Really loving her

I used to think I loved my Mom.
Now I believe that I genuinely thought I loved her, probably actually did a smidgen, but largely just needed her.  I received her love as a child, guzzled it down.  Which is fine and dandy, but now I'm twenty six and slowly bumbling out of the heavy sweater of childishness.  {I'm growing up even as I'm growing younger.  Maybe by the time I'm fifty I'll know the feeling of being a little child.  Childlike without the prison of narcissism}

God gave me lots of chances to really love her this year.  I tried.  That's a whole other post.

Grief has a really obnoxious way of uncovering the heart when it's most naked.  Exposing disease.  I realized that I wanted my mother here WITH ME even more than I wanted her happiness.  And God's plans?  Screw it, I need her.  Here and now.

{I need her to believe that I'll finally get married and have all those kids and see all those beautiful    dreams and prophecies, the ones that are soft and frayed from daily praying, actually materialize into gloriously messy reality.  I need her to explain her recipes.  She never measured.  I need to tell her about Micala's wedding and Aaron leaving for grad school and my job imploding in the same three days, how well friends have loved me and how people can say really dumb things.  How I've hidden and tried not to hide, how I can't even talk to one of my closest friends on the phone because I just can't talk.  How my heart has finally been beaten into submission but I'm afraid I've beaten too viciously; it doesn't work very well now.  How I'm worried about not being worried that the old burning ache to see China worship has been covered in ashy sediment.  How I saw the ocean, saw the mountains, found a new artist and a new musician, that it all poured life on my soul.  How death is now a personal enemy and I feel power coursing through me when I sing, "Death where is your sting?" I know the devil hates it.  I have the authority to lord it over him, ha!  I will always keep singing.  If I can't today, I will tomorrow.  Just because of Jesus and lots of prayers.   How I've written ten songs this year, but too many of them are slow and in the key of A.  How I have no f-ing idea where my life is going.  How I'm in the mists; like when we hiked rain forests.  How darkness comes early and winter is breathing heavy like a wolf.  How days are bathed with the sheer exhaustion of being alive.}

A few months back I was hovering, wandering about the water cooler at work with an empty head and brimming eyes.  A coworker who had lost his Mom when he was about my age asked me something about name badges, and I stared stupidly up at him, a couple tears bleeding out.  He roughly gave me a side hug.  Advised me to remember that whenever I'm feeling selfish and want her here, just to remember how happy she is up in heaven.

I sniffed self-righteously and thought,  It's not selfish to want your mommy.

That's true.  Death is an obscenity to which we were never meant to become desensitized.
I've also argued with God since then, bringing up how hard Mom fought to stay on this earth.  Clawed for life.  Even with so much death around her, she would not acknowledge her dying body but fought the good fight.  But I know that she is adoring heaven.  I believe that she has assignments from Jesus that she's partnering with Him in, and also that she's part of the great cloud of witnesses.  If God is all around, maybe she's not as far away as I thought.

I hope that one day loving someone won't mean letting them go.  It will mean vowing to hold on, hold close.  {And even with Mom, I am not letting her go.  I am letting myself live.}

But at least for now, loving my mother, loving my friends, etc. means blessing who God has formed that person to be.  It means blessing them to go where He leads.  Even if it's not where I want them to be.  Even if I need them here, closer.
I get to love them the way God has given me to love them.  It's just frustrating that so often this means bitter, freezing pain.
{The buck always stops at God's character.  Always.  He's so brave that way, letting the root of every accusation slowly trace its way back to, Who do you say I am?  Because, naturally, he could have changed his plan so that my mother didn't die.  Just like he could have prevented so many things.  It's a gauntlet thrown down by the devil and God too--Will I still trust him?  Do I still say that He is overflowing with loving-kindness?}

But now I have the chance to really love my mother.  Not for what she can do for me, but to just LOVE HER.
To bless God's taking her.  To twist my lips into a half-smile after doing another batch of weeping when I think of her dancing.  I hear the overtones of her laugh sometimes, feel the life of her smile.  Her obstinate joy that conquered lymphoma.  I love her by getting up and living.


