on the path of healing

unwoven
©6-26-2025 hannah mclean

my body housed
its broken heart

burdened by the weight of loss
it could not bear up
cracking beneath it

and when hands could only hold
one thing together
it chose the soul
while the body fell aside
in a heap of rubble

i’ve walked hand in hand
with my broken heart
i’ve watched as Holy Hands
gathered every piece
that fell along the road of suffering
and mended me back together
and it is well
with my soul

but i have never walked hand in hand
with my broken body

no
 

my fists have pounded upon its bruises
my feet have kicked its aching back
my mouth has torn it apart
as it lay in the dust
shame and blame and disdain
covering it in heaps and mounds
undignified and stripped of worth
while all it ever longed for
was compassion

years have passed
i’ve looked at it again and again
from a safe distance
i’ve learned to draw near even though it hurts
i’ve renounced my curses and
chosen to bless
i’ve shoveled off years of shame
and unburdened it of decades of blame
and fought disdain
and fought disdain again
i’ve told it the truth
fearfully and wonderfully made
by design not function
i’ve even mustered compassion
from time to time

but i remain
a weaving too long upended
the strands still too mixed up within the debris
of too many storms
over too many years
to find their way back together

because my body housed
its broken heart

and only one has been made well

"I want you to describe My heart to them."

This morning, as I am finishing up my BSF study on suffering, I was reminded of something I wrote for a women's day that I had at my house this Summer. The Lord had given me an assignment for the day, and one of the parts of it was this: "I want you to describe My heart to them." That's a seemingly impossible assignment. Thankfully, through prayer, He highlighted specific verses that each woman needed to hear for me to expound on. As I reread it this morning, I thought it would encourage someone's heart, and so I have decided to share it here:
 

The Lord is your deliverer; with careful precision He reaches forth His hand on your behalf with strength enough to cast mighty mountains into the sea and a touch gentle enough to lift a single grain of sand. His deliverance carries the perfect measure; with mercy enough to cover the folly of our choices and grace enough to minister to the bounds of others, He looks upon our lives with perfect knowledge and steadfast love, and strides with confidence into the rushing waters of our Jordan Rivers so that all that stands between our days of slavery and wilderness would lose its power to keep us from setting our feet onto the ground of our promised land.

This Deliverer holds nothing back; He keeps no tally of our earning or record of our merit or demerit; He does not stumble or draw back at the flex of our enemies’ chariots and military might; He finds no hinderance in the shouts of man or the number of swords raised against you. He is willing to rend the heavens for you. You are of such worth to Him, so fiercely does He choose you every time, that He is willing to pour all out for you.

“I see your battles, my beloved child, I know the way the battle drums stir your heart to fear. I know your pain of feeling without defense. But “I will fight for you…” I know your hand lacks the victory that you need, but “be still,” in Me, you lack nothing.  [exodus 14:14]

The Lord is your strength. Come as you are, He says; when your arms are dragging in the dirt, when your knees have buckled, when your heart is too crushed to do another day of heavy lifting…your weakness is no burden to Him, your places of nothing are welcome with Him. No shame is found under his gaze; your deficits but a palette to display His sufficiency of might.

He knows the means of your depletion; He saw the woundings that your back bore up beneath, He heard the groaning of your heart as it bent beneath traumas it was never meant to carry.

When your body gave way, His steadfast hand held you together…and where you still struggle to regain what was lost, He holds your together still. He knows the lament of what torments you from beside the road where life’s trials have left you; but weakness is not a lesser thing in His kingdom. In His kingdom weakness is where His strength is perfected in you. Weakness is where His grace finds its most fertile ground, its most open avenue for redemptive work. Weakness is where you learn what it feels like to be kept in the care of the Almighty’s love and power…the place where the meekness and might of the Sovereign One cradle and lift with such precision that you will be undone by finding yourself thoroughly known, completely safe, desired not for what you offer, but for who you are. He is your strength, beloved, the strength that searches out the atrophied, the wilted, the withered…that beckons the stumbling, the bent, the needy…that delights as much in sustaining you as you in being sustained.

“I am always with you; close enough to hold your right hand. I guide you with My counsel and I will one day take you with Me into glory. You flesh and your heart may fail, My child, but I am the strength of your heart and your portion forever. Your portion finds no lesser measure on the threshing floor of your weakness. No, because your threshing floor affords you vision that you may set eyes upon the most vivid grace.  [Psalm 73:26]

The Lord is your redemption. All that the cruelty of sin has rendered “other than intended;” all that its force has twisted into “not as it should be;” all that it has left broken, splintered, cracked, precariously patched together need not remain, for the blood of Jesus makes all things new.

And maybe the enemy has told you that your broken places, relationships and dreams are too far gone, that your wounds have festered too long, your bones set too awry, your bruises go too deep for the blood to find its way there….maybe he has told you that its your fault, your choices are what brought your city to ruin, and maybe that part’s true, but then maybe he said that because you’re guilty—still struggling, still striving—that the blood is not for you right here, right now…maybe he has convinced you that you have to wait upon another to recognize or apologize or rectify the wrongs that punctured your soul before you can partake of what the blood offers…but the enemy’s a liar and a thief. There is a Redeemer, and He is yours.

With the joy of you made new before His eyes, He saw His redeeming work through to the new beginning…and He has never stopped desiring for you to reach out your hand to Him, or lift up your eyes to Him, or release your hearts cry to Him. It’s not beyond His touch, and you are not beyond His love, and His heart was never persuaded by your strives toward perfection, it has always been motivated by His perfect Love and lavish grace for those He set His heart upon. And you are His, marked by His own hand and His own heavenly heart.

“Whoever comes to Me, I will never cast out. I long to turn your mourning into dancing, I died to loose your sackcloth and array you with the gladness of one who has taken part in my redeeming work for the reunification of your body, soul and spirit to Me. Your glory will sing My praise and not be silent, for I am the Lord your God…I gave Myself so you can be whole; a wholeness that depends not on perfect circumstances, perfect bodies or prefect paths but on the perfect lamb of God given for you. [Psalm 30:11–12]

The Lord is the source of all that is Good. Lift up your eyes. Your sorrow stems from the failure of your measures. The one you clung to with expectation of fullness forever failed you. The title that afforded you your certainty of worth was stripped away. The safety of the stronghold where you always ran to rest and renew stands in ruin. But lift up your eyes and look into His.

Whatsoever was withheld or lost or forgotten; whatsoever sat upon the scales where you found yourself too few, too weak, too weary; whatsoever set itself beside you and amplified all that you are not…those whatsoevers are but lesser things…mere echoes of a Greater. Things able to be emptied will only leave you empty because they have merely borrowed of the goodness of God. But the Lord says to you, “Oh, taste and see that I am good! I long for you to partake of every part of Me, I long to draw you into the refuge of being surrounded by the well that never comes up dry. Drink forever, draw as deeply as you wish, fill your cup 10,000 time and then 10,000 times more. The young lion—man’s vision of the hope of strength and might—will suffer want and hunger; but those who seek Me lack no good thing…not now, not ever.”  [Psalm 34:8–10]

The joy you long for, the hope you cling for, the peace your wrestle for, the grace you search for…there is no end, there is only satisfaction and fulfillment of person. Unwind your fingers from around the worn out reflection in your hands, I promise that in the laying down of what could only pacify, your hands will be left free to fall open before the One who satisfies the seeker with the best of His bounty. Lift up your eyes, He is not far off, The Source of all goodness is near you and with you and in you. Your search is over, He is forever enough.

