New Ground

I will be writing on a new ground from now on at eliecruz.wordpress.com
Here goes. . .

Field Burning

"You're blessed when you've lost it all

God's kingdom is there for the finding"

Driving back home one day, I passed through fields and fields. . . all barren.  It is, after all, winter. The rubble of whatever the crops had been covered the land and I thought to myself:  these fields need to be burned to start over.  Now,  I am no agricultural guru and I highly doubt that I have a green thumb, but the thought sprung from a story David Peters told one evening for Vespers.  He spoke of field burning as the necessary step between harvest and planting a new crop.  

It was the creation of a literal clean slate in the land, ridding it of weeds and old seed to make room for the new. He told of the marked difference of stepping off the old field onto the newly burned ground. And before I finished remembering, a next thought came: that field is me. 

The harvested crops, the rubble, the fire. . . So many times my journey with Jesus seems to go around a big circle and when I think I may be close to the next mile marker Im right back to where I started. Two steps forward, one step back. . . or five.  But no, growing to maturity is not a circle, nor is it a shortest distance from point A to point B, not a straight line, but it is as my dear college mentor once told me.  It is a big U, going downward to the Valley of the Shadow and coming up for air 1/2 an inch taller maybe. . . God never asking us to have "more" faith, but to have the same faith than when we started...to trust him like a child trusts a father, and after the valley we have a faith that is no longer childish and thus like a child, but now mature and yet maintaining childlikeness. . . because we made it through holding His hand.

So then, I accept and weep at the present barreness of my field, the harvest has gone and now I welcome however reluctantly,  the flames, the loss, the blazing of all I am and have for His laying of a new ground.  Burn us up, O King. . .

At the Potter's House

Yesterday we visited Seagrove, what some call the pottery capital of the world. It's a tiny town close to our own wonderful middle-of-nowhere-ness... It is simply beautiful. We ooh-ed and aah-ed at the unique creations of each shop, and enjoyed hearing the stories from the shop-keepers. The artist in me wanted to find a place where they would let you throw and teach you some basics of working with clay. We asked the lady in charge of Ben Owen's pottery and she mentioned a place where you could take classes or something of that sort. Midsentence, the intercom in her desk interrupted us and her husband's voice called: "You can send them back here, I'm open."  He invited us into the his workshop where he had just begun to form a new piece. At this point, it was a tall, slender, and hollow cylinder.  He pointed us to what  it would turn into after his molding and shaping, cutting and scraping away at his wheel. After finishing that piece he started a new one and this was my favorite part, to watch it from scratch.

The beginning was the roughest part (especially having at the forefront of my mind the analogy given to Jeremiah of us as the clay in God's hands). He cleaned his wheel from the residues of his previous work, grabbed a lump of clay about half the size of a basketball and began to pound on it, moving it from hand to hand.  He dove his hands into a  water bucket close by and damped the clay all over, making it more pliable,  then forcefully threw the sloppy thing into his wheel. Wetting his hands again and again, he began pushing into the clay, bringing his hands closer and closer together, now it was a tall  and slender tower. His thumbs set atop the tower, he pressed it down,  now it was almost a disk, raised only inches against the wheel. He pressed down further, at the center of the piece, creating the hollow of it. Moving his hands closer and upward, it began to take form. The potter pressed the inside wall of the cylinder against his other hand on the outside, making it taller still and rounder, his hands messy with the clay he worked with.  As it began to look more like the finished piece before him (which he was trying to replicate) there was less pushing and his movements became more gentle and intricate. At this point he began to use a rib for shaping, this is just a flat, hard, squareish piece that makes the surface smooth, since the fingers leave uneven indentions. It also lends the potter an instrument to do more intricate designs with the piece.

This process seemed to me painful, again only because of Jeremiah, yet of course there was no question in my mind it had to be done.  It was a scraping away of the unneeded parts which seemed barely there yet, obviously,  polluted what the finished piece must look like.  He finished.  And the new creation was set to dry beside other beautiful designs. That is all that we got to watch, the process involves much more than that. The piece will be brought out again after setting for a night or so for decorative purposes or cutting away certain parts, as lids and such. But I want to pause the process here for a minute and read what exactly was it that God told Jeremiah. (Jeremiah 18)

 The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said,  “Go down to the potter’s shop, and I will speak to you there.”  So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so he crushed it into a lump of clay again and started over. 

Then the Lord gave me this message: “O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand.
If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, but then that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned. And if I announce that I will plant and build up a certain nation or kingdom, but then that nation turns to evil and refuses to obey me, I will not bless it as I said I would.

There is so much to unpack in this paragraphs , but Yahweh's first sentence as Jeremiah watches the potter held me for a little more than a second. So first, when we are the clay and He is the potter we have not the right to determine the direction of our lives. He is the Creator, we the creature, can he not do as He pleases? Secondly , He is a righteous Judge of the earth and the people in it : their deeds are answerable to Him and will be judged accordingly and also, as the potter rightfully and rightly decides how to shape each vessel, so God has the right judgement on our design. Thirdly though, He is a patient and loving Potter (just like the potter whose piece didn't turn out and  he begins his efforts anew) who wants and designs what is good and beautiful. As the Judge he may rightly decide to uproot an evil nation, yet as the Lover he sees their repentance and allows them to live and vice versa. He chose Israel and desires good for Israel, can He not bring the good He intends on them to pass? But they will not have his mercy, they continue on their stubborn ways. So He goes on,

 “Therefore, Jeremiah, go and warn all Judah and Jerusalem. Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am planning disaster for you instead of good. So turn from your evil ways, each of you, and do what is right."

