No Mother's Hand To Hold. On Mary.

"no mother's hand to hold..."

Sitting in my chair, the cusp of advent upon me.  Sitting empty.  Full all around, full cup of tea, full chair of blankets, full house of heat, full boxes of gifts. Yet empty soul: coming, kneeling before God, approaching the Christmas season, but really, actually, living advent.  Living the waiting. Urging for hope.

In my musing, my waiting, my empty, I paused and listened, guitar chords melancholy, but voice pitched through clear and storytelling, stringing notes and words.  The messy of birth, the cold of desert sky, the crying of the night, the tears upon her face.

Then this line sung out:

"no mother's hand to hold..."

I sat back.  Stopped.  Sunk the words in.  Let them seep in like love and mercy and known during this season of living empty and sad, with no mother's hand to hold.  And all that is absent because of that -no mother's hand to hold.

And something in the line hugged my heart and slid love over me with Mary.  A different knowing, a different recognition, a different awe, lying cold in that cave, because of Christ.

I paused on that moment, that miracle.  But that painful space in history when a worn, weary, wandering woman trembled giving birth, alone.  And I felt it, with her.

Then God sat me there, for minutes, for hours, praying and pausing on that moment of Mary, but that moment of Him, too.  He wanted me to stop, to pause, to see.  To see more than Mary, more than the moment, more of Him.

God held her, with no mother's hand to hold.

God had a plan, with a city not her own.

God had her hope, with a future so unknown.

She lay in her weeping, in her agony, in her giving of birth.  But God had a plan, a hope.  God would use this woman, with no mother's hand to hold.

So perhaps for me, too, God holds a plan, a hope.  And perhaps too he will enfold me, with no mother's hand to hold.


@ Behold The Lamb, "Labor of Love" ~ Andrew Peterson and Jill Phillips

Courage to Encourage.

"Let him among you who is without sin, cast the first stone." John 8:7

What would it look like to put down our stones?  To put them down in our hearts?  What would it look like to breach the motherhood gaps, and not just silence the spoken, but engage and humble and hug?

"Put on them, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another..."  Colossians 3:12

What if we took steps, active willingness of the heart, to humble ourselves and our opinions, and instead extend encouragement, love, grace, and hope to the other?  To help paint a picture of hope for her children, for their future.  To to listen and then let be.  To give words of life, to lift up, to gather courage to encourage.  To trust grace, to offer mercy, to seek joy for the other.  In whatever that may be.  To seek Jesus, wholeness, and life, for her, her family, and her God of love.

Operation: Save Mommy.

Slowly rising back to the surface and breathing in the air of life. Slowly rising; very slowly... Been such a hard season on so many levels and in so many ways, even though so much good it is intertwined. But now, what I call Operation Save Mommy is well underway. ☺️ Lots of discerning, praying, grinding, waiting. Lots of changing, lots of reading, lots of releasing, lots of grace. Lots and lots of grace. Grace upon grace! 

~~~~~

Sometimes grace looks like finding and admitting and knowing you’re too far under. Sometimes grace looks like praying, then finding twin babysitters and putting them on your calendar weekly. Sometimes grace looks like joining the YMCA. Sometimes grace looks like being a caring, loving, nurturing, fun mommy 70% of the time but letting other people (and Daniel Tiger) love and care for my children the other 30. Sometimes grace looks like allowing God to have the end of me. And sometimes grace is being thankful for so many conversations with Mark about whatever this all means. And dating and praying and living this journey together, whatever it leads to. 

