The older I am getting, the more I am becoming increasingly aware that I have absolutely no idea what the rest of the future holds.
Heck, I have literally no idea what tomorrow holds.
Life is a mystery and mystery doesn't sit well with control freaks like me.
Until really recently, heaven has remained the infinite enigma in my mind that it always has been. Clouds, weird-harp-angel music, lots of white...This was until all of a sudden, heaven became occupied with some brilliant humans that I would love the pleasure of seeing again. Heaven took on the presence of people who are supposed to be here right now. So now, as we are left here with shattered hearts and the remains of a life spent with people that held and occupied enormously large chunks of our existence, heaven needs to be real. A lot depends on it.
And I'm not satisfied with thousands of years of endlessly playing harps and wearing weird white clothing and playing the recorder ( yes my heaven sounds kinda like a nightmare now that I say it out loud) It needs to be tangible and touchable and reachable and sustainable, it holds the core of our hearts now! It holds someone's Mother and Father, daughter and son, husband and wife.
It is the keeper to what we risked everything to love, yet somehow and without warning, lost.
So how then, does this fit into our faith. What then, does this mean of Jesus? I will admit, it has shaken what I know to its very roots. It has led to sleepless nights evaluating my job and life and belief system. Like I assume it is with most regular people, having a human snatched from your life that used to be there every day, is confronting and confusing and, well, downright disgusting really.
However I have this one friend, and really, I'm not even sure where to begin.
I'll start by saying I have never seen a more pure and real existence of Jesus, than I have seen exist through her in the last 7 weeks. I have never seen the Word of God come to real life more so than in her presence. To hold her while she cries tears of anguish, and hear her speak of hope in the same breath... For her to look me in the eyes and beg for me to be able to say that none of this ever happened and it isn't real, then in the same sentence say " It is well with my soul".
I. Can't Even. Explain...
Don't jump ahead and think there isn't a deep grief process at hand, the tears fall and the panic rages, but the peace triumphs and the hope remains.
No lie, every.single.sentence she starts, ends in hope.
Like seriously, the other day I go over to cuddle her and she ends up sitting up in bed and preaching the house down. As we spend hours talking and walking this all out together, I blurted out the other day (in my constant ramblings that I beg to all heck make sense at least some of the time),
" God trusts you with this pain babe, He knows your heart and that no matter what, you will always say yes to Jesus"
She looked at me with the most beautiful tear stained face and said:
" I will though....I will always say Yes to Him. YES!"
With out either of us probably ever realising, she had her hands raised heavenward and I had my tears ( and all the snot) flowing outward.
Such a moment shifted my life.
Heaven and earth became one. Their cause was aligned. The cry of the heart was one. It was as if the way Jesus had intended us to always live and love was present in my darling friend.
She encompassed all the things a grieving heart feels, the shreds of pain and the utter terror of being without your person, yet she encompassed Jesus. Like I've never seen.
Since that night that conversation has been plaguing me. " I will always say yes".
Could I really say that to Jesus and mean it? Would I, in the same position, keep saying yes?
Well...no. Not just yet. I'm being honest with myself, with you and with God.
I would love to be able to be there, to have this impenetrable dependence on God, just as my gorgeous friend lives out daily, minute by minute. No one has changed my life more than her because....when I want to blame God, she does not. When I think she is well within her rights to walk away from it all, she fights harder, when I want to shelter her from the harsh reality of this, she stands up and gets her hands dirty with walking this out the best way possible.
Sheer integrity, strength, resilience, devastation, hope, sadness, laughter.
I have never been so sure of Jesus and heaven in my entire life because without a word of a lie, they both sat with me in my lounge room and revealed themselves through this beauty of a human. Jesus has never been more real and tangible. And yet, with heaven so close and Jesus so real, why can't I fully say yes to trusting Him with my whole life? Why can't I say that no matter what, I will never sway?
