The Wiper of Our Tears

Christmas has a way of quickening any preexistent grief, and there certainly seems to be more than the usual amount of that (grief, that is) in our nation this year. If the holidays find you feeling sad, whether from one of the headline-news tragedies or some private sorrow known only to God and to yourself or even some short-lived disappointment, perhaps it will encourage you a mite to know that feeling sad when the rest of the world demands celebration makes you no less acceptable to God.

He does not add guilt to your burden, nor does He stand at a distance with His arms crossed and foot tapping in impatience, waiting for you to get over it and move on.

At ladies' Bible study this fall, I was the de facto keeper of the tissues. The curriculum touched a fair amount of tender spots among the group, and since I almost always have tissue with me, I would take out my travel pack and pass it down the table. When Allen catches me crying, he usually brings the tissue to me with a hug or hands on my shoulders.

One time, though, he cupped my face in one hand and wiped the tear trail away gently, so gently, with the side of his thumb. I have forgotten what made the tears well up that night, but I have not forgotten how that tender touch healed something more than just a tear on my cheek.

That's the kind of tenderness I think of when I read these Scripture passages:

And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.
He will swallow up death forever;
and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces,
and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth,
for the Lord has spoken.
It will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us.
This is the Lord; we have waited for him;
let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”
~Isaiah 25:7-9, ESV


For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
~Revelation 7:17, ESV


He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
~Revelation 21:4, ESV

That God puts my tears in His bottle is a lovely, caring image, but it's so much more personal to me that He will wipe away our tears someday. Every tear, from all faces. If I were with you, crumble, I would certainly pass you a tissue; God is with you now, however, and He will do much better. May you be especially conscious of His nearness, whether you have a broken heart or not, heart today.

What else I'm holding in heart, hands, and home today:

~longing for the one we await, for that day when we say, "Behold, this is our God."

~reading that points toward that day, as I press on with the year's Bible schedule of readings with the last books of Old and New Testaments

~changing plans for Christmas Eve with family

~some new loose teas

~a new NSAID medication from my doctor, to test whether my blood pressure changes reflect a new sensitivity to the previous one

~lovely surprises for body, soul, and spirit in a Christmas package from a friend

~a glass cabinet door full of friends' faces and Christmas greetings

~a new fudge recipe that worked better than I imagined

~empty medicine bottles for a bit of tummy trouble Ebony had (inevitable when one persists in eating that which is not food)

~warm new socks in a sudden reversal of our unseasonably warm weather

~waiting with a friend for her post-cancer test results

~encouragement in my heart from my doctor

~appreciation for our faithful UPS delivery man

~an eyeglass prescription yet to be filled by December 31

~prayers for safe travel for all in the air and on the roads this weekend and next week

~and prayers for comfort for the lonely, sorrowful, and weary to know Emmanuel's love as they observe His nativity

linking today with Amy's "What I'm Holding" series

The Courage of Joseph

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Matt. 1:24-25, ESV

Joseph, husband of Mary, receives little ink in the Gospels compared to his bride, adopted Son, or even Elizabeth and Zechariah. The understated narrative provides just enough detail for us to meet a man of courageous faith and obedience.

When Mary's pregnancy becomes known, he resolves to break the betrothal quietly, balancing the right action with the kind one. When God gives him different orders in a dream, he obeys and shares Mary's shame. At best, his marriage acknowledges his haste and passion; at worst, he accepts the reputation of cuckold. Even so, he lays down his right to a righteous reputation in order to do righteousness.

He lays down also his right to name his firstborn after himself, instead naming Him according to God's command in his dream. When he receives another divine dream, he packs the family up and leaves his homeland to preserve the Child's life.

What impresses me most about this unassuming man, however, is that he continues to say yes to obedience every day as he raises Jesus as his Son, even though he knows He isn't. Mary says one amazing yes, and the Holy Spirit overshadows her. So far as we know, her pregnancy from there is a normal pregnancy with normal hormones preparing her to love the Child of her womb. Joseph has no such biological support to his "long obedience in the same direction", to borrow Eugene Peterson's phrase.

He is, in other words, a good role model for most of the obedience required of us, as we seek to obey God in the humble duties of life.

