the first place. A girl who loved a boy yet was willing to give the boy up to God to be sure that his newly healed heart belonged to God alone.

There is a boy and there is a girl and, most of all, there is a God. A God who is using a story and a wedding and a marriage to tell me and to tell you that there is hope and there is truth and above all there is love. A God who wants you to know as you sit in the dark, hiding or weeping or perhaps both at the same time, that there is light in this dark.

Perhaps it seems like just a candle flame in the dark, flickering uncertainly as though a whisper might extinguish it, but I saw this weekend in the beauty of a wedding that this tiny flame will spread and will pierce the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.

What I saw this weekend in the crazy-loud joy, in the riotous music and lights, in the feasting and laughing and wide-open grins made me want to jump up with my arms flung out and shout Silence! Listen to the small voice, to the message so sacred and precious, so unbelievable and so true that it makes you stand rooted to the spot with Thomas and whisper My Lord and my God.

Christ is risen. Hold it gently in all of its holiness. He is risen, and because He is risen, His love never fails. In your darkness, in your brokenness, in your fears and doubts and loneliness and amidst all of the shattered pieces that might never get put back together in this life, He loves you and His love never fails.

Much of the time it doesn’t work this way, but this weekend I was a part of something that points toward something bigger and brighter and truer. It is precious and it is holy, so lean close and hear me proclaim in a whisper this thing that is unbelievable and so true. Christ is risen. He is risen and His love never fails you and even though we never fully emerge from the darkness in this life, one day there will be nothing but crazy-loud joy and riotous music and feasting and laughing and light, such bright and brilliant light that the darkness will flee in terror to the deepest of the depths.

So take heart. Be brave and strong and true, and let Him shape your hearts into hearts that are beautiful, hearts that bear to each other that precious, flickering holy flame of love. Take heart.

Psalm 20

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
May he send you help from the sanctuary
and give you support from Zion!
May he remember all your offerings
and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah

May he grant you your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans!
May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!

Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with the saving might of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.

Art Credits: Christ Healing the Blind Man by Eustache Le Sueur; Graphic of The Golden City

Two Years Ago

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Elizabeth

Two years ago this week, our beautiful Kristina left this earth. As I take some time to remember her, I’ll dust off this essay that I wrote just after her death and share it with you again.

…giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He had to do the unthinkable. He had to bury his wife.

I sat at the feet of this younger brother of mine as he said goodbye to his wife of four years, the mother of his then one-year-old son.

I watched him struggle through despair, depression, doubt as he faces a long road of raising his son alone.

I watched my nephew cry and cling to his daddy, looking for his mommy and feeling afraid that his daddy will leave him too.

Through this long struggle, through one piece of bad news after another, through the next days and months and years of memories, where is God?

When all pleas seem to go unanswered, when even let the end be peaceful is ignored, what are we to think?

What do I really believe about God in all of this?

God’s Words tell us clearly that there is pain, there is heartbreak in this world. We should not be surprised.

More often than not, God chooses not to save His people, chooses not to spare them sorrow and hardship. Hebrews 11 gives a long list of those who were killed or lost ones they loved, Jesus’ closest friends died martyr’s deaths, even His earthly father died without His intervention.

I have pondered long and hard this question of what I believe about God in the midst of “it wasn’t supposed to be like this”. Here is my conclusion.

I know my God, His character, well enough to trust Him when I don’t understand, when I cannot see in the darkness. I know, from what He has said about Himself and from what I have seen, that He is always good and always love. I know that, if we only knew the reasons, we would adore Him for what He does.

God promises that we will have trouble in this world. He also promises that if we are grateful to Him He will give us peace. He doesn’t promise that He will take the pain away but that we will be at peace, that we will have joy.

Isn’t that a much bigger promise?

No matter what, God is still God.

Will I only praise and thank Him when He does what I like? Will I only accept from Him what I deem to be good?

When I deeply think through the idea of declaring my circumstance to be bad, it seems incredibly arrogant.

How can I think that I know better than God what is good? How am I more capable of naming something to be good than the One who is good?

Will I trust that God has a beautiful, amazing plan only when I can see the beauty of it? Either God is God, and capable of having plans and reasons that I cannot comprehend, or He isn’t God, and I am silly for blaming a myth. There is not really any in-between place for the things with which I do not agree.

