He's faithful to redeem.

 Almighty Weaver
©7-4-2025 hannah mclean

Almighty Weaver
i rest in Your hands
You who made mountains
You who formed man
Almighty Weaver
the Maker of parts
only Your love can 
join body and heart

Your blood binds what’s broken
and makes new what’s old
Your love falls on ashes
and brings forth the gold
Your truth walks through prisons
and unlocks the doors
Your hands lift the least of these
making them more

Almighty Weaver
redemption’s Your way
You bring dead to life 
and You turn night to day
You see beyond moment
call forth what will be
in the land of the living
Your goodness i’ll see

Broken heart and broken body

“The body keeps the score,” they say.

Of course it makes sense. The failures of my body trace with striking clarity to loss. And it makes sense that when the heart breaks, the body breaks also.

As a child, this body carried its first coffin; a coffin filled with the empty, frail body of a brother who was loved. The same hands that had wrapped around the handle picked up a shovel too big for its 7-year frame and put dirt onto his grave. The ears that used to listen for his voice heard instead the dirt falling onto a cement vault echo in the sudden silence.

As a teenager, this body walked beside the second coffin; cradling the hearts and well-being of the little siblings that carried it with their own tiny hands. Another piece of my heart—loved more deeply than I have ever loved another because now I understood loss—shut inside a wooden box that swayed beside me. And again, these hands picked up a shovel and mixed my tears with the dirt.

This adult body carried the third coffin; the nine of us together, but still it felt too heavy for a body worn by grief. It shoveled dirt onto the grave of a man I never got to know, locking the little brother I loved in time where he would rest further and further behind me as I had to keep living. 

This body wrapped its family in arms and absorbed the tears that were poured out on its shoulders. It sang songs to comfort and to remember. It lent its voice and back to the bent and broken, stood up tall when others couldn’t and clung to the ground while others stood for me. These eyes have looked upon lifeless bodies of ones I loved and watched sorrow pulsing through the living bodies of ones I love…and still they choose to see. 

And what body could bear up under all that? 

Not mine. Death is separation, and my body physically internalized every death, dividing under the weight of grief. The infirmity that entered as a child wedged its way into the picture of my well-being and marked me; the infirmity that entered as a teenager waged its war alongside the first; the infirmity that entered as an adult severed the cord that tied the body and soul together…leaving this body a crippled thing, limping through life alone, longing for connection to the heart it carried.

And that is what the Lord is restoring right now; the unity between a body and soul severed by trauma. For the first time, there is peace as my soul reaches out its own healed hand to lift my body with it to new life.

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]

laying down the nets

Matthew 4:18–20 “While walking by the Sea of Galilee, He saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And He said to them, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.”Immediately they left their nets and followed Him.”
 

leave your nets

©hannah mclean 10-12-2024

 

will you leave your nets
and follow Me?
will you lay down old
the new to see?
will you trust your works
can leave your hands
and pick up where
Redeemer stands?
 

will you forfeit
all you’ve ever known
and follow Me
from house and home?

it matters not that
men say “no”
it matters not where
men say “go”
it matters only
if you choose
to follow Me
your nets to lose
 

a better word
i have for you
a better work
your hands to do
I look across
your narrow sea
and call you out
“will you follow Me?”

Fault and chastisement

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

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

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

And that’s not all bad.

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

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

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

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

What is the truth?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Break every chain, Lord. No more lies.

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

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

Books

I published some books on Amazon if you are interested:

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

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.

His power and His heart

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

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

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

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


[Mark 5:24–34, Luke8:40–48]

how long?

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

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

strength long proven
too little
fight to climb out
too fleeting

how long?

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

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

sin broke
and scorn remains

how long?

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

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

 

------

 

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

Holy Blood for tainted flesh

deliverance
©5-7-2022 hannah mclean

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

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

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

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

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

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. :)

The earth and me

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A paraphrase of Psalm 143

Sometimes I find a Psalm that mirrors my heart’s cry, and in it I find the healing balm of companionship in my suffering. Here is my paraphrase of Psalm 143:

"Lord, hear my prayer! I’m crying out for mercy; pleading with You not to bring the judgment I deserve, but instead to bring Your faithful, righteous nature to tend to me because my life is all out of sorts.

I want to serve You freely, but the enemy won’t let up. He pursues the entirety of me; he crushes my whole life into the ground. My body fails, I cannot endure the pressing: I am dejected—thrown down. His foot won’t lift from my back; his figure and shadow block the light, and darkness overwhelms me. My spirit faints, Lord. My heart is appalled by self and circumstance.

