Holy Saturday - When the story doesn't go the way we expect and God seems oh so silent!

So today is THE Saturday for which this blog was named, which is why it seemed just plain wrong to bypass posting for today.  I’ve had a lot on my mind lately,  Things I am learning as I move through the loss of a loved one, things I’m learning as I make vocational changes, and places of flux as my family grows up and my role shifts in their life.  All feel like a “Saturday” of sorts.  The sun is setting while Friday goes to sleep,  Sunday is not yet here and I find myself, as one would, lingering between “death” and life.  Waiting, sometimes weary, sometimes, sleepy, sometimes at rest.  It’s rather quiet in my soul, like the hushed obedience the mountains give after a fresh-fallen snow.

 We remember Christ crucified on Good Friday and Christ Risen and alive on Sunday -Friday and Sunday,  but what about the in-between Holy Saturday?  Not much is said about the day when God goes silent and a resurrection has yet to come. The day when all that is known is the aftermath of recent loss or the vague sense that something is not quite right.  Saturday has gone largely unacknowledged for me.   What does one do with this symbolic bridge-day that moves us from death to life? 

Well today on March 26, 2016 I have met with a client, sat with my mom as we thought about facing the first holiday without my dad.  I've taken my daughter to find Easter shoes, helped my son and his friend head back up to college for their final quarter, and will pick up dinner rolls,...my portion of the Easter meal.  (A case of bronchitis makes me glad for packaged rolls!) My husband has worked hard this week to prepare a sermon that will break the rhetoric hum of the Easter Bedtime story – (and I think he did, by the way!)  Earlier today he headed 40 minutes away to to evict a tenant and struggled deeply to do it in a way that is loving and good.  I’ve navigated a difficult conflict with a close friend and experienced deep pain, betrayal, and regret in the process... and I suppose they have too.  The laundry is slowly getting done, and my kitchen counter is visible for the first time since the boys came home last week (Let’s hear it for small victories!!) That’s what this in-between day has held…mini in-between moments, unfinished business, less than ideal snapshots of real life, and the reminder that something is not yet quite right.

But Sunday is coming.  Tomorrow we will sing, listen, reflect and pray on what this resurrection means - how we are grateful, wonder if we are, wish we felt more grateful or maybe elated that we do! Christ's crucifixion made available to us his risen life. 

Resurrection...Life arises from death. The first generation of wilderness-Israelites died before God would lead their children into the promise land. Even nature bears witness to this death-to-life phenomenon. A pine cone consumed in a fire releases its otherwise dormant seeds birthing a forest out of the ashes. And as I look back on the past few years it seems I've experienced a similar passage-a firestorm of sorts- in which my own dreams & desires - what I know to be my "life" are slowly being laid to rest.  

Its been said, God's dreams are better. There have been glimpses of that in this journey. And in it, this incidental Saturday-season becomes God’s silent storm where he comes near,  holds us as we writhe, weeps with us, and loves us intimately.  It happens in those stormy places that we often dare not share with another human heart; that's where God finds his home. He decends into those hellish shadows longing for deliverance, and we are forever changed! 

We journey to Sunday by way of the cross. Dallas Willard said, "We were meant to be inhabited by God and live by a power beyond ourselves.  Human problems cannot be solved by human means." He was so right! As we surrender to the pause, waiting becomes active.  Somewhere, out of the ashes, new life emerges as the Divine One works on our behalf.  Oh how I have been tempted to run - Haven't you?!  But we must stay in this Saturday, every hour of it, before Sunday dawns.  There are no short-cuts, just ordinary-remarkable happenings with a God who shows up along the way.

So in some ways, I've grown rather fond of this "wait-day" – there are times I wouldn't wish it away.  That's when the grit of my struggle finds the embrace of God's love.   But there are other days when my soul sits in begging screams – pleading to be taken off this bridge, this highway, that's commanding my surrender.   Yet... as I remain...God's hand works in ways I thought were impossible; and slowly, ever. so. slowly, there is a sliver, a glorious sliver of light as Sunday's dawn peeks over the horizon, awakening my dormant soul.  It all happens through the sacred wait of Saturday.

