Eugh

My mood is one that defies expression in coherent, English words.

It looks at the alphabet and growls, unintelligible.

It's all sound and fury, signifying nothing though. Growls, snaps and snarls to distract, to cover, and to protect what's beneath.

Questions, hurt, and impatience roil beneath the surface. A maelstrom of a cocktail, waiting, always waiting. Blessedly, they are not the same questions as they've been before. They've changed, grown and shifted along with the faultlines from the ever-long year.

Treasured in a bottle

It's only in the quiet moments that it makes itself known.

Only when the noise of the day finally stills.

And the ache escapes like the whisper of a sigh from the box it's been kept in, tightly chained and padlocked against escape.

Tears track silent prayers.

Inhale.

Exhale.

And on the out, more tears escape.

It's a quiet litany of confession and brokenness, need, ache and longing.

Above all longing.

And all too soon the moment passes, and everything is corralled back to the box. The chain is tightened and the lock replaced.

And so few are the wiser.

Looking

Looking for the right words this afternoon.
For now, let's leave it at "this song has been on repeat."

Jesus has overcome

...and the grave is overwhelmed.

We bear the light of the Son of Man, so there's nothing left to fear.

Bits of songs, sayings and verses run through my mind tonight.

Nothing so coherent as to form a complete idea. Even songs put on repeat slip, sliding back into the eddy of half-voiced thoughts that's taken up residence where a mind and heart should be.

Why did you say yes?

You could have said no.

You knew- and you know- how I feel about it.

You say you never wanted to hurt me. But you didn't hesitate. You said yes, and then worried for days about how I'd feel.

What am I supposed to say? You matter to me. Our friendship is one of the best I've known. So I'll gather up the pieces and box them away. You'll never know how hurt and disappointed I am. I'll get the point where I can look you in the eye again and act as if nothing happened. To be able to laugh and joke and share again. Somehow.

It's going to take a while to get put back together.

Coffee preaching

I didn't know I was praying for myself.

I sat down at the table next to them and soon realized that I had become an accidental voyeur to a holy moment. 

He's only about my age, but he's preaching up a storm to his coffee buddy. I started praying that his words would be heard, that his audience would listen and understand. 

The more that I listened- without even intending to- the more I realized that I needed to hear what he was preaching too.

He's drawing analogies  I understand and.... 

and now he's gone.

I get up to follow, to thank him, but he's gone. 

Realizing you're asleep

Thinking a lot about the Truths behind this song today:



Really not just about marriage.

Time and place

The radio is quietly blaring- if such a thing were possible.

Then again, the lingering headache may have something to do with it.
The headache that is nothing if not persistent in its erosion of brain cells.

The parking lot is busy even out here in the back forty. The entire east side, it seems, is shopping this afternoon.

It's October and yet I'm sweating. But, to be fair, that may be due to the lingering fever I refuse to acknowledge.

Now that I've parked, the tired that's been gnawing away at the edges returns to front-and-center, so I slide sideways- taking advantage of the bench seat- and somehow find myself folded around the shifter and the seat buckles.

From this new vantage point, the radio seems louder, the sky seems bigger around the windows and roof of the truck cab, and the neural implosion has somewhat lessened its percussive ricocheting.

Somehow, quietly, it all seems so real.

The sick, broken and needy sighing for rescue; Whispering words they half-expect to never be heard.

"But when he saw the multitudes he was moved with compassion on them, because the fainted, and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd."

The old Story that plays again on the radio sings it's way back into my heart.

Over and over, "moved with compassion," the Hero becomes part of the story He wrote.  

The heat is comforting, reassuring and grounding.

Shades of meaning

Thinking today about the differences between "Suffering," "Suffering for" and "Suffering with."

What do YOU think?

Earn these shields boys

Is it strange to cheer for men long dead, and battles long ago fought?
Larger-than-life characters drawn in the massive brush strokes of time?

Pheidippides making his final run to Athens.

and collapsing into death.

"This day the common cause of all demands your valour!" cheers Aeschylus at the battle at Salamis.
Empires built and collapsing on the weight of ideas. New dawns and blood-red settings of old ways.

The age of heroes looks far different now.

