Break of Daylight--Shine on Me

It’s a new day.

In a way, for me, it’s a new year.

There are more reasons than the obvious for the newness of this year, with this big anniversary behind me. I can’t explain it all here. But there is a song, a song my mother loved, called Whispering Hope. Maybe you’ve heard it, especially if you had parents or grandparents who sang or listened to the radio much. It says, “Wait till the darkness is over.”

Cancer and old age and miscarriages weren’t the only darknesses of the last years of life. They were significant, but they weren’t all. And though the darkness was pressing in full-force a year ago, I woke this morning with a hope that maybe the passing of a year is like taking that first step into a new world. A new life. A life that begins with the simple victory of having lived through the last epoch, endured the horror, and had a time of rest. Sabbatical.

In 1 Kings 18, God’s prophet (one who heard the voice of God directly) Elijah is called to stand before all the “prophets” of Baal. Baal. The anti-God. The Lord of the Flies. The Lord of the “Dung” (to put it politely) Heap. Decay. Manure. Offal. Every bit of sin in this world could fall into the category that we politely here call “dung,”—the stuff God would smear on the faces of the men of Malachi instead of letting his own face shine upon them, or his image be displayed through them—though I admit in this case, because of the reality of its offensiveness, I prefer the term used freely by fellow brother in Christ and musical legend Bono. All that is evil belongs to Baal. All that is dirty and hurtful and foul.

And here’s Elijah. One guy. Standing up for God in front of 450—a veritable army!—of those who promote the shit in this world. Just a chapter earlier, Elijah had told the widow he was living with, “Do not fear.” Easy to say when all you’re worried about is a little bread. But what about this setting: One against an army of evil? The king and his sinister bride despise Elijah. The nation’s power is focused on him as the “troubler of Israel.” Jezebel has a vendetta out for him, swearing she’ll find a way to take him down. Who are his friends? Who supports him in this battle? I imagine the air might have even felt electrified with the magnification of that many evil-seekers in one place. I imagine Satan thought the hour was his. There is strength in numbers. Elijah’s got to crack, and then the gap is breached.

The years of Baal-infiltration into the community of God’s people was coming to a head. Decisions had to be made. Evil brought to the light. The fight was at a climax.

But Elijah stands firm, alone: “If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, then follow him.” And the gauntlet is thrown.

God proves himself that day, before the false prophets that have worked their deception throughout the people like leaven, before the people, before Elijah. The people’s eyes are opened, and with a word from Elijah, the 450 prophets—the officers in the army of hell on earth—are seized and destroyed. Slaughtered by the brook.

Now if I were Elijah at this point, I think it would be time for a margarita under the terebinth tree, don’t you? The evil has been faced. The one man stood before it all, proclaiming God. God won the day. It’s over. Let him exhale. And he does.

What Elijah does is like the last year of my life. A year ago, the evil ended. But it had been a long, hard trial to endure. I was still breathing at the end, but barely, and then, only with conscious effort.

Elijah sat down. He sat down under the shade of a tree in the wilderness. He was so weary and overwhelmed—not energized by the victory, but overwhelmed by the effort it took to get there—he is now ready to be done. “It is enough,” he says, and he lay down and slept. How long did he sleep that first time? It doesn’t say, but at points, angels came, woke him, ministered to him, left him again to rest. They, God’s messengers, acknowledge, “The journey is too great for you.” Eat. Rest. Be refreshed. He knows our frame. Overall, 40 days and 40 nights—“a time” of biblical significance. But even then, he doesn’t exactly rise refreshed and ready to go back to service. Not yet.

Instead, he lodges in a cave and it’s quiet there. And even when the wind and the earthquake and the fire rage outside, he’s sheltered within. For “the voice of the Lord was not in the wind, or the earthquake, or the fire.”

