when words fail me, I try to explain anyway

Sometimes, words fail me.  How can I describe the indescribable?  How can I tell you of the way just a glimpse of God’s greatness completely shatters my heart, but in the best way?  I forget, easily, how not like me He is.  And when I have a moment of realization that He is all the good that I could never, ever be on my own, I am floored.  It’s not shock.  It’s not amazement.  It’s not even awe, necessarily.  It’s just this feeling that I couldn’t possibly ever put myself low enough before Him…like being prostrate on the ground would be too exalted a position in His presence.

And then, bowing before Him, recognizing that He wants me.

My heart.  My affections.  My service.  My worship.  My love.  My life.

As if there is anything about me that could ever add anything to Him.  It’s a paradox to me, that this Creator of the universe, self-sufficient, limitless, Holy, Almighty God would have desire, and that anything I could give could bring Him satisfaction or joy.  This amazingly beautiful, infinite, glorious God…He’s seeing all I am (which, trust me, is nothing short of inglorious on my best day) and is pursuing me relentlessly.  And shouldn’t it be the other way around?  I mean, of course it should…but how is it possible that I fail at this???  How can I, for even a millisecond, think that there’s anything else in life worth my pursuit – worth my attention and affection and desire?  How can I walk away and forget how worthy He is of everything I can possibly think to give?  And when I do…because I always, somehow, do…how is it that He still pursues me, as if I’m the one worth anything??

I can’t wrap my head or my heart around it.  But I know I need to take every opportunity to enter into His presence; to be reminded of all that He is, and all that I’m not; to let Him, in His grace, convince me again, and again, and again that satisfaction – deep, soul-filling, sufficient satisfaction – is only in Him.  It’s only in Him.

not for now

Sometimes, I feel like God doesn’t want me to write about any of the things I want to write about.  Maybe because they’re too whiny.  Maybe because they’re too honest.  Maybe because they reveal more of my prone-to-wandering heart than is good for anyone.  Maybe because it just isn’t the right time.  So, though there are a lot of thoughts I think I would like to share here, I find my words getting muddled and my heart straining against what I assume is the pressing of the Holy Spirit saying no.

Maybe some other time?

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. —Psalm 19:14

unworthy

There’s this Love who saw all of me, knew me to the depths of my sin-steeped soul, recognized the reality that I would never be good enough, and didn’t hold it against me.  And not just that, but took everything good, everything holy, everything righteous, everything perfect that He is and traded with me.  He was willing to bear all this horrible imperfection of mine, so that I could be all the righteousness that He is.  He knowingly bore the shame and ridicule, the beating and the cross, the crushing weight of sins beyond number and complete separation from the only source of life because He wanted to.  For me.

This King of kings,  this almighty God – He humbled Himself.  He emptied Himself.  He counted Himself as a servant.  For me.

I don’t think I could ever begin to comprehend this love.  I certainly can’t ever match it.  And He knew that, too.  He knew that this gift would always be greater than anything I could give in return.  What’s more, the only thing He wanted in return was me.  This helplessly flawed, selfish, incapable, sinful wreck that I am – this is what He wanted, what He died to rescue, to make new.

And even as I grasp tightly to all of the lesser things that could never compare to what He has given, even as I struggle to offer myself completely to Him, even as I feel the pull of longings that can never satisfy, I am humbled by this disparity I see:  He is worth so much more than I could ever lay at His feet, and I am worth unimaginably less than all He has given for me.  It’s Love beyond reason, Love beyond measure, Love that deserves every bit of this life I have, and immeasurably more.

fog

My brain is in a fog.  My baby girl doesn’t like sleeping at night, and while this makes me physically tired, I notice its effects most in my mental capacity.  I’m prone to thinking long, analyzing, and grappling with things until I understand.  But I just can’t do that right now, and it really bothers me.  I see problems that need solutions, questions that need answers, plans that need to be formed, and I am incapable of accomplishing any of it.

Maybe it seems trite, but it brings me to tears on almost a daily basis.  I feel incapable of functioning on even a somewhat sufficient level.  I would worry that there’s something more than sleep deprivation to blame, but when I realize that I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gotten even four straight hours of sleep in the past 6 months, and that the total number from the past three years is probably in the low double-digits, I think the chances are pretty good that I just need sleep. So, I find myself almost panicking at my inability to form cohesive thoughts, or come to mental resolutions about anything.  My memory fails me, my vocabulary suffers, and my already limited conversational ability has been diminished even further.

And I wonder if there’s something God is trying to teach me through this.  Even as I pray – desperately sometimes – for Him to give me a sound mind during these days, I feel like He’s urging me to let go and just trust that He is sovereign over my days and all of the issues of life that I worry are suffering because I can’t think.  Beyond that, too, is the sense that He is gently, but insistently, forcing me to give up trying to figure out things that I’m perhaps not meant to understand anyway.  I have a tendency to want things to make sense, to be convinced that I can figure anything out if I just think about it enough, to not be okay with not understanding – but maybe God wants me to acknowledge that there are things beyond my comprehension, and at times, perhaps things that I shouldn’t seek to understand anyway.

So, as much as these clouded thoughts frustrate me, I’m trying to be content knowing that most of my immediate responsibilities, thankfully, don’t require much mental acuity.  I can give baby snuggles, and answer [most] math questions, and read history books, and give baths.  And if, occasionally, I forget I have something under the broiler in the oven, or I realize after my shower that I failed to wash my hair, well…those things aren’t likely to actually have any lasting repercussions.  At some point, I’ll have to concede to the reality that God doesn’t need my help to keep my days and my life safe in His hands.

it’s not all bad

I don’t honestly feel very thankful right now.  I’ve been at a loss for how to have a better attitude with my kids, and motivation for daily tasks, and trust that this life isn’t in vain.  But I don’t know what to do except to try to somehow adjust my perspective.  So, here’s some of the good of my days.

:: my two littlest girls becoming best friends.  They wake up in the morning and “call” back and forth to one another by making their own special sound that is something like a squeak, except made by sucking air in.  Ava will also yell out hi, Belle-belle! and come running to find her, and tells her many times throughout the day how much she loves her.

:: things starting to grow in my garden, even though there’s still snow covering almost everything.

:: I’ve been healthy, despite everyone else dealing with some level of illness the past couple weeks.  And this even though there were four consecutive nights last week where Isabelle never slept for more than an hour straight.

:: the hard-boiled eggs we had for lunch today were easy to peel.  Silly, but I don’t know if I could have handled the frustration of uncooperative eggs this afternoon.

:: birthday flowers on my dining room table.  I like flowers a whole lot.

:: an almost-completely-clean bedroom.  Since all things that don’t necessarily have a home end up in our room until a home can be found, this is quite a process (because I procrastinate), and such a relief that an end is in sight.

:: lots of avocados.  Because I’m convinced that avocado and eggs were meant to go together, and even eating them at least a few times a week for months hasn’t made me tired of them.

:: my oldest boy asking for me to keep reading the Hudson Taylor biography at lunch because he is so engrossed in it.  And it was the same when we read about Jim Elliot, and George Mueller, and Gladys Aylward, and Adoniram Judson, and William Carey, and Amy Carmichael.  It’s hard to say at only 11 years old, but I think his heart has a particular bent here.

:: my husband vacuuming the cobwebs out of the corners of the crazy high ceilings above our stairs.

:: sunshine.  While I nearly always like sunshine, I like it most in early Spring.

…and that’s all for now.  I guess it’s something.