A Nest and A Kingdom

(Have you checked out the page on this blog called: Who I am + Some Big Dreams”? If you’re one of those wondering what I’m up to, I’ve tried to give some answers there.)

I found it on the ground.

A nest.

I fingered the rim, the hard caked mud that had dried, holding the grass in place. There is soft grass in the hollowed middle, and rougher grass on the outside.

A miracle.

Some small bird designed this?? Don’t they call this sort of thing engineering? How do they do it? It is such a big task. I almost ask the cheeky robin who squints up at me from the sidewalk.

They work hard, these birds. All day long they gather one strand at a time, one beakful of mud at a time, and they build. It all adds up, apparently, because in my hands there is a beautiful nest.

I wish….I wish I had that same single-minded vision and focus. I pray that every action, thought, word, deed, every job done and smile shared, everything, would be strands that I’m bringing to God for building His Kingdom. I am a justified sinner in a broken world, and everything can be redeemed by the God who redeemed me. Everything in my life can be holy when it is gratefully received, when I see God’s glory in it. So I pray, and I finger that mud-caked rim, and I see God’s glory….and His kingdom will be built in my life, one straw at a time.

What Is Snow?

Dear Congo-friend,

A few days ago, as I walked, it was snowing. What is snow, you ask?

Let me try to explain it.

Snow is soft. Think of little white cotton seeds that the wind tumbles around. Remember how we ran, hands reaching far ahead, trying to catch them out of the air? And how we brushed them to our cheeks when we caught them, marvelling at their delicacy? That is what the snow feels like when it falls on my face. Snow is soft.

Snow is white. Think of the bubbles new laundry soap makes. Remember those times we sat around one big basin, splashing each other as we scrubbed our clothes? When we laughed too hard some suds got into our mouths and it tasted so awful! Well, snow is white like those bubbles. It covers the streets, the cars, the trees, yes, everything! It looks just like mountains of soapy suds. Snow is white.

Snow sparkles. It was night time as I walked, and the people had many lights on. Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you! Canada is not like Congo, my dear friend. In Congo, when we walked at night, we saw the faint glow of kerosene lamps or the orange of a burning fire in the distance, but our road was lit by nothing but the silvery sheen of starlight and moonlight. Some nights the rain clouds were thundering above, and lightning would flash, lighing our whole world, and then just as suddenly we would be plunged into utter darkness. It does not get dark like that here. There are lights for each house (I think, sometimes, there are more lights in a house than there are people), there are lights for the stores, there are lights on cars, there are lights for the road. So at night, the snow catches these lights and it sparkles.

Snow is cold. Maybe this is most important, but it is also hardest to explain. Friend, think of the coldest you ever were. Maybe it was a cruel thunderstorm, maybe you were cold with the malaria fever. Whatever it was, this snow is a thousand times colder. We have to put on many layers to keep the cold away. Snow is cold.

The funny thing is, everyone here wishes to go to Congo when they hear of how warm it is there. Whenever we told you and your friends about the cold in Canada, you all agreed to never come here!

Friend, I miss you tonight. I always heard about snow in fairy-tales and old stories, but it was not real life. We come from this land of snow and ice, but we do not belong here. It is nice, friend, to feel and taste and see all these strange, wonderful things. Like snow. But I will be so glad to return to Congo, and to see you again!

Love,
Njang’Ba. (also known as Maaike)

That They May Sing

The cuckoo clock, wedding gift to my parents, ticks peacefully in the shadowy corner. I hunch over my Bible, open before me on the carpet. In winter the world wakes slowly, and I’m trying to let Romans seep into my soul before the day begins in earnest. My sister is curled up on the rocking chair in an effort to stay warm. She speaks.

“Hey, we could make this into a song.”

There are things I love about Joanna. She is my little sister with the big smile and bigger heart. Her faith and humility inspire me. And – she loves music. Together, we’re taking a songwriting course. Trying to figure out how to voice our heart-throbs.

So I look up. “What do you have there?”

“A poem you wrote…and that I copied. It’s the one about ‘up, sheep!’.”

“I don’t remember that one.”