After all, she's only as dead as Jesus is.

file://localhost/Users/Stacia/Music/iTunes/iTunes%20Music/Karla%20Adolphe/Honeycomb%20Tombs/08%20When%20I%20See%20Him.mp3

Psalm 63

Well, I am about to take the plunge and post POETRY. How scary is that--I am about to go emotionally skinny dipping. Ah, well... let's not get on the subject of nudity. This blog is a lady. Here we goooo...!

Psalm 63

The ache only grows
for my God Jesus
I feel it in the lament of empty arms and fingertips
I taste it on honeyed lips ready to flow to my beloved
My belly flames with longing
Miss you, Jesus. I miss you God.

Do you remember the garden I only know through thick glass?
I have seen you—I have—
and yet it is never enough.
I would shrink back, half-dead with heartache,
but for your strong hands on my shoulders holding me fast, even washing my feet
as I stagger on.


Tell me again the story of us, stars singing for joy as the world careened into motion, into love, into singing.

You fill me like a tidal wave drowns
You change me like fire ruins clay
You cripple me and break all my brokenness
Until you are my only help, you my only life.
O kind Love, kindly kill me
Until charred flesh gives way to glory.

 the only Cadence


my joy is your joy
my name is your name
let all else be ravished
let love remain



(mostly july 5th ’11)
*cadence is music-speak for 'ending'.

Eyes of the heart

Well, I missed June.  Oh well!  Happy July to all.  Go play some Christmas music (Am I the only one that does that?).

Anyhow... It's astonishing how critical perspective is.  In short, I suppose that perspective is a fancy word for how you see.  Your box seat in life. 

To step just one metre (i miss the Queen's English) deeper--Jesus is life.  There is no life apart from Him.  So all that matters truly is how you see Jesus.

"Who do you say that I am?" I LOVE that Jesus asked his disciples this question. 
He knew who he was.  But Jesus wanted to hear them name him.  He cares incredibly about who we can say he is.
And that dictates how we see.  If we can say You are GOOD--then even in really horrific circumstances, we will see through the lense of His goodness.

I also think he cares about us answering honestly.  He's never gone in for robot worship.  If we cannot honestly say that in our lives, Jesus is kind and gentle with perfect leadership, he doesn't pout or shrink back in disgust. 

It's an invitation to wrestle.  And the more we fight INTO him, the more we truly see him and his kindness.  Really, like Madeleine L'Engle writes (oh Jesus thank you for Madeleine L'Engle), the only unbearable thing is the refusal to love.  Because that seperates, and that is death.  As long as we're kicking and screaming and bleeding and yet still engaging Him, then I believe that He will perfect our sight.

I really want to see Him. 

To give a little anecdote--God often gives me songs a few days or weeks before I absolutely need to sing them to survive.  Or he might have others compliment me or bless me right before I'm really attacked in that certain area. 

This could be considered cruel, and I could grit my teeth whenever I receive anything encouraging or any song.  Or it could be taken as a tender touch by Jesus, preparing me and blessing me before hard things.

All depends on how well you see. 

Eph. 1:17-19.

flower in the rain

I don't really have thoughts congealed enough to shape tonight. But read this--

"Again [the Shepherd] smiled, but only remarked quietly that the important thing about altars was that they made possibilities of apparent impossibilities, and that it was nice that on this occasion it had brought her peace and not a great struggle.

She noticed that he looked at her keenly and rather strangely as he spoke, and though there was a beautiful gentleness in the look, there was also something else which she had seen before, but still did not understand. She thought it held a mixture of two things, not exactly pity—no, that was the wrong word, but a look of wonderful compassion together with unflinching determination.

When she realized that, she thought of some words which one of the Shepherd’s servants had spoken down in the Valley of Humiliation before ever the Shepherd had called her to the High Places. He had said, “Love is beautiful, but it is also terrible—terrible in its determination to allow nothing blemished or unworthy to remain in the beloved.” "

Hind's Feet on High Places (Hannah Hurnard) p. 163

for all the things that don't resolve

that sink below the memories

for all the things we lost along the way

for all the things that used to shine

but cried themselves to rust

I pray I pray I pray

~~~~~~~~~~

oh I know that there are holes

and scars too deep to mention

but

you bring beauty again

and it's alright

if all is dead tonight cause

you raise the dead in the morning.

carve my heart into your art

no matter how I scream about it

make it so that I can hold the rain

hold my sorrow in your eyes

that wept when mary cried

just show me how to live another day

~~~~~~~~~~

I know that there are holes

and scars too deep to mention

but

you bring beauty again

and it's alright if all is dead tonight

cause you raise the dead in the morning.

darkness and sighing will flee away

death's swallowed up by life today

darkness and sighing will flee away

death's swallowed up by life today

~me. A few months too early, as usual. It's always weird when you write something and then God teaches you what it means--or puts it to good use--later.

it's a song (of course it is).

batter my heart

I can feel the deep, deep deep love of Jesus calling out my name, I'll never be the same

I've been marked by heaven forever and ever

I've been marked by heaven forever.

