Named

To belong... to have a Name.

I have searched for this, hoped for this – this sense of belonging, this name.

I have looked into the eyes of those I thought would name me right.

I have pleaded with those eyes to give me a home.

So they spoke.

I hear the name and cringe.

My hopes for belonging led me to believe the very name I was given.

I now had a name, but I didn’t belong.

The name didn’t reflect my heart.

And my heart must be known to belong.

There are moments in life when Truth cuts deep, when one experiences the One who names.

When one feels the engulfment of His love and are Known.

When past names are blotted out in the midst of His overwhelming understanding of the depths of our hearts, and where they’ve been.

Where have they been? What were their names?

He knows. 

And there is such grace.

We enjoy the act of naming. Makes us feel like gods.

As though we Know hearts, as though we formed them.

But we are forming them.

If we name wrong, we crucify hearts. 

We crucified His.

I have been wrongly named, and I wrongly name.

I don’t take time to look and see the Beauty - to find The Name, not name.

For we have already been named.

Choose to search for Names – to invite belonging.

For I have found His eyes in the eyes of those who find mine.

He speaks my Name.

And I am Home.

Known

I love how willingly close He gets to me – how He doesn’t fear - how He Knows.

I hadn’t known His closeness because I wasn’t willing to draw near to myself.

I was afraid of what I might find.

I only drew close to myself when air became rationed, when my lungs felt as though they were caving in, as though I were the only one left who could bear to know me - When I knew my pain.

He knew.

It was then, that I found Him waiting. Not coming, but waiting. For He had already arrived.

He was waiting for me in my pain.  He knew it, and He wanted me to know.

The very essence of myself that I sought to avoid, He had made His home. And He invited me to join Him on the journey of knowing me.

Because He already knew.

Pain has this mysterious ability to unveil, to uncover, to reveal– to make all things new.

For He knew.

The touch of a stranger in the midst of terrible suffering becomes an “angel of the Lord”.

The Words of a Writer whom we have never met suddenly becomes the “Word of God”.

The “crumbs from the table” become to us as manna –“bread from heaven”.

Everything Transforms - becomes Divinely Inspired, though it always was.

And He knew.

What is it about Pain that makes the commonplace Divine?

Or perhaps the better question would be” why does the absence of Pain make the Divine commonplace?”

It’s prophesied that ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

Pain points us to the new order, but He has met us in the old.

Pain reminds us that all things are Divine because He is “making everything new”.

And He knew.

Pain gives birth to Life because it reminds us that we are alive in Him.

Pain breaks us so we can be found in our brokenness.

We become weak in Pain. We become sick in Pain.

And He becomes strong - our Healer in the midst of Pain.

As hunger points us to food so Pain points us to the Bread of Life.

And we are Truly fed.

And He knew.

He knew from before the beginning of time that our gluttony would entice us to “eat the fruit”, but that our starvation would bring us back to the Table.

“When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.”

He knew that in order for us to Know Him, He must Know Pain.

So He knew it.

“He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.”

He became Pain in order to be with us in ours that we might be reconciled to Him through Pain.

He beautifies Pain. And He is the only One.

For Pain cannot be redeemed unless it is Known.

Pain misunderstood becomes burdensome. But Pain Known becomes Intimate.

And when I am found in my Pain, I find myself, and myself in Him, and Him in me, and the “two become 

One”.

And Pain, placed in the Hands of the One who Knows, is Known.

And I am Known.

 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to 

end.” – How He has made all things new.

And Pain made New is Pain Known.

And He knew.

He knows.

Grace Received is Grace Given

Sin is deceptive. And we have all been deceived.

Sin is a sickness. And we all need a cure.

“It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

I have been raised in the Church, have sat in the pews, sang the songs, recited the verses, said the prayers……. But I have not known sin……… until recently.

Was I a sinner? Of course. “Aren’t we all”… or at least, that is what I was told.

One thing that I have learned while counseling is that we can only accept others as far as we have accepted ourselves. We cannot love others, unless we accept love. We cannot trust others, unless we can be trusted. We cannot truly give what we do not truly have.

So what are we lacking?

As I watch the Church deal with sin, as I watch myself deal with sin, I sense fear.

We default to condemnation and avoidance.

We push away rather than draw close. We step back rather than forward. We pass the individual on to others rather than invite them into our lives.

What does this say about the Church?

What does this say about me?

What are we so afraid of?

What am I so afraid of?

Honestly….. I am afraid of the Church.

This is the bind we have been caught in.

We have all become “healthy”.

We have all become “righteous”.

But Christ came for the sick.

For the prone to depravity.

For the weak.

For me.

And when I am confronted with the opportunity to join the sick, I am afraid. I’m not afraid of getting the sickness, but of being considered sick.

We have forsaken our need in the name of “righteousness”.

We have forsaken grace in order to claim “holiness”

We have forsaken our brother in order to remain “clean”.

And I believe this to be our Ultimate Deception.

Righteousness is a gift, not earned. Therefore, we cannot lose it.

Holiness is being “set apart”. Not from each other, but for God.

And cleanliness is what comes out of a man, not what goes in.

Perhaps our biggest fear isn’t the individual’s sin, but the depravity of our own hearts – to know the depravity of our own hearts.

For only by knowing the extent of our own depravity, can we truly arrive at accepting the  Doctor’s cure.

Grace.

Divine Meeting Dust

The month of January.

My own form of hell.

The closest I’ve been.  

What I would suppose it would be like: without God. I couldn’t, however, fully reach the extent of hell because I had God. He followed me to the depths.

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”

I had/have tremendous need. I have learned that people do unspeakable things when they are undergoing unspeakable pain. I have also learned that the purest intentions can be guided towards destruction solely because we are born in human skin. But destruction is, at times, a means of grace. For one cannot truly know Light if they have not known darkness.

And there is such grace.

And the unspeakable pain that leads to unspeakable things is covered by unspeakable grace. The depth of sin is made beautiful as Grace in the form of Man bends low to touch scars. And He shows us His.

And I am met. For His scars on Holy skin give my scars meaning. They point to His. They remind me of Him. And I am assured that they are beautiful because of Him. He gives them a name. He kisses them deep. And He loves them whole.

Ugliness is beauty starved. And Christ is our bread of life.

And Christ is found in the hearts of His people.

And through the written Word.

And in the paint stroke of Creation.  

So why when we see ugliness, do we cower? Why do we avoid? Why do we turn our face away when it is our face (the faces of God) that must be seen for Beauty to find its Home. We say we avoid sin, but aren’t we really avoiding starvation? Starving people?

“And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them."

He came to feed the thousands. To break bread. To heal. To dine with.

And doesn’t He ask the same of us:

^“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.”

I have been surrounded by people declaring the gospel, and speaking Truth, and claiming a gracious God while simultaneously shying away from the ugliness of humanity. Disregarding it. Ignoring it. Belittling it. Punishing it. I have been the ashamed. I have shied away. Not because of the other’s ugliness, but because it reminded me of my own. The ugliness must be embraced, tended to, comforted. But this kind of healing requires humility and others. And the deep soul cries for intimacy muffle the inner whisperings of Truth. I have known this soul cry. I cling and grasp and plead. Forgive me Lord for not trusting in Your provision, for I have known starving. I fear it.

Forgive me for my shame, when it is another’s means of Salvation.

Forgive me for my pride, when it is my fallenness that points others to You.

Forgive me, Father, for being so content in my happiness, that I become unwilling to join another in their despair.

And forgive me for looking upon a fellow sinner, and choosing to be clean, rather than choosing to be with.

And praise You, Father, for not doing the same.