connectinghope.art

grieve

To grieve is to give your attention to the vacancy that has opened inside of you, the emptiness that has taken up residency in your affections. One day you made room for someone or something precious, and now, that someone has gone, that something has left you with empty open hands.

Near the beginning there was no door. Do you remember? Only rough walls and low ceilings. More of a bunker than a house. Near the beginning, the locks clicked and the shades were drawn, the dust muffled every sound, filled every empty place, made you feel full and safe and full.

But one day…the ‘vacancy’ sign, tattered and winking. You flicked open a lock, pulled the blinds open, and clung to the old windows until they creaked open. You propped the desperate sign where it might be seen. For a moment you felt the breeze, a tender stroke across your cheek, you felt freshness, light, and tried, hoped to make room for someone else.

Now there are only empty rooms, long twilit halls of doors that no longer open from the inside. Once there was a figure behind the door, a face, a gesture of welcome, a refrigerator and a routine. Once there were muffled shouts, golden bells of laughter and bustle, a song in every room, the safety of a shared silence. There was a life inside, and the door was open to you.

Now the storm-winds are blowing, leaking in the god-damned windows, hissing and whipping and disturbing places of quiet that were never meant to be left, never meant for a midnight quiet like this. There is a growling injustice in the air, raging to be felt, groaning to be named, begging to name you, if even for a moment: ‘I wanted this. I feel the emptiness that is there. I am alone, again. I feel like a fool. I feel like I will never heal.’

But one day…a moment of quiet, familiar and new. In the seeming quiet, the tiniest whisper-sound of someone breathing, the tiniest beat of a heart nearby. The tiniest tremble of a child standing behind a curtain, longing to be found. The tiniest sense of someone listening, attentive to you, preparing a room for you.

The season of grieving is a season like many others, a day like all other days. And there was evening and there was morning.

The eve of Christmas is a day of glad anticipation, of last-minute preparation, of warming spices and the happiest of secrets – at its core, a forerunner, a predecessor, a lady-in-waiting to the royal one who is to come. The season of grieving finds an echo in this day. It promises that morning will come.

And so the work of grief is to make room for what has been lost and usher in the new day that is coming. We do not grieve without hope but instead find the courage to look both into and past the darkness of evening to the first black-blue of a coming dawn. This practice of grieving is a bitter first-fruits, the final pang of labor bringing new life and light.

Near the beginning, in a valley shadowed black, Adam named his wife Eve, blessing her as the mother of all the living.

In our own shadowed valleys, hollows of sorrow and sin, the new Adam gives this same benediction, speaks this same promise to us. With him our grieving becomes not a harbinger of death, not capitulation to an empty abyss, but a key slipped under the door, a hint that our Lord Jesus is near.

Lord Jesus, one well-acquainted with grief, you did not set your jaw, but grunted and wept with rage for your friends. Holy Spirit, you do not keep silent but groan in holy communion with our own unspoken losses and fears. Father, you did not look away but clothed and comforted your children. As we wait for you to wipe away ever tear from every face turned to you, teach us to grieve.

If you’d like to continue on this journey with me, please sign up below to get email updates when I post something new. I am very grateful for the time you give to reading these, and would be glad to hear any feedback or comments you have about how we can risk a next, slow step toward Jesus together.

– Amanda

comfort

Erik Mclean – @introspectivedsgn – https://unsplash.com/photos/D8qiffAIWH4

Comfort is as single-minded and stubborn as a fortress. It is low to the ground, dusty with obscurity and limitation. Like a bunker buried in the sand, it acts in faith, quietly raging against the injury that is evident, signaling the presence of something unseen.

To comfort is not to heal. It is not to prevent or pre-empt. It is not to anticipate or even alleviate, to reduce or remove or reconcile or revive. It is as senseless as the dead things it welcomes and touches, as inconsequential as the smallest seed dropped on the ground.

True comfort watches. It sees. It does not turn away when the bone cracks, the tears are blinked away, the soul is torn. Comfort is in spite of the pain, in the midst of it, though it does not watch dispassionately. It fumes and weeps in the waiting. Comfort is patient, and wise.

Where shame has taken root, comfort nourishes the roots of her dignity. Where contempt has taken hold, comfort quietly grasps his hand. Where despair has taken up residence so that the drapes are drawn and the doors are locked, comfort gently cracks open a window onto a sparkling night sky, a golden dawn, a fresh breeze that cleans and clears away.

