Seeing the God whose Face perceives us

                                         "The Sound of Silence"--Martha Kilpatrick

Mary lived in profound silence.
In all three episodes she is quiet.
            Only one small quote is recorded.
            And it was a plea directed to Jesus, not for the ears of people.

The message of her life:  not a legacy of words
                  rather the stark absence of talk,    a silence . . . rare and mystifying.

The only voice in her life was Jesus'.  He spoke for her, about her . . . in defense of her.
Mary had no drive to explain, no compulsion to be heard.
                 no obsession to be understood.

Lust for audiences had been abandoned.  All such had died in her.
        She had found her soul's understanding in Him.
        She had been still enough to know she was heard
                                                 and now --in quiet --
                                                 she could listen.

Our idea of prayer is to hurl words at God.
        Mary knew prayer as silence in His presence,
                       to listen . . . without the audacity to speak . . .

"The Lord is in His Holy Temple, let all the earth keep silence before Him."  Habakkuk 2:20

The world is a swirl of noise, a loud competition of voices, in piles of useless words.
                                             Mary neither entered it nor heard it.
The only words she strained to hear were the captivating Words of God in Christ,
                                                                         full of Living Eternity.
And they were --for her -- priceless,
                          the only Words worth hearing.

Silence is one thing - amazing in itself -
             but stillness is a rare internal quiet
                             a peace of mind
                             a rest of the heart,
             by having found one's long lost home . . .
                             in the Soft Presence of God.

Mary found serenity before she entered stillness.  True quiet issues from inviting God
      into the long-sealed chanbers of the soul and letting His invasion calm our native hysteria.

Self-centered talk is the expression of pride, of not having seen the
                             God whose Face perceives us.
Meekness is not natural to a humanity that thinks it is superior to its own Creator.
Humility is the quality of having had vain illusions cremated by the Burning Love of Christ.

Silence is born of humility, the awareness that you have
               out of your self-taught ideas
               nothing to speak worth hearing.
It is having encountered God by His True Size
                breathtaking and magnificent
                and seeing the contrast between you and Him.

It is the exact measure of your consciousness of God and the proof of your confidence in Him . . .
              that He really IS . . .
                              the God you want Him to be,
                              nothing less and so much more.

We do not grasp the Holy Gentleness of God.
If we insist on
           the babble of our crude humanity, charmed by the sound of our own noise, then
this God of Kindness will stand back,
           robed in His Tranquil Dignity
           and let us have the vain spotlight
                       of endless talk.
 His voice is not in storm or wind, not in earthquake nor fire.
We could not bear that voice in
                       the Fullness of such Measureless Energy.
As Elijah learned, His voice was still and small, "delicate and whispering."

Jesus said to his disciples, "What you hear whispered in your ear  . . ."

If humanness will merely be still,
      The entire Trinity will come forth
                        and speak
       by a whisper in the silence . . .
       heard by no one else.

Do your Kids Deserve Adoption?? warning: thoughts in process

The kitchen door slammed for the hundredth time against our faded pistachio wall.  Frames rattled their annoyance right along with mine.  I turned with a jerk.  Sweat drizzled down her dirt-stained cheeks.  Her face flushed, she ran in and tugged at my shorts, "mommy can I have some water?  The butterflies won't let me catch them!"  Turning toward her, I got down on my knees, Tinker Bell cup in hand, smiled sweetly and said, "I'd be thrilled to offer you this water, but first I need to remind you that you don't deserve this.  didn't you slam the door open?  look at the mud you brought into the house!  It's all over your face."  With arms outstretched, "I really shouldn't offer you my kindness, and you need to remember that.  Now doesn't that make the reality that I'm giving you this water even more special?  I really shouldn't but I'm going to.  Because it really is all about me.  Delight in my water.  I'm so generous I'm going to overlook the messes you continually make.  I'll overlook the circumstances of your birth.  Because that's who I am. There's nothing you've done that could earn my water.  Now that we both know the playing terms, feel free to drink."