I'm all in. I mean I feel that now, but since hearing and seeing this beautiful soul say yes over and over in the deepest of despair, I've constantly assessed if I could ever do the same.
Tonight I sat on his bed and prayed with my 9 year old son. I want him to bypass the legalism and get to know the rough Jesus, the real Jesus. So I began by saying how much I hated how mean I'd been speaking lately, and that I'd really love God to help me sort that out and be able to speak with kindness and love. We talk to Jesus like He's sitting on the bed with us, coz He essentially is.
So it was Sambo's turn. He sat for a bit and then these words fell out of his heart and out from his mouth, no word of a lie...
" God...We thank you for the bible as words to read, but I pray that you would reveal the truth of the bible through our eyes and heart also. Jesus take us on this journey over the next few years, as we learn about what heaven is like....Mum, just as I was praying a verse came into my head, its in the back of my bible, let me read it to you..."
This is what he read aloud:
John 1-12-13
For anyone who says yes to Jesus,
For anyone who believes what Jesus said
For anyone who will just reach out to take it,
Then God will give them this wonderful gift:
To be born into
A whole new life,
To be who they really are,
Who God always made them to be-
Their own true selves-
God's dear Child.
Because you see, the most wonderful thing about this particular story is, it is your story.
Woh... Did God just speak through my 9 year old baby? And if yes, does that mean I am not the one in control of his life? His safety? Is his life out of my control and at the mercy of something bigger? And if the answer remains yes, then the control I think I have, is not really any control at all...
My desire and goal is to be able to wholeheartedly trust God with that and to be able to say a loud YES should devastation knock on my door...
But for now I say a hearty " maybe".....because when I say Yes, I want to mean it with everything.
There is nothing more real and more life altering than watching a human choose YES, in the face of what should be a giant, fat NO.
I'm proud to have witnessed such a true form of Jesus, sitting on my couch and sipping out of my coffee mugs.
I love you Twin, because of you, one day I will say yes. xxx
Keep it real, but keep the movement forward.
I love ya'll and you know it xxxx
Heck, I have literally no idea what tomorrow holds.
Life is a mystery and mystery doesn't sit well with control freaks like me.
Until really recently, heaven has remained the infinite enigma in my mind that it always has been. Clouds, weird-harp-angel music, lots of white...This was until all of a sudden, heaven became occupied with some brilliant humans that I would love the pleasure of seeing again. Heaven took on the presence of people who are supposed to be here right now. So now, as we are left here with shattered hearts and the remains of a life spent with people that held and occupied enormously large chunks of our existence, heaven needs to be real. A lot depends on it.
And I'm not satisfied with thousands of years of endlessly playing harps and wearing weird white clothing and playing the recorder ( yes my heaven sounds kinda like a nightmare now that I say it out loud) It needs to be tangible and touchable and reachable and sustainable, it holds the core of our hearts now! It holds someone's Mother and Father, daughter and son, husband and wife.
It is the keeper to what we risked everything to love, yet somehow and without warning, lost.
So how then, does this fit into our faith. What then, does this mean of Jesus? I will admit, it has shaken what I know to its very roots. It has led to sleepless nights evaluating my job and life and belief system. Like I assume it is with most regular people, having a human snatched from your life that used to be there every day, is confronting and confusing and, well, downright disgusting really.
However I have this one friend, and really, I'm not even sure where to begin.
I'll start by saying I have never seen a more pure and real existence of Jesus, than I have seen exist through her in the last 7 weeks. I have never seen the Word of God come to real life more so than in her presence. To hold her while she cries tears of anguish, and hear her speak of hope in the same breath... For her to look me in the eyes and beg for me to be able to say that none of this ever happened and it isn't real, then in the same sentence say " It is well with my soul".
I. Can't Even. Explain...
Don't jump ahead and think there isn't a deep grief process at hand, the tears fall and the panic rages, but the peace triumphs and the hope remains.
No lie, every.single.sentence she starts, ends in hope.
