In case you haven't noticed, this thing we call life is seriously depraved. I'm reading The Natashas: Inside the Global Sex Trade by Victor Malarek, and I do not have words to describe the atrocity of evil it reveals. Honestly- grotesque, wicked, malignant, repulsive, base, vicious, damnable- I've used these words for far more petty things, and they don't measure up.
"How can people treat people like this?!" I've screamed into the book multiple times. They clearly do not value human life, something society agrees we all should do.
But why? Why is human life valuable? Because we are made in the image of God. We represent Him, and in Him is all value. But most people don't understand that. I'm really curious to hear how non-christians would answer that question...
"I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off. I stepped out of it. I could see it there lying beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. But just as I was going to put my feet into the water I looked down and saw that they were all hard and rough and wrinkled and scaly just as before. That's alright, I'll just peel it off again. The same thing happened. How ever many skins have I got to take off? Again. Nothing. Then the lion said, "you will have to let me." I was afraid of his claws, but I was desperate now. "The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I had ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was feeling the stuff peel off. He peeled it off- just as I had thought I'd done myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt- and there it was lying on the grass."
Serve God love me and mend
This is not the end
Lived unbruised we are friends
And I'm sorry
I'm sorry
Sigh no more, no more
One foot in sea, one on shore
My heart was never pure
And you know me
And you know me
Oh man is a giddy thing...
Love it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
It will set you free
Be more like the man you were made to be.
There is a design,
An alignment to cry,
Of my heart to see,
The beauty of love as it was made to be ~Sigh No More, Mumford & Sons
Theme song of today much? Yup. Put into "pretty" words, I certainly do NOT see the beauty of love as it was made to be.
at. all.
There are so many places in my heart that should be gushing with love, but they're dead and rotting. Places I've suffocated so long, now I don't even know how to let God into them. It's as if they don't exist anymore.
The healing process requires pain. I get that. It's even in the Lion King (which I watched today). Simba flees through briars, Rafiki brings him back through briars to face his father's image. Simba is in a field at night when his father promises to be with him always, Simba returns to a field at night when his father's spirit confronts him. Laugh if you want. It makes sense to me. God brings us back to the place of pain in order to heal the hurt.
I'm not afraid of pain. I don't push God away because I know it will hurt. It's more like I no longer have a place to let him into- it's dead.
But I'm saying this about a God who raises the dead. "That is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring—not only to the adherent of the law but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, as it is written, "I have made you the father of many nations"—in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations, as he had been told, "So shall your offspring be." He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, since he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised." ~Romans 4:16-21.
God can, and will raise what is dead in me.
"For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death." ~Romans 8:2. Gotta be honest, "free" is about the farthest thing from how I feel. I can't escape my sin. I don't know what living in freedom feels like, but it is not [this].
And there isn't a damn thing I can do about it. But my God raises the dead and calls into existence things that do not exist.
So I wait.
and hope.
We, sitting, decree emphatically:
The fact of the matter is truth is relative- absolutely!
That resolved, canvas shoes lead us through the world we have fixed to the wall
riddle-like;
“What’s black, white, and read all over?”
Newspapers reflect little relativities.
Walking moved
us: this fixed world revolves
by warring, burning, ailing, wailing
with suffer matter. People matter.
Forgetting our sophisticated philosophy, we cry
To the Sky
Where is Justice?!
But you decided
Justice is just a word, and facts don’t really matter.
Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagles.
Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received for the Lord's hand double for all her sins.
He does not deal with us according to our sins.
But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
He sent from on high, he took me; he drew me out of many waters.
God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ- by grace you have been saved- and raised us up with with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.
None who wait for You shall be put to shame.
The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you with his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you.
For He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things.
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you.
So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
In the world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
We are treated as imposters, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and behold, we live; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, yet possessing everything.
Sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.
You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me; your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.
I'm taking a poetry workshop with Carol Frost, hence more poems! Here's my first of the semester. Any thoughts/critiques would be immensely appreciated!
Form: Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse.
The Alliterative Madam
Today she didn’t, tomorrow she did
my mother, the mad woman
made many juxtapositions, remember?
Silver Head discerning said sensationalisms-
Much madness is!
Understood Madam?
I love Henry James' Portrait of a Lady, I just never thought I'd live it.
You know how it feels coming off a merry-go-round? Spin-spin-spin-spin-spin-spin STOP. Ok, you think you're oriented... step, fall. The spinning continues- only in your head. You balance again, take a tentative step in the forward direction- nope. Fall. turns out "forward" was actually "down."
Or
When you're tubing: the boat whips sharp at the precise wave, perfect contact, tube goes flying, you go flying- spin-spin-spin-spin-spin BAM water. You can't breathe- the wind knocked out of you? or is that water you're gasping? You reach your arm up... down?
That, or something like it, is where I'm at. Just when the spinning stops and I think I've got a grip on my direction, I fall flat.
Weakness. to the uttermost. "and I don't mean like a couple of tears and I'm blue. I'm talking about collapsing and screaming at the moon,
but I'm a better man for having gone through it." (the Avetts say it well.)
"If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it." ~C.S. Lewis
The finality of "so be it" has always inspired me- such steadfast and noble words. But these words are also fatal. often painful. no way out.
Praying, "Lord, have Your way" is the same way. That's not at all a bad thing; God is not cruel. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." -Isaiah 55:8-9. His way is better, better period, and better for me. I know that. in my head.
But I don't feel it. I feel atrocious things. Fear, anger, resentment, bitterness, abandonment, abuse... all towards a God who is gracious, who doesn't deal with me as I deserve, who endured unfathomable sacrifice so that I may know Him. He will not abandon me. "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." ~John 14:18. What amazes me is He can handle my resentment. He's not offended by my anger. He's bigger than my fear.
"Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!" ~ Psalm 25:6-7
I don't recite these words because I feel them; I NEED them.
I needed to hear this last night, I hope it speaks to you as well...