So...What are your Saturday moments?  
Could it be God is journeying you to Sunday's dawn through them?
How can you encounter Him and cooperate with Him along the way?

What Dad Would Tell the World - One of the last conversations between a father and his daughter.

Dad and Mom the first day He checked into Stanford on July 17th

 Most who read this blog know that my father has been fighting leukemia for the past seven months.  On Jan 25^th that fight ended and Dad found himself at home in God’s love embraced by Jesus …for real and forever. Yesterday we paid tribute to his life.  Some have asked if I would share what I shared at his memorial service.  The following is what was shared.

On January 9, I sat down with my dad and asked if he could tell the world anything, what would it be?  He said three things…

“Following Jesus doesn’t always lead us to a place where we want to be.”

In fact, I noticed a Lenten devotional from last spring in His bible that said as much.  It seemed God was preparing him before he ever knew he’d be taking this journey. 

It’s easy to assume if we follow Jesus and do what’s “right” that it will lead to a “blessing” we expect.  The truth is my dad was angry about cancer at first, and the way it was stealing his life.  He felt cheated and so did a lot of us. There were many dark days.  Yet, through a disease that was taking my dad’s life far sooner than he wanted, he was learning the “blessing of following Jesus was actually Jesus… not necessarily good circumstances. And the gift of following Christ was not his presenTS wrapped up in neat little bows set pristinely upon a shelf. Rather, it was his presenCE that comes near when everything else goes dark and life begins to unravel those pretty bows and burst out of our tidy boxes. I suppose that’s why he also said to me during the same visit,

“Michellie, Don’t fall too in love with the world. Wear it loosely.”

Dad was beginning to understand how his despair (and ours) is often rooted in our commitment to the very temporal and unpredictable things of this place called earth.   We strain after our dreams and demand our rights.  We spend time climbing the corporate ladder, and dusting off old trophies.

But loosening his grip on those things allowed my dad to surrender himself to the story God was writing. He encountered God in that surrender even when the journey did not lead to a place he “wanted” to be.  In the struggle, he found the blessings and goodness of God.  It showed up in the presence of friends who stayed by him as he weathered these last few months?  It sometimes appeared in the night as God brought a company of heavenly hosts to hover and attend him in his fear.  It showed up in care-givers who gently came along side to comfort his pain.  It showed up in strained relationships now made whole. And that was a big deal to him.  My dad said one more thing that day…

He said, “I wouldn’t let lousy relationships go unattended.”

"I wouldn’t put off conflict.  I would have been less angry.

I would pick relationships over everything else and I would do it more."

I asked what everything else was and he said, “My rights, my expectations, my ideals, my pride.  There is never a conflict so big that it should eclipse the relationship or our ability to love in it.  Never.” 

My dad didn’t say this because he always got it right.  He said it because he did the heart work when he got it wrong.

Lastly, as I consider the eternal home my dad now enjoys, perhaps if he could say anything to us now, he’d tell us how complete and beautiful it is – that what seems incomplete to us now here on earth, is  already made whole in eternity; and God’s promises are all true - every one of them.  He’d tell us God is gloriously good, and how he is at home in His love - a love that is every bit what we’ve imagined, even more!  He’d invite us to taste it, to trust the journey and know that even when it takes us down paths we’d rather not travel, chances are it’s in those dark places where we will find God in the way we’ve always longed to know him. 

Arise!

“You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy,” - psalm 30:11

Since I am a preacher's wife, rarely is there a Sunday when I skip church.  Not because I'm so incredibly spiritual, but because...well... where else would I go? ...(and some of my reasons and thoughts are found in the Saturday's post titled "I Went To Church Today")  Over the years I've listened to various preachers, but most of the time it's been my husband. And believe it or not, even though we may have discussed the sermon ahead of time during the week, I often find something new, something fresh that the Holy Spirit might want to cultivate in me after the sermon is heard on Sunday.  Last Sunday was no exception.  Only this time the message - and my consequent "ah-ha!" moment - came from our new youth pastor.  Pastor Dan picked the passage in John 11 where Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead - Not your typical after-Christmas “sermon package” but timely to say the least.

