Places we would rather not go

But Christ is the treasure in the darkness

Isaiah 61:1-2 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to comfort the brokenhearted and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.

Why must we walk with Jesus his path to the cross? Why can’t we skip directly to Easter?

Dr. Diane Langberg thinks deeply about what it means to share the anointing Jesus claimed as his own (Luke 4:20). Here is a selection from “The Fellowship of His Sufferings,” Chapter 5 of her book Suffering and the Heart of God (emphasis mine):

These verses [Isaiah 61:1-3] bring us comfort, but if we are to follow Jesus we must walk into poverty, brokenness, prisons, darkness, mourning, and despair. These are not places we desire to go. … He has called us to live and serve him in this dark place of death, this world, moving among those who are dead in their trespasses and sins, calling them to light and life.

It is not the kind of invitation most of us like to receive. He is the Man of Sorrows and familiar with suffering. He was despised and rejected. He took up our griefs and carried our sorrows. He was crushed for our sins, oppressed, judged, and cut off from the land of the living. And you and I, as the servants of God, are called to complete in our lives what is lacking in regard to Christ’s suffering, for the sake of his body.

The call to share in the fellowship of his sufferings is preceded by the call to worship, the call to truly know him as he is. … Unless we begin from the pace of worship, we will not have power to descend to the places of suffering. … God is on his throne and is our eternal refuge. Worship must come first or we will exalt ourselves and think that the drab drudgery of the rubble is not meant for us. …

God must permeate your being if you are to bring life to dead places. … We must first allow the Spirit of God to bring his power to bear in the dark and dead places of our own lives. We must begin on our knees. He has borne our selfishness, our complacency, our love of success, and our pride. There is no part of any tragedy that he has now known and carried.

God will use the suffering of others to drive you to himself for more of him. Such darkness would overwhelm and lead to despair were there not a treasure there. The treasure in the darkness is the Crucified Christ. To enter into the fellowship of his sufferings is to find him.

Fresh courage

But Jesus bears our sorrows

Isaiah 53:4-5 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows … upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.

I’m sticking my neck out today, telling a very personal story in case someone out there needs it.

Palm Sunday at Church of the Ascension is full of drama, as are all the Holy Week services. Yesterday, though, my mind fixated on Isaiah 53:4 and 5 and I missed much of what ensued. I didn’t even really hear the words as they were read in the service. When I saw the reading was from Isaiah 53, the KJV leaped to my mind, reflected in the ESV quoted above.

I fought to control my tears, not wanting to disturb the people around me. If you carry our griefs and sorrows, why, Lord, am I still drowning in grief? I’ve tried hard all week to give it to you …

Later in the service, I noticed a precious friend rise to go forward for communion. I heard the Lord say, “Go to her.” So after I received communion, I walked all the way around the nave to where she was sitting and whispered, “Can you pray for me?” She made room, and asked what was wrong.

All I could say through my tears was, “A dear transplant friend died last week while Dave and I were in Ireland. After her beautiful memorial service, others from the transplant community retold their own stories. It ripped me wide open. I feel like I’m drowning in grief. I don’t understand this. It’s been nine years since Karis died.”

My friend bowed her head for a while, then she said, “I see you surrounded by God’s love. Wherever you turn, his love is there, huge, deep, encompassing. It’s all tied to the blood Jesus shed for you. But I see a hole in your heart. You need to ask him to fill it.”

Only then I realized the congregation was singing, “What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus,” which snapped me back to Isaiah 53:4-5. I asked Jesus to fill the hole in my heart.

Instantly the grief was gone.

Just like that, I could breathe again. I saw myself small, suspended somehow in the center of immense, radiating warmth and light. I reached out to take it in, soaking in the Lord’s comfort and care.

The whole thing took perhaps three minutes. Maybe less.

I told my friend I needed some time alone with Jesus to understand what was happening. I slipped into a chapel near us, off the main sanctuary, where I could be still and alone with the Lord. Engraved on the chapel altar is a carving of the Lamb on the throne “looking as if it had been slain” (Rev. 5:5-6). I’ve been in that chapel countless times but don’t remember noticing before the carving on the altar. Carved angels on each side invited me to join them in worship of the Lamb who allowed me to see him bearing my grief and sorrow, thanks to the spiritual vision and intercession of the friend to whom God had directed me.

