Enough

2am, wide-eyed.

I reach for my glasses and put them on and lie there in the dark. This is how I have been. Equipped to see; still in the dark. I roll out of bed, stepping lightly over the little breaths and goldie locks on the mattress next to mine, careful not to wake her already restless sleep.

I switch on the light. Hanging laundry and half taught school lessons adorn the living room. Old scents and stuffiness hang in the air. Lists and lists of things I should do and things I should’ve done plague me. Condemn me. I try to stuff them deeper into the pile of mental procrastination. I put on the kettle.

Type up lessons. Clean the toilet. Fold the clothes. Sweep the floor. Write emails. Write thank-yous. Read the Bible. Point to Christ. Plan a date-night. Brush my teeth. Don’t throw up. Be grateful. Don’t be anxious. Don’t worry.

Don’t worry.

It’s the worrying –and a 4pm Coke– that has kept me up. Anxious thoughts that stalk my sleep. Where will the money come from? Where will we find a bigger place? How will we afford it? How long until the car is fixed? I pray as I sweep the floor, feeble words that barely make it from my desperate heart to my lips:

How in the world are we supposed to do what You have called us to do with what we have here, Lord? Your ways are such a mystery and right now I need a little less mystery and a little more certainty.

Because right now it feels like I am dying.

I dance, cloth underfoot, to the sound of the bottle of bleach solution squeaking as I spray. Foot wiping the strong smell across the swept floor. Trying to usher in a little clean.

I am tired of dying every day. Not the death that begets life, the Christ-like cross bearing, life-giving death. Not that one. The death that yields only more of itself, consuming until all life is gone. And I am tired of it. Because I know this road. The one that leads me to the pit of despair time and time again. The frequented path of “not enough” that brings me to death faster than anything else. Not enough money. Not enough time. Not enough faith. Not good enough. Not enough. Never enough.

I return to the kettle. The scents of yesterday’s trash and meals and dust mingle. I am nauseous. I pour the hot water over my green tea and fresh mint. I inhale. I sip. I find the worn place in the middle of the couch and sink in. Pause. Breathe; not too deep. I open my devotional and look for a little less worry and a little more life.

3am warrants a new day’s reading:

“As you keep your focus on Me, I form you into the one I desire you to be. Your part is to yield to My creative work in you, neither resisting it or trying to speed it up. Enjoy the tempo of a God-breathed life by letting Me set the pace. Hold my hand in childlike trust, and the way before you will open up step by step.” (January 25, Jesus Calling, p. 26)

I revel in the wonder of it.

I “know” that I must focus on Him, to yield; but all I really know is resisting. Resisting struggle. Resisting pain. Resisting quiet. Resisting discipline. Resisting perseverance. Because this self-preserving flesh of mine will fight for the life it thinks it deserves. Fight to the death for it. And I am losing. And it is killing me.

Because in the end, I end up resisting Love. I resist Love’s persistent, tenacious, tender, violent labors to bring me life, real life.

I sip my tea, hands cupped around, a bit cooler now. I turn and peer out the undressed windows, the world waiting. The early morning worries, the demands for certainty, they begin to slip away.

The certainty I seek is in Him. Him alone. I am asking the wrong questions. I am looking for the wrong answers. There is only one Answer, and it lies in this mysterious God of mine who keeps befuddling me with His lavishly poured-out, paradoxical grace and sacrificial love. That I might have life, and life in abundance.

Brisk daybreak-colored morning greets me as I crack the window. I breathe it in. Clean. Full of life. I throw the window open. I walk down the hall and quietly peel back the curtains. I open wide the morning. Next, the kitchen. Fresh. Life. It invigorates this weary, day old body, this tired, dying soul. I let the stale out.

I open my heart and let the stale out of there, too. I commit today to stop my whining. To embrace “God-breathed life.” To choose an attitude of gratitude for all He has given, rather than complain to Him for all I perceive He has withheld.