HOLY SONNETS--John Donne

XIV.

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;

Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Read this in high school. Loved it. And also loved the other piece by Donne (no man is an island...the bell tolls for thee... that one) --he totally had Connectedness for his top strength. :)

There's violence in love. When we sing, "He is jealous for me," just how far do we suppose that jealousy goes? God likes having us around--God came down for us--God wars for us--God died for us?

I get annoyed when people say things like, "God does not need anything or anybody. He is sufficient in Himself."

Yes, that logically theologically makes sense. He is GOD after all.

BUT the way that comes across is completely false--it's like a wife saying to her husband, "I don't need you. I'm fine by myself."

Yes, that's true. Even though it may not seem like it, humans can keep going even if something horribly awful happens, like the death of a spouse.

Yet we still say to each other, "I need you, I would die without you." That NEEDING is part of love, the binding.

Set me as a seal upon your heart, for love is as strong as death. (song of songs)

Infinitely more so, God doesn't need us to exist. But He loves us, He longs to gather us under his wing. God longs.

He needs us like a lover needs his beloved.

ruthless, audacious, unbelievable...

I'm reading Jeremiah and finished other prophetic books recently, and what struck me is the emotionality of God. He HATES what his beloved people are doing, it GRIEVES him, he sent this and that and YET THEY HAVE NOT TURNED!!

Again and again... he will STILL have compassion on them, they STILL turn away, but he will NOT abandon them, he will still relent and have COMPASSION, and love the harlot they've become, and there will be a BRANCH and a priest and a king....

May we never, ever, ever in all of our study of God, reduce this wild love to a remote God who doesn't let himself need anybody like a hermit. It's not like that.

Too often the technical (God is all-sufficient) has clouded an understanding of love. Our God is not a God far off.

What response is too radical to such love?

Moving into scary territory now. "Batter my heart, O three-Person'd God." "I tear my heart, I rip it open", "Arms wide open, heart exposed," "I want to KNOW Christ...and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings," "I've been crucified with Christ--it is not I who live, but Christ in me."

AAHH!! Last time I check, it HURTS to rip your heart open!!!!! to be crucified.

You'd have to be insanely in love.

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

typhoons

One of my favorite songs is "How He Loves" (John Mark MacMillian). It's incredible, simple, powerful and all about love--enough said. It begins: "He is jealous for me, loves like a hurricane, I am a tree bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy..."

Such vivid imagery. But I didn't really have a schema for it, having never experienced a hurricane. Until i realized---wait, wait--a hurricane is a typhoon.

They mean the same thing--a hurricane is a huge blustery storm in the west, and a typhoon is a huge blustery storm in the east. Of course they have to have totally different names; why would you simplify English?

Oh, and btw, why do people drive on different sides of the road? We've only had cars since the 20th century, after all. I actually saw a car with the steering wheel on the right side yesterday--it was so weird! Like Singapore. When we'd visit the US I would always embarrass myself and get into the wrong side... way before I had my driver's license.

ANYway-- there is a whole typhoon season in Taiwan.

The sky would get darkly moody, rain would turn to downpour and street signs would rip away and crash along the streets. Think "Wizard of Oz" cyclone without flying houses. One night as we were going to bed, a typhoon was brewing and my parents were worried about my bed being against a window.

I, being the level headed, non-emotional child I was, immediately pictured me huddling in a corner as a tree branch shattered the window and sucked out the bed into a black whirlwind. Which was very exciting; I was quite looking forward to it.

We ended up just moving my bed a foot away from the window so no dust or rubble would seep in. *sigh*

Once my Dad was late teaching at a church and had to walk back during a fierce typhoon--we prayed that a small tree wouldn't knock him out. He made it home safely, having huddled in an alley and made short dashes between secure shelters.

