The day of His appearing will come at last!

You know what I thought of today?

I thought to myself, "Self, your homework will always be there. You could spend all day on homework, and only be a little bit farther along than when you started. But you do not have everyday this week to spend many hours with the Lord."

And so the finishing of Luke grabs my attention and makes me scramble for my hymnbook and these words:

'"Man of sorrows,' what a name
for the Son of God who came
Ruined sinners to to reclaim!
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

"Bearing shame and scoffing rude
In my place condemned He stood
Sealed my pardon with His blood!
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

"Guilty, vile, and helpless we,
Spotless Lamb of God was He;
'Full atonement!' Can it be?
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

"Lifted up was He to die
'It is finished' was His cry.
Now in heav'n exalted high!
Hallelujah! What a Savior!

"When He comes our glorious King,
All His ransomed Home to bring
Then anew this song we'll sing,
Hallelujah! What a Savior!"

Who can believe those things that happened? "The sun's light failed" for three hours. The temple curtain was split. Men beat their breasts in sorrow and remorse at what had happened. "Truly this was an innocent man."

who now lives outside the temple and brings innocence to us whose heart's light failed and joy in hope to us whose lives consisted of sorrow.

"Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has been raised!"

Personified

I'm studying fetal development, chapter 7, which happens to be 35 pages long...

It says that the little one doesn't even look like a baby at first, but like a little lizard. Soon, even at 7 weeks, the little guy starts to look like a person and has the very beginning of all the major things that he will have when he's born. I'm not sure by when, but if he's a she, she even has all the eggs of her future babies inside of her before she is born.

and in all this, I find myself wondering how in the world God, who is so big, can have small enough fingers to formulate these things that go on inside the mother of a little baby. I guess I picture an enlarged version of my dad when I personify God. But I know that if God were my dad, he would never be able to manipulate his fingers in those tiny spaces.

Even with all the intricacies that go on in our bodies and make our eventual three and a half pounds of brains functional, we're still limited in our thinking. We think about things we can't see as though we could see them.

But our development goes beyond birth, even beyond death, and in the end, we will know even as we are fully known and see the unseeable person of God.

A Possibilities Girl

Possibilities are sometimes more real to me than reality. And so in this world, where perfect possibilities and undashed dreams fail incessantly to come to pass, there is a deep, overwhelming sadness.

But I think the sadness swells from other rooms flooded with some lies.

Things proposterous like, "My sin is greater than everyone else's, so God shouldn't forgive me."
Things proposterous like, "I'm so bad, God's arm is too short to save me."

It's really a pride thing when everything unboils itself to the raw truth. "What makes you so great, kt, that you are capable of outpowering God's grace?"

Do you ever feel like God's just asking you all these questions? I feel like that lately. So often, we ask Him all the questions, but have you ever thought that perhaps He is asking you just as many questions?

"What are you going to do with this huge house I have given to you to take care of? How will you manage it? What else can I entrust you with?"

"What do you think about this topic that I have 'coincidentally' brought to your attention (Makes me chuckle to think of God using 'quotation marks')? How are you going to pan through this in your mind?"

"Are you going to rebel against me in this place?"

"Are you ready to skip a grade in this school? Can we move on to more important things?"

Oh! How I long to be faithful! And even here, this possibility is often dashed to pieces, only, His grace is real. The possibility of someone completely loving and beautiful is one that is truly fulfilled. And unity with Him will be accomplished in full one day.

Oh, That Day!

A Journal Entry from August 31, 2005

"...this world is not my Home, and I can think of nothing sadder or more melancholy than the evidence of this wretched existence away from my Hope's fulfillment.

"But One Day."

The paradox: death and life

There is a man that doesn’t have to experience tragedy in life in order to gain the wonders of tragedy. Somehow, he is free to experience life deeply, and even when tragedy comes, he can still feel. He stays free to feel.

I have theories about why. Like that he hasn’t been hurt enough to shut down his feelings; he can be open. Or that during the formative years, he was nurtured in such a way that he doesn’t have to fear. But those theories never turn out quite right. The truth is, I don’t know why, but he is different, somehow, than everyone else.

And I suppose there is a little bit of that man in all of us: the part that puts down our defense mechanisms of avoidance or projection or the blame game or intellectualization or whatever defense we are best at using and lets death come in even though it hurts. The part that accepts life the way it really is, even if it only lasts for a moment.

We feel.

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.

thoughts on "him" revisited from Dec 2005

Lord Jesus, Let me make him a better man
and never a worse,
Let me make him more beautiful
and not bring on him a curse.
Let my influence never be from Folly's way.
Let me speak words of Life, come whatever may.

Is it better to be once and then never again
if Folly falls too and sees her end?
let me not detriment the Vow I hold dear!
Then let this prayer be the one that is clear:
"Take me, dear Lord, before Folly has o'retaken;
and let not dreams sleep from fears awakened."