The Lord is the lifter of your head. There are many reasons why you may feel cast down, why your eyes struggle to rise and meet His.

Beloved, He isn’t disappointed in you…yes, He knows the ways you failed, the number of times you faltered, the many expectations that you didn’t meet…but the only expectation He ever had of you was to need Him. He does not look upon the weak things and lament their lack of strength; He does not look upon the ones regarded as nothing in your neighbor’s eyes and agree; He does not look upon the foolish to the world and scoff at them. He says, “What a beautiful one to display My strength upon, My glory upon, My wisdom upon.” Poor and needy and lowly and longing…these are the ones He’s searching for. Ashes are but the precursor to crowns, garments of shame are only what come before the blood-washed robes of white, the guilt of sin but fertile soil for the grave He was buried in that will blossom into gardens of new life.

Beloved, He sees your sorrow, your waning hope, your struggle for joy. He gathers every tear you’ve cried inside a bottle, considering your pain too costly a thing to overlook. He understands the source of your cries, even if you don’t. He knows the seemingly eternal struggles to brighten up your countenance, the misfirings of your mind, the score of your trauma as it tallied its way into your body’s inter-workings. But your season of depression is not forever because He is the one who lifts up your head. May you sense His bending to join you in the dust, may you feel His hand cup your face with a touch so gentle that all that is fragile in you will not break within it, may your eyes lift as He lifts your face to His. He wants you to see Him.

The Lord is your safe place. I know you are afraid right now; things too big for you to carry curse your mind with a thousand questions…but He knows all things for you. The rising pressures that magnify your lack of control cause you to cower…but He is sovereign over all things for you. The ones who caused you pain press in upon the ones you love…but He is a shield for you.

He is the refuge that covers and keeps you in the raging storms and crashing roar of waves that have flattened a thousand ships…He is the assurance of a way to the other side.

“Be still, and know that I am God.” Your safety does not stem from stability of circumstance but from presence of Faithful and True. I know your fear, but I am near you. If you will enter in, I will walk beside you into the dark places within you, I will hold your hand and shelter you through every vulnerability, I will stand beside you until you rise again. Whether your head trembles within a lion’s mouth or your heart dances in the passing breeze, you are as safe now as you will ever be. For My name is a strong tower, run into Me and learn what it is to be safe. [Prov 18:10, Psalm 46]

The Lord is love. It is not only that He loves, it is that He IS love and His affections flow from the heart of who He is. Fierce and full and forever, as much today in your state of disrepair as in the glories of heavens courts when your sanctification is complete. You never earned your endeared position, you need not DO to receive or DESERVE to take part. His love followed you from before the weaving of your form inside the womb began…and it will not wane even in the returning to dust. His love is perfect, without spot or blemish, without failure or fault, without beginning and therefore, without end, unable to be added to or taken from; His love extends—reaching through both sunbeam and shadow, as overflowing in the valley and in the heights.

Pursuing, He spends and spent His life longing for you to enter into the flow that pours from Him. Extending His hand, yet never forcing you to take part; He spreads Himself before you along the path you walk, hoping that your knees will fall upon Him and feel the wonder that He’s gone lower still, wanting only for you to find Him when your hand reaches out for one to cling to, to hold onto. The love that never fails, never comes up dry, never pales into comparison, but instead shines with such glory that all lesser loves cower.

Taste and see, He calls to you. Lay hold of the beauty that blossoms in you when you plant yourself within the flow of my affections.

My love bears all things; My love believes all things; My love hopes all things; My love endures all things…without end. Without end. [1 Cor 13:7]

The Lord is your Healing. Every wound on body, soul and spirit. Every sorrow of heart and mind. Every moment that marred you from birth to this very moment. Nothing is outside His reach, His desires or His care. Lean in and find that wholeness is found in Him.

“How precious is your steadfast love, O God! The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of Your wings. They feast on the abundance of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your delights. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light do we see light. [Psalm 36:7–9]

Fault and chastisement

I have spent my entire adult life battling health issues. Literally less than 2 months after my 18th birthday I got a diagnosis that seemed to determine the course of everything that followed; and when a doctor associated it with Celiac’s Disease (an autoimmune disorder that I believe was triggered in me after the death of my little brother when I was very young), I took the blame for the catastrophe that was my body. At every bump and pit along my health journey, I have looked backwards continually at my 18-year-old self and said, “It's your own fault.”

When my body fell apart at the failure of my thyroid, it was my own fault. When I lost my ability to speak after complications with surgery, it was my own fault. When I had to work extra hard for the smallest step forward or when my body fell 10 steps back, it was my own fault. When my body couldn't recover after giving birth...when I miscarried my babies...couldn't regulate my blood pressure...my fault, my fault, my fault. For years and years, I have owned my body's weakness and failures as the consequence of my ignorant teenage choices to not stay off gluten. "It's your own fault," my internal drill sergeant reminds me, "suck it up and accept your consequences. You gave up your chance at health when you were young, so stop complaining. You didn't respect it while you had it, you don't deserve it back. Stand up and keep moving forward."

In some weird way, this acceptance of blame has sort of wrangled my emotions as I have rollercoastered through the ups and downs, reminding me to keep standing instead of rolling over and giving up. It has forced me to find my contentment outside of my circumstances.

And that’s not all bad.

But it’s also not good. Yesterday my drill sergeant’s voice started to bother me, some part of me that the last 24 years hasn't hardened, some part that hasn’t been snuffed out by my body's failures suddenly stood up and pushed back.

“I don’t think that's true,” this unusual spark of resistance called out over the familiar wrestle to quench my sadness. "I don't think it’s my fault."

I tried. I tried to get better. I did everything I knew how to for years and years. I have worked hard for my wellbeing (physically, mentally, spiritually, and relationally), and while I have laid hold of much holistic healing, my physical body still languishes in the dirt. I’ve learned how to rewire my brain toward it over the years; I’ve found moments I have actively felt compassion for it, I’ve intentionally reconnected to it (overriding a trauma response of disassociating) in spite of the emotional turmoil I endure by allowing myself to remain in it, I’ve actively painted it with dignity and value and reminded myself of its goodness by design. And every time I think I’ve got to be done, that the bottom of this gangrenous wound has to be uncovered, I keep finding more.

So today I have been processing my internal resistance. I’ve considered the little voice that stood in the face of the commander and said, “It’s not my fault.”

What is the truth?

The truth is that I have never looked at another sick or suffering person and thought, “It’s your own fault. Suck it up.” I’ve never bypassed compassion and commanded someone to get in line under their responsibility for their own weakness. Why would I judge myself with such harshness when I have never thought so harshly about another?