I’ve been there. Earthquakes: Loud, demanding voices telling me what I *must* do, what *they* would do. Whirlwinds, stirring the emotions: Some speaking out of true concern on some level, but on other levels, just wanting their own comfort zones to be met. Fire: Still others judging me for their own assumptions, filling in gaps with commands that didn’t even fit the story. Words without knowledge. But the voice of the Lord was not there.

What I needed was to rest, to be sheltered. One dear friend put it right, “What she needs is ICU.”

Back to Elijah: After the wind and the earthquake and the fire, there came the sound of a low whisper. Whispering hope. Wait till the darkness is over. Wait till the tempest is done. Hope for the sunshine tomorrow, after the darkness is gone. Whispering hope.

The voice of God was in the whisper. The whisper that came after the victory, after the rest, after the turmoil and chaos outside.

The still, small voice that broke my hardened heart 22 years ago this morning is saying that maybe now is the time to rise and go. There is still work to be done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypSz8WqRc_Mhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqwomT5YSiw 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypSz8WqRc_M 

The First Year's Passing

A year ago yesterday morning, I was planning to make a visit to my grandmother. I have always loved visiting my grandmother, from the time I was a tiny little girl. We lived walking distance from one another on the farm that had been my grandfather’s. I never tired of her sparkly, lively personality, her loud voice, her strong opinions, her sweet, broad smile.

But this was going to be a hard visit. For the third time, I had to bring her hard news, and this time, the worst of the hard news. Not only did her baby girl have cancer. Not only had years of treatments failed to keep that cancer at bay or send it into remission. But this time, I had to tell her that her baby girl wasn’t coming home from the hospital. Her baby girl had only hours left in this world.

I planned to hold her hand, like I had done the other times. I planned to cry with her and talk about our shared hope. Surely there’s no greater evidence of our need for a Savior than seeing a woman say goodbye to her daughter; a daughter say goodbye to her mother. No one with a straight face and an honest heart can call such as that “natural.”

Moments before I left the house—if I remember correctly, I even had my car keys in hand—the phone rang. I would never have to deliver that hard message to my dear grandmother. She wouldn’t have to hear the words that her youngest child was dying. She had eaten her breakfast, leaned back against her pillow, and peacefully slipped into the eternal presence of God without bearing such a burden. She was 100 years old.

I’m sure that I’ve been given many mercies in my life that I haven’t acknowledged, haven’t even recognized as mercy. But this was not one of those situations. It was clearly a gift from the hand of God that both of us were blessed by this timing, spared from the dreadful focus of the now.

My mother passed 36 hours later. I was with her when it happened. For the last several decades, she and Grandmama had done pretty much everything together. We shouldn’t be surprised that they would leave so closely together.

Additional mercies were evident too. Because of my mother’s expected passing, extended family members were already making plans to come in from out of state. God was organizing before we even knew we needed it. My mother had planned no funeral. She did not want attention drawn to herself. But we, her children, needed a memorial service. We needed the togetherness with family and friends. We needed to hear scripture preached (Love never fails). We needed to grieve and remember and acknowledge. And so, in the absence of a funeral for my mother, we gathered for my grandmother, and her memorial covered it all.

God was at work in it all. One day, I may be able to write about the actual time of my mother’s passing. He was at work then too, but for now, it is too deep, too real, too acute, for me to bring it into the light fully.

What is this hope that endures, that stands, even in the face of death upon death? How is it held? Genuine. Genuine faith. “According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice (yes, rejoice!), though now for a little while (does it seem like a little while?), if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” – 1 Peter 1: 3-7

The tested genuineness of your faith. The assurance that faith is real. It has been tested, it did not fail, I will be delivered. God knows the state of my faith. Do I? Must I stand trial after trial to prove to him that I love him? No. He knows. He secured me himself. But sometimes, yes, I must stand trial after trial to prove to myself that I love him. Tested genuineness. Hope that does not disappoint.

Lacking Convention, yet Magnification

Mary must have looked crazy, unconventional, all her days.