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We at Wits' End do truly grieve with those in Connecticut in the aftermath of the unfathomable evil done to children and their teachers last week. Even so, God remains worthy of our thanks and praise for His good gifts:

Beautiful examples of faith and courage like Jehoshaphat and Joseph
All the children who were kept safe in their schools and homes last week
Normal b.p. almost every day   
Sister's car quest successful and worth the wait
Pleasant conversation with couple across from us at office Christmas party
All Christmas gifts purchased
UPS bringing them to our door
Pescado a la parilla at neighborhood Mexican place
Taking the Lord's supper
Seeing The Hobbit: an unexpected journey (2 thumbs up)
Last currently scheduled medical appointment of year Monday for me
Ebony back to 100% after GI infection
Good test results for friend
Surviving without caffeine
The light of Christ bright enough for grave darkness like that in Newtown Friday
Grace big enough to redeem that terrible grief
A weeping Savior
(Gratitude journal, #8376-8392)

Sharing with MondayMultitudes and Playdates with God

Advent Longing {What I'm Holding}

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons,the redemption of our body (Romans 8:18-23, NASB).

On a friend's blog this week, I commented that  in Advent the yearning for happy endings comes so strong that it feels like grief. Perhaps my ongoing infirmities are affecting my emotions, but I feel that especially this year, and it's leaving me a tough melancholy, wistful. Is anyone else sensing that in their Christmas preparations?

Charles Wesley captures this in his Advent hymn, "Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus":

Come, Thou long-expected Jesus,

Born to set Thy people free;

From our fears and sins release us;

Let us find our rest in Thee.

Israel's Strength and Consolation,

Hope of all the earth Thou art;

Dear Desire of every nation,

Joy of every longing heart.

Born Thy people to deliver,

Born a child and yet a King.

Born to reign in us for ever,

Now Thy gracious Kingdom bring.

By Thine own eternal Spirit

Rule in all our hearts alone;

By Thine all-sufficient merit,

Raise us to Thy glorious throne.

This Friday has me holding longings, both sublime and ridiculous:

longing for freedom;

longing for release from fears and sins;

longing for rest, Strength, Consolation,

longing for Hope;

longing for the Desire of every nation, the Prince of Peace;

longing for Joy;

longing for His Kingdom;

but also longing for a decent hair day (thicker hair period, while we're on the subject);

longing to look nice for my husband's work Christmas party tonight;

longing for time and a comfortable position to read the books sitting neglected;

longing for sweet coffee with cream and something chocolate on the saucer;

longing for brilliant ideas for the 3 gifts left to procure;

longing for my ankle to heal;

longing for the ache in my ribs to let up;

longing for subtraction rather than addition of medical concerns;

longing to see and hug my Nonni, sister, and little nephews;

longing for shalom, peace, wholeness, in body, soul, spirit, and relationships;

and through it all, longing for Jesus, the answer to all our longings.

sharing with my friend Amy in her "What I'm Holding" Friday series

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Living Room...

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Be Born in Me

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You will hold me in the end

Every moment in the middle, make my heart your Bethlehem

Be born in me

*************

I am not brave

I'll never be

The only thing my heart can offer is a vacancy

I'm just a girl

Nothing more

But I am willing, I am Yours

from"Be Born in Me (Mary)" as sung by Francesca Battistelli

When the singer reached the refrain, "Be born in me," in church Sunday, memory's portal carried me back nearly two and a half years. On July 14, 2010, my doctor diagnosed my chest pain, extreme fatigue, and weakness as a lupus flare with possible inflammation of the membrane around the heart. He treated me with a steroid adjustment and bed rest for at least a month. My youngest nephew's first birthday was days away on the other side of the Metroplex, when we asked him about an exception so I could attend, he said, "Decisions have consequences."

The next day, I began my gratitude list over again at one and wrote this in my journal:

My best point of reference for this enforced inactivity is my friends' pregnancy bed rest, but even that is "rest so..." [as opposed to rest, period]. I don't have another life depending on my obedience or to look forward to as fruit. Perhaps You, Lord Christ, will be born in me more fully through this?

That became my prayer over the ensuing weeks. Over and over I asked, pleaded with God that Christ would be born in me more fully through this affliction.

