Staying - When we stay in the valley and become honest with God something remarkable happens

The last SATURDAYS post talked about God redeeming even the darkest parts of our story.  I love that idea...God turning despair into hope, Night into day, dark into light. But often the idea is a lot easier than the execution.  How do these dark-wait-days become redeemed?  How can we practically find God in them?  Have you asked these questions?  I know I have!  
    

Perhaps it begins when we stop trying to turn on the light ourselves.  Of course it's only natural to look for light in dark places.  When my dad got sick I wanted to find ways to alleviate the pain and shock of it all.  No one with any appetite for life initially enters a difficult season by saying, "Oh yeah baby!  Bring it on...the more desolate the better!"  Nope...  We initially want out!  But skipping across the top of pain does not allow us to be present with it; and only as we become present with it that we will find healing.


While I believe that to be true, often I need to learn how to do it.  In the case with my dad, the only thing I really knew was that I didn’t like it.  I wanted things to go back to the way they were.  I dreaded the journey ahead for him, my mom, for everybody.  So, secretly in my heart, I tried to find a light switch to turn on.  I wanted to illuminate this path and find something better, but there was no light switch.  (Now, before anyone corrects me, don’t worry, I already know Jesus is the light of life...I don't need a reminder) Since I could not find a way to illuminate that path, I groped for a door and looked for a way out, but every door opened to the same reality.  I was so frustrated and overwhelmed.  But God had a plan, He still does.  And one of the gifts of such sacred darkness is that there is no escape.  

To find the light of Christ we must be willing to journey the dark, solemn places of our soul that rise up and question the goodness of God.  Job did that and he wasn't scolded, he was actually reminded of God.  Perhaps some would say, we shouldn’t question God’s goodness, or that we should trust him more.  Well, that’s a good idea and when you meet someone who has that figured out, let me know.   I have tried bringing my “should” or “shouldn’t” self to God.  It doesn’t work very well, because it isn’t my real-self.  I don’t need God to love the person I should be, I need him to love the person I AM.  Nothing discloses the real-me more than moments of desolation.  

I suppose that’s why raw honesty works best...at least it does for me.  In that hotel room near Stanford sometime around 3 am I could cry out, “God, I don’t like this!  I’m overwhelmed with sadness and disappointment.   I don’t trust you to be good right now because the pain and shock I feel eclipses much of what I’ve learned about you....or at least what I've come to believe. If you are who you say you are, please come and meet me here.” …And he did, and he brought his goodness with him.  Like Job, I wasn't scolded in his presence, I was reminded.
So I asked God to open my eyes to what was real and to see His goodness in it.  As I came across a garden at Stanford I was reminded there is a Gardener that grows beautiful things from dirt that holds seeds; and the soil bed of our hearts are being prepared, all the time, for sacred work and beauty.  Walking through the many waiting areas God gave me eyes to see past the medicine and notice the sleepy sojourners in waiting rooms, unforgotten by the One who is high above it all.  He's the one who remembers our waiting condition and keeps us present before the Father even when  we can't do so ourselves (Rom 8, Isa 55:8-9).  He collects our tears and carries our sorrows (Ph 56:8).  He does it while we work out our disappointments with Him, with our story and with ourselves.  

It takes time to make room for such soul-space.  Silence and solitude are key.  In them, the many screams from this crazy roller-coaster can be silenced. His still small voice finds an echo that carries its way to the canyons of our dismay.  And while we wait in the basin of darkness, we learn to die.  We loosen our grip on what we must have, who we must be, the things we must accomplish, and we simply begin to rest in who we are and what we’ve been given.  We become present with ourselves and, if we invite him, Jesus shows up too.  The sinner dines with Holiness and in the power of God’s loving presence, we are changed. 

I am slowly learning to let the Light of Life love me in honest visitations.  This, after all, is our inheritance.  Let us receive it with…joy.

Become silent for a moment. Stay quiet long enough to notice what's rumbling in your heart and mind?   
What honest plea might you have for God? 
Practice trusting Him by voicing that plea before him.  Set your 'should' and 'shouldn't' aside and  dare to speak what rises up.
Let the Light of Life love you in the darkness and hold you present before Himself. 

Hear Him say, "Oh beloved, show me your face, let me hear your voice.  For your voice is sweet and your face is lovely.  There's nothing in your story that I have not seen and remembered."   

More later….

Coming Back - This summer's journey of finding God in the storms. Part 1

 I’m writing this while sitting in Starbucks.  Not just any Starbucks, it’s the Starbucks – the one where I’ve gone for years.  I sit in one corner meeting with women talking about life circumstances and how God might be shaping us through them.  My dad often sits less than 20 feet away in the opposite corner having similar conversations with his coffee buddies.  The workers nicknamed their table “the office” as they occupy it every morning for hours.  Stories have been told at that table – stories about the market and economy, a spouse struggling with cancer, a home trying to be sold, and retired dreams still held close in conversation.  Every now and then, I hear their familiar belly laughs making their way to my corner.  There’s just one difference, my dad isn’t sitting there.