A door creaks. Little steps whisper on a clean floor.

“Mommy?”

Adara squints and rubs sleepy eyes as she stands there, hair tousled. She comes to me and climbs up into my lap and snuggles close to my warmth to escape the cool I have let in. I brush the hair from her forehead and softly kiss it and say “I love you.” She stretches a not-quite-5am-stretch.

“I love you, too.”

So I choose to begin my day here. Counting this blessing. Grateful for the bundle of love lying in my arms, and the life that is waiting for me today.

Because what I already have is more than enough.

Help

This morning I sit, window beside. Golden light streams over the mountain crest, through wispy tendrils of willow. Birds sing their morning song. Promises of what the new day can hold are before me.

And I am sour. Stale.

Having steeped in my own complaining the night before, the hardness of my heart is like a shell. I feel tight. The delight of fasting escapes me. All I can do is long for things I cannot have and complain of all I do. “Really, manna again?” I find myself longing for old things, old ways, knowing somewhere in my heart that these must pale in comparison to my God, to what He is doing. But they don’t, not right now.

Because right now He is at work in me, in this ungrateful heart, and revealing things I am not proud of, which I guess is the point. Unbelief. Complaint. Worry. Absence of trust. Lack of love. This is me. I know that there needs to be change. But it seems overwhelming. It seems impossible. It seems too hard.

The beauty of the nearness of God is not the same. It seems hidden. He is teaching me a new way. I do not like it.

So I am stalled at a crossroad.

In this early hour I turn, more out of duty than love, out of obligation than obedience, to the Word. Today it is like bitter medicine: I know it is good for me but it is hard to take.

Bright eyes peek over my computer screen.

He is eager to try out his new skills. He is full of joy, excitement.

“Mommy, see, see, see!”

Caleb collects all the elements to make himself breakfast. I have taught him carefully, and though he has not mastered it, I have released him. He can do it all by himself. Even then, cinnamon on a high shelf, to which he shimmies up cabinetry like a little monkey. He can do it all. Except to get the bowl. He asks me for help. “It’s like teamwork, Mommy.” Whoops, some sugar spills over. He starts to clear it himself and thinks twice. “Can you clean up the sugar for me? You can do it now, if you like.” I set my things aside and partner with him. He shakes a nearly empty milk container. He asks for advice and I oblige. Bowl full, he shuffles his feet slowly—inch by inch, tiny step by tiny step. “Balancing.” Making his way to the table with great care. “Can you move the laundry off the table for me please?” He sits down to partake of this morning feast, which he has prepared.

All by himself. With help.

I realize the source of my misery. I have been trying, striving. Working hard to get rid of bad habits. Wrong thoughts. Wrong ways. Trying to live rightly, holy. All by myself. And with every independent effort I am confronted with the ugly truth: I cannot do it. Not just me, not alone. This new way He is teaching me is the way of dependence. Complete dependence upon Him. “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for Him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”

I glimpse Him. He is near.

I ask for help.

I am tired. I am weary. I am failing. I have been trying to overcome without leaning on the Overcomer. I need You. Help me, Holy Spirit. I cannot do this without You. Teach me. Show me the way. I need You.

Sunlight streams in through the window now, warming my shoulder, highlighting a hungry mouth devouring in delight. My heart feels warmer.

I am hungry, too.

I turn back to my Bible. Pray about everything. Tell Me what you need. Thank Me. You will experience My peace, peace that guards your heart and mind. Fix your thoughts on good things, things that are pure, lovely, true. Practice what you have learned and received. Then My peace will be with you.

A way. The Way. And in this extraordinary partnership, His greatness and my great need, tiny step by tiny step, I move forward.

It is a new day. And it is going to be beautiful.

With help.

Hard Questions and A Beautiful Answer

It is an odd thing to see the path of a tornado.