I’m relating this because in the economy of the Kingdom, I believe such experiences are given to us not only for our personal benefit, but to encourage others as well. I hope this will be the case for you.

Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take,

The clouds ye so much dread

Are big with mercy, and shall break

In blessings on your head.

From “Light Shining in Darkness” by William Cowper (18th c.). Listen here, at minute 53:03; this verse is at 54:22. Full text here.

An Encounter with God, by Kaiti Kirby, Pittsburgh

But God directs my path

Psalm 25:1, 4-5 In you, Lord my God, I put my trust. … Show me your ways, Lord. Teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long.

[Debbie] On this last day of Lent, Kaiti invites us to ask God for encounters with him. This morning, I read in Suffering and the Heart of God: How Trauma Destroys and Christ Restores this word from Diane Langberg: “God has sent you to walk the way of the cross, obedient to his Word, serving with humility, governed by his Spirit and bowing to his authority over every aspect of your life.” We’ll consider more of what Diane teaches us as we walk the way of the cross with Jesus next week.

Here’s Kaiti:

A couple of months ago at our church, we had an ordination service for two of our deacons. During the sermon, the bishop encouraged them in their ministry, while also tangentially encouraging the rest of us in our various ministries/life stages. One of the big points he made was that in ministry, it’s our encounters with the living God that empower us. Not anything we can do, not our own skills, but only encountering the living God. That really got me thinking. I didn’t feel like I really had anything like that, at least not in a way that felt tangible to me at that moment.

Not too long after this, I realized that I generally did not feel like I had a very close, personal relationship with God, and I felt sad about this. A friend encouraged me to start praying for encounters with God. I hesitated, feeling like it was unfair of me to ask. Certainly, I thought, I had encountered God many times in my life and just wasn’t remembering. But when I expressed this, my friend said, “Well, yeah, it is unfair. But God invites us to ask anyway.” So I started to pray that I would encounter God.

Pretty much immediately after this conversation, I saw that one of my Bible readings for the next day was Psalm 25. This was significant because God had used Psalm 25 in another situation months before to speak to me—one of the encounters my friend and I had just discussed on the phone. So there I was, having not even brought the issue directly to God yet He was already starting to answer my prayer.

Not only that, but when I got to my Bible Study for the next morning, the other part of my reading included Exodus 33, where Moses asks God if he can see His glory, and God shows up to Him. Moses asked for an encounter with God, and God said yes. To me, this was a clear “Yes, Kaiti, you can ask. And I will answer.” So I decided to keep asking.

After a week or so, I realized I had already forgotten to keep praying for closeness with God, and I was struggling once again with feeling distant from Him. So I picked it back up. A day or two later, as I walked past the Catholic school right next to my dorm building, I saw a little booklet of papers flying across the sidewalk towards the road. Curious, assuming it was from the school, I picked it up. It was a bulletin from the ordination service!

That’s strange, I thought. The church is only a block from my dorm, but how, almost two weeks after the service, did it show up here? I pulled out my phone to take a picture to express my surprise to friends from church. But then I noticed there was writing on the back of the bulletin. And it hit me. It was my bulletin from the service!!

After the service two weeks before, I had walked back to my dorm, realized I had forgotten something at church, left the bulletin on a table outside my building to go back, and then forgot about it. And here I was, almost TWO WEEKS later, and here was my bulletin, busted up and dirty, and yet with my pen-inked notes perfectly intact, quite literally blowing across my path at the perfect moment. If I had walked by thirty seconds earlier or later, I would’ve missed it.

It wasn’t until I called my brother about it (someone had to know!) that I even remembered what the sermon had been about. This dirty busted up bulletin I was holding, which so conveniently flew across my path two days after praying for encounters with God, had a note on it from two weeks before that read, “it’s our encounters w/ the living God that empower us.”

I was like, alright God, I hear you. That’s pretty clear. Can’t really pretend that didn’t happen. To further solidify this as an encounter with God, two days later, I attended a women’s retreat led by Debbie, in which one of the talks was literally called “God Encounters.” We had the opportunity to share our own God Encounters. It seemed a perfect opportunity, and a bit of a wink from God that that’s really what this was—an encounter with the living God.

So this bulletin has become an Ebenezer for me—a rock of remembering. It’s a tangible reminder that God is real, He’s listening, and He is very present in my life.

