A resurrected body

 1 Corinthians 15:38–43, 47–49, 58 
“But God gives it a body as He has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”

“The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

“For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.” 

I have spent a lot of my life hating my body; it wasn’t just the way it looked, it was its propensity to failure, its inability to hold onto health or to gain it, the way it brought me emotional and physical pain, the many steps it lagged behind, how hard I had to work to gain an inch just to lose a mile the next day. I spent years beating it up; verbally degrading it for its inability to catch up or to keep up, physically trying to whip it into shape with every tool at my disposal. Empty hands and helplessness my only tokens of thanks.

I fought the hatred, I really did. I worked hard to associate with it, I repented, I learned to speak kind words to it, I forced myself to look at it, I sought the truth of its forming on the pages of scripture and came out of agreement with the lies I spoke over it. But my steps in victory couldn’t seem to remove the underlying loathing.

I have learned over time that the Lord is very careful and intentional in the order in which He walks us toward healing, so my cries didn’t stop until finally the Lord gave an answer to my continued desperate pleas for His help. He said, “It is time,” and carefully walked me back through my life and showed me that my health problems directly related to my trauma; with the loss of each brother, my body internalized the separation of death with separations of its own. The burden of the emotional tax weighed on my physical body and caused it to stagger. He led me down the paths of my sorrows and showed me that it was not the failure of my body that was displayed, but its endurance. Bent and broken was the heart, and the body that contained it followed suit.

The hatred fell off as the wall of enmity that created separation between my body, soul and spirit crumbled. A spirit of compassion washed my eyes, and turned my heart toward my body instead of against it. And we began out walk toward healing as one who has been made whole.

And that’s been a unique journey for me, to live without loathing. My body recovers from exercise differently; there is no insistence on results, only hope for wellbeing, the freedom to fail, and the willingness to seek help; the desire has changed to kindness, instead of cure.

I’m writing this because the Lord showed me another layer to build upon in pursuit of this healing.

I’ve often found comfort in the idea of shedding this body some day; to leave behind the broken pieces and metaphorically “wipe my hands of it.” But I was reminded in a sermon recently that Jesus has a body…that in His resurrected form, He has a physical body and so will I. And that is good. A truth I have not considered. It also stood out to me that even though His physical body had been made new, He chose to keep His scars. And that also is good.

It forces me out of my relief of future separation from what has caused me to struggle in this life (specifically, my physical body) and into the consideration of what it means to remain united with it. Do I believe that is good and why?

Because it’s true, the resurrected Jesus had a physical body, and it was His physical resurrected body that is lifted up as evidence of His identity and of the fulfillment of His purpose. The scars declared the truth of His suffering and of His victory, and were offered up for the faith of His followers. His physical body ate fish His disciples had prepared, and his physical hands built fires to prepare fish for them; His physical and pierced-through feet walked down the road beside His people and His physical mouth expounded to them the scriptures. In the 40 days between His resurrection and ascension, we are given a glimpse into what it looks like for a human being to be raised from the dead to eternal life.

So what if in eternity my perfected body still testifies of what it has endured? What if the evidence remains, not for pain but for glory? What if the suffering is not forgotten, but instead carried without lament? What if my twisted fingers remains twisted even as they find themselves able to play instruments and make pottery in the city of God?

I have learned from His word that the goodness of who He has made is not lost with our losses or tarnished by our corrosion; I have also learned that His goodness in our losses and corrosions are what shape us into the followers we are today. And perhaps these emerging layers will find that their paths lead to Hebrew 2:10, “For it was fitting that He, for whom and by whom all things exist, in the bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.” Perhaps the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony will be presented upon our physical body that bears the evidence of imperfection being resurrected by Perfect love. Perhaps the Lamb spoken of in the book of Revelation who stands as “one who has been slain” will be looking out over His blood-bought people, standing also as ones who have once known death. 

To be resurrected is not be erased and to be recreated without blemish. It is to be restored to life…but resurrected life bears the evidence of the fires of earth, the crucible in which the dross of a broken life gives way once more to His image. His feet of burnished bronze are left bare upon the streets of heaven; His blood soaked robes royal enough to be worn when He sits upon His white horse and returns upon the wind; the scars upon His hand no hindrance to the holding of His scepter, but are the very things that bear witness to His right to lift it. 