Pregnant, unmarried teenager, but without shame. Waiting for God. Trusting in God. Carrying God. Bearing God before the world, literally. Walking obediently to the revelation only she had heard. Suffering under scorn and skepticism.

Magnifying the Lord.

She probably got accused as a parent. “Why are you so hard on James, but Jesus, he never gets scolded?” She was probably looked upon as a charity case by extended friends and family of Joseph, who endured her anyway. They didn’t know. They looked. They saw what they expected to see. She knew the truth. Was she always silent?

Magnifying the Lord.

But she knew him. She knew her son. She knew her God. She knew, always, that she could approach him. She knew that he would hear her. He would see her. “They have no more wine,” she said. He heard her. Tenderly, “Woman, what has this to do with me?” But they both knew. He knew what she was asking. She knew what he would do. “Whatever he tells you,” she told the servants. With confidence.

Magnifying the Lord.

What was her widowhood like? Young enough to remarry. “Why don’t you, Mary? You can marry anyone you choose.” But life’s focus was…different. Deeper. Broader. All of history was hinged and turning right before her. Greater things than convention.

Magnifying the Lord.

How much then was her grief magnified? How deep her own wounds? She walked in obedience. Did it bring her peace and prosperity in this life? She had nourished every cell in the body of God. (She was, then, the mother of the Church, wasn’t she?) She held his warmth in her arms. God walked when her fingers let him go. Let him go. Let him go. To them.

Magnifying the Lord.

How much then was her horror magnified when they nailed him, NAILED him, her child, her God, her Savior, to the crossbeams? Who could hold her body together? How did she not fly apart into a billion atoms of despair? Held together by the God Particle. If scientists only knew. But even then, in his anguish, he saw her. He heard her. He answered her. She trusted.

Magnifying the Lord.

Who else had known his intimate love? Who had been the young one he had nurtured. Fed the Bread of Life at dinner. Felt his warmth against his chest. Taken as a child and turned into a man. Mary must have looked crazy. Unconventional all her days. To the very end. “Woman, behold your son,” and to the man, barely out of his teens, “Behold your mother.” From that very hour. Two who knew him in unconventional ways, provided for by his unconventional command, to Magnify the Lord.

May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. – John 17: 23

There was light in you even while you stumbled in your darkness.

There was light in me even while I did the same.

“I’m hungry,” you said. “Be filled,” I said.

“I’m under water. I can’t breathe,” you said. “Breathe with me,” I said.

And you did.

The ghost was almost gone, but we breathed together. In. Out. Come back again.

“Hold on,” you said. “You’re beautiful.”

“Hold on,” I said. “I’m grappling for you.”

Did you see it then?

The valleys are deep and they are dark and they are twisted.

The light in you lit my way. You said the same.

There is a higher place. Your high places. My high places.

We found one once, at the same time.

That was when you gave that gift.

“I see you,” and you opened your hand. You gave it to me.

It held the sun. Only it was bigger than the sun.

It was the you I saw in you. It was the me you saw in me.

It was gold.

The wind refreshed. Ghost, come back again.

I saw my eyes reflected in yours. Yours in mine.

“It hurts,” into infinity. “Yet we live,” into infinity.

“He sees,” you told me. “He stays.”

“He knows,” I told you. “He heals.”

“Hold on,” you said. “I see you.”
“Breathe,” I said. “I’ll help you.”

The ghost reminded me. I remembered gold.

For an instant, I remembered.

I closed my hands around the gift, but it shone through.

It was bigger than the sun.
It was brighter than the light in you. It was brighter than the light in me.

It was greater than the parts. Together.

But you looked away. What caught your eye?

The wind was blowing somewhere else.

I caught my breath, lest it suck the ghost from me again.

“Look back,” I said, and opened my hand.

But it wasn’t there.

Dry sand slipped through my fingers.

It was sucked away into a dust cloud between us.

