So Much More

      I'd been wanting it. Desperate for it. To touch Jesus, to feel Him, know Him. If only to brush the edge of His garment with the tip of my fingers. I haven't found it anywhere. I tried, boy did I try. Craning my neck, reaching, stretching, looking for the moment I make contact with the Holy of Holies. I got close at times. At the Jordan, in Magdala, He was there just a step beyond my reach. I'd take the step and He'd have vanished. So what was I to do. I tucked my longing into my back pocket and decided to take in the "wow" of the moment.. I was in Israel, staying in the old walled city of Jerusalem. How cool was that?
      He, however, had something else in mind. He came to me, in late afternoon, in a little shop at the corner of a square. Instead of me stretching through a crowd barely brushing the hem of this garment He walked up to me, cupped my face in His hands, lifted my eyes to His and said, "Eshet Chayil."
      She became my nemesis15 years ago, this perfect woman, Eshet Chayil. Before then Proverbs 31 was my ideal. I wanted to be worth more than rubies, desperately wanted it.  So I strived and tried, and failed every time. My worth, nothing more than gravel on the side of the road. So I finally gave it up, gave her up.  . . .   This woman of valour, this perfect woman became my enemy.
     And then in this little shop, as the shadows descended and the breeze turned cold, I met a Jewish man, a teacher. He told me I got it all wrong. (I don't like to be wrong) My western mind, the way I think, distorted my understanding. It distorted the story. It started with the translators. Because it's not about rubies, it's about pearls. A noble woman, a woman of valour, Eshet Chayil-- her worth, her value is far above pearls. And that makes all the difference.
     The value of a Pearl is much less about the finished product and all about the process of becoming one. A Pearl starts as a small piece of gravel and through the process of irritation slowly, oh so slowly, is transformed into a pearl. This tiny speck of dust metamorphs into a most precious gem. Beautiful, irredecent, white, pure. NOTHING becomes SOMETHING. ASHES become BEAUTY. GRAVEL becomes PEARL.
    And as if that wasn't enough. This Jewish man, this teacher told me that Ruth, my precious Ruth, whom I've loved since I can remember, she is the only woman is scripture who is called Eshet Chayil. This Moabitess, the product of deception, manipulation, and incest, is a woman of valour, This NOTHING, this SHAME, living in the midst of irritation became a SOMETHING, her shame removed she becomes the mother of a king. A PEARL.
     So my nemesis, my enemy, has come full circle. No longer the "perfect" woman, this woman of valour is a woman who is becoming. A woman transforming, being made complete. . . whole.
Gravel, a Pearl, a Daughter of the King.
     I looked for Him. Searched for Him. He was nowhere. He came to me. Touched me. My face in His hands, my eyes looking in His. He spoke my name, "Eshet Chayil".

Gift from a Healed Heart

She sat across and to the right of him; this man who had hurt her so long ago.  They were in a quaint café for breakfast and he was sharing a tainted memory.  The sounds all around her became dull, all she could hear was his voice, his words, his story.  The tears created a pool in her eyes and when the weight of them was too much to bear they slid down her cheeks and over the cliff of her chin.  He spoke, not as one in pain, but of his pain, pulling back the curtain of secrecy and shame.  Her mind’s eye unfolded the scenes before her.  She felt it too, the pain, it cracked her heart.  She longed to rescue the little boy he spoke of, wanted to gather him into her arms and cuddle him in a rocking chair shooing away the lies he had just heard, soothing the pain.

His story over, he looked up at her and witnessed the stream of tears on her cheeks.  Tenderly, as though speaking to a small child, he said, “Oh baby, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”  The gentle words brought fresh tears.

No, dear man, you did not mean to make me cry, not then and not now.  What Satan meant for evil, God has turned to good.  Today’s tears are tears encased in joy.  Freedom infuses each drop.  To weep for the one who hurt me speaks of a healed heart.  The wound of long ago was washed with repentance and bandaged with forgiveness.   The path to healing was walked.  Today what is left is a scar.  A scar of love and compassion.  Empathy for you, dear man.  My tears are a gift, a gift from my healed heart. 

