Day 5

Dear God,

I re-read a bit of my stuff from the last 4 days and you know what? I talk too much.

Father, I don't fully understand grace. I am trying. I am trying to understand this gift, which comes to me in spite of the myriad ways I fail you on a daily basis. It feels like I should have to do something. Like if I can mind my p's and q's (or even find my p's and q's) that I will be more worthy of your love. And yet, I know that I am never going to be worthy.

I am wondering if it was a mistake to read Isaiah this week.  Isaiah is hard. It's obscure, it's symbolic, a little incoherent in spots, not easily relatable to where I am at right now. And it is mainly (I think -- I'm only 5 chapters in) about repenting before judgement comes. Judgement I understand; do this or suffer I get completely. It's grace I am struggling with.

Wednesday we went and saw Les Mis in the theatre. Now, I've seen Les Mis on the stage twice, and listened to the soundtrack any number of times. I thought I knew that musical inside and out and I was going to the movie because I wanted to see this particular interpretation. But what struck me, what I think I never really noticed before, was the theme of grace that runs throughout the play. One man shows grace to Jean Valjean -- grace absolutely undeserved, grace in the face of blatant sin -- and that grace changes everything. It sends Jean Valjean on a completely different path, it remakes him as a person, he is reborn as a new being: "the old has gone, the new has come."

And the grace ripples outward: because of the first act of grace, Jean Valjean extends grace to Fantine, to Cosette, to the man who is arrested in Valjean's name, to the poor of Paris, to Marius at the barricades, even to his enemy Javert, whom he sets free instead of killing, knowing that Javert will never stop hunting him, knowing that freeing him means he himself will be imprisoned again.

Grace is a force. If a person can accept it, it changes everything. If one cannot accept it, as Javert cannot, he is destroyed.  How to accept? How to take it in on a soul level? Brennan Manning says "Do nothing. Just accept that you are accepted. " In another quote from somewhere he says (in Latin) "in loving me, you made me lovable."

My heart is so weak, my fears (though much calmed yesterday -- thank You) are still very much in evidence. I can feel my own weakness hovering on the edges of my consciousness, waiting to rush in, to drown me.  Remember when we bought this house, Lord? Remember how I very nearly broke down when we made the offer and then went on a 3 day crying-jag? Remember how paralyzed I was when we moved? How I only barely functioned for the first year we lived here? That was a dark, dark place. And I can still see it from here. And it is what I fear most right now. The possibility that I may end up back there terrifies me.

I am trying to balance this against what I think you are calling us to do. I think we are back to the question "will you adopt him?" and I want to be the sort of person who says yes and runs uninhibited toward the future with nary a backward glance. But I am not that person, however much I would like to delude myself. I look back a lot, I am so very good at extrapolating every possible scenario, particularly the ones that spiral straight into the pit of despair. I have so much fear. How do I accept that I am accepted? How do I trust that you are good, that you will not let me go, that your strength is made perfect in weakness -- because this isn't weakness, it's weakness.   This is a boat full of holes that you are asking to put to sea. And no sails. And the oars are lost. I'm not seaworthy, Lord. Do you know that?

I know, I know: "My strength is made perfect in weakness."

Lord, there's still a lot of noise in my head. I ask still that you bind Satan. That all the ideas and fears and crazy thoughts that aren't from you would be banished in the name of Jesus. I ask that you would fill me with your Spirit -- the Spirit which is not of fear, "but of power and love" (2 Timothy 1:7). I need power and love here so I can offer grace.  And I pray for my husband, that he would be a leader here, a prop to me and that we wouldn't feed each other's fears but lift each other up and encourage one another. I need assurance, Lord, that you won't leave me lonely on this.   I need courage. Guts, grit, moxie.

Love,

me

Day 4

Okay Lord, you lost me.

I read Isaiah 4 today. It's very short. And I would be lying if I said I understood it. It speaks of the glory of the Lord and the cleansing of the people of Jerusalem.  I understand the words, but I am not seeing a connection.

So instead I looked up "fear" in the bible. I wanted to see what You said about it. Because frankly, Lord, I spent last night choking on fear. It washes over me in freezing waves and it acts like a drug on my brain, sending it into overdrive. Incessant, constant motion, none of it good.  In the day I am okay, but at night when the distractions are gone it's an endless chorus of "What if, what if, what if?"

Here's what the Bible says about fear, condensed version:

Old Testament:  lots of "fear of the Lord" here. Many times used when people chose to do the right thing over the popular thing, or even the legal thing, like when the Hebrew midwives feared God more than Pharaoh and refused to kill the Hebrew baby boys. Sometimes used to describe how people felt in tight spots -- like Abraham in Egypt, or Jacob when he knew Esau was coming. These powerful patriarchs felt fear. There is also quite a bit in the Psalms about fear -- especially the idea that because God is in charge we have no need to fear. Also, much about how God's eye is on those who fear him -- in a good way. In the Proverbs, the fear of the Lord is wisdom. It's smart to fear God above other things. In Isaiah, lots of messages from God "Do not fear, I will help you."

