Hollowed and Hallowed Hearts

I recently listened to a friend tell part of their life story.  It's been a while since I've heard something so unfair, so hateful, so hard, so, just, wrong that's happened to someone who's followed God faithfully for so long.  It makes my sense of justice scream out, "No!" Or makes me at least just want to slap the person who caused it really, really hard.  (Good thing I'm not God! But I remember that people who hurt have been hurt as well.)

But while this person has endured the winds and storms of life and past events still affect today in ways, they also have a lot of traits of, "a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither." (Ps. 1:3)  Strong, steady, a person of depth, who knows the Source and has a huge heart for others.

I've long since let go of the idea that being a Christ follower makes you immune to the problems of this world.  'Victory' and being an 'over-comer' look quiet different than how they are often presented.  It's often more importantly about the destination inside than visible external victory.

But I have a lot of questions:  Why do the 'good', the innocent, the humble, the helpless have terrible things happen to them in this world?  Elisabeth Elliot who has walked a convoluted road herself wisely said, "Faith does not eliminate questions.  But faith knows where to take them."

To His throne. To His feet.  And I think it's about the expansion of our hearts.

We're in a stage of regrouping and reorganizing.  What we thought were our long-term plans have clearly, unavoidably been redirected into something else.  And while the process hasn't been easy, we're enjoying overall where we're at now.  We're moving into our own house soon that we look forward to renovating together, we're enjoying new friends, Steve began a new job last week, and we're getting a chance to focus on our family.  Plus, what's not to love about Algies Bay, Warkworth, New Zealand!  If you've ever been here you know what I mean.  A little slice of Heaven.

Last week we got to listen to a team from our church that had just returned from Kolkata, and as the pictures started flashing up on the screen, all I could do was sit in the back and cry.  Grief, so much more than a place, an investment of hard work, and a way of life; but memories and people. The sense of loss still felt surprised me.

A few days later I was in the checkout lane at Kmart happily scanning a shopping cart full of kitchen necessities to set up my own home soon.  The thought crossed my mind, "This reminds me of setting up house in Kolkata."  Starting from scratch.  Being very happy with just the basics.  I paid the cashier and turned around to see my boss from Kolkata standing there with his daughters.  He'd flown into the country for just a few days on his way to somewhere else.  Seeing 'family' even briefly is always wonderful, but as I walked away my heart hurt.  A lot. His family living just across the lane from ours and rubbing shoulders daily.  Other co-workers permanently nestled by love in my heart, not to mention the precious ladies that we served.

Happiness and heartbreak.  How do they so easily co-exist?  My heart just a bit more stretched.

When I first got back to New Zealand I expressed to someone the feeling of being 'scooped out'.  Like there was a huge empty hollow in my chest.  The painful scooping was still in process, but I knew that the 'filling' was to come.  Expanding my capacity to love, to feel compassion, to hold the hand of those who hurt, to extend grace.

Grief, pain, loss, and heartbreak all hurt.  But they also stretch and expand the capacity of our hearts.  And if we let it, make us more able to love.

In the middle of the enlarging we often want to ask;

 "Will the Lord reject forever?

    Will he never show his favor again?

8 

Has his unfailing love vanished forever?

    Has his promise failed for all time?

9 

Has God forgotten to be merciful?

    Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”  

(Ps. 77: 7-9)

But the psalm goes on to say, 

"Your ways, God, are holy,

What god is as great as our God?

You are the God who performs miracles."

(vs. 13-14)

He's capable of doing so much, but sometimes the miracle He's performing is mainly in our hearts.  Growing them, changing them, molding them, expanding.  A true miracle indeed!

"To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the LORD has planted for his own glory."

(Is. 61:3) 

Pain, mourning, hurt, and sadness can be a like seed planted in our hearts.  Put there to grow into something good.  Like a tiny, little, rotting acorn:

Small, insignificant, growing into this:

"Look to the Lord and his strength;

continually seek him." 

(I Chron. 16:11)

We need to embrace the 'seed' that He plants in our hearts and become 'great oaks' for His glory.    And when we know hard things, even when they seem pointless, unfair, just plain wrong, have a purpose---they can become that much easier to bear.  It's about the victory inside.  The one that we will take with us into Eternity.  And the outworking of our expanded heart for the world around us today.