Thick tree trunks mangled like broken twigs, branches naked. Piles of rubble. Houses leveled. Whole neighborhoods obliterated, while others stood eerily serene, seemingly untouched by the swirling dispenser of fate. Our family visited in late October and, after five months, Joplin, Missouri has made enormous strides in its efforts to rebuild after the catastrophic storm laid waste.

And still…

Nathan’s aunt and uncle had arranged for us to see the damage while we were in town. Our two car caravan –me with Nathan’s aunt and cousin, the other with Nathan, the kids, and Nathan’s uncle– took us though the path of the May 22^nd tornado, to the point of initial touchdown. For about half a mile on either side of the road you could see its affect, and though I knew the answer in my mind, there was a disconnect with what my eyes beheld. The ruin that lay in two parts on either side of the street was actually a whole, the result of a monstrous cyclone that roared through the city. A mile-wide wall of utter destruction.

Businesses.

Homes.

Schools.

A hospital.

Devastated.

I knew, days before we took this tour, that it would deeply affect my children, Caleb especially. I knew there would be questions and fears and discussions. And I wrestled with whether or not I should just let Nathan go while I stayed behind with the kids. But tragedy doesn’t wait until we are old enough, or when we are ready. I decided that seeing the wreckage and talking through the questions and the fears would allow a safe place for Caleb to experience sadness and grief and anxiety with someone that loved him and could help him process what he was seeing and feeling. It would expose him in a sheltered way to pain and sorrow, not to fall into despair but to bring forth compassion.

When our excursion finished I rejoined my family and, sliding into the passenger seat, came to find that Caleb had indeed been impacted by what he had seen. During the drive Caleb had asked his daddy:

“Did God make the tornado?”

Did He do it?

This all-mighty, all-powerful God who created all things, who made the animals and the trees and the people, did He do this too?

Isn’t this the question that burns within us when we witness injustice or behold destruction or confront death? Did HE do it? And if He didn’t do it then He certainly must have allowed it. My own difficult question was then unearthed from the recesses of my heart. Why God? Whatever the crisis, my flesh wants to demand from God where He was and that He be held accountable.

Nathan had answered, “I don’t presume to know whether God made the tornado or if it just formed out of the bad weather. But I know that God saved a lot of people from dying that day.”

It was true. A high school graduation was scheduled the evening the tornado hit. A week before the graduation was to take place on the campus it was decided to move the ceremony to a local community college because of the great number of people that would be in attendance. By God’s grace, the high school that would have been filled to overflowing was empty when the storm utterly destroyed it.

I unbuckled my seat belt and climbed to the back of the van where Caleb was sitting. The shadows of evening rested on him as he gazed out of the window, contemplating.

“So you saw where the tornado messed things up.”

“Yeah.”

“I heard you asked if God made the tornado.”

“Yeah. Did He?”

My mind and heart were roiling. My unbelief crashing into the very foundations of my faith: Did He make the tornado? Did He allow it? Is God good? How could a good God let bad things happen? My thoughts were swimming out of control and I was sinking beneath the weight of their hopelessness.

Yet in the raging war of belief and unbelief, in the seconds between Caleb’s question and my response, Holy Spirit ministered to me in gentleness and compassion. Where knowledge and faith collided, Grace intervened. And in the same way I had wanted to process with Caleb the tragedy we beheld through the lens of Love, so Holy Spirit wanted to do with me.

God’s Word says He is good. His Word is truth. God is not a man that He would lie. There is no darkness in Him. But because His ways are higher than my own, my finite mind grapples with even the tiniest breadth of the knowledge of God. His Sovereign Will escapes my understanding at the deepest heart level more often than not. Yet I began to realize that I was not wrestling with God and His choices. Sin. Pain. Sorrow. Death. These were not His intentions nor inventions. They came from somewhere else, someone else.

In that moment, I gave the only answer I could give honestly. And as the words spilled out of my mouth, from my heart to my son’s, the explanation God had rendered through me was doing a work in me.