The whole message of Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, was this pleading to return, these second chances.  God aches for his wayward people and over and over throughout the story we hear Yahweh say lovingly:
 "O Israel, my faithless people come home to me again for I am merciful. I will not be angry with you forever. Only acknowledge your guilt. . . " (3:12). " My wayward children come to me, and I will heal your wayward hearts!"(3:22).  " If you wanted to return to me you would" (4:1). "Even now, if you quit your evil ways you can stay in your own land" (7:3). And on and on.

How can we still question this Potter? What is there about this Designer that doesn't allure, calls us to confide, to rest in His hands, to delight in His work? Oh! That we were forever convinced that His way (though it be sometimes through the valley, though it means death to self) is the way that brings us good, the way of true Life. He made us, He knows what makes us tick, He is in love with us. May we delight in His shaping of our lives and allow Him to do as He pleases with us.

Well the process goes on--the pushing and pressing and cutting away was only the beginning. Now the firing must take place. The firing is what makes the piece what it will be. It effects permanent change on the pot. The length of time and temperatures a piece will face in the fire are unique to each, giving maturity/strength to the finished product to be used for its purpose. That is a process worth considering all on its own. For now, I stare in awe still at the Potter at his wheel and, while his message may cause me tears, I am glad I came to the potter's house.

Desert

The general dismantlement that occurs in the arid times of life can be unbearable. Every time I find myself here again, I feel as if I never left. The questioning begins and in the midst of that, a true spirit of prayer. This time I don't know what to ask for. What am I to ask of a God who already gave it all!? All I can say is, "Yes Lord, whatever, wherever, whenever, yes." So the one thing that stands out of this desert time in my life, though often in the midst of desperation, is longing. I long for Him in the loneliness of this sandy mountains, and scorching heat. I thirst for Him in this rainless land.

I see now that this is the very thing I asked of Him in past months and all through life: a greater longing for Him. What I find striking is that generally, when I look back at other such desert times I wonder if I ever actually learned anything at all, if I am in progress or indeed digressing. This focus on my personal growth and sanctification, though somewhat rightful, is awfully misplaced. I laughed at myself when I first realized this. I was falling for the pursuit of self-righteousness and self-glory and missing the pursuit of God. The only worthy pursuit.  The Galatians and I would be good friends.

I guess it is easy to fall into in part because we live in such a "show and tell" culture, where we are defined by what we can show for our day's work. And we want the highest seat in the table, the recognition when we give to the poor, the honor when we pray. Is that not, so backward?

A good friend of mine told me a few days ago, "a life of longing for God in the desert, is a worthy life, more worthy than being satisfied with all the happiness and loveliness of the world." It has changed the way I see the desert place. . . the way I pursue holiness. . . I want a pure heart not to be ascribed it by others but because Jesus said, "they will see God."

Run For What?

My relationship with running is definitely a love/hate one. It's been on the hate side for a while now and every time I drag myself out there, or are dragged by my friends who love me and know that I need to train, I cannot wait to be done. I have asked my Father to give me the love for the sport back, the endurance I know I can muster, the stamina and hardcoreness to learn to push myself to my limits again. Yet, weeks and weeks went by and nothing changed.

The day before yesterday I ran hills with Jana. My legs are still mad at me for that. She said something though, that dramatically changed my workout this morning. I was out in the new-found track a mile or two from my house (this moving deal makes it interesting for exploring streets and parks and schools to run at) doing a tempo run. It was supposed to be six times 1k. Not bad. Well, I thought that after the first one, two more later and my legs were done, my mind was done, and I was talking myself out of running the last three. Then I remembered what Jana had said as we jogged down to the line that marked our last climb up-hill: "This is the last one, your legs are tired and we're just gonna touch the line, pivot and sprint up. Don't worry about your time, the key here is to push yourself when you are fatigued. Just push yourself, okay?" And so, I ran the last three. I discovered I have a finishing kick, but that's besides the point. What happened during those last three sets was prayer, as the realization that I could not do it set in.  I prayed for strength, for help. . . for finishing the race marked out before me, for going hard against all odds, against my own will and inspite of pain, to run my heart out.  It was then I realized I wasn't praying to finish the workout or to feel not so lame afterward, I was praying for my life.

Before that, I had been asking God to give me the tools to love and do well at running all somehow in my own strenght. Graciously, he didn't answer as I had expected, yet he went exactly to the point. It all came back to me. The reason I run is not because I am good at it (far from it), or even because it clears my head and is my release. . . I run because it reminds me what I am living for. It reminds me of my weakness and His strenght, it reminds me of the narrow way, the pain, yet the fullness of life found only in Jesus, the hope of Glory. This is how it started, how I grew to love running, as it carried me through the lowest lows simply reminding me why I was alive and for whom. It was a gift from God. Losing sight of the giver of this gift meant losing the driving force behind each stride. After all, it's true that "It is in Him that we live and move and exist" (Acts 17:28).