The weather was just dire enough to stir up excitement and cause somewhat sizable damage, much like many tiny earthquakes that happened regularly. Of course, there have been horrific typhoons with death tolls and fallen buildings... thankfully we didn't experience one like that.

We used to take post-typhoon walks to survey the damage, and especially around a university campus that was the only 'park' close by. We'd navigate around signs, broken glass, and huge fallen foliage.

Although Singapore was too sheltered geographically to endure typhoons, would have wonderfully violent thunderstorms almost daily. It was most dramatic on the beach, when the waves would kick up and palm trees doubled over like heartbroken lovers.

Now I have a picture. God's love like a typhoon wind, buckling trees under the weight of sheer glory.

It's real.

all this beauty

there's so much beauty still on this tattered earth.

isn't that incredible?

purify my heart so that I never have to look away....

I've sung that. to Jesus. But maybe I don't mean it in the same way as the seraphim and the elders... maybe I mean that as I LIVE and enjoy life, purify my heart so that I never look away... wherever I look.

Whether shopping or baking or traveling or crying or talking or whatever... I'm looking into Jesus' eyes.

....~....~....

I've met revivalists who have never gazed at the moon. And artists who don't know why the F they're creating.

....~....~....

LOVE THIS VERSE:

For the earth will be filled with the KNOWLEDGE of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

~Habakkuk 2:14

It's the knowledge of the glory of God that's GOING to cover the earth.

His Glory is already there.

The earth is the LORD'S and everything in it, the earth and all who live in it. And the Spirit was hovering over the waters.

Imagine knowing the glory of God... and then discovering that He had knit your culture and tribe and tongue together from the beginning. Imagine seeing Love tenderly brush out the snarls that the devil tried to twist in. For God is not a God who abandons.

for God so loved the world

... do we? i've almost been trained to hate it.

whoops. how did that slip in?

Let's stop fragmenting and start reclaiming holy ground.

Cinders and ashes

Egyptian Cinderella's golden slippers

What if all the things we longed for as children are true?

What if the truth is far better than we've ever hoped to dream?

The force holding the cosmos in balance, the Spirit that makes the morning stars sing-- GOD

is love.

There are certain stories that have woven their way into many cultures-- redemption songs.

One is the Cinderella story. I found many versions of this fairy tale when I wrote a paper on it freshman year for Lit. class, and each version had its own crazy details.

There's a Chinese, Egyptian, Mexican, American, Italian, German, Korean, Filipino, Irish, and Persian Cinderella. And those were just the ones I had time to read.

Every story began with an abused girl with something that set her apart (beauty, kindness, unnaturally small feet, or a star mark on her cheek), and ended with her marrying a prince.

Whether she and prince charming met at a ball or in church (Irish and American versions...hmmm beginning of single's groups? man oh man), Cinderella's abuser tried to thwart fate, such as giving the poor girl (or boy, in one version) impossible tasks to finish by ball time.

But Cinderella is magically helped by either animals, a personal fairy godmother, or her deceased mother. Nothing can stop them from being together, not even ugly stepsisters cutting off toes to fit into her pretty little slippers (the Brothers Grimm. lovely).

It's fascinating to see how that story has endured through generations and cultures. The most ancient version is apparently Chinese, being over a thousand years old. I wonder how it started.

Perhaps gospel message has echoed throughout history as rumors of grace, of the poor and abused making it, whispers of magical (insert 'divine') help in the most impossible circumstances.

I think where the story falls short is the explanation of how Cinderella is worthy of the prince's affections. In the stories she is very kindhearted or very beautiful or unique in some other way.

Maybe this plot line is a concession to what humans cannot accept: nothing makes us worthy.

We are dark yet lovely just because Jesus says so, but nothing we do or no beauty we possess ever attracts him to us. We are just his kids.

He loved us when we were covered with cinders and when all our good works are still no more than ashes. He won't let sin and death get in the way, and His Spirit is making us His even as we're still sweeping the fireplace.

He lifts us from the ash heap. (I Sam. 2:8, Ps. 113:7)

He will come and marry His bride. (Rev. 22:12-17)

Sometimes it's good to get out of our heads and think back to what we've most fiercely longed for, far too deeply to ever admit. And read and listen and (with much grace and God's good hope) discover that LOVE is on the throne.

and is taking a wife.