…if I go to Jesus, he’s not under my control either. He lets things happen that I don’t understand. He doesn’t do things according to my plan, or in a way that makes sense to me. But if Jesus is God, then he’s got to be great enough to have some reasons to let you go through things you can’t understand. His power is unbounded, but so are his wisdom and love…He can love somebody and still let bad things happen to them, because he is God–because he knows better than they do. If you have a God great enough and powerful enough to be mad at because he doesn’t stop your suffering, you also have a God who’s great enough and powerful enough to have reasons that you can’t understand.
~ King’s Cross by Timothy Keller

God is God, and since he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere else but in his will, and that will is necessarily infinitely, immeasurable, unspeakable beyond my largest notions of what he is up to. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

I can trust God, trust in His nature.

Of course he’s not safe. Who said anything about being safe? But he’s good. He’s the king. ~ Mr. Beaver as told to C.S. Lewis in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

When faced with the fiery furnace, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego told King Nebuchadnezzar that

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if He does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. ~ Daniel 3

When Job lost all of his children and all that he owned and was himself in great physical pain, he declared

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in Him. ~ Job 13.15

No matter what, I will praise God and offer Him my gratitude, my sacrifice of praise.

God tells us over and over in His word that He has a beautiful plan for humanity and creation as a whole.

And that he has a beautiful plan for each of our lives.

Sometimes I doubt this promise, this truth.

And then I look at Jesus, at His cross.

I’ve been clinging to Romans 8.32 through all of this:

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

If God ever had to prove Himself, prove His love for us, prove that He is taking care of us, He has more than proved it all through the cross.

I’ve also been thinking a lot about Hezekiah. In II Kings 20, he pleaded with God to “change his story”, to give him more life when God had told him (through Isaiah) that he was going to die. God did change His mind that time, gave him fifteen more years of life. And in that fifteen extra years, Hezekiah’s son Manasseh was born. This son that wouldn’t have been born if Hezekiah hadn’t asked God to change the ending of his story ended up as king and “lead (Israel) astray, so that they did more evil than the nations the LORD had destroyed before the Israelites”. ~ II Kings 21.9

Our desired story ending versus God’s desired story ending.

Perhaps, just perhaps, God really does know best. Perhaps He does know which story will bring about a beautiful, redeemed, transfigured people.

When through the deep waters I call you to go,
The rivers of woe shall not overflow;
For I will be with you, your troubles to bless,
And sanctify to you your deepest distress.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.
~ How Firm a Foundation, att. John Keith, 1787 (modernized)

credit for images: Lion photo, painting by Simeon Solomon, Cross photo

Turning My Temper into Beauty

Posted on July 19, 2013 by Elizabeth

I am feeling discouraged today.

It is easy for me to heap guilt and shame onto my own head.

I have tried and tried and tried yet again to keep my temper. Sometimes I succeed for the first ten transgressions, at other times it only takes one, yet at some point I always fail.

I yell, I spit ugly words through clenched teeth, I point an unyielding finger as I hiss.

Why is this so difficult? I would gladly lay down my life for these babes of mine, yet I seem unable to lay down my pride and my temper for even one day.

Is this familiar to any of you? Do any of you struggle with the same things over and over again? Join me over at Embracing Grace so that we can each share what God is teaching us.

(Go to http://embracinggrace.net/2013/07/turning-my-temper-into-beauty/ if the links above are not working)

In Which I Hate

Posted on April 19, 2013 by Elizabeth

I see bombs going off, clouds of fire rising over a town, and I hate the brokenness of this world.

I see women devalued and shamed, children murdered, and I hate the pain of life that can so easily be weighed down with darkness.

I see a sermon topic of parenting after divorce and I hate this sin-disease infecting all hearts which leads to the necessity of such a lesson.

I see my girls’ faces after I have yelled ugliness and I hate the struggle that wars inside of me.

I want this all to end. I want our world and our hearts to be healed and made perfect.

Yet I think about Joseph and about Daniel, stories that tell about ugly, horrible things that turn out to be part of God’s overarching, glorious plan.

If I could, I would convince God that He should come back right now and make everything right again.

Yet deep down, I know that God does have purposes and He does have plans, and I trust what He is about.

