You will not always be forgotten.

Yesterday I talked to J. I am always laughing with her, crying with her - the depth of emotions that I finally let out when I am in the safety of her presence, as we are both in the safety of Jesus' presence. It allows me to let go of so much, to say so much, to be even be silent so much. Sometimes I sit and listen, absorbing so much that I don't even remember it all. But it comes out in words and prayers and little things, under stars, and in moments with friends. 

And yesterday it finally came out: at times I feel lonely. For years as a child everything I did was by myself. (Does anyone even get that?) For years I have felt that I was lagging behind every other person around me. Everyone is moving forward and racing ahead, but I am here, I am here slowly bending and moving, and sitting and wishing and sighing and holding back the tears of a thousand years. I struggled, God knows I struggled to just be alive, to just out of the dark frozen ground one leaf at a time, the whole time the Enemy pushes me deeper into the ground. Yet even when the darkness closed in and I gave up for three years out of despair, somehow Holy Spirit moved me to life again, and I ran fast and far. I grew. I wasn't this small seed in dark dirt. I was suddenly springing forth after long hard winter, under soft warm Light from Him. 

And that is a lie, that I am somehow forgotten, lost, alone, and outside it all. Because I do not know others' lives, their stories. I only know what I can see from the outside. I can only know what people tell me and show me. What if their lives are a struggle, full of unseen and spoken hardships? What if they are sitting there, comparing themselves to me? Perhaps they are rushing ahead, wishing life to slow down, seasons to change slower. Perhaps they don't even care and are busy living their lives each day as its given to them.

I don't know (how can I?) I don't know. (Only God does.)

And in the very next sentence it came out: loneliness. It came out of hiding. It was there a lot. I felt it pressing me at times. But I never noticed it until now. I had always observed my childhood with small glimpses of nostalgia. But then I looked back... The little girl reading books alone under the tree. The chubby teenager with big glasses and fuzzy hair, who sat alone most of the time, and felt alone all of the time. And did anyone care? And I felt alone. So much anger, so much sadness. I was so frustrated because they did not love me and I wanted to be loved. My mother was my best friend. I adore her and she I. But who else loved me? And so I kept everything hidden. And you all thought I was happy. I was, in my own safe little world, with my books, and my imagination running wild, dreaming of the day I would be free with joy and life, no longer hiding behind smiles that were half real, half fake.  And I was told yesterday that loneliness that I've felt, observed in me for so many years -- the smiling mask that I hide behind so artfully, because people don't know I feel lonely at times, or that I'm scared of my future -- that loneliness, it's a lie. Because Jesus Christ dwells inside me. I am never alone.

And that is truth. And I must embrace it to displace this lie that has haunted me for me years. And it is strange to me, in this time when I am finally free, filled with joy, and have been blessed with a season of abundance, where I'm enjoying nearly everything I could want (we all have nearly everything we could want, it's just always one or a few things we can't have at that time, and so we wait for another seasons for those things to come spilling out), that these wounds would suddenly surface, oozing pain, seeping bloody memories I thought had been stitched together. Just like our old Enemy to try ruining the joy God has so suddenly blessed me with - to try to remind me of the hard Winter when Spring is dawning in warm, liquid, golden moments. 

And if you think I'm crazy, I do have joy. I have many moments of peace. Sometimes I go weeks without feeling the dry sting of old scars, where the childhood loneliness is far from me, and the pain is completely obscured by Jesus holding me close to him. The beauty of it drives out the pain, and creates new pains, for I see who I am in Him and cannot fathom it. 

I guess it's time for healing, the letting go to hold onto something better. The loneliness isn't just loneliness. It is forgottenness. This place where you're not just a person shoved to the side, but you're left there while everyone else moves ahead and forgets they even left you there.

And I'm writing about this hole I once had, black and blue, rimmed in violet ashes, because you need to know: I was lonely once. He hadn't come yet to set me free. I was still waiting for air, light, and color. And then one day...he came and set me free. He just came. And my loneliness and forgottenness I thought was reality was...a lie.. He came out of nowhere and the light just spilled out of him. Goodness, kindness, joy, beauty, purity, truthfulness, humility, patience -- I was blinded by it.  

