Well Done, Good and Faithful

      When I was seventeen I posted the verse that reads, “‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.” on the ceiling above my bed.   I wanted a constant reminder of what I was aiming to do in my life.  I paired the verse with a print of a young woman working in the fields. 

I had a goal in mind and a picture of hard work coupled with that vision.  But, my flesh and my appetites lacked discipline.  I think I wanted the results of a life lived like the Scripture verse and the painting, but I had not anticipated the work those goals would require.  I was young and naive.  I had not tasted much suffering and I had earthly comforts in mind more than spiritual gains.  But God answers the prayers of our hearts when they align with His.  And He would help me to learn what I needed to be a faithful servant, mostly through being a wife and mother. 

When I became a mother I had romantic visions of me pushing the baby in a stroller on sunny afternoons and making beautiful home made meals while the baby slept peacefully in his cradle.  Enter reality.  No sleep, a crying stinky baby, and a lot of time alone.  This reality was not matching the romantic life of motherhood I had dreamed up.  I needed a new vision, a vision that would encompass the reality of my life.

Motherhood x 5

I know I prayed countless prayers of “God help me!”,“I am drowning here, teach me what to do.”, and “Don’t let me come up with this Mom thing on my own, teach me Your ways.”  The disadvantages of living at the end of the 20th Century for a young stay at home mom had caught up with me.  I was swimming against the current of our culture and I needed some guidance.  And so, as my parents had engrained in me, I sought to learn what I needed to learn.  Thus began the care and feeding of our first born, Jackson.

Those early years were more trial and error than confidant, peaceful mothering.  But I learned, and God always provided what I needed to learn.  I wanted the best.  I didn’t want to do anything by halves.  I wanted all that God had for me in this role and so I pursued Him and His Word.  I wanted truth.  Anything I read or listened to or watched had to be grounded in Christ and His Word.  Anything else was suspect.  And so, my humble education began.

As I have pondered over the years of mothering and wifing, I see a pattern in my life.  My life has been a series of humbling situations and circumstances.  I have not walked an easy care free path without resistance.  On the contrary, I have had to work with a plow in one hand and a sword in the other.  The battle for my heart, soul, and mind is very real.  To do anything faithfully and truthfully, one must be alert and on guard.

But with a harder path much grace is given.  I feel as if I have drunk and swam in rivers of grace my whole life.  Gracious protection and provision have followed me all the days of my life.  And I am humbled as I think of it. 

                                                          

Worth the fight

Mothering has been an amazing grace in my life.  The calling of motherhood has shaped and changed me and taught me much.  There are a few truths or axioms that I have stumbled upon in my journey as a mother.

First, a child is not a possession, but the fruit of life.  There is nothing more precious than life.  Life is miraculous in any form.  A child is a wonder and should be viewed as something to marvel upon.  People are not ours to own but to graciously care for. Where do we go to learn about how to care for these precious fragile souls?  To the One who created them.  He knows, not the world.  The Lord calls us to care and nurture and teach the life that He has made.  The world sings a siren song of idolatry.  Turn your child into something that you can manipulate to give you the love, joy, and satisfaction that you crave in life.    

Our problem is that we live in this world but are not a part of it.  So we grow up children in a world that we are not made to love.  We love the people in the world but not the world itself.  There in lies the paradox of parenting.  We feed and tend and nurture in ways very foreign to most.  We receive messages spoken and unspoken telling us we are wrong, and are in fact harsh and cruel to train up a child in the ways of the Lord.  And so we must set our faces like flint to learn from the One who made us and our children.  We need to look ahead and not turn to the right or to the left, but follow the voice of the One leading us when the way is dark and narrow.  

Everyone wants to know how to raise children in this ancient and godly way.  But, I have found that it is not so much in the how but in the who. If we sit at the feet of the One who loves and cares for us we will lack nothing as we feed His lambs.  But is this too abstract, too ethereal?  No, it is a training of the heart and mind to listen and to follow as He leads and speaks.  There are specifics of how, but we will never follow the how if we do not believe and trust the One who is teaching us the whys of parenting. 