Another one of our Kolkata co-workers wrote an amazing poem about the women that are served there. One stanza says:

"I pray that you will meet the God who is found 

in both the heartbreak and the hope.  

God with you in the moments of pain crying out for it to end, 

God on the cross.

God with you in the moments in which new life springs forth from unexpected places, God resurrected."

-Dan Lander

Yes. For all souls, for them, for you, for me.  For us all.  Expanded, resurrected hearts drawing others to Hope.

Raise Your Head

My fifteen year-old son broke his ankle mountain biking last week.  We've spent a lot of time around the hospital lately since he spent four nights there and had surgery to pin his ankle before leaving.  Lots of life happens in hospitals!  They're places of hope and happiness when things go right, pending sorrow, chagrin over silly accidents, thankfulness for life spared, death, and healing.

Aaron in the ER

Several times when I was in the car park late at night I saw couples arriving to have babies.  The women slowly making their way, all of their focus on the weight that they carried, stopping now and then for a contraction.  The men pulling her suitcase and just wanting to get inside, nervous with the responsibility of two precious lives and anxious to have the hospital staff take that load.

New life, interwoven with pain.  But oh so worth it in the end.

And death just down the corridor.

Life and death, so intertwined.  Bound together.  So much a part of existence.  Continual weaving in the tapestry of living.

Nothing is in a vacuum, everything is bound to something else.  Everyone.  Whether we like it or not--or even recognize it.

"I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck.  I stooped and fed them."  (Hosea 11:4 NKJV)

The NLT calls them "ropes of kindness and love."  GOOD bonds.  Bonds of love are not bondage. There is no need to fear commitment when the One that you are bound to is perfectly loving.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt so you would no longer be their slaves.  I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck so you can walk with your heads held high."  (Lev. 26:13 NLT)

Bondage to slavery, bondage to sin, bondage to the enemy of our souls--bows the neck.  

A couple of weeks ago I spent some time in an office with lots of mirrors.  I kept catching glimpses of myself that surprised me.  Slouched over, neck bowed.  No wonder my neck and back have been hurting!  It's with great relief that I now consciously straighten my neck.  Walking with my 'head held high.' I wasn't even aware of the problem except for a nagging ache until I found the solution.

"I have broken the bands of your yoke and make you walk upright." (NKJV)

Sometimes we don't even realize that our neck has become bowed as we walk through life. The subtle influence of one who destroys.  It might be the tedious ache in our heart, a restless mind keeping us awake at night, anxious thoughts, fears of the future, wondering if we can cope with today, impatience with those that we love, just surviving. Sometimes those bonds are weirdly comfortable and have become a part of who we are.  We don't even know they're there until we cry out like the psalmist:

Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."  

(Ps. 139:23-24)

When what we are bound with are 'bands of love' we can walk with our heads held high, trust in His heart and say, "I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." (Job 42:2)

We can relax into bonds like those.  Ropes that comfort instead of confine.  Keep us safe.  Make us strong.

And sigh with relief:

"My flesh and my heart fail; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." 

(Ps. 73:26)

Giving it back....

I love words.  They float around in my head like a bubble and I love plucking just the right one from the cloud.  That's probably what drove me the most crazy about learning to speak Bengali, I was locked into basic communication because of my own lack of expertise instead of expressing just the nuance and tone that I wanted.  It felt like baby talk and left the communicator in me feeling like I was missing a vital part of my anatomy.

That's why I like to write.  I don't think fast enough, or I'm just too picky to be happy with what generally comes out of my mouth.  I have to say a lot to get at what I really want, whereas when I write I can pause and let the word come like an artist with a paintbrush.

At times I write because I have something to say and somehow want to express that---even if no one ever reads it.  Sometimes it's a form of processing for me and helps me work through some emotion or thing that I don't understand.  And at other times I just write for the love of it.  It fills me with peace and a deep sense of satisfaction.

Lately I've been feeling a responsibility to write.  A compulsion to do it regularly.  And I wonder if it's just somehow that it's good for me, or if maybe it's an impulse put there because of something that I'm meant to say after I practice the process a bit more.  The thought that it may be for the sake of others fills me with trepidation and feelings of inadequacy.