Is anyone else choking?!  I know it's a crazy analogy but I needed to flesh out what my throat does every time I hear "I don't deserve you Jesus."  The Christian group Plumb has a beautiful song with those words in the title.   I'm singing loudly in my van but I can't choke those words out.  I can't get past that wall of shame to receive the hug on the other side.  "Not deserving" is like a thorn that snags the sweater of warmth and comfort.  By singing the words it's as if I have to pay homage--bow to the God who reminds me that I'm unworthy.  Do You want my unworthiness continually before me?  Are you saying that I need to acknowledge that when it comes down to it, You really shouldn't love me?  Like a leash around my ankles, You'll yank if I get too far into a kingdom of freedom.  I still have to pay, even if it's remembering I'm unworthy and undeserving.  I drop my sweaty worthless coin in the bucket at the doorpost of your throneroom.  Maybe you'll think I'm special if I humbly remind you there's nothing special about me.  As I bow my knee before a holy God and look into His pleading eyes--I speak the words, "I'm so undeserving." Where does my gaze fall? to my dirt-stained sneakers. I can't say the words and hold His gaze.

If you've adopted a child, how long would you want them to whisper, "I didn't deserve this rescue" as you tuck them under the covers? a year later would it bring tears to your eyes to hear them playfully singing off the back porch, "you didn't have to love me, but you did, I'm so undeserving, unworthy of your love"? Do you keep their adoption papers on the kitchen table, so that with every bite they're reminded from whence they came? Did the word "deserve" ever enter your mind as you were anxiously, longingly scanning websites looking for your adoptive child? When do the terms of their entry into your kingdom become overtaken by their daily presence within it? Why can we say that every child deserves a safe, loving home simply because they are human, but yet we get nervous when someone suggests we deserve God's forever home?

At this point in the discussion my opponents would make sure that I make the distinction between deserving love and deserving forgiveness. No I can't do anything to earn forgiveness- I get that- but
unfortunately Christians get caught in this whirlpool that filters the real truth of adoption down to the bottom of the pool and get distracted with all the unworthy leaves swirling on top. Once we have found our way back home, the adoption is sealed. Done. Over. Your past, your failures, your neediness are no longer on the table for discussion. The prodigal Father shouted "Quickly!!" Why? so that his son's shame wouldn't overtake him. Not for a minute did the Father need to hear his son's confession. His son's act of returning told Him everything He needed to know.

Abba what do I need to know? "Elaine, please walk through the doorway of the cross.  There's a whole kingdom to explore.  By believing you're not deserving, you paint Me with one hand open and one hand closed.  Why do you need to keep reminding Me you're unworthy?  why shouldn't I love?  because you believe what's wrong with you  is way bigger than what's right?  which came first, the glory of Genesis 2 or the shame of Genesis 3?" 

As His eyes light up and welcome me into them, He speaks without speaking, "I'm thrilled to see you Elaine! " Joy explodes from His face!  He picks me up off those crusty Converse rubber soles and lifts me skyward, twirling as we go.  He reminds me that at the infinitesimal moment I welcomed Him into my spirit, He flooded me with the spirit of adoption.  His Spirit cried within me Abba Father and in a flash of lightning I became born from above! 

. "Yes, I say Yes to each one of you!  Always and forever love.  You do deserve it.  Why? I formed you in your mother's womb.  Let's Quickly deal with this sin issue and put it behind Us forever.  Behind the cross.  Now take My hand and skip into My kingdom of light and immeasurable glory.  Mine and your's."  Amen!

Pour it on Abba!

One day out of the blue, the Father asked me a question.  "Do you know why Jesus died?"  Sure, Father. So I could be forgiven of my sins.
"Yes and no.  He died so you can have access to come and know Me.  Your sins
are just in the way.  But He died to give you the right to come and know Me."

