through smoke

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"When the answers and the truth have cut their ties

Will you still find me

Will you still me through smoke

I'm lost in a place that I thought I knew,

Give me some way that I might find you..." -Needtobreathe, "Through Smoke"

Immeasurable are the precious hearts have such a hard time reconciling the fact that their is a God with the fact that He allows horrible things happen to sweet souls. He let's a sister's heart get broken. He chooses not to heal a sick and weary body. He allows horrible things to happen at what should be the safest place for kids to encounter the radical Gospel of Jesus. He let's a best friend experience rape. He does not intervene when thousands pray for rescue.  He allows there to be over 3 million Ethiopian orphans.  He let's a dear friend get cancer. And then another, another, and another. Person after person. Stage four they say.  

He sits, seeming to be totally silent.

Of course, the Holy Scriptures tell us he does not cause these things.

But He is all powerful, all knowing...and all loving?

And He allows these things?

How Jesus?

Not that person. Please Jesus, not that best friend. Where were you? In that dark room with helpless cries, where were you? In the midst of thousands of tearful prayers begging for another soul's healing, Where were you Jesus? 

One of the most freeing and healing things someone shared with me is that God can handle my anger. It is arrogant and prideful for me to think He can't.

I was raised to not swear, to not smoke, to treat others with kindness and to walk in integrity, even when push came to shove. Overall, I was raised to believe in Jesus, to have morals.  I almost lost this belief. Came pretty damn near close. Through tragedy and darkness and that seeming total silence on His end, I had no evidence to believe He was loving, that He gave a rip about cancer ridden believers or rape victims or orphans.

But I wasn't just raised to do the right thing, to not wear my dresses too short or get drunk in public...I met Jesus.  When I was four years old, in Purdy, Missouri, I fell in love with Jesus. 

And even through that anger, through waves of grief that still roll in like the tide of the ocean, I can't get away from Jesus. I can't stop going back, even through the anger and wanting to say Why in the hell are you allowing these things to happen? I know He is the answer. I know He is the Way and the Truth and the Life. I know no one can get to Heaven without the Redemption of Jesus. I have experienced that grace. I know it full well. I know it in my daily walk when I stumble and flail trying to live by the morals I was taught from birth. With my best white-knuckled, moral intentions, trying...and failing.

And Jesus shows up. In the midst of that. In the midst of striving and failing. He sits, He sits, He sits. 
Not giving me any answers, mind you. But staying, faithfully, being the Sovereign and loving and all-merciful Redeemer that He is. He stays and sits.  Silent except for the overwhelming, continuous,

"I love you."
 No Jesus, not that person, not that cancer. Jesus, please.
"I love you Lydia."
Jesus where were you? In that dark and relentless season..Where was the rescue?
"I formed you, I know you. I love you Lydia."

Mercy steps in. He sits, He dines with us and waits in the silence with us. 

 I don't have the answers. He may choose to not physically heal. He may allow rape and famine and orphans, the precious orphans. And I may never hear the answer on these things from Him. I may strive all my life and beg Him to fix them.  But I love Him, I know Him. I cannot choose any other path because I already know the truth and have experienced redemptive Grace. 

It's this motive, this weird and scandalous faith let's me say in the midst of these things, "You are God alone." That let's me echo the words of John Mark McMillan and yell towards heaven, "Harbor me in the eye of the storm, I'm holding on to the Love You swore,"  and that let's me believe in and buy into the idea of Hosanna.

Hosanna is a really cool word in the fact that it is both a declaration of Praise to the Lord and a cry for mercy, almost saying "Jesus, save us."

Hosanna y'all. Go forth and live.
Lyd

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you

we went perfectly together, back then. I mean, honestly, perfectly, didn't we? I learned to love your lies and you continued to tell them. You wove this web, and weren't reliable and I learned to deal with it. I learned to cope and let it become a part of me, of who I was. Sure, you've grown...remarkable amounts even. You were never there and yet you always were. In clutch situations, you were nowhere to be found, and yet..you are in every memory I have. You are fully you, and yet I wish you weren't. I can't wish you away, because I have let you become apart of the grain of my soul. I owe you everything, and yet forgive you continuously. It balances out, doesn't it? You told jokes, and laughed at the world with its problems, and I learned to laugh along side you. I lost myself in you, and I'm not mad about it. I found my voice and my will through your undying passion. You are unlike any person I know, any person I will ever know, you will never bend or waver in who you are. And I love you hopelessly, relentlessly for it.

xoxo Lyd