The truth is that there is much in my life that has affected my body that I have not chosen.

The truth is that association and causation are not the same thing. I don’t know why my thyroid failed me when I was 18-years-old.

The truth is that even if I had messed up everything in my life in regards to my health, I still deserve the basic human compassion that shelters the path of suffering.

“What is the truth?” I asked the Lord.

And He said to me, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.” [Isaiah 53:4–5]

The word “chastisement” set itself on me, its definition laying out the reality of this lie’s root. To chastise means to censure severely, inflicting punishment on (as by whipping). A censure is a judgment involving condemnation. For 24 years I have carried the condemnation of my broken body; the sentence of a life in the dust has whipped me into line every time I have bucked beneath it. It has pressed upon my shoulders with such weight that I’ve given it permission to remain because I have owned it as a righteous judgment against me.

But He said to me, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” [Romans 8:1]

Break every chain, Lord. No more lies.

He has borne my grief and sorrow, He has been pierced and crushed and chastised and wounded for my peace and for my healing.

“It’s not my fault,” I said over and over again today. Practicing the truth so that the next time the lie falls from my mouth I can crush it before it lands. May the whip that has fallen so many times be absorbed by the One who lent me His body so that I can walk free.

Judgment like a flood

Last night I had a dream about a flood that was coming. When I woke up from it, I got up for a minute, and when I did, I noticed that the lights suddenly went on in the main flood of the house. I went downstairs to see who was awake and found my son curled up with a blanket on the couch in a fully-lit main floor because he had a scary dream.

“What was the dream about, Son?”

“It was about a flood.”

I was suddenly wide awake. So we sat on the couch and I listened to his dream. It was a simple dream; he’d been playing with his sisters when his dad got a weather report that a flood was coming. So everyone needed to go upstairs, and when the flood came, the water went up to the top stair, but it didn’t touch any of us.

We prayed and I tucked him into my bed next to his daddy while I returned to the couch to seek the Lord. I did not remember my dream as vividly as I usually do when I receive dreams from the Lord, but when the Lord confirms your dream through your son, you pay attention.

Here is what I remember from the dream followed by the warning the Lord brought to light in the face of it:

I was visiting a city where I did not live, I was with my husband and a close friend. While we were there, a warning went out that a flood was coming, and we were trying to get to a specific place in the city to be safe. The people we were with (who lived there) seemed to be our work colleagues and it was clear that they didn’t really like us much, but didn’t dislike us enough to want anything bad to happen to us. Most of the people around us seemed to know there was a flood coming and were a bit harrowed from the bad weather they’d encountered in the recent past. There were some who were just going about their business as usual.

We were trying to get across town from where we were, and the scene I remember at the end of the dream was a place of decision. We were in the apartment complex of the people we knew because we had helped them get home; it was a building with open halls connecting the rooms like you’d find in the south or a coastal town. They were trying to get to their rooms, and the halls were filled with long, orderly lines of people doing the same. They finally said to us with a hint of worry and reluctant kindness, “The flood is almost here, I don’t know if you will be able to get back, you can stay in our room.” When we said we couldn’t do that, they offered to at least watch our stuff for us so that we didn’t have to worry about carrying anything across town.

So we handed them our bags (and anything in our purses that might weigh us down). I specifically remember asking my husband and friend if I needed my lanyard with my wallet and keys and decided that I didn’t, and I hung it around the neck of the person who was offering me help. We turned to leave and they turned to go into their rooms. As I walked past the stone supporting wall of the apartment building on my way down the stairs—the opposite direction of the people going up higher—I reached out my hand and touched it saying, “I cover you in the blood of Jesus.”

As we were strategizing about how to get where we needed with nothing but the clothes on our backs, the air around us was abuzz with hurry and worry because of the impending flood, but even with the knowledge of what was coming, not all people were preparing for it.

That is what I remember from my dream.

As I prayed and asked the Lord to reveal to me what He wanted me to know through these two dreams, He made the following things clear to me:

First, judgment is coming to the USA. This dream was not pointing to the final judgments of the book of Revelation, but instead a much nearer judgment of a righteous God on a wicked nation. There is only one way to walk through this judgment, and it is as the Israelites stood secure in their homes in Goshen through the plagues on Egypt in Exodus 7–12, and that is to be under the blood of Jesus.

Second, there is purpose behind this judgment that is not merely punishment (although we absolutely deserve only that); this judgment is to bring about repentance because God’s heart for humanity is and has always been to save them and unite them in Himself (Ephesians 1:10).

As I wrote out this dream and talked to the Lord about it, I kept bumping into the word “harrow” and “harrowed,” so I looked up its meaning. A harrow is a tool used to cultivate, it breaks up and smooths out soil for planting. And to feel harrowed means to feel plundered and tormented.

The judgment that is coming will be as if the harrow of God sweeps across the nation and it will do one of two things to any heart not secure under the atoning blood of Jesus: It will either soften your heart so that it turns to His in repentance (this is His deepest desire), or it will leave you feeling plundered because what is good will be stripped away from you (God is the source of all that is good, in the rejection of Him, you will lose whatever is of His goodness that He has graciously allowed you to hold in your hands).

I do not know what stands before us, but there will be judgment like a flood (the flood in this dream stood for judgment); cover yourself in the Redeemer’s blood. He has already finished the work of salvation for us to take part in…there is no other way to endure what is coming without Him. Repent. Pray (for yourself, your family, everyone you know and love, your city, our nation). Receive mercy. Find refuge in the God who has loved you from the beginning.

Redeemed blessing

I am preparing to teach on Ruth 4 in Children’s Church on Sunday; it’s a chapter about Boaz redeeming Ruth. Last week I taught about how Boaz is intended to help us understand our Redeemer Jesus, so we considered the Redeemer’s heart. This week we will consider how and why He redeems. And because the book of Ruth is all about redemption, I found in the middle of this chapter a blessing that just strikes me in the best sort of way.

Look at this blessing in verses 11–12, “May the Lord make the woman, who is coming into your house, like Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel. May you act worthily in Ephrathah and be renowned in Bethlehem, and may your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.”

I’ve read this blessing before and thought, “What strange women to draw blessing from.” Do you know the lives of Rachel, Leah and Tamar? Rachel and Leah were sold by their father to be wives to the same man; the pain of this sin against them on their lives is displayed in Genesis 29–30. Their relationships were fraught with toxic competition, striving for love, barrenness…reading those chapters makes me cry every time. But here in this blessing, it says, “Rachel and Leah, who together built up the house of Israel.” Redemption…under the blessing of the Lord, their lives brought forth the people of God. And then there’s Tamar, you can read about her in Genesis 38; lies, failures, sins by and against, a twisted pursuit of a son. And yet here it says, “May your house be like the house of Perez, whom Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring that the Lord will give you by this young woman.” Redemption…under the blessing of the Lord, the Messiah came forth through the house of Perez.