Sometimes, though, it is difficult to raise my eyes above the fray. I hate this sin that has broken our hearts and our world with such passion that it is difficult to look away.

My heart is divided between hope and despair.

What do I do?

I could sit and fix my eyes on the ugly squalor of the sin and brokenness and fall quickly into despondency.

Or.

I could stand and fix my eyes on Him who has already begun the healing by His blood.

I could raise my hands in awe of One who could change all with a word and yet allows us, instead, to help in the restoration.

I could ask God’s Spirit to show me ways to hasten the healing of our world.

So I open my arms and hold my family close. I roll up my sleeves and look for ways to work.

Just as these did:

(click on the photograph to read about some who responded to horror with courageous mercy)

Deepest Need

Posted on March 15, 2013 by Elizabeth

I desperately wanted Kristina to be healed.

I long for the lost wisdom of my Papa.

I dream of a normal life for my friend, Stephanie.

There are so many stories that I, in my limited vision, would change if I had my way. What story would you change?

I am forced to look deeply at myself, however, when I read the story of friends who lowered the paralyzed down to Jesus through a hole. I hear Jesus’ first words.

Your sins are forgiven

I imagine myself as a friend.

Yes, yes. Forgiveness is good. But we cut away that barrier to You for healing. We want you to fix this. We want him to walk!

But this is Jesus. He is answering the deepest need first, and the deepest need is not to be able to walk.

It sometimes feels as though my deepest need is to be relieved of my burden.

Cancer is a heavy burden.

Rejection is a heavy burden.

Death is a heavy burden.

Yet over and over again, God’s best work happens when I am carrying my heaviest burden.

I can see this truth at work in the art that I love.

It is interesting to note how many artists have had physical problems to overcome, deformities, lameness, terrible loneliness. Could Beethoven have written that glorious paean of praise in the Ninth Symphony if he had not had to endure the dark closing in of deafness? As I look through his work chronologically, there’s no denying that it deepens and strengthens along with the deafness. Could Milton have seen all that he sees in Paradise Lost if he had not been blind? It is chastening to realize that those who have no physical flaw, who move through life in step with their peers, who are bright and beautiful, seldom become artists. The unending paradox is that we do learn through pain…Pain is not always creative; received wrongly, it can lead to alcoholism and madness and suicide. Nevertheless, without it we do not grow. ~ Madeleine L’Engle in Walking on Water

In the midst of these hard things, Jesus wants to be certain that I am still able to rest in Him. He wants me to know that He has overcome all of these burdens so that even while I am underneath my burden I can have peace.

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

The knowledge that I will have trouble is a hard truth. One that I don’t like most of the time.

A large part of me wants to clutch tightly those I love best and protect them. Yet a tiny part of me knows what is truly important.

God’s way of forgiveness and transformation is more important than relief from my heavy burden. I try to trust and let that smaller part of me grow.

I long to be who God intended for me to be. I want to grow. It seems that transformation requires hard things.

Paul, the one who was beaten and imprisoned and shipwrecked and stoned and rejected by many, calls these hard things “light and momentary troubles“.

I can’t do that yet. I cannot open my arms and embrace these burdens.

I can, however, accept them and choose to voice words of gratitude and praise to God for them, even if I don’t truly feel grateful. I can choose to allow these burdens, this pain, to help me grow rather than to drag me down into depression.

I am tempted to try to avoid not only my own suffering but also that of those around me, the suffering of the world.

Instead, I will continue to allow suffering to inspire my art, to trust that God will make all things beautiful.

Instead, I will allow pain to deepen and strengthen my life rather than to destroy it.

Instead, I will pray this grace for those around me as well.

