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Posts Tagged ‘despair’

God With Me

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 2, 2013| 3 Comments »

mustard-seedAnd that ‘s all I know right now. God is with me despite my inner chaos, despite my sense of loss, despite my confusion. God is with me even in the darkest night, the shallowest hope, the greatest disappointments. God is still here.

Have started a brief 30 day reading plan on behalf of my church, to encourage others to read. Funny, in the very midst of this, I am feeling very hollow. My muse is on vacation. My Spirit is quiet and I am deaf. And so, all I have is my mind to remind me, intellectually, God is here. (Matthew 1:22-23)

Yesterday, a friend posted on Facebook that he was feeling depressed. I told him to take a breath and go somewhere beautiful. I think I need to take my own advice. This morning, I woke early with only a few hours sleep. My dreams were vivid and then I was subsequently crestfallen to emerge into this reality.

And so, I see: I need my own rebirth, a baby Jesus to be born and start again, a babe of an idea: a mustard seed to renew my soul.

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Jesus, What Are You Doing?

Posted in Lent, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 29, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Jesus and the crossWhen he [Judas] was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him,God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” [John 13:31-35]

Surely they were all thinking that, “Where are you going, Jesus, that I can’t go? Haven’t we gone everywhere with you?” Well, except for all those times he went to pray alone or that time he walked on the water or that time he brought Lazarus from the dead or the time he overturned the tables of the moneychangers?

I think the real question they asked in those times may have been more like, “What are you doing?”

Isn’t that the natural response to someone (particularly a child/teen) who is participating some activity that is outside one’s personal “norm?” Or worse, illegal? Or worse, stupid! “What are you doing!?” It’s as though we actually believe, that perpetrator will turn around, look at us, and see the light! “Oh, of course, I shouldn’t be doing this.”

But that’s not how it works. Rarely does the observer, the other person get what is going on, whether it’s using a beer pong in your parents’ basement or predicting one’s death at the hand of the authorities. Or maybe it’s even less clear, like a toddler artistically decorating the hallway walls or a dog marking the new furniture or a kid experimenting with a raw egg in the microwave.

In that moment of discovery, it’s chaos in the head. How could, why would, when did, where did, who’s idea was this anyway?

As much as Jesus tried to explain how it would all work, the understanding of the acts, the miracles, the symbols, the sacrifices, the lectures, the parables, all of it… came later. There was too much to process. They’d be contemplating that event from the morning and then something else would happen at Noon. How do you respond to a miracle? How do you respond to a man who claims blood line with God? How do you believe that the same guy who raised people from the dead would die himself? Brain freeze.

When any pair of friends or now, children of friends, tell me they are planning to get married, I have one piece of advice: really look and remember. It will pass by you like a whirlwind and the next thing you know, the ceremony is over, the reception is over, and you’re sitting in at the pool or beach and wondering what just happened. It’s hard to pay attention when it’s happening to us!

The disciples and writers of Jesus’s life did the best they could. They tried to capture what it felt like not to understand, what it meant in the moment without projecting out to the end.

Today, I want to imagine the moment, the feeling of the first time, the loss of Jesus without the expectation of third day. But I also want to cherish human contact today, the touch of a hand, the look in the eye, the corporateness of faith.

I want to love God and love others.

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The Mark of Cain

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

And what was the curse on Cain: the very ground from which he had labored all of his life would no longer yield to him, would no longer produce, would no longer be his safety. He wandered because he found no rest in the land (Nod means “wandering”). He became the first nomad.

Genesis 4:11, 15-16
Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. . . Then the Lord put a mark on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him. So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,east of Eden.

And why the mark? And what was the mark? Most commentators don’t really know. Cain received the mark after complaining that he would be killed as a wanderer, that he would be outside of the clan (I’m guessing) and seen as a stranger and therefore suspect. And, perhaps a nomadic life was not the norm in that time.

