Watch-It Wednesday: If I Stand

Have you noticed that "Watch-It Wednesdays" are more frequently "Listen-To-This Wednesdays"? I considered re-titling them "Wordless Wednesdays," but then I'd feel compelled to not write anything and, well - we all know how much I like to talk, right?

This is an old song. An old song raw with a time-transcendent longing for heaven. An old song fresh with the realization of who we are before Christ. An old song marveling at the mystery of beauty around us, refusing to be enraptured even by the "good," in the precious hope of the perfect.

If you stand, stand on the promise. If you fall, fall on the grace. If you sing, sing for the Lord's joy. If you weep, weep with longing.

Have a blessed Wednesday!

Too Soon to Say Goodbye

{a journal entry written four hours into the flight from Iceland to Alaska}

It is so strange that our longest stretch is nearly over (3 hours to go). That when we land, there are only a few, short hours of flying left before this trip, this long~looked~for adventure, this life~changing, 2~month summer, is over. I'm not sure I'm ready for it to be so. Oh, I'm ready for the thrill of being told, "Welcome back, Ms. Coder," ~ for the little joys, like being able to plug things in without a converter, and having a laptop to write with, and being able to hop in the car and go meet missed friends for coffee at Old Town Battle Grounds. I'm ready for big joys, like seeing and hugging my family, reading the Bible together in the morning, and going to our church on Sundays.

I'm ready to plan my fall, see my students, and hear how hard they've worked over "break" ~ to have our summer recital, and go shopping for Family Camp, and go to the fair, and make cheesecake. I am ready to exercise (!!), and work off those extra pounds that desperately want to be my new best friends. I'm ready to unpack the gifts I bought, to asess what I've learned on this trip, to sit and think about which ways I am now responsible to change my life, considering this great privilege I was given. Yes, it is time to go home, and run toward the purpose God is revealing for my life: faithful, passionate step after step.

And yet, sorrow is mixed with this happy conviction. Sorrow for the little things I will miss ~ like borrowing clothes from Kaytch and this infamous iPad from Charae. Like late~night laughter fits and the uncertainty of whether or not we will sleep lightly enough to wake to the alarm in the morning. Sorrow for the big things I will miss, like praying with these two dear girls, challenging conversations, and watching each other's back in crazy cities. We've shared tears, opened our hearts to each other, grown together, and, ultimately, marveled at Who our God is. This, I will miss.

I will miss gasping for air as we run after ferries, buses, and trains, bags bulging from our sides. I will miss the precious people we leave behind ~ even writing that is hard. Those I already knew ~ my aunt, uncle, and cousins; Sabine and Klaus ~ and those I was floored with joy by being blessed enough to meet ~ Anne, Finlay, DR, Catherine, Katie, and Calum, who opened their home and hearts to us. Oh, how much I miss you guys!! And Kirsteen, Andy, and their boys... This is a mystery to me: the fact and existence of the spiritual family in Christ. I cannot comprehend how it is that I can feel an instant kinship with those I did not know a year ago, a month ago, a week ago...and yet, it happens! What unfathomable blessings our LORD has given us, in this alone! He created us to desire fellowship, and then He gave us, His children, a deeper level of fellowship than we could ever understand. But oh, do we delight in it! I sit in awe at His design.

Yet, designed and gifted as we are with this special family, aware as we are ~ from a wistfulness in our souls ~ that it was meant to be forever, leaving can never become easy. I am sore inside with a longing for all those I love ~ both those I am going to and those I must needs leave ~ to be with me. Thus, naturally, my heart breaks when physically I must turn my back on some of these dear ones. On repeat through my head for the past three days, and also poignantly when I had to say good bye to my aunt, have been the few words from "Les Miserables": "It's too soon ~ too soon, to say 'good bye'." I hate "good bye's." This is not how things ought to be. 

