These days, I’m sandwiched between my children and my mother. Watching the beautiful process from birth to growth to maturity in my girls. All the while also watching the painful process of a life diminishing day by day right before my very eyes. The tension and the demand of being present in both events is more strenuous than I would have expected. I often can’t handle the toll and retreat from both altogether.

The kids are discovering life. They are asking questions, learning, seeking, in the most fulfilling way I could imagine a child’s life should be. They have everything a person would want growing up. Parents who love them. A stable, safe home. An environment that encourages following the Lord. Their lives are getting busier and busier with each new passion, discipline and friend. Their increasingly complex social and emotional world demands more and more of us as parents and our presence has now shifted from keeping them safe and alive, to teaching them how to thrive and be wise.

All the while, I also am walking with my mom through the end of her life. Every day and week, her faculties and capabilities grow smaller, weaker, and just plain less in every way. What was once a demanding, intense, opinionated woman is now nothing more than a withered frame staring or sleeping most of the day away. The hardness of her life has now been reduced to mere despair and hopelessness. All that is left is the daily lingering of a soul wishing to go home to Jesus but unable to do so. She is in pain. She is suffering. And my presence in her life is a very real need to prevent any more acute trauma before her time. Each day is an uncertainty. Each day she lives in torment.

I don’t know how to be present for them. I know I’m not enough. So Lord. This is my batsignal. Please help.

Jesus. I know I will look back on this time later and see you in every corner, but right now…I am just fatigued. I cling to you. You’re truly my rock and my fortress. The One this little sandwich is laying on.

Without strong foundations, no matter how tall your building, eventually it will all come crashing down.

Spiritual foundations: Trust in the Lord, Scriptural knowledge and submission and adherence to the Spirit and Word of God, obedience to the one and only God.

Emotional: Internal fortitude & stability, ability to forgive, consistent joy, peace, hope.

Physical: Sleep, healthy eating, exercise, financial habits, safety.

This is of course, by no means exhaustive, but I’m realizing, so much of how high we go depends on the more mundane and less exciting, how deep we already are.

There are seasons where everything is clear, and seasons when most of the process is shrouded in mystery. Both require faith, but where that faith is to be applied is different.

In seasons of clarity, the objective is right before our very eyes, but can feel infinitely, impossibly difficult, not unlike Moses going up to Pharaoh and challenging him with nothing more than a stick of wood. He knew what he was to do, with what to do it with, and even the words he had to say, nonetheless, he was overwhelmed to the point of almost forgoing the mission at all.

In seasons of mystery…the faith is to just stay by the Master’s side, with only his hand as your comfort. Every step in front of you may not make sense, you’re standing in a cave, with barely even the moonlight to show you what is right under your nose. You know that in hindsight, it will all make sense, nevertheless, the uncertainty requires a level of faith that can also make you feel shaky. Who likes to stand in complete darkness, our human need to know totally unsettled and unmet?

Life before felt like the first season. Everyday, I was tasked with overcoming my shortcomings. Face to face with the necessity of providing seemingly never-ending bread, when all I had was a broken cracker. Everyday felt like standing in front of a firing squad of sorts, only to make it through by the skin of my teeth. Everyday, I was met with my own inadequacies, only to then see miracle after miracle of Jesus show up to meet me and use me.

Life right now, feels like the latter. Completely relocated to what could essentially be the farthest corner of the world from where I was — I just know that my life is in the hands of my loving, ever-present Father. I don’t know why I am where I am — whether I got here by passing my last test or failing. I just know that He’s with me and I love Him more than ever before. I know that He’s the one my heart feels safest with, and that I trust Him here. I don’t need to assess my own performance, my journey or my destination. I’ve never been here before. Though I feel more alone than I have felt in my life…I also feel less lonely than I remember ever feeling.

I have this sense that things are shaking all around me and that the shaking will continue, if not escalate.

All around me may be unfamiliar, but His Word, His hand upon mine, and His earth under my feet are still here.

So I’m okay.

Now the Lord of armies will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain;
A banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow,
And refined, aged wine.
⁷ And on this mountain He will destroy the covering which is over all peoples,
The veil which is stretched over all nations.
⁸ He will swallow up death for all time,
And the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces,
And He will remove the disgrace of His people from all the earth;
For the Lord has spoken.
⁹ And it will be said on that day,
“Behold, this is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us.
This is the Lord for whom we have waited;
Let’s rejoice and be glad in His salvation.

