Vulnerability in a new season

I gave my first lecture at BSF this week. I keep tearing up when I think about it, and so here I am, awake on the couch in the middle of the night because apparently it is time to write down my thoughts.

I entered into a new season this year; when I spent January asking the Lord what to do next, He handed me some new, unexpected assignments and reordered my life so that I could do what He asked of me. My children went off to school, and I stepped into two main things: He gave me women to pray and intercede with weekly, and He called me to be a substitute teaching leader at BSF. The former is an answer to a deep longing of my heart, the latter is…well, I’m still wrapping my mind around it because it’s new and unexpected and feels almost comical a role to be placed in.

Let me explain, the women in BSF are the same women who helped “raise me up” like sweet spiritual mother voices when I taught the students there 4 years ago; they’re faithful and wise and precious; some have walked with Jesus longer than I’ve been alive. If you looked through resumes to pick the most qualified person to fill this role, I’d be at the bottom of the pile. But Jesus tends to pull from the bottom of the pile, so here I am…brand new and learning on the job. And they’re helping me…and really, it’s probably the most biblical display of womanhood that I’ve ever been a part of; seeking Jesus together as we walk in obedience to what He called us to do, learning what it means to depend on Him for all things.

There’s the snap shot of my new season, and in it, I gave my first lecture. And I want to tell you why I keep crying when I think about it.

People only see me as I am today; depending on how long we’ve walked together or how many cups of coffee we’ve shared, you may know more or less of the experiences that shaped me. Maybe you were there through my joys and my losses, or maybe you’ve heard me process them, or maybe you have no idea what mountains I’ve climbed, what rocky ground I’ve crawled across, what stones have been hurled at me. While some of those experiences equipped me for my current assignment, others add an extra layer of vulnerability to it.

When I was growing up, I learned 3 lessons (spoken or implied, they settled in deep and took residence in my thinking): 
1) I had nothing to bring to the Body of Christ because I was female.
2) If I did have the audacity to bring anything to the Body, it would inevitably cause harm.
3) No matter how valuable, no one would want what came from me.

Obviously these are not so much lessons as they are lies. But it took me well over 30 years to even believe I was worth the full value of a human, so they had no problem finding ground to grow in me. What is interesting, is they didn’t produce someone with “self-esteem” problems, so to speak. I actually like me; I enjoy being who I am, I make myself laugh, I like the way I see the world, I enjoy the things I write, I am genuinely content with my quirks and ok with acknowledging my weaknesses. Instead, I feel like I’ve spent a lot of my life hidden under years of paint and mud wearing a coat of lament that no one would be willing to take the time to search me out. 

But Jesus washed me, and dignified me, and told me the truth again and again…and for years, I’ve learned to walk obediently and without expectation.

But it’s the “without expectation” part that He’s been slowly dissolving…and I think that’s why I feel so vulnerable in this season. Because I can see His intention and it carries expectation…and that feels terrifying to me.
It feels risky.
It feels vulnerable.
It feels uncomfortable.
It feels like I’d much rather crawl back into the prayer closet because I know I’m safe there.

I know that the Lord moves when He has me speak in front of people. 
And to me, the weight of that is staggering.
Maybe after reading the lessons I learned above you can understand why.

I am a woman, but my hands are not empty.
I would rather never speak than cause another spiritual harm.
And I am who and what God made me and nothing more.

The thing is, when we hear people share their thoughts on scripture from the front, we only see what they offer to us…we don’t watch how that offering was gathered. So I can sit in front of a group to share, and they hear the carefully prepared words I wrote on a page…but they didn’t see how I found those words, they don’t know where I traveled to gather them, they didn’t watch me wrestle and dance with the Lord for understanding. They only see the offering. And that is ok, because that part was FOR them; but let us never look at the offering of another and overlook the fact that there was preparation, that we are looking at the fruit of another’s labor.