She begins to read it. Morning stillness. Shadows. Words from the past. That clock keeps obstinately ticking away, but I know that time stands still.

She reads. And I remember. The aching soul, the kneeling and crying out. When there was no answer. “Do you think we could really put that in song? How would you find a melody? It’s so…raw.”

“But it rhymes.” Ah, yes, there are things I love about Joanna!

I smile.

Next day, walking into a blustery wind, sloshing through the unending slush puddles, and Jesus is speaking to my heart.
I’m thinking again of that raw, unfinished poem. Joanna told me that the one thing it’s missing is a resolution. But there was no resolution for me that night I wrote it.

He speaks, “Give those raw moments to me. I want to make them into a song.”

I clap my mittened hands together, filled with joy at the thought.

Yes! Yes, give it to Him! Yes, that I may remember the soul-agony! Yes, that I may rejoice in His faithfulness!

Because now I know there IS a resolution.

Him.

Funny how it took me so long to figure that one out, isn’t it?

And yet, as Congo is on the news and Congo is on our hearts, voices from the past sometimes penetrate our present world with suprising honesty. There was pain. Ache. Those times when heaven seemed mute.

What do we do with that?
Where is the resolution? There is only one.

Him.

Resolved in Him, the past doesn’t loose it’s potency, but it changes for us. It doesn’t fetter us, because we are free in Jesus. And there’s only one thing to do when that happens –
SING!

Sing, so that the broken past can become a beautiful testimony to the present faithfulness of our God!
Yes!
Pray that God gives His people a melody for Congo’s heart cries. That they may sing.

The Heart of the Matter: Concering Now and Later

Leaving Congo, I knew I couldn’t leave my heart behind. After all, how could I love God with all my heart in Canada, when pieces of it remained in Congo?

I’m a sucker when it comes to self-pity. So I made the decision, asked Jesus to help me keep it, and cried as I kissed my Congo-land goodbye.

I never realized what would happen.

Instead of leaving my heart in Congo, Congo came to Canada in my heart!

See, this Canada-land knows how to cause eyes to stray, to lull consciences to sleep…

I walk the tarmac roads, trying to ignore the intruding noises of incessant traffic. A few blades of courageous grass peep out from inbetween sidewalk blocks at my feet. Shops bigger than ten houses in Congo put together line the highway right and left. Shops that are colourfully playful, shops that are sober and serious, shops that are decorated in dollar signs and shops that delicately display their antique goods. All with the message of buy, buy, buy. How can I find contentment here?

I want to make a friend, but how does one do it in this culture? The girl is dressed in skin tight jeans and flimsy shirt. I look at her face…her beautiful face. Eyes directed so intent on the small screen she holds in her hand could be so deep and lovely if she lifted them. There’s a heart behind those eyes. So I come close, and I offer words. But they stick in my throat, they come out scratchy, they sound strange and the offer isn’t understood. She looks up briefly and walks away. For one stricken heart-beat I’m ready to bawl, and then I slowly walk away too. Did I look, did I sound so vulgar and strange? How do I relate here? How do I make friends?

Pressure closes in to tell me that I’m wasting my days. Wasting. My heart feels the burn of acidy impatience – I must do something! I look for a job everywhere I can think of, everywhere my friends and family can think of, and there is nothing. Nothing. Sometimes, I resent the whole cheerful consumerism panorama that meets my eyes everytime I step out on the street. Oh this land of opportunity, indeed! Sometimes I dread starting a conversation, because I know the inadequate answers I must give to the inevitable questions. I fall short according to these standards. Very short. How do I find identity here?

My eyes , they can stray. Yes. My heart, it can beat to another rhythm and forsake the God-song. Yes. My blood, it knows now to pulse to a beat I never thought would be mine. But when I’m about to be swept out of My Father’s world onto the artificial dance-floor of the this phony world, I see HER. A little, sweet brown face. Eyelashes so long, kissing her dimply cheeks. Smile that is sweet sunshine. Hands that grab and hold close. I know her! Little Germain, the girl who was spoiled and disobedient, who has no father to love her, whose mother seems to ignore more than cherish. The girl who is now somewhere trekking with her family through the Congo rainforest to find their father. I don’t know where.