To be comforted is to have known bruising, to gasp and sputter on the edge of extinction, to be stripped of agency, to fall. To know comfort is not to be spared or to know no pain.

To know comfort is to be freed from fear.

To be comforted is to be gathered up. To be comforted is to be held and looked after. To be comforted is to be accompanied, and attached – no matter how far, no matter how long, no matter how horrendous or violent or sickeningly wrong. To know comfort is to know you are treasured in the life of another. To be comforted is to be loved back into being.

Jesus, the God of all comfort, hides this protection in our hearts, our souls, our very core. It is his being with us that keeps us safe; his intentional, never-forsaking presence that makes us strong.

some questions to hold

Consider the people you feel you can relax with. How would you describe what it is that helps you to feel comfortable?
How would you describe the difference between pain and fear? What do you notice in your body when you experience each of these things?
Here are some of the verses in the Bible that come to mind for me when I think about Jesus’ desire to be with us. He says this over and over again, and gives us language for what he desires for us to experience in his presence. If you want, choose just 1 of these verses to Google, and allow his words to prompt your curious questions: Matthew 28:20, Isaiah 43:1-2, Genesis 3:8-9, Revelation 21:3-4, John 14:3, Romans 8:31-39.

If you’d like to continue reading, please sign up below to get email updates when I post something new. I am very grateful for the time you give to reading these, and would be glad to hear any feedback or comments you have about how we can move toward Jesus together.

-Amanda

shine

To shine is to flood with light, to steal away the dark from its hiding places, to warm, to nourish, to feed. To shine is to make something gently manifest, to make plain what is present, to offer a truth that ushers in flourishing. To shine is to tend to the seedling, to uphold the body, to set one’s face toward the beloved.

The sun inclines her head, and the earth sprouts with new life. In the dark and deep beginnings, you began with light, with evening and with morning, and the garden began to grow. Like a wise teacher, a good farmer, you give all that is needed for the earth to do its work, to bring forth its good fruit. Each nut-brown seed and green fern, every twirling tendril on the vine and new bud on the branch – with head thrown back and arms open wide, the fields and forests clap their hands for the life they receive from the sun that shines.

The white-gold sun bares her face, and our bodies grow strong. In the depths of the earth, you Jesus knitted and you formed, you saw, you wove bone and marrow, substance and skeleton. Like a wise physician, a good counselor, you enfold us in a secret regimen of goodness and mercy that follows us through the arc of each day. With each blue-gold retreat, each brilliant red rising, you nourish us – you mend what is fractured and you secure what is broken.

“Thus you shall bless the Israelites: You shall say to them,
‘The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.’
So they shall put my name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.”
Numbers 6:23-27

The father smiles, and the child blooms. The Lord Jesus loves with a shining countenance. He commands blessing, he communicates delight, he conveys his affection whole-heartedly, in song and in poem. He holds nothing back.

Perhaps it was the light of your face, Jesus, that made these infant parts strong, these dormant parts newly alive – perhaps it was the warmth of your smile, the blaze of your delight, the fire of your pride that instilled in this little one the will to survive, the fight, the anger, the strategy, the vulnerability, the safe-keeping. Like a child, still, we fumble and let go with clumsy fingers, but see, see the lips purse and the brow furrow! Perhaps it is the distant light of your smile that gives us the courage to try again, the strength to withstand our suffering, the grit to stand even as we grieve.

In the light of your shining face, O Jesus, might our sun-starved parts feel our way toward you and find you. Might the tender shoots that have felt claw and beak, crowding weed, and the searing burn of a counterfeit sun – might these parts know the orange-lit hearth at the end of the long, gray path. Even on the far side of the wilderness, in the shadow of a mountain, draw us to the bush that burns, the lamp that is the Lamb.

some questions to hold

When have you felt safely enjoyed by someone? Take a little time to remember what happened and how you experienced these moments. Think particularly about your physical, sensory experience – what did you feel in your body?
What brings you such delight that it shows in your face, in your gestures, in your posture, or in your tone of voice? What is it like for you to feel this delight? What is it like for you to express this delight, to allow it to be seen and known?

