Washing Out

Tonight I'm feeling the sadness of grieving friends and loved ones. This song formed in my head as I was driving home in the rain. 

Washing Out

I didn’t know what it would feel like

To say your name after we said goodbye

And for the first time the sun forgot to rise

I look up to heaven trying to catch your eye

And the rain falls steady on the trampled ground

And my heart is heavy cause you’re not around

And the river’s rising but the water’s brown

Cause the road we travelled on

Is washing out

I couldn’t know what it would feel like

To walk down to the riverside

I wanna reach you but these wings can’t fly

I’m on my knees and the tide is high

And the rain falls steady on the trampled ground

And my heart is heavy cause you’re not around

And the river’s rising but the water’s brown

Cause the road we travelled on

Is washing out

I wanna know what it will feel like 

When the earth smells sweet after the storm blows by 

When the rain that’s falling doesn’t make me cry

And the grass grows green by the riverside


~lg

The Grace of the Weighty Word

I am startled by the Scripture readings for December 1st and 2nd in Common Prayer.* Isaiah 1:1-20. A hard word, a weighty word, heavy with the justice of God.

Here is a broken Father, crushed by the inconsolable affliction of His rebellious children. Here is the Father weeping over the burned city.

And yet these tattered lepers insist on parading their so-called sacrifices through the courts, keeping up the charade of a glittering festival.

"Your whole head is injured,
your whole heart afflicted."

Stop the insanity!

"From the sole of your foot to the top of your head 
there is no soundness."

No soundness. Only noise.
No wholeness. Only fractures.
No peace, no shalom. Only the dizzying dance of hypocrisy even as the enemy draws closer.

Righteousness is under siege, and yet the parties and platitudes continue. The fatherless and widow cry out, but who has ears to hear?


Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble. tremble.


For who can stand against such an injunction? And who am I in the holiday parade?

And yet the word of justice contains a word of mercy. (Blessed be the faithfulness of God.) Here is a diagnosis, and that is grace to the gaping wounded. Here is the naked, ugly truth, and therein lies salvation.

I have known this word. I have sat in complete judgment, rightly accused by the righteous law, the weight of each commandment broken piled on me in succession. And oh, it was hard to bear. I would not have believed in the grace of such judgment had I not known His face. Truth makes free, but only in the ears of the humbled.

"Come now, let us reason together,"
says the LORD.
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be white as snow;
though they are like crimson,
they shall be like wool.
If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the best from the land;
but if you resist and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword."
     For the mouth of the LORD has spoken. 

If I had not already known His kiss, I could not have received His rebuke.

And yes, every word of rebuke also breathes healing, if we come close enough to be washed in His tears. His face is turned to us, even in rebuke.

This is mercy - that He speaks at all.

This is favour - that He rips off our crumbling facades and exposes our aching bones.

This is love - that His word became flesh and bone to bear our sin, to stare us down and call our names, and to restore the ears our own swords have devoured. He does not turn away. He does not forsake.

This is love - do not miss it! This is the Word who will heal.

This is the Word of peace for the trembling.

"Come now." 

So I pray, in this season, for ears to hear,
for ears to receive the Word,
no matter how He speaks.



* Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals by Shaine Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and Enuma Okoro


~lg

Midnight prayer: Where do Syrian children sleep?

Oh God,

Where do Syrian children sleep? Only you know each troubled bed. Mine are safe under quilts and treasured blankies, wrapped in the security of home. Mine are sleeping deeply, even as I wrestle with the midnight thoughts and images I can't escape.

Don't let me escape them.
Don't let me forget them.

The world is a broken puzzle, with too many pieces missing. Blown to bits.

What do I do? What do we do?

I don't know the answers to the questions in their eyes, the cries in their sleep, the fear in their forms.

But I do know this...

Jesus, you were a child refugee, fleeing the evil of hell's forces loosed. Where did you sleep, on the run to Egypt? Did you know the terror that sped your parents' steps day after night after day? Would I have recognized you if you slept on my doorstep?

