compromise

matthew 5:21–30
...If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.

the mess of settling for less
©8-29-09 hannah muonio

i despise compromise
the subtle call before the fall
the conning voice for detrimental choice
the lying twist as judas kissed
honey sweetly sung that stings the tongue

it takes
it fakes

to teeter on rocky ledges of sworn pledges
to straddle the fine lines
setting up the frail to fail
bringing filth and slime to the sublime
putting pressure
weakening structure

i lament all i've bent
i sigh and weep at lies that seep
i despise compromise

attune my ears, Lord
to the ringing drawl of a higher call
don't let me stay content with gray
when Your sight requires purest white

invited

Psalm 10:14 "...to You the helpless commits himself..."

i come to You
©7-10-09 hannah muonio

to You, Exalted One
i come
helpless in need of a helper
i know that You hear my pleas
for mercy
weary in need of Your rest
to You i come

Your name is a refuge
to which i can run,
oh Faithful One
Your promises solid as stone
Your hand is a leading
to which i can cling,
oh Shepherding King
You’ve said You won’t leave me alone

no good
i have no good apart from You

no good
i have no good apart from You

no good
i have no good apart from You

though You are high and holy
You love the weak and lowly
You call the small and broken Your own
Your mighty hand gently holds the humble

to You, Exalted One
i come
helpless in need of a helper
i know that You hear my pleas
for mercy
weary in need of Your rest
to You i come

i am not my own

Hebrews 4:16: Let us therefore come BOLDLY to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

i am Yours
©7-7-09 hannah muonio

i boldly walk to Your throne
not because i am anything
but because You have told me “come”
and as i approach You
i know
i am not my own

i am Yours, my Maker

invited into Your presence
i stand alone before You
unhidden and helpless and unafraid
knowing You are faithful
knowing
i am not my own

i am Yours, my Father

You promise refuge for the needy
i have come
You promise peace for the restless
i have come
You promise hope for the broken
i have come

i melt in Your open hand
i am like water
threatening to flow through the hole in Your palm
but You are solid
i am Yours, my Rock

i find myself before You
in a crumpled heap
feeble knees bowed and shaking hands laying face up
but You are power
i am Yours, my Strength

oh, let me remember
let me humbly rejoice
Your love will never relent
i am Yours, my Savior

oh, let me remember
let me cling and rest in You
You never change
You never change
i am Yours, my Keeper

i boldly walk to Your throne
in need of mercy
in need of grace
i fall at Your feet with no words
but open, empty hands
wanting only to be filled by You

because Father, Jesus, Spirit
i am not my own
i am Yours

The joy of personal testimony

Faithful Father
©6-10-09 Hannah Muonio

Lord, I marvel at Your ways
the wisdom and precision of Your weaving
the beauty and radiance as You’re known
By design, Lord,
You have intertwined Your faithfulness
with my life
You deeply wind
around and through my days that I
cannot separate the strands
or cut the ties
that delight my heart and mind and eyes

Lord, I marvel at the clarity
with which You’ve let Your greatness shine
through my life
no whisper spoken is void of Your hand’s strength
Your love’s length
Your merciful blaze
sufficient for each and every day
through this humble life displayed
The verity of You glory
resonates from every story

Lord, let me speak
open ears to hear
Your matchless name
proclaimed
Your endless beauty
acclaimed

Faithful Father,
my joy overflows to say
I am Yours
May I simply be a frame
through which You are beheld

"Do you want to be healed?"

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep Gate, a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids--blind, lame and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up His bed and walked.” John 5:1–9

Yesterday, our pastor gave us a sermon on John 5:1–18, where Jesus healed the man at the pool of Bethesda (meaning: house of mercy). This was a pool where invalids congregated because there was the belief that whomever stepped into the water first when it began to move would be healed. Were people really healed in this pool? I do not know. I only know that the man was by the pool of Bethesda, that for 38 years he had suffered from the same infirmity that kept him in bedridden, and that one day, he was healed when Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” I’ve read this passage before and seem to always get stuck on the first phrase spoken...Jesus asked, “Do you want to be healed? (John 5:6)” I remember thinking in the past, “What a silly question. Of course he wants to be healed. Who wouldn’t want to be healed?” I don’t know if I’m the only one who gets stuck on that question, but yesterday morning as I listened to the sermon and yesterday afternoon as meditated on the passage, I once again stopped on this question, but this time I didn’t think there was anything silly about it. Instead, it hung in the air above me as if Jesus Himself was standing in front of me asking me that very thing.

