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]

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.

The expanse of His bending

"He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap." Psalm 113:7

 

The Lord was ministering to me with Psalm 113:7 yesterday, and this morning as I sat down with Him, I looked into the rest of the Psalm and I am undone.

Psalm 113 speaks to the Lord being HIGH ABOVE ALL nations; China, Russia, the USA, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Israel, Egypt, Monaco, Nigeria…every nation with every earthly leader and every ounce of earthly government, prestige and military might. It says that not only are these beneath Him, but they are FAR beneath Him. And while the glory of the earth and its nations may seem impressive (Olympians, natural wonders, scientific and technological advances, etc.), His glory—the sum of His being—dwarfs not only all the earth has to offer but also the heavens. And from this declaration of the immense wonder, worth and power of God, the Psalmist rightly declares His holiness, “Who is like the Lord our God…?” No one. He is set apart in every way; holy, holy, holy the right declaration as He is beheld.

Then the second half of the Psalm moves my heart is wondrous ways. Because then, this God who dwarfs the nations with His glory, presence, position and scope of vision reaches down through the distance of His exaltation and sets His hands into the dust to touch the ones with nothing to glory in; He puts those holy hands into the ashes of burned up lives and circumstance and picks up the ones who need; and with the humble of the world in His grasp, He covers them with honor. And then, He turns His eyes to the woman without, the lonely with the pain of unfulfilled longings, and He moves her to joy.

“Who is like the Lord our God…?” Our God who does not overlook the individual lives on whom death has left its mark. Our God who did not come to save nations—for nations are but a drop in a bucket to Him—but to save the people who fill those nations—marked with His image and the recipients of His affections. Who is like the Lord our God? Worthy of praise for all of time and yet concerned with the weak and lowly who have known only broken pieces and with the woman whose beating heart is cast down.

I don’t know if where you sit today is a place of authority at a table of honor or a pile of ashes from the life you’ve burned with your own sin. I don’t know if you hold in your hands everything you ever wanted or if your soul cries out from the bathroom floor in your longing for what you lack. But I do know this, the Lord our God is both mighty and meek. He is above the heights we could ever lift our eyes to and beneath the depths we could ever fall. He is worthy and yet willing, holy and yet love itself. Rest in His hands, it is there that joy will find you.

And do not miss the expanse of His bending, for the expanse is the door to understanding His praise.

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.

The Fear of the Lord

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

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

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

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

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

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

BEGINNING: The point in time or space when something starts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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.”

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.

heralding the end of a reign

a broken reign
©11/13/2023 hannah mclean

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

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

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

"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”

A poetic journey through Ephesians: Part 2

EPHESIANS 2–3
©7-2023 hannah mclean

 

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

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

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

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

--------

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

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

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

so we must not forget

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

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

 

---------

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

to know

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

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

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

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

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

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

--------

ONE
one in Christ and
one with Christ

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--------

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

to put down roots

anchored to the ground

established
in a foundation worthy to build upon

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

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

rooted and grounded in love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A poetic journey through Ephesians: Part 1

I have been studying the book of Ephesians this Summer. Each month I have been sharing things I've learned and poetry that has flowed from my time with the Lord as I meditate on the beauty contained in those 6 small chapters. Ephesians is one of the most beautiful books in the Bible; it is a declaration of the Truth of who God is, what He has done and what that means for us...a foundation upon which to build a worshipful heart. I have decided to share the poetry apart from the teaching on this blog.

 

------- 

 

Ephesians 1:15–21 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.