"Good, then we will fight in the shade."

Ice Cream

From the Archive Aug. 28, 2008


I found Central Asia in a cup of ice cream the other day.
I stood in the parking lot, spoon in hand, as I realized what has happening. I never expected it, never saw it coming, but there it was; sounds, smells and sights faded, tinged with time and distance.
And almost superimposed, like an epiphany in another language, I saw my surroundings.
The bustling, dusty streets of Central Asia were replaced with the paved, sporadically quiet streets that intersected nearby. I stood between the gas pump and my car and listened to the muted sounds of people talking in a nearby vehicle. They spoke my own language. The smells were different too from the memory playing in my mind: cleaner, less infected, but also less fresh.
As I thought about it some time later, this time eating ice cream that was only ice cream, I realized it was a gift and a promise of sorts.
A gift- a quiet, peaceful moment in the middle of an otherwise less-than-pleasant day.
A promise, a whispered, "I am here too."
But in that moment, on that day, I ate slowly; relishing the travel it allowed me.

Lightsabers

From the Archives Sept. 14, 2008
He flips the switch, and watching, you mentally fill in the distinctive thrum of the lightsaber. 
The warrior's eyes narrow, he takes his stance against his opponents, and opens, spinning into his first strike.
The blue light of the weapon is easily seen in the dim, overcast barn. Even more noticible is the fight taking place between the three opponents.
Circling each other, two of the brothers are unarmed, watching for an opening, while the third twists and turns, attempting to defend himself. 
Even from fifty feet away you can hear the scuffle of worn leather boots against the cement floor. The fight doesn't last long. It's difficult, though, to tell who won the battle when the fighters are laughing and slapping each other on the back.
The boys retreat to where their father is sitting nearby. He's next to the sheep pen, shearing one of the animals.
The former combatants relax, propping legs clad in worn denim against folding chairs and corral slats. All of them sit down- leaning isn't really effective when you can't reach the top of the pen. There's a little bit of straightening, tugging buttondown plaid shirts in a little straighter and making sure they're all still fairly clean. 
Having finished, the father sits with his sons, relaxing now that the work's done.

Marble

From the Archives Nov. 6, 2008...


It's not quite quiet. The wind blows, slipping over the vaulted roof, cutting and whistling across the outside tiles. Traffic sounds come through too. Noises full of engines, rubber and gasoline.
The insulated calm is cracked, reverberating and breaking heavily from the marbled floor to the roof. 
He settles in the back, full of sound, creaking and descriptive. 
He's all shuffles, bumps, rustles and groans. A pause when he figures out how to get settled, and then an echoing thud as he sits down.
"Hello, Lord Jesus."
His voice is easily understood. 
The surprise lasts a moment. His impromptu audience unsure of how to react. 
And so he continues, muttered words that hover on the edge of comprehension.
"And I ask your blessing."
Names and causes float upward, spreading. Mumbled words continue, slipping out in the cadence of conversation. It's no longer akward to listen; these accidental voyeurs.
Biting back a groan, he shifts and continues. His words eventually fade to silence, interrupted only by wooden creaking as he periodically moves. 
He hasn't come to pay homage to the glass or the marble. He doesn't lift his head to the intricate carvings or alcoves. He has come, it seems, to do business.
And when the not-quite-quiet returns, it feels almost fractured.

I shall not be moved

From the Archives, Aug. 19, 2009...

"I shall, I shall, I shall not be moved."
" I shall, I shall, I shall not be moved..."

A thin, persistant voice drifts across the hallway. Fragments of a conversation follow. Some are from the present, others from a past nearly forgotten. All circle back to a main theme.

"Just like a tree, planted by the water, Lord, I shall not be moved."

A nurse comes in and a chorus of beeps and alerts accompany a dialogue that has been revisted at least sixteen times already. She leaves again to tend to less vocal, more restive charges.

"... all because we do not carry, everything to God..."

The voice breaks off midway through the second verse. It segues disjointedly into a discussion over what is and is not expected behavior. The nurse has come back, having called reinforcements. It's explained that they are there to look out for, to take care of the voice and its body. That this is not home, but it is safe. Blankets are adjusted, pillows fluffed, and silence descends.