With Unveiled Faces

I have been trying to write for weeks now and my efforts have been at best frustrated, at worst not even begun. There is much to write about since there are always works I read that need kneading in my mind, and I do that best through writing. Though all applicable and worth processing, the issues these pieces touched were peripheral to the storm--albeit in a glass--within me. Ironically, the very book that I was reading purely for leisure and pleasure was the one to rip off the veil I hid behind. . . and it was no satin drapery, it more resembled bark or a second skin: rough, thick and knit to the tissues underneath.

The book was one I had read before called "Till We Have Faces" and written by the ever-clever CS Lewis. That should have been my first clue, for Mr. Lewis would never let any of his pieces without a depth that you felt almost drowned in. So it was that I read on and on, listening to Orual--from whose view the story is told--and for more than a moment believing her and the love she claimed for her sister Psyche.  Yet, as Orual finally was able to present her complaint to the gods, it all came back to me and pulled me under like a wild wave in the ocean. I stood like her, bareface before the mirror of truth and it revealed me as ugly as everyone thought her to be. That should have been enough to stand silent and ashamed, yet I stood complaining to the God of my life about the unfairness of my situation, pouting over the pains of my life. Still, I claimed love. At least, like Orual, the complaint gave me a face—however ugly—riding me of any pretense of selflessness, knowledge, love. . . and leaving me bankrupt without these.

Though I have written about this before and realized this before, this time it stood there not simply as a good thing I should pursue but as the lifesaver tossed me as I struggled in the sea--life or death hung in its hands.  This thing I speak of is love.  Having understood I lack good understanding and realizing I lack ability to love well buries any deed or thought I deemed good six feet deep. Problem is, I am not only drowning without it but find myself unable to swim near it. It is just like that phenomenon where people drown because they are frantically trying to save themselves. People always tell you not to panic in the water. The only thing that would make “not panicking”  a possibility for me somewhere in the depths of my mind would be expecting a rescuer.  So I try to stand still, tired of flailing my arms about me getting me nowhere. And I do not know how I can take a hold of this in the midst of the wild ocean of my broken humanity, but what I do know is that Christ has gotten a hold of it for me and, as he makes me able to follow him--to hate all things in comparison to Him--he also will teach me love truly.

I, like most arrogant students, do not want to be tested in this ability just yet, I want to first master it and perform well... I feel unready, unable, my love being like a child taking his first steps falling over and over again. However, it is an impossibility to learn love in theory.  As long as there is a God and there are people on this earth, all around me... love must be pursued. The scientific part of me wishes I could learn it theoretically: a lot of people would leave my life unscathed if that were true and I myself would escape some pain. But no, we live and we learn, especially as followers of God, to love him and to love others in vivo. 
In the mean time, until "all that is mortal is swallowed up by life," He holds my heart. 

This whole process has given me freedom instead of what I feared would be crushing and irreparable  shame. Taking the veil away is painful every time since it lets me see myself for who I really am (and who I see is not usually who I want to be), but only then I can better see God.  Paul spoke of something like this, though truly in the context of our first turning to God (you must read 2Cor. 3, yes the whole chapter)  but, does this turning ever stop? are we not to be constantly given over to the death of our very nature, ripping off our veils and turning to God?  I need to think more on this, but on to what Paul said:

But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So all of us who have had that veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord—who is the Spirit—makes us more and more like him as we are changed into his glorious image.

What is cool is that every time I stop trusting my own strength and ability (or self-righteousness, or spirituality--I think this can happen even as one of his children) and turn instead to GOD not only can I better see God, I reflect his glory. I reflect his glory! It will be a whole other post to explore this concept of glory, but lately I have learned to think of it as fame, renown. . . I guess my whole point here is that our revealed faces stop pointing at us (being now bare and un-mysterious) and they are finally undoubtedly pointed at God, for what else could make a such simple faces beautiful. . . cause change in us, and into godlikeness? into who we were meant to be?    In the next chapter of 2 Corinthians Paul goes on to say  that "We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves." I pray God continues in patience to show me true love, and that He  enables me to love like He does: extravagantly, purely, fully, recklessly.