He makes all things new. And that is good. But even the new will bear witness to what has been. And that is very good.

There’s got to be healing in these thing, may I lay hold of it as they settle in me.

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.

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]

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

Books

I published some books on Amazon if you are interested:

"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.”

Ordinary

Sometimes it helps to say it out loud
to confront it as it is;
to look it in the eyes and stare it down
thus proving that it is not more powerful
than the decision I get to make in light of it.

I realized recently that I say these words
frequently
“I’m not really good at anything.”
I usually follow it up with encouragement,
“but I’m just going to do my best.”
It doesn’t necessarily feel degrading,
but it doesn’t feel healthy either.
It reeks of a tool that trains me to accept
as it seeks
to cover my pain with contentment.

I can trace it back,
to the event where this phrase was birthed:
When asked directly,
the one person I ever wanted
to be proud of me searched
but could find nothing nice to say of me.
I didn’t even realize there was someone
I wanted to make proud,
until I didn’t.

I don’t blame them, really,
I’ve never been the kind of person
who catches the light…
I’m the kind you have to unbury.

As I looked my declaration in the eye today
I could see that though it started somewhere
it was reaffirmed again and again
in the safe place of the past.
Rejection had a way of following me…
unacceptable and unwanted were sentiments that plagued
me from childhood,
but there was one place that made it bearable—
one place of belonging
one place where I believed I stood
in desirable light;
where others chose to see me and
to believe I was worth loving,
and it put the averted eyes in their place.

It’s no one’s fault, really,
I was born into a field of extraordinary beauty
but didn’t add to it…
because some people were made to behold
not to be beheld,
and I'm the lucky one.

It’s not that I don’t find joy in
my ordinary,
it is just that I find myself sad
that my safe place has lost
its desire for it.

The Beauty of Lament

In my BSF study this week, the very first question says, "What does it mean to Lament?" Every once in a while, I land on a question and realize that I have an entire theology surrounding a topic that I didn't realize existed. This one I couldn't get past it without writing:

To lament is to linger in the sorrow of
a moment that is not as it should be;
to sit down in the heap of rubble of
what had once been built
and weep.

Lament is a Holy gift for the human heart
to help us process and move through suffering;
a necessary stop on the journey of grief
that allows for us to persevere with wellbeing.

Lament is the tool that draws the human soul
into the depths of God;
it is the place where our deep calls out to His
and allows for the comfort not of changed circumstances
but of Holy presence.

Lament is the helping hand that reaches for us
when we find ourselves upon the ground of
sin-broken battlefields,
and stirs within us
a longing for the One who redeems.

Lament is the deeper ache that causes our hearts
to search for the One who makes all things new;
and though we often face sorrow as
skillful evaders of painful things,
lament is the bridge on which we walk
reaching for purpose to be gained
from the realities that wound the human heart.

And though it pushes against reason,
the willingness to lament keeps soft
the heart that suffering threatens to harden.

Give voice to your lament
and find the bended ear of the One who
draws near the ashes
ready to bring forth beauty where we find none.

Psalm 42 | Ecclesiastes 3:1–11a | Lamentations 3:31–33 | Job 1:20

A Testimony: A Dignified Woman

I wrote the testimony below sometime last year; at the time, it was the gathering of words articulating where I stood in my journey of healing my wounded femininity. I sat on it for a long time, careful which hands I placed it in as the Lord faithfully brought it to completion. But yesterday I had an interaction that struck me in a way that opened the door to share it with you: I had a woman I am acquainted with take me aside and sweetly affirm and encourage me in my giftings and my walk.

This might seem simple and small, but it was sort of the cherry on the top of a heap of kind and affirming words that women have offered me over the last few years. I want you to understand that I have spent the majority of my walk with Jesus with my eyes forward and my hands extended; I have received from the Lord and offered to anyone who cared to accept whatever He placed in them. I had no doubts of the worth of His work in me, and yet, no expectations that anyone wanted what I held out…because, as you will read below, I was taught not only did I have nothing to offer the Body of Christ, but anything I DID have the audacity to bring would inevitably cause it damage because I am a woman. The majority of the time I have followed Jesus, I mostly have just quietly fixed my eyes on Him and done whatever He told me to do, setting my obedience and His faithfulness to me as the only desired outcome I could perceive.