“Look back!” I said. And when you turned, you didn’t see me.

Your eyes had turned to glass.

My Wedding Gown Story

A friend is getting married soon, and today a bridal shower was held in her honor. In addition to the food, gifts, words of wisdom and encouragement that are typically offered, the hostess planned to have some of the attendees' wedding dresses modeled, and the stories behind them told.

Most of the dresses shown were vintage gowns--one was even 98 years old! But I was asked to participate as well, even though my dress certainly can't be called an heirloom. The story may be worth telling, however, especially if the reality of putting together a wedding has, in the reader's experience, ever been less than fairy-tale perfect. So here it is, my wedding gown story:

Chloe has the lovely blessing from God of having many siblings. The added blessing is that for a time like this, she has both a mother engaged in the celebration of her wedding, and eight sisters to participate and give input as well.

I had the lovely blessing from God of having many siblings, too, but all five of them were boys. Brothers rock, and I’d never exchange them. But when it comes to picking wedding dresses and planning hors d’eouvres, there’s a limit to their usefulness.

My own parents didn’t have a wedding. They eloped, paid $5 for a marriage license, and were married by the Justice of the Peace before a civil witness in their Sunday clothes. Even though they had a daughter, they never thought of having to plan for a wedding.

Add to that the simple facts that at the time of my wedding, I had been living in Asheville less than a year. I had coworkers who were acquaintances, but no girlfriends here in town. I’m also genetically designed to freak out when shopping. Clothes on the rack are deceptive and sinister. Oh sure, they look cute and so enticing. But once behind the dressing room doors, they morph and change and their REAL character comes out. I know their kind.

Still, I knew I had to do it. I had to buy a wedding dress. So one day in November, I decided to take my lunch break at God’s World in the Innsbruck Mall and walk, alone, down the mall to the bridal shop that once inhabited that now nearly empty hall. How hard can this be?

The glass door seemed far heavier than it should be. Oh, the EFFORT it took to push it open. I remember my biceps feeling strangely quivery and weak afterward. But with great exertion, there I was, little me, standing in my brown Oxford flats, khaki skirt, and tweedy blazer, in the very midst of a sea of billowing white taffeta and lace. All around. Closing in. Waves of shiny fabric, sweating pearl-drops, puffed out from the walls on three sides. Everywhere I looked the wall of white seemed to expand like bursts of gargantuan popcorn kernels, right in my face. I couldn’t breathe. I thought I might drown in there, and there would be decades’ worth of weddings before anyone dug deeply enough beneath the surface of the Great White Deep to find me there, entombed beneath bolts and bolts of polished sateen.

I fled. I took my beige little self back to my desk and surrounded myself with children’s books and catalog copy, and I took comfort.

For a little while.

But, December 10 was drawing close, and I had to face it eventually. I chose not to think of it. But God is merciful, and he knows our frame and every weakness, and his provisions are always appropriate for our needs, no matter how psychotic those needs may be.

One Saturday in late November, I needed a break from thinking and planning and budgeting, so I went, again by myself, to a store I enjoyed visiting: Books-A-Million. (These were the days before Asheville had a Barnes & Noble.)  I spent a refreshing hour or two there with the printed pages, and because it was a nice day and warm for November, I took a short walk down the shopfronts in that same strip. Before I knew it, I stood in front of a glass window of a store called Michaela’s. And in this store window on headless, armless mannequins, just as bland and non-threatening as can be, were three simple, restrained, modest wedding dresses. Not one of them seemed to be escaping from its personal space and into my own. The one in the middle was an informal dress, with a little lace and a few pearls, and a simple skirt.

I wasn’t terrified. I wasn’t overwhelmed. The door wasn’t really ALL THAT heavy.

I went in. I asked for the dress on the mannequin. The sales attendant helped me button and zip. I remember I was still wearing my sport socks when I looked in the mirror. “It fits OK,” I said.
 

“Yes, it does,” she answered.