A week later He asked again, "do you really want to know why Jesus died?"
Father I thought you told me!  He said, "there's an even higher purpose.  I AM
love.  I was tired of having to restrain My love.  I wanted to be able to freely
pour it out unrestrained on whoever would receive it.  Jesus went to the cross
not just because He loved you but more because He loved Me so much. He said
Father I'll do whatever it takes so that You will be free to pour love on people
the way you want to."                                                 --Janice Seney
                                                                                       The Goodness of God CD

          
                 Daddy God, I choose to open my heart to let You be good and love me!  Make me
                 an amazing squishy receiver, a sponge, as big as the ocean, to soak up all the
                 love you have for me--  Pour out Your greatness on me in such measure that
                 others will come and splash in the overflow!

Taste and See!

 

In all sincerity she implored, "Don't worship the experience Elaine because then you'll demand more and more experiences.  Live in the truth that He is who He says He is and you are who He says you are.  Otherwise you'll grow discontent and seek the experience, not the Giver.  You will end up questioning God's reality rather than questioning your experience, your own dustiness."

How many times have I heard this? Too many to count.  This one came from a beloved friend at Pine Cove Family Camp.  The last person I'd expect.  And I felt a curtain fall down on my soul.  My heart wanted to push away from the table.  Maybe from the relationship.  I have to be careful.  Do you ever struggle with receiving feedback?  I need friends to be "disruptively honest" as Jesus was (Eldredge's Beautiful Outlaw).  Lord help me keep my ears open.  I pondered her ideas like a lemon drop in my mouth, gently pulling flavors out and was about to swallow when the drop turned into licorice.  I hate licorice. So I spit it out.

Abba, How do I separate You from my experience?? I find You in my experience!  I experience You as a Giver.  I know you as good.  You are my Source--from distant streams that never run dry.  To know You, to be in Your presence is to experience You.  Is she afraid to get you wrong?  She seems more convinced of her failings, her ability to miss You, than she is of your Spirit inside.  Is she suggesting I could pursue You apart from an experience?  Seems like then I'd only be receiving knowledge.  Propped up.  Puffed up.  Outside of me.  Plastic. 

I guess if by "experience" she means Christian rock concerts, mountain top retreats, even refreshing family camps, then experience becomes a noun, a place, an event.  I actually consulted Webster for his definition.  "Experience" the noun means to try, to put to the test, to prove, and anything personally observed or lived through.  Is 'experience the noun' something I attend where I'm demanding God show up?  I guess I could put Him to the test and He might fail and stay home that day.  Hmmm, then I'd be disappointed, discontent.  So the lie goes, "Elaine don't expect Him to show up and you won't be disappointed.  Or be careful trusting the Road Adventure, the Captivating retreat, or the St. John the Divine prayer time.  These could simply be emotional highs that won't carry you when the curtains fall in your life. Those nasty feelings.  They'll take you right off a cliff.  Trust the dry, crusty truth.  Who wants to wake up the dusty aching longings of the past?  Those giants are too big to tame."  I hear the accuser sneer, 'you know you can't trust yourself or anyone else for that matter.'

And yet Daddy God you reveal this mystery to me that Jesus in me is my assurance of glory (Col.1:27). Glory--your Presence within, your favor, your shining, your value, your beauty, mingling in oneness with my own!  To be with You is to be touched. Felt. Known. Heard--experienced. Lived. From the inside.  Not an outside event.  "Taste and see that I am good," you shout (Ps. 34:8).  Or do you whisper?  Sounds like Truth to be taken in--sensed.  Sounds like experience.  Raw, wrestling, bumpy, tart, soft, loud, raspy, wet experience.  Blackberries in summer.

Webster continues "experience in verb form means to undergo, to feel, to meet with, to endure, to encounter."  Phew.  Sigh of relief.  I can live in this verb.  "In Me you live and move and have your very being," You remind me (Acts 17:28).  Can a fish not experience the water?  So I choose to encounter and meet with the entire outrageously lavish Trinity every day.  Where love is a verb.  Where experience is an every day encounter.  One that intertwines with my soul.  As we dance, we impact each other.  He takes me in and I take Him in.  "I AM the Truth," juicy and full of flavor.  A person, not just a set of ideas.

