"For in thee, O LORD, do I hope: thou wilt hear, O Lord my God." ~Psalm 38.15

“She asks too much for whom God is not enough.” ~ Hannah Whithall Smith

In my post of July 14th, 2009 I expressed a desire to write with greater regularity, and committed to doing so. Now a year has passed, and I find myself fighting to suppress the urge to ask myself questions of progress or find some way to “measure” the movements my soul has made. Let me see, a year ago I was there; now, where am I?

In this, as in many other things, my concerns are not so different from those of the three-year-old who, just the other morning, clambered into bed beside me, her brown eyes caked in sleep, and asked, “Oh, where’s Nanny, Mudder?”

We took the colored globe down off the shelf and tripped into the hallway, in our pajamas and our bare feet. We sat down on the floor, the globe between us like a magic ball, and set it spinning: the swishing lulled us into silence as we watched oceans and continents pass by beneath our fingers like scattered pieces of a puzzle. I pointed first to Arizona, then to Washington. I folded my palms into the shape of an airplane, hoping to evoke whatever feeble understanding of geographical distances Audrey has absorbed on our many flights across the country, but she only looked at me quizzically and repeated her question: “Oh, but where is she?” “When is she coming? “Why is she not here?”

Where, when, and why – they are questions which, I imagine, rise from the depths of the human soul even before we have acquired language to utter them; and which, from the first moment we are capable of speech, preoccupy so much of our time and attention that few of us ever really venture beyond them.

But fumblings with rulers and scales do not bring me any closer to measuring the distance my soul has traveled; or weighing the balance to determine whether there are differences in quality and substance. Try as I might, I cannot locate my position, on this or any other map. And all attempts to reflect backward and string the circumstances of the last year together into a coherent drama, where each narrative detail follows naturally and logically from the one preceding it, end in disappointment.

And so I throw up my hands and say with the apostle, “I do not even judge myself but keep entrusting myself to the one who judges justly,” replacing monosyllabic questions with monosyllabic words: ‘faith,’ ‘hope,’ and ‘love.’

I don’t know where, precisely, He is taking me; or why it so often seems the path of most resistance. I've no idea when He will bring about the answers to the questions that burn inside my soul; though I strain and squint I see nothing on the horizon – but I have faith that He knows. Christ Jesus is my hope and my soul’s anchor (Ps. 38.15, Heb. 6.19), supplanting, for a time at least, my need to understand the ‘why’ behind life’s deepest complexities and pains. Even if I don’t know when the prison doors will be flung open, setting free that which, in me, remains bound and broken, I know that nothing can separate me from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8.35-39). And it is this love that sustains me.

…

“O, Lord, I am tired,” said the woman. “I feel I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing” (Isaiah 49.4).

“That is because you do not understand My purpose, child, which is infinitely higher than yours. You forget that, just as the rain comes down from heaven and does not return to it without watering the earth and bringing forth buds, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

“I accept this, Lord, but I must confess that this wisdom is beyond me. I do not understand what you are seeking to accomplish. All I know is that I feel forsaken.”

“I know what it is to be forsaken, daughter. I was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hid their faces I was despised and without esteem. If this is the path by which I accomplished the salvation of mankind, can you expect your own path to be so different?”

“No, Lord, I only want your voice and your presence to light my way. But all around me there is darkness – as if I have been covered by a shroud."

"You must be patient, child. Remember, it is out of darkness that I bring forth light; and out of death, new life is born."

"O, Lord, I am so impatient."

"Impatience breeds discontent. When you strain toward the past or future you fail to live in the present; and the present is the only place where you may experience the joy of my presence."

"I long to live in the present! Forgive me for failing to meet you there... but I feel so often that you have forgotten me.”

“No, Daughter, it is you who forget.”

“Me, Lord? What have I forgotten?

“You have forgotten all my benefits. I am he who healed all your diseases and redeemed your life from the pit so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. I have taken out of your hand the cup that made you stagger; from that cup you will never drink again.”

“O, Lord, this is true. Forgive me for failing to be grateful.”

“I created the heavens and the earth; I gathered the waters together into seas and set the glittering stars into place. I, even I, formed you in your mother’s womb. There is not a hair on your head that is not numbered.”

“Such knowledge is too wonderful for me. It is too high, I cannot attain to it. Forgive my presumption and my unwillingness to wait in silence for you to answer."

"Stand at your watch. Station yourself on the rampart. Do not stop looking to see what I will say. The revelation awaits an appointed time. It will not prove false.
Though it linger, WAIT for it. It will come. It will not be delayed."

"Lord, I will wait and look and listen. Forgive the lying thoughts that told me you had forgotten.”

“Can a mother forget the baby at her breast, and have no compassion on the child she has born? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

“Lord, I believe you; but how will I know?"