So, here are some applications of what I have learned.  You cannot give someone something when you have nothing to give them.  First, you must obtain what the child you are caring for needs.  My children need hope, love, joy, grace, strength, a quiet spirit, teachableness, and patience.  I must endeavor to learn of these things myself. As I learn of them, then I turn and give to them what I have learned.  All the while, I show them that I am cared for and led by a Heavenly Father.  I tell them to pray for me that I would learn what I need to know and I take them to the Lord to learn directly from Him.  For just as my parents taught me, they need to know where to go for themselves to learn the truths of life.

Secondly, we are all sinners and I am not better than my children.  My children teach me and show me my faults daily.  When I see my need for grace and forgiveness then I remain in a state of sensitivity and hopefulness, that my children will grow and change just as I have.  If I have a long, long way to grow in my own growth, why am I surprised that they too have a long, long way to grow?  We sin and run to the Savior for grace together.  We have the same need and the same antidote.  This constant need softens my hard edges and quiets the anxious expectations that I can so readily place on the backs of my children.

Thirdly, I have seen that God provides all that I and my children need.  We have never lacked any good thing.  There is never any loss in Christ.  Because I follow Christ and listen to his voice I know that I will never be in need.  He withholds nothing we need to grow in His likeness and to do His will.  When my children need good friends, He provides them.  When my children need help learning something that I cannot teach them, He provides them with a teacher.  When my children are full of themselves and lack love, He provides the discipline they need to grow in service and love for others.  When my children need to love work and grow in patience, He gives them work and causes them to wait on Him.  When my children are in need, I have learned to go to the Father of Lights from whom all good gifts come.  As I wait on Him, He directs my path and we see the beautiful miracle of His provision and His faithfulness together.

                                                                          

Jackson and "Bub" 

And finally, I have learned that all of life is meant to be lived in seasons.  We almost always fantasize of living in another season of life. We have tasted the bitterness and the gaul of where we are for far too long.  There are times and seasons when the sun will not shine and the rain will not stop. We wait and we wait and we see no end to the storm.  Yet, we can look back and see the faithfulness of God in our lives and in those who have lived before us.  We are safe in the ark of God.  He carries us to where He wants us to go and we can trust his plan.  There is always a day when the window can be opened and the sun can be felt on our sallow faces. We can look up and see the olive branch of the many prayers that we have prayed coming in the peaceful mouth of the dove.  He will never let the righteous go hungry, but satisfies all who hunger and thirst for righteousness.  So we learn to quiet ourselves and wait on the Lord in our current season.  As we wait, we grow strong, and we find ourselves lifting holy hands in thanksgiving for all that He has done, in every season. 

Now I have a child that I have endeavored to grow up in the fear and admonition of the Lord that is hearing the call of manhood.  He is preparing to go and follow the voice of the One who will teach Him to be a man.  This is a time for me to ponder and cherish all that I have seen and tasted; it is a time to wait and see the fruit that will be born of the seeds that I clumsily endeavored to plant in his life.  

                                                                   

Well done my son.

As I think of that painting above my bed, I smile to think of all that I did not know but somehow had the forethought to pursue.  I know that it is all of grace. In fact, I feel the need of this grace all the more.  Like so many of you, I awake each day looking to see where I need to weed and water and cultivate today.  
       Today I am thankful for all that the nurturing and caring of Jackson has taught me.  The season has come for me to turn to him and say, “Well done, my son, well done.  Now enter the hard fought but joyful life that your Lord has in store for you.”  

 ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

"Mother and Child" by Mary Cassatt

Dream On

        Do you dream? I have had conflicting thoughts on dreams.  Will my dreams carry me too far away from reality?  What if I push all of my dreams away, what will I have left to hope in? Even as I know that I have been called into this time to live, I cannot help but dream.  

Dreaming can be a coping mechanism - a way to turn on the television screen of our minds and let it take us away from our monotony and pain.  But I find that dreams can also ground us in the truth.  

Jesus told us He came not to be the panacea for all of life’s pain but to give us life more abundantly.  He said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”  An abundance of something is a generous amount.  He takes our life here and expands it to encompass eternity.  And this is why we dream.  

                                                 

Elais' imaginative drawings ~ they always tell a story.

Dream worlds are a sign that our souls belong to more than what we can see.  We are not satisfied with what this world has to offer.  There are things we want to forget, run away from, and not accept.  There is inequity, loss, pain, suppression, and death here.  Death and dying, in all facets of life, has invaded what should have been a beautiful existence. 