Art credits: my thanks to Eddie Lowen, Pastor at West Side Christian Church in Springfield, Illinois, for his thoughts on this subject; The Palsied Man Let Down through the Roof by James Tissot; Illustration for Milton’s Paradise Lost by Gustave Dore

Receiving Grace with Grace

Posted on February 15, 2013 by Elizabeth

This week’s post is the last guest post. I hope you’ve enjoyed hearing from some other talented and wise writers! Next week you’ll be stuck with me again. 🙂 This essay was written by yet another old friend from my undergrad days at Harding University, Kelly Wiggains (known as Kelly Duncan back in the day). I am grateful that we have kept in touch over the years, as she is not only a talented writer (she writes regularly about words, books and beauty over at kellywiggains.com. You should definitely head over and explore her blog…you’ll love it! Go ahead and subscribe to receive her posts by email. While I’m thinking about it, you can subscribe to receive mine as well. Go on…I’ll wait…), but she is a wise and godly woman who is also a beautiful wife and momma. I keep her around as a friend because she is incredibly intelligent and can give me much needed advice. She’s also stinkin’ hilarious. I’ll admit that I’m not sure why she keeps me around. Enjoy her beautiful thoughts!

Michael W. May via Compfight cc

“Before I tell you what happened, where are you?” my husband asked. I replied, “Well, I’m sitting in the McDonald’s parking lot. Starbucks was too cold.” One night a week, I spend a few hours all by myself outside of the house to go and write, and my husband watches the kids. On this unusually windy and cold night, I was about to spend my time of solitude in the local McDonald’s, indulging in some coffee and the free wifi.

My husband continued with his story. He and the kids were spending their evening with some Papa Murphy’s pizza and Star Wars (typical “Writing Night” fare) when someone rang the doorbell. Tyler opened up the door to an older man, standing on our front porch with a Christmas gift bag. The man smiled and said, “Tyler?” My husband replied, “Yes.” The man handed him the bag, offered a quick, “Merry Christmas,” and left. Tyler mumbled, “Merry Christmas to you,” in return and walked back into the house.

The package easily weighed five pounds, a deceptive weight in a decorative Christmas bag meant for a bottle of wine. Inside the bag, Tyler found a book, a letter, and a quart-sized mason jar filled with change and small bills. Our family just received a little Christmas miracle of almost $100.

All too often, I’ve heard sermons about the amazing power of being selfless, how giving of your time, effort, money, talents to other people in the name of God’s glory brings joy to your life. We hear about how we should approach those acts of kindness in humility, never letting our left hand know what our right hand is doing. We should give generously, only seeking praise for our Father and not for ourselves.

I’ve learned how to give with love and without expectation. However, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard a sermon about how to receive an act of kindness. How should I accept someone else’s sacrifice? Have you ever accepted help with no way to repay that help? Have you ever been the recipient of truly unconditional love and sacrifice?

I’ve seen this kind of love and sacrifice tangibly, vividly in my life several times. As a teenager, my dad fought a battle with cancer for about a year. I can remember my church taking up a special collection for our family. I wept at the sight of my church family readily grabbing at their purses under the pew or digging in their coat pockets for their checkbook. Not long after that, our family received another stack of cash, collected from the merchants of my hometown. My dad sat on his hospital bed in shock before his sister said, “How many times have you thrown in $20 or $50 like that for someone else?” I remember watching this unfold as a teenager. I remember being humbled by it, feeling a sense of gratitude, yet I did not feel the true weight of the sacrifice because I had no idea about the concept of money.

Recently, my mom has been struggling with her own battle with cancer. In the past year, I’ve received cards in the mail from extended family with an unexpected check and a note of encouragement. We’ve only lived in our current city for about six months, yet I’ve had cash slipped into my hand after an embrace with a new friend at church. The only explanation? “A friend wanted me to give this to you. So you can go see your momma.”

Every day acts of sacrifice like this always point me to the The Cross. How much more is the sacrifice of our Father and his Son? Our Father allowed the sacrifice of His only Son to bring an avenue back to His people. Our Brother and Lord, Jesus, gave his life unselfishly for all of mankind. I’ve been taught about this sacrifice all of my life. The enormity of it only washes over me once in a while. Rarely, I can make a tangible connection to the unfathomable sacrifice of our God and his gift of grace to us. More than anything else this year, I’ve learned about the power of grace, unconditional love, and true generosity from normal, everyday, broken, amazing friends and family. There is nothing more humbling or more empowering than seeing this at work.

I want our world to be able to quit fighting.

I want all of us to love perfectly, to love in a way that results in bodies getting fed, animals feeling safe, hearts being healed, trees growing tall.

I’m ready for the lion and the lamb to lie down together.

Yet if I had been born into perfection, I would never have experienced the gift that is grace. This grace-gift of being loved at my most unlovable, of being shaped into perfection at my most imperfect. Is it worth it? A hard question.

