The Charge of the Deer
Maggie Sifuentes • March 3, 2022
It is one thing to put a kind of hope into words, and another thing for that hope to be a hope lived out. The realization of it makes me feel more cautious to write, for words are only words. Words do not walk out a hope.
Still, I know that when I put the beauty of a hope into words I can share, it helps the hope to find a spark in my heart. A spark is not a flame, yet when a spark finds the right materials in the presence of oxygen, a spark is able to grow into a sustaining flame. Words cannot make the right materials for the flame, but words can make a spark.
So I will speak of hope because sparks have a purpose, and I will pray to step and live like I trust that God provides for the flame. Here are the words I have to share at the beginning of lent...
I faintly remember the day that held the closest I ever stood to a deer.
When I think of deer, in a blink I am a teenage girl waking up at grandpa’s farm where I am a guest. I wake to catch the rise of the sun and watch it glow. I wander in it’s light. Running in fields, standing in sun, hearing the morning song of the world that I first fell in love with at grandpa’s farm, breathing in the open skies that feel so far away when I am in Dallas. In the open skies, everything feels free. I make my way to the creek that makes the shape of an L across all of the back of grandpa’s property. I step into a little clearing close to where the creek runs.
I don’t remember the exact order of things, perhaps I stood in the stillness for a bit before I saw her. Or maybe she didn’t notice me coming. But the closest I remember being to a deer was in that little clearing there that morning by the creek. She didn’t see me at first and I remember how I caught my breath at the sight. My brother appeared behind me and he saw her too. We watched her until she leapt away. He stepped forward and grinned and we had gotten to share the sight of it. I think that’s how I remember it.
Today I am a wife and mother and we are occupants for now, on the same land I would visit then. In the time that we’ve lived here, while we often see the deer from a distance, I don’t think I’ve ever gotten as close to one as I was that day. But what I’ve taken more time to notice about the deer since then is that while they too, love to wander and roam, they don’t do so freely. They come into the open with a heavy dose of caution.
I would imagine that stepping out of their wooded homes into the open fields and open skies is just as much a longed-for treasure to them, as it was to teenage me getting to step away from the city at times to breathe in the open skies. And just occasionally in the daytime, you’ll see deer that have quietly snuck out of the wooded places to enjoy the open air. But when they know that they’ve been seen, they won’t usually stay in the open for long. They leave the beauty of the openness for the safety of the woods. And it’s no wonder that they would. For the deer around these parts know the sound of the gunshot, and the dangers of trusting the people.
A large part of the beauty in the sight of the deer is that deer are not animals that readily show themselves.
And the human soul is not unlike the deer. How many of us and the souls who we rub shoulders with have never known what it is like to trust and then feel your heart shot through in the process?
Like the deer, the human soul knows the risks that can lie in the openness it longs for. Yet, how deeply every human soul needs people we can trust, just like we need air to breathe.
And the hope is that when we think of the human soul that we remember the nature of the deer. I have found through experience why it’s painful when we don’t.
For I can tell you about another day, when I wanted to see a deer so badly, a deer that I had seen before.
(Because the soul needs people, just like we need air to breathe. Sometimes it can make you feel desperate. And in following with this metaphor… I was failing at waiting and I wanted to see a deer.)
The first few sights had been delightful. But I’m not sure how much I knew about the nature of the deer, because for any bit I knew, I was acting as one who did not. I forgot how we’re all like the deer somewhere inside, longing for the open, yet having seen and felt the dangers. We’re all needing freedom to feel the open in time, and find the places slowly where we know that it is safe.
I was afraid of not seeing the deer again. Overcome with fear so that I couldn’t see or think. Or hear the Voice…
do not be afraid. I wasn’t listening. And I walked up to the edge of the woods and I called for the deer to come out, to come out now. I talked of how the open was better and how it was dumb to stay in the woods. I brought my pots and pans to make all the racket I could. And then, to my grave disappointment… I didn’t get at all what I wanted. And I fell to the ground and wept.
And when I lifted my head to look around at where I really was, I found…
that I was in my own woods and there was more pain that wanted to be my neighbor.
How many of us do not know what it is like to be as the deer who longs to not be tricked or teased or guilted, threatened, or wounded, who longs to be given freedom to find safety in time, in the time it takes the soul to feel it’s way through to the beauty of the open.
How long does it take to learn how to give each other freedom in the space between our souls? How long does it take to remember? To remember that “people are complex, layered, multifaceted, beautiful, wounded, contradictory, beloved image-bearers of the Creator. They are minds, hearts, souls and bodies, spilling over with dreams, passions, hurts, regrets and fears.” * And when we think of, speak of, or treat any human soul as if they are anything less than the whole of that, we are sinning against that soul’s own Creator.
He created us for the open and there is not one of us who does not long for the open somewhere inside.