 

EPHESIANS 1

©6/2023 hannah mclean  

 

we must ask not just
what is the hope to which He has called us
but what is the means by which
He has called

grace

blessed grace
heavenly grace
lavish, glorious grace
loving grace
purposeful grace
praise-worthy grace
persistent, pursuing, purifying grace
holy grace
mysterious grace
redeeming grace
life-giving, unifying grace
saving grace
sealing grace

His grace is not reckless
haphazard
flippant
it is carefully measured
to hit its desired mark
intentioned to bring about the greatest good
for you and for me
and for all of broken humanity
at whatsoever depth we have burrowed
 

------

 

to be holy and blameless.
when the image of God was unhidden
on full display upon and within
human flesh
when knowledge of evil
had not yet weighed so heavily
that it bent the image bearer
distorting the goodness
opening the eyes to what was lost
and opening the flesh to
the pain of loss

the fall jolted man and woman
pushing the glory of innocence
outside their reach
closing the door of unhindered fellowship
with the One who made them
as they became debtors
working to worship
instead of beholders
ever flowing with it

and yet He from whom all blessings flow
brought forth His Son
His very self
a bridge foreknown
to offer us a way
to stand once again
the display of His image
and the beauty of His likeness
in the splendor of holiness
proclaiming through our washing
both the praise of His glory
and the wonder of His grace

------

the Divine seeks intimacy
with the dust

uncreated Deity
draws forth life with His holy hands
breathing upon it with His holy breath
imprinting it with His holy image

looking upon it with His holy eyes

He declares to it His holy love
and marks it with His holy affections

intending it to be His holy own

who could not marvel
at such glorious mystery
for though words fail
to corral its wonder
the heart does not fail
to know it—
endowed with capacity to receive

He—uncreated to withstand our worship
we—created to withstand His love

------

the Ekklesia
the whole number of those who worship and honor Jesus
throughout the entire earth
and throughout the entirety of time

if my pursuit to understand this glorious inheritance
i found myself encompassed in these truths:

it is Jesus who builds His Church
the Lord Himself who adds to it
who fortifies its purified hearts with Himself
so that the gates of hell will not prevail
to tear it down
the fruit of His labor
the reward for His suffering
blood bought and beautified by holy fire

“you are Mine”
He proclaims
His voice rolling across the woes of earth
with the power to preserve
“for the glory of My Father.”

a church of saints
most holy things
sacred to God
set apart because
He Himself has done a sacred work there
a saving work
a glorious work

-------

He who knew no sin
became sin
so that we might become the righteousness of God.

holy flesh
absorbed the curse
brought forward by man’s fall
with all of its effects
we see within the shredded body
of the son of man
a clear picture of what sin has done
to the soul of man
a mangled mess
the image and likeness of the One who created
nearly lost
but for the joy set before Him

to be redeemed is to be liberated
to find oneself set free
because the debt that bought the chains was covered
and the ransom owed for sin was set into a holy palm

“Come wash your sin-stained robes,”
He calls to us
“make them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
He knows our palms
and spread His own before us
so that we may know His

-------

it is the Spirit of God that carries the
power to bring forth life

from the beginning
after almighty hands had set adam upon his dusty feet
the Almighty’s breath filled his lungs
for everywhere the Spirit breathes
life cascades forth

in the valley of dry bones
we watch His power spread across the dead
as the army of the Lord rises on Spirit’s breath

in the upper room
we hear His power spread across the surrendered
as the church of the Jesus Christ rises on Spirit’s breath

in believer’s lives
we see His power spread across the redeemed soul
as the flesh and its desires gives way to Spirit’s breath

Mother's Day Morning

Worship washes
©5-14-2023 Hannah McLean

I stand in Your presence
unable to get away for a moment
of quiet worship;
hands tug at me,
little voices cast their requests
into the air
as the music plays.

I feel like the widow
wishing I had more
than the small, corroded pennies
to bring You,
and for every time my eyes
are pulled down,
I lift them up.

I know that even as my lips sing
“Your grace has found me just as I am
empty handed
but alive in Your hands,”
so You will graciously accept
my woefully inadequate worship
and count it a joy.

So I sing
with all that my heart and my life
can afford and allow
and I feel the
worship of the Holy One
wash away the worship of self.

For such has motherhood
taught me
to die to self
to live to Christ;
my outstretched hands lifted also
amidst the outstretched hands
beneath me.

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

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.
 
