Approved

“Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain.”

I don't understand His love for me. I never will. Amazing grace seems insufficient to even begin to explain....yet I continue to learn so intimately what John Newton felt when he penned and composed. I rant, I vent, I grow hugely insanely angry, and fight it all violently at times. I should not be loved like I am. I shouldn't know the love of a husband like I do. This human, fallible love he gives....embracing all faults, loving so unconditionally, encompasses, comforts, wraps like a blanket, understands, laughs with me, makes me laugh...it is only a glimpse of just how much I am loved.....and forgiven....by a God that really does not forsake or abandon...that forgives the absolute disrespect I can exhibit in such anger.  Did He pay the Verizon bill? No. Has the house sold? No. Has anything changed? Not really.... except for maybe being about 20 degrees cooler. But, bottom line, I either believe Him or I don't. And I KNOW how faithful He is. I have seen Him work within our lives over and again. When I back up and attempt to see the forest, instead of being so insanely lost in the trees, the more I grasp just how big He really is....and how little I really am.

We finally, after months and months, attain permission from cheapy landlord, to call in a/c man of our choice. Only stipulation....we foot the bill.  No more landlord pervert friends armed with walking canes descending flooded basement steps to peek at unit and say all is well.  After more than a week of no a/c at all, and my complete inability to cope gracefully with it, I am once again painfully and humbly reminded how much I think I am "owed" in life.  We pray for missionaries in Mexico, Guatemala, Africa.  We serve people in local community at food pantry that live daily without this amenity. Yet...I grow outraged and write seemingly sacrilegious and taboo posts, hopelessly long in nature, questioning His sovereignty and how He has forsaken us?  I state the issue is far more complicated and has to do with His silence, the obvious abandonment of us, the fact that I pray and there is nothing.  But, reality is, I overcomplicate every aspect in a failing attempt to excuse my attitude.  Does He even need to speak right now?  And who am I to demand an answer from Him, God Almighty, who has forgiven and loved...even still?  I ask where.  I ask why.  Where was He when she was raped and beaten?  Still a question I ponder and contemplate.  A fragile trust that bears raw wounds to this day.  Over and again I am reminded that He was right where He is now....right beside me as I failed.....right there to pick up the pieces when all of world came crashing down.  Why didn't He protect her?  Why didn't He step in and save?  He could've had mercy.  He could've protected...guardian angels everywhere.  If He truly exists and we trust Him to protect...then why didn't He?

“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering. The love of God is of a different nature altogether. It does not hate tragedy. It never denies reality. It stands in the very teeth of suffering. The love of God did not protect His own Son. This was the proof of His love – that He gave that Son, that He let Him go to Calvary’s cross, though “legions of angels” might have rescued Him. He will not necessarily protect us- not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.”

Questions....thousands fill head.  But, His ways are higher.  And while actions were intended for evil He comes transforming into His glory and for our good. I still don't have answers to so many of the questions...thoughts that leave one so vulnerable to rooted emotions of feeling entirely forsaken and abandoned.  I don't know.  I honestly don't know....but one thing of which I am completely and totally confident....I.  Am.  Loved.  And His mercy runs rampant throughout my life....threads...thousands upon thousands of them....woven like tapestry throughout my entire life.  I don't know the rest of the answers.  I may never know.  It is not up to me to understand Him.  So, I will be content with the fact that I simply do not know.  But then, at times, is not "I don't know" the very humblest of beginnings for understanding?  "We are not asked to SEE. Why need we when we KNOW? We know...not the answer to the inevitable 'why', but the incontestable fact that it is for the best. It is an irreparable loss, but is it faith at all if it is 'hard to trust' when things are entirely bewildering?"

"God is God. I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice. It is the same spirit that taunted 'If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.' There is unbelief, there is even rebellion, in the attitude that says, 'God has no right to do this...."

"God is God. I dethrone Him in my heart if I demand that He act in ways that satisfy my idea of justice." This alone breaks down the absolute foundation of my argument. Conviction comes gripping the defiant, self entitled, noncompliant heart. Death to self.....it's a painful, gruesome, bloody mess to witness.  There is no clean, pretty body in coffin but the messy act of death that takes place. Yet somehow, because of Him, it is transformed in to the ugly, messy beautiful as His grace and mercy come saving. “I realized that the deepest spiritual lessons are not learned by His letting us have our way in the end, but by His making us wait, bearing with us in love and patience until we are able to honestly pray what He taught His disciples to pray: Thy will be done.”

Thy will be done.

 So I scream and take His name in vain and demand with self entitled heart? Early morning hours lying sleepless, picture takes shape within head. I realize with eyes wide open what it would be to do the same fit throwing standing within His presence, in front of throne, looking into selfless eyes that gave all. Would I do then what I do now...if only I could see? No. Much like a woman willing to abort because she has never held baby in arms, because tiny life is not real and tangible to her. I don't know of any woman having just given birth, no matter the circumstances behind conception, that could take the life of tiny, wide-eyed innocence. Yet they abort because it is not made real. Tiny blob of tissue far away from reality, beating heart silenced because they could not see or understand the reality of what grew beneath their own flesh. Give that same woman a chubby cheeked, helpless baby and not one would kill.  Because they held and looked into the blue eyes of reality. There is no doubt woman has no malicious, seeded contempt to kill. And I ponder long into darkness if this is the way He loves and continues to forgive....grace made new every moment of every day. Forgiveness cloaking human nature and the complete inability to see and believe, that which is yet unseen, but still, very much, reality? If I could only see….