On this trip, we have seen great histories and breath~taking landscapes, some of which I dearly hope to see again, but it is the people ~ my dear brothers and sisters, my fellow adopted siblings ~ that I really wish for. If we could all be together, it would not matter where we were. Soon, soon. Praise Jesus, the time is coming! Meanwhile, as I, as we, seek the paths He holds for us, finding our joy consummated in Him and His people, we find our hearts tied stronger to home with every passing meeting and love. I look forward to the day when we will all be together with our Savior, finding "exceeding joy" for eternity in His presence with my whole family. When that day comes, and my back is turned toward this world of crumbling castles and abandoned hills, I will have finally found the "good~bye" that did not come too soon.

Two Lists

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If, today, time set me free,

Released me to Eternity,

Loos'd my body-bound, cramped soul,

To wing toward home - Oh blessed pull!

If forewarned, I knew the day,

The time, the place, the means, the way,

Then, I know, two lists I'd find

Engraved, heart-deep, within my mind.

Two lists - one silent plea.

 

First for "had" my heart would yearn

As untouched aspirations burn

Hot, with shame for goals unreached

Which should and could have been achieved.

"Had" I only tithed my time,

A tenth from friends to those in crime.

Broken hearts, lives grasped by sin,

And I not there to speak of Him!

"Had, had" - it haunts each turn.

 

"Had" - the thoughts crowd, choking air -

Had I the fortitude to dare

Love to speak, its truth, its pow'r.

God's love to all, through me, each hour.

Spoken, such a word does sway

All focus from life's whir'ling fray.

When upon great Love one rests

All hateful things (greed, selfishness)

Grow useless, dull, and rare.

 

No reprieve from piercing thoughts

Is granted me in the "had-nots".

Knowing, watching today's sun

I'd wish I "had not" this race run

Prayerless - or so nearly so

That I did only half-way grow.

Quiv'ring birch 'mongst ancient oaks

With tremb'ling faith that often chokes

And, but for Grace, would rot.

 

Oh, I wish in patience I

"Had not" refused again to try

Books unread and songs unplayed

With Little, learning fingers' aid.

And I wish I had not giv'n

Study of the One, the Ris'n

For a few more moments' rest.

What thankless trade of laziness

For spirit, parched and dry!

 

If, today, time set me free,

Released me to Eternity,

Throwing off sin's weight I'd soar

To live with Glory, evermore.

Joy consumes one, waiting thus,

But while my spirit's bound by dust,

Lists upon my heart I'll keep

Lest in the end I fall asleep.

For thieves come quietly.

 

 

"So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." - Psalm 90:12

 

 

"Two Lists" (c)2012 - to be used only with permission.

A Birthday



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  "...Unless you die before-hand." Zach snickered a little at his smart-aleck remark.

For some reason, the Littles have decided I am of age, and it's time to start pressuring me to move out. Consequently, not a day goes by in which they don't ask, "Sarah, when are you gonna get married? We want to have a niece or nephew." I have no idea what has caused them to pursue this subject, the only reason I can hypothesize being that they get the giggles at my "I am not getting married right now!" Finally, tonight, riding home in the car, I looked them in the eye and explained that God has the right guy somewhere, and it is His timing, not ours, for which we should be ready. "When God says it's time for me to get married, I will," I assured them. But for all my seriousness, I got chuckles. "Yeah...Unless you die first!" Maddy and Zachary thought this quite funny (who can understand the humor of 6 and 7 year olds?), and in amused exasperation, I agreed, "Yep, unless I die first, but that means God didn't want me to get married anyway!"

I thought the conversation was over, and had begun to turn back to my book, when Megan - who was sitting next to me in the car - said in a confidential undertone, "Sarah, which one would you go to?"
"What do you mean, Meggy?"
"Which one would you go to - heaven or hell - if you died early?"

To say I was surprised at the question would be an understatement. Meg knew I was a Christian, so I had the feeling that there was more going on in that little brain than her words were letting on.