After my first Ephesians study several years ago (which was the first time I ever invited women to listen to my thoughts on scripture in the way that I am shaped to speak it), I had someone who hadn’t come ask me to give them what I had written. And I surprised myself by saying, “No.” To one woman I looked like a person casually talking about scripture in their living room, but I was actually a person shaking off 3 lessons I learned; speaking out loud to others in my living room felt like stepping out of the boat in the middle of a storm to walk on water. I felt such vulnerability that the Lord had gone before me and set several friends beside me to physically steady my steps.

The Lord gave me this dream at that time: http://bigandlittlewords.blogspot.com/2023/06/consumers-or-contributers.html
In this dream, I am the mother camel.

I have been thinking about that dream, about my vulnerability, and about the women God has set beside me in THIS season to steady my steps. And while I tear up for multiple reasons, that’s the main one. These faithful women heard my words, but they also see my person; they covered me in prayer, they encouraged me, they tended to my needs…and afterwards, they gathered me in. They make me feel safe, like they will keep me tucked under their wings while I gather strength in my legs. 

At the heart of it, expectation is brand new to me. It brings with it the vulnerability of being consumed; if not by others, than by self or by the enemy. And so my faith must grow and stretch as I cling to Jesus…but today I just wanted to write down that I am grateful for the women I serve alongside.

"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]

Even there

Even There
@1-4-2025 Hannah McLean

If the wings of the morning bid me ride
If the waves pull me out to sea
If the night folds on me like covering
If the light seems as darkness to me

Even there

Even there,
You're the Lord who searched me
Who has known me before I met time
Even there,
You're the Lord who has found me
Who has hemmed in before and behind
Even there,
Your sure hand is on me
Your thoughts of me more than the sand
Even there,
You're the Lord who has formed me
Who causes my frail frame to stand

Father, even there You will lead me
May the hold of Your hand be my peace
For when rising and falling and darkness and flight end,
You will never cease

 

---

 

Psalm 139:7–10 "Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me."

The feet of Jesus

Revelation 1:12–16 “Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me, and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the lampstands one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around His chest. The hairs of His head were white, like white wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, His feet were like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace, and His voice was like the roar of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, from His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and His face was like the sun shining in full strength.”

I read this passage today, and looked down at my paper to answer the correlating questions. “What stands out to you in John’s description of what He saw and heard?” I could think of only one thing. It wasn’t the lampstands or the golden stars that danced across His palm, nor was it the two-edged sword or the flaming eyes. It was His feet. “Burnished bronze, refined in a furnace.” Something that is burnished has been polished until it shines, or in this case, refined by fire until it carried a sheen found through no other means. His feet, standing amid the splendor and majesty…His feet that knew not just the courts of heavens but the fires of earth.

To be honest, when I think of Jesus’ feet I don’t usually think of burnished bronze. I think of dirt and blood and sandal straps too holy to be unloosed by the best of human hands. I think of roads filled with travelers, journeys up mountainsides and maybe even the floors of fishing boats.

My mind travels through stories recorded for us in scripture of those holy, yet human feet; sick were laid at them, former-lepers fell in gratitude at them, redeemed women washed the dirt from them with their tears. People followed where their walked, sat at them to learn and even joined them atop the waters of the Sea of Galilee. They stood in a manger, in the homes of sinners, in His Father’s house and in the courts of earthly governments. They walked into gardens, up mountains, from city to city, even to the tomb of their friend. These feet that once were cradled by a mother, that were once pierced through by a soldier, that knew the feel of both womb and tomb; these feet that traveled the decent of heaven to earth and back again. These were the feet that stood out to me in John’s vision.

I know those feet. I’ve laid myself before them a thousand time, resting my head upon them in prayer. I’ve wrapped myself around them, rained my tears upon them, broken open my alabaster box at them to pour out my worship. I’ve followed them through the veil and to the throne, walked beside them into the broken caverns within me and known the healing that comes as they’ve led me out. They’ve joined me in my floods and in my fires, stood beside me in the valleys and in the heights, waited with me when I had no strength to move.