While we are living out our days here on terra-firma we must dream; without it our souls suffocate.  Stories of dreaming souls are all around us.  Corrie ten Boom’s soaring lark that took her spirit up to the heights as Nazi prison guards beat and persecuted frail women all around her.  Harriet Tubman’s angelic visions of smiling, caring women in white, who reached out to the rough unwanted hands of a slave girl.  C.S. Lewis’ magical world where a great and terrible lion makes mean and selfish children into kings and queens of a fairy land by the sea.  These dreamers kept their troubled souls alive on thoughts of what could be, on what should be. 

No one dreams up more stuff than these three!

When we dream, we often touch what will be.  Without this sense of what is to come, we are easily drug down into the shadows.  Dreams of a new heaven and new earth enlarge our purpose here, giving us life more abundantly in the waiting world.  Even the world itself is yearning and groaning for its newness to come. A redemption awaits. 

And as I wait, I dream of the people I will one day hold again.  I dream of the hardest and most disfigured people I know, healed and made whole.  I dream of seeing the many things that I cannot change here,  perfected in Eternity.  I dream of the time and the conversations and the creations that await me one day.  I dream of no more separation but only unifying wholeness.  
       And I know that these dreams will be because I know the One who calls me to dream.  He is keeping all of these things just as He is keeping me until that Day.  And so, I am quieting my soul, learning to see through a glass darkly.  I am a watchman waiting for the morning; waiting for that dawn where my faith will be my eyes. 

Bella fulfilling some of her musical dreams

~ Your Fellow Sojourner

C. S. Lewis on writing fairy tales for children...

" Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage.  Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker. Nor do most of us find that violence and bloodshed, in a story, produce any haunting dread in the minds of children. As far as that goes, I side impenitently with the human race against the modern reformer. Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book.”

Walking Blind

      One day I saw a blind man walking.  I had come to a stop at a busy intersection when a young man boldly walked across the road.  I saw his walking stick moving quickly from side to side.  He smiled broadly and turned to wave to the cars on either side of him.  He continued on his way and the light turned green.  I was in awe for a moment.  Instead of pitying the blind man, I pitied myself.  He was blind, but he was walking.  I wanted faith to walk like him.

My youngest son likes to play a game that requires the faith of a little child.  He likes to go walking around with a blanket on his head, pretending to catch one of us.  My son will walk into a room, arms outstretched, with a blanket covering all but his little legs.  He laughs as he bumps into furniture and people but he never takes the blanket off of his head.  He feels safe because he trusts his siblings and he trusts his home.  He knows his family will not betray him and that his surroundings have not suddenly changed.  He has confidence even in his blindness. 

Liam, Winston, and Elias camouflaged in their "Monkey Tree". 

Everyday we are called to walk through something or toward something unknown.  We live blindly.  But we do have choices in our blindness, whether to freeze or take steps of childlike faith.  Faith is blind, but faith in a Hope that never disappoints is sure. 

My blind Grandmother was never without a smile and always had the energy to step toward whoever came through her door.  This little Italian woman loved to be busy and loved to be with her family.  She would always greet me with a hug and a kiss and then feel my face.  I remember the day I found out that she was blind.  I couldn’t believe it.  She didn’t act like a blind person should.  She was too sure of herself.  I did not think of my Grandmother as a blind woman, but as a woman who would never turn you away and would always make sure you were welcomed and loved.  She had pushed through her blindness, had accepted it, and was loving others on the other side of it.  Her love was fueled by faith, a faith that enabled her to love.  

There was a night during the last few months that seemed particularly dark to me.  Sadness, emptiness, and fear seemed to become a part of the pitch black night.  I was frozen by my feelings and could not see past my own self pity.  I cried out to God.  I told Him I did not know what to do or what to think.  I felt like the blind man that Jesus met in Bethsaida.

         In Bethsaida, Jesus meets a blind man.  Instead of healing the man’s blindness right away he takes the blind man by the hand and leads him outside of the city.  Jesus, the Healer,  led the blindman to where He wanted to heal him. Jesus wanted to build the man’s trust in Him.  Like the blind man of Bethsiada, my inability to see past myself caused me to cling to Jesus. All I could do was be led to where Jesus could help me. 