Her face arrests me.

Congo is still in my heart.

Everyone here asks what I will be, where I will go, what I will do with my life. It is such a vast question. I smile before answering, because grace is that amazing.

I will: Love Jesus. He, the King and Lover who pursues me and holds me and keeps me in His love. He, who has won my heart! I will: Live in Congo forever….until I die. Congo, the land where there are deep needs to match the deep passions Jesus is nurturing in my heart. Congo, where an eternal battle is being fought. Congo, where there are brown babies and mud puddles, butterflies and bananas! Congo, with rainstorms and grace, music and rhythm.

All my heart is here, today. All my heart is singing praise and thanks that I can love Jesus AND live in His love in Canada, AND still love Congo.

What a God!

What grace!

 

Advent.

More. More!

There are those pleas of the heart that cannot be silenced. There are days when your heart groans something deeper and more distressing than any human language can put in syllables. There are places the tongue cannot touch, the ear cannot decipher.

And in that moment, in one of those pangs, I scribble in my journal….

My heart sighs.

Lonely.

Cold.

My soul cries

griveances

Untold.

Speak? I know not how

I grope for words now.

Hunger doesn’t tire.

Crave.

Lust.

Impassionating desire!

Right now.

I must.

Must get God! Must see His face

Yet I linger, languish in this place!

Darkness all ‘round.

Heavy.

Deep.

Who hears the soul-sound?

Wail!

Weep!

All I have left in me is a gasp. One last

Sob. “Come, Jesus! Come quick! Come fast!”

Soul plea.

Voice.

From mess.

COME TO ME!

This!

Yes!

Come, do not tarry, don’t be late!

Come soon, do not wait!

I sought

To come

To You.

I cannot

Make it

Through.

COME TO ME, just as I am.

Sanctify me, my King, my Lamb!

Cold heart.

Heat.

Break.

Dull love.

Arouse!

Awake!

COME!

My soul cry

Takes shape.

Finds a

Word:

JESUS COME NOW!

I believe.

HE.

HEARD.

These are the days when my soul seems to be trapped in a stifling cage. I hammer hard at Heaven’s gates for God. Or am I just banging my head against my own self-made shell?

I am saved. Truth does not change. But how can I be so sure and certain when my life does not bear the fruit? I cry for the Holy Spirit. Come! Please, please, come! Fill me! Fill me with power and love and discipline! Bear in me the fruits of Jesus!

The days draw near to Christmas. When will I purify my heart and draw near to God? I read Joel and God tells His people to rend their hearts. The rending comes before the pouring out of the Spirit.

Advent in Canada is a time of goodies and cookies, of hoping-for-snow and dozens of concerts and events. But in the Book I read, Advent is a time of repentant crying out to God.

Rend my heart, God.

God says in Isaiah, “COME, all you who are thirsty!” My heart and flesh cry out in answer, we thirst! But I cannot come! I am shackled, and they are chains I made myself.

I read it out slowly, savouring the words, marveling at the mystery, floored at the goodness of God. Candlelight flickers on my page. Holiness is all around me.

“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel,

because he has come to his people and redeemed them.

He has raised up a horn of salvation for us

…to rescue us from the hand of our enemies,

and to enable us to serve him without fear

in holiness and righteousness before him all our days….” (Luke 1)

He.

Has.

Come.

Before my soul even uttered that twisted cry, He had answered.

He has come.

Blessed Advent, everyone. May it be for you a season of wrestling with God, of begging to see His face, of waiting, of longing hard for Him to come. May it be a season pregnant with the hope of Messiah. For He has come. And He will come again.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

Barefeet and Congo, Part 2

How many Sunday School children have repeated this verse?

 

What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah 6:8)

Who lives it?