New Testament: God-fear is good fear. In Acts it speaks of people "living by the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Spirit." And this, from Romans: "The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" 

Then I looked up "afraid" and found that in the OT, fear often leads to sin --Adam lying to God,  Abraham lying to Pharaoh, Sarah lying to the angelic visitors, Moses ( fearing conviction for his murder) fleeing Egypt. And many, many places where God says, "Do not be afraid" mainly because he's got it under control. Later Elijah tells the widow, "don't be afraid " to use up the last of her oil and flour to feed him -- God is going to provide. And Elisha tells his frightened servant "Don't be afraid" and his eyes are opened to the chariots of fire all around the invading army. And so, so much in the Psalms -- "The Lord is with me; of whom shall I be afraid?" "When I am afraid, I put my trust in You." In the NT there are many places where Jesus tells the disciples "Don't be afraid." I like the reminder in Matthew that "you are worth more than many sparrows." And these words: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

Speed reader version: Fear of God is good, but God doesn't communicate to us through fear. Every time he asked people in the OT (or New) to do something, the message was always "Don't be afraid." Always.

All of this is a long-winded way to ask you, Lord, to calm my fears. They came so thick and fast last night, so like a firestorm, that I felt like I was under attack. Perhaps I am. If that is so, then in the name and by the blood of Jesus, I ask you to bind Satan in this. I pray for a hedge of protection around my thoughts and emotions. Help the noise in my head to fall away so I can hear you clearly. Purify my heart so I can obey steadfastly. And, I need to be able to sleep, Lord. Really sleep without disturbing dreams or periods of wakefulness in the wee hours when I am so vulnerable. Like Elisha's servant, I need eyes to see the chariots of fire all around me.

Love,

me

Day Three

Dear God,

Feeling slightly hollow today. Reading Isaiah 3 left me a bit...perplexed. I think this was the warning to Israel that because they had turned away from God, all the things they turned to were going to be taken from them. They would be leaderless, a people without a rudder, begging for someone -- anyone -- to take charge. In a way, it's like God was telling them that since their hearts weren't seeking him, he was going to remove all the things that were distracting them, all the false idols that consumed their love.

I guess, Lord, that I could make a loose connection here.  My heart since last May has been far from you. And I see how certain things in my life have fallen to pieces. Ironically, it's a lot of house stuff, which maybe other people might just deal with and move on, but which I absolutely loathe dealing with. Windows, siding, a moldy bathroom that needs to be gutted. Everything a big job, nothing we can really do ourselves, all of it expensive and intimidating. Ugh.

But there's other stuff, too. I haven't felt in sync with my husband in a while. It's hard to pray with him, so we just haven't done it. Sometimes things with the kids seem to have run off the rails.  I think the two of us praying about it would help, but we're not praying together.  And I have felt trapped by the life I have held onto so fiercely because change scares me so much. When I was trying to hide from you last summer, I had a week where bible verses just flooded my mind -- verses were all but dropping from the sky. I recorded them in an earlier post because I hadn't really ever had something like that happen before. Almost every verse was whispering "trust me". Over and over. Again and again and again. But we didn't act. I didn't act. I couldn't. I was paralyzed.

And then it was like I couldn't hear you at all.

God, how frustrated you must get with me. So slow I am to figure things out. So reluctant to pry my crabbed, aching fingers off the steering wheel so you can drive. So cocksure that I know the way I should go that I won't even consider your plans. I waited so long, that the little boy we thought maybe possibly could be you wanted us to go get just disappeared. That, we thought, was that. 

I sort of wanted to see if we could find him, but Tim said no. Only if he showed up on the list again. Then we'd go get him. "Um, you realize that's almost impossible, the least likely scenario in the universe," I said. "Do you think God can't do it?" he shot back. "Of course God could do it" I answered (but he won't was what I thought).

So for nearly 5 months I have lived, grieving my own pigheadedness, my fear, my brokenness, my selfish heart. And I've lived with a ghost child, who haunted my thoughts with such a burden of might-have-beens that it has sometimes been hard to enjoy family activities.

Did I come before you, Lord? No. I dorked around for 5 months until this week. This week I wanted to hear from you. I wanted to know your heart. I wanted to see with your eyes. I wanted all the brouhaha in my head to fall away so I could see and hear clearly. That's what I prayed for.

And yesterday I found him again.

