A Final, but thoroughly separate thought

My final thought concerning Turn My Morning Into Dancing, a personal application, that I was left with as I read the final chapter is one concerning death.

Last winter I nearly died, after suffering what should have been a fatal head injury. By the great mercy of God, and by a real and mighty miracle, my life was spared. My head was restored, without medical intervention, from a state that should have required brain surgery to live more than 24 hours more, and even with survival could have been chancy.

I remember so clearly a moment, the night after the accident. I was laying in bed, (stubbornly, and unwisely refusing to go to the hospital because of my lack of health insurance and money) contemplating a very real potential of death.

(Also, remember, this was a brain injury. My brain was swollen to the point of hemorrhaging down my brain stem. Rational thinking skills at this point were essentially gone.)

I knew, in that moment, that without the divine intervention of God, if I went to sleep that night there was a 99% chance that I would not live through the night. I laid there, staring at the ceiling, coming to terms with the reality of death, and the fact that I would likely not see the morning.

To my great shock, in the face of death, I was satisfied.

Nothing about it scared me, save the small thrill of the unknown.

In that moment, I was complete.

I looked toward heaven and very simply laid before the Lord that my life was his choice. I told him in that moment that if I was to live, I understood that it was completely in his hands. And in expression of my own soul, I came to a complete understanding of his faithfulness and goodness. I knew that, if he took me home that night, that I would have no wrong to lay against him. No accusation, nothing. He had dealt with me well. So, in delight, I would embrace whatever path he had for me.

It was a moment of reckoning. Which, naturally, the outcome was that he sustained me and miraculously healed me. But I remember it so clearly, for it was so different from the mentality with which I face everyday life.

There were so many things in that moment, promises, prophetic words, things that had not come to pass yet, and as I stared down the throat of eternity, none of it mattered. I saw it, I saw it's incompleteness, and I saw the even bigger expression of God's faithfulness.

What a different perspective than the so often accusation based dealings I have with God concerning his promises.

I will be thinking about this much in the coming days.

Oh, the death of my flesh.

'tis a funny thing to prolong its life

Oh, that I would live for glory only

To forget the world in all it's strife

Joy comes in the morning.

Morning Reading - A book review, of sorts

This morning I finished reading a compilation book of Henri Nouwen's work. He did not write the book, but rather it is numerous writings and sermons of his, based around a single topic, that were gathered together in after his death in 1996.

That book would be, naturally, none other than Turn My Mourning Into Dancing.

I've been flirting with the idea of reading it for years and years. I think it was seven years ago that I first found it while helping my Father move his office. I'll be honest-- I grabbed it because it had beautiful cover art and the word "dancing" in the title. Not very deep of me, I know.

So, for seven years, it's been sitting on me "to read" shelf, mostly untouched. Perhaps picked up every now and then to say, "Oh, I ought to give this back.... but it's so pretty!"

I began reading it this last fall in response to some of the deepest grief I have ever felt. I felt I was drowning, I didn't know where God was, I didn't know what he thought, I didn't know if I had ever heard him--- or maybe my whole life was a cacophony of crazed ideas born out of mental instability. I seriously questioned myself, and my understanding of, essentially, everything. It was a break or make it moment for me. Which, started with me resigning myself to breakage, and months later, finds me made much a different person than before, purely by the unending mercy of God.

During that time, as I searched for some sort of meaning or hope in the midst of so many voices, I picked up that little book. No one around me hand answers for me. Or rather, they each had their own answer that only served to further confuse me. There was advice galore, but my heart remained in anguish because it was not God. I needed a personal encounter from the loving divine, and I could not find him. Or perhaps, did not want to.

In many respects, I was discontent because I was begging for affirmation, the statement of rightness, a miraculous sign confirming my unfailing righteousness, simultaneously as I begged for condemnation, a casting out, rejection by God, and ultimately, damnation.

There was a war in my soul between my selfish needs and my self-hatred.

Confusion reigned incessantly in my mind, for I saw only these two paths, and whenever I began to venture down one or the other I immediately knew that neither were where God was. But, oh the horror of my narrow perception! To think there are only two paths, and know that I would not find him on either. How greatly I feared he'd abandoned me altogether.

That purple cover, was suddenly remembered, and as a last ditch effort (knowing that Henri Nouwen was an amazing man of God with a deep understanding of his heart) and a hope that it was set me straight, I began to read "Turn My Mourning Into Dancing."