Bella closing her eyes in laughter.

We know Jesus can heal and do the impossible.  Like Christ’s disciples, we have seen and heard what He has done.  Yet how quickly we forget, how quickly we explain Jesus’ work away.  “That wasn’t God it was just coincidence.  I know God has helped me before but I don’t think He will now.”  We have become hardened to the miraculous in our lives.  The air we breathe and the heart that keeps pounding in our chest is a miraculous gift.  We live from miracle to miracle and we move from wonder to wonder.  Yet we look past what Christ is doing and focus on what we cannot see or where we cannot go.   

        We are a people always looking for a sign, always turning away from the only One who can sustain us.  His plan is to do more than just heal us or give us what we want.  He wants to come close and teach us what it means to trust Him. He wants us to know Him. 

In spite of failing eyes and feeble faith He leads us to still waters.  In spite of the enemies that surround and assail our souls He prepares a table of plenty to commune with us. As our blindness prompts us to walk closer to the Lord, we find that He becomes our portion, not just now but for eternity.   And out of this dependent relationship with Christ, we begin to walk closer to those who need to know how to walk by faith and not by sight.  

Walking blind, 

Your Fellow Sojourner

“Close to Thee”

~ written by Fanny Crosby, who became blind at six weeks old

     About her blindness, Fanny said:"It seemed intended by the blessed providence of God that I should be blind all my life, and I thank him for the dispensation. If perfect earthly sight were offered me tomorrow I would not accept it. I might not have sung hymns to the praise of God if I had been distracted by the beautiful and interesting things about me. If I had a choice, I would still choose to remain blind...for when I die, the first face I will ever see will be the face of my blessed Saviour.”

   Thou my everlasting portion,

   More than friend or life to me,

   All along my pilgrim journey,

   Savior, let me walk with Thee.

   Close to Thee, close to Thee,

   Close to Thee, close to Thee;

   All along my pilgrim journey,

   Savior, let me walk with Thee.

    Not for ease or worldly pleasure,

    Nor for fame my prayer shall be;

    Gladly will I toil and suffer,

    Only let me walk with Thee.

   Close to Thee, close to Thee,

   Close to Thee, close to Thee,

   Gladly will I toil and suffer,

   Only let me walk with Thee.

   Lead me through the vale of shadows,

   Bear me o’er life’s fitful sea;

   Then the gate of life eternal

   May I enter, Lord, with Thee.

   Close to Thee, close to Thee,

   Close to Thee, close to Thee,

   Then the gate of life eternal

   May I enter, Lord, with Thee.

           

Joys Unseen

   The memories from the past year are flooding my mind as of late.  Not many of them are pleasant.  Many of my thoughts linger on death and loss and endings.  I find myself straining to look beyond this year, seeking the horizon of the next.  I am looking for hope.  I know that with the new year comes another 365 days and the possibilities of all the good that can come, and the hope that does not disappoint us. 

    It is somewhat miraculous that hope keeps coming year after year.  I am amazed that my heart continues to believe in an ancient refrain,”I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”  Why have I not become bitter or angry or reclusive?  Could it be the gifts in my life, which are plenty,  my children, a loving husband, and a God fearing home?  But these gifts cannot ward off the life daunting fears this world can bring. 

About to listen to the Christmas Choral Concert, ending with the Hallelujah chorus.

    There must be something more.  These dissonant notes keep playing in my mind yet I find myself comforting others through my grief. Where does the strength come from to move past my own loss and feel the needs of another?  The unsaid good-byes, the unanswered questions, the unending pain that hides behind the quiet moments of my days have not led me to despair.  And I find myself perplexed as to how this inner calm has come. 

    I have been held by a strength not of this world that has come to dwell in me.  The Savior of the world came to dwell with men to meet a dire need. He is more than the fulfillment of all our hopes and fears. He spoke and my world began.  And He alone holds my world together still by the word of His death defeating, life bringing power.  He is the One who will finish all that is left undone.   

Chris and I finding a moment of joy and peace in the form of a song. 

    When the other worldly announcement of a god become flesh came bursting through the night sky, the world paused, and the lowly were lifted up.  Sorrowful hearts stopped their searching.  An answer had come to the cries for hope in a way that none could imagine. 