– Amanda

a prayer for a child

In this season of the coronavirus pandemic, there are so many adults talking. So many projections and statistics, so much advice and expertise – and this is mostly right and good, many of the voices well-meaning, well-informed, and truly helpful.

As an adult, I realize that I am adding my voice to the din. If you’ll bear with me, though, remember that my hope in this blog is to make room for all the different parts of ourselves to experience the hope that Jesus offers us in real and beautiful relationship with him. I find that for myself, it is often the young, child-like parts that struggle the most. And yet, it is to precisely these most precious and vulnerable ones that Jesus directs his particular care, protection, and praise.

“And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you…whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.'”
Matthew 18:2-6, ESV

What if, in the midst of all these adult voices, we chose to invite and cultivate the voices of children?

I think that the voices of children – and the younger parts of ourselves – often go unheard. But we know that this is not the case with the Lord Jesus. I imagine that he hears the infant’s cry lifted up in her moment of need in the night. He inhabits the toddler’s quietness of concentration and presence that needs no words. He delights to hear stumbling, broken babble of misshapen vowels and clanking consonants. He sings in the sound, the word, or the phrase repeated again and again and again. He willingly wanders the paths of chats that twist and tangle in stories told twice, jokes without punchlines, and sentences that go on for days.

If you are a child and the prayer below somehow finds you, I pray that it will be to you a reminder that the Lord Jesus longs and loves to hear your voice.

If you are caring for a child, this prayer is an offering to you – might it be a place to start if you are feeling stuck, a place of rest if you are feeling weary, and a place of hope as you hear the praise of this child make strong the kingdom of God.

If you are an adult, this prayer is an invitation to make some room for the younger parts of yourself, the voices that perhaps have not yet had a hearing – with Jesus, allow these precious and most vulnerable parts to say their piece without provocation, to lift their voices in safety, and to receive the care they need as they come and speak to him.

some words to hold

Jesus, you are the listener, 
you always hear me
when I talk to you.

Many people are sick.
You are the doctor,
your hands make sick people well.

Many people feel afraid.
You are the hero, 
you defeat our enemies.

Many people are alone.
You are our friend,
you fill our hearts up with love.

Jesus, you are always brave.
Please give us courage
to be kind to others.

– Amanda

quarantine

The language of quarantine is drawn from the word four, or forty. To quarantine, or to be in quarantine, is to be set apart for a time for the sake of others. In the face of something that threatens us, we endure separation, enclosure, long days and too-short nights. We are removed from some, and share unexpected intimacy with others. We wait through a season of unknown length, looking toward an unknown conclusion.

As sickness threatens the lives and livelihood of many, you may find yourself in a quarantine of sorts – whether mandated by law, recommended by people who care for you, or perhaps manifest as a quiet but deeply felt sense of distance from those you love, from the normalcy you long to recover, or from the hope you claim to have. In this season of isolation, limitation, and loss, the Lord Jesus draws near. His Word speaks to us, and makes room for the different parts of ourselves – the lonely parts, the angry parts, the part that weeps and the part that hoards and even the part that has shut down and slowly edges away…perhaps we have seen this distance from our Lord grow, and not just in the last few days but over long seasons of suffering, crystallized in moments of desperate silence. Let us hear his unfailing welcome even in times like these.

With Noah, his wife and sons and daughters-in-law, we watch the rain fall for 40 gray days. Boarded up and looking out on a dull, tumultuous sea that constantly shifts and foams. Wind-tossed and unwieldy, our ship once seemed so sturdy and strong. We count night after night, day after day. We watch the rain continue to fall, and the tide rises. We feel the chaos sneaking back in, the life leaking away. Neighbor is torn from neighbor, nation from nation. We fill our days with the simple, dirty chores of feeding sheep, folding clothes, typing and calling and clicking, caring for children, preparing meal after meal after meal, waking and sleeping again. As we see stores running low, we reach to remember the voice that spoke 300 cubits, not 400; that ordained companionship and help on this journey; that marked our six hundredth and first year, on the first month, on the first day with a gloriously muddy footprint on gloriously solid ground; that dried up all the waters and whispered the dove’s way to an olive branch; that placed a bow in the clouds and promised to remember us with mercy.