At the beginning of this year, I printed a prayer booklet for the women at my church. I almost didn’t do it; I set the call down on a heaped up table to wait another’s direction and time. But the Lord picked it back up and set it back into my hands with the firm reminder that it was between us. So I completed the work and looking down into the box of bound booklets, I felt a wave of freedom wash over me.

Do you remember when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead? He came out of the tomb, fully alive but wrapped in grave cloths; the living being hidden beneath the bands of death. And Jesus said to his family, “Unbind him, and let him go.” It was the family that had wrapped him up, and it was the family that took part in the unbinding. I spent 17 years undergoing spiritual abuse of those who claimed the name of Jesus, they bound me up in clothes that were meant for the dead. But as the Lord has brought about deep healing in me over the last 6 years, He has brought along side me those who carry the name of Jesus to unbind me so that the life that the Lord has borne in me can be seen and known and bear witness to the redeeming power of our Savior.

If you have been among those voices, who have championed me forward, helped wipe the dirt off my face, stilled the shaking of my hands, tipped up my chin to speak encouragement, cheered me as I stumbled along, taken the time to speak worth over my walk…thank you. Thank you for affirming the healing work the Lord has done in me, for taking part in the redeeming of this broken woman and ensuring that what the enemy has sought to keep hidden is drawn fully into the light. I don’t know what all the Lord has in store for me, but He has restored my ability to dream, and I know that the testimony He has given me will roll out before me as I take each step of faith.
 
---------
 
Growing up, I did not know I had dignity.
It was whipped out of me with skewed teachings on scripture,
it was stripped off of me with the glares and disdain that grew as my body did,
it was erased from my personhood as effectively as my humanity was dismissed,
and it evaded me as surely as my womanhood did not.
I was taught to fear myself,
that the depravity of nature that came along with my femininity
was to be hated
and, if i knew what was good for me,
should cause me to tremble my way
right under the superior moral covering of angry men.

Growing up, I did not have a voice.
It was silenced when I questioned,
rebuked when I expressed thoughts that did not align with those over me,
dismissed because I was female.
I remember wanting to be heard;
for someone to believe that the ponderings that swirled behind
my peace-keeping eyes had value,
for someone to tell me that the brain I was given
had a greater use than knowing recipes and storing shopping lists,
for someone to allow my hopes, dreams and imaginings
to contribute to the living that was happening around me.
I wanted someone to let me speak
and to affirm my right to use my voice by taking the time to listen to it.

Growing up, I was taught to loathe the fullness of my femininity;
I was taught to minimize myself
to the tidy boxes of convenience and usefulness,
and to discard the rest of me at the door.
In my fullness I was simply too much;
I was to require nothing from the world around me
and to bring to it only what it wanted from me.
And the message was clear:
woman is an object to be used and taken from…
any part of her that pushes back against this message
is rebellious and wicked and should be subdued at all cost,
and every measure taken to ensure this message sinks in
is on the tab of her own conscience.

When I graduated high school at 17, I moved out of my childhood home a week later. I left behind religion and all things related to it in the hopes that I would find a better understanding of who I was and a better box of womanhood to climb into. But all I found was the same degradation in a different suit. Everywhere around me were voices and imagery shouting that dignity, value and purpose were measured by people “qualified” to make such determinations; the boxes I found had only enough room for my usefulness or my ability to offer what was wanted from my body. Everywhere I looked, it was confirmed to me that woman equated with object, not person.

And I accepted my lot.

When I encountered Jesus, I watched Him from a distance. He sat at a beautiful table where He had laid out a feast of wonderful things. There were chairs and people seated around Him, delighting in His presence and His benefits. I saw grace overflowing from the table, the crumbs of which fell onto the floor around His feet where dogs licked them up. My eyes bypassed the people who were seated and watched the dogs. I was struck with hope by the fact that He let them come near Him and I thought, “If He lets the dogs come, surely so can I.” I was fascinated by watching them take the crumbs as their own without being shooed away and I thought, “If I could just have a crumb of His grace, that would be enough.” I mustered up all the courage I had, and making myself as small as I could, I took my place with the dogs and crawled over to His table…but when I reached out my hand for a crumb of grace, it found instead His hand for He had bent down to the ground where I was, and touched my hand when it reached out. He looked into my dumbstruck eyes and drew me up from the floor, pulling out a chair beside Him with the invitation to sit in a seat at His table and partake in the fullness of His feast.