Tears

"Who decided that expressing emotion is weakness."  Amelia Shepard, Grey's Anatomy

     She couldn't have been much more than four years old.   Her damp, honey-coloured hair freshly brushed, she smelled of soap and baby powder.  Dressed in Cinderella pajamas and fuzzy slippers she was excited.  It was Christmas time and tonight was special.  She sat on the green-flowered couch, her feet barely hanging over the edge, and watched.  The story played on the television in front of her.  The little boy, his companions a camel, donkey, and lamb, and his drum.  She absorbed everything she saw, the bad men who took advantage, the angry boy who lashed out in his loss, the joy at friends reunited.  The final scene unfolded, the lamb injured, the boy distraught asking for a miracle.  The baby Jesus looks at the lamb.  The lamb is raised to life.  The boy plays his drum.  The background music, "I am a poor boy too, pa rum pa pum pum, I have no gift to bring, pa rum pa pum pum."  Something happened in her heart at that moment, it swelled, filled her chest and reached up into her throat.  Her heart spilled out of her eyes in tiny drops of tears.  They fell slowly down her cheeks.  Her mother, who did not understand, gently scolded her for crying over a T.V. show.  It was in that moment that she learned.  She learned that her heart was flawed.  Something was wrong with her and she didn't know how to fix it.  

Truth be told I never did learn how to fix it.  Fix it being to stop the tears.  That is something I've never been able to do.  I've tried and it's just not possible.  The inability to do so has left me feeling weak and pathetic.  There is no strength in this woman. 

Recently I was told, "your tears get in the way."  They get in the way of the song I'm trying to sing, the message I'm trying to give.  What you don't understand, person who is trying to help, is that I can't stop them.

I don't know how many times I've gotten the message that emotion equals weakness.  Not feeling, now that is strength.  "A brave face" and "courage" denote this image of facing whatever life throws at you without feeling anything.  And if you do feel anything, God forbid, you better not show it.  "you've got to be strong.  Don't let yourself fall apart."   It's everywhere, movies, books, television, this notion that feeling something is weakness.  We are told to bottle up every expression of emotion and cap it so it doesn't leak out.  Doing so means "I'm strong."

A woman battling deadly cancer.  "Look how strong she is.  She never complains and is always smiling."  Another walking through a long drawn out and very ugly separation.  "She the strongest person I know.  She holds everything together."  And yet another woman whose beloved father dies and she never sheds a tear.  "I couldn't cry, I had to be strong for everybody."

So there it is, the proof that I'm not strong.  I'm weak and pathetic.  I'm a loser, sub-par, not good enough.  Why?  Because I simply cannot, absolutely CANNOT stop them.  The tears will flow.  They are a part of who I am.  If tears mean weakness, and tears are a part of me, then I am weakness.

Glennon Doyle writes, "I am a deeply sensitive person, living in a messy world."  I've altered that.  "I am a deeply sensitive person living in a broken world.  And I am moved."  My heart cracks and leaks when I see hurt and pain.  Strife and anger, hatred and down-right meanness are like knife wounds ripping the flesh of my heart.  Loneliness and broken relationships weigh heavily, like lead pressing and pushing.  Injustice, Biblical injustice, the kind where the poor are oppressed, the children go hungry, and the old and sick are left to fend for themselves, that injustice burns my heart into a raging flame.  The brokenness is everywhere, and I am witness.

And in all this mess, among all the glass shards of pain there is still kindness, and goodness, and love.  Perhaps that affects my heart even more than all the pain, and because of all the pain. My heart swells and bursts at acts of kindness and stories of triumph.  When the homeless are not only served a sandwich and a coke but their feet are washed by hands of love.  When a runner stops to lift one who has fallen and they make it to the finish line, together.  When a couple, married forever, walk wrinkled, arthritic hand in wrinkled, arthritic hand.  When a child hands his mother a dandelion. When a stranger holds open a door for me.

I feel every wound of brokenness and every drop of love.  I am unable to close my heart to it and the tears WILL fall.  If I try to close my heart..... well..... I will die.

That little girl, who is almost 50 now, still cries when she watches The Little Drummer Boy, her heart still breaks when she hears the story of Terry Fox, and cancer, and running across Canada, and death. And when she sings and pictures in her mind the never-ending love of God  the tears take over .... and sing for her.

So it seems I'll never be strong.   Instead I'll be ALIVE.

I'm Sorry

I owe her an apology.  She's been so good to me.  Under my leadership she has worked hard, and she hasn't complained.  She's willingly done what I've asked of her.  And I've pushed her.  I continue to ask more and more.  Every year I add one more thing.  And the amazing thing is that she is up to the challenge.  She rises higher and higher achieving each thing I ask her to do.  And what she gives me in return is immeasurable.  Because of her I'm solid, really solid.  I'm stronger.  I walk taller.  I'm more confident.  I feel sexy and beautiful.