It's taken me months. In part due to business, but mostly because I was allowing time foe living the things written in it's pages. I come out of it now, having finished this morning, grateful for one of the vehicles that took my from my broken state and helped remake me much different from before.

Superlatives come to mind in description, but rarely actually express enough meaning. So, in short, Turn My Mourning Into Dancing, is the best book I have ever read in dealing with the issues of grief, the mortal, the immortal, sorrow, loss, love, and death.

As we begin to develop the curriculum for the ministry schools, it will, no doubt, be part of my resources. Specifically, as I am working on (co-teaching) the class on inner healing.

I am often convinced that near no one truly knows how grieve, and that is the source of much (if not most) mental illness. In my work, I have an endless stream of ill people in and out seeking care and aide in one form or another--- the stories are different, the response so often the same = grief never truly grieved.

Noting here, that grieving and crying are very different things. One of the things that I learned about myself this past year was that for all my years of crying, and crying, and crying, and crying, I almost never grieved. My tears were merely an uncontrollable outworking of pain too great to contain. While all the while, I was very much keeping it contained. Even in seeking help or sympathy, it was not for healing that I cried, but for justification in the midst of my pain.

Grief, on the other hand is the vulnerable, transparent, unsafe, un-containment of pain so that it may be healed, let go, and transformed.

How rarely we do.

It was an interesting day

Oh, the title, so loaded with meaning in my own mind.

It was an interesting day.

Yes, by interesting, I do mean long, stressful, wonderful, scary, awkward and every other sort of meaning that would typically come from someone staring down their nose, rolling their eyes, and extolling that pithy sarcasm.

Now, all too soon, I will have to rise and begin work. Under seven hours to be exact. Which means that the words I wish to express are quickly cutting into precious minutes of sleep.

Have I ever mentioned I'm not the most productive person in the world when I don't get enough sleep?

Bunny trail. :)

An interesting day.

I was having a conversation with God on my drive into Minneapolis and I asked him that familiar, wonderful question, "Who do you want to be for me now, that you couldn't be before?"

His answer sustained me through the day.

He said, "I want to be the God who rejoices over you."

As he said it, I felt his smile, so near to me.

So through a delightful party, through the drive home, through worship practice (which was much too short), through leading worship with mistakes aplenty, through prayer, through dissenters, through my speaking, through my moderating, through a church service that altogether went the wrong way and had to be guided back, there he was.

Smiling.

Again, he would say, "I am the God who rejoices over you!"

Finally, as the day closes, and my to-do list remains unfinished, friends not contacted, appointments not made, I find myself writing an e-mail that I truly wish I did not have the occasion to write.

I find myself rehashing a report of early events of the week, (which at the time I was somehow brilliantly sheltered from, devastating though they be) and a weight appears in my heart. The weight of all I carry, responsibilities, duties, expectations, areas that I feel completely smashed between a rock and a hard place with no space to move any direction. I find myself lightly tossing around that unfortunately familiar desire to pack a bag and leave and never look back.

(Oh I rebuke you, Satan! What an evil thought!)

So suddenly I am weighed down, with what must be done, what has not been done, what cannot be done, and what I wish I could do. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I hear a voice. It's still smiling; it's whispering.

"I am the God who rejoices over you..."

ah, yes.

CENTER

There's the truth.

He's rejoicing over me.

He's smiling over me.

And he's waiting for me to go to bed.

Because he knows that when I crawl beneath those covers, I will begin to speak with him.

There, in his sweet, gentle presence, all those cares will wash away, and yes, I will be made new.

Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

a moment from the day

I love my girls so much.

I have to remind myself of this constantly. It's so easy to allow my selfish nature to rise up, to wish that they didn't need me what seems to be every waking moment. It's so easy to forget that I get this small absolute treasure of a moment to be "Mom".

I love it when they start acting all grown up. In the adorable way, anyway. It's far less pleasant in the rebellious-independent way.

I had one of those moments today. E was watching me get supper ready and listening to me talk on and on about the immeasurably great qualities of a potato (haha, I know). I started to go off on the fact that Sara & I intend to track down some organic seed potatoes so that we can have our very own potato crop.

Suddenly, E stands up, bolt straight, and announces, (as adults often do when they have something deeply important to accomplish), "That reminds me! I must check on Sara's gardening."

Set with a task, she marched off, dinner forgotten, quest in hand.

Suddenly, I heard her, talking to the seedlings, coaxing them up with her sweet child-like voice.

In that moment, I had nothing but joy.

She is precious to me beyond compare.

That little glimpse reminded me of her inestimable worth.

What a precious gift from God.

:)