I empathize with the man at Bethesda. After 38 years of waiting by the pool, watching others push past him and receive the very thing he desire most, he still lay in his bed unable to walk. His response when asked if he wanted to be healed revealed a man who seemed to have lost his will to hope that healing was for him; a man who seemed to have accepted that his life was to daily attempt to make it to the water and to lament that fact that he never did and, if history showed anything, that he most likely never would; a man who was bitter at and resigned to both his situation and his inability to change it; a man who was alone with his weakness. I understand the man at Bethesda and his lack of a resounding “yes” to a question that seemed unnecessary.

So yesterday I came face-to-face with the Lord and His question.

First, it is very important to me that you know one thing; I believe, with every fiber of my being, that God is ABLE to heal me. I believe He is fully sovereign over all things; that all of matter, space and time bows to Him. I believe that He could restore my body to an image of perfect health (even though that means He would have to grow me a new thyroid...which He totally could do). I do not doubt, for an instant, that God is able to do all things, including make my body whole.

But, as much as it shames me to write this, I doubt His desire to heal me.

As I have adapted to my situation, I have grown to assume that healing is not in the cards for me. As I’ve considered my lack of an excited “yes,” I’ve discovered that there are actually several logical reasons for my hesitancy to this question (even though I possess a deep longing to be healed):
First, I know that I cannot control my own body. I mostly baffle medical science in general, so I am fairly certain that not only is it out of my hands, but it’s also out of the professionals’. Because I cannot change or control my body, I know that I must adjust my mind. That’s the beauty of the peace that God offers us; it isn’t contingent on our circumstances or our situations or anything on earth, it is solidly ours in Christ. I take much joy in knowing that while I am in a body that is crumbling around me, I am being renewed daily (2 Corinthians 4:16). God never said that I was assured a life free from health problems–I’m living in a decaying body of sin–but He did promise to be the strength I need to get through them. And so, as I have adapted to my lack of control and the seeming permanence of my health situation, I have relished the fact that God continually engrains the reality of His faithfulness to me as He carries me through these times again and again.
Second, I know the ways that God has used my health (or lack thereof) to bring me to Himself. In fact, that was the main tool He used to bring me to my face at the foot of the cross. Through acknowledging what He’s done for me through taking away my health, I have always assumed that, because of my sinful nature, it is necessary for me to be sick. Suffering and trial is only given or allowed if it is necessary (1 Peter 1:6–7), God does not “willingly grieve or afflict the children of men (Lamentations 3:31–33).” I have spent a good portion of the last 6 years (since I was saved) thanking the Lord for His grace in taking away my health; for the ways He drew me to Himself through showing me my lack (first physically, than spiritually), for the ways He (in His infinite wisdom in seeing and acting) has protected me from others and myself through my ailments, for the ways He has taught me to rely on Him and praise Him for the most basic things our bodies do that I cannot take for granted (for example, I once lost my ability to speak for 5 months). This may sound strange, but I have been grateful for my health problems, they have opened my eyes to blessings I would have otherwise never even considered, and I enjoy the humility I feel when He gives what I cannot give myself (a picture of the cross in the simplest form).
Third, I don’t deserve to be healed. I am aware that while this is "logical," it is also flimsy. I deserve nothing good from the hand of God (I never have and never will)...but He is merciful.