    The god man come to dwell with us, to taste our pain and know our sorrows, to feel the attacks and taunts so common to us all. But, the pain and death and loss of this world did not end on the night he came.  The assault upon our souls continued then and it continues now.   But, now! There is a breaking through. The end had not yet come, but the beginning of the end was made manifest.  

    And that is where we are.  We are not at the end, but we are not at the beginning.  We follow the path of the Coming One who has come and will come again. As our weary, cross carrying souls search for firm footing, we move from strength to strength through the Valley of Bacca.  Finding that we are lost and orphaned no longer, our sadness turns into springs of life.

Christmas Eve and all of the anticipation that it brings. 

     All of the sadness that my mind could rehearse is overcome by a coming grace. In this hope of future grace I am grounded in the here and now.  I solider on, looking ahead to the joys and hopes that await me in an everlasting city, where my Savior forever pleads for me, before a throne of grace.

May all of your hopes that are yet unseen be fulfilled in Him,

 Your Fellow Sojourner

I leave you with the observations of a girl from another time and place.

“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”

“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.

“Not because you are?”

“I am not.  But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”~ C.S. Lewis’ Prince Caspian

The Bunker

        When I was a girl I loved to build forts in the woods behind our house.  I took special pride in picking up fallen trees and dragging them to the fort site.  Our forts never seemed to take on the shape of the typical child’s fort, but became a sort of sprawling woodsy shantytown.  To me they were hide aways that I could construct on my own.  They were places where I could go and pretend, shutting out the world.

I was a trusting child who generally liked just about everybody.  But when I hit the middle school years, I encountered meanness.  Girls would corner me from time to time to make fun of my clothes or my hair.  Boys would laugh at me for just about anything.  Summer camp was an exercise in how to survive a week in a self proclaimed state of isolation, away from the girls who made me feel even more awkward.  

My once outgoing and creative self was becoming quieter and quieter.  Then there came a day when I decided to all but silence my gregarious self.  And so I built a bunker. 

 The boys and their "fortifications".

          I retreated within myself, becoming a quiet, shy follower.  I wanted to be the one who was liked, not the one who was shunned.  I lived in retreat from who I truly was; I lived to be liked, to be thought well of, and to be noticed.  And over time, I forgot who I truly was.

     As a result of these decisions I was unhappy and angry, anxious and unsure. I did things and made choices that went against my conscience, all so that I would not bring negative attention to myself or face rejection.  I would do anything to not be alone. 

         From my 5th grade year until my 12th grade year I retreated into my self made bunker.  It was not until after my high school years that a caring friend came along to call me out. This friend placed no expectations on me but to know me for who I truly was.  He patiently waited outside for me.  He lured me to the door of my bunker and then onto the threshold and eventually out into the light of day. He loved me humbly without any agenda. 

         I had walled myself off from real love, lasting growth, and a true understanding of who I was created to be.  My friend, who eventually became my husband, made the decision to wait outside of my cement fortress and not give up.  I will be forever thankful for a friend like him. 

         We who have come out of our bunkers need to be on the look out for others who have retreated into their own hardened worlds.  We need to lead our anemic friends and loved ones to the One their souls can trust. 

The kids at Cape Henlopen checking out WWII bunkers.

          We all encounter unpleasantness outside of our bunkers.  And so we must learn to find solace somewhere else.  There is another secret place to which we can run. 

         I go to the Rock that is higher than any height my soul could attain on its own.   I hide away in the rock hard safety of who God is, the Faithful One, and there I pour out my soul.  

          To talk to God about the hard things, my fears and my anxieties in life, is safe.  It is in this place that I am reassured enough to walk out into the daylight again, confident in the truth of who I am in Him.  This confidence comes from a renewed mind that sees life differently.  

         “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:1-3 ESV) 

           I am hidden with Christ in God, therefore, I can live above and beyond my fears in this world.  My eyes are not focused inward, nursing the pains I have felt; I have died to that old life.  There is a new life that can be lived with purpose and peace in the midst of this painful world. 