With the Israelites, we wander in a howling wilderness. We may be newly-freed and yet faithless, stiff-necked and hopelessly afraid. We count ourselves among those who have grumbled, who have gazed upon our enemies with awe and with wonder. As we endure the discipline of the Lord, and our failure to trust you has been made plain, we cannot escape his mercy. He feeds us, with bread and with fish. He leads us, with fire and with smoke. He eases our affliction, with sturdy sandal and water from the rock. He looks upon us with love, when we sit down and when we rise up, when we go out and when we lie down. He sees us as the child he rescued and held, the inheritance he has secured for himself, the portion he has chosen. As we pitch our tent night after night, we remember that there is no other people who have a good so near to them as our God is to us; that he has already given us the land he calls us to take possession of; that he brought us out so that he might bring us in.

With Anna, the aging prophetess whose dreams left long ago, we sequester ourselves in the temple. We fast and we pray, we watch for the One who is to come, we lean into what we have seen and heard of this King who comes to proclaim good news to the poor, freedom to the captive, sight to the blind, and God’s good pleasure to those who deserve judgment. For as many as 40 years lived twice, this young widow has known the ache of one taken from her, this one death echoing through the death of countless dreams held dear – a child, a life together, a home to share. As we befriend our grief and dare to host our anger, we remember the root that springs from the stump, the light that shines in the darkness, the Lord who wept and rose again.

With Elijah, we feel our chest rasp and shudder as we flee in fear from the one that hunts us. We say, “It is enough” as we slump beneath the broom tree, sleeping for sorrow. For I am the only, and they are the many. As we faint with fatigue and long to be close, we remember the gentleness and safety of your touch; we taste the warmth and honey sweetness of the cake baked on hot stones, and the cool, clear water carried in a jar; we hear the sound of your still, soft voice that nourishes and makes us brave again.

With Job, we sit in ashes. Held captive by grief and by sickness, we scrape ourselves with bits of broken cisterns, seeking to dull the pain or find a fresh wound. As we lose child and wife, see riches lost and friends condemn us, we remember the 7 days of healing silence; the mercy of lies that are bare-faced and bold, and all the easier to discard; and the answer from the whirlwind: mighty storehouses of snow, the sea shut in and clothed with clouds, and the swirl of mercy spinning a fullness of days.

With Moses, we raise prayers for others who have become dear to us. For 40 days on a mountain, separated from the people of our community, we slowly drink in your name of compassion and favor, an abundance of love and fidelity, long-suffering and an assurance of justice. We ask that we might not depart from you, but that we might go with you, that you might go with us. We set aside luxuries, even necessities, and as we feel the pangs of hunger and even of fear, we painstakingly mark out the words of your promises, cut into stone, carved into flesh. We remember the stories of how you have drawn near.

With Jesus himself, we fight in the desert. We are driven into a time of testing, of temptation, of harassment and isolation. As we face the “if’s” and “what if’s” of the enemy, arm us with sturdy, savory truth. As we endure accusation, cover us with your wings and draw us a picture in the sand. As we count the days and peer into the gloom, murmur to us your words of shining delight, and whisper to us the day that is coming when we will see you face to face.

some questions to hold

What parts of yourself have not yet been heard in this season of quarantine? What do they want to tell you or show you?
How do you imagine the Lord Jesus responding to these parts? What do they need?
Of these stories, which person (or community) might be a good friend to one of the parts that is asking for care? How do you think they might describe the God they encountered?

– Amanda

glory

My husband has taught me to love trees. He has always loved them, enjoyed them, and seen them in ways that I have had to learn. To begin to see a tree, I like to run my hands along its bark. I try to wait and watch as its leaves give shape to the breeze through their gentle flaps and stirrings. I follow where it points me, as it gestures up and around, sometimes pulling me along in its rush heavenward, sometimes slowing and eddying in an intricate tracery of branch and stick. Like columns and arches and rose windows, it teaches me about someone else, something other – and yet it is here, anchored and rooted, moored right where I am.

What if glory was not something intangible, golden and shining and ephemeral, existing somewhere out there, probably up there, with a God who is far off and content to stay there? What if, instead, glory is in something being made plain, someone seen? What if glory is not in the pageantry as we often think of it, but in the truth of the encounter? What if glory lies eager and waiting to spring forth when someone is known and cherished as he actually and truly is? In such actuality and truth the perceiver, the receiver, the selfsame lover and beloved can barely stand, barely hold on with his hands or in her heart.