What I find interesting is that everyone refers to the mark as protection. I believe the mark was equally part of the curse. Cain was destined to suffer and possibly, in the norm of that time, forever or nearly forever. After all, Adam and Eve, if counted just by generations and who was alive when, lived over 800 years. I assume this came as a result of their tastings of the Tree of Life (Creator stopped that practice when he cast them out of the garden of the two trees).

But death would have been release for Cain and I’m guessing, like Groundhog Day, when life is a drudgery, when hope is snatched away, then death seems like the best route out. The mark of Cain prevented him from dying.

What is the application for me, however? In general, I would say that I should not make assumptions about the intent of God who is ultimately sovereign. Based on subsequent laws that came down through Moses, death deserved death. But God did not destroy Cain. He had another purpose that was higher. I cannot judge why some live and some die. I cannot judge why some suffer and some do not. I cannot know who carries the Mark of Cain, for this is not a mark I can see, only God.

 

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Bitter Roots

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Grace is everything. If I could only grasp the full power of grace every day, nothing could cause lasting harm. Grace diffuses anger, despair, disappointments and resentments which all fuel bitterness. And bitterness hurts everyone.

Hebrews 12:15
Exercise foresight and be on the watch to look [after one another], to see that no one falls back from and fails to secure God’s grace (His unmerited favor and spiritual blessing), in order that no root of resentment (rancor, bitterness, or hatred) shoots forth and causes trouble and bitter torment, and the many become contaminated and defiled by it. [Amplified]

For some years I worked with the Elijah House ministries; I read many of the John and Paula Sandford books, I participated in the Basic School which taught the essentials of prayer for healing and how to recognize and address bitter root judgments. I met with my own counselor for several years.

So many early bitter roots are like persistent weeds in the garden that grow very deeply in the soil. They cannot be merely cut at ground level, they must be pulled out, otherwise, they will tend to grow back, sometimes larger, stronger, and even deeper than before.

Hurtful instances in our past act in the same way and can derail a life. My own life was on a treadmill of resentments about situations that were mostly outside my direct control: my father’s alcoholism and death when I was a child, my mother’s mental illness, our relative poverty, my brilliant brother, just to name a few. I had an internal tirade always playing in my head: why these parents, why this family, why this city, why this school, why this husband, and why this body. And the follow up to “why” became “if only” — if only I had more money, if only I had a different family, etc. The litany was endless. And each verse dug my roots in deeper and deeper.

When I began the healing process of allowing the Spirit to weed my garden heart, I thought I would explode into a million pieces. I had held on to those issues for so long that I didn’t know who I would be without them.

Although I was able to release many of my old hurts and habits, I recognize now that a life picks up other hurts along the way. Not all bitter roots come from childhood or even teen years, they can find yummy soil ten years ago or five or even yesterday. How deeply they are planted and how much I water my bitter roots will determine how easily they can be removed.

This is where grace comes in, through the love and power of the Holy Spirit, the work of the Messiah, and the intention of God to make all things well.

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In the Face of Despair

Posted in Ordinary Time, tagged , , , , , , , on July 10, 2010| 6 Comments »

No, I have not faced despair to the point of facing death. My life is blessed. What are my struggles compared to walking streets where a car bomb could go off at any moment or looking into the eyes of my starving children each day or living in a tent city or carrying water for miles in plastic water jugs?

II Corinthians 1:8b-9
We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

I understand the theory of trusting God in the face of despair. I understand that God is present for the poorest of the poor, for the loneliest of the lonely, the widows and orphans, the lost. But I have only witnessed these lives from afar. Even when I went to Africa, I was in a cocoon of safety.

In Namibia, I spent one afternoon at the Mafuta village where our church-sponsored children’s home was providing a lunch to the local school children. And I was touched by their need, their struggle. And yet, these were better off than many. They were being fed while many others elsewhere are not.

Would I have the courage to trust in God in the face of true despair? Would I be able to hold fast to my faith?

It is the reason I am still in awe of Mother Teresa when she served in Calcutta. She faced the despair of others every day. But she was able to sustain herself in Christ. Only her faith in God allowed her to rise each day and touch the dead and dying. To be the hands of love. She could not bring hope, even. Just tenderness and love in the face of despair.

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