It is gut-wrenching and heartbreaking when another makes the open space between us and them feel deeply unsafe. And even then, it is excruciating to see yourself as one who has done the very same and marred the beauty of the open. Difficult to witness just how it is true that while apology has necessary purpose, it cannot erase damage.
Yet it is only in the naked face of that whole pain that we can come to the face of Christ waiting inside.
And when we see His face there inside of our own ugly pain, He is always and only looking at us as One who is human too, feeling the pain of it with us and as one of us, though He Himself has never caused a scratch of damage to the open, but only laid Himself down so we can keep finding safety in the open again by way of His own broken body.
How He deeply knows every layer of us, and has always treated us with the freedom that the deer needs. Always waiting for us inside of the pain.
And in this broken world it’s always true here… the place where we look pain in the face is the place where beauty lives.
It’s only in feeling the pain, that we can feel more of the beauty. It’s the only way to keep coming to know more of the depths of His Love.
It’s because He first looked pain in the face, more than we will ever know… that we are now free to look pain in the face and always find His own dear face of compassion sitting with us inside it.
Until the day that we are home, we will keep learning to look pain in the face and embrace her every time she greets us. For we know the face of Love that waits for us inside.
It’s His Love that will keep growing us up, keep moving us to see each other more like the deer. To be safer places for each other until that day when all of the darkness is gone and banished forever. Amen.
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. The Lord has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.
Bless the Lord, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word! Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will! Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places of his dominion. Bless the Lord, O my soul!”
Psalm 103.
*The two sentence quote within the post is from Adam McHugh, The Listening Life, p. 138.
The people who drew near to Jesus were the despised, the sinners, the children. Maybe those who have little to lose in the way of reputation have the clearest view. “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners and eats with them.’ “So he told them this parable: ‘What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open country, and go after the one that is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing’” (Luke 15:1-5). In this same scene in Luke 15, Jesus also shared the story of the prodigal son and the father who loved him with reckless generosity. Before an audience who continually looked down on the sinner, Jesus proclaimed the unquestionable value of the runaway in our heavenly Father’s eyes. Dane Ortlund writes, “Though the crowds call [Jesus] the friend of sinners as an indictment, the label is one of unspeakable comfort for those who know themselves to be sinners. That Jesus is friend to sinners is only contemptible to those who feel themselves not to be in that category” ( Gentle and Lowly , p. 114). The most lowly of society saw Jesus as more than approachable. Children bounded up to him. The outcasts came close. The nature of Jesus’ presence gave them confidence to lean in. Here is someone who sees me and doesn’t look away. Here is someone who speaks of God as if God wants…me…not loyalty to a system I could never pretend to conform to. When they saw God through Jesus, they didn’t feel daunted. When He said, “Come to me, all who are weary” (Matt. 11:28), they recognized the God in whose image they’d always been made. The Good Shepherd freed them to shed heavy-laden expectations and enter worship with rest, right there at His table. How did children know they didn’t have to keep a respectable distance? How did the sinners learn they were free to join the feast where Jesus dined? They experienced His presence. After years spent hearing of a God who doesn’t come too close, worn and weary people experienced something new. Any fear they’d felt of a distant, condescending God, met a Person who reshaped that narrative. How many of us have ever felt afraid that God saw us as disappointments? Too dirty for Him to touch. Too fickle for Him to sit with. When have we been apprehensive to listen to the steady Voice who waits for us to hear with our hearts? “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matt. 11:29). Jesus’ presence keeps speaking. The Word cannot be silenced. Sometimes a small glimmer of Him shines through the fractured vessels of people. Always, He’s close to all who seek His presence. Learn from me, He says. We’re free to pull up a chair, to bound into His heart with our careworn self. Here every fear is shared without shame, and every nervous soul is met with the perfect relief of a Shepherd who delights to feast with His own. Some may say to ignore fear. Trudge on. Bear the heavy load. But when we can be guests at a table of grace where fear can be remade, what more could a heart want than to come in earnest to the Shepherd’s gentle love? “Take my yoke upon you…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:29-30).