And today as I am considering and praying over the story, I head myself tell the Lord, “I am grateful that you did not build the lineage of Jesus on polished stones, but instead on stones that were hewn.” I struggle to relate to shiny, polished things…but hewn things…hewn things I can run my fingers across and understand the grooves of their forming. Forged from mountains and valleys, redeemed from fire and flood, purposefully shaped for stability.

Our Redeemer is good.

mercy in the burial

John 19:38–40 “After these things Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus, and Pilate gave him permission. So he came and took away his body. Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.”

Matthew 27:59–60 “And Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a clean linen shroud and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut in the rock. And he rolled a great stone to the entrance of the tomb and went away.”

when holy God bent down and
stepped inside the flesh of man
He came upon the womb of a poor woman
His fanfare heavenly heralds
heard only by the least of these
dirt of stable cave and manger
strips of linen swaddling Him safe and warm
tended to by His mother’s hands
her adoring eyes looking upon Him
her mother heart bound to His with what had been
the purest of human love

when holy God bent lower and
stepped out of the flesh of man
He left upon the cross of crucifixion
His fanfare the taunts and curses of fallen man
heard from the hidden rooms of scheming to the highest public courts
flogging scourge and splintered cross
victory disguised in loss

at close of work
last breath breathed
last holy words but a mere echo in the minds of those who remained
last spectator of the spectacle of crucifixion homeward bound
last of the taunts of dying men dead with Him

the mangled body of Messiah
punctured the silence
“who will tend to the flesh of the Son of Man?”

and the least of his followers
stepped through the fear of man
brushed past the praise of man
and set their hands upon the broken body of their Messiah
His bloody wounds stained their garments
as they tended as a loved one would their own
strips of linen bound around Him once more
costly spices laid once more at His feet

i know the honor of preparing the dead for burial
is no small thing
a last moment to honor the one you loved
to allow the rawness of the loss to unleash the tears that only come
in the quiet

confronted with what was
and what will no longer be
how these men must have grieved as they were at last near
their lifeless Savior
as they touched His blood shed for them
smelled the reality of His ruin

did their tears fall upon His wounds
mingle with the spices
drip across the linens that soon hid
the cursed flesh from their view?

did they lament their failures to follow well
their bondage to men
their lost opportunity to be by His side
their silence in the face of unjust judgements?

did they wonder why they were allowed to do
what the faithful women standing nearby could not?

but isn’t that just like the Lord
to honor the lowest with such a great honor?
while these men may have been the greatest in the kingdoms of man
they were the failures in the Kingdom of God
the ones who followed Jesus in the shadows
the ones whose flesh crushed out their spiritual flourishing
the ones who, to this point, had counted shame they may feel from man
a more costly thing than shame they carried from sin
but they were still His own
and He received their sacrifices

He chose them to tend to His body
He chose joseph to lay Him down in his own tomb
because He took joseph’s death
and when He would rise on the third day
joseph would feel the reality that He also gave him life
He chose nicodemus to bring Him myrrh
because he could bury in the tomb with Him the wisdom of man
that he would walk away from the stone
a wise man
to teach the jews with the wisdom of God

Zechariah 12:10 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on Me, on Him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over Him, as one weeps over a firstborn.”

such is mercy

when we look on Him whom we have pierced
every moment following changes
and some of us need a closer look
some must look into the face of the child in the manger
and some must feel the finality of covering His face with a cloth
that we may know the purest of heavenly love

The Fear of the Lord

Psalm 111:10 "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. His praise endures forever! 

I taught in children’s church this Sunday, and my meditation and study in preparation for this lesson was SO FRUITFUL that I am going to share it with you.

Every time I approach the passage that I am going to teach, I ask the Lord, “What do You want me to tell the kids?” There are so many lessons to be gleaned from every passage that I need to allow Him to direct me. This past week, I was preparing to teach Joshua 2 where Rahab hides the spies from Israel and then ties a scarlet cord in her window so she will be spared when Jericho falls by the Lord’s hand. I read and reread the passage, waiting for most of the week until finally He said, “Teach them about the fear of the Lord.”

I don’t know if you’ve ever read Joshua 2 specifically looking for what it teaches about the fear of the Lord (I sure hadn't)…but whoa. What a wonderful story to help bring to the surface what the fear of the Lord is and what it looks like lived out. So I am going to share the gist of my lesson for children’s church if you are interested in learning more about the fear of the Lord as it was displayed through the life of Rahab. Go read Joshua 2 before you keep reading (it’s only 24 verses, so it won’t take long).

Scripture says multiple times that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom…” The word nerd in me requires us to define three of the words in that sentence:

YIR’â: Fear of God, reverence (to regard AND treat with deep respect)

BEGINNING: The point in time or space when something starts

WISDOM: Knowledge and understanding that give you the ability to make good judgements

Wisdom isn’t just knowing things, it is being able to take what you know and use that knowledge to live your life the right way. So consider that: Without the fear of the Lord, we have missed the BEGINNING of how to use what we know to live our life in the goodness that God intends.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD FOLLOWS THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF WHO GOD IS. In Rahab’s statement to the men in verses 8–12, she uses the name Jehovah four times; Jehovah is the formal name of the one true God. I was looking back through scripture, and while I certainly didn’t look on every page, I couldn’t find places where gentiles who weren’t believers used the name Jehovah. Rahab was acknowledging that the God of Israel was the true God. The others in her city were offered the same opportunity to fear God as Rahab was; she describes how they had watched Israel for 40 years—they saw God bring them out of Egypt, through the red sea, conquer kings—and the others in her city were terrified of Israel…but they did not acknowledge or revere Israel's God. But Rahab did, and she called Him by His name.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD DRAWS US TO GOD. Fear as we often think of it tends to send us fleeing and hiding, but the fear of the Lord has a different affect. When Rahah saw who God was, she drew near. She came close and tended to His people and spoke with the hopes that her voice would reach His ears.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD MELTS THE HEART IN BOTH HEALTHY FEAR AND HUMILITY. What happens when something melts? A hard thing becomes soft and movable. Rahab knew the God of Israel had the right to judge her; He had the right to give her city into the hands of His people. Her pride melted away in the face of the Lord, and she, with great humility asked for mercy. You can see her humility here in her plea in verses 12–13; she didn’t even ask for them to spare HER because of her kindness to them (she knew what she deserved), instead she asked them to save her family. All of Rahab’s pride was gone, she recognized that God could rightfully judge her and she humbled herself before Him.

THE FEAR OF THE LORD LEADS TO OBEDIENCE. Rahab obeyed. The men of Israel told her that she should tie a scarlet cord in her window to be spared Jericho’s plight and she did it…right away. They were barely out of sight and the scarlet cord was already being secured in the window. A heart that fears the Lord will look to Him with the posture that says, “I will do whatever You ask.” Rahab didn’t ask why a scarlet cord mattered, she didn’t ask when they would come back, she didn’t wait and see if she should bother doing what they said…she simply obeyed and put her hope in the God she had acknowledged as true. She would have done anything required of her. Her decisions showed that she had faith, and she is mentioned in Hebrews 11, a chapter known for presenting us with heroes of the faith. It says, “By faith Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had given a friendly welcome to the spies.” Her obedience by faith, and the actions she took because of it, saved both her life and the lives of her family.