I’ve read that passages a few times and over the years I’ve noticed things in the story.  Things like, Jesus raising someone from the dead (Yeah, that's kind of a big deal.)  Or how Mary and Martha were so very grief-stricken and how Jesus cried too.  I’ve wondered why Jesus seemed in no hurry to get to Lazarus.  But this time as we read that passage in church I noticed something new.  Jesus called Lazarus forth out of the tomb and said, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.” 

I guess it would seem an obvious instruction, considering Lazarus had been dead for 4 days and now he wasn't.  He was alive and grave clothes were not only smelly, they were inappropriate for someone living.  The bandages kept his hands and feet bound and covered his face.  He could not move and he couldn't see, nor could he eat or speak with these bandages.

Covered eyes, bound hands and feet are appropriate for the grave.  Tombs are remarkably silent and the dead require no nourishment. And that’s where the connection was made.  The grave…the clothes…the feast-less silence.  In a moment of honest, personal disclosure, I had to admit this muted soul of mine felt dead and was feasting no longer on Christ.  I had grown accustom to the "grave".  Sipping on Christ's life as if it was a limited resource.  Loss, disappointment, confusion, and a journey of surrender had led to a personal grave site.  Frankly, for a season that tomb was necessary, I needed it while my little life became entrusted to his, while my soul was learning to set down the boxing gloves, stop running, and fast from lesser loves.   These are the things we will learn for a lifetime.  But the solemn nature of the grave can become too familiar, and we forget how to live. 

This Christmas, as I set the babe in the little manger scene on our piano, God was birthing something new in me.  Its glimmers had been showing up here and there but not quite discernible.  As pastor Dan read the passage, and the phrase resonated inside,”take off the grave clothes and let [her] go.”, something clarified. The sermon muffled while I surrendered to my thoughts.  “Am I still wearing ‘spiritual grave clothes’”?  I wondered.  “Have I received God’s gift of life but somehow the bandages have remained?”

What good is the gift of HIS life if it remains clothed in the tomb?  The words of Jesus echoed in my thoughts, bouncing off the stone walls of my heart, traveling deep within - to the dead places. Like an alarm they sounded, “Wake up! Come forth!” I could almost hear God audibly speaking, “Stop living among the dead. Arise!  Let the bandages fall.  The days of mourning are being set aside.  Step into my glorious promise – my light-life – and live!”

The exhortation fell like a spring rain, washing away the muddy winter. And in that moment, within the silent forgotten places of me, my soul was shedding grave clothes.  The weight of sorrow was falling off.  Hands that had forgotten how to reach were reaching again, daring to ask God for his good pleasure and favor.  Feet that had long planted themselves within the dirge, danced …just a bit.  And eyes that were accustom to tones of grey saw the faint whisper of color off in the distance.

 So I am returning to songs of joy for worship (sometimes).  When asked how it's going, I am lifting my head, ready to share the promise rather that the pain.  There was a season to share the pain, and sometimes that story is still important, but grief is not an unending pit.  It has a bottom.  Christ is there and He shares the grave with us for a moment.  Then He calls us forth to new life, new stories, where our sorrow is not forgotten - just redeemed.

It would be dishonest to say, just like that, my soul awakened and came fully alive - that there are no signs of grave clothes anywhere.  That simply is not true.  We are all in process, moving from death to life, and “Saturday” takes time...but perhaps this story rings true and you find yourself in the dirge,  stuck, weighed down with the clothing of the tomb and a new you, the alive-in-Christ-you, is being invited to come forth, take off the grave clothes,... and live.  