When goodness is in reach, I don’t always recognize it. This is true for mothers, and for little boys too. A few nights before Easter, I pulled into the Family Dollar after dark and found the plastic eggs and candy for my son. So many of the Easter baskets came in pinks and yellows with flowers and bows, but I did find a green plastic bucket with a cute dinosaur face—bright, round eyes, pointy ears and a jolly smile. I wondered if it was too “young” for my eight year old, but hoped for the best. When I arrived home to show my findings to Gideon, he gasped in delight and dutifully took his place at the table to fill twelve eggs with candy for the class egg hunt at school. Success! Or so I thought. The next morning my daughters woke earlier than normal, determined to make pancakes before school. Comforting wafts of buttery goodness drew the whole family to the kitchen. Gideon called for me with outstretched arms and showed me where he had written his name on his bucket. The morning felt unusually cheery for its early hour and the whole tone of the house felt magical. But soon, a shift came in the eyes of my boy. Plates began to go onto the table. Next to the green bucket. Gideon stared. Nano noticed something amiss and caught my eye. With little shoulders slumped, our boy wandered off to the bedroom. His daddy saw his welling eyes and urged me to follow. Sitting next to Gideon on the bed, I said he must be sad about something and wondered aloud what it was. “The bucket,” he said. “I don’t want to take the bucket to school.” This made sense to me. The time for school drew closer and he must’ve decided the bucket was too young for him after all. “You don’t have to take that bucket,” I told him. “I’ll bet we can find something else…okay?” He nodded. “And Mommy?” “Yes.” “Can you give that bucket back to the store?” I urged him not to worry about that, but he pressed me further. He wanted the bucket gone. In the kitchen, my daughter told me where she had seen Gideon’s Spider-Man bucket from Halloween and we decided that might work. With some help from Nano, we found the bucket in the old smokehouse before Gideon joined the girls for breakfast. While I cut my boy's pancakes, he confirmed that Spider-Man buckets are better than dinosaur buckets. Later when the kids were at school, I debated whether to keep or toss the one-dollar bucket, before I wrapped it in a grocery bag and dropped it in the trash bin. At the school pick-up that afternoon, Gideon announced a change. “Mommy, I do want my dinosaur bucket.” He planned to use it for another egg hunt over the weekend. The second he stepped out of the car at home, he asked me where to look. I assured Gideon I would get his bucket and sent him inside before doing a quick dumpster dive in the front yard. The windows revealed my secret though, and he stood laughing at me when I walked in the door. Then the bucket, though shunned that morning, became a joy to him again. When I asked him what changed his mind, he just said he realized he could still use it. He saw a purpose for it. I can relate to him. I often take time to accept a situation. I want to know there’s good purpose for the stretching seasons I go through. When I struggle to see the purpose, I wrestle with accepting the season. Sometimes the best gifts begin to arrive in ways that look more like loss than gift. Then, when dashed hopes are being redeemed into something new, my heart is slow to recognize that beauty. What helps a worn-down heart to see a path as worth accepting? God answers prayers, even through pain. I can stare an answered prayer in the face and not see the faithful hand of my Father. I can hear the beauty of the resurrection and not tune in to the softest ripple of its melody amidst the days I live. On the road to Emmaus, Cleopas and his friend had heard news of the empty tomb, yet their hearts locked in on memories of disappointed hopes. When the resurrected Jesus began to walk with them on their journey, they knew him only as a fellow traveler—one who was quite uninformed. When Jesus asked them what they were talking about, “they stood still, looking sad” (Luke 24:17). They shared with their new companion about Jesus, the mighty prophet. They lamented how they had hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel, until he was killed. The women who claimed that Jesus was now alive seemed to concern them. The empty tomb stirred their worry. Jesus gently rebuked their slowness of heart—reluctant to believe what they’d already heard. He recalled the prophecies they knew, yet they heard it differently this time. His unfolding of the Scriptures enlightened their understanding. That evening they begged him to have dinner with them. In the moment he broke bread, they knew him as Jesus. Immediately, he vanished, and they said, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32) Jesus stayed in bodily form beside them until their hearts could see that the death he died, and even their disappointed hopes, were all for good. Their Master walked with them to help them see God’s good purpose and a fire kindled inside them. His presence ignited their acceptance of the story. The breaking of bread, the moment that brought memories, the burning in their hearts, all helped them see the goodness right there. Adam McHugh says, “When the two disciples who walked to Emmaus reflected on their night with that oddly familiar stranger, they marveled that their hearts burned within their chests as he spoke. A central part of the Christian spiritual life…comes in paying attention to the moments when our hearts are burning. In those times, we may just find that we are not alone” ( The Listening Life , p. 184). For the seasons of life we don’t want to accept, maybe we’re not alone. When I hear that the ugliest losses bear the most precious purpose to my Father, something burns in my heart and I don’t want to brush past this. The memories of disappointed hopes cannot truly outweigh the memories of the One who always knows how to rekindle my joy. For all it contains, this season of my life will bear good purpose. I do want this bucket.