True Home, by Susannah Davenport, Pittsburgh

Note from Debbie: We’re just home from Ireland, a bit jet lagged–more about that soon. While we were there, our dear “transplant friend” Carissa went to her True Home. Meanwhile, a Pittsburgh friend sent me this “But God” experience. Thank you, Susannah. We travel today to participate in Carissa’s memorial service tomorrow.

But God’s light overcomes darkness

John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.

In 2015 my older sister Jessica was diagnosed with Stage IV Brain Cancer. She was 36 years old and had two daughters, aged 9 months and three years old. After her first operation to remove the biggest part of her brain tumor, my sisters and I went to visit her. In her darkened recovery room, my sister Shelley said, “Jess, you know we would all take this from you in a heartbeat.”

Jessica responded, “Oh, no. I’m glad it’s me because I couldn’t bear it if it were any of you.” She then revealed to us that she had lost her faith in God many years before, and instead of trying to find Him, she was waiting for God to find her. But if she died, which the doctors said she most likely would, she hoped He would find her before then.

Jessica’s brain cancer progressed quickly, and by Thanksgiving she was in Hospice at home. She was fading quickly, growing weak and frail. Her head was swollen and she lost sight in her left eye.

By Christmas, her cognitive functions were failing, and she could barely understand what was happening around her. She still recognized us, but time was running out. Her husband, who is Catholic, begged her to see a priest and join the Catholic church to receive communion before her death. She agreed, and on the morning of Christmas Eve a priest came to give her communion.

We gathered around Jessica’s bed, and he anointed her. The room was very dark because it was cloudy outside. She was propped up in bed, staring to the side as he tried to talk to her. Her eyes began to droop and for a moment we thought she might be falling asleep. But after the priest finished praying, she looked up suddenly. She was alert and clearly recognized us—her siblings—standing around her.

Each member of my family remembers a little differently what happened next. I saw the room fill with sunlight. My sister Shelley said Jessica’s face was glowing. Regardless, the room was no longer dark. Jess said softly in surprise, “Oh. It’s so light in here. You have no idea how dark it’s been.” She looked around at each of us with a weak smile of relief.

The priest said, “That’s the light of Christ, Jessica.”

She said, “Oh…I’m hungry. Let’s have bacon and eggs!”

We lost Jessica less than two weeks later, on January 6th, 2016. She had multiple military honors at her funeral and was buried with the American Flag draped over her coffin.

The night before her passing Shelley and I had the same dream that a lion (much like Aslan) was guiding a dark-haired girl into the trees, her hand resting on his mane as they walked.

Shutterstock: Sharon Vitor

I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that Jessica received the gift of eternal life and our Heavenly Father called her to her True Home.

Healing at the lake, Part 4

But God knows our story

John 21:3-6, 17, 19-22 [After Jesus’s resurrection] Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.” “We’ll come, too,” [six other disciples] said. But they caught nothing all night. At dawn Jesus, standing on the beach, called out, “Children, have you caught any fish?” No, they replied. Then Jesus said, “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat.” So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. …

Psalm 32:1-2 Oh, what joy for those whose disobedience is forgiven, whose sin is put out of sight! Yes, what joy for those whose record the Lord has cleared of guilt!

[After breakfast] A third time, Jesus asked Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt that Jesus asked the question a third time. He said, “Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Then feed my sheep.” … Then Jesus told him, “Follow me.” Peter turned around and saw behind them the disciple Jesus loved. … He asked Jesus, “What about him, Lord?” Jesus replied, “… What is that to you? As for you, follow me.”

Have you ever wondered why Jesus chose this particular setting for his pivotal conversation with Peter after the crucifixion and resurrection, after Peter’s denials warranted a return to the moniker “Simon”?

This miraculous catch of fish is a reprise of Luke 5, offering Peter another chance to recognize and reconnect with Jesus, and with God’s call on his life. A chance to accept forgiveness and to move beyond his failures. A chance to heal his story.

God met me as well, on ensuing visits to the lake. Fast forward from the story I told in the last post. I’m now fourteen, graduated from boarding school, fearful of the future. Sitting alone overlooking the lake, I told the Lord I wasn’t ready to leave Guatemala because I had not yet learned to love. I acknowledged my heart full of resentment and bitterness. I didn’t want to take all that with me into whatever awaited me in my new life in the United States, where my parents would send me for high school. But how could I change? I had confessed my anger and hurt, but it refused to die, rearing its ugly head on a daily basis.