Yesterday, however, I was thinking about gifts and the Giver and about how I've always without really thinking about it, considered gifts as something to be 'used' for others.  But that doesn't quite fit with the practical, internal theology that I've been developing over the last couple of years.  The mind-shift that what's the first priority isn't what is given out, but about what goes in and the Relationship that that involves. (Something that I've always believed but didn't always live.) That the service is just the overflow of that.  And if our value isn't based in what we DO but just in Him, how does that co-exist with gifts and their usefulness?

Google says that a 'gift' inherently is, "a thing given willingly to someone without payment; a present."  So if it's something given, then doesn't that mean that it's something meant to bring joy to the recipient as well?  And bring joy to the giver, too, in the act of giving?  THEN being played onward in that the person with the gift can use it for others as well---and gain further joy from the expression of it?

In the movie Chariots of Fire there is a scene where Eric Liddell tells his sister why he puts value in his ability to run.  He says, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but he also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure."

Running.  Something that sounded frivolous to the sister, but brought joy to Eric himself.  And ended up being part of the platform of 'usefulness' in Eric's life.  

Perhaps 'gift' in the sense of a natural aptitude for something is more than just a way of being 'useful.'  My light bulb moment yesterday involved putting 'gift' into a different paradigm, into how using a 'gift' can actually be an act of worship.  An act of thankfulness to the Giver.  Ultimately an act of relationship........

Bringing us closer to Him.  Acknowledging where the gift came from.  In dependence on Him.  In partnership with Him.

My hubby finds joy in mechanical things.  A smooth engine is like Beethoven to his ears.  He can tell you what kind of engine is driving past just by the sound.  A couple of our kids can draw and I love to watch their joyful concentration in the process.   A friend has discovered at age 40 that she can run.  And she loves it!  Some are gifted in relationship, and thrive off of making someone else feel good about themselves.  Some find joy in a perfectly balanced budget, making unruly numbers obey them instead of vice versa (another one of Steve's loves!).  Another friend finds relationship with Him when she's baking.  It's the activity that brings her the most peace.  I'm so amazed by one friend who officiates wedding and funerals, but absolutely thrives on a funeral and the celebration of a life by those who were touched by it.

Gifts.  They come in an endless variety reflecting the boundless creativity of the Giver.  I'm thinking that it's valuable to express them positively.  Even if at times they don't seem 'important'.  Or seem trivial.  That the very act of using them brings glory to the Giver and brings us closer in relationship to Him as well.

That taking time out of busy lives to hone our gifts isn't frivolous, it's worthwhile---and might just be exactly what He had in mind!

So grab your gift.  And open it!

The Sound of Love

There are times when life leaves you feeling a bit stretched.  A bit too slim.  Times when there's been just a bit too much angst in your world, and your patience and maybe even your hope is wearing thin.

I got to take a walk on a beach today in the sunshine while the boys swam.  Food for the soul.  I walked, drank in beauty, and let the breeze wash over me and blow away the sand that had sifted into my heart, blocking out joy.

And words like these came to mind, "Love is patient.  Love is kind."

There are many people that I love.  It's the ones who hold the absolute center of my heart, my heartstrings, that can really make me bleed.  When someone you love like that is hurting.  Oh my.  And often there's nothing that you can say.  Just give love.

No one ever said that loving is easy.

Ann Voskamp said in her poetic way recently:

"Joy and pain

are two arteries of the heart

that pump through all those who don't
numb themselves to really living."

Love does hurt.  But who would want to live without love?  Even though it's painful. 

It would be a empty, shallow existence at best.   

And the One on Heaven's throne understands because of His love for us. "It broke his heart."  (Gen. 6:6) And we've still been breaking His heart ever since.  God understands grief.  He understands hurt and regret. The Alpha and Omega comprehends.  He knows.

Photo credit:  Hannah Bates

Love is powerful.  "The greatest of these if love." (I Cor. 13:13)  It's the biggest thing we have to share with the world around us; a knowledge of His love and exemplifying His love through us.                                     

"There is no sound louder than love."

~Switchfoot 

It's what the world is desperate for.  And what we need to be showing.

"When we love, we earn the right to speak the truth

When we speak truth, we show the world we truly love

I'm not pointing my finger.  I'm holding out my hand. 

I'll lay it all on the line now to see God save my friend

Let my life and my words be the proof

I'm gonna love you with the truth." 