There is something about the tiny ways we experience a dream coming true that changes our outlook. Whether it’s an idea brought to fruition, a task finished, a plan fulfilled, these moments train us to believe more is possible. There are seasons when my soul needs to witness these tiny wants coming true while I guard my heart, find new energy and pray for grace to refuel my hope. In those times, if I try to rush myself, push ahead, I don’t leave room for the autumn and winter seasons of my soul. Just as all of life needs times of letting go, and the silence of snow, so there are places in my soul that need what is steady, what is slow. When old seasons of life have died, it’s time to hunt for beauty in the little shoots of life. Here are a few ways this looks for me right now. While these practices are small, they are exercises that help me look forward. Right now, I’m wanting to meet new people at church, and needing to keep it simple. This week I met Sally and Renae. I had brief conversations with each of them. I wrote down their names to help myself remember. For years, I’ve been wanting to read historical fiction again. I finally started. A few days ago, I finished a book set in the early nineteen hundreds. Then, I began another, set a few centuries earlier. I’ve wanted to adjust my morning routine in a way that gets me moving and helps me feel grounded. For the last month I’ve rolled out my yoga mat most weekday mornings and used it for ten minutes. As short a time as it is, it helps me feel alive knowing I’m keeping a promise to myself. When I see my small hopes play out as I come to the last page of a book, tell my husband about new people, and spend regular mornings on the yoga mat, the small things stack up. Something inside me begins to notice that I have choices in life. I wished for a reality and it came to happen. These small practices help me embrace life-giving rhythms, even while honoring the season I’m in and the pace of my soul. It’s freeing to acknowledge where I am. When I admit that I’m not in a season of summer plenty, and admit my capacity for life has limits, this helps me live more fully in the gift of today. While life is communal, we experience it individually too. Parker Palmer writes, “We must come together in ways that respect the solitude of the soul…” The solitude of the soul is our garden to tend. It’s different from our neighbors’. Every garden needs water and light to grow, and sufficient protection to help it thrive. Yet, each garden must be tended according to its specific needs, with consideration for the season it’s in. When our gardens are tended according to their needs, there are times of harvest that bring nourishment to others. The solitary tending brings communal blessing. Each season always had purpose. The Lord who knows the necessities of every garden doesn’t rush us forward. He knows the slow work of growth and invites us to stay in pace with Him as He makes the way for tomorrow. When the season calls us to hunt for small shoots, and care for tiny dreams, He honors the solitude within us. The secret place within is always where He waits. A promise: “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Cor. 9:10).
At times, words about goodness have felt vanilla to me, like preschool basics. God is good. The sky is blue. I’ve longed for a goodness that means more than empty positivity. More than rote fact. More than a decade ago, when I was newly married and just entering my twenties, Nano and I sat with a group of church friends who were planning a Thanksgiving gathering. One woman suggested inviting the guests to share four things they were thankful for. Everyone seemed to like her idea. Internally, I sighed. I didn’t understand this and thought we may as well recite our grocery lists to each other. I wondered what might fit what they were looking for, while also feeling more meaningful. I shared the first thought that came to mind. “What if we share one thing we’re thankful for and then four reasons why we’re thankful for that?” They blinked at me and offered polite words acknowledging my idea. The day of the gathering came and I listened as people shared their four-point lists of things they were thankful for. I can’t remember if I recited a list myself. I just remember looking around the room at this group—most of whom had seen many more years of life than I had. I couldn’t understand why this didn’t feel so mundane to everyone else. Thirteen years later, the memory stays with me. I put myself back in that room at the age I am now, and I’ve still seen less years than most of them. Maybe though, I’m a little closer to understanding what they knew. When dreams you’ve hoped for blow away in the wind, when paths you walk turn to somber roads, when the sky around you grows dark, the clouds teach you what you never could’ve learned in the light. Along the journey of life’s disappointments, the soul learns how to see that no matter what blows away, no matter how grave the story, there is always a bird who still sings. The rote facts you learned in preschool become lifelines that save you. God is good. The sky is blue. When a voice inside asks me what I have left, there is still the voice of a child in my distant memory. She sings her alphabet, letter by letter, and somehow every syllable of ordinary life becomes the sweetest song I’ve ever heard. Built into the fabric of this life, into the sound of every letter we work with each day, is a Voice that echoes quietly beneath every harsh blow. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. He looked with delight and said, “You are very good.” From the beginning, goodness was there. Today, His goodness remains. Last week, my family munched popcorn and watched Tom Hanks in Castaway. After he loses everything, then years later loses everything again, he tells a friend what he knows. “I know what I have to do now. I’ve got to keep breathing. Because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide will bring?” The sun still rises, and the goodness God made in the beginning is still alive. I remembered myself at age twenty. I sat in a room where I couldn’t hear more than a grocery list. I wanted to hear the reasons why . Little did I know that when we recognize what is good, we are naming the reasons why —the reasons why we breathe. These are the signs there is goodness. This is the meaning that keeps us open to meet another day.