I found His feet before I found His face; for me it was the entrance point to relationship when I did not yet know how to receive love. These holy feet that humbled themselves to meet me in the dirt, pierced through so that my gaze could learn to look up in wonder at the One who drew near.

I know those feet. And when I look upon John’s vision, I can’t help but think that even if the rest of heaven is unimaginable in beauty and purity, shocking in width and wonder to we who wait on this side of eternity, the feet of our Lord will be familiar to us.

For those feet stood with us in the furnace. Those heavenly feet of burnished bronze.

to touch the Father

 the wrestle
©4-4-2024 hannah mclean

He is Jehovah-Rapha, the God who heals
we come to Him again and again
when the broken world breaks us
when the wounded world wounds us
when the fallen nature seeks to fell us  

“be who You say You are,” we plead

and sometimes in our seeking of healing,
the Lord reaches out and touches our body
or our soul
and we are well in a moment

but often times the healing is slow
we must squirm out from under our bondage
feel the pain of the washing of punctured flesh
our deliverance requiring time
the wait warranting a wrestle

and our hearts cry out, “Why?!”

this morning as i looked into the face of the raising sun
and pondered why the wrestle
the Spirit pressed on me
“it is in the wrestle that we get to touch the Father.”

healing in a moment feels the touch of God
but healing through a wrestle
finds the hands clinging to the Father’s arms
beating against the Father’s chest
winding around the Father’s feet

the wrestle is where we draw near:
near enough to feel
the breath of God upon our face;
near enough to feel with our fingers
the finished work of Jesus;
near enough to know not just the Father’s touch
but what it feels like to be with Him

with every reaching hand
and clinging grasp
we learn both the strength
and the gentleness
of the Almighty’s hands and heart

do not despise the wrestle
the wrestle is where we touch the Father

A dream from Jehovah Shammah

Last night I had a dream. In this dream, I was standing in a church with a group of friends talking when suddenly one of them said, “Oh no! I forgot I was leading worship today, I need to go set up!” She then turned to me and said, “Come on, we have to go sing.” I was very confused because I didn’t know I was suppose to lead worship and I didn’t remember volunteering because I had recently discovered my voice was really weak, so I wasn’t well suited for it in this season. But I followed her into the sanctuary. We had about 10 minutes before the service started. The church was huge, and we walked up onto a big stage where a woman was playing a piano beside a bunch of microphones and music stands. I asked my friend, “Are you sure that we’re leading today? Someone is already playing.” She stopped to check the schedule and informed me that the woman was our accompanist. Then the next 10 minutes were filled with a bunch of scrambled chaos: The music had to be printed, but there were issues with how it printed and with a slow printer; we had to rearrange the setup, but the cords and stands were a tangled mess and hard to move, at one point I tried to reach for a microphone and it came disconnected from the cord and started hissing; as tech support came to help, people started filing into the room; there was a room divider that was partly lowered over the front of the stage that had to be raised; someone tried to help read something for us and couldn’t read; I didn’t know the songs I was suppose to be helping lead; the accompanist suddenly left because she was sick and the other singers were nowhere to be found…everything we tried to do to help order things or move them along failed, every step forward was met with multiple steps back, all of the pieces of the team and the technology were stripped away and by the time the service was to start it was me and my friend and our small acapella voices. The pastor said to us, “Don’t let this set you back.” And my friend said, “It’s time to lead worship.”

We looked at each other and the people in front of us waiting, and we opened our mouths and we began to worship the Lord. Our voices were small, but after a line or two, we found ourselves suddenly accompanied by the most beautiful heavenly music I had ever heard. It filled the room and wrapped itself around our meager voices giving them strength and drawing from us a deeply renewed and heartfelt sound. The room was soon filled with a resounding song of praise and worship as every voice joined with the heavenly music, each of us singing with all our might, “And He shall reign forevermore, forevermore!”