~~~~~

Patching together some lines from a chapter by Holley Gerth in FierceHearted — “I want to say, ‘Bless your heart, stop trying so hard. You’re going to make yourself crazy.... Jesus, will you be good for me, will you be good in my place, will you be perfect on my behalf?” (Edit in here: Jesus, will you free me of their expectations? will you re-write my perspective of rest? will you make anew my script of motherhood?) “He says yes. Because the scandalous miracle of the gospel is he always says yes to prayers like that one.” ❤️. Amen! 

~~~~~

So thankful he does answer prayers, and for the people in my life who he’s put to help me get the courage, boundaries, and grace to rise back to the surface 😊

Soul in Winter.

There is spring all around me, and summer beckons the soil.  But spring in my heart is still crusted with frost.  My yard burst with pink roses, stunning green grasses, and thick leafy trees.  But my soul is still barren with winter, empty and grey.  My pictures boast life with joy and active children, but my mind is worn and fighting, like the falling of dried leafs.  I pray for the spring of coming, the budding hope of beauty after toil, but my heart is still in the dead fo winter, smoke, waiting for the new life and revival to come with spring before summer.

Stone Rolled Away.

It had been an grueling couple of weeks.  Emotionally, physically, spiritually.  The burdens of so many chucked at my doorstep or into my heart, seeping deep into my soul or struggling for barriers so they wouldn't anymore.

I woke up at 3am, tried laying and sleeping and praying, the dark and warmth keeping me tossing and tucked in.  But by 4am, I a was definitely awake.  Attune.  God was up to something.  And I was bold enough to get up and join him on the move.

I rumbled in my robe downstairs, poured Gevalia into my mug, and plopped down into my prayer chair, settling for what I thought would be my routine time for reading and prayer. I thumbed the pages over again to II Kings 6 & 7, and stopped, propping it up next to me on the armchair, then leaned over and grabbed my worn navy copy of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire by Jim Cymbala and clasped both sides of the covers in my hand as the words of story stirred, stroked the fire, and spread the power of God through the Holy Spirit through my heart, soul, and veins.

I knew I had to get down, fetal and fertile on the ground, barren and broken on my knees.  Lumped over my ottoman, I began to pray.

Earlier that week, I had prayed with my sweet friend, through her weakness, our weakness'.  In that Saturday parked-car, cell-phone prayer, I had the vision of her and I stripped down and broken, crumpled on our knees, face and hands bowed and tearful, before the empty, dark tomb.  Both prayerfully begging God to come out of the tomb, to show us, in our great humility and humbleness, that He is still alive, that the grave-clothes won't cling forever.

Now, in a heap on my white shag rug, tears streamed down the sides of my cheeks, salty on my lips.  I cried:

God! Please move the stone away!  I feel like I can't do it!  I can't!  I can't, God.  I don't have the muscle to push it on my own.  Move the rock away because only you can!  I keep trying.  I feel like I'm having to do it for everybody else.  For [I listed off the people, the problems, a litany of humans and layers and needs weighing down on me]  But God I can't! I don't have the strength!  I don't have the muscle!  I can't God.  I can't!

And I sat there, bolding begging and challenging God through my shaking body, bowed legs, and lifted hands.

Please God, give me a sign.  Something to show me you can still move stones.  That you can still open the tomb.  That you can still push the rock away.  Something, God.  You've got to show up and move the rock!

I pleaded with him, in full belief and recognition that he could, but because I still needed the reminder that he does.  But evidence around me speaks his nature -- a husband, my children, Amy Young like a rainbow that Saturday...  Just the week before, I was praying for a little treat to make me smile - like a pink macaroon - on my mom's death day.  Instead, I picked up the phone at 7:40 in the morning to the giddy joy of a friend, hearing that God had parted the Red Sea, made the rock water, and turned wood into a reptile,  -- and now opened the schedule at Mayo Clinic.

I ended my morning praying with all heart and humility spread before the grave and my green room.

The day went about.  Preschool and Storytime and Winghaven Gardens.  Add sprinklers and and popsicles and watermelon and neighbors.  BLTs and bacon frying, bread toasting, and fries cooking.  Three kids, dinner mayhem, and needs pulling on every arm and leg and spatula.  We sliced avocado, poured drinks, and hollered to the playroom to share.

The phone rang in the chaos and I tossed it to Mark to pick up.  Matt.  His brother.  I watched his face, following the "hello."

"Wait!  What!  Stop!  Put him on speaker phone!" I yelled commands.  "Judah!  Camilla!  Come here!  Switch to FaceTime!  What?!  AHHHHH!"

Matt had called to tell us they were picked.  A baby!  Boy.  Planned C-section birth in two weeks.