Romans 12:2 was the verse I was considering: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” You’ll have to do it, Lord. I have no idea how to change the way I think. On the surface, nothing (apparently) happened. But it was a place marker, an anchor, an intention, a hope: “Someday, somehow, I will learn how to love other people.”

Shutterstock: Christopher Moswitzer

Fast forward twenty-five or so more years. A different country, a different lake, a different language. A big difference this time because I’m not alone. A dear friend is listening to my despair over Ephesians 5:1-2, “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children, and walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us.”

“For most of my life,” I confessed to my friend, “I’ve begged God to teach me to love him and to love other people. But I don’t know how. I have no idea what it feels like to be a dearly loved child.”

“Then let’s ask him to show you,” she said. What followed was one of the most powerful prayer visions I have ever experienced. It healed a fracture line in my soul. It changed forever the way I knew Jesus and the way I viewed myself and other people. Literally, it saved my life. It was the beginning of learning the Romans 12:2 different way of thinking I had begged God for at fourteen.

Why did this healing take so long? Why did I have to go through so much trauma and drama between fourteen and forty? I’ll probably never know. But I’m grateful, so thankful that it did happen. It was an essential foundation stone in the healing journey that has continued through the almost thirty years since that day.

Tomorrow Dave and I plan to board a plane for Ireland, for a “triple trip,” celebrating our 45^th wedding anniversary last August, Dave’s St. Patrick’s Day 70^th birthday, and researching Book 3 of the Cally and Charlie series. I have the sense—though I don’t know how, exactly—that the week in Ireland will be another significant step in the healing God continues in my life. I’ll let you know!

Healing at the lake, Part 3

But Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid”

Luke 5:4-10 Jesus said to Simon, “Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish.” “Master,” Simon replied, we worked hard all last night and didn’t catch a thing. But if you say so, I’ll let the nets down again.” This time the nets were so full of fish they began to tear! … When Simon Peter realized what had happened, he fell to his knees before Jesus and said, “Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m too much of a sinner to be around you.” … Jesus replied to Simon, “Don’t be afraid.”

Romans 8:1-2 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. … The life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin. … Letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

The sun grew warm as I built a sandcastle with my brother and sisters. I took off my sweater and laid it on a rock. After a while, we ran to the lake to splash in the waves lapping the shore. When I returned, my sweater was gone.

My seven-year-old heart was terrified to tell my mother I had lost my sweater. I delayed returning to our vacation house for as long as I could. Thus I was doubly in trouble, not only for my carelessness but for not showing up in time to help with lunch. I was denied lunch and grounded for the remaining day and a half of our vacation. But what hurt most were the words my mother poured out on me, and the tone of those words. I’m not sure I learned to be more responsible. I do know my fear of her dug even deeper roots into my soul.

It’s natural for a child to project that experience of fear onto God, to assume God is like our parents or other authority figures who haven’t known how to support and encourage us. The breakthrough, healing moments (I’ll tell about one of them in the next post) come from discovery that Jesus isn’t like them. That’s what Simon learned.

“The Chosen” depicts Simon in BIG trouble over his debt to the Roman government. The miraculous catch of fish more than paid Simon’s taxes. It freed him to give up fishing and follow Jesus.

But Simon had an even bigger debt, the debt of his sin, which made him ashamed to come close to the Holy One. Dane Ortlund in his precious book Gentle and Lowly: The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers, points out in almost every chapter that the only safe thing to do with ourselves when we recognize our sin is to go straight to Jesus. Remember the story in John 8 of the woman caught in adultery? (No mention is made of the man … apparently, she was committing adultery by herself.) Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.”

Compassion. That’s what we’ll find when we go to Jesus in our sin. He weeps over the wounding that takes place within us and in others when we sin. He wants to free us from sin’s devastating impact.

Ortlund says (page 174), “His love is great because it surges forward all the more when the beloved is threatened, even if threatened as a result of its own folly.” I wish for courage this Lent, for you and for me, to trust Jesus’s heart of love, his compassion, his gentleness, his longing to connect with us, to free and heal us. Hear him say to you as he did to Simon, “Don’t be afraid.”