Like seriously, the other day I go over to cuddle her and she ends up sitting up in bed and preaching the house down. As we spend hours talking and walking this all out together, I blurted out the other day (in my constant ramblings that I beg to all heck make sense at least some of the time),
" God trusts you with this pain babe, He knows your heart and that no matter what, you will always say yes to Jesus"
She looked at me with the most beautiful tear stained face and said:
" I will though....I will always say Yes to Him. YES!"
With out either of us probably ever realising, she had her hands raised heavenward and I had my tears ( and all the snot) flowing outward.
Such a moment shifted my life.
Heaven and earth became one. Their cause was aligned. The cry of the heart was one. It was as if the way Jesus had intended us to always live and love was present in my darling friend.
She encompassed all the things a grieving heart feels, the shreds of pain and the utter terror of being without your person, yet she encompassed Jesus. Like I've never seen.
Since that night that conversation has been plaguing me. " I will always say yes".
Could I really say that to Jesus and mean it? Would I, in the same position, keep saying yes?
Well...no. Not just yet. I'm being honest with myself, with you and with God.
I would love to be able to be there, to have this impenetrable dependence on God, just as my gorgeous friend lives out daily, minute by minute. No one has changed my life more than her because....when I want to blame God, she does not. When I think she is well within her rights to walk away from it all, she fights harder, when I want to shelter her from the harsh reality of this, she stands up and gets her hands dirty with walking this out the best way possible.
Sheer integrity, strength, resilience, devastation, hope, sadness, laughter.
I have never been so sure of Jesus and heaven in my entire life because without a word of a lie, they both sat with me in my lounge room and revealed themselves through this beauty of a human. Jesus has never been more real and tangible. And yet, with heaven so close and Jesus so real, why can't I fully say yes to trusting Him with my whole life? Why can't I say that no matter what, I will never sway?
I'm all in. I mean I feel that now, but since hearing and seeing this beautiful soul say yes over and over in the deepest of despair, I've constantly assessed if I could ever do the same.
Tonight I sat on his bed and prayed with my 9 year old son. I want him to bypass the legalism and get to know the rough Jesus, the real Jesus. So I began by saying how much I hated how mean I'd been speaking lately, and that I'd really love God to help me sort that out and be able to speak with kindness and love. We talk to Jesus like He's sitting on the bed with us, coz He essentially is.
So it was Sambo's turn. He sat for a bit and then these words fell out of his heart and out from his mouth, no word of a lie...
" God...We thank you for the bible as words to read, but I pray that you would reveal the truth of the bible through our eyes and heart also. Jesus take us on this journey over the next few years, as we learn about what heaven is like....Mum, just as I was praying a verse came into my head, its in the back of my bible, let me read it to you..."
This is what he read aloud:
John 1-12-13
For anyone who says yes to Jesus,
For anyone who believes what Jesus said
For anyone who will just reach out to take it,
Then God will give them this wonderful gift:
To be born into
A whole new life,
To be who they really are,
Who God always made them to be-
Their own true selves-
God's dear Child.
Because you see, the most wonderful thing about this particular story is, it is your story.
Woh... Did God just speak through my 9 year old baby? And if yes, does that mean I am not the one in control of his life? His safety? Is his life out of my control and at the mercy of something bigger? And if the answer remains yes, then the control I think I have, is not really any control at all...
My desire and goal is to be able to wholeheartedly trust God with that and to be able to say a loud YES should devastation knock on my door...
But for now I say a hearty " maybe".....because when I say Yes, I want to mean it with everything.
There is nothing more real and more life altering than watching a human choose YES, in the face of what should be a giant, fat NO.
I'm proud to have witnessed such a true form of Jesus, sitting on my couch and sipping out of my coffee mugs.
I love you Twin, because of you, one day I will say yes. xxx
Keep it real, but keep the movement forward.
I love ya'll and you know it xxxx
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