"I would go to heaven, Meg," I replied, leaning in closer, "and I hope you would go to heaven too."

We both knew that she wasn't a Christian. By her wide eyes looking up at me, I knew Meggy was seriously considering what she had heard. For a moment, her inward struggle was almost palpable. But she said nothing, and looked away, so I turned to my book until, ten minutes later, I felt her eyes on me again.

"Sarah," she said, barely above a whisper, "what is hell like?"
"I don't know much about it, Meggy...it's dark. And burning. And it hurts so much that people gnash their teeth."

"What do I have to do, if I want to go to heaven instead?"

Instantly, I felt overwhelmingly out of my depth. How could I presume to explain the gospel to Megan? How could I say it fully, in a way she could grasp? And yet, we are supposed to come as little children, and the Father who calls can speak through my bewildered words.

Carefully, I told her that God was so good, not even the tiniest bit of sin could be in His presence. That Jesus, knowing this, had taken the punishment of our sin for us. That to go to heaven, all we had to do was believe in Him, but that it also meant we let Him "be the boss" of our lives. And it all ended - or rather, began - there in the van, with us bowing our heads and Megan saying a prayer that was much rejoiced over in heaven and on earth.

My little sister became my sister indeed today. May our Father bless her with wisdom and an overpowering knowledge of His love towards her.

Happy Birthday, Meg.

Thoughts for Thursday: Words and C.S. Lewis

"Those hills," said Lucy, "the nice woody ones and the blue ones behind -- aren't they very like the Southern border of Narnia?"

"Like!" cried Edmund after a moment's silence. "Why, they're exactly like...."

"And yet they're not like," said Lucy. "They're different. They have more colors on them and they look further away than I remembered and they're more...more...oh, I don't know..."

"More like the real thing," said the Lord Digory softly.

Suddenly, Farsight the Eagle spread his wings, soared thirty or forty feet up into the air, circled round and then alighted on the ground.

"Kings and Queens," he cried, "we have all been blind. We are only beginning to see where we are....Narnia is not dead. This is Narnia."

...."it's all so different," said Lucy.

"The Eagle is right," said the Lord Digory. "Listen, Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia. That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has always been here and always will be here....You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the Door. And of course it is different; as different as a real thing is from a shadow or a waking life is from a dream." His voice stirred everyone like a trumpet as he spoke these words....

I've been thinking about this passage from The Last Battle a lot lately. Particularly, as I've been memorizing/studying John 1.

Rabbit Trail: Oooo, the wonderful first five verses are simply mind-boggling. Did you know the Greek word for "Word" means "the Divine Expression"? To think that God's expression of Himself became a human being is...incomprehensible; as Martin Luther said, "The mystery of Christ, that He sunk Himself into our flesh, is beyond all human understanding." End Rabbit Trail.

Anyway, what I've been thinking is this: Many things in life are, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, a foreshadowing, a shortened version, a muted color of what exists in heaven. Life here on earth lasts only an average of 78 years (in the U.S.), yet, in heaven, there will be no end of life. (Actually, this is also true of death. While the moment of death is an instant here on earth, it too lasts for eternity for those who have not accepted Christ).

But words...words. If Jesus Christ is the incarnated Word, then the words we speak are only a foreshadowing of something deeper...something we will only fully understand when we stand before the living Word.

What are words? What are they in their real, bigger, brighter colors? 'Til we see God, I am not sure if we can understand, but this I know: If, somehow, the Son's Word had such power that He became a Person, I can finally understand why we, as Christians, must guard our words so closely. Our words are to parallel the Word, and all those which don't are nothing short of blasphemy. Because words - real, bright, shining words, the true words that the sounds we speak foreshadow - have a deeper impact than we realize.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed, and then cried:

"I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now. The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this. Bree-hee-hee! Come further up, come further in!" - The Last Battle, C.S. Lewis

CIA World Factbook 
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