And that wonder…
that wonder at being lifted from floor to table,
from beast to person,
from intruder to invited,
from beggar to beloved…
that wonder has never worn off.

That was 17 years ago and I have spent those years “growing up” in Him.
But unlike the years before it,
THIS upbringing redeems and heals
as it brings about the undoing of the past
because I am accompanied by His Word and by His Spirit.

As I grow up with Him, I have learned that I have dignity.
It was placed into me by the hands that formed me,
it is written onto me by the words of Scripture,
it covers me as surely the blood of Jesus washes me
and the Holy Spirit declares me His own,
it is as certain as the imago Dei that cannot be erased from my being.

As I grow up with Him, I am learning how to use my voice.
A voice that I am not just invited to use, but compelled to use;
a voice that does not merely exist, but has something of value to say;
a voice that carries the power of life and death;
a voice with place, position and purpose in heavenly pursuits;
a voice that carries His authority,
brings forth His word,
gives vision to the treasures hidden in the quiet of His presence.
I have a voice that no longer bends to permission given or denied by man,
but speaks in obedience to the Father.
A voice that seeks not for glory of self,
but for glory of God.
A voice no longer silenced in kingdom purposes.

As I grow up with Him, I am learning to walk in the wholeness
and fullness of a female who bears His image.
Because I have come to believe this Truth:
A good God, in love, created woman in His image for His glory.
And I can stand upright, with an uplifted chin,
as a woman—
redeemed and set apart—
bearing witness by my life of the heart of the Father for humanity.
As a woman,
I am not a hinderance to the gospel,
but a conduit through which it can be more fully known.

I am still in the process of “growing up.”
But if any of this resonated with you, then I want to bear witness to you that in every way we have been broken as women, the broken body of Jesus will surely heal us.

The worship that lingers

It was an extravagant act of worship.
She took the expensive ointment and anointed the feet of Jesus.
The feet of Creator God clothed with the flesh of created man.
With great audacity, she unwrapped her hair and wiped His holy feet.
And with great audacity, He let her.

And it says, “The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.” John 12:3b

It filled the senses of those who observed it.
It filled the home where it had been poured out.
It lingered on the clothes of those who were there and followed them to their own dwellings.
It stuck to Jesus’ skin, leaving imprints wherever His feet stepped.

Mary’s worship lingered.
It lingered upon her head as a fragrant crown of beauty
reserved for the ones who bring whole-hearted worship.
And when she lay her head down that night,
the fragrance would remind her that He had received her.

And yet
both Mary and Messiah knew,
that the ointment was for anointing
that when the fragrance wore off
there would be a burial
for the heel which held the fragrance
would be bruised for the one who wiped it with her hair.

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.

Biblical Women

I saw this post yesterday @sketchysermons, and it made me smile. I’ve been on an intentional journey since 2018 to gain an understanding of what “biblical womanhood” looks like; in part because I have been healing from the damage done to my femininity by my childhood church during critical ages of development, but also partly so that I can articulate to my children God’s view of women. In general the Church exalts the Marys of the Martha’s sister variety, quietly learning at the feet of Jesus, and the Ruths with their devoted, servant hearts. But scripture has a lot more to say about the women God made and chose to include on the pages of His holy book than this woefully limited (though lovely) box has room for. Personality and matters of the heart are two different things, and the exclusion of the former from discussions surrounding womanhood has been detrimental to the dignity of women in the body of Christ because many of us find ourselves disqualified before we’ve even set foot on the ground. This tiny sketch breaks down the sides of the box we’ve set up and forces us to reconsider its boundaries.

This sketch speaks of Jael, who was honored when she drove a tent peg through the skull of Sisera, the commander of a wicked king’s army, with such force that it plunged into the ground beneath it. There’s twice I can think of (1 Samuel 25 and 2 Samuel 20) where one single woman faced entire armies on full-force revenge missions and stopped them from causing mass destruction. The apostle Paul, who wrote a large portion of the new testament, honors the women who worked side-by-side with him in the spread of the gospel—supporting financially, laboring physically, and even, in the case of Phoebe, going on a dangerous mission to bring one of his letters into Rome where Nero was in the process of lighting believers on fire for entertainment purposes. The church needs to remember Jesus doesn’t just affirm Mary, He affirmed her sister Martha (John 11:5) whose bold personality may have made it hard for her to sit still, but it certainly brought with it a propensity to get things done. The Lord highlights a great variety of personalities and propensities including prophetesses, business women, teachers, former prostitutes, a deaconess and even a female apostle (Romans 16:7) highly respected among the disciples.