No One But Us

I read recently in Luke that Jesus said, " If you want to be my disciple, you must hate everyone else by comparison--your father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters--yes, even your own life.  Otherwise you cannot be my disciple." I thought and decided at the time that I would do just as He said, because, well, I really do want to follow Him.  I didn't realize I was like the children of Israel agreeing to do that which I could not do on my own. So I cry because I am afraid that I will not be able to hate all things in comparison, that I will be disqualified from being His.  Yet this He also knew, as He asked me. Soon after saying this He did the deed which proved me unable--he took the cross and hated His own life, to follow the will of the Father and make a way for this Elisa, and the whole world, to come to God. He did this as if saying "if you're gonna be my disciple, you must do this but, you know what? you can't do it. I will do it for you."  Knowing all of our fragility, our fickleness, our inability and our pride. . . He made a way for us to follow. Now there is only us, and the realization of who we are and who we are not.  The realization that we could not follow him on our own and needed Him even for this.  Yet it is us, as we are, who must come. Annie Dillard, once again, explained eloquently the new way I came to see this:

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? There is no one but us. There is no one to send, nor a clean hand, nor a pure heart on the face of the earth, but only us, a generation comforting ourselves with the notion that we have come at an awkward time, that our innocent fathers are all dead--as if innocence had ever been--and our children busy and troubled, and we ourselves unfit, not yet ready, having each of us chosen wrongly, made a false start, failed, yielded to impulse and the tangled comfort of pleasures, and grown exhausted, unable to seek the thread, weak and involved. But there is no one but us.  There has never been.

God takes me. . . us, as we are and makes us able to follow Him, able to stand before Him, able to be pure. It was costly to Him, free to us. Will we follow Him? He will make us able. No price will seem too great. I am reminded again of a story told by Corrie Ten Boom--which probably will not be as richly recounted as I couldn't find it in her book at this late hour.  She told her father that she was afraid she wouldn't be able to die to declare the work of Jesus, that she would falter under persecution.  Her father, a wise man as he was, answered her fears with a simple story of a quotidian activity for the two of them: taking the train.  He said, "Corrie when we take the train, when do I give you your ticket?" She replied, "right before we get on board." He continued, "So will your Father in heaven give you the strength you need to withstand persecution for His sake at the proper time."

 Let us then go. There is no one but us. He will make us able.

And We Were All Afraid

There is a man that comes in regularly into the Coffee Shop. He has his own leather to-go cup in hand, and we usually fill it to the brim with our fresh brew of Colombian.  He’s friendly.  He’s a skydiver, apparently.   I hadn’t known this until today, when he did not show and I learned why.  His equipment failed him and he landed on trees at 60 mph. He hung tangled there for two hours until someone found him. He is alive--with major broken bones of course, but alive nonetheless.  He has done this stuff for twenty years, with no complications. . . until now.

I hear his story and I feel sorry for the man.  I look outside. Today it is pouring rain and blasting winds. The sky is a gray blanket, unbroken, unchangeable throughout day-time, as if there were no sun rising, falling or at all moving across the visible sky.   It has looked the same since the moment I first saw it when I woke up.
Sometimes in days like this I want to sleep the day away. Yet there are many things to do.  “Don’t put off till tomorrow, what you can do today,” the saying goes.  Why do we put things off? Why do we so often seek an escape from our present reality? We hide in sleep, we watch someone else’s “reality” on our TV screens, we look at our past through broken “good-ol day” lenses and wish to go back, or daydream of our future wishing we could haste past today and get there already. Hours, weeks, years. . . they seep through the cracks as we hold each in the cup of our hands. Yet all we have is today in all its magnitude, solitude, brokeness, gladness. We have today and its reality.

This is all we get:  twenty years,forty seven, sixty nine, ninety one. . . and we are gone. What is it that holds us back, that wants us to trade today, yet unlived, for tomorrow or yesterday?
Fear.  If not the only culprit, at least the most common one. It has often kept me frozen in time, other times moving, yet going nowhere at all. Fear of rejection, fear of failure or mistakes, fear of disappointment, fear of pain. . . We turn in fear even from the glorious.  From the amazing, powerful and baffling, and we run or  we push it away.   Once, Jesus healed a man from many demons. This man’s town came to see this wonderful thing and “they were all afraid.”  They told Jesus to go away and  leave them alone.
I wonder if our skydiver was scared that day.  His four-thousandth jump or so. And, why should I feel sorry for him? He did what makes him a skydiver after all. He did it knowing the risks and perhaps because of them. 

That’s just it though, for isn’t waking better than sleeping? isn’t knowing better than wondering? aren’t even the mistakes we make of more worth than never trying at all?    Yes, yes and yes… Yet fear and pain have kept me wanting sleep, wishful thinking, and a glass castle to never have to try, and fail  and get hurt.
For the longest time I’ve thought the antidote to fearfulness was courage, bravery—I was wrong. It is actually my misunderstanding of the true antidote that caused me to write about this. As it tends to be, connections in conversation, struggles, anecdotes and written works brought me to the same conclusion:  I need to better understand love.
Annie Dillard’s piece God in the Doorway, explains this relationship between fear and love as she tells of her first encounter with Santa Claus as a child. “I ran upstairs,” she recounts.

Like everyone in his right mind, I feared Santa Claus, thinking he was God. I was still thoughtless and brute, reactive. I knew right from wrong, but had barely tasted the possibility of shaping my own behavior, and then only from fear, and not yet from love. Santa Claus was an old man whom you never saw, but who nevertheless saw you; he knew when you’d been bad or good. He knew when you’d been bad or good! And I had been bad [. . .] I wouldn’t come down, but I could bend over the stairwell and see: Santa Claus stood in the doorway with night over his shoulder, letting in all the cold air of the sky.