“God never wanted this. He never wanted storms or tornados or sickness or death. He never wanted those bad things to happen to anybody. In fact, when God made the world, He made a perfect place with no tornados and no sickness and no death. That is what God made. That’s what He intended. Because God loved His people and He didn’t want anything bad for them, only good things. But something happened. One day a man made a bad choice. He decided he would disobey God. And even though it was only one bad choice, only one little choice, it allowed sin to come into the world. So even though that man made a bad choice, it affected every one and every thing on earth. Do you know what that man’s name was?”

“No.”

“His name was Adam.”

I could visibly see Caleb make the connection.

Oh. This was that Adam.

I watched my son begin to understand for the first time the relationship between sin and death. This abstract concept of sin —the story of a man and a woman, a snake and a fruit and a garden—became concrete. Of course I understood this truth with my head. But not with my heart. And for the first time I, too, really began to understand that the root of evil in this world is not from God at all but from the enemy of my soul, who lies and thieves, destroys and kills. Satan, who would twist truth and propagate deception so that Eve and Adam, Caleb and I and everyone would believe that God is not loving, faithful, or true, that God is not good. The Deceiver would go so far as to convince mankind that our thoughts and behaviors have no consequences. And we so far as to believe him.

It is one thing to be confronted with a single act of sin. It is quite another to recognize it’s consequences, spanning miles and even time. A tornado-devastated city. Human trafficking. War-torn nations. Broken families. Broken hearts. To see evidence of this ancient “bad choice” was a striking reminder for me:

God is not responsible for my bad choices…

…I am.

And my choices, and the choices of every one who lives or has ever lived, have consequences, lasting ones. How long ago did Adam sin and yet we all still feel the sting?

“And terrible pain came into God’s heart. His children hadn’t just broken the one rule; they had broken God’s heart. They had broken their wonderful relationship with Him. And now He knew everything else would break. God’s creation would start to unravel, come undone, and go wrong. From now on everything would die –even though it was all supposed to last forever…sin had come into God’s perfect world. And it would never leave…in another story it would all be over and that would have been THE END.

But not in this Story.

God loved His children too much to let the story end there. Even though He knew He would suffer, God had a plan—a magnificent dream…in spite of everything God would love his children –with a Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Always and Forever Love…

God whispered a promise to Adam and Eve: “It will not always be so! I will come and rescue you! I’ll get rid of the sin and the dark and the sadness you let in here. I’m coming back for you!” And He would. One day God Himself would come.” (Pp 33-36 from The Jesus Storybook Bible by Sally Lloyd-Jones)

Out of depths of love I cannot fathom, despite sin, and our constant tendency towards it, Mercy offered His redemptive gift. Though He wasn’t responsible for our actions or their results, God intervened. He humbled Himself in a garment of flesh, as a helpless babe. He walked a lonely road of truth. He came to understand our struggles, our grief, and our pain. He became a man of sorrows so that we could have the hope of joy. He bore the punishment of sin so that we could taste freedom. He suffered death so that we could live. And He overcame Satan so that we could more than overcome.

There, in the back of a minivan in Mid-West USA, in the midst of a devastated community, I was overwhelmed once again by the extravagant gift of Grace. From Eden to Joplin, indeed across our wounded world, God never abandoned us to the brokenness and hopelessness that sin wrought upon the earth.

There are things that happen that I will not understand, questions that will not be fully answered while I am here on this earth. But I know that my God is big enough to hear my frustrations and accusations, however unfounded, because at the core of my being I am not really frustrated with Him but the result of what sin has done to people. And at His core, so is God. And that is why in His goodness, in His great love, He became the remedy to sin and the answer to our desperate cry for a Savior.

Forgive me for my incomplete understanding of Your mercies. Continue to expose the lies of the enemy that I believe as truth. Reveal to me, more and more, the truth of who You are. Oh, the lengths You went to for the sake of Love! Jesus, thank you for taking on the weight of sin that there would be hope for all. You were, You are, and You forever will be our beautiful answer.