To clarify my intent in those words, His actual historical, literal, human birth happened only once, to a real maiden who had never been intimate with a man but conceived Him by the Holy Spirit so that He was in truth "the only begotten God" (John 1:18) and also in truth Son of Man. Mary was a unique woman in the ancient Near East, and she came of age when Caesar Augustus ruled the Roman Empire.  My journaled notes and prayer did not mean to minimize or supplant in any way that historical reality.

At the same time, every Christian who has been born of God by faith in His Son is a son of God, the Scriptures teach (e.g., John 1:12-13; Romans 8:14-17; Gal. 3:26; 4:6; 1 John 3:1), and at the same time, in a poetic sense, every Christian bears the Son of God afresh in his or her flesh as the likeness of Christ in character and deed is borne out in her or him. Paul told the Romans in Romans 8:28-29 that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love Him, and that the good to which all things work is conformity to the image of Christ. This conformity to Christ is what I meant, in plain terms, but sometimes I understand metaphor better than plain terms.

The Spirit of Christ indwells the believer, so Christ is in us already, but His likeness may and ought also to be borne out in us as we become transformed into that likeness, from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18).

"Be born in me," I prayed again Sunday with the singer portraying Mary. Be born in me, Lord Jesus.

The song also carried me back to January of 2012, when the verse impressed on my heart was Psalm 81:10, "I am Yahweh your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it." All the year long, I have been ruminating on what it means to open to God and what it takes to make room for His filling, so that more and more and more I might "be being filled with the Spirit" (Eph. 5:18).

The one thing I have learned this year is that suffering, that "having what you don't want or wanting what you don't have," in Elisabeth Elliot's words, is one of God's most-used instruments in opening me up and emptying me. Suffering cleans out my old self, that "flesh" which can do very well on its own without God's help, thank you very much; evicts the idols I've built and the lies I've believed; and carves out more room for the grace and power of His Spirit to be realized in my daily experience.

The song prays,

I am not brave
I'll never be
The only thing my heart can offer is a vacancy
I'm just a girl
Nothing more
But I am willing, I am Yours.

A vacancy and willingness. That really is the only thing I can offer, and even that is a gift of grace.

Jesus was born from Mary out of suffering, too: not just the physical suffering of pregnancy  labor, and delivery in a time before epidurals and sophisticated modern obstetrics but also the emotional and social suffering of the shame and ostracism of pregnancy before marriage. Why should I expect the bearing of His likeness to be comfortable or pain-free? I shouldn't, of course, but sometimes I do.

Even so, God did not leave her in isolation. He included Elizabeth in the secret and spoke to Mary's betrothed under cover of darkness, in the hidden place of his dreams. At least those two friends supported her in the bearing of the Christ Child.

Nor does He leave me alone. Less than a month after that journal entry, He led me to start this blog and used it to give me also a support community larger than my immediate family. If Christ is being "born" and borne in me more fully through this, that reflects in no small measure His help through you kind souls.

Someday, dear crumbles, when we "know fully as we are fully known," we will see clearly what our trials have wrought and, I hope, give thanks together to the glory of God.

Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure (1 John 3:2-3).

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Until that "day when our faith shall be sight," I continue to practice gratitude to our God now for His many gifts:

the faith example of His earthly mother and father::untarnished hope::the gift of thorns::grace for an unproductive, unwell week last week::increased blood pressure medicine bringing readings back to normal after several days::two more weeks in the walking boot::with breaks in a transition brace and athletic shoe::three bits of very good news from Mezzo::incipient plans for Christmas Eve with youngest sister and her family::all the candy made but two batches::my excellent toffee apprentice (You learn well, grasshopper.)::seeing friends at church Sunday::an amazingly perfect surprise gift from Amore::unexpected encouragement::waking Monday to a dusting of snow on lawn and grill cover::cold nights and better sleep::lovely visit from some of my in-laws::good Mexican food on a cool day with good company::bright red of a cardinal in bare tree branches::note from a friend::the Best Gift, not under a tree, but risen, ascended, and returning in glory. Come soon, Lord Jesus!

(still counting gifts, #8329-8349; why stop at one thousand?)

linking, very late, to Monday Multitudes and Playdates with God