Today is the first day I’ve returned since July when my dad was diagnosed with leukemia.  which explains why there hasn't been much on this blog lately...but this won't be a sad post, because my dad is recovering.  It is, however, going to be an honest one.  In fact, a few of them will be.

How does it feel to walk into this sacred space?  Weird.  I forgot the doors open out and tried pushing them 3 or 4 times.  I’m sure I looked a little foolish before remembering how the doors work and how the fan announces every entrance.  At first glance I see the guys.  Do I say Hi?  Or do I just get in line and avoid the cordial hellos that may beg a report -  a report now recitable in my sleep...  Maybe I’ll just get in line.  I don’t really recognize anyone else, which surprises me.  Someone in here has the same name as my dad and I keep resisting the reflex to look over and greet the man with a "daughter's greeting". The barista asked for my name for the first time in years.   But several weeks have passed and things change, I suppose.  

It always feels strange to see how life has moved on while yours (including the ones close to you) has been blown over by a freight train and parts of your life are still laying all over the track.  I’m trying to pick up the pieces and find a focus, but feel so disconnected – so numb.  Is this normal?

Maybe I should feel happier...By all accounts, dad should not be with us today… he’s not out of the woods yet, but he is here.  He is probably wondering if that’s a good thing.  So much to adjust. So much to build back.  So many doctors – so many bills, so many private, life-altering moments that can never be explained.

As I watch the last of his buddies leave for the day, I am still sitting here in my corner, where a bitter sip can be sweetened with a shot of vanilla....where I finished a devotional on Ps 23, and remembered how God blesses us with a  cup that overflows of his love and goodness....where the barista's promise on the back of the cup is to "always make it right" If I don't love this drink.  ....but I know better than I did last June, the promise found in a bitter sip.

So, I have settled back into my corner, drinking my tea. What started out sweet in June and turned bitter by August is changing. Autumn is just days away.

...Maybe tomorrow I’ll see if dad can come.

Valley Storms

To be completely honest, I struggled over how to write this blog post.  It is adapted from a old journal entry and every time I took it out of the “first person experience” for this blog, it lost a good part of its meaning and sounded like rhetoric…so I didn’t.  I don’t write it this way for consolation or sympathy but in hopes of putting voice to what I know is common to us all.

 

“I hope that you have had a blue-sky kind of day, even if it’s snowing.”

My friend sent those words as a greeting recently.  I honestly don’t know if she meant it literally or figuratively …probably both.  Her words struck me and were deeply meaningful.  I live in a part of California where a 90 minute drive east would bring me right into the snowy Sierra Nevada Mountains;  and a drive westerly for about the same amount of time,  would tumble me straight onto the sandy beaches and blue skies of the coast.  BUT I live in the valley.  It’s the in-between place where the clouds collect from the coastal ranges and pass through as they make their way up the mountains to drop their snow.  Winter here often looks drizzly, gray and foggy with the occasional warm day brining a sunny respite. However, when those respites hide themselves, it is not unusual for families to take a Sunday drive and “get above the clouds to find some sun for the day”.  After all, the soul needs it.

I’m finding myself in a soul-season that feels a lot like winter in The Valley.  Circumstances seem to be piling one upon the other like collected clouds between mountain peaks, and struggle falls like rain?  How does one have a blue-sky kind of day when the grey hovers so ostentatiously?  I don’t really want to read another verse about trials building perseverance and perseverance character, and character…blah blah blah.  I want to escape and take my soul on a Sunday drive to find some sun…But where?

I know that Isaiah reminds us to put our down-cast soul into the hopes of God (Ps 42).  And I know that, “He keeps track of all our sorrows, and has collected all our tears in his bottle, recording each one in His book.” (Ps 56:8).  Maybe the light dawns as we go limp for a while and weep, letting the clouds of our soul drop their tears, and perhaps the blue-sky kind of day comes about while we sit in the drizzle of the rain, held by the One who alone keeps track of it all….
 

… Maybe the best thing we can do at times is just sit somewhere in the valley, between the blue-sky and the snow, and let it rain. 

Will trials build perseverance?  Yes, if I stay in the trial and let God do his refining work in me.  That’s how perseverance leads to character; and the sheer amazement of that actually happening builds hope. And hope lifts our eyes above the clouds to see the abundant resources held in heavens courts awaiting our appeal.  (Rom 5)

If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves,… and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. - Romans 8:26-28

So if you find yourself longing for a blue-sky kind of day even if it's snowing outside, let it rain a bit.  Trust that the Spirit will hold you before God and work out the details, at His ready the clouds will clear, making Hope's harvest sure.