Were you waiting for me to be ready, Lord? To want you more than I wanted my own comfort? Were you waiting for me to finally be still so I could hear you? To take my fingers out of my ears?  I realize that all of this represents a level of trust that I have only rarely (okay, never) aspired to. Step one is going to be getting Tim on board. I know what he said, and You know what he said, but I don't know how he's going to respond when I tell him I've found our little guy again. You're going to have to show up here, Lord. And you're going to have to show up big, because Tim feels the stress of providing for our family at a very deep level. The ability to earn is his greatest insecurity, just as change is mine. This whole process is a trust whammy for both of us, in completely different ways.

Undertake, Lord. There is nothing too difficult for you.

Love,

me

Day Two

Dear God,

This week I am reading Isaiah, mainly because that's what we're supposed to be studying in church next week and I needed a starting point, something to stick to all week rather than jumping around in the Bible. Yesterday I read this in Isaiah 1:

17 Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.

And I thought "There it is again." You see, I can't read the Bible, or a Christian blog, or a Christian book, without encountering this idea -- that we are to help the vulnerable ones. The orphans, the widows.

Today I read this in Isaiah 2:

7 Their land is full of silver and gold;
there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is full of horses;
there is no end to their chariots.
⁸ Their land is full of idols;
they bow down to the work of their hands,
to what their fingers have made.

And I am thinking -- this is me, this is us, this is my culture, my country. We have so much we can't even see the ones who have nothing. We are consumed with our stuff, mesmerized by it, in love with it. We spend all our time either taking care of it or planning how to add to it.  But the reality of all that stuff is that it's nothing. In the end, we can't take it with us. Though to judge from grave sites and burial mounds, we've been trying to do so since forever.

God, I am trying to be still this week. Again, I ask you to help me cut through the noise, the incessant demands of my day, of my stuff, so I can hear you. I want to hear your heart. What I really want is an engraved letter from you spelling out in extremely clear terms exactly what you want. And then I wonder what means I will use to rationalize that away.

Maybe I already have such a letter. Maybe it's the sinful nature of my heart to try to argue that when you said "orphans" you didn't mean orphans. You were speaking metaphorically, you weren't calling us to personally do something, to personally take in an alien, a stranger. You certainly didn't mean that.  I suspect I may be rather like the pharisees, parsing the law into all its dos and don'ts so I know juuuuuusssssst how far I can walk on the sabbath before it constitutes work, so I can focus on all the little letters of the law and miss the spirit of it entirely (of course you can pull your sheep from the pit, but you cannot heal people. No sir).

And now I'm just talking again instead of asking for the help I need so much. I don't know if I can ask to be free of fear. I want to not be small. I want to be in charge of my fear instead of limited by it. I want to be so convinced of your power, your call, that I am unafraid to put myself in a position where you have to show up or I'm sunk (oh Francis Chan, why do you skewer me to the wall like this?). I want to be the kind of person who can take that kind of risk, but instead I feel like Much Afraid.

Okay God, here it is. I need to see the path clearly -- I need to have all the noise in my head fall away, everything that isn't of you fall away. Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask you to bind the hissing, insinuating fears, the petty, selfish ideas,  the loud opinions of the world, the doubts, the anxieties. I need to be able to look at things with your eyes so I can say without a doubt "That's just selfishness -- doesn't affect the decision" or "That's the world's view, not God's; doesn't affect the decision."

And I need to know, believe, that you won't abandon me. I don't know where I get this idea but I always worry that when it really counts, I'll be alone. This lie goes so deep in me -- and I don't know why. I have a good family, a family that has always been there for me. I have a good husband, who I know loves me faithfully even when I am pretty difficult to love. And I have a God who has come through for me any number of times. I have never been left flat, and yet I fear. Father, help me weed out this thinking. Help me destroy it, stem and root.

God you are faithful. Great is your faithfulness, no matter how unsteady I may be.  I am surrounded by idols, Lord. But my idols are less about stuff and more about controlling my environment and relationships so that I am never more than minimally inconvenienced. Forgive me, God, for no trusting you more. For not being willing to put it all in your hands. It's all in your hands anyway, and my control is never more than a beautiful delusion.  Intellectually I know that, but emotionally I am still hanging on with both hands.

Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Love,

me

Day One

Dear God,

For 5 days I am coming before you. I should be doing this always, but I find my thoughts so fragmented, my ideas so slippery, that I cannot seem to focus long enough to pray. Except for those short, beseeching arrow prayers that have no actual form, that are really just more of an inarticulate cry.

Lord, I can no longer tell what things are from you and what things are born of my own selfishness and fear.  Am I being wise, or am I being disobedient in the most rationalizing way I can muster? Those weeks, Lord, last May, when I hid from you because I was so afraid of obeying....those I can now see were all ME. I can see so clearly how I ran from you like Jonah from Ninevah. And in some ways I have been in my own fish for the last 7 months.