Scars

Earlier this year our family crossed hemispheres, from the southern tip of Africa to the northern part of Europe, for training in disciple making. Six weeks were spent in England and, upon our arrival, I was able to appreciate the inspiration in which authors like C.S. Lewis and Beatrix Potter were steeped. Golden morning mists. An array of blossoms adorning the grassy meadows. Rabbits with their quiet, early morning breakfasts. Deer on soundless strolls. The lush green landscape contrasted greatly from the dusty, earthen-colored land in which I live.

Although we went for vocational input, it was evident that the Lord wanted to bring refreshment to our hearts. Dry and weary, I think Nathan and I hadn’t realized the extent of our emptiness. Our training time also became a place of restoration and healing, a place to drink from streams of life from which we had not partaken in quite some time.

On one morning run, as I passed through trails of beauty, Holy Spirit led me to a tree. I observed the places where limbs had been severed. As I surveyed the tree’s scars I was contemplative of my own. I looked at the places that had been cut and broken, yet for all the disfigurement the tree stood tall and strong. It had been there for decades, perhaps a century. Season after season it continued to grow. Right up next to it I could see its marks, though if I stood back, taking in the fullness of its splendor, they were hardly visible. Still there, it was not the tree’s damaged parts that were the focus but its life. The Lord’s Spirit ministered to mine. He reminded me that though I had gone through difficulties that had injured my heart, I should not direct my gaze on the scars but on the One who heals them and brings me life. Scars are not all bad. It is by the very wounds of my Savior Christ Jesus that I am made whole. But with His crucifixion there is also resurrection. There are wounds and there is life, and though the two are intertwined, in Him who has conquered death Life will prevail.

Scars

Gnarled skin, rough and weathered

Renders a narrative of seasons gone by

Here you stand, ancient giant

Here I too, in the shadow of your presence

I linger at your imperfections

Tracing with eyes and with fingers

The irregular etchings

Betraying offences sustained

I bear scars of my own

Wounds from enemies

Wounds from friends cut deeper still

Lingering reminders of loyalties abandoned

Yet to stay so close

Examining old wounds

I see only a piece of who you are

Missing the grandeur of a picture larger

I step back to capture you

Magnificent, majestic

Full of life

Full of hope

Your roots go down deep, deep

And your massive limbs unfurled to the sky

Tell a story of generations past

With expectation of what lies ahead

Here you rise, ancient giant, here you endure

Endure I with you

And despite our scars– or because of them

We are stronger

When the Poop Hits the Fan

When Adara pours out her berry smoothie. And fingerpaints in it.

When she poops on the carpet in the living room. On purpose.

When she’s screaming. At the top of her lungs.

When Caleb unravels an entire roll of toilet paper. In the toilet.

And I discover that ants have moved into my bedroom.

Under my bed.

In my bed.

This is when it counts. These are the moments when all of the times spent in prayer, in His Presence, in the Word; when I must find the strength of character in Christ to make the next decision, the decision to LOVE. And so I become one with my Savior as I suffer long with my children, learning to an infinitesimal degree my heavenly Father’s long suffering with me. And we connect, He and I, Spirit to spirit. There is a revelation, and understanding that in the suffering, there is obedience. And in the obedience there is love. And the love that was poured out on the cross for me is now able to pour out of me. And the miracle of Grace is made manifest again and again through these little acts, these heart responses. Each time I have a choice.

Today I chose to love.

Passover

Caleb, Adara, and I sat snuggled on the couch. It was a cold morning; the first frost of a coming winter was on the ground and little clouds puffed from our mouths as we talked over the story before us. We were reading out of the Jesus Storybook Bible and, since it was Maundy Thursday, we were reading about “The Last Supper.” But the story didn’t begin there.