You would think the least I could do for her would be to listen, to give back something, to give her something she needs.  She's asked, but not demanded.  She's not like that, she doesn't demand.

I went to a therapeutic yoga class on Wednesday.  The lights were low, the room was warm.  In the background Enya sang "sail away, sail away, sail away."  Peaceful, that's what it was, peaceful.  I was instructed to sit comfortably, close my eyes, and breath.  And I did.  I allowed myself to sink in to that peaceful moment and breath.  And it is there that my heart connected to my body.  The tears gently slid down my cheeks.  "This is what I've been needing," she said.

And so today I say "I'm sorry.  I'm sorry for not listening and giving you what you need.  And from now on it will be different."

What's great is that she doesn't want me to stop all the other things I'm doing, she's just asking for a little peace in the midst of it all.

And so my body, my sister... to you I vow to give peace.

My Story, My Voice

Sabbath morning.  I lay in bed wanting more sleep as it eludes me.  I'm in "a place".  That is the best description I can give it.  "A place" is where I am contemplative, emotional, and in a struggle.  I am not afraid in this "place", I've been here before.

My phone pipity-pops a text message.  Reluctantly I pick it up.  The black words written on the gray bubble say something like, "it's too much, she's writing my story."  Reading a memoir the person on the other end of the text is overwhelmed with validation as each paragraph unfolds.  A sense of peace and connection, a knowing that "I am not alone".  These two share the bond of common experience, even though they do not know each other personally, have never spoken face to face.  They know each other's bruised and broken heart.

My memory takes me back 30 years, it's Christmas Eve.  We have three little girls in the house this year.  Elizabeth, my sister, and Melissa who are both 5 or 6, and Kira, my neice, who is about 2 or 3.  Melissa is my neice's sister.  No blood relation to us, except through Kira and she and Elizabeth, being the same age, are good friends.
It's dark outside and all the girls are bathed and clean, wrapped in their warm pajamas.  The tree is all twinkly with presents bursting out underneath.  The gifts get passed out.  Elizabeth and Kira get a gift, as does Melissa.  More gifts are passed and received.  Melissa gets one maybe two more, but Elizabeth and Kira get more and more and more.  As this happens Melissa in her sweet childlike tone says, "what about me?"  She repeats it over and over, "what about me", "what about me".  It's not a harsh, foot-stomping demand.  Her voice is quiet and sadness punctuates each word.  "Do you not see me?"  "Am I not important?" "Don't I matter too?"

Those words echo in the darkness of my "place".  While I'm grateful my friend finds validation and connection in the story being told.  I lay on my stomach in my bed with my head buried under my pillow saying, "but what about me?"

I feel so alone right now.  And in that aloneness I've been hiding.  Actually, I have been hiding for a long time, so long I can't remember when I started.  Maybe, just maybe if I heard or read my story in someone else I'd be less scared to come out of hiding.  It reminds me of the old 70s song, "strumming my face with his fingers, singing my life with his words.  Killing me softly with his song, killing me softly, with his words, telling my whole life with his song, killing me softly...with his song.
If someone, out there, was singing my song, my story...I could come out from whatever it is I'm hiding behind because I know I would not be alone.  Someone else would know and feel it too, and understand.  The song is not of a slow death, it is a releasing the chains of isolation and hiding.

The thought occurs to me, why does someone else have to be the author writing a story I can relate to?  Writing for me so I can come out of hiding because I can identify with their experience and emotions.  What if I, yes me, what if I came out from behind the curtain, stepped toward the desk, grabbed the paper and pen and wrote my own story..  My story in My voice.

Glennon Doyle Melton calls us Truth Tellers.  I am going to tell my truth, in my story, using my voice.  I'm hoping that in the telling I will empower myself to quit hiding and to come out in the light and be seen as I am.  And while i'm telling my story for me, because I need to, perhaps as a bonus someone out there can find solace and comfort in my words and not feel so alone.