Healing at the lake, Part 2, by Karen Johnson, Hershey, PA

But God wipes away our tears

Revelation 7:17 For the Lamb on the throne will be their Shepherd. He will lead them to springs of life-giving water. And God will wipe every tear from their eyes.

I invite you to come back with me to the dock by the lake. The sun is dancing off the rippled surface, and the air is just hot enough to make the cool water inviting. I turn around and, with total abandon, fling out my arms and fall backward into the lake. As the water welcomes and envelops me, Jesus gives a loud whoop and dives in beside me. We swim and frolic in the amazing creation that is water. As I float on my back, I delight in the warm sun on my face and am caught by the wonder of the green trees on the shore contrasting with the clear blue sky.

A fog rolls in from the land, dark and sinister, and I suddenly find myself on the dock, wrapped in a wet towel, dripping, cold, and frightened. Jesus pulls himself up onto the dock and, with a smile, takes my hand. As we head up the slope towards the house, he leads me over to a stream I was never aware of before. He invites me to sit with him beside the brook. He puts his arm around me with what I think is a blanket, but then I realize that I am fully clothed and warm and dry. Even my hair is dry!

As we sit in the warm sun, we wrap our arms around our knees and lean into each other as we laugh at the water tumbling over the rocks. “I really love where the deeper water flows smoothly over the rocks, too,” I say. “It makes me want to touch it. It’s like the smooth black stone in the rough sidewalk that I always stop to rub my foot over.” Jesus soaks in my delight at his cleverness in giving even a little stream bed such wonderful variety.

Soon it’s time to go. Jesus pulls me to my feet, and we head up the slope, hand in hand, our arms swinging between us. As we approach the house, a fog like a swarm of bees rushes towards us. Jesus angles his body so that he absorbs the onslaught, and the swarm dissipates into the air. Knowing trouble is waiting for us, Jesus gives me a cheeky grin and a wink.

I find myself at the table, enduring an unending harangue about how horrible I am to have come inside late, but Jesus is in the chair next to me, sitting close in solidarity with me. As the barrage of words overwhelms me, he pulls me onto his lap and starts whispering in my ear about how he loves me and how much fun he had playing in the water with me and how delighted he is by my tender heart.

“I don’t condemn you,” he says. His words soothe me so that I drift off to sleep, curled against his chest. I awaken when I’m instructed to make sandwiches for lunch. I hop off Jesus’s lap. He again takes my hand and asks, “How can I help?” We go together into the kitchen. He knows how much I love working with other people in the kitchen!

As we spread slices of bread across the countertop and mix up tuna salad, our shoulders bump. We laugh as we remember what a fun morning we had. We replay the vision of the sun on the water and the trees against the sky. We delight in the lush green grass of the lawn and the flowering trees outside the kitchen window. We remember the brook as it tripped and fell over stones on its way.

“What about the others?” I ask. “I’m so sad for the pain they feel.”

“Don’t worry,” Jesus comforts me. “I’ve got them. You don’t have to fix them. I’m big enough to love them too. I don’t even have to leave you in order to take care of them. I’m holding each of you. You couldn’t see it, but I gave gifts to them at the table while you slept on my lap. I let your mom know that you were sheltered from the pain of her words, even as she felt powerless to stop them. That comforted her soul. Your dad was reassured that someone bigger and stronger than either of you was there to protect the child he loved. He could rest in my strength.”

“Thank you for caring for all of us,” I say. “Thank you for a lovely morning, and for bringing the joy of the lake into the house, to the table, and into the kitchen. Thank you for delighting in all the beauty with me. Thank you for a wonderful weekend at the lake.”

With a deep sense of peace, we get in the car together and drive away.

Healing at the Lake, Part 1 of 2, by Karen Johnson, Hershey, PA

But God … Where are you?

Psalm 42:1-2 As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. I thirst for God, the living God. When can I go and stand before him? Day and night I have only tears for my food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, “Where is this God of yours?”

I invite you to join me at the end of a dock on a bright, sunny day. The sun is dancing off the lake, and the air is just hot enough to make the cool water inviting. I turn around and, with total abandon, fling out my arms and fall backward into the lake. The water welcomes and envelopes me, filling me with a thrill of excitement. I dive deep, then swim back up to break the surface. The sun is bright in my eyes and warm on my face, even as my body in the water shivers with delight.