“Choose the least important day in your life. It will be important enough.”
Thornton Wilder, Our Town

When people encountered Jesus on the city corridors of Jerusalem, the dusty back-roads of Galilee, the cramped seasides and sinking ships and upper rooms – I would guess that there was not a lot of pageantry about him. He was not stunningly handsome, striking in his attire or someone looking for fame. He spoke plainly, though his words were often curious and confusing. He healed people who were sick and suffering, and then told them not to tell anyone. He taught in churches, and people marveled at his authority, his mere daring to say things in such a way as if he meant them and knew what he was talking about. He told simple stories about sons and fathers, landowners and tenants, seeds and coins and bread. He died near two others, one angry, one sorry.

“As the fir-tree lifts up itself with a far different need from the need of the palm-tree, so does each man stand before God, and lift up a different humanity to the common Father…In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter…From this it follows that there is a chamber also – (O God, humble and accept my speech) – a chamber in God himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man – out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made – to reveal the secret things of the Father.”
George MacDonald: An Anthology 356 Readings, “The New Name”

Jesus is speaking today, inviting us to be who we are, what we are, and where we are – and in this way, to give him glory. He invites us to rest in the selves we have been given, and to somehow begin to offer these true and simple selves to one another for the sake of making him out, as a shadowy dimness begins to clarify into a figure and a face with each torch newly lit – through the body you inhabit, the brain you have, the sensitivities you cannot shake or stamp out, the strengths and the beauties with which you dwell, the glories of who God has made you to be – you, and no other. The very things that are ordinary and familiar about you, the image of your face in a mirror, the sound of your voice, the weight of your head in your hands, the way your eyes smile and squint, the parts that are tender and afraid, cherished and exiled, the days that don’t seem to matter, the roots that are never seen, the leaves that wither and fall, the branches that are lopped off, the trees that are wholly cut down.

And so we clap our hands with the trees, we cry out with the stones, we declare that we are free to be an ear and not an eye, we are minted and rendered unto the one whose image we bear, and we point the way to the kingdom like the child in Jesus’ midst – we have been given a story to tell, and we tell it season by season, day by day, moment by moment.

some questions to hold

As you make room for some of the younger parts of yourself, what do you notice about them? How do they reflect God’s goodness, justice, mercy, delight, love, and passion?
What parts have learned that it is not okay, not enough, or not safe to be who you are? What was that learning process like?
What is one small way that you could offer who you are to someone else, while also allowing them to respond by offering who they are to you?

– Amanda

shelter

To experience shelter, or to be sheltered, is to be secured and provided for. We take shelter in the things we expect to be sturdy, and in the people we have found to be safe.

I came to Jesus first as a young child. As I remember this first encounter with God, I feel mostly fear. The person who told me about God on this day, who I believe was genuinely concerned for my soul and salvation, raised her voice in a solemn and earnest warning – ‘Watch out,’ she said, ‘there is a judgment coming, and you cannot withstand it. Turn to God, repent of your sin, and he will save you.’

Imagine a child playing near a road. She is immersed in her play, her heart light, her eyes bright and alive, her fingers brushing the grasses and sand. As she explores a world enchanted with beauty and light, she does not hear the car come screaming down the street, does not see the way it weaves and jerks, does not sense the danger that is sure and fast approaching.

In this moment, any one of us will run from danger in obedience to an earnest warning, and this is good and right. What is missing, however, from this presentation of the good news of Jesus, is the best part of the story – the person who calls out to us is also the parent who runs toward us praying that he will make it in time, praying the car will swerve away. The one who calls is the one whose arms have spent long hours swaying, singing, and soothing us to sleep; whose heels and shins have been bruised on toys we have left on the floor, whose hands and hearts have been marked by extra shifts at work, anxious prayers in the night, and an enduring ache that we might be whole; whose eyes are bright and crinkly-lined from an utter delight in the pride and pleasure of sharing life with us.

The heart of this good news, as I am coming to understand, is not the warning alone, but the trusted adult who gives it. It is not the one moment of rescue or escape from harm, but the secure attachment the Lord Jesus longs to give us when we come to him.

