This is going to be frustrating
but I share this to help you cope.
Throughout life, it may need restating,
but I don’t want you to lose your hope.
People are going to misunderstand you,
And no matter how hard you try to explain,
With some, you won’t get through.
You’ll leave dejected at the end of the day,
But don’t let this fact defeat you.
Don’t let it keep you from trying again.
You can cry to a friend,
but don’t quit when you don’t win
the affections of
the approval of…
Don’t let the argument become
that restless downward spin.
Remember why you took that job,
Why you love your mom,
That one friend you almost gave up on.
People will surprise you
And sometimes it will be pleasant.
The darkness will subside
And all be luminescent.
In the meantime, rewind
And don’t hit replay in your mind
Forgive yourself, forgive the crimes,
The slights and words unkind.
Let them wash in the flood
The flowing crimson love
Of One who alone did everything right
And lay your disappointments to rest at night.
Good Enough
Maybe it’s good enough
that God is good enough,
and I am not.
Maybe it’s enough
that He loved me enough
to show me tough love
when I fought.
Maybe my pride can find a hole and die
And my soul can accept a love
that’s not about how hard I try.
*It is. He is.
Indelible Security
With glorious light in my face
I look over to
Love that delights in
All that I am without hiding.
He walks with me in plain sight,
Illuminating my frame.
This joy. It’s so much a part of my soul.
My body, spirit and soul.
Valuable beyond my control.
Worth set in stone.
Loved before I was known.
Joy is my story.
The certainty
of indelible security.
Unforgettable
Irremovable
True.
My Savior’s love defines me.
His righteousness assigned to me.
Now there is freedom to rest and do
With nothing left to prove
Or earn,
Only His love to return.
How I Look At You
You love when I’m hurting
How I look at You
When my soul is yearning
How I look at You
And I am delighted by Your Presence
Fulfilled in Your Presence
Even when the pain is still present
I will look at You
And when I do
Your smile down on me
Your heart bursts to hear me sing
The fullness of my every feeling
And You delight in and You love me
And I delight in and I love You
My King
I am amazed by You
My gaze is for You
And You dance around me
A whirlwind around me
Together in the Throne Room
My Bride Groom, My King
Hope
Sure of what you hope for
Certain of what you do not see.
I’ve tried to muster up faith for
years without hoping.
Without risking
disappointment.
Reaching, whisp’ring
Healing ointment.
And hope for what?
What could hold the weight?
Longings glut
and eternally satiate?
In Christ alone
my pain abates.
My desire, my shalom,
Joy anticipates.
Live New
Stop hating yourself before
You accept what you hated you for.
You’re tired of fighting, I’m sure,
but step away from the anchor
you want to drop in these
poisonous, restless seas.
It’s the waves you must fight,
while you rest in the Light.
Speak peace to the wind
And sail on from your sin.
Because it’s not who you are,
though it rises from within.
You’ve been given a new heart.
Stop hating your own skin,
as you war against your sin.
You are new. Live new.
Free from condemnation,
Free to deny what is no longer you.
Accept this liberation
and live new.
Tell Me Why
Tell me why I should pry
these hands apart and try
to make and maintain
a hidden peaceful terrain
that no one else sees,
if it only blesses me.
My child, let Me explain.
Your home is my home.
The places you roam
are under my reign.
I plant flowers undiscovered
in fields under covers of snow.
Where only I know, they grow.
I make stars and galaxies
far from the sight of technology.
And I swing planets on a string
beyond your wildest dreams.
I form wonders on the floor
of oceans yet unexplored.
I set the path for birds to fly
where no heart can know to sigh
or lament its fall from the sky.
My thoughts and my creative care
reaches there.
What do you believe about Me?
I do not neglect the lonely.
It blesses me to bless you with peace,
And someday you will share
what has been hidden with care.
Iconoclastic: reflections on A Grief Observed
I had to look that word up. C.S. Lewis does that to me – makes me look up words. And it’s a good one. Iconoclastic. It means “attacking or ignoring cherished beliefs and long-held traditions, etc.,as being based on error, superstition, or lack of creativity…”
In A Grief Observed, Lewis dives into the necessity of shattering our false ideas about God.
“My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?”
And, of course, the main subject of the book is Lewis’ grieving the death of his wife. Therefore the following relates to the image and ‘cherished beliefs’ we have of people being shattered, particularly of loved ones. He wrestles with the fear of loving the memory of her rather than her herself. He loved her iconoclastic reality.
“All reality is iconoclastic. The earthly beloved, even in this life, incessantly triumphs over your mere idea of her. And you want her to; you want her with all her resistances, all her faults, all her unexpectedness.”
Can I swoon for a second? I want a love like that. Love that cherishes the reality of who you are and not the mere idea of you. To have the freedom to contradict the idea of yourself, and still be loved, and loved even more for being real. ❤ How many of us have lost love for not being “what I thought you were” ? Surely then, we were in love with an idea rather than a person.
If indeed we love people and God rather than our ideas of them, it is a relief when our ideas are shattered. What a relief to be shown where we are wrong! Oh, God, I didn’t know! And now “I have come to misunderstand a little less completely,” (Lewis) What a blessing it is to get that much closer to You by destroying my false ideas about You!
“And all this time I may, once more, be building with cards. And if I am He will once more knock the building flat. He will knock it down as often as proves necessary.”
And at the possibility of being even better understood by his wife after her death, he did not shrink back – confident in her love.
“For this is one of the miracles of love; it gives – to both, but perhaps especially to the woman – a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted.”
And this intimate knowledge and love is what our Savior Jesus Christ possesses for us.
“His love and His knowledge are not distinct from one another, nor from Him.”
Fyodor
I want to say to you, about myself, that I am a child of this age, a child of unfaith and scepticism, and probably (indeed I know it) shall remain so to the end of my life. How dreadfully has it tormented me (and torments me even now) this longing for faith, which is all the stronger for the proofs I have against it. And yet God gives me sometimes moments of perfect peace; in such moments I love and believe that I am loved; in such moments I have formulated my creed, wherein all is clear and holy to me. This creed is extremely simple; here it is: I believe that there is nothing lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic, more rational, more manly, and more perfect than the Saviour; I say to myself with jealous love that not only is there no one else like Him, but that there could be no one.
Letter To Mme. N. D. Fonvisin (1854), as published in Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his Family and Friends (1914), translated by Ethel Golburn Mayne, Letter XXI, p. 71
Life is War
I lose my sense of urgency rather quickly. I need this reminder, that life is war. Nothing is guaranteed. And this reminder comes courtesy of Marshall Segal’s article The War We Need.
Hold Up My Hands 