Outside, the sky splits, cracking silently, a white-hot cut across the world framed by the window. The lightning only comes sporadically now. The air quiets, calming.

"Are you weary, weak and heavy laden? Tell it to Jesus..."

Once again the voice begins. The words and rhythm perfect, even if the notes are not. Its body is too weak to remember what it was told. It sings itself almost to sleep, finally quieted by the one thing that outlasts everything else that has been broken.

Well that was odd

It wasn’t quite a gag, and not even a cough.

Maybe a hack?

The noise echoed in the commercial-size bathroom, the tiles muffling and distorting its pitch.

A small woman in a camo shirt stood at the sink, washing her hands. She apologizes for the noise, saying her throat had become stuck.

“The economy here, many people say it is the best in the world.”

Her energy matches her hair, tight, expressive and memorable.

You can almost hear the electrical thrum as she explains that she’s discovered something incredible.  

“America is the greatest nation in the world,” she shares with a conspiratorial whisper.

Her grandmother, she continues, was told by spirits that she- unborn at the time- would protect the greatest nation in the world. Only recently, she says, has she come to understand her destiny.

She nearly vibrates with enthusiasm as she reaches out to touch my arm, asking if I would pray for her, and did I know God?

“I do know God,” I answer with increasing curiousity and feeling, I add that I would love to pray for her.

We have introductions and hug. 

I ask her if she knows God.

She says yes, of course.

With building energy continues, “Yes, I do! I have the intuition as a gift. I can see in the hearts of people. I see many warriors. Beauty is within, not from without. Some people do not see beyond the outside of me.”

I tell her she is beautiful, and her English is very good.

She thanks me.

She sees the spirits, she says. The ghosts. Those who have been before, she explains, are still here, and enter in when one is born. She asks if I understand.

I’m not able to follow her there. I tell her I have not heard of this.

She smiles, shaking her head in the negative. “You know of this. If you did not, I would not have spoken to you. I see it in you.”

Wanting to pursue the topic, but meeting resistance, I again promise to pray.

She acts unsurprised—having seemingly been confident before she even asked that I would agree to bring her before the King.

She asks my name again, I once again tell her, and tell her that it’s been a pleasure to meet her.

We embrace once more and walk out of the echoing, tiled bathroom.

We’re sitting just a table away.

Her back is to me; she pours over her computer, studying fervently for her upcoming test. I’m all but invisible to her. She doesn’t even look up.

Watching her livewire hair, I’m not sure what just happened.

Some days...

Simon: Are you always this sentimental? 
Mal: I had a good day. 
Simon: You had the Alliance on you, criminals and savages... Half the people on the ship have been shot or wounded including yourself, and you're harboring known fugitives. 
Mal: Well, we're still flying. 
Simon: That's not much. 
Mal: It's enough. 

Oh God, please.
Please
Kyrie Eleison
Christi Eleison

Well this sucks.

No words and the sky

Language starts to fail in the utter quiet and open skies of gravel roads blanked in the weight of a summer night.

Three-digit heat has slowly succumbed to the occasional breeze, but it's still warm enough to melt the ice in a Nalgene.

Lying back- Army-issued wool spread over the dust- the sky unfolds. A study in depth and subtle shading, the stars are suddenly so much more visible, more alive and promising.

And language fails.

Doubt thou the stars are fire, 

Doubt that the sun doth move,

Doubt truth to be a liar,

But never doubt I love.

Hamlet

Pops and groans come from the engine as it settles, releasing heat. It's not enough though to disrupt the hush. 

The Big Dipper crackles with heat lightning at the horizon, breathing promise of rain.

The moment is short, but eternal, h

ung between the mundane and the Divine.

Johnny Cash and Kia

"There ain't no grave can hold my body down..."


Johnny's tired voice is accented heavily with dragging chains. He sounds hopeful, in spite of his exhaustion.


The Kia's headlights are surprisingly bright for such a toy car. Out here though, there isn't really any other light. Scattered trees throw huge, looming shadows on the ground behind.


Besides Johnny, there isn't really another sound other than the tires on the pavement. 