Like her, I tend to treat God much the same.  Yet, if I were to rightly understand His kingship and the nature of His love and the standing that these two over my life have granted me before Him, I would never again even hesitate because of fear. But no.  I tend to think that his love means I will be protected from harm, that I will be safe from the roaring waves of hurt and pain, that I will be strong.  Jesus did say however, “ I am sending you out as sheep among  wolves.” One word is written all over that sentence: pain.
Perhaps I misunderstand pain as well, it isn’t always punishment for having been “bad.” Some of it is consequences yes, yet some of it is opportunity.  Jesus said after the striking sentence above that this would provide opportunities for us to tell others about Him. Some of it is also “fine-tuning,” as I like to call it.  Breaking our hearts to make them more like Jesus, to hear other breaking hearts, to learn true love. John, the loved disciple, wrote to us of this:

We know how much God loves us and we have put our trust in His love.  God is love, and all who live in love live in God and God lives in them. And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect [. . .]Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows we have not fully experienced his perfect love. We love each other because he loved us first.

I want to more and more experience His love. I want to understand it better. This is a dangerous thing to say, I know, especially after discussing the whole pain issue.  But I want to stop running recognizing with Dillard, as she finished her God in the Doorway piece, that

It is I who misunderstood everything, and let everybody down [. . .] God, I am sorry I ran from you. I am still running, running from that knowledge, that eye, that love from which there is no refuge.  For you meant only love, and love, and I felt only fear and pain.  So once in Israel love came to us incarnate, stood in the doorway between two worlds, and we were all afraid.

Blatant Loveliness Ignored

I woke to a full moon aglow in the morning sky, a deep purple-blue, nothing morning-skyish about it. I looked at the time:  5:58 am.  "Is that the moon? agh... this is so wrong," I muttered rolling over and puling the covers over my head.  It was wrong because it was morning and because I wanted to see dawn on its way, not the night sky! It took me fifteen minutes to finally consent to reason and renounce my excuses, and I got out of bed into the cold wood floor, my eyes still half closed. I ran my fingers through my hair, brushed my teeth, and packed my bags for school. I wasn't at all pleasant, or fashionable, not even creative--grey sweats, grey long sleeve, my old running shoes.   I was about as ready for the genetics quiz I had to face in a few hours as a little girl is ready to get off her training wheels. Not at all.

I was late and, as I walked to my car, the window shield showed to be crusted by a layer of ice thick enough to make me have to get that weird looking tool that has a handle and plastic teeth that will break the ice for you. "Seriously..." I sighed, breaking the ice with a frowny-face, to say the least.  Got in the car, backed it up and pulled out of the drive way slowly.  The blowy pieces of winter to come, whisking away from my windshield as I drove. I tried looking through my side mirrors... they were partially beaded still with melted ice, glittering the reflection of the waking sun behind me and resembling, almost perfectly, a still lake in a crisp morning.

Dawn had really come, and it was breathtaking. I finally started looking around--outside myself, my own mind and preoccupations--for the first time today and realized how beautiful everything around me was. The air was cold and moist as the sun rose through the trees.  There was fog over every open field.  Sun rays made perfect incisions through leaves and branches revealing whatsoever they touched a golden masterpiece. I shook my head and  broke a smile, disbelieving how I had missed it all. What a rare gift waking to a full moon through my window had been!

That beauty stayed with me all day and not only surrounded me but engulfed me.  It engulfed me as water does when one takes a plunge into the wild ocean, enveloped me as the breeze in summer time, playing with my hair, my dress and my skin.  And I was part of it today.  Beauty overwhelmed me so, that I myself felt beautiful.

I think this is what true beauty does.  It does not keep itself, nor does itself exalt: It invades everything it touches and makes it lovely.

A Mother’s Plea

It was one in the morning or so.  I had finished my tasks and was packing up to go home. The phone rang. “You’re needed in room seven,”said the voice on the other side.  I sighed, my hopes of getting home to bed, crushed.  I walked the halls. It finally hit me,“Room seven? Skipped triage. Hmm. This can’t be good.” Walked into the room in what seemed like slow motion and doctor, nurses, monitors…everything was suddenly revolving around him. He lay there limp, twitching a little, his rib cage rising and falling at an abnormal rate and his eyes half closed.  My eyes swept the room and finally met his parents sitting motionless, almost calmly there.  It must take a lot to watch from the distance, your child laying there, you unable to help. I was impressed at the resolute quiescence of the mom. Telling the details so straightforwardly. Her three year old suffered from neurofibromatosis (NF), a rare condition (about 1/4,000) usually present from birth.

After the routine questions for eval, all I could do was join them and watch, from afar, when all I wanted was to hold his hand, rest his heart, do something. . .  I would occasionally step up to the bed and stroke this little feet, squeezing my eyes shut pleading to God.  The meds were not working well, but all we could do was wait.  The seizure wasn’t breaking. “God, mercy, please!” I thought.