For those of us who first met Jesus through a moment of fear; whose hearts and minds and bodies have held onto the terror of the threat rather than the safety and provision and enduring loveliness of the shelter we sought; who continue to struggle to connect to the love that our God professes for us – a prayer:

Jesus, open our eyes to see your indignant fury at those who would dare hinder your children from coming to you. Open our ears to hear you declare that you will surely bring to account those who would cause one of these little ones to stumble. Even as we tremble beneath the sharp claws and cruel beaks so near the seed being sown along the path, and we seek to bear up under the weight of internal rebuke as we stumble toward you, let us find our shelter from the darkness in the fire that warms and nourishes, whose steady embers in the night anticipate the sure rising of the sun every new day.

some questions to hold

What are some of the moments in your life when you have experienced receiving shelter? offering shelter?
What is one small way you might practice receiving shelter in relationship with Jesus?

– Amanda

look after

To look after typically means to care for, or to tend to; to take pains to keep someone comfortable who might be ill or elderly; or perhaps, to be diligent in meeting the needs of a child. The relationship assumed is typically one of a giver and a receiver, and often there is an asymmetry in the agency, capacity, and overall direction of care.

This phrase, however, is also remarkably simple and literal. To look after is to do what any one of us does when someone leaves us. When we can no longer reach out and touch the ones we love with an embrace, a shout, an arm raised high in blessing, we continue to reach out with the only means left to us: an openness, fierce and unfurrowed; wide eyes that grasp for the last wrinkles of figures that blur as the distance grows; hearts full of hope and pain and longing. To no seeming effect, we extend ourselves in the direction of those who move away from us. When shadows lengthen and gold grows gray we continue looking after the ones we have loved.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
John 14:18

For some of us, it is a child dropped off at daycare, or new college dorm. We see her clutching a lovey, brow lifted in caution and uncertainty, lips rosy red and vulnerable. We see him standing and sweaty, clutching the last of his luggage in the August heat and bearing a nervous smile – or perhaps a nervous scowl – as the car pulls away. For some of us, it is a house that is too empty, a tiny hat that has not been worn, a lovey that we clutch ourselves.

Some of us look after airplanes, trains, trucks, or boats, bearing the dearest and costliest of cargo. We look across borders, over oceans, stare up at walls built high and strong. We look after the faces that we know, the hands we long to hold, the strong legs that slowly move through long, long lines. There are documents that must be handed over and filled out; questions that must be answered; impressions that must be made, and good ones; strangers that must be encountered; friends that must be found.

We look after wheelchairs, and ambulances, and hospital beds being wheeled away. We may look after a long aisle runner, christened with petals, soiled with footprints, and rumpled into waves by the sweeping of a long lace train. We look sideways, glancing across a room at a face that has become hard and vacant, its expression receding away. Perhaps we look out between steel bars, a window that is too small, and a door that is too thick.

In the breaking, then, our hearts leap and claw to reclaim nearness. In a final defiance against this death, this separation, we bundle up all of our concern and delight and fear and fiercely fling it after the ones we have lost. Even as we pray that our love might reach the heavens and become a testament in the sky, a proclamation written in the stars that pours out speech day after day, night after night, we also pray that these words might become more than just an outward guide. We pray that somehow, this message will take root and grow deep within the ones we love. A voice that reassures. A friend who stays. A father who comforts. A touch that calms. A promise that is kept.

some questions to hold

Which parts of you feel orphaned?
What would it look like for these parts to begin to acknowledge Jesus’ presence with them? What would they need to receive his care?

– Amanda

reassurance

For those of you who have spent some time in evangelical Christian churches, you may be familiar with the word assurance as it is used and meant in the theological sphere – it tends to refer to the active work of the Spirit of God in the world and with our individual selves that may manifest as a still soft voice, a kind of quiet fire that burns in the presence of injustice and immorality and all things that bring death; perhaps as an image, a vision, or simply a compelling awareness of something deeper, truer, wiser, and lovelier than you can yet make sense of.

Even as I write this, I know myself a novice in these things. As you may know in your experience, I already tend to encounter so many different voices in my internal world that it can sometimes be difficult to untangle them (that is, after they become willing to be seen and named), and, to be honest, it feels foolhardy to identify one among this clamoring crowd to the Lord himself.