~Casting Crowns (Love You With the Truth)

This song makes an excellent point.  I think in modern times, times that are getting more and more post-Christian, times where moral absolutes are disappearing and truth is considered relative, that we as The Church no longer have the credibility of times gone by.  Being a Christ Follower hasn't been part of the lives or upbringing of the masses.  So why should they listen just because we say so?

Maybe they haven't seen us love enough.

The below cartoon caught my eye on a friend's Facebook feed.  Unfortunately it makes a valid point........

So what do we do?  Let's scream that 'sound' of love to a world that desperately needs to hear.  Loud. WAY out-loud.  Let's show them with our lives.  Let's leave coveted comfort zones behind.  Let's get our hands dirty in other people's messes. Let's care beyond what is comfortable.  Let's love the fringes like we love our own, our heartstrings.  Let's love, and let it hurt, before we even think about opening our mouths.

Let's earn the right to speak.

Not sure where this came from!

The Gift of Being Content: Jesus

There is one major chunk of my life that is a misty blur.  When I became a widow and the kids and I moved back to the USA I was in full, hyper-active, get through today, blinders on, survival mode.  Everything was overwhelming.  Not just the major questions of where would we go and what would we do, how do I help these broken and bleeding children heal, let alone myself.  These were big enough.  But little things sent me reeling.  The grocery store, for example, for some reason was my nemesis.  The camel that regularly broke my back as culture shock overshadowed my life.  It was often easier to feed my kids unhealthy fast food for nights in a row than to face the dreaded grocery store.  I had to psych myself up, spend a couple of hours walking the aisles and reading everything because not one thing looked 'normal' to me, deciding between things like fifty different cereal options, and go home exhausted body and soul.  Even now I shudder at the thought!  The Land of Plenty was too much for me.

Most of the next couple of years is rather shadowy in my memory.  Sure there are moments that stand out, but even at the time day to day living was a blur.

I look back now with sadness knowing that I missed out.  I was robbed of part of my children's childhood.  Years that I barely remember and will never get back.  Adam in one of my favorite stages of childhood from age three to five.  Aaron eight to ten, the girls in their tweens and early teens.  I have very few mental snapshots to treasure.  But lots of memories of turmoil inside.

Yes, there were understandable reasons 'why', but when I consider what I was missing during that season, the word that comes to mind is: contentment.

Now we're in another transitional phase, but I'm determined to not let lack of contentment rob me of TODAY.  Contentment can be elusive, but is easier to find than we often think.

Contentment is the recognition of a gift.  It's living in the now and acknowledging that today is enough.  That, in fact, today after today after today is all that there is.  It's not passivity, complacency, or being lazy.  It's thankfulness, gratefulness, and a bringer of joy in the NOW.  It's finding fulfillment is what He has provided so that we can walk and serve and thrive out of abundance rather than lack.

Discontent is ungratefulness and lack of trust.  It's what caused the original sin and Fall of Man from the presence of God.  It made Cain kill his brother and Judas betray his Savior.

Contentment is key.  It's embracing Jesus, receiving with arms open wide.  It's taking a deep breath and dialing down through our harried thoughts and worries to receive His gifts of grace.  Today.

It's finding fellowship with Jesus in this moment.  And being at rest.

"We look at this Son and we see the God who cannot be seen.  We look at this Son and see God's original purpose in everything created.  For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels--everything got started in him and finds its purpose in Him."  
(Col. 1:15-16 msg)

Jesus. "Visible image of the invisible God" (same verse NLT)

Read this verse slowly with your senses wide open.  It's beautiful!

"Because of God's tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide us to the path of peace."  
(Luke 1:78-79)

That same Morning Light wants to shine in our hearts today.  Give us peace on the path.  Contentment.  Jesus.

Let's not live portions, or even days, of our lives without acknowledging and receiving His gift of relationship to us.  Today.  

Look at You in all of Your splendor arrayed
Words can't describe just how beautiful You are
Look at You and all Your magnificent ways
I can't comprehend just how infinite You are

When I see You, everything is lovely
When I see You, my whole world seems to change
When I see You, there's no way I'll ever be the same
When I see You, when I see You

Look at You, You're such a compassionate friend
The world's yet to see one as faithful as You are
Look at Your mercy and grace without end
Your kindness is leading me right back to Your heart

When I see glorious, wonderful , Almighty King
You reign in power and we bow before You now
Author of majesty, the whole earth will sing of who You are
Oh, and how great You are

(From "When I See You" by Big Daddy Weave)

Hope: Ruminations of a Reforming Optimist

I'm an optimist.  Always have been and always will be.  But I haven't always been a wise one.