And so I bleed with you, the lonely, the forgotten. I weep tears over the hardness of fighting and struggling in silence-- alone. You fight a hard battle. And you do not fight alone. Christ fights for you. I fight for you, knowing that the One we love and serve has never forgotten you. He knew you before you were even conceived. You were his. He is yours. 

You may feel like the Hebrew Slaves: forgotten for 400 years. That's a long time. It's 10 generations. And so it may feel like it's been that long to you, Taskmaster Time beating you down even lower. 

But in this time of Passover, of Resurrection, we must remember though He is silent, He has not forgotten us. He sends forth his Rod and Staff, His Light and Truth, and we come marching out of our mud pit graves, filthy, starving, and unable to utter a word. He washes the mud off. He casts aside the ugliness of our sins, our rags, and our rage, and we become kings and queens. Newness. Remembered. Cherished. He'll take us to Promised Land, and we'll know his Kingdom Joy in our hearts forever.

This is what the Gospel came to do. It's just sometimes it doesn't always show on the outside of our lives, in circumstances. Sometimes (always?) he is using those circumstances to further his work in our hearts. So the circumstances change when they have accomplished the work in our hearts that he is doing. The pain, sorrow, fear -- he is using those to set us free, just like the plagues were used set the Israelites free from Pharaoh. It doesn't make sense. But he does use them, because it makes freedom that much sweeter, that much more anticipated. 

I cannot forget what he did in my heart. For he set this lonely, forgotten girl free to be alive. He remembered me. He came once, and he comes to me, to you, again and again. And the Light-Joy we seek...well, he is seeking us. We have only to take the small steps towards him that he asks. Sometimes that is simply praying "Lord Jesus, I don't know how to trust you. Help me to trust you."

ii. There are few more painful things than feeling forgotten and feeling disappointed. To those in such pain, God makes these wonderful promises; that they shall not always be forgotten, and their expectation will not perish.

·      You shall not always be forgotten at the mercy-seat; so keep praying.

·      You shall not always be forgotten in the Word; so keep reading.

·      You shall not always be forgotten from the pulpit; so keep hearing.

·      You shall not always be forgotten at the Lord’s Table; so keep receiving.

·      You shall not always be forgotten in your service; so keep serving.

·      You expected to have peace in Jesus; in Him you will have it.

·      You expected to triumph over sin; in Him you will triumph.

·      You expected to get out of trouble; in Him you will be delivered.

·      You expected to grow strong in faith; in Him you will be strengthened.

·      You expected to have spiritual joys and experiences, in Him you will have them.

iii. “The needy, and the poor, whose expectation is from the Lord, are never forgotten, though sometimes their deliverance is delayed for the greater confusion of their enemies, the greater manifestation of God's mercy, and the greater benefit to themselves.” (Clarke)

Because...I'm no longer a slave. I am not forgotten. That lonely girl is no longer who I am. I am Alive in Christ, and I am resolved to stay with the One who not only set me free, but gave me Joy and Life.

Repeating Notes

I see music as a metaphor for many different things and certain periods of life. Sometimes I am like "The Bumblebee"  all crazy and anxious when I am trying to think, though I would rather be logical and resolved like Bach's use of counterpoint. Other times I'm skipping through life joyfully, like a certain nun through Austrian hills singing about whiskers on kittens and warm woolen mittens. But sometimes I realize that I box myself in.

I have a brilliant little student. Let's call her So-Amazing-She-Could-Be-A-Jazz-Musician-When-She-Grows-Up. Or let's just call her La, for the 6th interval. (6ths are cool. So is she.) So La (no solfege humor intended) is amazing. She has an incredible ear, and we usually start the lesson with her playing the songs she has made up during the week, or the songs she has heard others playing and wants to replay for me. She takes great joy in sharing these with me. Usually her songs include 7ths and 9ths - did I tell she's amazing?

So where does the box come in?

