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.