Kids climbed all over us, pulled on our hair, yanked for spots on our laps, and pushed against each other.

Three and a half years of prayer for this adoption.  More years praying for a baby.

The culmination phone call.  The moment of sorrow and struggle turned to joy.

The stone rolled away.

I had asked that morning to see evidence of God's hand still at work, alive.  That prayer was based on so many other situations, but God had a different way to open answer.  A different strategy to open the tomb.

He opened a womb.

Pushed away the stone.

Removed the rock.

The grave clothes of suffering and sorrow slowly fall off resurrection Christ, just as they fall off the sadness and shame of friends, and the prayers said, some in unbelief, some in groaning, some in anger, some in hope.

But he lives.  He hears.  Forever the stone will be rolled away.

Amen!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Side note: the funny irony (can you use that in spiritual terms?) is that the last name of this new baby will also be STONE.  Stone rolled away.  Baby Stone.  Life.  Resurrection. Hope.  God hears.  A living Ebenezer.

Blue Pen.

Blue pen.  Everywhere.  Ink up the sides, down the back, across the armchair, on the ottoman.  Scratches and blots of blue pulled across the white fabric in an array, pen still in hand.

The culprit sat, pensive to my reaction, his two year old legs sticking straight across the cushion, seated properly but now staring up at me.

I was furious.  Flustered.  How could this happen with me looking away for five minutes?!  He knows not to write with pen all over the furniture! What was he thinking?!

"Judah!  I'm so angry at you!  You know not to write with pen!"  I clenched my teeth, infuriated, defeated, and shock all mixed together, then grabbed his little skinny body and hauled him upstairs, dowsing him in his crib.

I came back downstairs to the crime scene, panicked about getting the ink out, and started stripping the furniture, spraying and scrubbing four different solutions all over the ink spots, and sprawling the soaking fabrics across the floor.

Bottles of solutions everywhere, paper towels and wet wipes and scrubbers around, plus the random kite and other knickknacks the kids yanked around and assembled in the front of the house.  I was defeated.  Five minutes of phone shopping turned into two hours of work: scrapping, cleaning, laundering, and then ironing this dumb fabric.

I texted Mark, asking for prayer over my frustration, my defeat, my attitude.  So much of the week was already emotionally weighty and draining, and I felt the tears roll down my face as the sadness lurked heavy in my heart.

I started picking up the scattered mess.  One piece of debris at time. One defeated step after another.

He wrote with pen in the chair because that's what he sees you and Mark do every morning. 

I paused and listened to the Holy Spirit pressing on my heart again.

He wrote with pen in the chair because that's what he sees you and Mark do every morning. 

I stopped and stood back, my heart listening and softening quickly, thinking back through the moments of the catastrophie before.  He had wrote with pen all over the chair, but the pen was in the air, and Camilla said something about him writing in dad's Bible too.

I picked up Mark's black leather Bible from the floor.  Sure enough, blue ink swirled around the front inside pages.  Then I looked behind me, where I completely forgot and overlooked that I had removed the colorful beginners Bible off his lap.  There again, ink scattered across the pages, some tracing over Camilla's pencil lines, and over the page he ripped out just yesterday, taped after his two year old fingers pulled too quickly over the page.  I picked up my copy of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire and there too, his marks swirled blue across the inner pages.

He had been writing in Mark's Bible chair, with blue pen, in the books and Bibles, just like he sees Mark and I do every morning.

The Lord softened and humbled me, and spoke so sweetly to my soul that sobbed now for different reasons.  Because of the sprouts of the seeds we plant.  Because of every morning that Mark and I sit in our white chairs with our Bibles and pens and Bible Study books and materials, and because my son had saw what was important and followed our examples.

I choked back the emotions in my chest and texted Mark God's answer to my prayer of defeat, and the incredible tenderness of Him showing me what we didn't even know Judah saw every morning.  "God is showing me the opposite reaction to the white chairs.  Instead of him trying to do something wrong, he was showing the behavior that we modeled, sitting with the Bibles and wanting to learn what its like to learn about God!"

Tears blotted my eyes and I quietly, peacefully picked up the cushions and solutions and scrubs and wipes and sentimentally collected the chaos around from before.  But the Lord had spoken to me in this little storm, and softened me, and spurred both me and Mark on, to plant to seeds in the soil of their souls.

Blue pen marks and all.

Stepping In & Standing Up.

Outside of my mother, I only remember three instances in my life where someone spoke the direct truth in love, clearly concerned for my health and well-being, to the point of chastising or risking my emotions.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

