I've seen the shadowlands. I've touched them, tasted them, known them, been a part of them... and all I want, all I want, is to hold the hearts that are breaking from the shadows. To love them with all the ferocity of my heart where no one else loves them at all; to bind up the broken pieces, to draw them into my arms and to keep them there. To keep them safe.
But I can't. I can't keep them safe, because I can't save them. And when the One who does save them draws them away from the reach of my arms, back into the brokenness that tears at their heart, it seems so wrong. It hurts to let them go. It hurts to let them hurt. And it doesn't stop hurting, because the love doesn't stop.
But it hurts my heart more than anything to realize that the reason I cannot willingly surrender them away, trusting them into the hands of Jesus as He takes them beyond the reach of my own, is that I don't love them enough. I don't love them enough to let them suffer through the pain that leads to their greater healing. I don't love them enough to let them be sharpened by the hurtful things, and smoothed by all the rough sandpaper edges around them. It's my own selfishness, my own weakness, that wants to hold them close and not let them experience the beautiful redemption of the shadows around them - because, for the time being, it means letting them experience the darkness.
I am learning to love them enough. And when I can't, Christ does. And as they walk away, back into the darkness of the shadows that will break for their light, I know that they go with a God who is greater than all of this - the beauty and the pain. No matter what.
I love you, Amber.
I search, search, here and there -
I search around everywhere.
I search, search, here and there -
There's no one, there's no one like Him.
(Oh, no!)
There's no one, there's no one like Jesus,
There's no one, there's no one like Jesus.
There's no one, there's no one like Jesus -
There's no one, there's no one like Him!
Showing posts with label Trust and Testing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Trust and Testing. Show all posts
So.
It's not a novel. It's not even properly a story - it is a part of me which has seen fit to tumble outside of my heart and end up here, to the place where other smatterings of my heart are so apt to make their way. And so you shall find it up there, near the tippiest-toppyness of the blog page, where it has seen fit to nest itself.
The Love Tree is written from the bottom my heart to the heart of whoever cares to read it; but mostly, it is written for those whom I love, and whom I have learned to love even more because of the One who loves us beyond all reckoning.
So... yeah. That means you.
Category:
Expressions of Love,
Seeking the Face of God,
The Journey Continues,
Trust and Testing
1 missives
Blindness. There seems to be nothing more fearful in all the world. It is why we fear the dark when we are children — it is why, no longer as children, some of us still do.
Yet it can seem, at times, as though we walk in a constant blindness. For who can claim to see the steps that lie ahead of them? The ones behind are easy to see; yet for lack of the future, even the present ones are full of fear. It seems that we who walk by faith are doomed evermore to the urgings of sight: the taunt of a world which cannot see that it lies even more deeply in plight than we. It is a world lost in the comfortless pursuit of comfort, blind to everything but its perception of our seemingly visionless faith — we, who have only been called to set our eyes on Joy, yet find ourselves so often begged to look only upon the fading things of the Ending.
Soooo... Life is tough. That seems to be the general idea I'm getting at.
But this is not the matter's end. I have never seen an odder thing, nor a truer thing, in all my life than this: Without fail, the limited must impose its own limitation upon that which is Limitless; then, with all the wretchedness contained within its tiny and finite self, bemoan that which still escapes its understanding. Shall we never realize that any attempt to control the path which lies before us is nothing other than an attempt to harness its Maker; to place a bridle on the One who placed Pegasus at untamable heights, the One who breathed a soul and a heartbeat into the dust itself? Should it not be a comfort rather than a curse, that the Author of my life has a vision that extends beyond these present pages? It must be so; for to demand that that which by very definition must be beyond comprehension become as small as myself is nothing less than to demand that God cease to be deserving of His Name.
But you cannot make me. No, you cannot; and none shall convict me otherwise — no matter how long the world weeps bitter tears of betrayal over the audacity of its Creator being bigger, wiser, truer, more good and more faithful than itself; though it claw and weep and rage at me, though it claim that the dimness of this mirror-world is unfair, though it do all it can to argue the unjustness of these small understandings — though it do all of this and more, I shall not compromise the greatness of my God.