It began with explaining how, back then, the streets of Jerusalem were dirty and disgusting, filled with the rubbish of daily life, and how people’s feet were always picking up the filth of the animals and the people of the busy city. This was to emphasize why Jesus’ friends, His disciples, were not so keen to volunteer to wash feet before eating the Passover remembrance meal with Jesus. And of course I know the story: Jesus, King of Heaven, served instead of being served. He set the example that His friends, then and now, should follow. Then they ate the meal. But Jesus asked them to remember a new Passover, with broken bread and poured out wine, symbols of the sacrifice to come. A perfect sacrifice. His sacrifice. They finished, sang “their favorite song,” and went out to a garden.

After a bit of discussion I left the room, keeping the two little ones in suspense, to retrieve a “surprise.” I came back with a basin of warm water. I was going to wash their little feet.

Caleb was first and, as Adara looked on expectantly, the story that told of a time far away became a present reality.

“Are our feet stinky, Mommy?” We recalled all the things that might make “stinky feet” based on our Bible’s illustrations.

I explained how, just like Jesus washed the dirt from his friends’ feet, Jesus’ blood washes our hearts clean. Caleb seemed to ponder this, sitting in silence.

“Mommy, are you Jesus?”

It was the highest compliment I had ever received. Oh, to be mistaken for You, Lord!

I smiled.

“No, Baby, but when you love Jesus, His Spirit lives inside you and then you want to show love to people like He did. And when we love people like Jesus did, then we show that we also love God.”

I dried off Caleb’s feet. Adara danced around eagerly awaiting her turn. I pulled off a sock and Caleb reached out for the other. “I am part of a family so I help.” So my little girl’s toes plunged into the basin as I repeated the act of servanthood and love.

Afterwards, we celebrated communion as we remembered when Jesus broke bread for the last time with his friends. Adara squealed in delight thinking she was about to indulge in some kind of sweetie at the unfamiliar crinkle of plastic as I unwrapped the communion wafers. I was short on grape juice shorter on wine, so we drank watered down grapefruit juice as we remembered Jesus’ blood poured out to wash our hearts clean. After the cup had been passed around Caleb leaned over to me and whispered, “We drank the blood.”

I smiled.

As our time of remembrance came to a close I reminded the children that the disciples sang a song before they left to go to the garden. “What favorite song do you want to sing?”

“How about Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star?” And Caleb immediately led us all in song. Adara tilted her head and swayed, “singing” right along.

And I smiled.

Jesus, my Jesus, thank you for Your love. Beautiful. Sacrificial. Strong love. Stronger than death. Stronger than my weakness. Thank you for the blessed privilege of sharing the truth of your grace and mercy with my children, and in doing so reminding myself as well. I am in awe at Your gift of the cross. Thank You, thank You.

A Conference and A Wedding

Our family spent an April weekend in Estcourt, South Africa for our organization's first “Cluster Staff Conference.” It was a gathering of bases from South Africa (Bethlehem, Winterton, Durban) and Lesotho coming together as a larger YWAM family to grow in relationship with each other and with God. Though the scripture for our conference focused on being rooted in Christ’s love, two distinct threads wove their way into our weekend: becoming like little children, and disappointments that stemmed from seemingly unfulfilled promises of God.

As a result of the latter it was proposed that each person who could relate, who believed God had spoken about a certain issue and since that time had been strangely silent and distant, promise unfulfilled, each one of them was to find a stone. A stone for each broken dream, for every promise that had yet come to pass. In a time of worship and reflection each person would have a chance to bring his or her stone to the cross, laying it down before the Lord, offering back to Him the treasure that each was clinging to more than the One who gave it, a wordless deed conveying this: I trust You with this, God.

A small group of us had been asked to discuss how to arrange the chapel for this Saturday evening session. One woman said she felt like there should be candles leading up to the cross. Similarly, I felt like there should also be an isle leading to the cross, one lined with palm fronds symbolic of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem –and ultimately to the cross– for the joy set before Him. After the brainstorming, I acquired the tea light candles and only slightly defaced the grounds for palm-looking branches.

