An Overlooked Miracle.

I wish I could be perched, like Zaccheaus, overlooking but uninvolved in this scene, hanging on limbs high above, hid in the branches and leaves of trees, but peering through, watching in moonlight...

The bearded men whispered, mocking each other about their sleepiness, dreary of another night of prayer, and drowsy with wine and dinner.  They stayed hushed, some bent over their knees, some lying prostrate, others already dropping their head to sleeps temptation.

A stones throw away, on the other side of me, groaned their Rabbi.  He seemed angst, blood mingling with his sweat; his prayers fervent and full of tenacity; tense, like electricity, bolting his emotions heavenward.  I could only make out some of his bellows, for they came like groans from his body, reverberating in the dark garden.

I recognized him, fear and awe and curiosity all alert within me.  That Rabbi - the one whose teaching  was stories and Scripture, scrutinized by the Sanhedrin.  The One who gathered himself the boys from boats and spoke to women and welcomed children.  The One who confused my concept of King, but many claimed he was one.  He's the guy graveling in the garden, just a few bushes away.

I monkeyed myself to a lower branch; there was something coming, but I couldn't quite see.

Gruff voices, feet hitting the hard dirt quickly; it sounded like a mob forcing its way up the hillside.  An angry mob at that. following one guy, who seemed be leading like he knew where he was going, waiving them onward, forward, upward.  He looked nervous but certain, hesitant but jaw clutched with perseverance.  He paused, they paused.

I drew a quick breath -- the chief priests were in the mob!  I'd recognize their robes anywhere!  And the scribes and the elders!  They waived clubs, and kept a hand on their swords.  They were angry, yelling "Blaspherer!" and worse.  Clubs flailed, swords grasped tighter, the jostled against each other as they climbed.

I saw that praying man pause.  He was quiet, tense, but unafraid as the mob pushed up into him, knocking his feet of tilt, faltering but still standing.  His eyes seemed sad, the moonlight caught their heaviness in a way that took the breath from my lungs.

He looked at the leader, who kissed him, then withheld, with a tear unashamed trickling down his olive cheek.

The friends scrambled, I felt my tree shake as they pushed at the guards, no longer sleepy but awake, stealth and watchful.  They pushed the crowds, unafraid of the mighty religious men, shoving and pushing to get to the Rabbi.  All defenses were on.

Torches lit the blackness, fires licking the dark like tongues of evil in the night.  They flickered amongst the pulsating crowd, catching edges of clubs and batting the stillness of air.

I sucked in a breath -- the armored guards reached out a grabbed the Rabbi!  Seized him, without mercy, hands suckled around his wrists, twisting and yanking.

"NO!"

It was Simon Peter, his voice squealing into the air.

He grabbed his sword, the metal flash reflected by the fires, and hurled it out before him, one gesture but an effort full of heart, body, and soul.  His full gumption swung in the air.

And it sliced him.  The high priest's servant!  Blood gushed out the side of his head, his right ear fallen to the ground.

Everybody below gasped.  Some of the disciples ducked, fearful and freaked. The elders and scribes screamed obscenities and shouted for more soldiers, who clanked with armor as they pushed forward.

But Jesus, the man who's name they all said, shook his head at Peter, bent slowly and picked up the ear, dusting it off the ground.  He used his wrist to wipe his own tear and then sighed in the watchful, sudden silence.

All were quiet, for a split second, and I bent farther over to see.

He licked his thumb and touched it to the detached ear, bloody in his hand.

Then He breathed, hovering wind over the ear in his hand, like a graceful whisper, a breath of life.

The air held still, for just a moment, a star twinkled, and the Rabbi placed the ear on the injured right side.  The Rabbi breathed once more toward it, then used the same thumbs to smear away the drips of blood on the man's chin and neck.

The man called Jesus withdrew his hand. The ear, the very same ear, was back on the wounded's head, no longer wounded!  No longer bleeding.  Seamlessly mended back to flesh.

