A New Morning

Amazing how we take for granted the precise predictability and consistency of events such as this Hunter’s moon setting behind the Italian Alps–the peak catching the first glow of the rising sun.

But in my mind I keep returning to something,
something that gives me hope —

that the grace of the Lord is not exhausted,
that his compassion has not ended.
On the contrary,
they are new every morning!
How great your faithfulness!
“The Lord is all I have,” I say;
“therefore I will put my hope in him.”
(Lam 3.21-24)

Fool Me the Second Time, p1 of 3

I’m not going to believe it. No way. Try to fool me the second time? Think again!

And how could someone come back from the grave? It’s crazy. Good solid earth, wood for a fire, and heavy coinage. That’s what you can depend on.

Oh, sure, we’d seen Lazarus raised. He was different afterwards, that’s for sure. Couldn’t quite wrap his words around what death had been like—was almost disappointed to be back up, walking around.

But he’d had Jesus there to do the life-giving. Jesus could do that kind of thing. We saw it more than once. Now Jesus was dead. What was He going to do? Raise Himself?!

No. He’s gone. Had to face it. It’s over. It’d been a wild ride for three years, but it was over. I had learned a lot, seen a lot during those years—things, to be honest, I still can’t explain: a Roman centurion bowing to Him, the walking on water. Everything He said, happened. Boom! But there ya go. Ya see, that was Jesus. Things were just different with Him.

They said, the other guys—Phillip, James, and the rest. All of them. They said He’d somehow appeared out of nowhere and stood in that room with them. Talked to them. They insisted the door was shut tight, even barred.

And there was no talking those guys out of it. No reasoning with them, and I had work to do. I’m not going to hole up in some dark room. Besides, I haven’t seen a Roman all day. Come to think of it, no priests or Levites, either. Guess everyone’s running scared.

“But Thomas, we’ve seen the Lord!” Bah! Don’t you believe it. Peter exaggerates; though, hmm, Matthew usually keeps his facts straight. Oh, forget it. Let them have it.

No way I’ll buy into their fantasies. If you can’t see something, touch it, inspect it, well, how do you know it’s real? And I told them so. Let them try to produce the nail holes, to conjure up the torn, gaping wound of a spear thrust through—thrust through—through His flesh. That can rip at your stomach, but at least it’s hard proof. Without that, what have you got? Nothing.

Nothing. That’s what we had left of those three years. So may as well get on with life, pick up the strings we’d left dangling when we jumped on board Peter’s boat and decided to follow.

.

.

Long, Cold, Dark Nights…

Loneliness.

That’s what Christmas means to many of the people we cross paths with every day.

Or it’s a hectic, expensive activity we endure half-heartedly — or we unrealistically expect it to provide some form of fulfillment or satisfaction, to meet some inner longing of the soul. But we, generally, just end up being more broke, disillusioned, and depressed than the year before.

For many of us it’s a reminder that our lives are not what or where we would like for them to be, that we have failed again to fulfill goals or aspirations—and that a large number of the people we care about really don’t reciprocate our affections.

When we truly look, we see empty eyes, empty souls, unmet longings, deepening insecurities.
Many people see that in the mirror.

For me, there is too often an emphasis on what’s been lost during the past year; I can spiral downward, moving emotionally farther and farther away from the joy and hope and security I long for—and that the season theoretically offers. In my dark moments, I can be blind to anything but short days and long, cold, dark nights.

Is there a light in that deep darkness?

How Did You Hold On? ~ Part 2 of 5

Jillian ask, “How did you make it through that? How did you hold on?”

Have I experienced tough times in my life? Yes.

It’s not an easy story for me to tell, but when I think it will help someone, I willing share it. Today, dear reader, I share it with you because if you’re reading this then you, too, have probably sought answers to life’s tough questions.

I’d been married eight years when my daughter was born, almost ten when my son came along. A bare few months after the birth, my husband decided he didn’t want to be married to me any more. He left us, left while my darling two-year-old little girl stood on the patio and screamed at the top of her lungs, “Daddy, don’t go! Daddy, don’t go! Daddy, please don’t go!” As his truck disappeared around the corner, she whispered with every part of her being, “I love you, Daddy!”

She darted back into the house, ran into the hallway, and began beating her head against the wall. Not rocking or bumping it—beating it. I collapsed onto the floor between her and that wall and cradled her for hours—until the sun had long gone down—until she finally settled into infrequent little cries: hiccupping, sobbing gulps of air.

Remembering her suffering, twenty-two years later, my chest feels as though it will cave in. Twenty-two years later she is still crying out, “I love you, Daddy. Won’t you please love me like I need to be loved?”

Depression hit hard. I remember standing in front of the refrigerator so despondent I couldn’t even lift an arm to open the door. I can still hear my baby son crying from hunger. I had to feed him. I had to open that door. How did I do it? How did I go on?

Part of me is still amazed that I was able to. Part of me knows the answer: In my despair, Jehovah was faithful. In my inability to move or breath, Jesus Christ made Himself real to me. I learned what Paul meant when he said, “In Him we live and move and exist….”[1]

Sound trite? Simple? Not to me.

Jillian didn’t think so, either. She leaned back in her chair, her eyes moist with unshed tears, and realized hope was real.

Why do we go through these times? What possible purpose can they have? There is a hope-giving answer to those questions.

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[1] Acts 17.28

to Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5

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