One was my sister.  I specifically remember standing at the bottom corner of my mom's blue and white floral bedding in their blue room at age thirteen when my sister came over into my face and yelled, "STOP IT!  YOU'RE SCARING THE SHIT OUT OF ME!"

She was fifteen.

We didn't say those words.  We didn't yell.  But this day, she yelled.  This time, she said those words. And I jolted, for the first time shocking my brain and emotions straight.  Blinking.  Realizing my weight obsession, scale standing, and meal starving was noticed.

And took a ripping toll on the people around me.

Thirty five pounds in three months at age thirteen.

It had better had scared the shit out of someone.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

The other was Roberta Knight.  My sixty-some year old 8th grade Assistant Principal at the Title One school I was teaching at, at age twenty two.

I was giving it everything I'd got.  And by "it" I mean everything, too.  Trying to find a church -- I'd go to 3 services a Sunday.  Trying to find friends -- I'd call random strangers, Young Life, or apartment dwellers.  Trying to pay off college debt -- I'd pinched every penny and lived off white bread.  Trying to be the best teacher -- I'd created every engaging lesson from scratching, then stay after school for all the performances and chatters and strays to connect with the kids.

I'd given everything, everything.

And I was empty.

Empty.

Soul and spirit empty.

It was mid-October, twelve weeks of desperate, trying, lonely, striving.  And she called me into her office and sat me in the chair landlocked across from me:

"Girl, you need to go home!  Girl, you need to go home to your Mama!  You are out of your world here.  You need a few days back home with your peoples, back with fimimilar, back where they get you.  Back to your Mama!  Now you take off Thursday and Friday and you fly home and see your Mama for a long weekend and then you come back here.  But you need to get home and be with your Mama."

And that was that.

Two days later, ticket bought, I landed, broken and tired and lonely and weary, in the arms of my Mom.

And I will forever be thankful to Robert Knight for stepping in and standing up and making me do so.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I sat at the round wood table, the yellow walls encasing me, typing as she talked.  Kate dictated words Michael spoke through the phone, the resignation letter coming out of my fingertips to keys.  She had flown in, come, to see my dried bones, my worn-down body and soul, completely stripped of hope or life and love.  But she flew in to see me, let me talk and cry and be.  And called her husband Michael on behalf of me.

I was helpless, confused, overrun, angry, beaten, and alone.  All in that brick house at the end of Harrisonwoods.  And she said the job would need me no more.  She called Michael for me, he told her the words to translate, and I typed them with rote obedience, too empty to argue, too empty to think, only able to type the resignation for Wilson Middle School and quit my teaching job that October.

Others told me I needed a job, or specifically, I needed insurance.  That I had to tough things out.  Get through the years and life without my mom, without that hope, without this broken horrid family that was left.

But Kate came with a hug and a whole lot of grace.

And quit the teaching job for me.

Grace.  Friend. Grace.

That was love to me that day.  That was life for me.

Whittling of Motherhood.

These years are the whittling of motherhood.  No pride.  No perfection. No getting it right.  No healthy comparison.  Motherhood has whittled, humbled, stripped, and scoured my soul of anything I had to boast about.

But prayer.

Prayer. Discipline.  Discipleship.  Leadership training.  Centrality of kindness.  Communal confession.  And continual scraping sacrifice.  Giving.  Ministering. Loving. Caring. Sharing.

These are the carvings created of the sharpest whittling in my life and soul, of motherhood.

Look At Me.

Someday I want to write so much more to this, to unravel it so much "better", to process and edit and write it in a way that speaks truth, conviction, earnest, and poetry all in a way that blends and reads well, while gracefully or painfully removing the scales Satan so sneakily pulls over our eyes...

Overarching, the premises is regarding the now-tradition for families to take Easter photos of themselves, all prettied up and dressed up, either at home or now in front of beautifully decorated scenes of crosses and flowers at church, perfectly made for selfies or portraits.  Because that is the main part of Easter morning, picking the picture dresses and shoes and bowties, and creating the right scene to show you were either all together, or all at a church...  But let the sharp of the arrow be somewhat dinged, for I myself have also done this the past 3 years, and only this year given it more thought....

Instead of look to Jesus,
Look at me.

Instead of seeing his glory,
See my well-dressed family.

Instead of seeing my sin and failures,
see my perfect life.

Instead of bloody angst flowing down,
See the pinterest-pretty cross.