Jesus, you spoke of loving our enemies, and if ever we really needed to figure out what on this blasted earth you meant, now is the time. I do know love means risk. Love means the almost sure possibility of having to utter those heavy words, "Father, forgive them."

Jesus, you knew the bloodiest torture of your time. You know the nightmares they relive. You weep over their crumbled cities. You weep over those who reject your way, and send these children into the cold night. You weep over hearts harder than the trampled ground. You weep for each child who has lost a home, each home that has lost a child.

Jesus, you pronounced blessing on the peacemakers. How can anyone make peace with trembling hands, and when the recipe seems forgotten? Yet you spit into the dust and made a balm for healing. You give eyes to see. You took a severed ear and restored it to your enemy. You give ears to hear. You took everything hell had to throw at you, and you made salvation.

I am no miracle worker.

But I know the only way to take any step, to make any peace, to break any curse, is to stay close to you. To embrace you as the child, alone and frightened. To look into their eyes and pray, and really mean it - give me eyes to see. Give me ears to hear. Don't let me escape them. 

My children stir. They murmur and roll over. I will tiptoe close and tuck the covers around them, murmuring my own prayers of gratitude and blessing. And as I place my hands on them, I will pray for the others.

Yes, prayer may only be a beginning. But as we go forward, we can never leave it behind. For it is in prayer that we step close to Jesus and let him cross our borders.

Come, Lord Jesus.





{One small step I am taking - Please consider purchasing a copy of my Advent devotional, Abraham's Advent. Proceeds from the ebook will go to Preemptive Love Coalition, an organization that is making peace and healing hearts in Iraq and the Middle East.}


~lg

When all you have is dust

"But of all who pray, how many pray poorly?

How many, then, straightway dismiss this gift of God? How many grow restless over a period of time and despair of prayer - not because the thing itself is ineffectual, but rather because their practice of the thing is cheap and incomplete? Many. Oh, too many of the people turn their groaning inward (where it swells helplessly like an angry gas) rather than Godward (where the Deity himself breathes it in and transforms it)."


- from Whole Prayer by Walter Wangerin


Yes, that is it. In prayer the Spirit of God Himself groans along with us, and, by his creative nature, turns our helpless groaning into something more. We cannot pollute him by our prayer. He takes our sorrows and shattered dreams, our despair and doubt, our frustration and failings, and takes them into his heart. It is from that place we find the room to breathe again. It is from there he begins his Genesis work of breathing life into dust. It is how we all began. And it is how we can all begin again.

Yes, there is great hope in prayer.



~lg

Intercessions: God of tears and dust

O God, most gracious and compassionate, you hold our frailty in your hands. Man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, you know our weaknesses. You gather us in your arms, tenderly wash the mingled tears and dust, and fold us in your keeping. You weep with us. You weep for the whole weary world, swollen with the sting of death.

O God, most gracious and compassionate, you take our burdens in your hands. You hold the things we cannot carry, and carry them away this night.


~lg

Stories of Hope: Alison Gibson

This is part of the series "Stories of Hope," in which ordinary people share how hope makes them live differently. To read the introduction, click here. If you have a story of hope you'd like to share, why not send me a message?

Alison Gibson is one of my dearest friends. We grew up in the same small town in the Northwest Territories - her mother was my kindergarten teacher! Our slightly different ages meant that we didn't actually spend time together in our youth, but all these years later we have settled not five minutes from each other here on Prince Edward Island. I'm thankful for her friendship and her insight into life lived with God, and life lived with hope. She says, "hope is about Jesus, not about me!"

The word "hope" can be thrown about recklessly. I do it all the time. "I hope it is sunny tomorrow." "I hope Sobey's has butter on sale soon." "I hope that warning light on the van doesn't mean anything serious."