Distance and time are hard to judge. How to measure, except in the lines of the song, when it's the near-exact tree and the almost-replica billboard, and so on? 


The shadow and the lights, and the tires and Johnny combine to make an almost ethereal atmosphere. 


"When I hear that trumpet sound, I'm gonna rise right out of the ground..."


Grotesques loom and flare in the passing light. 


From the corner of your eye, it's almost believable that unimaginable horrors, possibilities and unknowns lurk just out of cognitive sight. 


Miles melt away as the songs progress. Life, death, past, future, hope and sadness; Johnny sings about them all. 


And somehow, just outside the uncracked windshield, the shadows try to say the same things.

From the vault...

From Jan. 31, 2006

  I sit at my keyboard, thoughts slowly turning, not ever quite coalescing into definite shapes, ideas. A vague sort of feeling to describe an even more vague train of thought.
      On my way to and from work this week I drove past a European automobile showcase floor, sandwiched between office buildings and the local chapter of some variety of guild. A few blocks later I passed derelict apartment buildings, uncared for since their haphazard construction.
      A little earlier in the week I sat in the quiet, cool halls of the Federal Courthouse, sent there by work to get information on a case. The hush of the marble halls and the faux-marble pillars adorning the courtroom doors conveyed a silent message of some kind.
     When I was at the library, a weather-beaten man, wrinkled but clean, looked up as I walked past. He nodded his head, but when I smiled at him, his face lit up, opened.
      In class today I was told that the sun is going to burn out in 3 billion years. That "stars are made of other stars." Now, I wasn't left with a feeling of impending doom after such a dire prediction, but rather with a sense of wonder that it hadn't already burnt out. We exist in such a delicate balance. We lose touch, perhaps, with simpler things.
      And then there are the people. The harried executive, immaculate in his suit but weighed down with a briefcase and a cell phone, the man sleeping on the cold wrought iron bench and the teenager happily snapping pictures with her acne-plagued boyfriend.
      I walked along the side of the street, my heels clicking as I crossed. All the while the sun still warms the air, lighting the sky.
     A symbol, a covenant that I- along with the European auto show floor, the tenants of the dilapidated apartment buildings, the message broadcast in a whisper from the courthouse, the weather-beaten men, the harried business executive and the young lovers- are treasured by the Lord and not forgotten.

From A. Peterson....

It's enough to drive a man crazy; it'll break a man's faith 
It's enough to make him wonder if he's ever been sane 
When he's bleating for comfort from Thy staff and Thy rod 
And the heaven's only answer is the silence of God 

It'll shake a man's timbers when he loses his heart 
When he has to remember what broke him apart 
This yoke may be easy, but this burden is not 
When the crying fields are frozen by the silence of God 

And if a man has got to listen to the voices of the mob 
Who are reeling in the throes of all the happiness they've got 
When they tell you all their troubles have been nailed up to that cross 
Then what about the times when even followers get lost? 
'Cause we all get lost sometimes... 

There's a statue of Jesus on a monastery knoll 
In the hills of Kentucky, all quiet and cold 
And He's kneeling in the garden, as silent as a Stone 
All His friends are sleeping and He's weeping all alone 

And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot 
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought 
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God 
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not 
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not 
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God
-
Tonight, I've got no words of my own to add.

Flotsam and jetsam

My thoughts are blown back and forth today.
It's windy outside; windy and warm.
And like leaves on the tree in the yard, my thoughts are tossed, back and forth, sometimes coalescing into a semblance of calm, mostly just slipping over one another and knotting together only to be drawn apart.
This is not a productive mental environment.
I want answers and accomplishment. I also want to skip out on work and spend the rest of the day chasing after the elusive flotsam and jetsam of half-formed feelings and ideas.
Now though, I'm out of ice cream and the coffee is running low...

Investments and funeral clothes

What color clothing do you wear to the funeral of a good woman?
The funeral of a woman you barely remember, but who influenced your life and others so profoundly that her and her husband's initial investments still reverberate with deep, sonorous echoes in lives throughout the city and country.
Is she most honored with the deeply respectful black dress clothes? Or, is it more appropriate to dress to celebrate a life well lived and a reward and reunion finally gained?