The heart’s ability to stretch across the widest chasms can feel conflicting—though it’s also connecting. A heart can care deeply for two very different people, can be attached to two places so very far apart, and can find ways to extend itself beyond what it ever thought it could. In one sense this can seem contradictory, but this is what we’re made for. Love doesn't go in one single direction, but forms a connection of paths and bridges that reach far and wide. A couple weeks ago, I stopped by the dollar store after church. However, I didn’t realize until I got back to my car that I had locked my keys inside. After confirming Nano wasn’t too far away with the extra key, I set my groceries on the hood of the car, and found a seat in the lawn chair beside the store's front entrance. Customers passed in and out. Flower pots, garden flags and bags of charcoal surrounded me. Then I noticed a grey scooter near my chair that seemed a little worn, not for sale. After a few minutes, a lady stepped out of the building and began the task of securing her cartful of groceries to the scooter. She was quite friendly. I explained my situation to her, and she shared with me that she lived close to the store and enjoyed the scooter rides and the fresh air. I noticed her accent and learned she was from South Africa. “That’s where my heart is,” she said. South Africa is where she wanted to be. She’d been in Texas for three years. “I met my husband online. He was from here, but agreed to come live with me in South Africa. It worked out for ten years,” she said, “but the whole time he really missed his home.” She spoke of the strain of living a joint life with hearts in two different places. Yet, she spoke of it with a tender sense of joy—an openness to see what lay ahead, and hopeful that one day she would be home again. The conversation stuck in my mind. Her heart is in South Africa. Her heart is with her husband. His heart is in Texas. The math of how a heart works doesn’t add up. I think of the tensions my own heart carries, the quiet ways to be *with* someone when my feet can’t find the way across the same bridge. Does it ever add up? I don’t think so. Somehow though, the unsolved equations in my heart are the places God speaks to me most—when I give up trying to solve them. Some mysteries aren’t meant to be solved. Some mysteries come into our lives to tug on our hearts—maybe even to tear us, and somehow…to heal us. To the mysteries we can’t make sense of, to the math that never works, to the unsolved puzzles in an unfinished life, we welcome you. We’ll let you be. This past weekend, I stretched out on the living room floor, chin in my hands, dice rolling, my children cheering. The puzzle in my heart can stay unfinished for now, if it means I can embrace the wonder of the gifts right here before me.
Sometimes when we come to connect with God in prayer, questions are the only words we can find. The Bible is full of heavy questions God’s children have asked Him in prayer. We may feel shame rise over the queries we have for God. Sometimes I’ve wondered if God is disappointed in me for wondering where He is. At times, I am tempted to pull away from God when I think of my doubts and fears. However, God’s Word encourages His people to do something astounding—and beautiful. “Trust in [God] at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” Psalm 62:8. When I read this verse, I notice something that makes me feel so light and free. Psalm 62 does not say: Trust in God at all times, O people; quit asking Him questions! Rather than shutting down our inquiries, God encourages His children to pour out our hearts. Scripture takes this act of sharing our raw selves in prayer, and actually connects it with living out our trust in God. It refreshes me to see this in my Bible. Psalm 13 is one prayer that begins with raw questions. “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” Psalm 13:1-2 God never desires that we would withdraw from him because of the mess we feel inside. If distressing questions are the first words to come when we seek God’s presence, we are still loved by a God who longs to hear our hearts. There are times when trusting God with our messy uncertainties is the best way we can move toward Him. Psalm 13 begins with questions and carries forward still. For two more verses the psalmist petitions God to look upon his troubles, to consider his situation and respond. Then the psalmist remembers the guiding arrow of his internal faith compass that has served him well before—an arrow he knows can be trusted. “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” Psalm 13:5-6 A heart that pours itself out to God is not despised by Him. To come to God with our questions is often an act of trust. Our doubts are messy, but they are a doorway—and curiously, the doorway can lead toward God. Although, doubt can also lead away from Him. Some time after God split the Red Sea and delivered the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt, they grumbled about God. Their questions sounded like this: “Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?” Numbers 14:3 Moses, Aaron, Joshua and Caleb immediately reminded the people of God’s goodness. The people responded by picking up stones to kill them. God felt their actions deeply, asking, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?” Numbers 14:11 God asks questions too. When doubt rises, He longs for us to run toward Him. He waits for us to remember who He is and who He always has been. Mystery sometimes surrounds heavy questions in the Bible. I just know that if our queries can serve as a doorway to move us toward God and His faithfulness, it is good to ask God our questions. Here are a few more questions the psalmists ask of God in prayer: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” Psalm 22:1 “God why do you cast us off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?” Psalm 74:1 “How long, O God, is the foe to scoff? Is the enemy to revile your name forever? Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?” Psalm 74:10-11 “Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable? Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time? Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?” Psalm 77:7-9 “How long O Lord? Will you be angry forever? Will your jealousy burn like fire?” Psalm 79:5 “How long O Lord? Will you hide yourself forever? How long will your wrath burn like fire?” Psalm 89:46 “Lord, where is your steadfast love of old, which by your faithfulness you swore to David?” Psalm 89:49 There is one question in the New Testament that, to me, companions all of our human questions with the greatest love. It’s the question asked by Jesus from the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46 Jesus intimately knows about our questions. He knows, too, about all of our pain and our trials. “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” Hebrews 2:18 In light of the cross, the questions and doubts we experience along the journey of faith are among the deepest of gifts we can know. Who knows what good gifts these uncertainties may invite us too? It’s quite possible that our soul-deep questions seek to point us toward the faithfulness of God’s guiding hand like nothing else can.