I left the room in response to a page from Triage: a new patient.  The common cold, it sounded like. Words were constantly escaping me, I kept having to repeat myself,  my mind still on this kid.  In Triage, the nurse’s questions and the patient’s answers became over and over background noise, as I heard a woman crying out.  I finally stopped. The nurse and patient both waiting on me to mediate communication.  I apologized, “I’m sorry, I’m just really concerned with the patient in room seven.” The triage nurse told me to go on and check if I was needed.  I tried my best not to take off running, and walked as fast as I could over to his room.

The mother. Her composure finally broke, and I found her crying out by his bed, tear-stained face, holding her only son’s hand.  The doctor on the counter side, “I can’t understand her.” She cried helplessly, clamorously, imploringly “Heal my boy, please.  Help him.  Do something to help him. They’re getting so strong. Heal my boy.” She pulled his languid hand to her face and spoke sweetly to him, pleading also with him, questioning why this had to happen to him.  I talked to her. Held her. Repeated what the doctor said about administering different meds.  The seizures were getting stronger, and so was her despair.  I held her again.  Her broken heart slipping through my clumsy fingers, my lips somehow managing to compose a sentence telling her not to loose hope.  What else is there to say?  You can't tell someone to not fall apart when things are this way.

Everyone stepped out and for a moment in time it was just me and the parents.  I talked to God out loud this time. I held the boy’s  head and ran my fingers through his hair….I called his name, urging him to hold on. I told her God knew Him, He knew he was sick, He made him, He would do something. The mom stopped crying. And again the rush of care givers came in with fluids, meds, checking the monitors and recording the changes.  She came to the side of the bed where I was, I held her again saying nothing—or that “everything would be ok,” which lacks meaning in these type of circumstances.

He finally responded to the meds about 2:10 am.  Not back to normal by any stretch, but his heart rate and breathing were definitely more stable.  His mother finally pulled up a chair by his bed.  She laid her head on the side of the bed, now caressing his hand, now holding it up to her face—I imagined what he must be like in normalcy. All I know of him is his present state:  listless, half-gone, irresponsive, helpless.  I imagine the way he usually, voluntarily, held his mama’s face, laughing, joking, giddily asking the millions of good questions kids ask, climbing trees, coming home with muddy shoes and cut up knees. I walked  into the nurses station, there was small talk going on.  Meaningless.  And I was afraid.  Afraid of ever becoming this numb to other’s pain from over-exposure.

We airlifted him to a bigger hospital for better care. They had to drive there to be with him. I drove home. I knew that it could have been me.  It could have been my sister, Lorelai in his place and I the one falling apart. Oh God, listen to this mother’s plea as you did so many times in the past. You have said “everything is possible for him who believes.” I in turn repeat,  "I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief!”

Reminiscing Moon

Driving home from work tonight (or this early morning rather) the moon was fire, setting, leaving the studded dark expanse behind. I put my eyes back on the road. I seem to always drive this lonely road when the deer are having a family reunion.  I must always wait for their choice: will they jump right into my path or run away? I see the moon again. I pursue it as far as I can, taking a road I usually only take when I run, leading to an open field. No luck. I haven't seen the moon setting for a while now, it's been even longer since I've seen it rise.  I am reminded again of my Africa days. Those muggy, lonely, long, beautiful, coffee laden, electricity-less, simple days, sitting on the porch watching the red moon rise over Beoue.

A Loud Resolve

This evening I met a fourth grader with big dreams. As I sat on the floor of the bookstore browsing the book I was considering for purchase, he plopped down right in front of me, where the science section was. Jana was with me and we looked at each other, muttering how adorable he was under our breaths. We inquired if he was interested in science, “I want to be a heart surgeon,” he replied succinctly and without hesitance—his few words could not hide the passion in his heart for this. Through more inquiry from our part he told us the reason behind such decision: he was born with a D-transposition of the great arteries and it was of course the heart surgeon who gave him hope of life at all. It made perfect sense that he would pursue this field in such a directed manner, but it still impressed me that he did. Many people whose life has changed because of a procedure like that live at best thankful that it happened. He, on the contrary, took the gift given him (life) and turned around desperately wanting to give back as if saying, “What they did for me I want to do for others.”

This is kind of the story of my life, though perhaps in a less dramatic way than this little fellow. So,he got me thinking about why I want to do medicine at all.

My college mentor, Dr. Beth Impson, is an incredible writer and teacher, I gleaned wisdom from her in our personal conversations and in her classroom, wisdom I have carried with me until now. She once said, about her passion in life, “Writing brings me fully alive, because it connects me as nothing else but childbirth ever has with reality.” Thinking about medicine, I can only echo her heart describing why this field has become my passion. Suffering wakes me to reality, and it is because of it that this profession exists “it is not those who are well that need a Doctor,” Jesus said. I feel most fully alive when I have helped soothe someone’s affliction, when I have offered hope to the hopeless, when I have had a part in the process of healing, whether emotional or physical, pain.

I wake up to the reality that our world is broken but that we desperately seek, as we must, to offer hope to it. This is what care givers pursue: Giving a person hope for restoration of well-being.

I realize however, that there is much suffering that we cannot and will not be able to alleviate in the world. Yet this too connects me to reality, because it brings me back to the fact that we have but one life, that we have only a determined time on earth as we will all face death one day.