This is the barefoot life. We are free. How shall we walk? Humbly, with our God. To go barefoot, in Jesus’ times, was the sign of a slave. Our God was barefoot when He took the sin of the world on His shoulders. In ultimate humility, He took the nails. This is the God we walk with. How shall we walk? Love mercy. We do not hide from the pain of the world. We do not distance ourselves from the brokenness. We are moved with the same gut-wrenching compassion that moved Jesus as He reached out and touched a leper, as He forgave the sins of a weeping prostitute. How shall we walk? Do justice. It is a hard truth, yet if we say we love God but do not love our brothers, we lie and the truth is not in us. Humility and compassion drive our hands – faith without works is a sorry thing. We feel the pain, we break with the brokenness, but that is not the place to linger or stop! Our Jesus touched, healed, forgave, blessed, restored, renewed, transformed! If I walk barefoot, if I walk free, it is for one purpose: to follow in His steps.

How does this all apply when I read of the part my country has played in the death of all those millions in Congo? The part I play even as I type on my computer?

 “Eastern Congo defies comparison. The loss of life far exceeds deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Yet this is not some distant tragedy, not just another African horror story. The lives and deaths of these millions of Congolese are linked to us all. The mines that scar the verdant hills and mountains of eastern Congo produce a very small but very bloody portion of the tin and coltan metal that is critical to our modern lives. Each time we use a mobile phone, use a video game console, or open a tin can, we hold the lives and deaths of the eastern Congolese in our hands.”

Coltan is a black, tar-like mineral. Well over half the world’s supply is hidden in Congo. Refined coltan becomes highly heat resistant and can hold a high electrical charge, making it an important ingredient for almost all electronic devices as well other uses such as camera lenses and pacemakers. Coltan is in such high demand that people, even nations, will go to great lengths to get it – even if thousands must die in the conflict.

I cover my eyes with a hand, and try to make sense of this: Lord, what will Your judgement be on the West? We who blind our eyes to the exploiting of the heart of Africa, we who covet iPods and computers and let greed dull our consciences! Are our countries not blinding themselves? Again I ask, why is this not more spoken of? In a day and age where everything circulates on the news, keeping time with the incessant ticking of clocks, why is a disaster so huge and an exploitation so vulgar largely unnoticed? Why do our countries not take action? Why does no one stand for the truth? If we the West can rightfully condemn Lubanga for using children soldiers, what will our sentence be when the truth of our self-deception is exposed? The truth of our passivity? God, what do I do with what I am hearing, reading? What do I do? Where do I turn? Who will stop the mindless, cruel slaughter? Who will reconcile these people?

I know that there are many factors at play in Congo. I know that not one nation is to blame for everything. No. All stand condemned. Canada, America – we boast in freedom, in democracy, in the right of humans! Yet for the sake of a game, so that we might have our laptops and gadgets a split second faster, we shed human blood! Where is justice? Where is truth?

Where are the barefoot servants of a humble God? What is the justice that is required of us in this? I do not know. I do not have the answers. But I know that those who touch the heart of Africa touch the heart of God – and I plead with God: Where is the mercy to bring those men with seared consciences to their knees in fear and trembling and horror at the acts they have committed? Where the love that compels and convicts and transforms? God, when will You visit Congo? When will You rend the heavens and come down? When will You come to this blood-soaked, forsaken, forgotten land? When will You bind up the sputtering heart of Africa, and make it beat to the rhythm of Your own holy heart?  

Lord, have mercy!

 

For those reading this, take time to think of what it is the Lord requires of you. Will you pray? Even fast? Will you research and read and cry and be broken? Will you act? I want to do justice, but I am only a girl and I don’t yet know how. If you have thoughts, please feel free to comment on this post so that your wisdom can help me as well!

I Walk Barefoot

The road slices the prairies decisively, granting only one shallow dip and one small rise to crest a rolling hump of grass before it disappears far away into the distant horizon. The blue sky stretches far and wide above me, around me. It is the canvas of God’s painting, and here in this Alberta wilderness, there are no large buildings, no hills, no mountains, no trees to block it out.

In a grassy ditch by the side of the highway is where I choose to walk. A country sidewalk it is, and fit for a queen! The horrific bleats and threatening thunder of a passing train fade away, the few cars whizz past sending gravel spinning, and then – quiet. It fills the land like a living thing.  My eyes feast on beauty. The fields, like a smooth quilted blanket, rest peacefully with the golden stubble of shaven wheat. Somewhere, many miles distant in a hazy horizon which defies the impossible, they merge with the baby blue of sky.