As I sit here in the darkness with the oppressor’s strength upon me, I turn my mind to consider You; I lean upon the testimonies of what You have done…Your work and Your love, the ways You have worked in me and on me, turning my previous seasons of fainting in parched deserts into flourishing vineyards of flowing new wine. I remember who You are, I remember Your heart for me and Your power in me and Your love for me. I stretch out my hands to You. You say if we thirst, we are to come to You, and I am like a scorched land—dried up and emptied of life. I hunger and thirst for You and I will be satisfied.

Quickly, Lord. I languish. I need Your hand and Your help now. My spirit fails. Don’t turn Your face from me or hide the light of Your countenance from me. If You turn away, all is lost for me.

Let me hear You this morning—in the opening of my eyes to the promise of light, I trust if I listen, I will hear the song of love You sing over me.

Make me know the way I should go, for all of my hope for standing or moving from beneath the enemy’s strength is found in You. You are ALL of my hope. ALL of me is crying out to be lifted by ALL of You. Deliver me! I have run to You for refuge, let me find deliverance in the shelter of Your presence.

Teach me Your will, for You are my God. Not enemy or self or any other thing gets to direct me from this point. I want things Your way, according to Your will—no lesser thing will do. Your Spirit is good, only You can lead me on level ground, in right ways, so that I rise in good standing with solid foundation beneath my feet. I want my feet to land upon the narrow way, the path of life.

For Your name’s sake, Lord, preserve my life. I am Your servant, I carry Your name as I journey through this life. I want people to look at me and see Your love, your righteousness and Your standards at work; I want them to watch you intimately weave Your life into the life of one You made. If You are not working in me and on me and through me, I will tarnish Your name. For Your name’s sake, I need You to lift my soul from this trouble in a display of Your righteousness at work. I need You to flood me with Your steadfast love and cut of my enemy’s power over me through it. Your love destroys the oppressor’s grip, it causes the adversary’s vexation to cease, it overrules the afflicter’s power to destroy.

I long to serve You well. In every way the enemy hinders this longing in this season, for the sake of Your name, make manifest Your victory and lift me up."

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

What my ruin cannot rob me of

It was one of those day. They don’t happen often, maybe a handful of times in my life. I looked in the mirror and my involuntary reaction to what I saw was to weep. I bawled. The body of the person looking back at me was so broken, so fallen, so grotesque that the hope-extracting question that lingers in the back of my mind hit me like a whip and left a ringing in my ears: “Is my body so far gone that it is irreparable?” I wanted to respond with, “No. With God all things are possible;” but my memory knows the paths my body has walked and limped and staggered and dragged itself. So instead I let myself sink to the floor and give the tears the time they needed to fall.

When the wells of sorrow or disappointment or discouragement or whatever painful mix those salty waters held finally ran dry, I stood and dried my face as I heard myself whisper, “Grieve quickly the things you cannot change.”

Twenty years have taught me that it’s on the days like these that I know I need to cover my broken body with a garment of thankfulness. So as I opened the door that allowed me my moment of confrontation, I chose to be grateful that even in my state of perpetual ruin, I can still serve the Lord.

And with that truth a necessary crutch, I continue my limp as I wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow is a new day…and maybe that one will be the day of redemption.

———

John 12:1–3 “Six days before the Passover, Jesus therefore came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead. So they gave a dinner for him there. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those reclining with him at table. Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.”

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

A meditation on Psalm 84:5–8

Psalm 84:5–8
5 Blessed are those whose strength is in You,
    in whose heart are the highways to Zion.
6 As they go through the Valley of Baca
    they make it a place of springs; 

    the early rain also covers it with pools.
7 They go from strength to strength; 

    each one appears before God in Zion.
8 O Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer; 

    give ear, O God of Jacob! Selah

Verse 5 begins with the declaration that the one who has no strength within themselves, and must draw fully from the Lord, is blessed. Being in a position where we feel the full force of our weakness is not pleasant, in fact, it is downright painful, but here the Lord tells us that this place of desperate want is a place of blessing. And as the psalmist continues, we will begin to see some of the reasons why.

