dear you–I see you doing hard things

Dear You,

I know. You’re sitting right in the middle.
That place where the hoped-for, longed-for, prayed-for things, haven’t happened just yet.
You’ve been waiting a really long time.
You’ve marched around the mountain, around Jericho, around in the wilderness for what feels like forty years, and there’s still no end in sight—the walls of the impenetrable city stand high and firm, the mountain is solid and immovable, the wilderness is vast and there’s no end in sight.
I see you trudging through, putting one foot in front of the other.
Some days your legs are weary and your feet drag a little, and you wonder why you’re not singing along with the rest of them, who seem to be making their way up mountains, who’ve found oasis in their own places of wilderness. Some days you feel like the end is near.
The Word speaks, and you remember that God is on your side, surely He has seen you, and not forgotten you. Surely He’s not tarrying with the promises. After all, you’ve prayed in faith, and you’ve peppered Him with all of the right scriptures, and you’ve torn down every stronghold in the name of Jesus. You used the three-step formula to victory the pastor preached on Sunday, and don’t forget that miracle offering.

Deep down though, you know that God is wild and untamed. You know the formulas don’t work, because there is none that fit the Divine who shaped the cosmos, who commands the ocean to hug the beach, who steers the moon to tug the tides.
So you sit in the middle in wonder, and wonder when? When will I be whole? When will the missing be found? When will the broken be mended? When will the lack be filled with abundance?
And then the Word says choose life.
Choose life in the messy middle, choose life as your feet drag one foot in front of the other through the dust of just-holding-on faith, of not-yet-answered prayers and the dust of doubt.
I see you stumble and rise, stumble and rise.
Still He’s with you. In all of the stumbling and all of the rising, he walks ahead, behind, alongside. Choose life.
Choose to see the abundance instead of the lack—a meal stretched for two days, the gift of fresh bread, additional work hours.
Choose to see the fullness, through the gaps—deep, delightful friendships, the warm faces of small humans risen from piles of blankets, winter sunshine on coastal walks.
Choose to see the healed and the whole, in the midst of the not-yet-fixed—look! Look how far you have come! Look how much wholeness has come from you doing the work alongside Him. Look how He is putting you back together, after all … all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe – people and things, animals and atoms – get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the Cross. (Colossians 1:20 MSG)

I see you. I see you choosing life, among the dreams that barely hold on.
I see you choose to see the good, believe the best, and refuse to let go of hope.
Even here, now, in the shadow of the mountain, in the messy middle, the in-between, the liminal, you can smile.
And that, my friend, is a gift.

xx

Grace is a shield

Read: Psalm 18. The Passion Translation.

In the church communities I’ve been a part of, Lent isn’t something that is observed or taught. I discovered it only a handful of years ago after coming across Alicia Britt Chole on Instagram, and the book she wrote; 40 Days of Decrease.
I’ve picked it up each year since, for Lent—enjoying the sacredness of this long-held practice from other Christian traditions—using it as a framework of setting aside this period of time to journey towards the Cross. Towards Easter. In the slow, and often painful walk toward the joy of Sunday. Each day of the forty, Dr Chole encourages a different kind of fast: today, fast regret, or today, fast rationalism.

This year I’m learning to daily fast perfectionism. I’ve laid down my ideals of ‘getting it right’, of ‘doing it properly’ and in all of it finding a God who gives so much more grace than I have ever been able to give myself.

What a God you are! Your path for me has been perfect!
All your promises have proven true.
What a secure shelter for all those who turn to hide themselves in you!
You’re the wrap-around God giving grace to me. Ps 18:30

That word used in this verse is ‘shield’ and in the Hebrew literally means ‘to wrap around in protection’.
God Himself is our protection.
And grace is a shield.

Grace shields me from the shame of not getting it right.
Grace protects me from the fear of not being good enough.
Grace covers me with the reassurance that God stretches heaven’s curtain open and comes to my defense (18:9), that He will reach down into my darkness to rescue me (18:16) that His love broke open the way, and he brings me into a a beautiful broad place (18:19).

My girls have favourite blankets, and now that the weather is cooling, these blankets are wrapped tightly around their shoulders throughout the day. They can’t do much with their hands when their arms are swaddled within the thick layers, but they forgo those things to be wrapped in warmth and comfort.
Grace, wrap-around grace, is just like this. A thick, warm layer of it that enfolds us. All the parts of us. So the parts that feel like they need to do more, or be more are simply stilled by that enfolding, encompassing grace.

And this is a comfort in this season. Because the general rhetoric is loudly saying we should use this time of isolation to do more, to be more; to get better and fitter and launch online businesses and grow followings and online gatherings and to leap lightly and easily into our new pivoted lives and truthfully? All of it leaves me feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.
I can’t keep up with the Zoom calls, and I don’t want to sit in front of a screen any more than what is a necessity and for the first time ever I’m craving a normal, everyday phone call so I don’t have to have perfect hair.
So when I read Psalm 18 in the still-dark morning today I took a great big exhale of relief that even the tree branches swayed beyond my windows.

I’m not fighting the wrapping up of all of the parts of me.
I’ll sit here, perched high and out of reach (18:48), far from the grasp of shame or performance or striving.
What would happen if we just let grace wrap us up tight?
What if we let Him lead us into that beautiful broad place?
It’s right here that there’s room for everyone. Here, the table is wide and there’s a blanket of grace to wrap around each of us, even if our hair is dirty and our skin is blemished.

So today, grace is a shield, protecting me from the lie of perfection, and ushering me into a place of beauty, vulnerability and gratitude for who I am, and who God is to me. I’m wrapping it around me like my favourite blanket, and it’s holding my arms close and I sigh with relief as it envelopes me. As He envelopes me. There’s no need for perfect here.

What do you need the shield of God’s wrap-around grace to cover and protect you from today?

xx