And then I woke up.

When I woke up the second time, I head this name spoken over me again and again: Jehovah Shammah. I looked up its meaning. Jehovah Shammah means “The Lord is there.”

I’ve been in a hard season. Before I had gone to sleep, I had been on my face before the Lord weeping, repenting, confronting my lack of faith. So emptied of faith am I in one specific area that I finally had to acknowledge to both myself and the Lord that I simply no longer believe a promise He had given me. My hands that had clung and the hope that had held were too weak, the efforts for a different story and a new measure had come up empty too many times, the years had worn me down with discouragement and resign…and though I believe the Lord is who He says He is, my confidence in His promise to me has been lost in the eroding avalanche of my weakness. And I grieved as I declared His worth and offered Him my worship void of expectation of help.

And He gave me this dream and this declaration. 

 

“The Lord is there,” He whispered over me as I slept. He is there when all is stripped away; when efforts fail and time is too short and chaos crushes out peace; when the inadequate measure I walked in is tested and found wanting in new ways as the situation changes before me; when human fortifications are faulty; when every set back has left me certain that there’s no way forward; when in that place, I worship still. He is there. Reigning still, able to provide the missing measure with beauty that draws from deeper wells. Reigning forever, worthy of worship and accepting even the most meager sound that dares fall from the most unseemly mouth.

And I don’t know if you resonate with any of this, but I thought maybe there was someone who needed to be reminded with me that not only is there a God, but He is Jehovah Shammah; very present and full of grace.

"taste and see"

Ephesians 4:22–24 "...put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness."

loss of likeness

©8-15-2023 hannah mclean

 

“taste and see”
his hiss like honey
dripping from deceitful lips
“eat and be like God
knowing what He knows”

and eve
encased in the beauty of
her senses
saw
and desired
and so she tasted
and she saw

she saw that she had exchanged
likeness for knowing

eve had been created like God—
righteous and holy—
serpents ploys
and forbidden trees
could not more likeness make
in hindsight
she could see that
they could only take
for likeness was not in knowing
what God knew
but in the innocence of allowing
God to know
revealing and withholding
by His own wise measure

she tasted
and she saw
but all the knowledge of good and evil
could not bring back what was lost

until the cry of Yeshua
rose forth like a conquering roar
resounding through the despair
“taste and see
that the Lord is good
partake in My body
given for you
look full in My face turned
with love toward you”

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

In the beginning

He always brings me back to the beginning. Not of my life, but of life itself. He lifts me up from the deepest caverns of my most painful wounded being and sets me upon His shoulder so that I can watch Him create all that exists. “In the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1). “Watch.” He whispers, “Listen to My voice, see what springs from My authority and reverberates off of this great void with crescendos of My glory. Behold My intention, be moved by My love, gape at the splendor of My making, bend your knee at the magnitude of My power.” And in the keeping of this holy, holy, holy God, I immerse myself into the wonder of His name.

i am Your idea, Elohim
    i am not Your afterthought
    i am by design, not by accident
    the result of a good Creator’s
    careful hands

Every day ordained;
    His breath in my lungs and
    His Spirit in my body
    Born twice as His own

i am not lesser
    i am loved
i am not unacceptable
    i am intended
i am not unwanted
    i am called and appointed
i am not undesirable
    i am redeemed

From the vantage point upon His mighty shoulder, I renounce every thought and word that has scratched itself upon my being—inside and out—the poisonous lie that the One who knit me together did not do good work. For into the marvel of the earth that surrounds me, I have been placed by Sovereign hands.

The earth and me

God is faithful to minister to me—often in odd and unexpected places—which is where I found myself today as I read Genesis 7–9 and quietly cried beside my daughter doing her distance learning. It is in these chapters that we recount the story of Noah and the flood. As I read the repeated phrases about the waters upon the earth and Noah’s place inside the ark, I found myself resonating with the story in a deeply moving way.

