Oh Monday You come
And lately, always the same
Restless and wanting
For more than I can give
I am broken and brittle
Weary and worn
You demand
What I do not have
So we both sit and wait
Be still and know
Oh my Monday heart
There is grace even now
And give thanks even in this
This night
This dark night
While the earth lay silent all heaven erupts
Glory falls naked and small and finds Himself in a manger
With us and yet we can’t see
He chose to come small, unnoticed, unwanted
So we wouldn’t remain so
He chose to grow in skin and among temptations
So we would see it could be done
He chose to come and live
So we could choose to die and go
This night
This dark night
Our Redemption is born
Oh holy night…the words fade softly into the dark surrounding me. It is 3:00am and I am sitting here on the couch enveloped in the soft glow of lights from the Christmas tree perched in the corner. I am welcoming the advent of this day earlier than most but it seemed more prudent to wrestle in the warm glow here rather than with my bed and blankets.
Holidays seem to accentuate the emotions I feel. Even resurrecting ones I have long thought were buried.
Lately, I have felt their familiar tug on my heart and soul.
Quietly
Introspectively
But tugging nonetheless
These feelings can be challenging to explain when you can’t attach words. When they hang heavy in your heart and mind but only to be felt and not to be named – they hide not in denial but rather linger as the reminder, the thorn in the side.
Too often, I try and ignore their presence for whatever good that is. Here and now, I am welcoming them in to sit with me.
The stars are brightly shining…and so are the lights on my tree. As I wrestle with my heart, my feelings, I am reminded of the words of Brennan Manning, “The unwounded life bears no resemblance to the Rabbi.” I begin to wonder if what I have long wrestled with is the desire to be free of wounds – in whatever form – as if a wound free life was more holy. I grapple with the sovereignty of God and His inerrant goodness in my reality of thorns and wounds. I struggle with the One who can change circumstances but doesn’t.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining…I understand the fall of man. I understand the state of sin and its consequences. Yet I wonder why I seek to be wound free as the badge of faith and favor. As if suffering itself is a testimony of the lack of either. Why pray tell do I think I shouldn’t suffer when even He, who appeared so my soul could feel its worth, did so willingly.
Does my continued pain make Him any less a Savior?
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices…How do I hold tight to the stories of Lazarus, Peter’s mother in law, the sick slave, the many lepers or the bleeding woman and let go of the suffering that doesn’t seem to let go of me. How do I rejoice in my weary, wounded self?
At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it.
Three times I did that, and then he told me,
My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn…
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen.
I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift.
Fall on your knees…
It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness.
Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size …
I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.
(2 Corinthians12:8-10 Message)
So, in this latest of night, when the darkness is bathed in the soft glow of hope, Paul’s example becomes my song. My wounds become my strength.
And this becomes…a night divine
…”tell me what do you have in your house?” “Your servant has nothing there at all,” she said, “except a little oil.” (2 Kings 4:2)
She was desperate. Wanting to save her sons from slavery but having “nothing” in her grasp to do so. At least that is what she thought.
I am guessing you have thought that too. I know I have.
Desperation often leads to dismissal. We want or need something but feel like it is just outside of our means to get it.
I have had those times when I have held my empty hands open begging for more and I fully expected the more to come from somewhere else. But it didn’t and it wouldn’t because that is not where it was supposed to be found.
No, the more was to be birthed from my “nothing.”
My grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor 12:9)
His power made perfect in my weakness – my “nothing.”
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. (Ephesians 3:20)
His power is made perfect in our weakness.
His power is at work within us.
His power will do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine.
The power is within me – His power. The ability, the abundance, the mighty resides in my “nothing.”
It exists in your “nothing.”
This miraculous power is waiting to be perfected in our weakness but to do so means we need to acknowledge its existence and its worth. We have to see our “nothing” as “something” and offer it as the only gift we have.
We have to stop thinking what we have is less than what He can use.
The little we have is all that He wants,
It is far more than He needs.
Words hold mystery and truth in the very same sentence. Words can break through the cold and hard places within much like the daffodils break through the wintered ground in the spring. Words, whether born from my pen or from another’s, are my thing. I am always hungering for more. Yet there are moments, like this morning, when the world seemed to stop spinning if only for the briefest of moments.
“Because a loveless world,” said Jesus, “is a sightless world.” (John 14:23)
One and done.
I can’t move beyond. I am set to wonder if all those times I have prayed to see but found myself struggling in the dark is because of this.
Love-less.
How many things have I called invisible but truth be told, the blindness was first in my heart before it ever made it to my eyes?
It seems fitting to me that I sit here awhile.
Daffodils don’t break through the ground flowering yellow right away.