Do I want to be healed? Yes. Desperately bad, actually. I often wonder why God would want to use someone who is as broken as me...and even HOW He will be able to. The things my body goes through are not pleasant; they are often stressful, painful and/or discouraging (sometimes even scary). They make me feel useless and disgusting. They often make me want to exclude myself from life and people. They drain me of energy and, if I do not fight, my joy. They put me face-to-face with the fact that I am alone and vulnerable, that I am weak and falling apart, that I am an example of the decay of sin. To be in the center of prolonged health problems is not fun, I would not wish it on anyone...and do I want to be healed? Yes, yes, I want to be healed!

I don’t think the problem is necessarily in my desire for healing, but maybe instead in whether or not I would dare to hope in and believe God’s desire to heal me. Jesus often asked questions; they cut to the very heart, often revealing to us our lack of faith and our depth of sin. So when I look a little bit closer at myself, I see with clarity that I lack the faith, the hope and the courage to ask. I have accepted my state of being without the willingness or faith to wrestle with God for healing as the persistent widow did with the judge in Luke 18. I have chosen to overlook the heart of God by deciding He doesn’t want to heal me. I don’t even have the faith of a mustard seed when it comes to God’s heart for me and so, I don’t even think to ask. I think it’s interesting that I am thinking through this at such a time when God has been opening my eyes to behold His heart for the people and situations around me. Yesterday as I prayed through these thoughts, I said to the Lord, “Lord, You are sending me to the sick. You are sending me to look those infected by HIV/AIDS in the eye and proclaim to them Your heart for them. I know what it’s like to live with permanent sickness and to be sustained by You through it. But what if I could look them in the eye and proclaim Your power, ability and desire to heal to the uttermost the foulest of sinners with the testimony of my life. The smallness of my requests surrounding my health have reflected my small view of Your heart for me. Forgive me, Lord, and let me look into Your face as it looks into mine questioningly, and respond with a faith-filled, grateful “yes” that believes, with every fiber of my being, in Your heart and Your desire to heal me.”

poetric responses

Romans 6:12–13,16; John 19:1–2,14b; Revelations 4; Isaiah 6:1–4; Daniel 2:44; John 19:17–19; Luke 23:38; Philippians 2:10–11

reign in me
©5-23-09 hannah muonio

dethrone my flesh that
You might take Your rightful place
as King forever of my life

broken shackles
released from required service
no longer enslaved by sin
let me live as one set free

dethrone my flesh that
You might radiate from the throne
You’re meant to shine upon
let me submit my crown
with an unburdening heave to the
ground at Your feet

and let my knees with joy
bow to You
and my face with humility
meet the ground before You

King forever
You are
and I desire You to be

so, dejected i plead with You
dethrone my flesh that
You might take Your rightful place
high and lifted up
--

Your “crime”
©5-23-09 hannah muonio

beneath a sign
that boldly declares Your kingship a crime
Your royal blood flows
until the pools of red slow
and not a drop remains
poured out until the very last
for sin: future, present, past
a finished work of the Father’s will
restoration
through grace gleaned
forgiveness
sinners stand redeemed

upon the throne
heaven’s light radiates from You alone
waves of worship
grow and echo
in increasing ebb and flow
as You are beheld
--

purpose
©5-23-09 hannah muonio

joy will overflow
if You would use me, Lord
big or small
quiet or loud
seen or hidden
matters not
but that You are known
and loved
and heard
and honored

The comfort of an unchanging God

Always
©5-18-09 Hannah Muonio

Attributes in perfect measure
no need to change, there is no “better”
You are always:
Yesterday, today and forever

When life shows the impossible
has multiplied
When burdens crush my shoulders
till I slow my stride
When failures meet with equal number
the times I’ve tried
I remember You

Attributes in perfect measure
no need to change, there is no “better”
You are always:
Yesterday, today and forever

There is aching in the moments of my waking
but there is resting in the testing
There is sighing as my sinful flesh is dying
but there is living in the giving
Because of You

Attributes in perfect measure
no need to change, there is no “better”
You are always:
Yesterday, today and forever

Lord, I understand Your ways are higher
Help me understand Your ways
I understand Your wisdom’s wiser
Help me hear the words You say
With all of creation, space and time
I bow to You

Attributes in perfect measure
no need to change, there is no “better”
You are always:
Yesterday, today and forever