Hands Have Fingers

I've been working on a few blog post to continue on in how we begin to encounter God in ways that sustain a journey toward Christ-likeness and awaken us to a whole new way of life-giving friendship with Him?  This afternoon My daughter and I were in a conversation and it rings true to some of what is needed on this journey so I thought I'd share it with you.  Sometimes a child's perspective is all it takes....

REBEKAH: "Mom, when it comes to prayer we have a reverse peep-hole."

ME: "What do you mean?"

REBEKAH: "It's like we are looking through a peep-hole from wrong side and we assume that what we are seeing is all there is to see."

ME: "What do you mean?"
...
REBEKAH: "Like the time when Savvy and I were goofing around and I was looking through the peep-hole from the outside. She asked me how many fingers she was holding up and I said none but she was actually holding up six."

ME: I'm not sure I'm following you.

REBEKAH: "Think about it...If all I knew was what I saw, I would think that hands are not meant to have fingers because I never saw the fingers."

ME: "I think I'm tracking."

REBEKAH: "Looking through the peep-hole I saw only part of what was happening and the part I even saw was distorted."

ME: "Ok so how is this connected with prayer?"

REBEKAH: "When we pray we assume we have the big picture about ourselves, inside and out, and we "let God in" to our world assuming we know all about it. The truth is He's the one looking through from the right direction and seeing from the right perspective. So when we say, "Oh let's pray about this." we really need to think about what we pray. I can't just tell God, "Hand's don't have fingers!" and demand that everybody's hands be blobs. I have to actually consider the fact that God sees better than me and hand's might actually work better with fingers, even if I've never seen fingers on a hand."

ME: "So what you are saying is that sometimes we pray from a very limited, broken perspective and we'd be better off....(Beks interrupts)"

REBEKAH: "We'd be better off just opening up to God's idea and going with it, even when it might not make sense...Hand's have fingers!"

 

Skin On the Floor

“Mommy Cookie Monster’s skin is on the floor!”  Said the worried little girl.

“What do you mean?” asked the mother

“He’s just lying there on the floor all flat with nothing in him.  Is he dead?” The girl asked

“Oh no sweetie, That's all he's got...He needs someone inside of him to bring him to life.” The mother explained.

A mom of a preschooler shared this story a few years ago.  Her 2 ½ year old daughter had found her brother’s costume tossed on the floor the day after Halloween. ...so what's my point in sharing this story?... 

A while back, my daughter and I were noticing how depleted and worn we felt and there appeared to be no end in sight.  Recalling the mom's story, I simply said to her, “Sometimes, it just feels like we’re skin on the floor and that’s about all we’ve got.”  With a sideways smile she responded, “Yep…that is about sums it up, mom.” Seasons like that seem to show up in the soul on occasion, leaving us feeling somewhat empty.  Those are often the days when we wake up wondering if we have what it takes to do the next 24 hours and hope somehow to find Heaven's breath in us because all of the sudden we are keenly aware that we need something MORE than ourselves inside of us to bring us to life.  They are the days that remind us that God is God and we are not.

 Sometimes we are just "skin on the floor" and  I bet that God prefers it that way - not because he is cruel or enjoys watching us suffer, but because he knows what it takes for us to finally surrender to his better ways and find the life we are looking for.   How else would we ever notice our total need for Him and openly receive what He has to offer? Trading our life for His (Luke 17:33) isn't all that attractive when things are going along nicely and we feel confident in our own resources. After all, who needs "Heaven's breath" when we are breathing just fine on our own?  To the degree that I believe I am competent is often the degree to which I believe I do not need God.  ...Ouch!

Coming to the end of our personal (without-God) capacity, postures our heart so we can finally say, “Lord, I need your grace right now, to do what I know I must and to live in the way you have called me to live.  My flesh is weak, its worn, and fails often, but your Spirit in me holds heaven’s resources at its fingertips.   That is my only hope – it’s what I am banking on!  And it is more than enough... it is the promise of Christ!  You are Immanuel – God WITH me!  Carry me, move me, become my words and act through me.  I am skin on the floor, I lay myself down to be fully inhabited by you.” 