I accept this reality, but do not go softly into it, as Dylan Thomas once did, I too “rage, rage against the dying of the light.” I rage against death through medicine, not to avoid it—that is impossible—nor to defer it—this is not under my control—but to face it, face it with a well lived life. 

I rage against death because it is not what was meant to be, though it is the one thing we know to be sure for all, it seems the most unnatural. We were made for life. And this short shot at it we have is it,  and since this is the aspect I can help, I can improve, I can invest in... I will. I want people to live full lives.

Yet, people in general do not think about what that means, and I don't either.  We wake up, we go here and there, and pay bills, and drink coffee, and talk to our friends.  But then disease strikes, and our brother dies, and we have two weeks to live and we wonder for the first time:  What is a full life? What's the meaning of it all? And where is God in all this? We ask the questions worth asking when there's hardly any time for answers, and we give way to despair.  

Being part of the medical field, makes one such a go-to person in some of these situations, when the questions that were once only in our heads are tangibly riding with us in an ambulance. I can not dream of a better place to be than where people are brutally awakened, as am I,  in these ways and be the one to scream to ears deafened by calamity, with all that I am: HOPE. 

All Things New

"Post tenebras, lux." After darkness, light. One of my favorite parts of this world that God's made is definitely sunrise/sunset. There is something significant about sunrise. . . the breaking of light after hours of dimness, and the unfolding of a whole new day. As silly as it would be to say that, because night lasts for so many hours, it never ends--so would it be to think that we are to stay forever in the dark and sad of our lives. But so thought I, for what seems now a long time ago. In the reality of God's grace that somehow still permeates this world however, the rays of dawn have broken through in my life and He's made all things new.



God's had the mercy to let me die and come back alive with the seasons of this world. And, as I look at new life budding everywhere, I can undeniably say that this reflects my heart and yet, I cannot claim to be the One who got me here. Like a tree, I begrudgingly let go of my leaves and withstood winter unclothed--half in resignation, half in hope that life would someday come back to me. And like a tree, it was not me who brought the budding leaves again. There was rain, there was sun, and there was a long wait.

After what happened last year I knew I couldn't trust humanity, and I told myself again and again not to seek anyone's help, nor love, nor true friendship. . . and as I picked myself up off the floor time after time to try to get out of the mess. . . God kept making me plop back down right there in the middle of the mess. . . because that's where He wanted to meet me, right there as I was: Tear-stained face, dirty from the fall down and bruised, a questioning voice and a million pieced heart, in a disgusting state, sometimes wallowing in self-pity, others in pride trying to get up on broken knees. There He met me, there He wept with me, there He sent friends to carry the burden with me, to pick up the pieces with me . . . And I had to trust people again, i had to believe that it is a good thing we are relational beings, and need each other, that God's just made it that way.

And so I write now, words never being enough to express how thankful I am to all of these people, and to The One who made us cross paths and stick together. To Jana, for carrying me to the Father when I couldn't pray, listening to all my questions, and validating my grief, for withstanding my moods and taking me into her arms wiping tears from my face time after time. For the endless words of hope and grace she spoke to these seemingly deaf ears. To Joy for being the daily friend, who would consistently take me out of the holes I'd try to hide in and show me something new. For making me laugh. For them and Elisabeth and Kara too, that were so patient to see me through every day. . . not yet well. For David, all four years being the big brother I never had, listening to endless talks, even in the midst of the demands of school and the rest of his responsibilities. Dropping on our knees in the middle of the library, he praying for the things I couldn't even speak of. For being an exemplary man of God, and a yet constantly showing me his realness, his humanity, his failure. And there were many others, that with even slight kindness gave me a glimpse of hope. For all of these people making me feel understood in the middle of confusion, valuable in the midst of lies, purposeful in the midst of despair. . . I praise Him.

Even the simplest joys of life I've been now gifted: sleep, ability to think clearly and do my work, grace to see other's lives and pain and truth from the dark times in life to share. My friendships with all the people mentioned above has deepened and new ones have come alive. . . and the greatest of gifts is that I can look back and see purpose in what happened. Already it is being used by Him to soothe other's and to turn my head to the sound of breaking hearts. All glory to God. He makes all things new. . .

Between the jump and where you're landing

What season of life this has been. I almost can't believe the whirlwind of changes that I've undergone, and that this year is almost over. I feel overwhelmed and at rest at once. Like crying and like laughing. I don't think my life will ever stop being full of paradoxes. But maybe all the things that make up this torn heart have to do with this season--taking a huge leap and not yet landing can bring a wave of opposing feelings. I especially dislike the free-fall that is (it must be) on the way to landing. A song from Tenth Avenue Norht called Hold my Heart, expresses in honesty where my heart has been and its plea to God:

I've been so afraid, afraid to close my eyes
So much can slip away before I say goodbye.
But if there's no other way, I'm done asking why.
Cuz I'm on my knees, begging You to turn to me
I'm on my knees, Father will you run to me?