What we do with longing will shape the course of our lives. It’s essential to consider what we long for—to dig beneath the surface of a wish, and seek to uncover what we truly want. In the words of C.S. Lewis… “We remain conscious of a desire which no natural happiness will satisfy. But is there any reason to suppose that reality offers any satisfaction to it? ‘Nor does the being hungry prove that we have bread.’ But I think it may be urged that this misses the point. A man’s physical hunger does not prove that man will get any bread; he may die of starvation on a raft in the Atlantic. But surely a man’s hunger does prove that he comes of a race which repairs its body by eating and inhabits a world where eatable substances exist. In the same way, though I do not believe (I wish I did) that my desire for Paradise proves that I shall enjoy it, I think it a pretty good indication that such a thing exists and that some men will. A man may love a woman and not win her; but it would be very odd if the phenomenon called “falling in love” occurred in a sexless world. Here, then, is the desire, still wandering and uncertain of its object and still largely unable to see that object in the direction where it really lies.” -C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses , 33. I long for a world where misunderstandings don’t fog our vision. Or, at least a world where that confusion can be cleared up quickly. Yet, life reminds me of a different reality. Bad memories rise. We ponder pain. We worry. Worry stirs fear. Fear clouds judgment. John’s need for quiet is seen as a threat to Jane. Jane’s need for comfort is seen as a threat to John. All the while, they want whatever lies beyond the disconnect. But what does one do with the “want” in the meantime? What do you do with longing in a life where mistaken meanings can carry on for weeks, or a lifetime? Desire is a fire in the dead of a freezing storm. Without it, the cold will thicken your blood and work to stifle the beat of your heart. But, tend to desire with care, or the fire itself may sweep over you with its flames. To tend to desire is the summons of life, and it is a solemn and glorious call. There is longing which keeps the heart beating, keeps a life warm—and helps to warm the lives of others. We keep a fire going, knowing that what we do with longing becomes the kindling of hope. When we remember what we wait for, the slow, steady tending is worth every weary moment. We hope for the day when the cold will be gone, and fires will never consume what is good. “The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us” (Rom. 8:18). We live for the hope of redemption to come. Bad memories rise. But fear cannot defeat Love, and Love is here to hold and share. Jesus draws close to touch the leper. Love leans close to touch the scars. Pain can turn to imagine a future where each wounded place we meet is an opportunity to Love. More than all we can imagine, our good God can move us with hope. With an eternal dream before us, we can learn a long patience. We savor the moments when warmth is shared. We make beauty with our hands while the fire burns on. We’ll consider what we long for. For goodness is in reach.
Sometimes I want January to feel completely new. But she doesn’t show up to replace the troubles of yesterday. She doesn’t come with smooth, new roads, and old damage erased. Instead, she shows up with a new years’ worth of morning light—to shine on the same rugged lines of a perfectly bumpy life. January arrives with familiar potholes and construction zones. Life’s potholes can drive me mad, but the madness comes with memories. And the memories are bittersweet. A life with potholes is a life where I get to experience things that are broken, and the quaint mystery of moments when we bear with imperfections. On Friday morning, I opened the door to leave for my walk, and the tranquility of the day’s rhythms gave way to a familiar, repulsive stench. A few times a year, chicken manure from the nearby egg farm is spread across the fields. The smell is vile and I wanted to retreat, but my dog noticed my step outside. He wriggled and bounced, his tongue out with anticipation. He’s not contained by a fence or leash, but “people walks” are his favorite. Somehow, his playful eyes swayed me to believe a walk in these conditions couldn’t be too bad. Many mornings, Saucer and I walk the road to the creek bridge and back. That day, I beat Saucer to the creek bridge, and the fields held my attention. They kept me walking farther. I’ve loved this place since I was a child, when the best parts of the year were the days at Grandpa’s farm. I spent years dreaming about these fields. Now I’ve lived here for almost ten years of my adult life—about as long as the egg farm has been here, chicken manure and all. For nearly ten years, the smell keeps coming around. Yet, for ten years, this stench has never made me feel done with living here. What do I know deep inside? A place is always more than its imperfections. The goodness of this place stays with me even when the stench is here. People are like places. I want to believe that. People are always more than the stench of bad moments. How do I look for the “more?” At Grandpa’s farm, when life is imperfect, my old longings rise up and help me see more. The deep roots of an old dream make the troubles seem smaller. I’m sure this is a small glimpse of a larger truth. Beneath the temporary frustrations and quick-fix wishes of today, the soul is pregnant with good, old longings. Our Maker has set eternity into our hearts (Eccles. 3:11). Deep down inside us, we long for what is good. We long to connect with each other in fruitful ways, and to conduct ourselves in ways that do not make that difficult. Deep down, we long to live in a world where our ears tune in to the good in each other, and our lips speak like our Father, who calls good things into being with His words. Somewhere beneath the billows inside me, this is what I long for. When life is imperfect, old longings can help me see more. While the roots of my dreams are shallow still, I’m loved by a God who knows. He meets me with His own longing heart and tethers my soul to Him. So here is a January with familiar troubles. And longings as old as eternity. January can come as she is.