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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.

hosannas and hallelujahs

Holy Week ponderings
©4-6-2023 hannah mclean

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elijah in Hiding: Part 2

Back to the story in 1 Kings 19: So Elijah eats and walks through the wilderness to Mount Horeb where he finds a cave and settles in it. And there in the mountain, the Lord finally speaks—or maybe Elijah was just in a place where he could finally listen—either way, the Lord asks him a question and it’s the kind of question we hear Jesus ask throughout the new testament; the kind that cuts to the heart of the matter and draws the truth to the surface for us to see. “What are you doing here, Elijah?”

If his fear, fatigue and running footsteps didn’t bring to light that this conduit of the miraculous was “a man just like us” than his answer surely does. He brought to God the injustice he felt and saw, his sorrow, his loneliness, his fear. “I’ve stood in the truth of who You are, and I have stood there alone. I’ve watched the nation called by Your name become a forsaken place, void of Your voice and Your worship. There’s a price on my head, and I don’t know how to live here anymore.”

And YHWH, the one true God who Elijah lived his life in obedience to, chose this moment to magnify His heart to His prophet on the same mountain that He once wrapped Himself around in smoke and fire. He tells Elijah, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.”

So Elijah waited in the cave for the moment when he was to stand and present himself. First he heard wind, it blew with such intensity that the rocks on the mountain broke into pieces. But the Lord was not in the wind, so Elijah waited. Then he felt the ground move under his feet. But the Lord was not in the earthquake, so Elijah waited. After the earthquake, he heard the crackle of fire and felt its heat warm up the cave around him. But the Lord was not in the fire. Then from his place tucked in the cave on Mount Horeb, Elijah heard a whisper, and he rose on his feet, covered his unholy face and walked out into the open air to stand before the One who brought forth this gentle sound.

The voice whispered to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” It was the same question and it brought the same answer from the lips of His prophet. But by this time the conversation was different because the Lord had settled Elijah’s heart so he was ready to hear. Elijah was given instruction for his next assignment…an assignment that came with the promise that this strenuous journey of carrying the word of the Lord to ears that didn’t wish to hear it (with all of the pain and trials that came along with it) had an endpoint in the passing of his mantle.

Now, this is the question in my study that brought about this dynamic meditation: “Describe the ways God revealed Himself to Elijah.” Let’s look at these sounds and I will tell you what revelations I see.

The Wind: The Lord showed Elijah His power. Ahab and Jezebel could tear down altars, dismantle orders of worship, destroy the temple and crush Israel’s witness to the nations. But this Mountain of God, where His voice had spoken both law and love, still stood. And as the wind raged before the Lord, the rocks of the mountain fell to pieces as the if the Lord was declaring, “I am all-powerful; the power of man comes with a shortened hand for there are things on this earth that only I have the power to shatter.”

The Earthquake: The Lord showed Elijah His position. Isaiah 66 begins with these words, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Heaven is My throne, and the earth is My footstool.’” When the Lord sets His foot upon the earth, it quakes beneath the touch of His holy authority.

The Fire: The Lord showed Elijah His Judgment. He alone has eyes to judge the earth with perfect righteousness, and in His sifting of wheat from chaff, there will be unquenchable fire that burns what is wicked in His eyes.

The Whisper: The Lord showed Elijah His heart. The meekness of God juxtaposed with His omnipotence as the King of kings held out His scepter to His beloved servant who cowered in the rocks of His mountain. This whisper drew Elijah to where God wanted him…near enough for Elijah to feel His breath upon his face as He spoke His words into his ear. He offered direction and reprieve, rounding out this picture of compassionate care for His own from bread to breath.

What an intense revelation! And it moves me that Elijah knew when to go out and stand before the Lord. God’s power would have crushed him, His position was too great, His judgment was not for His prophet…but Elijah needed to be reminded of these realities of YHWH. No, Elijah rose to his feet and drew near at the revelation of the Lord’s heart.

And that is why I was sitting on my couch with tear rolling down my face. May I never cease to be moved by the gentleness and affection of the One True and living God.