One tear in the dropping rain,
One voice in the sea of pain
Could the maker of the stars
Hear the sound of my breakin' heart?
One light, that's all I am
Right now I can barely stand
If You're everything You say You are
Won't You come close and hold my heart.

So many questions without answers, Your promises remain
I can't sleep but I'll take my chances to hear You call my name

To hear You call my name

And I finally hear Him calling, and so here, I see that the free-fall is but my call to trust. Not a new call, but a continuing call. I let go of everything, but hold tight to His grace and again He says that this one tear, this one voice, this one heart He sees . . . He's seen all along. That I have bottled up tears, that not one tear has gone unnoticed for "You keep track of all my sorrows, You have collected all my tears in Your bottle. You have recorded each one in Your book."

And it is amazing to me , the tuning of God's heart to the brokenness we experience. Yet I am brought to Jesus each time I am in pain, and it is usually Gethsemane, His darkest hour, His questioning hour, his hour of grief, yet the hour of his surrender to the hand of the Father once more. But the account of John, the loved one, was what gripped me tonight. Jesus is talking to his friends (john 16) about the sufferings they are to endure because they belong to Him, and then linking that to His suffering to come in the cross (about which they are all very confused). And here is what gripped me, not that He understood my heart, but more so, that in new way He had hope to offer to it. He says, "I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn about what is going to happen to me, but the world will rejoice. You will grieve, but your grief will be suddenly turned to wonderful joy. . . So you have sorrow now, but I will see you again; then you will rejoice and no one can rob you of that joy." He speaks here of His death and then His resurrection. Only through the agonizing grief of His death, am I alive today. And I am reminded again, that through death alone can I live the resurrected life. And that death, of any kind, brings grief. Yet, this is the promise: "you grieve now BUT then you will rejoice--then--when you see the life I bring from this death, the impossible things I do."

These times in my life I've had to die to a lot of hopes and dreams that had been revived only this past year. Having loved someone, failing miserably at attempting to do that well, and then losing him has made me desperate for any sort of permanence in this world. Yet, I know it is an impossibility and that everything in this world will end, and give way to a truer reality when we all have faces and when we all can see His face.

I'm not gonna lie, knowing that all will be scattered away often makes me fearful to fully live, laugh, especially love. Yet, so help me God,

I'm gonna live, I'm gonna love

I'm not afraid because Your grace will always be enough
I'm gonna laugh, I'm gonna be set free
And let You hold all that my soul has deep inside of me

(Tip of My Heart, Bebo Norman)

Yes Lord, I want what you have for me out of this death.

Waking to the Silence of God

I woke to sunlight in my face this morning. Later than usual, but then again it isn’t an usual day. We’ve left for out last race, the one that matters, the one we’ve trained for so hard, and the one the previous races have prepared us to run. Yet, I feel least prepared and least excited about it. Maybe it is just the fact that this is it. That after tomorrow, the season is over with. And maybe I haven't come near as far as I expected. But far or short, nonetheless, I have changed. The heavy parallel that running has always had with my life, is perhaps what draws all these feelings out. Always pushing the line, always hurting but going somewhere, there is a goal, there is a fueling force. How did I get here?

I stood at the sink, dark eyes staring back at me: "How did you get here?" they ask, almost defiantly. So much has changed in only a matter of months, "What have you done?" I run my fingers through my disheveled hair, fixing nothing, it only springs back out of control. I don't know. . . Dillard answers:

Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.” Really? If we take this answer to refer to the affliction itself—and not the subsequent cure—as “God’s works manifest,” then we have, along with “not as the world gives unto you,” two meager, baffling, and infuriating answers to one of the few questions worth asking, to wit, What in the Sam Hill is going on here?

Do we really need blind men stumbling about, and flame-faced children to remind us of what God can—and will—do?

Yes, in fact we do. We do need reminding, not of what God can do, but of what He cannot do, or will not, which is to catch time in its free fall and stick a nickel’s worth of sense into our days.

And we need reminding of what time can do, must only do; churn out enormity at random and beat it, with God’s blessing, into our heads: that we are created, created, sojourners in a land we did not make, a land of no meaning of itself and no meaning we can make for it alone. Who are we to demand explanations of God? (And what monsters of perfection would we be if we did not?)

We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all. We sleep to time’s hurdy-gurdy; we wake if we ever wake, to the silence of God.

And so it is that suffering wakes me. But waking to silence? When I finally am full of questions? When I know You have the answers? I am awake, and first I wonder: Awake? Was I asleep before? If so, why such a brutal awakening? What is it? Did I anger You this time? What wrong have I done? Was I not trying to follow, and listen? No, it is not an awakening to all my sin but to the fact again, that I am not in control, that I am not my own, that I was created for a purpose: “in Him, and through Him, and FOR HIM.” (Acts)

So, You don't leave your work unfinished. . . I see (yes there is chaff, there is always more fleshly "humanity" to shed off )I must keep on wrestling until the blessing of being used by You(in the way You desire) is given. I guess rather the awakening is the opening of eyes just to new things unseen. Hold me together will You? Even as You work, blowing, slowly, painfully more chaff away. New depths, new wisdom. . . from Your grace cup. Yes, grace.