“You have no need for more knowledge. Knowledge is wearisome. Instead, you need to know me. Come to me when you are thirsty; come to me when you have no money; come, buy and eat! Listen, listen to me and I will delight your soul with the richest of fare. Come and I will open your ears and instruct your tongue to know the word that sustains the weary.”

"It is so tempting to conclude that you are merely speaking spiritual words in a spiritual language - a language which will never be expressed in the temporal realm.”

"You will see my goodness in the land of the living... Wait on me: be of good courage, and I shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say."

"But waiting is so hard. Isn't there something I can do while I am waiting?"

"Waiting is what I have given you to do. It is an active and not a passive occupation."

"It sounds like such a small thing, but it takes more strength and energy than I possess."

"I will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land. I will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail."

"Behold, I am your servant. May it be done to me according to your word."

“Behold, I go forward, but he is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive him: I look for him on the left hand, where he doth work, but I cannot behold him: he hideth himself on the right hand, that I cannot see him: But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” ~Job 23.8-10

It was a week before my thirtieth birthday and I was on my knees, covered in dust, before the open hallway closet. Stacks of boxes and unfiled paperwork had me surrounded, but my determination was singular and singularly focused: I was going to take one stack at a time, for as many afternoons as it took, to sort, toss, or file them until there wasn’t a stitch of paperwork that wasn’t in its rightfully ordered place. Then, and only then, could I exit the second decade of my life with ease and enter the third one – a real-life, living, breathing adult with a working filing system.

I was making decent headway – I mean, how many copies of drafted stories does one truly need from one’s earliest attempts at writing fiction? Real writers usually burn theirs, anyway – when one box in particular, an old, square storage box covered in blue and white ticking, seized my attention, invoking an oddly simultaneous sense of interest and aversion: it was from our first year of marriage – a time marked, principally for me, by a sense of existential despair and hopelessness – and I hadn’t had the courage to open it since we moved to Arizona.

I stared up at the box for several seconds, thinking, and then I straightened my shoulders and blew a strand of hair off my forehead: I was over all of that, wasn’t I? I had really come to terms with God’s gracious workings in my life, hadn’t I? I pulled the box off the shelf and dropped it heavily onto the only visible surface still left on the floor at my feet. The corners were split and fraying, the sides dented and misshapen, as if the box had spent considerable time rolling around in the belly of a cargo ship.

Placing a tentative hand on the lid, I felt a sudden likeness to the mythical Pandora, who loosed all evils upon the world by opening her jar. Was I prepared to face whatever feelings were evoked by the contents in this box?

I wasn’t sure.

But I decided that the point wasn’t whether or not I was completely over all that; the point was that our marriage certificate was inside and needed to be filed.

I lifted the lid and found bundles of old letters, forgotten photographs, and copies of graduate school applications with letters of recommendation attached. To remember those days, and the malaise which had settled over my life like a steely storm cloud, made my heart seize.

Before moving to Arizona, I’d applied to two graduate programs. The first program accepted me, but the second, which I applied to as a desperate, last minute resort because it was here, in Tucson, had rejected me unequivocally.

I lifted the stack of papers, intent on putting them aside, when a single oblong envelope fell smartly onto my lap – it was a sealed, dated, and signed letter of recommendation from my most revered college professor and I’m ashamed to admit I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, resist the urge to open it. One swift tear and a hurried unfolding of pages and I was pouring over paragraphs filled with glowing phrases and a conclusion in which she offered me her highest recommendation.

Old wounds, buried but not forgotten, suddenly announced themselves: “Let me introduce myself – my name is Doubt and this is my cousin, Bitterness!” ‘Why hadn’t I been accepted?’ I wondered, ‘Why was life so unfair?’

Immediately I heard Dutch’s voice sounding in my head - Fair is where they take the pigs. – and I couldn’t help but laugh.

My mind circled back to my morning reading - about the glorious mountain-top encounter between Moses and God in which Moses is given the Ten Commandments. I had been struck by the notable fact that the negative commands vastly outnumber the positive ones: “Thou shalt not steal…” “Thou shalt not murder…” “Thou shalt not commit adultery…” Why was this?, I had wondered.

And now I sensed God giving me the answer: it is because it is easier to say what something isn’t than to say what it is. It is easier to say, in concrete terms, that holiness is not stealing, murdering, and committing adultery than to say that it is patience, kindness, and self-control.

The same principle applies when it comes to the life of faith. God sometimes leads us by negation – that is, by closing doors.

This would sound rather – well, negative, if not for the overarching positive that the Person who is leading is none other than Jesus Christ Himself. In fact, though He may have slammed the door on those things which I once insisted I needed, just as earnestly as Eve needed to take a bite of that glittering green apple, His door is always open. Indeed, He claims, “I am the door; and if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved” (John 10.9, emphasis mine).