It's dark in here, Lord. More than ever I can sense the smallness of the life I have created for myself. Remember that scene in the Last Battle? Where the dwarves were sitting in the middle of paradise, but to their eyes they were in a tiny shed, dark and hemmed in, trapped? That's me. I've made myself a shed that I am afraid to leave. It's small, but I know it well. It doesn't throw me any curve balls, but it doesn't hold any surprises either. What's more, I can sense that there's more outside of it than in. That if I could open the door, could step out, amazing things might happen. Will happen. But I'm not sure what the door is. Or where it is. And to be honest, I'm afraid of the amazing things a little. Or a lot.

Why am I afraid?  Change. All my life, uncontrolled change has gripped me with fear. If I can't predict it, map it, plan for it, extrapolate, it fills me with anxiety. I know. Trust is hard for me. But I am afraid of you, too, Lord. Of not pleasing you, of angering you, or exasperating you. I'm afraid you will leave me, throw up your hands in disgust and be done with me. My husband says this is a false idea. I believe him. But the feelings are still there.

The adoption thing won't fully leave me. I still harbor this crazy idea that the little boy I think now you had selected for us will somehow appear on a list somewhere and we will be able to have another chance.  I feel so clearly that we should do this, should adopt, when I am in church, when I am praying, when I am reading my Bible. Other times I feel more fearful, more like there is just no way I can ever do it, fearful as I am of the unknown.

Five days of prayer. Today is just me trying to lay out where I am . Lost. Wandering. Confused. I feel alone, though I am pretty sure that's because I have moved away from you and not the other way around.  So I am back, God. I just want to sit at your feet and be. I want the noise in my head to fall away so I can hear you clearly. I want to be able to discern what is from you and what isn't. I want my path to be clear.

Lord, you are holy and perfect, you are slow to anger (thank you for that) and abounding in mercy (and for that, too). There is nothing too difficult for you and you have promised not to leave us or forsake us ever. I am so grateful that you love me, that I am yours no matter how I fail and fail and fail again.

Lord, help me hear your voice. Help me believe only what is true and help me see the lies for what they are. Five days, Lord. Show me what you want me to do.

Love,
me

Quote to Chew On:

“But God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doesn't come through.”
                                         
                                                                            -- Francis Chan

Confused

Tried, really tried, to convey how I'm feeling to Tim Friday night, but I'm not sure he really gets it.  I am still being bombarded by the same message over and over again: Trust God. Honestly, I am so bombarded with this theme that I am beginning to feel a little paranoid, so for the record: I hear you, Lord. I do. I am just not sure what you want me to do about it.

What's really stunning to me is that Tim sits through many of the same things and doesn't detect the theme. Until Sunday.  Sunday he really couldn't ignore. Sunday, the pastor (and it's his favorite pastor, the one he truly respects and admires) got up and preached an entire sermon on trusting God -- even if what you're being called to do seems crazy, even if you aren't sure where it will end up. Bonus: the Sunday School lessons we were teaching were also about trusting God.

Now do you see the theme? Oh yes, there it is. Thankyouverymuch.

Still, I am left in limbo. I am just hanging here, wondering what God wants me to do with this. I know we blew it a few weeks ago, I know our inaction was a sin. I know this, like I know my own name. I also know what I think we should do, but my husband doesn't agree.  His take? He says the "sign" that we shouldmove forward would be if the little boy we were considering would appear on the list we were watching again. Again. This is tantamount to a miracle, because once they're gone, that's usually it.  I think maybe if he appeared on any list at all that would qualify, but again, so unlikely as to require divine intervention.

This is where I am murky. Can God do this? Absolutely. Will he? Not sure. I know he is abounding in mercy and slow to anger, but let's face it: we blew it twice on this same issue. How many chances do we get? Do I even dare ask for one more? I asked for a second chance and we got it and failed. Miserably, spectacularly. I am of the opinion that if by some miracle we were afforded a third chance, I would have to push the issue. I think -- and this is really just a hunch -- that Tim is avoiding looking this whole thing in the eye because he really doesn't want to act. He'd rather feign ignorance than commit.

And I am trapped in my grief, my guilt, my two-pronged worry over disobeying God and turning our backs on a child in need. Depraved indifference, I think it's called.

God, we are so pathetic. We are so guilty of promoting our own agendas, of exalting our petty, selfish desires over your greater good. Of substituting the things of the world for the higher things of your kingdom.  I am so sorry, Lord. How aware I am right now of my need for forgiveness, of my essential brokeness. Father, forgive. Father, heal. Father, help. I don't want to fail You again.