I’m still gathering my words, but I can say with full confidence that it is not scripture that minimizes or demeans women—the womanhood we see in the Bible is quite a beautiful, dynamic thing to observe—instead, it is human explanations, though often well-intentioned, that continue to do the greatest damage. So if you are on your own journey, I encourage you to set aside the teachings you’ve gathered, and do your own wrestling with God through the pages of the Bible, starting at chapter 1 of Genesis, with the understanding that a good God, who does good work, in love formed woman in His own image. And whether you are the type of woman God created to tend a home or to build a house, to mother a child or to disciple a neighbor, to gently hold the hand of the weak or to curl your fingers around a tent peg, you will find that Biblical Womanhood includes your personality type. And as for heart posture, Jesus will align and refine us with His Word by His Spirit as we abide in Him.

And that is all for now. But, if you see me with this sticker somewhere on my person, you will know why. :)

Rewriting the narrative

Woman
©12/14/2021 Hannah McLean

I am not a broken thing
I am whole
I am a healing woman
[Isaiah 61:4]

I am not a worthless thing
I am loved
I am a dignified woman
[Proverbs 31:25]

I am not a helpless thing
I am kept
I am a fortified woman
[Psalm 18:31-35]

I am not a forgotten thing
I am known
I am an intentioned woman
[Psalm 139:16]

I am not a shameful thing
I am redeemed
I am a beautified woman
[Psalm 96:9]

I am not a silent thing
I am sealed
I am a joyful woman
[Psalm 16:11]

I am not a useful thing
I am filled
I am a devoted woman
[Psalm 40:3]

A thing has been
But a woman will be
For my identity comes not from my woundings
But from my Maker

the undoing

un
©10-10-2021 hannah mclean

it’s the words
that buried themselves
in the deepest parts
of me
hidden in places
i haven’t thought to seek
emerging from the shadows
in the moments
of my own emergence
to convince me
to back down
to remain within the confines
of their hinderances

unwanted
unaccepted
unnecessary
unwelcome
unknown

i know what it is
to be Lazarus
called out from my tomb
with new breath in my lungs
and grave clothes
binding what was once dead

but what of Jesus’ words before
the miracle of new life
“did I not tell you that if you believed
you would see the glory of God?”
a life redeemed is one of glory on display
the extent of which
is only fully seen in the unbinding
of the remnants of death

unwanted
unaccepted
unnecessary
unwelcome
unknown

my soul cries out
for deliverance from the pain
of these words
from their power to stifle
growth in me
from their enduring pursuit of
convincing me
to shut up the
wells of life
that begin to flow forth from
the places they seek to keep residence

the soul ties of silence
insist my knees bend
to their masterful reasoning
for only when my words
remain hidden inside my mouth
do these words
return to their crevices within

unwanted
unaccepted
unnecessary
unwelcome
unknown

but in the lifting of my ear
i hear resounding over
their degrading cadence
a different song
the sound of glad rejoicing
of love that quiets and
of exultation from holy lips
for He has tended to this broken
He has gathered in this outcast
He has taken on Himself this shame
He has brought near His side this one
who has stood wishing on the outside
and He has made known

for only in the presence
of the Lord my God
do the “un”s meet the silence
of their own undoing

wanted
accepted
necessary
welcome
known

 

----
"The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty One who will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by His love; He will exult over you with loud singing. I will gather those of you who mourn for the festival, so that you will no longer suffer reproach. Behold, at that time I will deal with all your oppressors. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you in, at the time when I gather you together; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes,” says the Lord. ~ Zephaniah 3:17–20

from womb to woman

Psalm 139:13–18 “For You formed my inward parts; You knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are Your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in Your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with You.”

foreknown
©9-28-2021 hannah mclean

as Your hands formed
Your eyes saw
not just what You were creating
but what i would become

with many thoughts
You molded me
weaving within my very being
what the touch of Your hands
feel like upon my life

the impressions of
Your holy fingerprints
brought me from
substance to soul
marking me in Your making
with the knowledge
of Your wonder

foreknown
for a purpose
unfolding as time
turns the days
ordained for me

and today i worship
for even now
from womb to woman
i am still with You

The lower shelf

I’m in the process of going through a “forgiveness journey,” venturing through the book Forgiving What You Can’t Forget by Lysa Terkheurst; it’s been an interesting trek as it has unveiled aspects of my life that have really caused me to limp in areas where I should stride.