Here is the thing: When you fear God, it will change the way you live your life…it is impossible to fear God and keep living however you want because NOONE is more respectable and exalted than Jehovah. Because He is who He says He is, when we acknowledge Him, it will effect everything about us. The fear of the Lord is one of the biggest things missing from the American Church. This deficit allows us to remain apathetic, half-hearted, lukewarm, and polluted. If we really believe the Bible is true and that the God of the Bible is who He says He is, there is a clear path we will find ourselves on…and Rahab the prostitute shows us what that looks like.

"He loved them to the end."

John 13:1–6 "Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. During supper, when the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside His outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around His waist. Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around Him."

 

“He loved them to the end.”

He knew who He had chosen;
He knew the zeal of Peter,
the rolls of thunder in the sons of Zebedee,
the doubt in the mind of Thomas.
He knew the schemes that had made Matthew rich,
and how the sun glinted off the dagger of Simon.
He knew the eyes that slept while He prayed,
the feet that would scatter in the days ahead,
the lives that would be lost while living out His commission.

And He knew the one who would kiss His face
as He was bound amid the green of Gethsemane.

It was with knowledge of the soft and of the hard,
with the certainty of His enduring, pursuing love,
that Jesus used His final hours
to descend yet again
placing Himself beneath the feet of those who followed Him.

The hands into which the Father had given all things
tied a towel around His waist
and cradled the dirty feet of those He knew and loved;
desiring they would be clean
more than the deity of His own hands.

The One with the right to cast down
bent down
for the sake of love.

He loved them to the end;
the ones with their hearts given over to Him
and the one who opposed Him to death.
His love was not deterred by the hatred of man;
instead, it made provision for the devoted to live
and for the hateful to turn.

Rising from the floor on which He knelt,
His voice flowed into the room made quiet by what had been received.
It rolled across the hearts of those made clean
filling their senses with His holy, holy, holy call,
“Love as I have loved you.”

heralding the end of a reign

a broken reign
©11/13/2023 hannah mclean

a broken reign
my knees no more will bend
my King bent low
that death’s cruel rule would end
bound in His mercy I
find love a noble steed
now raised I ride with Him
as one who’s free indeed

a broken reign
sin’s barren throne no more
a royal carpet rolls
red paves the temple floor
bound in the Father’s love
peace spills across this stone
now wrapped in holy light
no more to walk alone

a broken reign
replaced by worthy King
righteous and just
His rule my joy to sing
bound in the hope of life
eternal courts I’ll stride
in heavenly unity
i even now abide

God of Jacob

 “The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
He utters His voice, the earth melts.
The Lord of Hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.”
Psalm 46:6–7

a prayer as the nations rage and the kingdoms totter:

©10-17-2023 hannah mclean

o God of Jacob
willing to wrestle
with the wayward, wounded and weary

rest You mighty hand
upon my heart
and mark me
with the limp of Your choosing
that i may never walk without You

for in You
is love and life and light

A poetic journey through Ephesians: Part 2

EPHESIANS 2–3
©7-2023 hannah mclean

 

what is the dead man walking?
hidden spirit dead
while the visible shell that houses the decay
stretches forth its frame
what attributes flow forth?
the stench of fallen man
pushing through physical body’s growth
reminding us of our desperate need
for a redeemer

the dead spirit is unable to corral
the passions of the living flesh
and so our desires hold the reigns
as the body and mind
relish our bondage
to their sin-bent whims

they nurture the fallen nature
perpetuating
the separating
keeping the image bearer
far off
from the One whose
kind and immeasurable grace
promise the life
the freedom
and the nearness
we were made for

He stands at our arms length
with His face toward us
longing to lift us
from children of wrath
to full maturity of manhood
because the dead
have no ability to grow

--------

“remember your separation”
He says
“do not forget that you were once hopeless
because you held no promise
do not let the godless life you once lived slip your mind
remember what it feels like to be without Me
remember your separation”

have you ever wondered why Jesus
did not tell us
“remember My birth”
instead He said
“remember My death”

our exaltation of the Lord
and the glory we bring to Him
will find its measure there
for grace stretches lower than our darkest valley
and rises
and with it rises the praise, the wonder, the worship
in measure

so we must not forget

we must remember that we were separated
lest we forget to marvel at our unity
we must remember what it feels like to be hopeless
lest we shut our hearts to the wonder of hope
we must remember how we walked without God
lest we grow dull to the miracle of being forgiven
we must remember life alone
lest we overlook God with us
we must remember the debt He paid
lest we minimize His sacrifice

our redeemed eyes search out
stretch for
prefer the comfort of light
but it is only when we remember the contrast
of darkness
that we will know the Light for Who He is

 

---------

Father
what does it mean to walk
with the knowledge of resurrection?

to know

to be intimately acquainted with
both the grave and the lifting from it
to understand fully that there is One
who is not only ABLE
to make all things new
but whose desire to redeem the dead
is so great
He gave Himself to do it
and in the pouring out of such great affection
He stayed
to dwell in and with His blood-bought own

to walk with the knowledge of resurrection
is to look into the face of the darkness
with its raging passions
and its hostile reactions
and its fervent insistence on destroying
all that it veils
and to hold out a light
that pushes it aside
with the promise that darkness is not all there is

to walk with the knowledge of resurrection
is to hold out the hand
sliced and diced by the shards of the brokenness
within and without
and know that there is One who can
put it all back together

to walk with the knowledge of resurrection
is to know with certainty
that every despair can lay hold
of hope that does not put to shame
because within our chest
is a heart of beating flesh
that once rang with the sound of beating stone
a life-giving evidence that accompanies
the faith that things can be different

to walk with the knowledge of resurrection
is to know that what flows from the Father’s heart
is greater than
deeper than
wider than
higher than
the expanse to which the darkness can stretch
it is to walk in the victory of grace
a conduit through which His excellencies can flow

for the one with the knowledge of resurrection
has borne witness to
the finished work of Christ
had taken part in the sanctifying work of the Spirit
and understands that resurrection
only stems from One source

--------

ONE
one in Christ and
one with Christ

when the Father said that His plan
for all of time
is to unite all things to Himself
we find wrapped up in the fulfilling work of His purpose
a beautiful, inescapable thread of unity
it winds itself through every Saint
sewing together what was broken and
bringing them into inseparable relationship
with the One who both made and remade them whole
and in their mending
melding them with each other
to form one glorious work of grace
a living temple for the Holy Holy Holy
a body for the Son to rule upon
a canvas on which to display
both the wisdom and splendor of
the One true God’s
mind and hands and heart

it is in the making of ONE
the uniting of all things
in the peace that brought human and divine
together
in the crumbling of the hostility
between us and our Lord
between us and each other
between us and creation
that the vision of every created being
clears
allowing us to behold what has been made visible
by the weaving of the thread
and the fulfillment of Love’s good intention

it is in the making of ONE
where we can find and feel and know and proclaim
the excellencies of the Almighty
and the wonders of His grace

it is in the making of ONE
where we can reach our hands
bound together by this scarlet, blood-soaked thread
into the depths of the Father’s heart
and delight in what only can be touched together

it is in the making of ONE
where the fullness of Christ’s work
meets the fullness of the Spirit’s work
and displays the fullness of the Father’s heart
that we will find ourselves filled with the fullness of God

there are not words to describe
no context for the mind to conceptualize
there is only wonder to be declared
that causes the eyes to look up
endlessly and expectantly

for it is in the ONE
that we find both our purpose for being
and our promise for becoming

