The Softness of Jesus Body

Last night was darker than I could have imagined.

Twice, I had to hold my son while he screamed and shook in terror and pain at the procedures being done to him.

After the first one, he was angry with me and would not receive my comfort, feeling betrayed by the one who was to protect him.

I curled up next to him in his bed and sobbed with him. Somehow, my tears for him soothed him to sleep.

But when dawn came, there was no dawn in my heart.

My heart cried out for the Lord to relent, to come and save now, to rescue, to restore.

---

I heard a knock at the door of the room. Fearing who I would see and what they might say, I looked up through the haze of my heart's pain.

But the face I saw was one filled with love, wreathed in compassion, and anchored by eyes of concern.

It was Jesus.
He was wearing a middle-aged woman's body, but it was Jesus.
He sported a red t-shirt and shorts and sandy-blond hair.
And His arms, His chest, His hands encompassed me as I sobbed in the hallway of the hospital. His t-shirt caught my tears. His lips kissed my cheeks. His voiced prayed for me.

He came.

But it took me a while to recognize Him.

---

I have long believed that God gives each of us the specific body that He needs for us to have in order to receive His love into our inner selves and in order to give that love to the people that He brings across our paths.

He gave me eyes that delight in beauty -- and then He spoke to me through color and pattern and texture.
He gave me a body that feels Him in creation -- and then He spoke to me in the wind.
He gave me a soft tummy -- and then He gave me kids to rest on it.
He gave me a loud laugh -- and then He sent people that needed to hear joy from afar.

And today He gave Jesus a body that is not what Hollywood would call glamorous or ready for the Red Carpet. But it was beautiful. It was soft and warm and comforting. The bearer of this body offered it up to Him, and He used it powerfully in the midst of the darkest moments of this journey thus far.

Oh, how society has confused what is important in the body.

But today is was brought into sharp focus:
what is important about our bodies is that they are His to use.

Their shape, their size, their weight, their height, their color, their smell, their attractiveness, their mobility, their muscularity -- none of this matters. Our bodies' sole purpose is His love - to give and receive it. On the altar of His love, each body fulfills its purpose, each body becomes what it was intended to be.


That's it.


Today, I got to meet Jesus. And she was beautiful.

Flexible Faith

During this dark night, I have found that my greatest fear is not the loss of my son's life.

My greatest fear is that this dark night will cause someone's faith to fail -- that somehow, watching this from the inside or the outside, someone will find God too inscrutable, too unknowable and walk away.

"Someone" -- including myself.

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The other day, I was reading the portrait of Jesus preparing His disciples for the coming darkness that His death will bring upon them. (Luke 22)

Sweet Peter is all bravado and bluster making statements he knows nothing about, making promises he can never keep, being "strong" as best he can in the face of some very confusing things that Jesus is saying. And Jesus turns and speaks to Peter:

“Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has demanded permission to sift you like wheat;  but I have prayed for you, that your faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.”


These words have stuck like a pin in my heart . . . "I have prayed that your faith may not fail." Jesus, Himself, prayed this for Peter. Jesus knew what was coming for Peter, and HE was praying for him, for his faith, for life beyond the darkness.

At a time like this, I want Jesus praying for me, for my husband, for all three of my children. Yes, I would love healing and answers, but what I want more than anything for all five of us -- and for all those watching this from the outside -- is a faith that will not fail. A faith that grows under this intense pressure.

I need you to pray this for us, Jesus.

I know that Hebrews 7:25 (therefore He is able, once and forever, to save those who come to God through Him. He lives forever to intercede with God on their behalf) is referring to the perpetual intercession You make on our behalf for salvation, and I need you to intercede on our behalf.

Pray, Jesus, that our faith does not fail.
Refine it.
Make it flexible and not rigid so that it may bear this strain without breaking.

Pray for us, Jesus.

A Voice in the Breeze

Six years ago, I was in the middle of a very dark season of life.

One sweltering, summer day I  was at Costco filling my car's tank with gas. My kids were in the car, and I was standing there praying for God to reveal Himself to me, praying for a sign of His Presence.

Out of nowhere, a strong, cool breeze washed over my body, cooling my spirit and soothing my heart.

---

Many times, as I've filled my car's tank at Costco, I've remember how He met me that day, and how on that day He began to speak to my heart through the wind.

Today, I remembered again.

---

Today, I find myself amidst the darkest season I've yet to walk in this life -- watching my oldest son waste away in agonizing pain as the doctors scratch their heads in confusion.

I stood beside my van, the gas guzzling into the tank, and I remembered. I remembered how You met me here so long ago.

My heart wanted to ask if You were there . . . but the air was hot and was not moving.
This was not an easy question to allow my heart to breathe. It was certainly not a "gimme."
I was scared.
I was scared You would not show Yourself, that I would be more alone, somehow, after my heart released this query to You.

But I couldn't suppress the question,
though I was terrified of the answer,
afraid that the air would not move,
that the warm blanket of still air would remain around me, move in on me and suffocate me.

But I asked.



"Are You there?"

I waited in silence, aching.
Holding my breath.
Feeling the heat move in on me.
Scared that my God is not Who I thought He was.

But the faintest tickle of air brushed against my arms -- as if a guy smoking a cigar has released a puff of a smoke ring from his mouth onto my forearm. It was so faint that I stood there for a second wondering if I'd imagined it.

I looked down.

I felt it again. A tickle of air on my forearms.

The little feather sweeps of air kept coming, not strong, but Present.

"Okay. You're here."
My heart sighed a bit of relief but then choked out,

"But I need You stronger. I want You stronger."
"Here" doesn't seem to be cutting it right now. "Here" still means that my son is wasting away and in great pain, and You're not doing anything to make it stop. "Here" doesn't change the fact that my second son is carrying the weight of the possible death of his brother with him. "Here" doesn't cut the darkness with blinding light. "Here" doesn't take away the nauseating ache from my heart.

And then the tickle of air turned into a flutter of air.
And then a brush of air.
And then a gentle breeze came and caressed my whole body, and as it did, I very clearly heard, "I am coming."

The breeze kept cooling me, sweeping some of the heat from my spirit and body. "I am coming," You kept whispering.

"I am coming."

"I am coming."

---

To be honest, I don't know what His coming will look like.
I just don't know.
But I will know when He comes.

And right now, I just need to know that He's coming.