“Heather, my perfect will for you is not X; neither is it Y. Can you accept this, even when you don’t understand, and hold fast to Me?” The point is always abandonment to Jesus Christ, going where He leads, saying what He says, and believing what He reveals.

And yet one thing is certain – any time God ‘deprives’ us of a thing we want, or which we feel entitled to – no matter how great or small it is – it hurts. We feel like dying because a part of us, the sinner’s part, is.

But this should bring a certain degree of comfort - a certain increased sense of conviction to hold tight and fast to Him, for as in all the great stories, death is never, ever the end, but only the beginning. Besides, if Eve taught us anything, she taught us what poor judges we are of determining what is in our best interest.

Only Jesus knows what is truly best for me; He is the author and perfector of my story; and if I'm truly wise, I'll do nothing to stand in the way of His writing it...

“I love to tell the story of unseen things above,
Of Jesus and His glory, of Jesus and His love.
I love to tell the story, because I know ’tis true;
It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do.

I love to tell the story; more wonderful it seems
than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams.
I love to tell the story, it did so much for me;
and that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.”

~Katherine Hankey, 1834-1911

seeing through a glass dimly

I was standing in line at a nearby optical center, waiting for my number to be called, when I saw my optometrist step out of his office in his long white coat. Curious to know whether I might be a good candidate for lasik surgery, I approached him and asked whether he remembered our consultation from the week before.

“Of course I remember,” he said, smiling, “You’re the one with very near-sighted vision.”

In a flash of recognition, the obvious meaning of the term “near-sighted,” which I had never really stopped to think about or seen written on a page, became suddenly clear: being near-sighted literally means your visual capacity is restricted to objects which are very near. How was it I had lived so long - thirty years! - without realizing this?

But as a child I never understood the term. I can see just fine close up, I used to think, it's when I try to focus on the far-away chalkboard that I start to squint.

I assumed the diagnostic label should have been written in negative, instead of positive terms: in fact, I was "far-blinded" or "distance-impaired."

To this day my vision remains crystalline to within five inches of my face; beyond that, objects are a blur; people appear like “trees walking around,” and I am literally helpless without my glasses.

By the time the man behind the counter finally called my number, I was deep in thought: I realized I am not only biologically near-sighted, I am spiritually near-sighted. That the temporal and spiritual are fused. Scripture affirms that God willfully created me this way - for “we see through a glass dimly;" that is, we were made to walk by faith and not by sight.

I realized, too, that there exists a kind of geographic security that is independent of whether you know where you are, or how to read a map.

Audrey is only dimly aware that we live in a place called ‘Arizona’ and that it is different from other places like ‘Portland’ or ‘Pittsburg.’ I’m not even sure she knows the difference between boys and girls let alone what street we live on… But she knows me; and when she lays her weary head down on her pillow at night she believes beyond speaking that I will be there when she wakes up in the morning; and that she can trust me to guide her through the day.

In the same way, my Compass is a Person: Jesus Christ. And He not only gives me vision to see just enough space in front of me to take the next step, He promises there is no place He will ask me to go where He won't go with me. That is part of what the crucifixion accomplished, after all.

Thus from a spiritual standpoint, my limitation is also a blessing, making it possible for me to learn to trust God.

And while it is true that I cannot apprehend what heartaches or triumphs are waiting wrapped up in my tomorrows, Jesus can. Jesus sees and knows all. And though I may not “see” Christ as crisply and solidly as I see my reflection in the mirror, I know that He sees me – and with more depth and insight than I will ever see myself.

What is more, while I cannot see into my future, I can, in a very real if mysterious sense, “see” Jesus. I see Him in the Scriptures; I hear His Voice in my heart; and every moment presents me with the opportunity to cling fast to His hand just as Audrey clings to mine.

Still Life with Moss and Stone

I found this perfectly formed tuft of moss poking up out of a snow patch near Bass Lake. I was struck first by its color - an almost iridescent shade of green - and then by its form and texture - like soft coral escaped from the sea. The stone I found nestling in the sand on the shore of the lake. I love holding it in my hand because it is soft - so soft! - and smooth. Almost egg-shaped; almost perfect.

With these treasures hidden in my pockets I jogged up and down the windy, wintry beach, indifferent to the cold water soaking my legs and the small stones working their way into my shoes... In the space of twenty minutes my imagination had been set ablaze.

Up in the Atmosphere

We spotted this tree south of San Fran...I thought it looked like the kind of tree Wordsworth would have mused under so naturally I had to introduce myself. Sadly its mood was rather taciturn. ...Had I remembered to pack my red and white checked tablecloth we at least could've picnicked... as it was, I thought I'd prove you're never too old for climbing.

**Photos courtesy of MommaLove**

Spots and Stripes

Another belated birthday gift arrived today by post: a set of matching mother-daughter aprons from my mother's friend who has not a clue about all these happenings. I fabricate nothing, but stand in awe of it all.