I box-in myself through my lack of planning La's lessons. We get into her lesson book every week and she plays me her songs. But I sometimes forget to introduce her to new things apart from her book, or connect what we've been learning to a great piece of music. In doing so, I miss opportunities to create moments to be fun and creative with music. I often forget to connect it to what makes the necessaries - like scales, her disdain - meaningful and how that meaning brings joy to playing the song. I get so caught up in the mechanics, in staying on-track in La's lesson book, in having perfect tempo and nice notes. And I forget about shaping the phrases, about the colors and tones. I forget about the joy of playing and making music. My music teacher-friend reminded me of this last week. She was telling about two of her students, one who is so concentrated on each note that he misses the phrase, and the other who, despite being younger in age and skill, sees shapes and phrases when he plays, not only the individual notes. When you get past the anxiety of concentrating on each note and focus on the phrasing, you make music. It's like me focusing on every single word when I speak (think. Star. Wars. my. reader.), instead of speaking in sentences and paragraphs. Which would you rather listen to?

When she told me this, it hit me hard. Can I raise my hand and sound a giant Beethoven chord? Ah, yeah, that's me. I get so concentrated on the providence I am currently experiencing that I forget a very true truth: it won't always be like this. Even if you were to repeat the same note for 20 measures, eventually it will change as the song moves on (unless you're playing some incredibly odd piece of 20th century music that repeats only one note the entire song; that song doesn't count for this metaphor) .

I box myself in because I don't trust God has good things planned for me. I am guilty of being distrustful when my bitter providence seems like one repeating note and is slow to change. Usually during such times, I fail to realize it's a part of a larger phrase (phase) of my life. To overcome that, you have to plan.

I have been challenged again and again by Piper's sermon series and book about Ruth. Strategic planning for strategic righteousness. It is during my planning that I discover the plans He has for me, Proverbs 16:9. I mean, if Ruth hadn't committed herself to God and Naomi  hadn't planned to go to Israel, what would have happened to them? We don't know the answer. I'm grateful she made plans and went forward. We can't always see the next measure of the music. Sometimes all we have is the one note we're staring at. But this is when we have have faith and trust God: to be thinking ahead, anticipating for the next measure. I'm not talking about worry or anxiety. I'm talking about planning. Music is always moving, and so is our lives.

So what about me and planning? Well, I have discovered my lack of planning stems from this thought that too much planning is sin. I realize that is not scriptural. Planning is not a sin. Not consulting the Lord and disobeying Him is the sin. If I make plans apart from Him and do not heed His direction, then I sin.

The other faulty thought I have is, if it's risky, it isn't God. This isn't always true. There are foolish, unwise risks, it's true. But consider Naomi's plan for Ruth to approach Boaz during the night. How daring! How trusting and risky of them both! I'm still trying to sort through Naomi's counsel and Ruth's actions. And yet, it reminds me that God so often leads us through some daring circumstances and risky actions to accomplish his will for us. There is not enough space to recount the numerous events in the Bible where people took great personal risk and how Christ was glorified and they were joy-ified (my new use of the word) by their risk and trust (check out Hebrews 11).   I think about the times in my life when I took risk. I knew God was leading me and I trusted Him. These experiences were such joy for me and glory for Him that I keep them documented in my journal to remind myself of His goodness when I'm going through those repeating note times.

I think about La and how she is a little risk taker. Does she realize the risk involved in sharing her songs with me or playing the piano in front of me? No, because she trusts me. She knows after this many months that I even if she plays a wrong note, my correction is only to make her a better pianist. And even after the corrections, we are always going forward towards more and better and great.  I am always happy to see her and have her share her life and music with me. I believe that so it is with Christ, although it is His life we share, not ours any longer. He is happy to see us. He told a parable once about the servant who kept back his talent because he knew (or perhaps mistakenly believed?) that his master was a hard, harsh man. His master reprimands for it, because even if he were truly that way, the servant should have still taken action, whether for fear or joy, he should have done something with his talent. Honestly, I think that if his master truly was hard and mean, would he have entrusted his servants with so many talents of silver to invest for him? Perhaps I am not thinking of this parable biblically. But I think that if God was truly harsh, he would not entrust us with talents of silver to invest. We are in trouble if we draw back in fear and don't move forward. We are wrong if we view God as harsh and unmerciful. He is concerned with his glory, but also our joy - and the two depend on each other exclusively.

Perhaps these metaphors don't help. Perhaps this is a terribly weak, terribly lengthy piece of writing. And perhaps it's all just bad theology. Despite that, I am challenged to place my trust in God, prayerfully make plans, and wait in anticipation during the repeating notes and phrases of my life.