But it was not Noah whose place I felt, it was the earth.

I know what it is to be the earth, bearing broken things and their painful effects instead of living in the beauty of its intentioned design to flourish. I know what it is to be derailed and seemingly destined for desolate places as the flow of disparaging things shape, twist and destroy what could be. I know what it is to feel the “waters prevail and increase” and beat upon me, slowly and effectively laying waste all that wishes to thrive and grow.

But here’s the thing about the earth in Noah’s story: There were things living on the earth and in it that needed to die so that it could flourish; there were toxic, vile things that had made themselves at home and day after day increased death instead of life. And while the waters prevailing and increasing and remaining were shape-shifting and jarring and startling and confusing, the waters served their purpose to bring about the goodness that God desired: A new beginning.

Throughout the entirety of this story, the earth was not without promise: It rode upon the tops of the waves in the ark that housed the man who had found favor with God.

Why were the waters unable to utterly destroy the earth? Chapter 7 ends with “everything on the dry land is whose nostrils was the breath of life died.” By means of the raging waters, every living thing was “blotted out.” But chapter 8 starts with “But God remembered Noah…” God saw the full effects of the waters, and at His command, He stopped their movement forward in an instant. There are 2 words used to describe the waters coming in chapter 7, they are Rabah and Gabar, which basically mean “many” and “mighty.” But there are 6 different words used to describe what happens when the Lord remembers Noah and acts: these words are complex and full. They begin in verse 1 of chapter 8 with “the waters subsided” [Shakak—to decrease, to tend downward, to render unable]; and end in verse 11 with “the water dried up” [Charab—to be laid to waste, to be made desolate].

So these words and this story moved me this morning. I love that the waters that destroyed so effectively were rendered desolate by the Lord; I have often used this word to describe how I feel in the wake of my health. I love that the waters lost their power to progress and cause further harm. I love that even the crushing weight of the waters from inside and outside of the earth had no power to stop it from producing new life after all seemed lost. I love that even though God didn’t instantaneously remove the water from the earth after it had killed the things that needed to die, eventually the waters were laid to waste and the earth was able to bring forth good growth in accordance with God’s intended design.

And these things comfort me. They comfort me because right now I feel like the earth…and all I see above me are muddy waters, and all I feel within me is the stench of death and the pain of dying things…and I don’t know yet where I am in the process of reaching my new beginning, but I will choose to remember the smell of Spring, where the snow melts and the damp, dead things that were beneath it reveal themselves, and in that odd aroma of what was, the promise of what will be fills my mind with the hope of green grass, waving trees filled with leaves, and the vibrant colors of flowers taking over the now barren landscape.

Because here are some things that I know that I know:
God remembers His people.
God remembers His promises.
And God is always able to bring forth new life…even when we feel like the earth buried beneath endless waters.

New Year comforts

The turn of this year has been a hard one. The most fitting word I have been able to find to describe how I have felt is DEJECTED. It means “thrown down.” But the Father is so faithful to minister to me, and from the sorrow of evening one, to the morning of day two, He has ministered so deeply to my heart. Here is the comfort He has given me as I begin this new year, perhaps it will lift you up as well.

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sometimes all we can see
is the cross
where all is crushed
    and every way our eyes turn
    we find debilitating defeat
where satan seems victorious in
    his pursuit to destroy
and we forget
what lies beyond
the mangled wreckage
of darkness

we forget
    it is the Sovereign that
    speaks the final word
we forget
    that past the blood soaked beams
    lies the empty tomb
the resurrection
and the results of the Redeemer’s
finished work

sometimes all we can see
is the cross
and the pain of it
but we must purpose to remember
that the cross is but a doorway
    to hope fulfilled

so if you are here
looking upon the ashes
of fires you could not stop
from raging
remember
that just as the ugliness of the cross
    is but a bridge to glory
that these ashes are but the makings
    of a crown of beauty
when we rest upon
the love of the Almighty