Aprons, aprons, all in a row...

Something extraordinary happened to me in the days surrounding my birthday... so extraordinary that I must put it to pen and "peter" (computer in Aud-speak).

The month of January had Dutch working day and night, with hardly a moment's rest. Fourteen uninterrupted days of morning, afternoon and bedtime routines left me deflated. I felt a bit like a hamster on a wheel, running my legs off with no hint of a change in scenery.

Four days before my birthday, I was dragging my body around, simply waiting for naptime to arrive. But when it did, and I had the opportunity to sit down and write, I was too tired... So instead I read a few pages out of Kenneth Grahame's charming book, "The Wind in the Willows." Inspired, I went back to my writing - a children's story about a mother bunny and her daughter - but once again my lids began to droop.

This time I tried to lie down but I couldn't sleep so instead I went to the Lord and simply poured my heart out to Him, asking why He gave me such a longing to write when I can spend so little time, practically, doing it.

And do you know what He did? He is so good. He showed me something from the story of Abraham that I had never seen before. Bear with me as I attempt to relay it:

Soon after Abraham receives the call to leave family and country and enter the land of Canaan, the Lord speaks to him.

God tells Abraham, who possesses no land of his own, to look north and south, east and west, for "All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever." Not only so, God promises Abraham, who at this late time in his life is still childless, that his offspring will be as numerous as the dust of the earth.

"Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land," the Lord says, "for I am giving it to you." Immediately I thought of Dutch, how he loves to walk the length of our land, envisioning the house he will build and the views he will be able to take in from every nook and corner. I imagined that Abraham, too, must have harbored a deep longing to take possession of the land; that he may have looked out upon it and imagined watching his children run and shriek with laughter as they played along the dusty, desert hills.

But Abraham did not take possession of the land immediately. Instead, much time and difficulty was to spring up between God's promise and its fulfillment.

A war developed between the kings of the land - four kings and their armies went to battle against five. In this great upheaval Abram's nephew Lot was seized; and Abraham went, with 318 of his men, to rescue Lot, along with his household and possessions.

Soon after this time of instability the word of the Lord comes to Abraham in a vision: "Do not be afraid, Abram," the Lord says, "I am your shield, your very great Reward."

As I read through this passage I sensed the whispering voice of the Spirit saying, "Heather, you long to 'take possession of the land' - to write and express yourself - but I want you to understand that I am your reward. I am your treasure. I have given you the desire to write - but that is not where your hope is to be: Your hope and satisfaction are to be in ME."

As I began to meditate on this truth I found my mind wandering back to my little story about the mother bunny and her daughter. In my mind's eye I began to see the mother bunny working busily in her kitchen. Yes, I decided, she loves to cook and bake and she is compiling all her recipes to put into a book but she never has time to finish the book because she is always interrupted by someone - child, neighbor, or friend - who is hungry.

I suddenly realized how the story should end; and the thought occurred to me that the ending might also be God's message to me for this phase of my life. "Now is not the time to 'finish compiling your recipes,'" I sensed Him saying, "It is not the time to type them up perfectly, package them up and ship them off. Now is the time to test them. And - listen closely, now - the process of testing the recipes is more important than the actual book. What is more, the people who get to enjoy the meals, and you who have the opportunity to be trained by them, are infinitely more important than anything you might have to say about them afterward."

All the next day - through dishes and diapers, frenzied errands and combing out tangles - I kept reminding myself, whenever a hint of discouragement crept into my brain: "Heather, now is the time to test your recipes, and to find your satisfaction in Christ. He is your treasure, your very great Reward."

When I arrived home I found a package on my doorstep - a birthday box from my dear sister, come a few days early.

I brought it inside and put it on the table, thinking I would save it for my birthday. But each time I walked by, something kept whispering to me, "Wait until naptime and then open it. Open it. Open it!"

The moment the girls' heads were on their pillows I sat down with a cup of coffee and a day-old croissant... And after I had lifted the tissue paper and unfolded the wrapping...what did I find? A gorgeous toile apron with a beautiful robin's egg blue velvet ribbon cut across the waist...but what is more I found a tangible confirmation of the message God had given me - to embrace that fact that this time in my life is to be spent primarily serving others, "testing recipes," so to speak, that is, living out the lessons He is teaching me in order to prepare me to better write about them.

I almost couldn't believe it, almost wouldn't believe it - until, over the proceeding seven days, I received two more packages - each from a dear friend who said, "I found this before Christmas and instantly thought of you."

Each package contained yet another... gorgeous... apron.

Coincidence? Some might say. But I don't think so.

And as Dutch reminded me, with tears in his eyes, as I held up my third apron with a look of absolute and total incredulity, "Whenever God wants to emphasize something he says it three times: "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty."

I most humbly agreed.