You see, there comes a time for every soul, when the eyes of those who seek their Maker are brought gaze-to-gaze with that question, that truthful blight that can lift the lowest heart in laughter and bend the highest head in shame. That question — Wouldn't you think we would know better by now? Is it not time that the little side-paths that ever evade our vision might become to us no longer a thing of fear, but of joy? For the One who holds our hand is ever faithful; oh, He is faithful! And not a Promise has been reached by a pilgrimage that did not, by some walk or wayside, leave a wilderness in its wake.
Yet the school of day-by-day is teaching me its lesson; though it is a lesson slowly and arduously learned. The name of that lesson? None other than Trust. Oh, Trust is a wild thing; and the taming of it is equally so — but aren't the best and truest adventures always touched by fear? There is no one I would rather cherish, no one that I would rather follow, than He who holds the fragile universe perfectly on tilt, beautifully balanced, yet still cares for me with a love so deep that He would die for me. And did.
For such a One must be great, indeed.
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
– Romans 11:33-36
Yet it can seem, at times, as though we walk in a constant blindness. For who can claim to see the steps that lie ahead of them? The ones behind are easy to see; yet for lack of the future, even the present ones are full of fear. It seems that we who walk by faith are doomed evermore to the urgings of sight: the taunt of a world which cannot see that it lies even more deeply in plight than we. It is a world lost in the comfortless pursuit of comfort, blind to everything but its perception of our seemingly visionless faith — we, who have only been called to set our eyes on Joy, yet find ourselves so often begged to look only upon the fading things of the Ending.
Soooo... Life is tough. That seems to be the general idea I'm getting at.
But this is not the matter's end. I have never seen an odder thing, nor a truer thing, in all my life than this: Without fail, the limited must impose its own limitation upon that which is Limitless; then, with all the wretchedness contained within its tiny and finite self, bemoan that which still escapes its understanding. Shall we never realize that any attempt to control the path which lies before us is nothing other than an attempt to harness its Maker; to place a bridle on the One who placed Pegasus at untamable heights, the One who breathed a soul and a heartbeat into the dust itself? Should it not be a comfort rather than a curse, that the Author of my life has a vision that extends beyond these present pages? It must be so; for to demand that that which by very definition must be beyond comprehension become as small as myself is nothing less than to demand that God cease to be deserving of His Name.
But you cannot make me. No, you cannot; and none shall convict me otherwise — no matter how long the world weeps bitter tears of betrayal over the audacity of its Creator being bigger, wiser, truer, more good and more faithful than itself; though it claw and weep and rage at me, though it claim that the dimness of this mirror-world is unfair, though it do all it can to argue the unjustness of these small understandings — though it do all of this and more, I shall not compromise the greatness of my God.
You see, there comes a time for every soul, when the eyes of those who seek their Maker are brought gaze-to-gaze with that question, that truthful blight that can lift the lowest heart in laughter and bend the highest head in shame. That question — Wouldn't you think we would know better by now? Is it not time that the little side-paths that ever evade our vision might become to us no longer a thing of fear, but of joy? For the One who holds our hand is ever faithful; oh, He is faithful! And not a Promise has been reached by a pilgrimage that did not, by some walk or wayside, leave a wilderness in its wake.
Yet the school of day-by-day is teaching me its lesson; though it is a lesson slowly and arduously learned. The name of that lesson? None other than Trust. Oh, Trust is a wild thing; and the taming of it is equally so — but aren't the best and truest adventures always touched by fear? There is no one I would rather cherish, no one that I would rather follow, than He who holds the fragile universe perfectly on tilt, beautifully balanced, yet still cares for me with a love so deep that He would die for me. And did.
For such a One must be great, indeed.
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
"Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?"
“Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.
– Romans 11:33-36