For me, then, assurance has been a frustrating word, a difficult word, a word that seems to point to something everyone else can see but me, like the parable of the “Emperor’s New Clothes,” but exactly the opposite – I cannot seem to take hold of what is plain and available to those around me.

What if, though, the Lord does not assure us in some theoretical, distant way, offering an affirmation of acceptance at some point in the past? What if, instead, he reassures us as a good parent continually reassures his child in distress? What if we dare to strike out on a new path of thinking, toward redeeming this word and the renewing of our minds?

As many parents and all children know, there is something deeply and intuitively soothing about the sound shhhhh – the way it communicates safety, encourages connection, and somehow makes comfort present to us. How is it that infants, just hours old, are soothed by this sound?

what do you hear?

Perhaps the sound betrays a rustling of clothes, of sheaves of fabric soft and white – the movement of someone striding to and fro, just out of sight but nonetheless present and watchful over you.

Perhaps it is one voice softly inviting you in, arms wrapped around a stone jar full of quietly sloshing water, clear and cold and fresh from a spring; holding golden cakes baked on hot stones, fragrant and nourishing and satisfying; touching you like a clean sea breeze.

Perhaps it is not one person’s skirts and sleeves, but three, a small band of mighty men, wise and good. Perhaps as they take counsel together, they shuffle papers, shift in their seats, shiver with pure joy at the work they get to do together – each belonging to the others, each giving himself away.

Perhaps there are more, a multitude, a heavenly host, bustling, shifting from side to side, feather and wing, sandal and sneaker and soldier’s boot, singing in a low whisper against a backdrop of stars and the bleating of sheep.

Perhaps it is the sound of the tide slowly and near-silently sliding in to the bay, the sheer weight of the water shifting, wave and ripple, current and tide, slowly spreading out and returning, rolling and heaving and sighing with content, stretching out its arms and stroking the shore, its salty spray cleansing and mending – a round and watery world, tenderly rocked from side to side, held and finally at rest in the arms of one who never tires, never slumbers nor sleeps.

Perhaps it is the sound of a robin hovering over dusty blue eggs, her wings softly beating in the void and in the darkness, steadily growing warmth and life and light once again.

In the deep and secret places where the Lord Jesus Christ knits each child together, perhaps his is the first voice who soothes us with this sound, quiets us with his loving breath, gently growing in us our own capacity for voice, attachment, and longing…some part of God’s person is perhaps bound up in this sweet and simple sound…a part so tender and infant that it is treated with great honor and special modesty. Perhaps he has tucked this part into the margins of experience, so that we might recall him when we hear it, so that he might graciously bless us without even being seen.

some questions to hold

What experiences do you have with the sound shhhhh?
What memories, emotions, or body sensations does this sound recall for you?
How might the Lord Jesus be offering you his reassurance today?

– Amanda

what to expect – questions

Questions are in some ways harder than answers, I think. After we have spent some time considering one word, I will offer some questions at the end of each post for mulling over as we go through our days and our lives. While questions can be harder, they can be quite powerful, and are a better fit for what I am hoping to do here.

What I am hoping to do is to dignify our selves and their various parts with the permission and space to speak. Imagine that we are going to an art museum, and instead of reading the little card posted next to the painting, saying ‘hmm, that’s interesting,’ and walking away from unchanged – imagine that instead, the artist is standing there next to the painting, and he very kindly and humbly and warmly asks us, ‘what do you notice? what do you feel as you look at this painting? why do you think I chose that color? where does your eye go first?’ and on and on.

What I am hoping to do in this blog, and whatever you are hoping to get from it – I am basically saying that I would prefer we do those things together as peers and co-learners. We get to bring all the parts of ourselves into the conversation. We get to be curious. We get to practice charity. And best of all, we get to be gently led by the most kind and masterful question-asker, Jesus. Who better to ask us questions, than the very one who knit us together, who holds all things together, and who formed each and every one of those parts. Just listen to how he might be speaking to you already (all of these questions are from Jesus’ own conversations with people in the book of Mark) – what is your name? what do you want me to do for you? why are you so afraid? why are you weeping? what do you see? how long has this suffering been happening? what is your fight?

What I am hoping to do is to help cultivate our hope – the kind of hope that can come simply from someone walking beside you, one small step after another – the kind of hope that tries its best to risk and hang on in the grappling that is listening for Jesus.

-Amanda