To Die is Gain - Part 2

And so it was that I stayed angry and cried many disheartened, selfish, exasperated tears. He comes from behind, strong arms wrap around waist, tears blur stovetop being scrubbed. It seems petty now. To even write words brings shame. I look back once I have a grip on life, have slept a little and taken a step back to view the bigger picture....and it seems absolutely, totally, wholly, 100%, ashamedly self absorbed. But...at the time it was overwhelming, it hurt, and I'm a little bit tired of going uphill trying to swim in a hurricane. Angry words thrown out in the heat of the moment. "It says do not provoke your children to wrath. It says if a son asks for a piece of bread what parent gives him a stone...an egg, a snake. I don't even treat my own children like this. I do not push them to their edge where total resentment waits." Gentle husband reminds me that I do push...and push hard...because we know what rewards wait. They must know how to work, they must know self discipline, they must know follow through, they must know thoroughness. If they do not we have done them a huge disservice in life. How will they hold a job? How will they hold a marriage together if they do not know what it is to work for something, be persistent, work well at it? Everything takes work to maintain in life. And what you sow, definitely will be reaped.

 I continue to argue angrily and resentfully. "I do not tell them to do dishes and when they comply happily and with a good attitude give them yet the basement to do alone and when they have complied happily and cheerfully give them yet the entire yard on their own and when that is done happily do I keep going with laundry, van duty and on and on until finally I have found their flaw and pushed them over their edge so that I may then administer needed correction of attitude. I do not go until they break just to administer needed correction and find the flaw!" Disillusionment, abandonment, forsakenness cloud head and heart. I know the truth. I KNOW the truth. Or do I? I have seen Him work. We have seen the hand of a living God...so WHY do I hit my limit and just so easily give up when I hit this point? But I do....every. single. time. I angrily tossed out..."WHAT is the point of all this if He's going to push you to the edge of sanity where there is no good and faithful servant acknowledgment at the end. Cause if I had one coming it sure ain't comin' now! So why??!! Because I'm going to get to this point every time and I just ruin it. Or is it just that we have to repeat this vicious cycle until I finally get to the point where I tolerate it all with perfection...cause it'll never happen. And if that's the case we'll do this infinitely....for life. I feel so stuck. So, so, so stuck." More tears. As words escape lips immediately I am reminded of a moment merely 4 months ago. Baby's head proved to be so much larger than recent babies. 15 entire minutes of painful work as tears flowed and I uttered the exact same words..."I feel so stuck. It's not coming. I can't go forwards and I can't go backwards. Why can't this be over?" Tears flowed then just like they flowed now. And then....then came our 8th sweet boy, wide eyed and blinking at us.

Perspective didn't exactly change then but over the days it has slowly transitioned into pondering all of this thing called life and where we are....why we're here. I can't help but wonder what lies ahead. What are we working for? What are we laboring for? What magnificent wonder lies on the other side of it all? Is this transition? Are we spiritually birthing something far greater than what we realize...what we may never even know on earth? Or is it just the crappy end of the stick some people get in life? I don't believe that. I can say I question His very existence but I don't. I think the pain comes when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He exists....I've seen Him....heard Him....and He chooses to leave us here. But is not transition endured because of the baby that waits on the other side of it all? Is not a race run for the reward that waits at the end....the gratification of saying I've done it? While there is some physical benefits that accompany it the reward within is so much greater. There is no medal for first place or last place that takes precedence over the gratification of just having finished. There is a God. He lives. He loves. He does not abandon....despite my frustration, my disillusionment with Him, my anger, the absolute discomfort of walking this road.

Landlord...he is merely a man. Laughingly, pathetically...I write these words. How can one man so unnerve me? How can I allow one sad man to take all of my peace and steal my joy? What difference does it make if he saw the house dirty? He's not going to evict us. What difference does it make if he doesn't think my house is clean enough to make him happy. I'm not married to him and he's not living with me. What difference does it make if he thinks our children are unruly because we have stained, shockingly awful, muddy carpet? Why do I so feel the need to live up to everybody's standards...even still. Cause I'm not any pedestal person....and I just fell off of that one and hit with a thud....like I do every time somebody bothers to stick me up on one. It just does not matter. I do not live to make some mortal man happy. And words...they may tear down...but what do they hold coming from a person so unhappy and so lost in life? What do they hold from anyone if I lack the approval of a God that created something as large as heaven and earth and something so small as a ladybug? It took me telling this story twice to figure out just exactly how absurd it all is. What difference does it make if we know he's entering house but continue to be unable to prove it? Maybe one day he'll be so put out with it he'll bring his own vacuum over and do us a favor and clean up. Maybe he'll wipe down the table we didn't get around to or whatever other crap that drives him nuts. Until the day that we catch him...what difference does it really make if I failed cleanliness expectations he has set for his life? The man doesn't let his 12 year old or 2 year old daughters touch the walls with their hands because they might fingerprint it. So...yeah...don't see myself...or any of our eleventy kids....living up to that one anytime soon. Wives we know burying husbands, parents we know burying children yet I wallow in self pity and torrential tears because some dude walked into my house without permission and criticized what will absolutely make no difference in eternity.