It is beautiful, and yet…. I cannot reconcile it with the confusion in my heart. This show of majesty….and the report I just heard on sex trafficking in Cambodia? My eyes rest on one sole line of dark pines. Like a misplaced scribble on the golden prairie, it points upward to the crescendo of the evening; the explosion of a sun behind billowing clouds. How do I walk under this golden sky and swallow this bitter fact: that there is such beauty in this world, but there is also such a stupendous amount of evil? Why do I still see the eyes of the teenage girl, the eyes that so recently stared at me from the TV screen, when I gaze on the pure blue of heaven? That girl, so used, so abused, then junked. I walk in silence, thoughts all turmoil inside. In desperation, I murmur, “I wish I could be in Heaven – the one place where beauty like this is complete and eternal with nothing to mar it!”

My heels rub against the leather shoes. The wind whips me round, cold and fresh, and I press my hands deeper into my coat pockets. They say these prairies get big winds. I believe it! Here there are no obstacles for King Wind – he may thunder and roar in this vast domain to his heart’s content, and all the humble grasses of Mother Earth will bow in homage. But for now, King Wind is content to tease wisps of hair out of my braids and tickle my cheeks with their scratchy ends.

I draw near to that isolated line of fir trees. They surround a cemetery. Those smooth, cold stones echo eerily my earlier wish  – and each marks a soul that is currently reveling in total beauty  – or drowning in total evil.

Turning to go back, the shoe heel that won’t stop rubbing my foot bites deep. The blister worsens with each step.  I slip the leather offender off and cradle it in my hand. I hardly think twice about walking back to town in my socks. My feet, they are not used to shoes! I am an Africa-child, and I have grown free. The grass stubble pokes through my thin, shy socks, and I feel each pebble. Unexpectedly, my eyes are opened and truth hits me hard: When you walk free, you touch the “real world”. Yes! As the sun dies behind me, kissing my neck and shoulders, I grasp: In Christ, we slipped off these casts our souls were bound in and we are freed from the confining shell of self! My selfish tendency to hide from pain, to cower in the face of cruelty, to shut my ears to the pleas of the despairing and my heart to the broken, my impulse to hide, to distance myself, to run away, to shut it all out – this is impossible in Christ. Only when we are free do we truly feel the pain of the hurt surrounding us in this broken world.

I enter a small prairie town and there are cars passing on the street. My shoeless feet march on the cement sidewalk, along the hedge blazing red with fall, stepping over a child’s spilt popcorn, as I demurely try to appear normal in the eyes of strangers.

But this thought won’t leave me and it shakes me: this unmasking, breaking the cast, this walking free.

Christ went barefoot, and Christ took the nails through His feet.

Jesus knew the pain and sin of this world more intimately than any of us every will, or can! It takes my breath away.  How did I not see this before? And in my heart this resolution forms, hardens, burns:

In Christ, I will walk by the Spirit.

In Christ, I will walk barefoot.

In Christ, I will walk free.

In Christ, I will walk and I will feel and I will be moved with the compassion of Jesus.

This is the way of life abundant. This is bearing my cross, and following Jesus.

This is beauty. This is freedom.

 

——————————————————-

Since coming back to Canada, I’ve had to deal a lot more with the world’s brokenness, as we hear more of the world news and such other reports. This is not the last post on walking barefoot.

Letting Go

Going through my old blog drafts, I found this short one written Congo-days, when we were still figuring out the conference. Maybe it will bless someone else who is yearning to LIVE. Grace to you all!

The golden sunbeams warmed my back as I followed my wobbly shadow down the red winding path.

I smiled at how empty and silent everything was – as if God was graciously allowing me a chance to be on my own in His creation.

I needed it. I had thought ‘Impossible’ was becoming ‘Possible’ but it all suddenly got confusing, I had thought some of my friends were turning to Jesus but was disappointed, I had thought that this week I would finally learn to die to self but hadn’t, and to top it all off, people kept asking me what I thought about things when I didn’t even have the slightest idea myself!