--------

rooted and grounded in love
the baseline
for comprehending
width and depth
and height and length
of the heart of God

to put down roots

anchored to the ground

established
in a foundation worthy to build upon

there is a moment in every believer’s life
when their feet step onto the declaration of love
that streams from the mouth of God
and their roots strike

we could walk out a thousand
commands
and miss the heart
for if we never find ourselves
winding our fingers around
the gift of His affections
our feet will one day
walk on by
unable to recognize the paths
that lead us deeper into comprehension

rooted and grounded in love

from this place where faith takes hold
of holy love
we find ourselves planted
and the Spirit makes for growth

in the hidden place
roots plunge into the depth
wrestling over rocks and dirt
forging through resistance
in pursuit of the living water
Jesus promised the thirsty
deeper and deeper
into the depths of the Father’s heart

while in the light of day above
the world watches
the trunk thickens
the branches stretch upward
and outward
reaching toward the Son
ready to bear fruit
that stems from Love and Life itself

and in unity we find
that the paths of our companions
bear witness also;
the saints of God beside us
proclaiming the excellencies of His
heartbeat
as it echos to dimensions
we can only lay eyes on
as it finds its way to us
upon the testimonies of another

for His love marks
the ones it touches
as flood reshapes
and fire refines

oaks of righteousness
He calls us
plantings of the Lord
a display of His glory

and when established,
to the redeemed is given
the privilege of taking part
in the rebuilding
the raising up
the repairing of
what sin has left broken, bent and distorted
resurrected and free
for the sake of world
to the praise of His glorious grace

may our roots strike
that we may withstand the weight
of the wonder of what lies
within the markings
and makings of grace

His face is mine

Habakkuk 3:17–19a "Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fail and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign Lord is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, He enables me to tread on the heights."

worship of the weary
©4-26-23 hannah mclean

on valley floor
with eyes swollen
from bawling
voice a whisper
from endless calling
the whimper of the weary
dissolves in worship

lament of faith too small
looks up into Your face
to find not disappointment
but pleasure that
the downcast eyes have
searched for Yours

inside the heap of rubble
broken bits of heart and circumstance
the air fills
with worship of the only One worthy

for when prayer
goes unanswered
worship still satisfies
for Holy face is more than
what flows from Holy hand

deepest desire meets
deepest need
and finds no lack

His face is mine

hosannas and hallelujahs

Holy Week ponderings
©4-6-2023 hannah mclean

sometimes we miss the face of flint
for the palm leaves that block our eyes

we forget that the triumph of the final entry into jerusalem
came with suffering the Lord saw fit through which to save

sometimes we see the bread and wine before us
and overlook the traitor’s friendly hand

we forget that the cross that sends us into hiding
is followed by the tomb that calls us boldly forward

for where else has a conquering King declared victory
through dying breath and bloodstained wood
while the sun hid and the earth quaked?

this week let us grieve the shedding of blood
that brought about the forgiveness of sin

let us allow the passing eclipse of the crucifixion
to bring greater delight to the revelation of the stone rolled back

let us linger in the presence of the sorrow
and take part in the fullness of the joy

for our shouts to crucify
were covered in the “finished” cry

may our “hosannas” meet our “hallelujahs”
to the glory of the Father’s heart to save

His power and His heart

The woman touched the hem of His garment.
She pushed her way through the crowds;
an untouchable woman stretching out her hand
to touch the One able to make all things new.
It wasn’t just that she believed He could heal her,
it was also that she believed He would.

It is one thing to have faith in the power of God,
it is another thing to have faith in the heart of God.
And to this I can attest,
if you know what it is to be the untouchable,
it is yet another thing altogether to believe in the heart of God
for you.

And so this untouchable woman with the courage to come
found not just a healed body from the hem of the Messiah
but a healed identity from the words He spoke over her.

Believe.
Believe not just that He is able,
but believe also that He is willing
and not just that He is willing,
but that He is hoping you would come and receive.


[Mark 5:24–34, Luke8:40–48]

"Righteous men"

How many of us settle for the righteous life of Lot, when the Lord has called us to the righteous life of Noah?

This might not be a fun word to read, but my heart is unsettled and these are the words I have to bring you. My prayer is that you would hear me out and deeply consider them, I will include a prayer at the end as these thoughts keep pushing me to pray.

2 Peter 2:7–8 “And if He rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked (for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard)”

Genesis 6:9b “Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.”

To begin, I wanted to be clear that there is only one way to be declared righteous before the Lord, and that is through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for our sins; if we accept His work of salvation on our behalf, He takes our wickedness and gives us His righteousness. That’s it. Our own efforts of external exertion can only produce self-righteousness, which has no ability to produce eternal life. We need Jesus to be declared righteous before God.

That being said, the Bible tells us that both Lot and Noah were “righteous men.” There are so many parallels between their lives, and yet, several stark differences.

Lot was Abraham’s nephew, you can read his story in Genesis 11–19. He was drawn to the city of Sodom, where he took up residence and partook of its prosperity. He lived his life in the middle of the wickedness that took place there, and the ways of the city took root in his family as it mixed in with his daily living. And when the Lord finally had to call Sodom to account for its evil deeds (not even 10 righteous people lived there), He sent angels to help Lot escape from his home…but the tangling of his life with the lives of those in Sodom had consequences, he lost his wife to her longing and his daughters had gained no knowledge to discern between right and wrong.

Noah was the son of Lamech, one of only eight to have witnessed both the pre- and post-flood world. You can read his story in Genesis 5–9. The world he was born into was overrun by evil, it says in Genesis 6:5 that “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” The wickedness of humanity that had taken such root that their lives produced only evil fruit all the time. “But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.” He was a preacher of righteousness, living according to God’s plumb line of right and wrong, walking with God and not with man. And like in the story of Lot, humanity mounted the threshold to the door of just judgment, and God invited righteous Noah to escape. “Make for yourself an ark,” He said to him, and Noah obeyed everything God said. He did the hard labor of nearly 100 years of building in the face of ridicule and scorn, surrounded by the evils of unrighteous living, but set apart for the Lord. And the Lord preserved the people that He had made and marked with His own image through one man and his family. And under the rainbow of covenant, the eight of them rebuilt and carried on the good work God had created humanity for in the beginning.

When you read the stories, did you notice the similarities? God spared these righteous men from being destroyed by His judgment. Both of these men lived surrounded by wickedness, a lone light in a dark environment. Both of these men got to take their family with them.