I have hoped more desperately for many things, things that truly mattered to me. Two years ago, when I was almost 11 weeks pregnant I hoped that the signs of miscarriage were wrong. I have hoped through 14 years of marriage that my husband would be healed of the mysterious illness that plagues him. I have hoped for relationships to be mended, for stress to decrease, for more time, for more money when income and expenses just didn't balance out. I have hoped for stability and a 'home' for my children through many moves across 3 countries and 3 provinces.

None of these hopes is wrong, but as the circumstances of life play out there is inevitably grief and disappointment when some hopes are not fulfilled, if we have set our hearts on them. As if this isn't hard enough, like the grief over a baby I will never hold, I have discovered that even a hope fulfilled can feel... empty. If I hope for years that I will one day have a 'home' and then finally arrive, only to discover that the home has its flaws, what then? If I hope for the new job, the new baby, the husband, the holiday and then those things happen, or they come and go, and I still feel a gnawing discontent, what then?

In all earthly, human hope like this there is a sense of waiting. This is the hope that says, "One day... If only...." But there is another hope. This hope is a gift from God. The waiting is completed in Christ Jesus. As the Israelites in the Old Testament hoped for deliverance, they looked to the day prophesied when the Messiah, the Saviour would come. All would be different then. If only He would come! As Christians this side of the resurrection, we look back on hope fulfilled. We can live in the present of hope fulfilled.

We need this true hope. It doesn't fade. It isn't swayed by the winds of circumstances. It is always fulfilled. Not later. NOW.

We almost need a different word for this kind of hope. Hope that is so real it supports us. It is not a mild mannered hope. It stands defiantly against the suffering thrown at us. It is a bulwark standing firm against the enemy attack.

How do we live in hope, immersed in a place of contentment? Romans 5 says, "Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."

We have a choice when suffering hits us. We can choose to walk through the suffering with God and allow Him to shape us through it, or we can struggle on in our own strength. True endurance is not picking ourselves up time and again when we get knocked down. It is continuing to believe that God is good. God is faithful. God is our ever present help in times of trouble. If we choose to seek God in times of suffering, we encounter a shift in perspective. We begin to hope less for our own comfort and hope more for the glory of God to be revealed in our lives.

My hope can be summed up in one word. It is always fulfilled. It is sustaining. It is true. It is eternal. It is "Jesus."

But how I hear you say. There is only one answer that I know of. No shortcuts. It is to look for the presence of God in all your circumstances. He is there, but you need to see Him. Praise Him. Thank Him. Listen for His voice.... and crucially believe that He is good even when everything around you feels so, so bad. His presence changes everything.

I am writing this the day before the 2 year anniversary of my baby, at 12 weeks gestation, being born. When I was having labour pains, lying alone and afraid in the spare room of the house we were living in, I cried out to God, "This hurts so much, but the pain is for nothing!" God answered, "The labour pains speak of life. Your baby is not dead, she lives with me."

That same day, as the labour pains progressed, I prayed about the baby I would never meet this side of death. I believed God had said the baby was a girl but prayed for a name. I wanted the baby to have a name that meant "love" for I already loved her so much! I thought that later, I could search for such a name. A few hours later, my brother was praying for me over the phone and the name "Amanda" flashed into my mind. When I looked it up, I found that it means "She who must be loved." God himself had named my baby.

Do I continue to grieve? Yes. I have experienced deep sorrow. Yet somehow, God's voice spoken into the darkness brings assurance. I have thrown myself into God through this pain and He has answered. If tempted to doubt His goodness, I read Scripture that speaks otherwise. I pray with a soft heart.

When I first went to emergency at the start of the miscarriage, I continued to "hope" the baby would live. I prayed desperately, "Lord, let her life make an impact and glorify God."

This prayer has been answered... in the true hope that has been birthed in me. Jesus' presence changes everything.