If I had been perfect from the start, I wouldn’t know battle and I wouldn’t know mercy. I would, perhaps, trust more in myself than in the One who made me. Are heights of joy made richer by the depths carved by sorrow?

Grace is having a commitment to – or at least an acceptance of – being ineffective and foolish. ~ Anne Lamott

I don’t know why this is so. I don’t know why we can only experience grace while being ineffective and foolish. I don’t know why we must experience battle in order to grasp this gift full of beauty. I wish it were not this way.

I do know that God does nothing by accident. I do know that God created with a purpose of love and I do know that someday His will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Is grace worth all of this?

There is much that I don’t know. And there are a few things I do.

The older I get, the more gray shades I see in our world. An expansion of colors, a deepening of my perceptions, these nuances that make my life richer are a bit astonishing.

It was much easier when the lenses I wear saw only black and white.

Life gets harder when you see things from other points of view. Straight lines get hijacked and carry you off to the unknown. Solid perspectives grow a little blurry and you begin to take a softer view of those you disagree with.

Just as with every place and time and faith tradition, there is truth to be found and there is misunderstanding. There are many issues of our faith that I have been rethinking and restudying lately, asking God once again to teach me His way.

Just like I am.

Perhaps they are interpreting Scripture incorrectly, but perhaps I am the one who is wrong.

It is easier to look at the black and white of an issue, because to see the gray of a person is to see Jesus. And seeing Jesus is always hard. Looking at the face of Jesus has a way of changing you deep down where it hurts.

There is a reason why Jesus said that the most important thing is to love. Loving God and loving people is more important than getting it all right. He didn’t say it was the easiest thing. Most things with Jesus aren’t.

Loving others has a way of hijacking the straight lines of your life and carrying you off to the unknown. Loving Jesus has a way of blurring your sharp edges and softening the contours of your heart.

It is painful and it is frightening.

And those gray shades are beautiful beyond words.

Are you going home for Christmas?

We try, in our own ways, to create that sort of a home in our adult lives, yet it is difficult sometimes to believe that such a home can exist in this world, this world that makes it hard to believe in much of anything at times.

This small but crucial missing piece is what the author of Hebrews talks about at the end of that great chapter detailing those who lived by faith. After naming some of the greatest heroes and heroines of our faith, the author writes,

These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

And so home is, after all, only where Christ is. Home is at the manger where even the oxen kneel at midnight. Home is at the foot of the cross and at the door to the empty tomb. Home is the place we will find when we finally know even as we are fully known.

I believe that…the home we long for and belong to is finally where Christ is. I believe that home is Christ’s kingdom, which exists both within us and among us as we wend our prodigal ways through the world in search of it. ~ Frederick Buechner

Are you going home for Christmas?

I’ve written about it before in this space, but since I will never act perfectly until the day I see my Lord face to face, I will just have to continue to write about it in hopes that this act of writing will somehow help me. Perhaps it will help someone else as well.

There is a God. A God who longs to be found, who deals gently and softly with those who are wounded. A God who slowly soothes and cleanses and heals the heart of a boy using, in part, the heart of a girl.

There is a girl. A girl who has lost the mother she loves yet chooses to cling to the God who gifted her such a mother in the first place. A girl who loved a boy yet was willing to give the boy up to God to be sure that his newly healed heart belonged to God alone.

Perhaps it seems like just a candle flame in the dark, flickering uncertainly as though a whisper might extinguish it, but I saw this weekend in the beauty of a wedding that this tiny flame will spread and will pierce the darkness and the darkness will not overcome it.

So take heart. Be brave and strong and true, and let Him shape your hearts into hearts that are beautiful, hearts that bear to each other that precious, flickering holy flame of love. Take heart.

Psalm 20

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble! May the name of the God of Jacob protect you! May he send you help from the sanctuary and give you support from Zion! May he remember all your offerings and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah

May he grant you your heart’s desire and fulfill all your plans! May we shout for joy over your salvation, and in the name of our God set up our banners! May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!

Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed; he will answer him from his holy heaven with the saving might of his right hand. Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright.

Two years ago this week, our beautiful Kristina left this earth. As I take some time to remember her, I’ll dust off this essay that I wrote just after her death and share it with you again.

…giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He had to do the unthinkable. He had to bury his wife.

I sat at the feet of this younger brother of mine as he said goodbye to his wife of four years, the mother of his then one-year-old son.

I watched him struggle through despair, depression, doubt as he faces a long road of raising his son alone.

I watched my nephew cry and cling to his daddy, looking for his mommy and feeling afraid that his daddy will leave him too.

Through this long struggle, through one piece of bad news after another, through the next days and months and years of memories, where is God?

When all pleas seem to go unanswered, when even let the end be peaceful is ignored, what are we to think?

What do I really believe about God in all of this?

God’s Words tell us clearly that there is pain, there is heartbreak in this world. We should not be surprised.

More often than not, God chooses not to save His people, chooses not to spare them sorrow and hardship. Hebrews 11 gives a long list of those who were killed or lost ones they loved, Jesus’ closest friends died martyr’s deaths, even His earthly father died without His intervention.

I have pondered long and hard this question of what I believe about God in the midst of “it wasn’t supposed to be like this”. Here is my conclusion.

God promises that we will have trouble in this world. He also promises that if we are grateful to Him He will give us peace. He doesn’t promise that He will take the pain away but that we will be at peace, that we will have joy.

Isn’t that a much bigger promise?

No matter what, God is still God.

Will I only praise and thank Him when He does what I like? Will I only accept from Him what I deem to be good?

When I deeply think through the idea of declaring my circumstance to be bad, it seems incredibly arrogant.

How can I think that I know better than God what is good? How am I more capable of naming something to be good than the One who is good?

God is God, and since he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service. I will find rest nowhere else but in his will, and that will is necessarily infinitely, immeasurable, unspeakable beyond my largest notions of what he is up to. ~ Elisabeth Elliot

I can trust God, trust in His nature.

Of course he’s not safe. Who said anything about being safe? But he’s good. He’s the king. ~ Mr. Beaver as told to C.S. Lewis in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

When faced with the fiery furnace, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego told King Nebuchadnezzar that

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if He does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. ~ Daniel 3

When Job lost all of his children and all that he owned and was himself in great physical pain, he declared

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in Him. ~ Job 13.15

No matter what, I will praise God and offer Him my gratitude, my sacrifice of praise.

God tells us over and over in His word that He has a beautiful plan for humanity and creation as a whole.

And that he has a beautiful plan for each of our lives.

Sometimes I doubt this promise, this truth.

And then I look at Jesus, at His cross.

I’ve been clinging to Romans 8.32 through all of this:

He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all–how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?

If God ever had to prove Himself, prove His love for us, prove that He is taking care of us, He has more than proved it all through the cross.

Our desired story ending versus God’s desired story ending.

Perhaps, just perhaps, God really does know best. Perhaps He does know which story will bring about a beautiful, redeemed, transfigured people.

When through the deep waters I call you to go, The rivers of woe shall not overflow; For I will be with you, your troubles to bless, And sanctify to you your deepest distress.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, I will not, I will not desert to its foes; That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake, I’ll never, no never, no never forsake. ~ How Firm a Foundation, att. John Keith, 1787 (modernized)

credit for images: Lion photo, painting by Simeon Solomon, Cross photo

I am feeling discouraged today.

It is easy for me to heap guilt and shame onto my own head.

I have tried and tried and tried yet again to keep my temper. Sometimes I succeed for the first ten transgressions, at other times it only takes one, yet at some point I always fail.

I yell, I spit ugly words through clenched teeth, I point an unyielding finger as I hiss.

Why is this so difficult? I would gladly lay down my life for these babes of mine, yet I seem unable to lay down my pride and my temper for even one day.

May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble!
May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!
May he send you help from the sanctuary
and give you support from Zion!
May he remember all your offerings
and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah

May he grant you your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans!
May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!
May the Lord fulfill all your petitions!

Now I know that the Lord saves his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with the saving might of his right hand.
Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.

When through the deep waters I call you to go,
The rivers of woe shall not overflow;
For I will be with you, your troubles to bless,
And sanctify to you your deepest distress.

The soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to its foes;
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no never, no never forsake.
~ How Firm a Foundation, att. John Keith, 1787 (modernized)