But there are many differences too. Lot couldn’t leave without being pulled out…It says in Genesis 19:16 “But he lingered. So the men seized him and his wife and his two daughters by the hand, the Lord being merciful to him, and they brought him out and set him outside the city.” Lot lingered and he was spared by the mercy of God. But Noah, he was spared by his obedience to the invitation of God to receive mercy. God didn’t have to pluck Noah out, Noah rode above the waters of judgement by faith and the faithful labor of his hands in response to God’s commands and invitation.

The environments of both of these men was dark, but Noah had walked with God and lived according to God’s righteous ways while Lot had walked with the men of Sodom and struggled to keep and desire God’s ways because he had allowed the seeds of wickedness to grow in his internal garden.

I write this to encourage you to—as I have and am doing with myself—examine your heart and your ways before the Lord. God will save anyone who trusts in Jesus for salvation, but there is the reality of 1 Corinthians 3:10–15, where we are told that the sum of what we build upon the foundation of Jesus will be revealed by fire. Are you building well? Are you forming the structure of your life by the instruction and with the materials commanded by God (as Noah did, building the Ark according to the measurements and directions he was given)? Or are you setting up residence in structures made by human design and struggling as you waver between King and country?

Our God is a jealous God, He knows that our idolatry brings about the destruction of our souls, and in love He continually calls to us to walk whole-heartedly with Him. I’ve been studying the relationship between God and Israel, and I am struck again and again by the weight and detriment of mixing our lives with the culture in which we abide instead of setting ourselves apart for the God in whom we are invited to abide. Throughout the books of the minor prophets, we see a glimpse at God’s view of the mixed man who comes to worship: He’s like, “I reject your sacrifices, your words are empty and yours songs are appalling to Me. If you want Me to receive your ministry to Me, than seek Me on a heart level, and let Me align your life to My heart and My ways.”

God is merciful, and He WILL save the righteous man…but have we settled for the righteous life of Lot, or will we aim to be Noahs in our generation? Because the truth is, we are living closer to the Revelation than to Eden, and in those last chapters of the good Book we find this call, “Come out of her, My people, lest you take part in her sins…”

—————

Father, purge me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. [Psalm 51:7] Teach me Your way, Lord, that I may walk in Your truth; unite my heart to fear Your name. [Psalm 86:11] You are the only one righteous, Lord, I bend the knee to Your plumb line of good and evil. You have created me for Your purposes, conform my life to whatever You wish for it be; may I live whole-heartedly in pursuit of You and Your kingdom. Your will be done, Father; [Matthew 6:10] in my mind, my heart, my life and my walk. May I be fully surrendered to You; rooted in the truth of Your word and governed by Your Spirit. You are holy, holy, holy; purify my worship to reflect that You alone hold my heart. Keep me, Father, wrap me up in Your faithful arms and guard me from offending You. May my life bring You glory, honor and praise. In Jesus name, Amen.

how long?

 the fool who believed
©12-12-22 hannah mclean

i whimper beneath
this heap of broken things
the pieces of the crushed
the defeated
the battles lost
bury my body

strength long proven
too little
fight to climb out
too fleeting

how long?

why do i hear
the trumpet of victory
sound from
my enemy’s camp
when i lean on
the Greater Power?

the shame You promised
to bear away
has stacked itself
upon my shoulders

sin broke
and scorn remains

how long?

the enemy mocks
the seeming futility
of my faith
“where is your God?”

but i know who You are
i would rather be
the fool who believed
than the fool who scoffed

 

------

 

"Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him," lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken." Psalm 13:3–4

Elijah in Hiding: Part 1

I have been studying and meditating on 1 Kings 19. I encourage you to read it yourself, but I will tell it to you in my own words and offer you two of the things that have impacted in my heart:

Elijah had just come down from Mount Caramel, where he had made visible for Israel that YHWH was the one true and living God and that Baal, the false god they had been worshiping was not. Following this, all 450 prophets who were perpetuating this idol worship in Israel were put to death….and when the wicked King Ahab went home and told his wicked queen Jezebel the events that had unfolded that day, she didn’t bend the knee and declare YHWH to be God as the people of Israel had, instead, she vowed that she would kill Elijah THAT DAY.

Remember how it says that “Elijah was a man just like us” [James 5:17]? Well, even though he had just stood in front of all of Israel and watched the fire he had called down completely consume the offering and the stone altar it sat upon…Elijah was afraid and he ran.

For an entire day he ran deeper and deeper into the wilderness until he came to a broom tree where he curled up in the dirt beneath it and asked the Lord to take his life before Jezebel did. “I’m done, Lord, take away my life; I am as good as dead anyway.” And then he slept.

He was woken from his sleep by the touch of an angel who had brought him a meal. He was woken a second time when the angel told him, “Arise and eat, for the journey is too great for you.” So Elijah arose and ate and set out. Here is where we find out why he had run into the wilderness…it wasn’t just to die, he had a destination in mind and it would take 40 days to get there. He was headed to Mount Horeb (Also known as Mount Sinai, the mountain of God).

My first meditation comes from this half of the story. I found it worth considering what Elijah was running FROM and where he was running TO:

Elijah ran FROM the source of his fear. Jezebel was evil. From Elijah’s perspective she has successfully destroyed God’s prophets, His altars and the fear of God in the hearts of Israel. We all have things in our life that cause our feet to scurry in search of safer ground.

Elijah ran TO Mount Horeb. This was the Mountain of God. The same mountain where the Lord first spoke to Israel, where He met with Moses and gave him a glimpse of His glory, where He wrote the law in stone with His own holy finger. Ahab and Jezebel could tear down the altars and the people, but they could not destroy this mountain. This mountain reminded Israel that God meets with His people, and Elijah wanted God. This was no directionless running, he was was heading to the place he knew God had revealed Himself to His people before.

Man, I love that. Even though we see Elijah fleeing in fear, we see that the physical course his feet took was the same path that his spirit took when his vision was clear. His muscle memory, formed by years of looking intentionally to the Lord, instinctually brought him when he was in “flight” to where he needed to be: Where his Lord could be found. I know that God cannot be contained in a temple made by human hands—he’s not confined to a mountain or constrained beneath a steeple—but I know what it’s like when I can’t see Him to find myself wanting to go where I know He has been.

Psalm 84:5 “Blessed are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.”
Psalm 71:3a “Be to me a rock of refuge, to which I may continually come.”

May I be a woman whose mind and heart and feet make their way continually to the Lord; may the grooves of my feet and the highways of my heart be so deep that even when my fear pushes me to run and hide, the course I take brings me straight to Him.