Of course, you can’t be in the middle of a garden on your knees, with half of your body in a bush while you hack away at its branches with safety scissors, without attracting some attention.

The children of each staff family, immediately intrigued by my endeavors, asked if they could help. I “agreed” and set them to a parallel task of flower picking to keep them busy while at the same time keep them out of my hair.

The cross stood several meters opposite the double door entryway of the chapel. Halfway through lining the isle with palm branches I noticed that one of the children deviated from her assignment and began scattering rose petals and leafy bits down the center. I stared in disbelief at the colored flecks. I could feel my frustration mounting as other children joined in, joyfully tossing their flower heads and plant pieces on my isle. This looks like a wedding isle, I thought incredulously.

THIS was not what I had in mind.

Then Holy Spirit gently spoke. Reminding me, rescuing me from my acute case of seriousness: Be like a little child. The kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.

Childlike.

I was so focused on the theme of broken dreams that I almost forgot the call to become more like a child. They were both major themes that God had been reiterating over the last 24 hours. How often had I allowed broken dreams to overshadow the invitation into joy? How often had I lost sight of the Dream Giver in the pursuit of the dream?

The overture was obvious. I shook off my own plans. Who cared how it looked. It was the Spirit behind it that mattered. “Don’t forget up here!” I called as I joined the children in their happy decoration celebration for the worship time ahead. Though we had finished the isle, the little ones continued beautifying the portico while the older children debated on what to “give” to the adults as they came into the tiny sanctuary for evening worship. So we prayed.

“What do you feel God is saying to you? Is He putting a thought into your mind that you want to share?” One child replied, “ I think God wants us to welcome them.” Another stated matter-of-factly, “I think He wants to give them love.”

To welcome us. To give us Love. We want to give You our grievances and YOU want to give us LOVE. How very like us. How very like You.

Twillight hues of burnt orange and deep fucsha made way for a royal night sky. Lights dimmed, candles lit, stones in hand we sang, lifting our voices in one accord to the One who loved us and called us. I sat on the floor, Caleb’s and Adara’s slumbering crowns resting in my lap. I looked at the isle, strewn in vibrant color. In the shadow and candlelight it looked very much like a wedding isle, ready for a procession, ready for a bride.

Then it struck me, a revelation that I knew as a concept in my mind yet for the first time truly penetrated my heart:

WE ARE THE BRIDE.

On one end of the isle stood a bride, a body of believers making themselves ready to move deeper with Jesus. On the other end stood a perfect bridegroom, willing and wanting to receive the bride before Him, for better or worse, seeing her faults and loving her anyway.

My breath caught in my chest and my heart began to pound. I couldn’t bring myself to look at the cross. I just couldn’t. Slowly my eyes would go down the walkway only to stop at the foot of the cross, yet all the while imagining that there, at the very place of the cross, was the radiant Bridegroom. “There’s gonna be a wedding, it’s the reason that I’m living…” The lyrics of a Prayer Room song rang through my mind. At that moment, though I knew what was at the end of this isle (after all, I had put it there) I knew that One day there would be a wedding, and the great marriage supper of the Lamb, and at the end of that isle wouldn’t be the symbol of a risen Savior, it would be the flesh and blood God-Man, Jesus Christ Himself, awaiting the bride who made herself ready for Him.

The hearts of children had heard the heart of God.

Making ready the way for Love.

“There’s gonna be a wedding, it’s the reason that I’m living…” Sweet Jesus, let this be the song of my heart! Take my heart of stone, fettered with the bitterness of unmet expectations, and give me a new heart, a heart of flesh. One that hears Your voice, strong and true. A heart like a child. You are coming for a bride made ready. Help me, Holy Spirit, in preparation for that glorious encounter with my Beloved.