I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD"  Ezekiel 37
Just like that abandoned costume, when we abandon ourselves and become “Skin on the floor” God has all the room He needs to bring us to life. “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule." (Matt 5:3)  And just like the boy, when God is allowed to “wear” us, His resources become ours and we move and act like him with energy, strength and love we never knew we had.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. – Gal 2:20

Soul-Flavors

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. 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, knows our [waiting] condition, 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.- Rom 8
...A continuation from the previous blogs beginning with Burned Out...

Well, we are almost finished with the series about the inward soul journey - woo hoo!!  Just a few more entries :)  Here we go...

The other day I visited a winery and tasted a new wine being introduced.  The flavor was amazing!  The woman went on to explain how the wine had been aged for eighteen months in new oak barrels.  Once wine initially ferments it typically gets placed in barrels to age.   It is there that the wait begins. This pause in production allows the wine to be removed from all other influences besides the barrel itself, causing the flavors from the wood of the barrel to be infused into the wine. ...That was it! I could actually taste the flavor of new wood on the wine I was tasting.  It was fresh, dynamic and wonderfully unique. 

           But let's go back to the idea of barreling... In this stage of the soul journey, like wine in a sealed barrel, I felt somewhat removed from many surrounding influences.  As if I was in the story, but watching it from a distance. I wanted to break through into various conversations and social settings but just couldn’t.  It felt more fitting to connect in smaller, more intimate ways but even then, the sense of being "known and understood" was rare; as was my ability to be fully present with others. God had introduced a grand "wait" and it was a strange abyss - so quiet and still. I no longer wanted false-fires.  There was a growing courage to let my “should/sensational-self” pass away and I felt indifferent toward things I once clung to for meaning.  It’s weird when what used to drive you goes away, because then, for a while, nothing drives you. The juices and sediment that had come from the recent crushing were purged for now and my “soul- juices” had been “barreled” allowing for my heart and mind to abandon itself to God's movement in the process...maybe that was the benefit of losing my drive and feeling so removed from others.

Indifference allowed for the questioning of sacred things and the dance of ambiguity.  In it, God initially seemed distant and silent but along the edges of this holy space I bumped up against His presence.  Old ideas that had formed broken images in my heart and mind were rewritten as they encountered God’s truth and love. His life infused itself ever-so-slowly into mine, like flavors of oak being drawn from the edges of a barrel.  This wait was changing me.  It wasn't one bit passive! Instead fiercely active.  Sue Monk Kidd likened her journey to that of a caterpillar and butterfly in her book When the Heart Waits.  In it, she states, “A creature can separate from an old way of existence, enter a time of metamorphosis, and emerge to a new level of life."

In this story, God, the wine-maker became the barrel as well; much like a caterpillar’s cocoon.  As we sit in dark-stillness with Him, He actively infuses our unfinished soul with the rich oak flavors of His love, joy, and peace. Those are the ingredients that make us fresh, dynamic, and wonderfully unique!  They are the things that make us real.  It takes a significant amount of time for wine to become aged and reach desired flavors.  It takes a long time for “soul-wine” too, but like that barrel, God surrounds us - even when we don’t know it.  Sometimes the path seems pointless as it becomes profoundly dark and God feels a chasm away. Yet, just when we think the darkness is too much, that's when we turn around and find that indeed, it isn’t darkness at all! …Instead, God has come so incredibly near that His hovering has cast it's shadow over us.  We are lost not in darkness... but held in His presence, which will one day bring forth incredible light!

So wait....Actively, wait.  Let the questions come and ambiguity rise.  God will surround you…He will infuse you with rich flavors of himself as you sit in the shadow of his accompaniment and emerge into a new level of life, the real-Christ-life intended for you will be found with all it's fullness and joy.

"Now glory be to God, who by his mighty power at work within us is able to do far more than we would ever dare to ask or even dream of—infinitely beyond our highest prayers, desires, thoughts, or hopes."  Eph. 3:20