The widow's faith

We’re on 1 Kings 17:7–24 in BSF. It’s a familiar story of Elijah and the widow, but I can’t seem to shake it this time. I usually hear people talk about this story in a way that somehow glosses over the depth of it, or fixes its eyes on Elijah's portion…but my considerations have been of the widow. I have been processing through why I can’t seem to move my heart past her and here is where I have landed in regards to why my heart reverberates with this widow and her walk:

Let me tell you this story in my own words. Elijah had been living near a brook during a drought and the Lord had been sustaining him in miraculous ways…until the brook dried up. Then the Lord sent him to another place with the assurance that He had “told a widow to feed him there.” So by faith, Elijah went where the Lord sent him, and there he found a widow, just as the Lord said. From a distance, he called out to her and asked her for something to drink, and the widow’s like, “I’ll go get you some water.” But then he asks for something to eat. And the widow recognizes that this is the man God sent for her to feed, and she says, ”Look, Man of God, I haven’t prepared for your coming or made you any bread. Do you want to know what I’ve chosen to do right now instead? Every day I’ve been watching my food supplies run out as I look into the face of my hungry son. Today I am on the very last of what I have, so I’m getting sticks to build a fire and have one last meal with my son before we die from lack.” Can’t you just hear the weariness in her words? But in that moment where she had run out of faith, Elijah brought enough for them both, and he said to her, “Do not fear. Go ahead and make that bread, but before you eat it with your son, give me a little portion first. Because here is the Lord’s promise to you, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the Lord sends rain upon the earth.’” Basically, if you walk by faith now, you will reap reward. So the widow did what Elijah requested. And the Lord blessed her faith.

But it says after many days, the widow’s son died. And she went to Elijah and poured out her frustration and despair, “This is on you! Your presence here does not strengthen my faith, it simply reminds me of the weight of my epic doubt, and even as I have walked daily in obedience to the command of the Lord, now He has taken away my son. It would have been better had we died together before this miracle.” 

And Elijah, he didn’t rebuke her or argue with her…he was a man who knew the pain of finding hardship on the path of obedience. He simply took her son, and stormed the throne room on her behalf. For many days he had watched her life, had eaten at her table, had bore witness to the growing discomfort of receiving a miracle her faith did not earn her. I love how without reservation, he poured out his confusion and desperation to God. “Lord, NO! Why would You take away her son?! There has been too much loss, bring him back to her, Lord. Give this weary woman back her child.”

And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah, and He allowed him to return to the widow with her son, not in his arms, but by his side. Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” And the widow said, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

I resonate SO hard with this widow. I know what it feels like to be facing lack and clinging to the thing you desperately want to flourish with no idea how to proceed. And then from that place the Lord saying, “I want more from you.” 

I remember the moment the ultrasound tech looked up at me with her wand on my abdomen and said, “There are 2 babies.” I went home and lifted my hands up to the Lord and said something along the lines of, “What are You doing?! Why in the world would You call me to carry TWO children when You KNOW that my physical body barely makes it out of single pregnancies alive…and even though I have survived thus far, two of my babies have not. I am a broken incubator, and I (and/or both of these babies) am going to die because of what You have called me to.” I did not faithfully stride forward in my twin pregnancy, I “gathered sticks” and wrestled my fear. And when the Lord brought me a word of promise, I did not watch with expectation, I watched with genuine curiosity at how He would carry my body to the end of the pregnancy…how He would draw from my lack what was required to grow two babies…because I knew the facts, namely, that I did not hold what was required to bring it to fruition. I lived. Jane and Sia lived. And my body, the thing that bore the physical strain of carrying two humans, thrived through what it never should have been able to endure. 

But let’s look again at the widow’s journey. Elijah’s presence and the daily miracle, it didn’t magnify the widow’s faith, it reminded her that she doubted God when He called her; it ate away at her that she hadn’t been stronger, hadn’t trusted God more, had counted Him too small. And when her son died, she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask the God she had doubted for another miracle…and so she reached for the faith of the man who she knew could. By faith, he brought back her son to her with breath in his lungs and life in his bones, and his word “see…” pushed through the veil of shame and drew her faith from flailing to flourishing. “Now I know…”

My body—the thing that endured against all odds only by the promise and power of God—it has crashed and burned since the babies’ birth. Failure and weakness seem to have spoken the final word over it, it grimaces up from the dust wondering how the God who called me to such a task would leave me in such a condition when I had looked to Him every day—imperfectly, yes, but wholly nonetheless. I find myself looking around, eyes searching for the one who will let me lean upon their faith-filled shoulder, who believes that the grim realities of earth are no hindrance to the God who made it, who will charge the gates of heaven on my behalf and cry out to the Lord who loves us both and say, “No! Give this weary woman back her health.” 

 

Because I am waiting. I am waiting for the moment of return…where the word “see” makes visible, and the “knowing” brings about the testimony I was promised.

I find encouragement in this widow. I may not yet be able to muster up the faith of Elijah as he stands on the top of a mountain beside a multitude of false prophets calling down fire on a sopping wet altar…but I can wrap my head around the faith of the weathered widow. I love that God brought together this unlikely pair of worshipers and used them in each others lives. Because I am certain that it is not an accident that for Elijah, the journey beside the widow preceded the altar on the mountain.

Holy Blood for tainted flesh

deliverance
©5-7-2022 hannah mclean

i can feel the turning
of the tides that wouldn’t let up
i can hear the falling
of the chains that wouldn’t release
i can smell the changing
of the seasons that have brought perpetual decline
i can see the glories
of the hidden mysteries of His heart

who are you,
o enemy of Christ’s beloved,
to stop the Finished Work
from hitting its mark?

for what is it that poured with such a force
to push back the tide i couldn’t bear up against
to break the chains i could not pry apart
to change the days from barren to fruitful
to pull aside the veil to reveal the depths and heights?

it’s the Blood
Holy Blood for tainted flesh
Redeeming Blood for bloody curse
Blood that speaks a better word
the final word
with authority that makes you flee
carrying your workmanship away with you

and so i feel and hear and smell and see
i let the waters shift
the power move
the seasons transform before my eyes
where years of faith give way to sight
and endless darkness give way to light
and i lean in
into the wonders coming
from the fullness of the Finished Work
i have longed and labored to lay hold of

The days of waiting

Holy Week ponderings:

It’s a day of waiting.
It seems to be intentionally placed;
between the horrors of Friday and the wonders of Sunday.
A day to grieve and to remember and to ponder.
It’s like the Lord sat His followers down lest they fight or flee;
Peter gave us a glimpse onto both of these paths
with the swinging sword
and the rooster’s crow.
A sabbath.
Rest up, He seemed to insist,
the real work is coming.

It’s a day of waiting.
My mind keeps wandering to Mary Magdalene.
I sit beside her with her wringing, wondering hands;
hands that had been redeemed for anointing and for honoring.
Mary wanted to be with her Lord;
in His life she had been by His side,
close enough to wipe His feet with her tears
and close enough to hear the whisper of His thirst.
In His death she resisted still the separation.
But the sabbath forced her feet to stay
when apart from Him is not where she longed
to linger.

It’s a day of waiting.
They had a promise, you know.
He told them what would be:
Death by crucifixion
and three days later
risen to new life.
Peter wouldn’t accepted it;
he rebuked the truth
and waged war on hands that bound and led away his Lord
to fulfill His purpose.
But sometimes it’s the times of waiting after the horrors of Friday
that dig out of us the faith
to hope in the promise of Sunday.

These intentionally placed days of waiting…
may we not waste them.