The week I am in currently is looking into events or lessons that impacted my life in profound ways (for better or for worse). I find myself considering some things I picked up along the way and how they have affected my gate.

Over the last several years I have been gathering words to help me heal from the warped view I received of my femininity and worth; I was not certain I had dignity and struggled to maintain my humanity in the face of the objectification that stripped me of personhood. I grew up believing I was a second class human, destined for the cast offs of life, always just out of reach of what I truly wanted. And I adapted—human beings are incredible in their ability to adapt—I trained myself that though I was free to dream without limits, I was to stretch no higher than the lower shelf and to be content with what I found there.

This translates in some interesting ways as an adult in the Body of Christ. Do you want to know how I answered the question, “How have these events or perceptions affected what you believe about God?”? I wrote, “His best love and blessing are for others, and I am just grateful for the crumbs of grace. My hand doesn’t reach high enough.” I find that over the years I have battled these words, “It can cause me to stop seeking the desires laid on my heart because surely I’ve received all He’s willing to give someone like me.”

I walk out my faith in this tension: I KNOW the Lord’s generous, lavish love—it has landed upon me with such gentleness and such force that it was shaped me forever—and yet I never stop marveling at it. I am a book filled with innumerable testimonies that witness of God’s outlandish heart for me…and the reason I probably remember each of these markings so vividly is because they still surprise me every time.

I wrote this down in my journal as I process that, imagery to my place:

I see myself as a little girl
looking longingly at the festivities
of a party…
while clutching my invitation
in my grateful hand.
Longing to belong.
I’ve entered through the gate,
eager to celebrate,
but unable to shake
the outside from within.
Courage and faith
moved my feet to come,
but it is only the certainty of love
that will embolden me
to enter in.

I know there are no second tier citizens in the kingdom of God; He doesn’t set aside a group of people who He withholds His greatest blessings from; He doesn’t mark some of us as acceptable, but not accepted; He doesn’t plant the longing for all into the hearts of those intended only for some.

Ephesians 1:3–10 says “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with EVERY spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as HE CHOSE US in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him. IN LOVE He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, ACCORDING TO THE RICHES of His grace, which He LAVISHED upon us, in ALL wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of His will, according to His purpose, which He set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in Him, things in heaven and things on earth.”

In Christ, I get EVERY blessing because IN LOVE He chose to LAVISH the RICHES of His grace on me. This is the truth. It’s the truth the overshadows the lies to which I have adapted. It’s the truth that speaks the better word than the voices that set me up to settle for the dust. It’s the truth that lifts my eyes to the heights and gives me the courage to stretch out my hand. I may have approached Jesus’ feet to wrap my desperate fingers around the crumbs of grace that fell from His table, but He didn’t leave me there; His hand reached down to pull me up and He gave me a chair so that I could partake of the fullness of His feast.

So today I look upon my mud-smattered image and praise the Lord that no matter how much dirt has gathered and hidden my perception of place in this life, I hold within my hand the blood-bought, Spirit-sealed invitation to enter in and partake with all believers of the greatness of His lavish love and glorious grace.

Reproach

REPROACH: An expression of rebuke or disapproval; a cause or occasion of blame, discredit or disgrace; one subjected to censure [judgment involving condemnation; the act of blaming or condemning sternly] or scorn.

 

I can feel the pain of my soul—the entirety of my person—as I read this word and its meanings. Clearly this word remains stamped upon me; it covers beauty never realized like the defacing of graffiti, and mars like the careless application of a stamp slammed down with force. Reproach. The cause of shame…The subject of disgrace…An object to be scorned…A person to be despised…The one to be blamed…I want to accept these reproaches, to rationalize why they belong to me, to justify the hands that stamped them there (even my own). I want to examine each mark to determine its validity to see if the merit behind it should allow—no, demand—that I keep it to wear as a badge of dishonor, a warning to my future ambitions. 