So, still feeling the effects of his words a mere hour after it all occurred I defeatedly descended basement stairs. And upon the sight of it all more tears flowed. And I did what any mad person would do and I set to work a little determinedly. With angry motivation propelling self forward I tossed and chunked into designated organization corners. Tossing and chunking never fail to bring great gratification...especially when it involves throwing boxes the entire length of basement. Tears blinded work efforts as I realized how our life, 95% of the personal possessions we brought here, have been reduced to a pile of rubble. Our life now lies in deteriorating boxes, mold, mice crap, millipedes, mud and the damp dark confines of suffocatingly depressing basement. As I worked alone in silence it once again was so evident how nothing in this life matters. Nothing is permanent. What good did it do to keep the clothes? They have all been blown away by the mere puff of a God who cares more where my heart is than where our clothes are. What good did it do to keep all the books? With only one torrential downpour orchestrated by Him everything is drowned. What good does it do to try to hang on to anything? Isn't the whole purpose of life to  give myself away....what we have been given away? What good have I done if I have taken and not given? This could've been used for so many others but instead it sits rotting and wreaks of decay. As I worked tears of anger turned to tears of conviction. Wobbly stacks of boxes grew. Trash pile grew as bags upon bags and boxes were mounted in corner. One hour turned quickly into 5 as children came and went, babies played and I continued working steadily. By day's end  the basement task had been completed for the 2nd time in our 10 months here.

Sunday morning came. More hot tears flowed quietly as he spoke on refining fire. Conviction mixed with yet more anger brewed beneath surface. The goldsmith...it's not just a matter of turning up the heat like so many teach that it is. He must stir....continuously. Agitate. Impurities brought to surface. Heat is turned up again and stirring...agitation....continues. While heat is continually turned up agitation is continually performed. Until...in the end.....there is pure gold. Pure....free from impurities, unmixed with any other matter, having exactly the talents or skills needed for a particular  role. Pure...free from what weakens. And it will be said, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done." Hot, burning tears flowed.

As I sit and write having just recovered from mastitis a mere two weeks ago and now on yet more meds for a raging case of strep, oldest and tiny baby man run fever, two girls have pink eye, one has ear infection....my heart grows weary. We are in a place that we cannot move forward by any work of our own yet we cannot go back. We have exhausted our efforts of finding another rent home, we absolutely cannot buy at this point, any job enabling us to return home does not exist. We are here for a reason. We have been brought  to this place in life for a reason. We are absolutely incapable of doing anything on our own and whatever gets us unstuck from this place will be absolutely supernatural in nature....one that no man has the ability to argue. But let me not grow weary in doing good for at the appointed time we will harvest a good crop if I do not give up or quit. How true this is:


"It’s said that it took Winston Churchill three years to get through the eighth grade because, believe it or not, he had trouble with English. It’s somewhat ironic, then, that some years later Oxford asked him to speak at its commencement exercises. He arrived with his usual props – a cigar, a cane and a top hat. As he approached the podium, the crowd rose in appreciation and applause. He motioned for them to be seated and when they had quieted down, he removed the cigar from his mouth and carefully placed his top hat on the podium. And then he began. With quiet authority, he said, “Never give up!” Several seconds passed and then he said once again, “Never give up!” A profound silence fell upon the crowd as he reached for his hat, put his cigar back in his mouth and descended the speaker’s stand, cane in hand. And as he did, the crowd erupted into thunderous applause."


There IS a greater reward. I grieve for those who are under the assumption there is not. The disciples...they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death. Life is radical when death is the reward. Total death of self so that I may rise and be more than ever possible because of Him. May I die so that His glory be obvious to those around. If any of me remains in the picture than I have failed at radiating His glory...the very purpose and nature of my existence and time on this earth.

"Too long have we been waiting for one another to begin! The time for waiting is past! Should such men as we fear? Before the whole world, before the sleepy, luke warm, faithless, namby-pamby Christian world, we will dare to trust our God....and we will do it with His joy unspeakable singing aloud in our hearts. We will a thousand times sooner die trusting only in our God than live trusting in man. And when we come to this position the battle is already won, and the end of the glorious campaign in sight. We will have the real Holiness of God, not the sickly stuff of talk and dainty words and pretty thoughts; we will have a Masculine Holiness, one of daring faith and works for Jesus Christ." C.T. Studd



"Life is only radical when death is viewed as the reward. When we consider the promises of Christ, risking everything we are and everything we have for His sake is no longer a matter of sacrifice. It's just common sense. Jim Elliot once said, "He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." Radical obedience to Christ is not easy; it is dangerous. It is not smooth sailing aboard a luxury liner; it is sacrificial duty aboard a troop carrier. It's not comfort, not health, not wealth and not prosperity in this world. Radical obedience to Christ risks losing all these things. But in the end, such risks finds its reward in Christ. And He is more than enough for us." Radical p.181

So it is that I continually learn what it is to die to self so that I may gain Him and all of Him. To live is Christ and to die is gain. May my life reflect His glory through my own weaknesses. May He use the ugly and make it beautiful so His glory can be seen and be undeniable. I may reach my limit but I will choose to keep going because the reward at the end is so much greater than the temporary comfort of giving up and quitting now.




Who am I to complain of discomfort when He gave His very own life so that I may live in Him? May I die daily to self, and when the moment comes that I fade away from this world and breath is taken from me, let it be said that I have lived and known Christ and in my death there was nothing but total reward...gain.....the approval of a heavenly Father, my very Creator, that will fix translucent, steel blue, passionate eyes on me and smile....radiant, gentle smile....and speak softly, "Well done, good and faithful servant. Well done."