“Busy is a choice. Stress is a choice. Giving yourself to joy is a choice. Choose well.” – Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
– Ephesians 3:20-21 ESV
There is a great big world out there and I want to explore every hill, every dale. It’s drinking deep time. Time slips like sand through open palms, the weight of middle age settles and stirs in my soul a desire for the so much more.
I sit, crisscross-applesauce, on my couch. Crickets strum their night song. My coffee pot is chattering out a delicious brew of decaf. Today has been a mix of heart amnesia and hope; a jagged swath of rock. There is a hope for more and a heart rending fear of following. The comfort I find in the Desolate Lands is one tempered with melancholy. My old companion, The Numbing, came to visit. If I’m an honest soul, she can be a welcomed respite. I was mad with God and chose ashes instead of feasting at His banquet.
“It simply isn’t an adventure worth telling if there aren’t dragons.” – JRR Tolkien
Ashes…
I’m consuming ashes as though they are life. The refining heat has cooled; no ember of warmth remains. The blaze has turned my heart to tempered glass. I can see my haunted reflection dimly through a patch of dense fog. I fill my plate with a heap of the fine silver matter. I tuck in as if it were prime rib. My fingers, arms, and face are smudged with soot as I gorge myself on emptiness. The dragon prowls while I smother under gluttonous lethargy. Dark caverns open up inside of me. They make room for ash and soot, distorting mind and body. A definable fault line flutters across my heart, a permanent scar leading to either redemption or destruction.
Like Eowyn (who is my spirit animal), I fear a cage. The cage I most fear is the one of my own making. The trap set for oneself is the most binding. I’m pondering how I managed to navigate the rivers and dales of joy and exultation to find my little ship moored in this ashen wasteland. There is a weird dichotomy to this state of being. I’m desperate to live the so much more, but devastatingly incapable of moving past “the nothing”. The ridding of it takes more effort than feeding the beast. So, this is what I’ve done. I’ve untangled myself from the things of God and fed the darkness. The scariest part is it has been so subtle, few notice the shift.
I believe in the so much more! This is where the adventure is. He is asking, has been asking, if I would lay down this dystopia I’ve called my Utopia. This world in my mind I’ll run to before I run to Him. The varying lies that layer unreality to make reality bearable. Someone recently shared with me that if re-incarnation existed she was certain she was a Christian before she came into this world. The words cut quick. This woman of God was in no way trying to be sacrilegious, but expressing her deeply rooted sacred love for Jesus.
Oh this faith, this mystery, its complexity is as vast as kernels of sand. The world attempts to compartmentalize our Christian faith with ‘holier than thou’, shear lunacy, or for the simple minded. Yet, when I look at the full scope of what we believe it is mysterious, deep, resonant, and tethers us to every ounce of creation. The layers do reach a center, Jesus, but the center of it – this God-man – is fathomless. We can dive deep into His oceans & forever learn more. This is one of the most stirring parts of my personal faith story. If Christianity were merely a rule book, a list of ‘do’s and don’ts’, I would have left it long ago. In relationship that reaches to the deepest part of who I am He creates a resonant powerful galvanizing experience. The deeper I go the more He reveals. Oh, the wonders that get soot clogged by this world. Let me, let us have eyes to see, to fight for, and unearth these treasures stored up for us.
“We live our lives before the wild, dangerous, unfettered and free character of the living God.” – Walter Bruggeman
“Thirsty hearts are those whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them.” – AW Tozer
This world is a cold stone liar. It flirts and entices. Yet it will take all – body and soul – if allowed. A month choosing to live without God was one of the emptiest of existences. I am still scrapping ashes from the roof of my mouth. I’m struggling to lay aside my play things. I keep convincing myself I’ve found the better way. The loss has atrophied my soul. It is taut and desiccated. There is no laxity, no way for it to expand. My mind, always my biggest battlefield, has forgotten to ponder on the things of God. I’m groping for the light switch while total darkness restrains my feet – immobile.
My faith has become fickle and sickly; a paltry wisp of a thing that would blow away with one puff of wind. The so much more is reaching, desperate to take hold. I can feel my heart trying to find His rhythm. The thrumming beats despite the steel I’ve encased it in. It reverberates throughout the hills and dales of my soul. The Holy Spirit unbinds within, traversing through the caverns of ash – cleaning house. I’ve been double-dealing on God, hedging bets in case He doesn’t come through. I feel a sham, bamboozling my way through this faith life – caught red-handed.
“I called on your name, O Lord,
From the depths of the pit.
You heard my pleas: “Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.”
You came near when I called you, and you said, “Do not fear.”
Oh Lord, you took up my case; you redeemed my life.”
- Lamentations 3: 55-58
We are sacrament to some and stumbling block for others. The broken alabaster that let’s perfume leach from its cracked edges risks being thrown on the trash pile, but the fire of refinement will renew all things & in the brokenness & the discarding we still leave a fragrance.
I want to be fragrant, but I’m afraid of the pyre. Ever further in, ever upward is the call of my heart. Instead of answering that heart-call I’m trying to skip stones across a stagnant puddle.
I’m breathing, reminding my heart that it beats for a moment such as this; a string of moments that string into days, weeks, years. This is the so much more. It isn’t in being well known, valued, or having all you desire. It is what you do with these moments you have been given. I believe I have more understanding of what Jesus means when He says if I deny him before men, He will deny me before the Father (Matthew 10:33). I don’t read it with ominous dread, but heart-wrenching clarity. The feeling is akin to walking dead. Denying the most intrinsic part of my being betrays not only the core of who He is but the core of who I am. The more I cleave to Him the more life & less fear there is. The cup is filled from which others may drink.
So, I’m not in utter disparity. As one of my new favorite songs says:
There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from the veins of grace, all sinners plunged beneath the flood lose all their guilty stains.
Deep and wide, deep and wide, there is a fountain flowing deep and wide.
And, it’s coming from the heart of God. There’s a fountain flowing deep and wide…
I write my struggle from the seat of His victory. “Deep and Wide” by Harvest has truly spoken into the void. An ember has ignited through their latest album & God has once more inclined His arm; reaching. There is so so much more!!
“But I keep telling my chronic soul amnesia to surrender the idea of being the mortar that holds all our mortal lives together and simply let go, believing that the broken bits of a heart are sand in His wind to carve a better life.” – Ann Voskamp, The Broken Way
“The rain and snow come down from the heavens and stay on the ground to water the earth. They cause the grain to grow, producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out, and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it.
You will live in joy and peace. The mountains and hills will burst into song, and the trees will clap their hands! Where once there were thorns, cypress trees will grow. Where nettles grew, myrtles will sprout up. These events will bring great honor to the Lord’s name; they will be an everlasting sign of his power and love.” – Isaiah 55: 10-13
“And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him…
Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage on another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.” – Hebrews 10: 19-22a; 23-25
Reflection of Providence 