The funeral was small. Her death unheralded. And, for the most part, not unexpected. The tiny funerary chapel was nearly filled with attendees who- if their sartorial choices were any indication- represented the spectrum of class, occupation, and background.

And as the old story was told again, several points became clear in the repetition.

- You can trust Him, a life based on that trust is witness and proof to that truth.
- Spiritual investment demands and expects a return.
- Resources are tools. You can't outgive God.

Think, it was said, of how different her and her husband's lives would have been if they hadn't spent thousands, upon thousands of dollars feeding other people's children.

How different my life would have been were it not for that investment.

Tank tops and head scarves

I thought I had come for the tank tops.

Bright, candy colored with just a hint of lace, the half-shirts were on special sale for just the weekend.

It had taken me almost 3 hours of rush hour traffic complicated by hydrochloric acid spills, angry commuters, several helicopters, and a truck that dripped life blood oil with every turn of the engine.

By the time I finally found the monolithic shopping experience somehow hidden between the parking garages and on-ramps, I was ready to turn around and call it a day, or rather evening.

But on the principle of the matter, and in the name of crazy low prices, the truck was parked- leaving the oil to slowly pool- and I went inside.

The capitalism was almost breathtaking in its totality. Everything- from the carpets, to the scent, not to mention the merchandise- breathed a collective agreement of affluence and possibility.

I, however, was determined to not fall sway. Regular priced merchandise was for those poor shoppers not able to distinguish between the glamorous facade and reality. I was there to buy sale items.

Hurrying by one of many bay windows looking out over the ever-lengthening lines of angry drivers, I almost missed them.

I saw the women first. They looked almost bored. Or if not bored, certainly out of place. Their covered heads were both bowed, talking quietly to each other and to the children in their laps.

The men were several chairs away. They sat with perfect posture, feet squared and shoulders back. They faced the window, and the setting sun.

Not going to lie, I slowed down, trying to figure out what they were doing.

Both men looked straight ahead. Their lips moved in a muttered cadence and they rhythmically leaned forward, ever so slightly, and then back again.

Not wanting to completely stop and gawk- my Mama did raise me with some manners- I kept going.

The scene sunk in a couple hundred feet later.

They were praying.

In the middle of all this, this Stuff, they stopped to follow the dictates of a religion that held higher precedence than the endless financial ebb and flow that surrounded them.

I wasn't sure if I was crying for the futility of their belief or from conviction as to the lack of passion that sometimes plagues mine.

I still hadn't figured it out when I left the store carrying a bag with more tank tops than I needed.

I walked back the way I came, this time slower, trying to catch a better glimpse.

It was too late. They were finished.

Identity and Disney pop music

It's almost embarrassing to admit- or think about- how many times I've listened to this song today.

"You are the thunder and I am the lightning/And I love the way you know who you are/and to me it's exciting when you know it's meant to be..."

She's got a good voice, nice range, and could have real promise when she actually grows up. 

She's very Disney.

Something about the song though has caught me from the first couple of beats, half-heard as they played in another room.

Maybe it's the theme? 

The danceable beat?

I avoided thinking about it for the better part of the day. 


In the meantime, "Everything comes naturally when you're with me, Baby..." dance-popped through my head.

Finally, the thought pounced, leaping from behind the thick veil of musical elitism it had been crouching behind.

It's the confidence she sings about.

That's what got its hooks into me.

Lifetime movies and lots of questions

I'm sitting here, alone, watching a Lifetime movie on a Sunday evening and feeling not a little envious.

She's beautiful. A not-so-ugly duckling transformed into a gorgeous swan before the movie's end. Shiny, buckets of cliche later, she's come to the realization that she can write her own happy ending. She's also gotten a book published under false pretenses, had a stunningly handsome publishing mogul's son fall in love with her, and had not 16 Cinderella references made.

It's cliche, overplayed, and wonderful.

It's a world where personal resolve and the right shoes can reweave the fabric of your life. Where the right clothes and a can-do attitude are the passkey to Tall, Dark and Handsome. Most of all, everything wraps up neatly and with no unresolved questions.

And tonight I want it badly.

Biscuits and gravy, denim and leather

Her mouth had more gaps than teeth.