  

The Journey

Walking through the mountain forest, weary and with night falling quickly she wanted to find a place to rest.  Ahead she noticed a hedge of wild roses, beyond which were no trees.  She pulled her small sword out of the sheath on her back.  She cut through the thickness of the roses and pushed her way through.  Scratching herself on the thorns she broke into a small clearing.  This looked like a good place to stay the night.  Soft grass everywhere she found an ideal spot to sleep close to a large boulder.  She removed her satchel and sword and placed them beside her.  She took a final drink from her water pouch and made a pillow out of her outer garment.  She fell asleep exhausted, oblivious to the fragrance of roses that filled the night air.  The moonless sky provided twinkles of starlight-angels to watch over her while she slept.

She awoke with the sun already high in the sky.  Leaving her fatigue in the imprint in the grass she arose to examine her surroundings.  Hearing the lapping of water nearby she went to investigate.  She discovered a pool of water.  The sun-sparkling diamonds on the water invited her to join them.  Pulling her inner tunic up over her head and leaving it on the shore she gingerly walked into the pool.  Pleasantly surprised by the temperature she allowed the water to wash away the dirt from her skin and refresh the ache in her muscles.  She swam, exploring.  Startled frogs quickly leaping out of her way made her silently chuckle.  She found where a mountain stream emptied itself into the pool, and made note so she could later fill her water pouch.

Feeling revived she returned to the grassy shore.  She put her tunic back on and sat letting the warm sun dry her off as she combed her fingers through her hair.  Taking a deep breath, she rested.

Hunger crept into the peacefulness.  She got up and went searching for berries.  Not too far at the edge of the meadow she found bushes full of ripe sweet berries.  Making a bowl out of her tunic she gathered enough to eat and some to dry to take with her when she continued her journey.  Returning to the large boulder she carefully sat down.  She grabbed her satchel and added nuts and flat bread to her meal.  

After eating, she delighted herself in all that the clearing offered her.  The sun's gentle warmth gave her comfort.  The soft breeze kept her cool.  She walked over to the rose bushes, picked a rose, removed the thorns and tucked it behind her left ear.   Discovering daisies, she gave a little squeal.  She watched blue birds dart about searching for a lunch of small bugs.  She listened to chickadees chirp at her in the distance.  

She sat by the daisies and made herself and daisy-chain necklace.  Butterflies flew like delicate fairies from flower to flower.  She got up, putting the necklace around her neck.  She twirled and danced with the bees and butterflies, swayed with the grasses and waltzed to the music in her heart. 

The sun began setting.  She returned to her sleeping spot.  Taking some more bread and nuts, she grabbed a handful of berries.  She walked back to the pool, found a log to sit on and ate a fulling supper while she soaked her feet.  After eating she walked over to where the stream entered and drank deeply from the mountain water.  

The day over, she once again fell asleep in the soft grass by the boulder.  This time her sleep was not one of exhaustion, but one from the peacefulness of a day; refreshed and rejuvenated.  The crickets and frogs sang a lullaby to the gentle melody of the distant water lapping against the shore.  A sliver moon joined the angel-stars to watch over her.

She awoke to the far-off screech of a hawk.  It was early, the sun barely seen in the horizon.  Rested and ready, she knew she needed to continue the journey.  Gathering her things she put on her outer garment, placed the sheathed sword on her back and put her satchel over her shoulder crossing to where it rested on the opposite hip.  Her picked up her water pouch and held it in her hand.  

She walked over to the edge of the pool, put the water pouch down and splashed water on her face.  Getting up she reached into her satchel for a handful of nuts and berries.  She followed the pool to the steam and filled her water pouch.  

Entering the forest on the far side of the clearing she continued.  The sun rose and shone through the tress illuminating her path.  A little way into the forest she discovered a small patch of bluebells.  She smiled, they nodded in greeting as she passed by.   

She small shiver traveled through her.  She looked down and noticed a fog slowly reaching around her ankles.  She kept walking.  It wasn't long before the fog crept up to her knees and soon totally engulfed her.  The sun totally obscured from her sight, she kept on walking.  For she knew that this too was part of the journey.....

In the Arms of Jesus

The silence whispers comfort.  The cloud-like atmosphere surrounds me in warmth.  The distant sun lends it glow.  

The air is still and quiet.  It's freshness fills; each breath brings deeper rest.  

His arms envelope me, the sleeves of His garment cover me.  All is white. 

I feel His cheek on the top of my head, a gentle kiss on my forehead.  He holds me.  

My head rests on His chest.  The steady strength of His heartbeat is the only sound I hear.  

Here is peace

Here is rest

Here is freedom and release

In the arms of Jesus........