But now the grasses greeted me as they danced graceful in the breeze, and I paused impulsively to smile back the greeting and run my hand through the long slender blades of vibrant green. I gently broke the slender stem of a feathery white seed head. Holding it in my hand, I resumed my walk. The sun was a little lower now, and the orange-ish pebbles scattered on the road began to look old with thin shadows growing behind them. I turned to my piece of grass for company.

How can you spend all your life growing just to let go? I mused, cautiously touching the puffy seeds with the tips of my fingers. They clung to the stalk like scared children, trying to resist the merry breeze which twisted and twirled them good-naturedly. How can you let the breeze take your seeds wherever it will, not knowing where they will come to land?

As if in response to my question, one of the plump seeds of possibility came sailing off, tumbling all the way down to the pebbly road.

I’ve spent so much of my life grasping ashes, but now I’m finally learning to let Jesus give me seeds instead – valuable fruit with whispers of hope, wrapped in possibility. But if He asks me to let those go too….?

Another seed flew off, and a bird screamed pity overhead.

Jesus, I’ll let them go. You have my dreams, You have my desires, You have my hopes, You have my plans, You have my heart. And when the storms come and shake me bare, I’ll praise You still because that is what this life is all about –

letting go.

dying.

The road winds home and the seeds keep flying, and the sun dies behind me but my heart’s at rest and my heart’s at peace….

The Song of Heaven’s Champion

Light from the lamp above me caresses the page of my open book gently. Outside, the fall wind moans, all the sorrow of dreaming trees and dropping leaves breathing through the world. There are no stars tonight, just the dark clouds in the darker sky.

But I’m not paying attention to the outside world or the inside. My soul is running with the printed words down the pages. This book that’s captured my imagination is Phantastes by George MacDonald and I read enthralled of adventures in Faery land, of the man who sang to lift the shadow hiding his beloved – the White Lady, the spirit of marble, the maiden waiting to be pursued, drawn out. He sings of the beauty gradually being revealed before his eyes,

Rise the limbs, sedately sloping,

Strong and gentle, full and free;

Soft and slow, like certain hoping,

Drawing nigh the broad firm knee.

Up to speech! As up to roses

Pants the life from leaf to flower,

So each blending change discloses,

Nearer still, expression’s power….

Bands and sweeps, and hill and hollow

Lead my fascinated eye;

Some apocalypse will follow,

Some new word of deity.

Zoned unseen and outward swelling,

With new thoughts and wonders rife,

Queenly majesty foretelling,

See the expanding house of life!….

Build thy slopes of radiance beamy,

Spirit, fair with womanhood!

Tower thy precipice, white-gleamy,

Climb unto the hour of good.

Dumb space will be rent asunder,

Now the shining column stands

Ready to be crowned with wonder

By the builder’s joyous hands…..

And on and on the words rise and fall like waves in an ocean. The grandfather clock beside me begins to chime the hour, and I know I should have been in bed long ago. Lingering regretfully, I slowly close the book and climb the stairs to bed.

But the image of the man singing, the she-beauty being revealed, the majesty and glory of that moment, it just doesn’t sleep inside of me.

There’s life and death and shrouding and shadow all around me these days. The leaves they change colour merrily, in bursts of red and yellow, then fall listlessly to their death beds. The morning sun surprises no morning mist as in Congo-land, but instead glows golden on dew and makes haloes around fuzzy tennis balls and fluffy poodles. Each breath expelled makes an explosion of frozen droplets in the cold morning air, and all the cold works hard to cover, to mist, to obscure, to kill.

And the the shadow is in my soul too, those days I fight to not pay attention to the whispers around me…I am ugly, I can’t do anything right (I can’t even use a dishwasher or clean a counter proper!), I’m wasting my days, I’m making that monster of self-pity into my private pet, I’m drifting from Jesus….drifting… like those leaves falling to the ground. I shroud myself in sorrow and sin seeps in and colours me with it’s own shades of night and death.

Jesus became my ugliness. I am His beauty.