But You look down at me from Your hanging place, where your blood stains both the wood and the ground beneath it. You’ve already determined the merit of my markings. You’ve already sorted what has been cast upon me, what has rested upon me, what ways I am to be despised.

“I am the Lamb without blemish; My blood makes the marked ones clean; My love covers a multitude of sins and leaves the ones who receive it free. I’ll take it all— every marking, every declaration, every judgment, every disgrace, every ounce of blame…the sum of all your reproach.”

"You know my reproach,
    and my shame and my dishonor;
    my foes are all known to You.

Reproaches have broken my heart,
    so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none,
    and for comforters, but I found none.

They gave me poison for food,
    and for My thirst they gave Me sour wine to drink."

Psalm 69:19–21

May I walk by faith, not by sight.

Complex Compassion

I’m burdened, you guys, so I am going to write about it. Compassion for the oppressed and compassion for the oppressor. I want to give you a glimpse into how I, as a follower of Jesus and the Bible, hold those two things together.

When I say that I have compassion for the oppressed and the oppressor, these are very different things and may look very different from each other when played out. I also want you to know that to feel both does not mean I am impartial, to feel both is not something that comes naturally to me, and to feel both has more to do with the Lord’s heart than with my own.

If I were to walk into a room in which sat a rapist and a rape victim, my inclination might be to do two things: Pummel the rapist and hold the victim while weeping, seeing, listening, and feeling the pain of the atrocity done to her. 

But as a believer in Jesus and a follower of the Bible (and if you claim the first, you should be doing the second), my responsibility is to take these feelings and bring them before the Lord. Because even though I have walked with Him for 14 years, it may just mean that if I were to walk into that scenario today, the only initial difference would be that I stop myself from doing the actual pummeling.

It is only when I kneel before the Lord is prayer that I find the compassion that is foreign to me. In prayer, I must lay before Him my fury over the oppressor, my sorrow over the oppressed, and my heart. I must set beside these things the truths and commands I see in scripture, and the heart of the Lord I read about there. Things like:
Psalm 147:3 “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
Matthew 5:44 “But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
Ezekiel 33:11”...As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live...”
And when all of these things are laid out before Him, I must wrestle.

Let me tell you about the pivotal moment for me surrounding this topic: Some of you may know that I have a heart for those caught in sex trafficking (broken sexuality and its effects are a whole). A number of years ago, I was praying one day about a big fight that was happening in Vegas. I was praying Psalm 72 and found there was one verse in particular that really captured me while I prayed:
Psalm 7:14 “From oppression and violence He redeems their life, and precious is their blood in His sight.” 
 
I cried out to God for the women who would be sold and used: declaring that no matter how they were viewed by any other human, in His eyes their lives were precious; that every drop of blood drawn by the violence of their oppressors was seen by Him and counted as something in His eyes. And then my prayers turned to the ones who sold and bought them; I prayed they would see the evil of their ways and turn from them; that intended violence would stop before it came to fruition; that they would know salvation....and, in my righteous indignation, that if they were not to turn from their wickedness, that He would stop the oppression from continuing by “wiping them out.” And as soon as the words came out of my mouth, the Spirit gently said to me, “But...precious in My sight is their blood.” And in that moment, I shut my mouth and I wept and I have not been the same since. Friends, when I pray for the oppressor, the intensity, purity and longing that fuel my prayers CANNOT come from me--mine are far too limited and faulty--they must come from the heart of the Lord; the heart that beats through the pages of scripture and in His Spirit that He left as a Helper to guide us into ALL Truth.

I want you to know this: You can learn many thing about the heart of God when you read His Word, but if you want to learn how to feel the heart of God, you cannot do that unless you pray. It is in prayer that your heart fellowships with His, that your heart wrestles with His, that your heart learns to feel what He feels for whomever He feels it. I do not know of ANY OTHER place where you can learn to feel the heart of God than with His Word in prayer. 

If you are a believer in Jesus, a follower of the Bible, one who wants to grow in likeness to Christ and reflect the beauty of your Savior, you must grow in truly KNOWING God’s heart. Because if you do not learn to wrestle in His presence with His Truth, you will distort Who He is and what He desires. The call on our life as His followers requires us to TANGIBLY depend upon Him to fulfill it, because left to our own volition, we will not land in a place that looks upon the wicked and declares, “Precious is their blood in His sight.”