I look back and see Jesus running down the dock. With a whoop of joy, he dives into the lake. He comes up next to me with a big grin as He flicks the hair out of his eyes. We laugh and swim and frolic in the water. I am aware of a smoggy, oppressive tinge to the air, even on this sunny day. While it weighs on me, I ignore it for now and focus on the warm sun and the joy and freedom I feel as I glide through the water, a cheerful companion at my side. My gangly pre-teen body feels strong and graceful.

But as I break through the surface and flip over to float on my back, I sense a chill in the air. The smog has thickened into a black fog that snakes over the dock from the land. Suddenly, I am standing on the dock, wrapped in a towel but shivering and cold. My hair hangs in wet hanks and drips down my back. I am enveloped by the dank, dark fog.

I slowly trudge up the dock towards the house. As I start up the grassy slope, my attention is caught by a stream I never knew was there at the far edge of the lawn. Curious, I investigate. A brook tumbles down the hillside towards the lake. I love water in its many forms, but I am strangely devoid of emotion as I see this cheerful little stream bubbling over the rocks. I turn back and plod towards the house.

As I near the door, the fog thickens and is like a swarm of bees coming at me, piercing and smothering me. I know I’m in trouble. I suddenly find myself inside, sitting at the table, being berated for staying outside too long. The harangue goes on and on and on and on as I am told how selfish and inconsiderate and rebellious I am. How dare I enjoy the sun and the water when we need to pack up and get ready to leave? Who do I think I am to leave the work to everyone else?

I sit there, shivering and cold and alone, absorbing into myself every word that is said. My dad is there, but he doesn’t defend me and seems powerless to make the onslaught stop.

When the tirade winds down, I am instructed to go to the kitchen to make sandwiches for the trip. I love to help, but instead of delight at contributing to a team effort, I stand at the counter, bread slices spread out in front of me, mixing a batch of tuna salad, hating myself. Sobs quietly rack my body and I want to hurt myself to get rid of this horrible guilt and shame and anger.

At the same time, I am aware that this entire scenario was totally unnecessary. I was given permission to go out and play. I was a child, out on the water, with no way of telling the time. All that was required was for the adult to pay attention to the time and what needed to be done and cheerfully call me in when it was time to get ready to go. I would have reluctantly left the water but happily come inside to help. I love to help!

Another thread weaves through my thoughts and weighs down my heart: sadness for the pain that consumes those I love. Pain that would cause a mother to so berate her sweet daughter and cause a father to look on so helplessly. Is God powerless to do anything for any of us?

Under this cloud, we drive away from the weekend at the lake. God, where are you? Why is there no connection between the delight on the water and life in the house and in the car as we drive away? Where is the peace and joy your Spirit is supposed to give us? Why can’t I find you? Why is the girl who frolicked in the water such a miserable failure yet again?

Do we dare?

But God is the Father of mercies

2 Corinthians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort.

John 14:8-10 Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father.” … Jesus replied, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. … My Father, who lives in me, does his work through me.”

I just finished reading a novel called The Abstainer by Ian McGuire, which takes place in the aftermath of the 1867 public hangings in Manchester, England of three Irish traitors or martyrs, depending on one’s point of view. As I got to know the main characters, I saw that each one was deeply influenced by the way they had been treated by their fathers, for good or for ill. Mostly for ill.

The word “Father” is never neutral. It evokes emotion: joy or sadness, anger or gratitude, pride or disgust, warmth or fear, guilt or confidence. Or a complex combination of many of these. Isn’t that true?

And for many of us, calling God our Father is equally complex. I remember one victim of abuse in Brazil literally threw up when in a support group we touched on the topic of God as our good Father. We automatically attribute to God our experiences with our human fathers. This woman needed profound healing before she was able to even consider the words “Father” and “good” in the same sentence.

So I’m intrigued by Dane Ortlund’s treatment of God as the Father of mercies in chapter 14 of his wonderful book Gentle and Lowly, The Heart of Christ for Sinners and Sufferers. Ortlund says the label “Father of mercies” takes us into the deepest recesses of God’s loving, compassionate heart. He quotes these words by Thomas Goodwin, a Puritan writer in the 17^th century:

“God has a multitude of al kinds of mercies. … There is no sin or misery butGod has a mercy for it. … If your heart be hard, his mercies are tender. If your heart be dead, he has mercy to liven it. If you be sick, he has mercy to heal you. If you be sinful, he has mercies to sanctify and cleanse you. As large and as various as are our wants, so large and various are his mercies. So we may come boldly to find grace and mercy to help us in time of need a mercy suited to all the variety of the diseases of the soul. He is the spring of all mercy” (Ortlund p. 131).