This verse completes this declaration by adding that the means of blessing is not just the weak one finding their strength in the Lord, it is also that the highways of their hearts lead them to Him. A highway is road that is well-traveled; much work has gone into laying its foundation, maintaining and building up the place where feet continually tread. And where do these highways forged upon the heart lead? To Zion; the dwelling place of God. Namely, whether you are in the Valley or in the heights, build the highways in your heart to lead you to the Lord—make your course to His arms and His keeping so continual that it becomes second nature; it makes me think of Nathan’s Grandma Lillian who sat at the piano in her advanced state of dementia and played hymns…she may not have remembered our names, but she remembered His.

Verse 6 speaks to the valleys of life that we would not choose, the places of such pain, grief and despair that they are referred to here as “the Valley of weeping.” Be it loss or lack, whatever has dragged us down to this place of want and sorrow, we find what comes to the saint who has cast themselves upon the strength of the Lord and whose heart runs with weariness and desperation to Him; “springs.” A spring is a place where water moving underground finds an opening to the land surface and emerges. A spring draws water from an aquifer, which, get this, is a water-bearing rock. So essentially, the psalmist is saying that as we go through the Valley of weeping, we learn to draw living water from the Rock. And in case we languish along the way, there has been an “early rain,” where God has gone before us and provided pools of water from which to drink. I wish I could lay out how clearly this moves my heart—from my own experience, oftentimes those pools are found in the people who stand beside us in our pain because they’ve been there before. He knows the paths that we must tread; every jagged edge of every rock at the bottom of every valley has pressed first into His flesh before it has reached ours. He is sufficient to bear us up.

And can I point out, it says, “as they go THROUGH the Valley…” There is time to laugh and a time to weep, and both are seasons filled with purpose. But we need not remain in the Valley forever.

Verse 7 tells us that even as we draw our strength from the Lord; the revelation of new and endless weakness only leads us into new and endless aspects of coming to KNOW God’s strength. When we lean fully upon Him, His arms draw us nearer and nearer His kind and merciful face.

And finally, to end this wonderful meditation, we must look at verse 8. Here the Psalmist appeals to the Lord by two of His many names: Lord of Hosts and God of Jacob. I have found that the uses of God’s name in the Bible are so intentional that to investigate why they are placed where they are leads to opening up layers of richness to both the passages I am considering as well as aspects of who God is. I found both of these names to be interesting choices, but the reasons I found for their placement are full of encouragement and beauty.

Lord of Hosts. This means Lord of armies…angel armies…myriads and myriads of angelic beings are at the service of the Lord. I often use this name when I pray for things surrounding great battles; and while that could absolutely be appropriate in this context (Valleys of Weeping can bring about many battles of the heart, mind and emotions), I found another consideration that blessed my heart. One of the reasons God made angels is to minister to humans (Psalm 91:11–12, Matthew 4:11, Hebrew 1:7, etc); here the Psalmist, staggering his way through a seasons of great darkness—emptied of self—cries out to God for what he needs—many, many angels to tend to his many, many wounds.

God of Jacob. This one I just can’t get over. Let me tell you about Jacob. Jacob means “deceiver, cheater;” from the womb he bore a name that spoke into his life choices, and there was great cost to the choices he made. He cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright, and tricked his father into giving him the blessing not intended for him. And as a direct result, he had to flee his home and never saw either of his parents again. He continued his journey by working for 20 years for a man whose character flaws matched his own and then some. But instead of growing in bitterness and zeal for self, Jacob grew in humility. And when he was finally heading home, he heard word that his brother Esau, whose hatred and pursuit of revenge had caused him to flee, was coming to meet him with what was essentially a small army. And Jacob was undone; he took all his fear and despair and humble acknowledgement of guilt. His tired legs from running, and he grabbed hold of God with both hands and wrestled with Him—his determination that he would not rise without the blessing of the Lord left him not just with a limp, but with a new name and a family that carried the promise of the Messiah. Jacob reminds me that the moments of wrestling with God in the valley of weeping are the moments that change the way we walk; they bring about conviction and the certainty of proven faith if we will but drink from the springs of living water that are called forth from the Rock of Ages when the force of our fall breaks the hard places within us. Let us call out to the God of Jacob; the God who has seen our choices that didn’t pan out, our sin that caused great loss, our compilation of offenses done against us, our emotional turmoil that causes us to blunder and falter amid the failure and despair of life….this God of Jacob who has seen and even still will go before, stand beside, and come behind us to redeem to the uttermost any and every broken life with compassion and gentleness and the authority of perfect love.