Instead of Christ holy, sanctified,
Satan sneaks a selfie: look at me.

Instead of Easter's Resurrection
Look at me.

Hold Hands.

There is this word picture of friendship that keeps bubbling back in my mind.  Especially as I seek friendship, crave community, long for intentionality.  I've learned it the hard way, still long for it the enduring way, and wish for it the dreamer way.  But I've known it, and I know it's good.

Holding Hands.

This image takes no thought, but this life takes so much more.  I've been unraveling the metaphor for months, quite possibly a year, as I've journied through, more like juggled through, the loss of friendship, the lingering hopes of friendship, the stretching to create community, and the struggle to let hope go.

Picture this: the actual action of holding hands takes two people, takes two efforts, take two reaching out.  Away from just self, though still connected, and putting trust, energy, and risk into extending towards another.

But now picture this: only one person continually stretching, pursuing, clamoring after the hand of another, and all you have is one person extending a whole lot of energy and usually burning out with frustration, or falling on their face, feeling the puff of dust.

I've seen this happen.  I've felt this happen.  I've been this person.  On both hands.

I've been the one longing for someone to open up, longing for them gift me back, longing for their efforts my way.  I've created the atmosphere for it -- vulnerable heart, safe spaces, prayerful hours.  But I've known that soul to keep shutting down, to keep staying behind closed doors, to confine into what's safe.  To keeping their hand.  Even when they ached and needed friendship, the soul withheld out of fear, hurt, insecurity, or ignorance.  Kelly Minter remarks, "Receiving comfort requires humility and vulnerability before the Lord, open hands that say we don't know it all or have it all and need our Savior."  (All Things New Bible Study, p21).  Reaching out and receiving hands takes both people willing, both vulnerable, both extending and accepting.

And, let me be honest, I've been the person sought after too.  Badgered with options to meet, texted with extension of friendship, or retreating the circle of community.  Withholding or pulling back my hand.  Because of time and space.  Because of heart protection, head, and mindset.  For me, this is usually an intentional choice.  Something I've wrestled with and wrangled to death, for better and worse.  I'm usually coercing through the thoughts of weeding and planting with it, creating soil for fruit, and working with angst to "take captive every thought for Christ" (II Corinthians 10:5) which for me, means being around those who help me long for him and spur my mind to purity, righteousness, and joy (Phillipians 4:8-9).

Now, I recognize there are seasons for this, and seasons where it looks different.  There are seasons where one friend is holding on with great strength, while the other is faltering, but needing the clasp of support.  There are seasons when one is pulling and the other is dragging, and one is squeezing, and the other is limp. (Great examples of this are when my mom died, or when my babies were in their first year (hello Anne, Trish, Heidi, Laura, Jenny, Missy, Kate Vasey...).  I was laying in the dirt, deep in the mire, yet they stood on rocks and kept grasping and holding and encouraging me.  Giving out.  Clinging to my hand for my hope.  And the reverse has been seen too, like sitting with friends in miscarriage or marking a return to singleness, where the other has no life to offer, but needs the grit of my hand on theirs to make the painful journey.)  There are seasons, and yet there is also a commitment in the seasons still, for the long haul, which makes the season what it is -- a season -- if the commitment to the walking and holding is still cherished and cared for by both people.

There are also relationships for ministry, for giving for service on behalf of Him who served.  Solely. And that's okay too.  But we cannot label friendship what is lack-luster, we cannot label community was is lacking.  We've got to get a right viewpoint, a stronghold, on what it actually looks like to commit to community, to call it for-real friends.

Which brings me to the little phrase "walking each other home" with regards to earth and heaven and hope.  (Kaitlyn Bouchillion in Even if Not: Living, Loving, and Learning in the in Between -- As quoted in Fierce Hearted on pg 48-49)

Now that is a beautiful truth, metaphor, and image.  Especially through the viewpoint of true friendship and hands.  And it creates a filtering factor for what is considered real, true community and friendship.  Who are the ones who are next to us, with us, spuring us, encouraging us, while holding our hands, and walking home.

There is a beautiful moment, a marking of space, when two people both reach out and fold their fingers around the other.  Both extend, both receive, both meet in the middle, but join two hearts and lives together, going the same way.  And with this hand holding, there is rest, there is held, there is love, there is grace.

There is steadfast.