When I was 19 I spent a couple of months in China on a missions team.  Being the natural optimist that I am, I blissfully ignored the state of many things that I had to cope with---including toilets that I had to use.  A squatty-potty in a busy hostel that doesn't flush properly so I have to be careful just how low I squat with other stuff already in there?  No problem!  Sharing a slit in a wooden floor as a toilet in an inhabited pig sty on a bus stop out in the middle of nowhere?  Easy peasie!  That's what I thought at the time.  But the big reoccurring stressful dream of my life to this day is of being desperate but unable to find a toilet that is clean enough to even approach.  Yuck, huh?

When I had my second baby, the first of three born in Fiji, I spent hours in labor only to have a C-section again in the early hours of the morning.  I was then put at the end of an ICU ward of about ten moaning women in the furthest bed away from the nurses' station. I couldn't move or attract the attention of a nurse all night because the bottom half of my body was still asleep from a spinal.  I had to lay flat on my back for the next 24 hours, but chose to focus on the fact that I was in the bed closest to the window in the sweltering, hottest month of the year so I had some breeze while others didn't.  Find the joy in the midst of (or just ignore!) the pain, right?  I came out of that experience with claustrophobia, especially if I feel like I can't move my legs, that I still deal with today.

This is pretty much a life-long pattern for me.  Focus on the good.  Ignore the bad.  Sounds good, right?  Possibly even admirable? "Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Christ Jesus." (I Thes. 5:18)  

What this verse DOESN'T say and I, and possibly other optimists like myself, have missed for years is, "Just ignore the bad and pretend that it doesn't exist." There are many ways of avoidance in this life.  Ways to ignore or make ourselves numb to things that cause pain or that we just don't like.  I didn't know for years and years that autopilot cheerfulness could be one of them.

Ignoring pain while just trying to be cheerful and thankful is passive and harmful.  It's denial. It's avoidance at the core and comes back in negative ways to bite you. Like panic attacks.  Ask me how I know! Active thankfulness involves acknowledging pain in order to process it----but then intentionally choosing thankfulness anyway.  That's focusing on, "...whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy" (Phil. 4:8) in the way that it was intended.  

So when I talk about hope (like I did in my last post), I'm not talking about innocent, Pollyanna, blind-to-reality hope; hope that doesn't confront pain.  I'm meaning hoping with your eyes wide open.  Eyes that see the pain that is there, but are hopeful anyway.  It's pulling your head out of the sand and embracing and having respect for reality.  That's the kind of hope that's worthy of admiration.  Otherwise it's a hope that's pretty hollow.

And I'm working to correct the things I've ignored and let build up enough to bite me from the past.  I'm determined to face them now, albeit a bit late, and not let them control me.  You can just imagine how well pain-avoidance patterns work for someone who lived in a red-light district in one of the poorest cities in the world.  Yeah, not so much.

Hope is real.  And it's always there.  But in order to dwell day by day in a hope that's strong enough, deep enough, and powerful enough to grip you like an "anchor for the soul" (Heb. 6:19) it needs to be based on reality, the good and the bad, as well.  And most of all based on Him, who is the Giver of Hope.

A practical way to develop real hope today by the camp director of my high school years:  

"Stop worrying.  Stop over thinking.  Stop playing out all those worthless scenarios.  God will take care of you.  Own that.  Take control of this minute right now.  What are you doing, or thinking, or saying that you need to change?  Are you seeking Him first?

Take control of that."  

(Mike Staires:  http://www.mstaires.com/its-time-to-take-control/)

Not great shots, but amazing fish from Kelly Tarlton's in Auckland this week:

Life Themes: Hope

I ended my last post with this verse, "If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom. 8:31)  Right now I find great comfort in this verse.  Almighty God-----for ME.  But it occurred to me that the confidence that this verse inspires or doesn't  depends a lot on our current opinion, impressions, or belief system about who God is.