Isaiah 25:6-9

I long for the day when all the earth will know you are King. The lies about you are finally dispelled, once and for all. The misunderstandings about your nature disintegrated into nothing.

I long for the day when all death and pain and suffering will be no more. When there will be not even one iota of grief and torment to be sniffed from miles and miles away.

I long for the day when shame and disgrace will be wiped from our lives for good. There will be no more hiding from you. There will be no more evil. And no more guilt from choosing that evil.

I long for the day when the waiting ends. When my heart can finally be at ease, fully in your presence.

“That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:10

What does it mean that “by any means possible?” Why is attaining the “resurrection from the dead” so important? That life…that crazy, glorious victorious, nothing-can-tear-me-down resurrection life can only come through following Jesus through any and everything.

If Jesus walked through down moments, who am I to think that I can avoid them? Why do I avoid them? Why am I afraid of them?

But Paul is different, he’s not just trying to avoid those moments, he sees those moments as intentional, purposeful, and longs for those opportunities in order to attain that which is on the other side of the suffering — resurrection.

The world wants other things by any means necessary. People are willing to sacrifice for it, good families, financial stability, world peace. All good things. But, Paul, knew what was the best reward most worth his suffering…to know Jesus in ALL things. Not just to become Christlike, but to KNOW Him…to know Him in all His moments — not just the suffering, not just the joy set before Him, but to know Him fully. And to know Him fully is to walk as He walked.

When I think about Jesus in heaven and everyone worshipping Him, declaring “Worthy, worthy, worthy,” the power, glory, authority, splendor, the experience of fully living in the love of the Father through his death on the Cross… it makes me understand Paul…a teeny tiny amount.

Lord, may I be able to understand and truly pray, that by any means possible, I want to experience the resurrection of the dead. It feels bold and bigger than I can comprehend. But it feels pretty important.

Let it be.

I’ve noticed for me, when I start with the fear of the Lord and the sinfulness of mankind, none of the judgements and hard things in the Bible seem unwarranted and hard to swallow anymore. The Lord ceases to be harsh. In fact, when I start there, the entire context of the Word falls into place. His power, kindness, patience, and love are magnified. It re-establishes right order and if read by a humble heart, brings peace and awe for the Lord. And empathy for my fellow mankind.

When I am able to accept the fallenness of humans, my expectations shift into their rightful places. Disappointment in myself and in others, fades. I am able to see myself and others with more grace and less frustration. After all, we are all in the same boat. All needing help, and pretty messed up. I can understand the Biblical stories without offense. And any offense and grief I DO feel, is more because of our attitude towards God than something He’s done or not done for me. I am grieved for how misunderstood He is. I am grieved that He keeps loving and is rejected in innumerable ways. I am grieved for the ways He is blamed for everything going wrong, when He is in fact the one who is making things right and cleaning up after our messes.

It helps me understand why hypocrisy happens and how professing believers can also be the ones responsible for so many heinous moments in the human narrative. Understanding my own painstaking progression towards healing and sanctification helps me see why restoration and reconciliation amongst two individuals, three, families, societies, and nations is so slow and difficult.

I cannot begin to look at another’s sin towards me or another person with clarity and compassion until I first see the sin I have committed towards my God and his compassion towards me.

Having that mindset frames how I approach my fellow mankind when we are, at least in my current estimation, one of our low points as a nation.

I am believing for a turnaround, but that turnaround starts with Him, not with us.

Matthew 18:21-35

When I think about the world through the wardrobe, beyond the lamp post, my heart is stirred.

A place where beauty, magic and wonder exist.

Where Aslan roams the earth.

And yet, at some point, they all go back. Back through the wardrobe to the place they first began.

When they go back, however, the memories of Narnia are never gone. It stays with them, the scent and mark of that place is left with them forever.

That to me, is hope. The memory of our magical place, His kingdom. We can bring what we see from there, back here. That place must be rooted deep in our soul, so as never to be lost while we are here.

Thankfully, we will one day go back.