         Long ago I exchanged Christ’s robes of righteousness for my own wretched filthy rags.  This pure and perfect life that Christ lived, I can now call my own.  It secures for me the ability to stand in the face of harsh unkindness.  And when temptation comes for me to crawl back into that stale cement hole I constructed as a young person, I am reminded that that is not where my soul will thrive.

A secret garden we found in Chestertown.

           Christ has shown me so much of Himself that I want nothing more of the deep dark shadows from my lonely past.  He teaches me how to think and feel and live in spite of the cuts and abrasions I receive from others.  It is to that secret place that I go and learn of Him who encompasses all my griefs and sorrows.  All of the bunkers that I have, can, or ever will build have been broken on the cross of Jesus Christ.  

            Its good to be free.     

  ~ Your Fellow Sojourner

“In the Secret of His Presence”

In the secret of His presence how my soul delights to hide! 

Oh, how precious are the lessons which I learn at Jesus’ side! 

Earthly cares can never vex me, neither trials lay me low; 

For when Satan comes to tempt me, to the secret place I go, 

To the secret place I go.

When my soul is faint and thirsty, ’neath the shadow of His wing 

There is cool and pleasant shelter, and a fresh and crystal spring; 

And my Savior rests beside me, as we hold communion sweet: 

If I tried, I could not utter what He says when thus we meet, 

What He says when thus we meet.

Only this I know: I tell Him all my doubts, my griefs and fears; 

Oh, how patiently He listens! and my drooping soul He cheers: 

Do you think He ne’er reproves me? What a false Friend He would be, 

If He never, never told me of the sins which He must see, 

Of the sins which He must see.

Would you like to know the sweetness of the secret of the Lord? 

Go and hide beneath His shadow: this shall then be your reward; 

And whene’er you leave the silence of that happy meeting place, 

You must mind and bear the image of the Master in your face, 

Of the Master in your face.

by Ellen Goreh

The Appassionata and The Pain

        When I was a freshman in college, eight hours away from home and in a totally new environment, I took advantage of a rare opportunity.  I attended a piano concert.  

This was a very daring thing for me to do at the time.  I was on a very strict budget, and just like middle school, you didn’t dare do much on campus unless you had a “bud” along with you.  But, when I saw the poster of the well known pianist scheduled to play one of my favorite Beethoven pieces, I knew I had to go.  I also knew that I would sit as close as I could, right in front of the pianist’s hands.  I was going to go no matter what.  

This was an exercise in great courage for me.  I was fighting for my own identity, and I was losing more than I was winning.  The young man I had thought I was going to marry had “unfriended” me, I went from being an A student to a meager C student, and I was lost in every way imaginable.  

You know you’re low when some of your favorite times are mopping stairwells just so you can be alone to pray and sing and cry.  God, in His providence, had taken away everything that had been a comfort to me.  And I am so glad that He did.  

I found myself living on the international floor of an old all girls’ dormitory, surrounded by missionary kids and students from all over the globe.  Whining and complaining took on a whole new meaning for me there.  How can you cry about a boyfriend when you know your room mate is the only Christian in her wealthy Japanese family, misunderstood, mocked, and left to her own loneliness?   God surrounded me with people that knew what real suffering was like, and more than that, they could identify the lack of maturity in me. These young women could speak with great care and love.  No “preaching” here.  Only quiet grace and solid faith exhibited in the midst of trial and hardship.  Nothing can shame you faster than when you see your friends that you know have already been persecuted for their beliefs, have love and compassion for you when you turn into a puddle of mush over stupid stuff.  

So, on the night of the concert, I put on my usual Baltimore Symphony finery and bravely walked to the concert hall on my own.  I opened the double doors and walked down front, sitting right in front of the keys on the left hand side of the stage.  I irrationally felt like every eye was boring into my head and every tongue was whispering.  “There’s that girl.  She was dumped.  She is so desperate.  She is so far from home.  So lost.  So unwanted.  Stay away from her.” 

Our piano at home; one of my daughter's favorite places to be. 

But, as the concert began and the notes that were so familiar to me filled the air, my soul began to soar.  I closed my eyes, when I wasn’t watching the pianist’s hands, and took in every beautiful note.  It was as if all of the love and strength that I needed poured into my being and a glimmer of hope began to grow.  I remember wishing that the concert would just go on forever.  That it would never stop.  That I would never have to get up and walk out when it was all over.  It did end however, and I did get up and walk out.  But, I did not walk out alone.  I saw one of my dear friends from that old girls’ dorm and she met me with a smile.  We walked out into the night and I found that I was ok.  I found that I could have hope and I could heal in ways that I did not think were possible.  I found that facing your pain is easier when you have the notes of “The Appassionata” to guide you. 