Stories of Hope: Judy Gillis

This is the first in a series of "Stories of Hope," in which ordinary people share how hope makes them live differently. To read the introduction, click here. If you have a story of hope you'd like to share, why not send me a message?

Judy Gillis is someone I am honoured to call friend, someone who has been into the valley of the shadow of death and has come out the other side somehow radiant. If you've ever dealt with deep loss, her story will resonate. You'll find out what hope looks like to her. Thanks for sharing, Judy! 

Today, I saw someone I hadn’t seen in quite a few months. As we were catching up, we got to talking about the car accident, the one that instantly took our youngest daughter’s life back in October 2013, the one that turned all of our lives upside down. My friend had seen the notice in the paper and wanted to know a few details. I'm okay talking about it... now. 

Of course, whenever I talk about it, I still have to kind of separate myself from the fact that I’m talking about my baby girl. She was 21 … far from home, living in her car, trying to make  her way in the world, and trying to find a place to live. She was so tired; she fell asleep at the wheel … and losing her was harder than any one event I’ve ever had to go through. And yes, there are times – many times – I long to feel her arms around me, to hear her laughter or to see some of the zany facial expressions she used to come out with.

But … so many amazing things have happened that we could never have predicted – so many people have been touched and helped by her story that there is a part of me that understands (in some small way) some of why God welcomed a homeless girl into the best home she could possibly imagine!

I often thank God that He reached down into her heart and showed her that He is real, that she embraced Him only a little over a month before she died. We were able to share wonderful things with each other in those last 35 days. She still had a lot of rough edges (but then again, so do I. So does everyone.) Her conversion – her “white light” experience as I sometimes call it - has given me such comfort. Knowing that right now she is happier than she ever could have been here, and that I will see her again, helps me get through the tough times when I see someone who looks like her, or I hear a song she used to sing off-key on purpose just to make me laugh. The tears spring to my eyes … and that’s okay. It’s okay to miss her. It’s okay.

I get to tell her story often, and in the telling, I heal a bit more because her story reminds me that no life ever goes unnoticed. Every person has great worth. God is still in control, even when it seems like life is crazy and the pain is so great and so senseless. The very areas in which I have been wounded - those self-same hurts, that grief, those tears – God takes those and turns them around for good … so that when someone else is going through a hard place, I can empathize and come alongside that person with assurance that “He’s GOT this.” It’s not just words. It’s real. He is really there.

That’s really what hope is. It’s not the “I hope I win the lottery” kind of hope. It’s a knowing, a settled feeling, a sense that all is well. It’s a deep-seated assurance, based on a personal and vital experience with God. She had that. She had such a child-like faith, a calm assurance that everything was going to be all right – and I believe that if she wanted to leave a legacy behind, it would be that “I-know-so because He-said-so” kind of rock-solid confidence. That’s the kind of hope that is an anchor for the soul. He gives that.

So many times, I hear people say to me that God took our little girl (for one reason or another, maybe He needed another angel … or whatever the case may be). My hope, my trust in Him is not based on some arbitrary version of a God who would “take” someone, who would rob a parent of a beloved child. It might be seen as a matter of semantics, but I believe that God didn’t “take” her; He knew she was coming and He welcomed her home.

More than ever I believe that He is love. More than ever before, I believe that He is in control, that He works all things – even the seemingly horrible ones – together so that we can be more like Him (which is the best good there is!) I’ve seen Him do way too much in too many people’s lives (including my own) to believe otherwise.

Like today – my friend heard me talk about the accident, how the peaceful and tangible presence of God was in that car that night, and she felt what she described as “goosebumps” all the way down to her feet. I was able to give her my blog address on one of her appointment cards, and tell her how to find the posts I linked to, above, so that she could find out more about the few weeks prior to the accident. She thanked me and put the card in her pocket after writing my name on it beside the blog address.

This kind of thing happens quite a bit. God opens doors for me to share how amazing He is, and I just walk through them. And I am so very glad He does it.