As I was wrestling with this, He spoke, "Take Me in Elaine, like rich, dark chocolate and fresh lilacs.  Breathe Me in--receive Me as I have received you.  I receive you like fragrant  incense.  Your prayers tickle my nose.  To be with you is to experience you.  Your affections fill My throneroom like alabaster oil.  I continully give you immense love, wild freedom, and bubbling joy.  My eyes open wide and light up when you peek out from behind the veils still lingering in your soul.  A longing fulfilled indeed is sweet to your soul (Proverbs 13:19).  I truly desire to fulfill every one of your longings.  Did you know My name means 'to fulfill'?  I've hidden myself in this verse."

Sure enough, I looked up the verse and word "fulfill" in my Key Word study Bible, and the word for "fulfill" in the Hebrew is "hayah" (Strong's #1961).  The editors' commentary states, "the key to the meaning of the name Yahweh is found in this verb."  Again Websters' defines "to fulfill" as "to fill to the full, to carry out something desired."  Then Yahweh fill me! to the full!  I desire to feel, to know Your desires.  To burn from the inside with Your fire.  The Message paraphrases Proverbs 13:19 as "souls who follow their hearts thrive; fools bent on evil despise matters of soul."  Then would it be snarky of me to say to my critics, don't worship your lack of experience?  I plead for you not to settle for mere words about Jesus.  Eldredge in Beautiful Outlaw explains mere words about Jesus are useless if they don't point to an experience of Jesus.  Jesus himself challenged the Pharisees saying, "You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there.  But you miss the forest for the trees.  These scriptures are all about me!  And here I am, standing right before you, and you aren't willing to receive from me the life you say you want" (MSG Jn. 5:39). 

Funny how Abba speaks.  Driving home from gymnastics today with my ten year old daughter, she'd been given a lollipop as a reward for hard work (and why are we getting exercise?!).  After a few licks of this red heart shaped confection, she shoved it into our trash cup declaring, "I can't eat plastic candy Mom."  Neither can I, Savannah.  Neither can I.  Follow your heart sweet child.  Your longings will take you right into the throneroom filled with pungent perfume, soft delicate orchids, and luscious strawberries.  Take and eat!

MORE

The Quiltmaker's Gift

"My child,
 I AM more kind, more generous, more mysterious, more pleasurable, more fun, more holy, more righteous, more together, more powerful, more loving, more here-with-you, more real, more abundant, more steadfast, more unfailing, more present, more whispering, more shouting, more triumphant, more known, more hidden, more glorious than you can ever think or imagine.  And I invite you into Me--into all the MORE that I AM.  Let Me flow through you awakening the crushed petals longing for life. 

Let Me breathe pure goodness over you, in you, through you until every pore is alive with life!  Let Me set you on fire with My glory.  For this child, you were made.  To pulse with my very being, my heartbeat.  You are beautiful.  Just as you are.  Totally enough.  Live in Me, move and have your being as a fish swims in the fathomless ocean.  Breathe in Me.  Let My waters, living waters, that well up to a fountain gushing forth flow into you and surround you.  You are wrapped in My arms of love, you can never leave."

Ps. 18:9, 16  He parted the heavens and came down.  He reached down from on high and took hold of me!

Remember, we get to live our rescue!

Love Wins!

"What?!! She's bringing her foster baby??  You're kidding!"  Not what I wanted to hear.  How could she ruin our coveted annual girl's weekend?  Babies and bed and breakfasts don't mix.  Why would she do that?  Karen says because the baby won't let anyone else comfort her.  In her short two years of life, she's had both arms broken and her bottom badly burned by the man called to cherish her.  My friend's introduction to her occurred in the crowded halls of Parkland's burn unit.  Doctors called the scalding pattern, "classic."  Others refused to foster her.  Her blisters repelled them.  Her wounds too deep.  Her skin too dark.  But my friend said,"Yes."  Yes to tears.  Yes to stares.  Yes to love.