My faith was being tested and tried.  I was on that all too familiar path we call sanctification.  Being sanctified is hard.  Everyone knows that becoming like Christ is not easy.  It is hard work.  No one wants to do it; it comes to you and you either resist or submit to where you are led.  Often sanctifying comes through suffering.  Suffering is never a friend we like to see come to the party.  Everyone says, “Who invited him?”  We are faced with a decision; will we be humbled or will we be hardened by the presence of suffering in our lives? 

My daughter free rock climbing. 

        I vacillated between hardness and humility that year.  But, my prayers were answered, and humility won out.  No one likes to be humbled.  You feel naked, laid out on the floor, too weak to move, but you just don’t care anymore.  You have surrendered, and you have no more fight left in you, only pure surrender to the Healer of your soul.  And that is where I found myself.  Humbled and laid low.  This was my first real taste of hardship and suffering.  Bitter was the bud, but far sweeter was the flower.  A new kind of blood was pumping through the veins of my faith.  A new understanding that my faith must be built on nothing less than Christ.  

I have tasted trials and sufferings in my life that compared to most would be minuscule, but to that timid eighteen year old girl would have been unthinkable.  That eighteen year old girl began a journey down a road that few have chosen.  She learned that there cannot be any glory without the pain.  

       Life can burn with a refining fire, but if I have learned anything about refining, I know that I do not want to be removed from its work.  So, why?  Why do I not want to leave the flames?  Why am I not afraid of being burned, incinerated?  Because Someone is with me in that fire, Someone who has already walked through the fire and come out on the other side.  These fires must do their work so that we can come out “like silver refined in a furnace, purified seven times.” Ps. 12:6  When the impurities are burned away, we come out different, clearer, changed.  In those refining fires there is a sweet mercy that overwhelms and quiets my soul.  I did not say there is no pain.  But there is a glory that far outweighs the pain, a pain that can be forgotten in the presence of a Savior. C.S. Lewis has said, “Mortals misunderstand. They say of some temporal suffering,”No future bliss can make up for it,” not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory.” 

My children learning to follow a trail.

When the crushing blows of life come again and again, I cry.  I ask why.  I wish I did not have to feel the pain.  But my mind returns to those moments when God has provided a song for my soul to sing and I become like that eighteen year old girl again.  I remember being changed from that shy timid girl into the one who could laugh and smile through adversity.  For, if the soul would not be consumed in the fires of life’s pain, than it must be purified by the Master artist of man’s souls.  And once purified in the greatest places of pain, the soul can sing. It is then that the agony becomes a song of glory.  

May your soul find the most glorious of songs to sing,

Your Fellow Sojourner

Psalm 66

Shout for joy to God, all the earth;

  sing the glory of his name;

give to him glorious praise!

  Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds!

So great is your power that your enemies come cringing to you.

  All the earth worships you

and sings praises to you;

they sing praises to your name.” Selah

 Come and see what God has done:

he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.

  He turned the sea into dry land;

they passed through the river on foot.

There did we rejoice in him,

 who rules by his might forever,

whose eyes keep watch on the nations—

let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah

  Bless our God, O peoples;

let the sound of his praise be heard,

who has kept our soul among the living

and has not let our feet slip.

 For you, O God, have tested us;

you have tried us as silver is tried.

  You brought us into the net;

you laid a crushing burden on our backs;

  you let men ride over our heads;

we went through fire and through water;

yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.

 I will come into your house with burnt offerings;

I will perform my vows to you,

 that which my lips uttered

and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.

 I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals,

with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams;

I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Selah

 Come and hear, all you who fear God,

and I will tell what he has done for my soul.

  I cried to him with my mouth,

and high praise was on1 my tongue.

  If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,

the Lord would not have listened.

 But truly God has listened;

he has attended to the voice of my prayer.

 Blessed be God,

because he has not rejected my prayer 

or removed his steadfast love from me!