My friend Trish and I were rolling 65 down the highway, deep in our mulling, desperate in our longings.  Both single and wishful, alone and vulnerable.  We let thoughts of friendship unfold in  that white Malibu, both admiting our hard, holy languish for true friendship, for companionship, for someone to call our own - our "other", our "go-to", our "person."  And we both felt the exposed tenderness of letting the other know the pining, the ache in our souls, the absolute loneliness and naked feeling of being needy.  And then, with a Mary Poppins style jaunt and matter-of-fact quip, I said, "Well, what if I catch you and you catch me?  Then we're both caught!"  She perked up, as if this "ah-ha" gave renewed energy, like a bright yellow daffoldi spurning out of ground in spring, and said, "Oh yes!  If we're both chasing, what if you chase me, and I chase you, and then we don't have to chase any more, because we're both caught!"

Ah, rest!  Caught.  Secured. Labeled clearly by the other person.  To call it and be accountable to it, but loved it in, known.

For the next several years we were each other's go-to.  The drive-to-school text or call, the Crisp corner club, blue dress at midnight dance, the first-morning-engaged coffee date, the maid-of-honor/bridesmaid.  Caught.  Rested.  Companioned.

Holding Hands.

We kept the phrase of "caught" with us those years, and added the word "with" to our repetoire, to life.  To do life with each other.  To do motherhood with each other.  To read good things with each other.  To write side by side with each other.  To carry our hopes and heartaches with each other.

Holding hands can only happen in the caught, the with.  Can only happen when both people are walking the same direction, carrying the same amount of commitment, willing to carry the pressure of the burden and dance the leap of joy.  All this can only happen, at least for the long haul, in the together, the hessed. (God's term for "with" in the Old Testament, term used for Ruth with Naomi, note Kelly Minter's Ruth study."

So I work through this, I rest in this.  Always disciphering, always pursing, often over-thinking, my eden-hope of holding hands.  Sometimes it looks like parking my car at my neighbors, kids locked in carseats, and standing on her stop shedding anger and tears and heartache in exchange for her hug and words and quick courage under the neediness of tears.  Sometimes it looks like Kelly's granola on my doorstep, or a text Heidi in Montana or Trish in the mountains.  Sometimes hands cross the miles through cards, and sometimes they cross the driveway kid-sharing.

I love the way the Lord has bestowed this image for me, has given scriptures and significance in this metaphor of holding hands.  But what I love most is the resolution of life with Him, "Nevertheless I am continually with you; You have taken hold of my right hand."   (Psalm 73:23)  Amen!

Hold Fast.

I grew up equating spiritual success with "spiritual high" -- like camp and conference experiences, when the mountain is all you know and what you love and God is so colorfully exalted, with people giddy and exclaiming and bursting with joyful emotion...  Yet the years age me, the experiences awaken me, and the God of all emotion teaches me....

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I drove home quietly in the dark, heavy from Stories Night, ruminating on Jeremiah and lament and the actual tenacity and courage and strength to hold fast.

The women talked about abortion, about divorce, about death.  Lots of death.  They talked about hope and love and hardship.  About community and crying out.  About clinging to God, with bleeding fingernails gripping the cliff of faith, but that even if their faith fails and they fall, He is the Everlasting Arms that catches.

I couldn't help but land there.  On being caught by Him, in His strength, His love, His loyalty, in such immense hardship, betrayal, tragedy, or sin.  And about how maybe that is more spiritual than the mountain.  About how maybe that requires and pronounces more faith than the high.  That the low of lament might be the vulnerable nakedness that exposes the actual core of faith, or creates room for its roots to grow.

There is very little bragging, no room for pious, and all pretentiousness is slaughtered by the time one is crawling in lament, living in Jeremiah, appreciating Job.  When the heart of Psalms beats with the wounded, the miry clay is thick, but the faith that muddles through it is strengthened in the struggle.

Lament threads through those I know.  Through those I honor and adhere to.  Deep hurt, scars, pain, and loss transform the "put-together" person into an honest friend, a tearful warrior, a fierce believer.  The existence of hardship carves out soil for surety, and whittles one down to a shred where only God is secure, and even that relies on His faithfulness and promise, because the human adhering to him is weak and wearisome.

Yet the stories that gurgle out of the mud of gloom, that speak of heaven in the coffin of death, that learn to know His love in the lament, are ones that speak so powerfully, so deeply to the hearts of all the people.  Because to know, cling to, grasp, lean on, and hold fast to the God in lament, is the greatest reflection of courage and Christ the earth shall ever see.