“I can afford it,” I said. “Wonderful!” was her reply. “Should I box it up for you then?”

“OK,” I said. I wrote a check. I took it home. I hung it in my closet.

And then, I exhaled.

--Rebecca Cochrane

A New Look

I have been One Of Those.

One of those bloggers. You know the ones. They set up their blogs. They plan and ruminate and upload and pour themselves into the blogosphere with all their hearts. They share their souls and they know, they just KNOW, that someone will hear the pulsing fervor of their individuality and find their submissions irresistible. They know they will produce. . . A Following.

And then it doesn't happen. And life is so busy. And there are demands and the "tyranny of the urgent" takes over. The subscribers never mount beyond the number Two. I can make that many phone calls in a day to tell you what's on my mind. So, I fade away.

I still think. I just don't take the time to write it down. And the blog grows old and tired and dusty, and all those thoughts--narcissistic at the premise though they might have been, forgive me, it's divine and I am all too human--evaporate from my mind into oblivious ether. Perhaps somewhere in the generations to follow, someone might have taken interest there. But chances are slim.

Still, somewhere within me is a true need to write and express and share the life I'm living, the thoughts and rabbit trails I'm entangled in. I work it out when I work it out loud.

So today I decided maybe a refresher on the look of the blog would help get me back into the draw of it and maybe I'll begin to write again. If only for myself, and for my girls as they get older. Maybe for that one or two of you who stuck around all this time. If it means something to you, though, leave me a comment. I'm an extrovert and a hopelessly needy one. I thrive on feedback and interaction.

I expect to change the name of the blog in the near future too. It began as a means of sharing the lives of our daughters mainly with my mom, who lived in another state. But since her passing (which has also contributed in large part to my neglect of this site--I just didn't have the heart to write then, knowing she was no longer reading), it seems likely to evolve into something much more about me AND my family, my thoughts, my worldview, my relationship to my Savior, and the way he causes me to respond to the world.

Maybe someone will join me here.

Living Out the Redemption Process in Preschool

"I don't want it," she said. Her stuffed toy elephant was worthless to her, ready to be discarded. He had served his purpose, she had had her fun, and now Miriam was willing to toss him away. So into the "Giveaway" bag he went.

Jill's eyes grew wide with horror. Not the Lell-funt! She loved the Lell-funt. "I want him!" she cried. As long as she had been alive, she had known the Lell-funt. She was not willing for him to disappear from her future.

But the rule is nothing comes back from Giveaway for free. It must be redeemed at a cost. What, dear Jill, would you be willing to give in order to purchase Lell-funt back from Giveaway, to which he had been doomed by his former master?

She searched. It wasn't easy. Every toy has some special significance, some attachment. Sheep? No. Not Sheepy. "Sheepy needs me." Blue Baby? "Oh, no. Not Blue Baby." He's too little anyway. Hardly an even trade.

Finally she settled on something of value great enough to purchase back Lell-funt from Doom and Eternal Separation. And joyfully, she went off celebrating their restoration.

But a dark cloud of gloom spread over Miriam's face as she saw Jill's pleasure with the restored Lell-funt. "Can I sleep with him tonight?" she asked. "No," I said. "He is no longer yours. Jill bought him back at a price. She redeemed him from the pit. He is hers. You are no longer his master. You have no claim on him any longer."

And then, you know what broke loose. All of it. Uh huh. "But he was MINE! I want him BACK!"

Firmly, "No. The deal is done. He has been bought with a price. And nothing will separate him now from the love of Jill."

OK, so it's not a perfect example. But it was close enough for some application, and we'll remember this and revisit this example again, I'm sure. In fact, I don't think I'll ever look at Lell-funt again in quite the same way myself. I won't say it's quite like looking in a mirror, but maybe you know what I mean.

****March 21, 2013: There is now a Part II to the story of Lell-Funt. Follow this link to read the next installment:
Glorification