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.

• 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?

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– Amanda