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The One Who Sees
This is for the one who feels forgotten. The girl staring at her screen, her heart beginning to pound, thinking — You can’t possibly mean ME! That’s right: I’m writing to you. You, the one feeling the weight of the world on your shoulders. Feeling used up and cast aside. Feeling worthless, hopeless, or just plain tired. Tired of getting your hopes up, only to watch them come crashing down for the umpteenth time. Tired of feeling passed over, while others seem to get ahead. Tired of trying to put a brave face on things, when what you really want to do is curl up in a corner and cry…
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Stirring the Gifts
A sense of tension stirs beneath the worship of our small fellowship these days; our elders addressed it again just this morning. There’s an underlying apprehension and expectation of what’s to come. I would love to know if this same stirring is manifesting itself in the wider Body of Christ, if it signifies a larger move of the Kingdom of God, or if it’s something more limited, unique to us. Personally, I experience it in the urgency to write, to reach beyond time and space and connect with those of similar spirit. I am convinced my Lord has called me to this, to speak forth His words for “such a…
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From Barrenness to Birth
I feel a deep affinity for the barren women Scripture holds up to the light. While their childless state was obvious to all, the weight of unmet longing in their hearts could be fully shared by no one. Surely they tried to be content, knowing themselves to be loved by their husbands, cherished by their God … or believing themselves to be, if not quite feeling it. What they felt instead was surely inadequacy, unworthiness, an inability to participate successfully in this vital female role. After all, their value in society was determined by their ability to bear children. Without an understanding of biological processes such as we have today,…
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A Parable of Hope & Healing
“Lord, Your Bride, the one You love, is sick.” The sisters Grace and Truth had urged the messenger forward; hastening to the Master’s side, he gasped out the devastating news. Lord, the one You love is sick! The Master did not appear startled or shocked by the news; He well knew the condition of His Beloved. He had seen her struggles, her angst. He watched as she had scorned her purity, prostituting herself to attract the World. He witnessed her growing bitterness, felt the full force of her betrayal; He absorbed the sting as she turned her back on Him to chase after the wind. “This sickness will not end in death,” He…
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Shattered
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus …” Romans 8:1 heralds a gift seemingly too good to be true for all who struggle within the tangle of our own shame. No condemnation? Can that be real?!? We believe, in principle, that God forgives. We find ourselves celebrating without reservation the grace He extends to others. But when it comes to our sin, our transgressions … we somehow suspect we fall outside the reach of His mercy. If we could only, for a moment, look beyond ourselves and see the schemes of the enemy who means to drag us endlessly through the muck of our…
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Another Side of Surrender
A rather extreme set of peaks and valleys has loomed up over the past weeks. I find myself not only battling my own inner landscape, but trying to do it through a fog of what seems an awful lot like seasonal depression, as one snowy gray day follows another in oppressive succession. It is hard enough just to function — dragging my weary self out of bed is a daily struggle. I feel tired most of the time, and I have to work up even the most fleeting enthusiasm. I want to fight! I want to rid myself of this clinging monster, but I am so weak … as much as I hate…
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The Final Word
I typically start out writing this kind of thing for myself, for personal healing, self-discovery. It’s a pattern God has established with me over the years: I write, He responds. Yet sometimes, in the midst of the process, the words take on a life of their own, as if the Spirit Himself is breathing into them, instilling them with a significance more far-reaching than anything I had intended. They are no longer mine; I am compelled to pass them on, in hopes that the freedom I receive can be multiplied. So if you are reading, this is for you. Fear is a deep, thick, ancient cancer curling around my heart,…