When they arrived at the house, the baby seemed overwhelmed.  Too many new faces.  She clung to the folds of my friend's shirt.  Wide eyed--beautiful eyes--but tinged with terror.  Slowly her soul began to thaw, and she relaxed.  A smile escaped.  Did I catch a sparkle in her eyes?  And then this lost and rejected toddler said one word that tore through my mind like a knife-- "mama, mama--please, mama." 

"What?!!  She's not your mother, don't you know that?  You shouldn't call her that!  Can't you see she's one color, you're another?  Don't you know you don't carry her name?  You're only a foster child.  You don't belong--" came spilling out like blocks falling down onto the floor of my mind.  What is this about? I ached.  Why do rights, fairness and truth rise up in me?  Why do I feel that baby needs to know she's not home?

I think I hear loud echoes that whispered, "don't trust baby--it's not real.  It won't last.  You're fooled.  Keep your guard up.  You're not safe!"  Yet with every smile between them, every tickle, every laugh that escaped, the two of them shouted back, "She is mine and I am her's!  No scars, no wound, no color, no different origin can keep us away from each other."  What was so profoundly between them was bigger than anything that had gone on before them.  The baby's need to connect consumed her fears, her position, her memories of her own mother.  I rried to imagine this sweet toddler pointing to her dark skin, her ugly keloid scars proclaiming, "can't you see them?  This is what's most true about me.  Hold me at arm's length.  I don't get to call you mama.  I haven't earned the right."

That weekend I witnessed a miracle.  Love wins.  Love triumphs.  Pains and past recede.  She GETS to.  She gets to call her "mama."  She CAN relax.  She doesn't have to heal herself first.  She doesn't wear the label of "foster."  She doesn't carry any of the shame.  None.  She is her mama's daughter.  As light danced between them, my wounded soul gently warmed.  Thank you beautiful baby for giving me the gift of belief.  Belief that in my Father's arms, I truly am home.  Love really is bigger--what's between us overwhelms what went before us.  I can relax.  I am very much loved.  I am fathered.  I can leave behind what failed before.  I CAN live my rescue.  I get to!  And so do you.

Footprints with a Twist

I received this story several years ago from Lana Bateman.  I still love it!

Imagine you and the Lord Jesus walking down the toad together.  For much of the way the Lord's footprints go along steadily, consistently, rarely varying the pace.   But your footprints are a disorganized stream of zigzags, starts, stops, turnarounds, circles, departures and returns.  For much of the way, it seems to go like this, but gradually your footprints come more in line with the Lord's, soon paralleling his consistently. 

You and Jesus are walking as true friends!  This seems perfect, but then an interesting thing happens: your footprints, that once etched the sand next to Jesus', are now walking precisely in His steps.  Inside His larger footprints are your smaller ones; safely you and Jesus are becoming one.  This goes on for many miles but gradually you notice another change.  The footprints inside the larger footprints seem to grow larger.  Eventually they disappear altogether.  There is only one set of footprints; they have become one.

This goes on for a long time, but suddenly the second set of footprints are back.  This time it's even worse!  Zigzags all over the place.  Stops.  Starts.  Deep gashes in the sand.  A veritable mess of prints. You are amazed and shocked.  Your dream ends.

Now you pray:  "Lord, I understand the first scene with the zigzags and fits.  I was a new Christian; I was just learning.  But you walked on through the storm and helped me learn to walk with you."
"That is correct."
" . . .and when the smaller footprints were inside of Yours, I was actually learning to walk in Your steps; I followed you very closely."
"Very good.  You have understood everything so far."
" . . . and when the smaller footprints grew and filled in Yours, I suppose that was becoming like you in every way."
"Precisely."
"So Lord, was there a regression or something?  The footprints separated,and this time it was worse than at first!"
There is a pause as the Lord answers with a smile in His voice:

"You didn't know?  That was when we danced."