Ladies, you will know what I mean by this statement:  All mirrors are not created equal.  Can I get an, "Amen"?  I have two mirrors in my house big enough to show me all that I need to see.  In one of the mirrors I usually look great.  It flatters me and makes me look my best.  I call it my skinny mirror.  The other mirror, well not so much.  If I look in THAT mirror before going out I feel dumpy and not so good about myself.  I've come to think that reality is somewhere between my two mirrors and so can adjust my thoughts about my current outfit accordingly.  Or I can just stick with my skinny mirror! 

I think how we 'see' God, how much trust we put in Him, how much faith and hope we have in Him are directly representative about what 'mirror' we're seeing Him through.  Are we in a place where our minds are filled with distress and doubt and therefore have distorted our image of Him?  And, therefore, ourselves.  If so, we need to stop and stare and refocus our view by the Truth of Who He Is.

Some of us always have a sound track of music in our minds.  Some of the songs are quite short-termed; music that we've been listening to recently, the irritating but catchy song that we just heard walking through the store.  Then there are the songs that resurface from our deepest, default memories when our minds are pretty blank otherwise and we just feel like singing.  Songs that have inspired us, challenged us, made us who we are.

One of my default songs is:

My hope is built on nothing less 
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness 
And I dare not trust the sweetest frame 
But wholly lean on Jesus' name 

On Christ the solid rock I stand 
All other ground is sinking sand 
And all other ground is sinking sand 

Hope.  Something challenged me to consider recently that if I had to pick one thing to call the theme of my life, what would it be?  I decided that it would be:

Not that I have always walked every single day in hope.  Not that I have always been a source of hope for others.  But when whatever happens in my life, whatever layers are of things that shouldn't be there are stripped away, whatever lesson I end up learning, it always seems to somehow come back around to hope for me.

"Hope isn't about knowing how things will come about.

Hope is envisioning the future and choosing to enjoy that now.  Hope is really about rest.  Resting in the imperfections of today because you believe that tomorrow there is possibility.  Sometimes the hope isn't for the change as much as it is for the change in me."  -thenester.com

If you've seen me much lately I may have been wearing this around my neck:

(I need to learn how to do those cool, focused on the object but blurry around the edges photos!)

I had fun recently selling some jewelry I've had for ages and getting some new things that make me smile instead for my next season of life.  Since working at an artisan jewelry shop before I had my first child, I see jewelry as an art form and wanted a few things that not only brought me joy to look at but meant something to me as well.

A while back my daughter's hope had fled.  I felt helpless.  I didn't know what to say or how to best support her.  I was just muddling along day by day trying to show love and hope fueled by His.  So I got this.  I want her to see hope 'fastened around (my) neck' (Prov. 6:21) when she looks at me.  A tangible reminder.

It's surprised me, however, that there are days when I struggle to wear this myself.  Days when I find myself shying away from the word 'hope'.  Those are the days I realized that I need to clean my mirror that lets me see my Father.  Unfog the reflection of my heart.  So I guess you could say this visual representation of a concept has become a barometer of my own heart as well.  Hope fastened around my own neck challenged me instead.

"Resting in the imperfections of today because you believe that tomorrow there is possibility."  And embracing that NOW.  

There is always, ALWAYS hope.

Our son, Aaron, got to go to an adventure camp this past week. (Thanks, Mark and Kerrie!!!) An awesome thing for a 15 year-old boy.  We picked him up at the bus depot last night and as he exited the bus I looked forward to seeing a big, happy smile on his face.  But there wasn't!  While he'd had a fantastic time, a few days before he'd hit his mouth on a rock while white water rafting and couldn't.  His swollen, cracked and puffy mouth was just too sore.

May we find a clear vision of who God is so we can have hope in our hearts today.  But let us also look for those whose hearts have been bruised and are sore, who can't smile for themselves, and model a life filled with incomprehensible, irrational, irrepressible hope for them as well.
(Because you never know the other half of everyone's story......)

When darkness seems to hide His face 
I rest on His unchanging grace 
In every high and stormy gale 
My anchor holds within the veil 

His oath, His covenant, His blood 
Support me in the whelming flood 
When all around my soul gives way 
He then is all my hope and stay 

On Christ the solid rock I stand 
All other ground is sinking sand 
And all other ground is sinking sand