And Ortlund continues, “Some of us had great dads growing up. Others of us were horribly mistreated or abandoned by them. Whatever the case, the good in our earthly dads is a faint pointer to the true goodness of our heavenly Father, and the bad in our earthly dads is the photo negative of who our heavenly Father is. He is the Father of whom every human father is a shadow. … Your gentlest treatment of yourself is less gentle than the way your heavenly Father handles you. His tenderness toward you outstrips what you are even capable of toward yourself” (pp. 132-133).

As we dare to connect our hearts with the Father’s heart this Lent, we will taste his mercy and compassion. We will find grace. His tenderness will heal us.

“Dare to stay with your pain. Make your pain available for God’s healing. The pain you suffer now is meant to put you in touch with the place where you most need healing, your very heart” (Henri Nouwen, The Inner Voice of Love, pp. 47-48).

The Father himself loves you dearly (John 16:27).

The Gift of Geese, by Stacey Regan, Pittsburgh, PA

But God sees us

Genesis 16:13 Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her. She said, “You are the God who sees me.”

The Gift of Geese

Last December, my mom, 92, died unexpectedly. We held her memorial service in early January. While I moved to Pennsylvania almost 30 years ago, she still lived in North Texas.

Like Mom I’m a classic Type A, Enneagram 1 person, so when I needed to be on site for an extended period of time to help my brother and sister go through her things, I was there. When I needed to work remotely during the day and focus on Mom stuff late into the night, that’s what I did.

Between busyness and exhaustion, there wasn’t much time to grieve, and I knew I’d need God to help me anyway, since I’m not a natural emotions processor. When Dad passed 15 years ago, I asked God to help me grieve over his dying. I was aware that numbness seemed to be an impenetrable wall, and I didn’t know how to scale it. Then one day out of the blue, he brought me to tears on a particular stretch of road on my way to work. This occurred daily for months. It would have been funny if it hadn’t been so gut-wrenching, and I both looked forward to and dreaded hitting that part of my commute. Slowly, over time the sobs subsided, healing took hold, and one day the time for that grieving was over.

As I followed my brother’s truck down the street the early morning we headed north with what I chose to keep of Mom’s things, I remembered how God had provided me a way to grieve for Dad, and wondered if he might do the same now for Mom. I enjoy long drives and seeing the changing countryside, so the first day flew by pleasantly enough, but with no grief markers.

The second day was totally different. Less than an hour after we’d left our hotel, something caught my peripheral vision. As far as the eye could see on either side of the highway lay fields of stubble, the remnants of last Fall’s harvest, but something had moved. On closer examination, the fields were covered with thousands of geese. Packed with them, for miles and miles. As I drove by, hundreds seemed to lift off already in their trademark V-formations, then lazily cross the road. This continued for at least 20 minutes as we continued down the interstate.

There’s something about the sight of geese flying overhead that physically thrills and awes me, but this was overwhelming in the true sense of the word, and I wept and wept. I wept over my mom’s death, and I wept over the provision of a loving God who knew how to help me release my tears. A God who sees me and understands my particular needs.

Shutterstock: Schuchart

Trying to find words to articulate and remember this experience, I’ve named it The Gift of Geese. I know that at least twice a year I’ll have a reminder of that gift flying overhead, even if I only see a single V limping across the sky. I don’t know if I’ll weep, but I know it will make me smile, remember, and utter several prayers of gratitude.

Note from Debbie:

Stacey writes songs that greatly enrich our worship at Church of the Ascension. Her song “I Offer My Isaac” brought Karis and me to tears on our first visit to the church the morning after her first transplant was cancelled:

I offer my Isaac here on your altar,

Removed from my shoulders, bound for the slaughter.

I surrender my Isaac here on your altar.

Freely I offer the love of my heart.

My hands are free to praise you wholly now, to receive what you have for me.

And should you take or return my Isaac, oh Lord,

On your altar my heart will still be. On your altar my heart will still be.