You can read more about Judy's journey at her blogs Get Unwrapped and Iconoclastic. 

~lg

Run for Covenant

What I want to say is this: In the face of the bewildering nature of human interaction, there is nothing better than to throw oneself headlong into those relationships defined by covenant. When you want to run for cover, run for covenant. When restlessness calls like the mythical merfolk out beyond the sandbars, don’t waste your time splashing in the tidepools straining to hear more. Turn and run for the hills, to the Mount Zion of your relational landscape. Run to the shelter of timber and hearth before the storm surges up and sweeps you out to sea. Run to the fortress of covenant.

The only true freedom to be had is that of obedience, and the sacred bonds of spoken vows will only chafe unless you are close enough to run together. It is not restriction – it is the place of revelation. It is not limitation – it is the face of love, whose lines can only be traced, caressed, transfigured in the constant whispering of the covenant oath.

Here is grace.

Here is truth, when the tempter’s lies buffet.

Here is trust, when trials should come.

Our original response to original sin is a patchwork cover threaded with shame. And there are days when the old bruised heel still aches along the stony way of life. But even though the path back may be laced with thorns, the healing balm is held by the hands of covenant.

It is the covering for shame.

It is the context for sanctification.

It is the geography whose contours lead to the horizon of hope and whose ridges all rise in ascent to the holy city.

What I want to say is this: Run for the covenant. For Christ Himself will always be found in the relationships He institutes. He is present in the sacramental mystery as King of the mountain. He is its heart. So run for covenant. Run for love. Run for your lives. Run to Christ.

~lg

Wilderness walker

In the wilderness, the pillar, the cloud.

In the wilderness, the mount of revelation.

In the wilderness, the daily bread.

In the wilderness, the covenant.

Not by chance, not even our choice, but His choosing.

The only path to glory that we know is through the nail holes. The only way to life through the birth canal.  

The road from Jericho to Jerusalem is filled with bandits and thieves, but we may yet meet our Saviour, not in the holy robes but in the outcast’s embrace, or perhaps even in the bloodied man himself.

Our God, He is a wilderness walker, a burning bush talker. He draws a crossroads in the sand, and we can choose –

Do we walk with Him?

~lg

Remembrance Day 2013

Today, the prayers are punctured with cannon shot.

Today, the river runs red with mud, swollen with the memories of lives swept away.

Today, children stand in the rain and ask what all the pretty poppies are for.

And I pause and look at the guns and wonder how to explain all this to the innocent.

I pull back the curtain on human hurt, just a bit, just enough, I hope, to reveal something of sadness and thankfulness. What it all comes down to – not enough love in our hearts. We humans, we can die for lack of love.

Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee.

This is the only way to peace. This is the only thing stronger than death. This is the only thing that can overcome “all this.”

Today, let every heart bloom red with love, lest all these pretty poppies be in vain.

~lg

Clothed

Do you remember it? The first outfit you chose for your baby girl? Perhaps a decidedly pink sleeper and matching hat. Or an impossibly tiny and frilly dress. Do you remember it? The care, the delight, the amazement of choosing those darling clothes? Do you remember dressing your daughter for the first time, how those little limbs would not stay put, just how she wiggled and made that face and wondered what was going on?

Today, friends of ours will be choosing their daughter’s last outfit. I cannot imagine how they will choose. What love will finger those threads, will tremble in carrying such grown up clothes to the counter. What grief to lay them out and know the stillness with which they will finally rest.

At the beginning and the end, we are all helpless to dress ourselves.

And sometimes in the middle of it all, we can be left feeling stripped, naked, wondering what is going on.

But there is One who comes when everything is inside out and wraps His cloak around us. He wraps His arms around us, and we can crawl into our Father’s lap and into His comfort. 

And somewhere in the middle of it all, this living, heaving, laugh and cry world, we remember the joy. We remember we are all His children.

~lg