Seven years ago at the beginning of December, we put a big red bow on the top of our Christmas tree. A few days later, my kindergartener came home from school and looked up at that bow for a while. Then she found some paper and markers and set to work at the table. With her little hands, she earnestly squiggled out her best representation of a star, and colored it yellow before she found the scissors to cut around it. She poked a hole in the top point and strung her star onto a blue pipe cleaner. When finished, Amayah held it out to me and said, “Mommy, you can use it for the tree. We need a star.” So, I removed the red bow from our tree and used the pipe cleaner to tie the star in place. The top of the tree curved in a point, and there hung our paper star. Amayah knew what she needed to see on top of the Christmas tree, and she couldn’t ignore it. The memory of her paper handiwork is a great reminder to me that good gifts are not elusive. I’m directionally challenged. The week after Amayah made her star, I set out for Mount Vernon. Somehow I got turned around and ended up all the way in Sulphur Springs before I realized my mistake. Minutes after I rerouted, my van ran out of gas. At my own fault, I'd become stuck on the road nearly an hour from home. As someone who’s lost my way often, the star of Christmas is beautiful to me. To show the way to Jesus, God put a star in the sky—like an arrow pointing the way. The simple need was to follow. God’s way of giving directions is comforting when you’re not only directionally challenged on the road, but in your heart too. Amayah’s paper offering reminded me that even as we’re given the gift of God in human skin, we’re also loved by a God who never stops lighting the way to find His good Gift. A God who is faithful to light the way is just the kind of care my heart needs. A voice in my head fights to confuse my sense of direction. When I want to give and receive love, memories play scenes of shame. I become a little girl presenting a bunch of dandelions picked from the grass…while my gift is dismissed and tossed away. When shame speaks through my memory, it drives me away from love. Even still, there is ever-present longing tucked away in the echoes of the past. Those tender yearnings point toward a journey—to find the place where I feel safe to let my inner child exhale. Like Amayah offered her star, we all have a child inside with intuitive gifts to share. When a child gives a gift, they stretch out the fragile shoots of their growing love, unhindered by decades of disappointments. A child’s gift can touch your heart and draw you to the days when life felt so young and new—a blank canvas that couldn’t wait to see the beauty it became. Love is the star that is always a learning, growing, testing dare to let the heart be a child one more time. Remember the child you need. And there is One who made Himself into a child-gift in the most complete way. He comes as a baby and offers Himself as a gift to the child in me. He came as a gift wrapped inside a womb, and Joseph’s first thought was to quietly disown the mother who encased him. Through the bloody entry of a woman’s birthing body, Jesus gave the tender gift of Himself. His offering given with wide-open love was met by King Herod’s order of mass slaughter, a hope to put the new child to death. The Child of Christmas gave the most vulnerable gift, becoming a child for the lost child heart. He offered love His whole life long, until He was crushed. He steps into a world of wounded hearts…and he becomes wounded beyond recognition in a world where we know this language. Who doesn’t know the wounding of love? Who never longs to feel whole again? He welcomes the wounds. He stays for the crushing. To the death, He never falters, never ceases to come as a child holding out His gift still. There is nothing like a gift from a child. A gift from a child can warm the coldest part of my heart. And only the touch from a baby’s hand can reach for me with enough tenderness to draw me from my fearful sense of direction toward the light of Love. I need a gift only a child could give. And with Christmas, as always, it’s what I’m given. The sovereign Author of Christmas remembers the child in me. When I’m too discouraged to hold out dandelions or make paper stars, He stoops down to speak a language my heart can hear. Here is a King who becomes a tiny gift. He is determined to light up my soul with childlike purpose. There are good gifts to bring. Jesus delights in gifts of frankincense and myrrh and also the gift of a manger and the lullaby’s of animals. Why does He receive the gifts of those who can give only what He’s provided? Because He is a King who treasures the beauty of a gift from a child. For broken hearts, there are tiny fingers who can touch fallow ground and make room for the tender shoots of love to grow again. Where there is room for the child, the child makes room for love. When we are lost and turned around, He lights the way. Do you long for a gift from a Child? Like a star, this longing too, is His gift. Follow the star. The Lord has come. “When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts...” (Matt. 2:10-11).