I sunk lower into the leaves to see. Surely my eyes failed me.  No!  It was true, the very same ear that was just sliced and wicked off, then touched by the Rabbi, was back on the man's head!  How could it be?!

I shook with belief.  Startled with awe.  As if beholding God for the first time, with my very own eyes, with my very own soul.  Surely this man must be the Christ!  Surely this Rabbi Jesus was the Son of God!

I nearly fell from the tree in my realized state, overtaken by the miracle and the majesty, by the whole seen of this Lord before me!  I wanted to meet him, to greet him, to see him.  To know him!

I looked back at the servant again, he was lacing his fingers around his ear, eyes widely staring at the Rabbi.  His mouth hung open, shock and amazement overtaken his composure.  Sure enough, no blood on his hands.  He seemed to concentrate, lean this way then that, testing the hearing, as if squinting to use his ear, face registering with wonder.

The crowd went back to manic, rumbling and shoving and demanding arrest.  The soldiers twisted the Rabbi's arms, skewing his limbs behind him though silent he stayed.  The high priests and scribes and elders viciously spit accusations and with hatred yanked him down the hill.

The disciples, the men who knew him, all fled.

And there I blinked, perched in that tree, trying to make sense of the moments and miracle beneath me.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I read this story last week with fresh eyes, awakened insight, and was caught by that one line -- "And he touched his ear and healed him."  An overlooked miracle.  Hardly mentioned, only one gospel writer even mentions the healing.

But as I read, it stopped me.  Boom.  Done.  Healed.  And in the midst of arresting for claims of being the Christ.  Having the power and possession of a God, the God.  Before their very eyes, Jesus heals.

How did this not lead to pandemonium?! To crazy awe?!  Belief?!  To the scales falling off their eyes? At least reconsidering the arrest in the affronted process?

Did not one of the High Priest flinch at this crazy occurrence?  Did not one Pharaissee pause and think it could all be true?  Did not one of the soldiers question their goal of arrest?  Did not one bondservant stand in awe, recognizing surely he was the Christ?!

The Bible doesn't even seem to pause here, to give note or attention to this moment, this cruxes of God being man, being hated but healing.

I couldn't help but pause, stop.  And see, peer over, look in and listen to, this moment of hatred and healing amidst a powerful, overlooked miracle.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"And one of them struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his right ear.  But Jesus said, 'No more of this!' And he touched his ear and healed him."  Luke 22:50-51

"a crowd with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and the scribes and the elders" [Mark 14:43]

"And behold, one of those who were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest."  Matthew 26:51

"But one of those who stood by drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest and cut off his ear" Mark 14:47

"Then Simon Peter, having a sword, drew it and struck the high priests servant and cut off his right ear." John 18:10

As Was His Custom.

"And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, 

and the disciples followed him." [Luke 22:39]

As was his custom.  Twas the night of the betrayal, the Son of Man would be arrested, scourged, and slain, yet in the knowing, he was faithful to prayer.  It's interesting that the writer of the passage, Luke, takes the time to note that walking to prayer was Jesus' ritual.  His normal.  That Jesus had developed a routine of connecting to God, a habit of prayer.

It speaks to us today.  That in the midst of all, in the knowing that death was literally before him, Jesus withdrew to pray.  And for the disciples, watching this moment was normal.  They knew their God, their friend, their role model, had the nightly habit of being with God.

Which is also interesting in the context that the arrest was coming, though the disciples did not now.  So to them, staying awake to keep from temptation, may have been a struggle on more than one occasion.  Their humanity made prayer and alertness more difficult, them to aloofness.  And into this temptation they would falter.

But the God-Man, Jesus, had a prayer routine.  Had a ritual.  Had a set-aside time and place.  Had a plan for prayer.  His humanity needed it, his God-self communed it.  His footsteps made, firm and faithful, for the disciples to follow.

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.