I repeat it again and again, a lifeline for my soul, trying to pierce the shadows with the truth. This is the truth – I am holy and blameless, beloved and pursued.

I know it like I know my name – that God, my victorious God, is the One who sings over His children in exuberant song. He rejoices over me, delights in me.

Never before did I really see why.

But as the world spins around and the darkness lingers longer, I think I see the light. See why. God looks at me and He sees the beauty of His son – the reflection of Himself. He sees the glimmers of His beloved behind the shadow, the holiness of truth He bled to plant in me. And He sings. The triune God, the immortal, all-knowing God, sings His overflowing joy and delight at the beauty He sees – in me?! And as He sings, the shadow lifts and more is revealed. More of the image of His son, the mirror shining His love and purity back brighter each day.

Was it the first time that God touched dirt, when He fashioned a man? He breathed His breath, His image into that man and he stood. It was good. And the holy God, he touched sin for the first time when He came to earth. He opened His heart to carry our crimes, He opened His hands for the punishment they required. Now to awaken the beloved into fullness of life, these children created in His perfect image, He begins a melody that shakes the heavens and confounds all comprehension…..

And deep in my heart, I am all woman. I long for this pursuing, this calling out, yes, even the admiration and acknowledgment of my beauty. Thrills go through my heart whenever that sweet song echoes in the dusty corners of my daily life.

And when the shadow is fully lifted, when the song has reached crescendo, my eyes will be uncovered and I will gaze on the face of the One who set me free, who called me out, who breathed spirit into me, who sang song over me.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus, that I may gaze on Your beauty and be filled with Your fullness! 

The Wheel is Where I Am.

The last bicycle passes me and I take a big, deep breath.

Finally, I’m alone.

The path stretches ambitiously out from under my feet, skirting a soccer field and disappearing into high grass. But I linger, slow to pursue its welcoming curves, because for a precious few minutes, it’s all mine. I want to enjoy it. I raise my face to the sun, close my eyes and smile. The heat of this Sunday afternoon is pulsing around me like a live thing, and the sun’s rays are fierce. But I love it.

As I walk, the tangled thoughts from the last weeks slowly sort themselves out.

Everything is so deadly still today, so breathlessly suppressed under the scorching heat. My world, however, is one wild whirl.

People, things, ideas, concepts are being torn from my hands, my heart, my life, and I know that in a few weeks I will be drowning in a flood of new people, new things, new ideas, new concepts. My heart is being bruised now and soon it will be mercilessly forced into a new mold.

It’s happened before.

So I linger on this deserted strip of trodden dirt, trying to find words for the prayer that burns in my heart. That is when it comes to me: it is not the world I leave or the world I am entering that’s spinning crazy: it’s me. I am the moving factor.

The sky above is a watery blue, and the clouds look like they’ve been pasted on permanently. Not a breath of wind. I suddenly realize where I am:

my world’s a whirl because I’m waiting willing on the Potter’s wheel.

His wheel is spinning and that is where I am. He gives, and He takes, blessed be the name of God today, because I don’t care what spins out of my life or what spins in as long as I know the hand that keeps me, that molds me.

I know it like I know the solidness of the ground under my feet, like I know the reality of those palm trees stretching tall to whisper secrets to the still clouds.

I know this: That there is no place in heaven or on earth that I would rather be than on the Potter’s wheel.

This is where He will mold me.

And there is the magazine I picked up, this allusion to the miracle of tree growth: “Trees experience fire and times of no water…the growth rings show us the good times and the bad times.”

This has happened to me before.

I know that these next few months will leave their marks on me forever. This is one form of fire, one form of want, and yet it is all just a part of the growth.

I will wait on the wild whirling wheel because He is molding me, and when I have want of water, it is a time for maturing.

The marks could measure maturity.

And when everything’s spinning? If you don’t want to get motion sick, if you don’t want to fall down flat, you need to keep your eyes on what doesn’t move.

God is my goal.

He is the one thing that never changes, never moves, never leaves me or forsakes me……

….so what is there to fear?

(We have around two and a half weeks left here in Congo.)