Do many people have a specific emotion they feel the most awkward with? Mine is anger. In some ways, I’d rather meet any other feeling. When my worst memories play across my mind, anger appears as the villain, the direct enemy of love. Whether the anger is from others, or from me, the narrative says that anger destroys. It equates with shame and loss. The rise of this emotion can begin to feel like a threat. Don’t let your anger out, or else. There’s validity to my concerns. Out-of-control anger can hurt people deeply. It can damage and destroy and tear down connections we don’t actually want to tear down. The idea of anger makes me angry. Anger can cause typhoons of damage and sometimes I want to scream about it to the world. Sometimes when I start to feel angry, shame creeps in for the fact that I feel angry at all. On the other hand, part of me knows anger has important roles to play somewhere. It can let us know when something isn’t right. There are times to listen. So, at times, I’ll start to share my anger with someone. Often, I feel clumsy—caught in a world that’s too shaky and uncertain. Anger is a territory full of memories where abandonment happens, people are shamed and nothing is steady. So when I showed up for counseling a couple weeks ago and Chris, my counselor, asked me to consider good things about anger, I didn’t love the topic. But I know her question is valid. In the first several years of marriage, I tried hard to be as low-need as possible. I wanted to be a selfless wife, but I often thought that meant not having needs. The more I contained my needs, the more I felt disconnected from Nano. Anger would find ways to come out of me—it just didn’t look like anger and it always came out sideways. Now, Nano has seen more of my anger than anyone else combined. The more I search for healthier ways to listen to my anger and express my need—and the more we work through those moments—the more I feel connected to him. Marriage is the biggest place where I’ve seen good things come from learning to work with my anger. I’ve also seen hard things come when anger is ignored. How many of us know what it feels like to have a friend avoid us? Then, a long while later sometimes the truth comes out and we find out why. At times, I’ve longed to see a friends’ anger, because I wanted to know that our friendship mattered. In those situations, I’ve felt heartbroken by the silence. The unspoken needs. My own struggles with anger help me understand this better. Often, when I feel anger, something about that feeling is helping me know about a need that I may be struggling to recognize. That’s when fear strikes. I remember the times when I’ve tried to assert myself and lost control. I remember too, the times when my assertion was not received well, connections were damaged, and it felt difficult to know if it was worth it or not. The fear that I feel from those memories is real. Yet, when fear scares me away from navigating my anger, I get stuck in a place where I’m not moving forward. Sometimes we’ve had little experience with seeing positive things come when we assert ourselves. Understandably, this can make us feel cautious about being assertive at all. At times, taking a risk to be assertive in the healthiest way I can find takes all of the emotional energy I can muster. Don’t we all have a point at which the need for assertiveness in a situation drains too much energy and goes beyond what we can manage? Maybe we all have a different level of capacity for that. I have a greater capacity for assertiveness than I used to, though I have lots farther to grow. Often, the person on the other end of the situation is trying to grow their capacity for connection in their own way as well. In some ways, my greatest need may be in learning to be assertive with myself—telling myself what I can do to care for the hurt I feel. There is beauty in the desire to imagine what might be possible when the most unpracticed parts of me find ways to come alive. Somewhere inside, anger wants something good. Peace. Dignity. Better ways to connect. Anger longs to be seen for the goodness she’s after. I want to hear the good things anger has to say—the anger in me, the anger in others. In the movie, Because of Winn Dixie , there’s a nighttime scene where ten-year-old Opal and her father are searching for her missing dog, her best friend. When her dad says it’s time to return home, Opal lashes out at him, accusing him of giving up. In that moment, her deep-seated hurt overflows and she accuses him of giving up on her mother too—being the one at fault for the fact that her mother abandoned her. Rather than lash back at her, her father hears the pain inside her anger. He recognizes her need for safety and connection and he responds in love. That scene always draws my longing and stirs my questions. It leaves me searching to know what I feel invited toward. Don’t we all want to know that we can be seen in our wild anger and still be held in love? But mostly, when we rashly spill anger on people, it leads to less connection, not more. It hurts others, and it hurts us too. So I don’t think it’s correct to name this as what I want to do. It’s been more than two years since the last time I watched that movie with my kids. I still remember how I couldn’t place my finger on what that scene made me yearn for. While Chris spoke with me the other day, she didn’t say anything about that movie, but she brought me to that same place. The same set of questions. She gave the invitation. Feel your anger in the safety of the One whose love is strong enough for all of it. Let yourself be seen by your heavenly Father in your rage. He never fails to see the good longings within your anger and to wrap you in His love. I know what the scene in Winn-Dixie made me want—a place where my anger can co-exist with love. When anger and love find ways to join hands, miracles happen and love is multiplied. May imagination open wide to the good things that can come when we feel our deep anger in the presence of Love. When I remember I am safe to navigate anger, the security of love can guide me in what’s needed.