Would I pitch this same kind of temper tantrum and scream into the face that I could see? Blue eyes piercing soul as I scream in anger over trivial, as He gazes straight at me from cross in the midst of childish rant and whispers, "I still love you." Much like when my own children cry over boundaries and think it a total injustice when we, as parents, run fingers through their hair and soothe, "I still love you. I know you're disappointed but I still love you. We are protecting you. There is so much better ahead." Grace, forgiveness, mercy poured like rain knowing immature thoughts cannot conceive of the love that is being shown them. If I could only see with spirit eyes.....there would be no railing, no screaming.....just the inability to stand within His presence, prostrate before Him at the sheer knowledge of just who He is and the magnitude of His sovereignty.

I know Him. I have tasted Him, touched Him, felt Him embrace all of being, scooping up when mortal body lays crumpled on floor screaming at the injustice of allowing 6 year old girl to suffer and reap the consequences of my absolute failure as a parent. His story never ends with ashes. I know that intimately. I see His grace hand covering the life of a little girl that suffered at my hands. So I experience this and then so boldly demand He work in ways that I understand???? Raised in such legalism, self righteous life, reputation to uphold as all silently suffer....yet I have been saved and I know grace intimately. Sweet grace that does not require acts of service or adherence to rules to be accepted by God. Only love. I am not entrapped and enslaved as some that have grown in that world. For whatever reason....He saved me and I know freedom far beyond what most people will ever know. He has given understanding to flee past and transforms into glory. Have I forgotten what He has done on our behalf...my behalf? Have I forgotten all that He has done? Hot tears fall in dark, sticky night. And I ponder all the ways of a God I cannot even begin to truly fathom. I think of day I will see Him face to face...and I marvel at my inability to cope with trivial inconveniences of present after all I have been given the opportunity to see in life...wisdom only He can give through painful encounters with the cross.

Air conditioning, business owning, Sunday school teacher arrives after more than a week of humid, indoor heat. He assesses and after months of questionable a/c performance, house too hot for comfort all summer long, and an hour and a half of work all problems have been fixed. Church going people who read this blog, who could so easily judge where questioning heart lies, who could condemn so easily, yet there is mercy. Kind eyes, painfully introverted man talks to husband.  Little boys gather around and "help" as he works. He smiles and includes them, they chatter, he works. After all is taken apart and put back together he drives away....and there is no charge for services. No charge for labor, parts, gas expense. Just unconditional love from a man that could've judged, could've condemned. But he didn't. And I see Jesus.....that just drove away in an F350.

Air condition cools for the first time in months. Happy children laugh and load van. I follow behind husband in truck and ponder this thing called life, God, Jesus, self, sacrifice, and everything in between. Tears...they fall like steady rain. So humbled by a God that shows mercy and forgiveness to the outrageously angry, demanding heart. I didn't deserve the mercy I was shown by air conditioning, teacher man. I deserved to pay 350.00 for services provided. I didn't deserve any kindness at all. Relentless head continues ponderings of the soul....had I continued on with my attempts at good attitude perhaps I would've "earned" His kindness?  Does it take God bringing me to the absolute end of rope...so many times over and again along this journey.....to see that when I am weakest then He comes saving.....working? When there is no hope of any goodness within left....His mercy saves?

Tears fall all the way across town as I feel His presence. And I know I am not crazy. I am not out there so far past His reach. He has not forgotten us. Not much has changed at all but I know what it is to touch Him, to feel Him and for His presence to come embracing in the midst of all the pain, all the messed up, screwed up perceptions of Him.  Even as I wonder why...even still.

“When obedience to God contradicts what I think will give me pleasure, let me ask myself if I love Him.”

“God never withholds from His child that which His love and wisdom call good. God's refusals are always merciful -- "severe mercies" at times but mercies all the same. God never denies us our hearts desire except to give us something better.”

“Waiting on God requires the willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one's thoughts.”

“God is God. Because he is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to.”

Shaking like a leaf,

afraid to lift my eyes

Afraid of all your glory,

Ashamed of all my pride

........then You call me in to Your Holy place…..

 And I fall down...down on my face

And I beg for Your mercy

And I beg You to forgive everything that I've ever done

And I tremble. I tremble within Your presence.

I am just a man,

showered in Your grace

I beg You for mercy.

We are standing on Holy ground.

And I know that there are angels all around.

We are standing in Your presence on Holy ground.

If I could only see.

I can only imagine.

What will it be like when I walk by Your side?

What will I see when Your face is before me?

Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel?

Will I dance for you or in awe just be still?

Will I stand in Your presence or to my knees will I fall?

Will I be able to speak at all?

Surrounded by Your glory what will my heart feel?

Oh God, that you would give me eyes now to see with my limited vision. How vast are You, How great Your ways. Even when heart cries in question, when tongue lashes out, when head screams in opposition, body screams in discomfort. You're here. I'm Yours and I'm lost in You. When I feel like I'll never be healed. Oh, when I ache and feel like I'll never be saved. When I've given up.....You come. When I feel like I'll never atone for all the love I've been shown, when there's nothing left. You still come. Where You go I will follow on my knees. I'll risk the ocean cause there's only grace. That sea without a shore is nothing but your grace in my suffering. And I'm just lost in You.

It's the moment when humanity is overcome by majesty

when grace is ushered in for good and all my scars are understood

when mercy takes its rightful place and all these questions fade away

when out of weakness I must bow and hear you say "It's over now"

Oh that you would come and break my fear

Awake and take my tears, Find your glory even here

When the hurt and the healer collide.

Here I am...all that's left of me. May I be stripped of all my humanness so only that which is You remains.

All quotes by Elisabeth Elliot. Lyrics by Mercyme, David Crowder.