She greeted me, smiling, with a "Hey, Darlin', what can I get you?" And, handing me a menu and a silverware set, passed me off into a booth that glittered with decades-old vinyl.

I sat, nearly swallowed in the broken springs and cracked seat, and obediently perused the menu. She took my order and left. 

It's an interesting collection of patrons who collect at a 24-hour diner at five minutes to 10 at night.

Across the restaurant, a weathered blonde woman dressed in head-to-toe denim and leather sat with her back to the door and jukebox. She was a regular, familiar with both the food and the patrons.

The cook wandered out from the kitchen, his formerly white apron tied haphazardly around his waist. Locating the dish bin, he wandered back. 

My waitress came back with a "honey," and a "sugar," left me my black coffee and biscuits and gravy.

She turned, distracted by her sister and brother-in-law coming in, and left me alone.

Texas biscuits and gravy aren't quite the best in the world, but they're close. Combined with strong coffee and a good dose of welcoming, they go a long way toward creating a bit of a haven on a cold Friday night.

I sat there, mopping up the lakes of gravy that pooled in the corners of my plate, and realized I had been missing this sense of grounding. 

New running shoes and old hurts

He nearly had me convinced.

He crouched there, showing off the features of the brand new, ultra technological, medically perfect running shoes. Not only would these shoes make my running stride ideal, they'd also help just about every other bone in my body.

They were also cute.

I sat on the bench, a bit entranced to be honest, trying to let myself be convinced to buy these podiatric wonders. I need to run, right? I need to be healthy while doing it, right? After all, my tolerance for nearly losing it is diminished after a while. Also, he had a South African accent. And that's just cool.

Common sense won out though. I realized one of the most upscale athletic stores in the city was probably not the wisest place to buy footwear. Or really anything.

Once I put my old shoes back on though, I realized my feet hurt. And they hurt bad. There was only a problem, mind you, after they knew what they were missing. Before, fine. After, lots of pain.

I think sometimes my heart and soul are the same way.

I don't see the ways I'm broken and hurting until they sound in sharp relief to a different situation.

Once I feel that something could be better, that healing could come, it's hard to go back to enduring the sting of sharp edges and cracked borders.

I don't have the perspective to really understand the right questions to ask as I process through what's happened this last stretch of life. Unlike the Shoe Manager, I can't tell what's going on or how to heal just by looking. 

What I can do is run hard- broken, painful feet and all- after the One who does know. 

I think He'll be ok with my old tennis shoes.

Running and bananas

Running with terrible allergies and a barely settled stomach after a banana breakfast is a terrible idea.

This morning I woke up seized by an intense desire to get sweaty and healthy. This also was a terrible idea.

Just wanted to put that out there.

My friend and I went running this morning with the plan to go eat afterward. I had a banana for breakfast before leaving, thinking it'd be a good idea to have something in my stomach before heading out. I was proved wrong.

As my muscles were screaming at me to stop this foolishness, while trying to remember when the last time I actually went running was, and my sinuses and stomach were getting  rowdy too. My feet pounded on.

It all came to a terrible head that left me spasming in the grass trying not to completely lose it. My friend watched from a distance. I hope we're still friends.

My body is rebelling against me as it protests the punishment I've put it through. I'm thinking the rest of me is going to be on strike a lot longer though.

Typing with eyes shut...

And so the last chapter of life smacked shut.

Somewhere between a whimper and a bang, that part of life came to a screeching close. It was completely done, coming to a natural end not a moment before it was meant to; and yet it did so with all the grace of a hurtling sofa.

Six hours of driving, 48 ounces of Mountain Dew, a Red Bull and some granola later, I find myself at the beginning of What's Next.

Whatever that means.

As I am not blessed with the gift of clairvoyance, I'm left with a limited number of options.

I can try to guess, which- let's be honest- doesn't have too very great of a track record of proving successful, or try and get some sleep and let Dad worry about it.

This is going to take some time, I think, to bridge this transition.

Six questions: Sixth Question

If you are the God of All Comfort, why aren’t you comforting me?

“Lord, if this is the way you treat your friends, it’s no surprise you have so few.” 

Teresa of Avila

It all depends on what you want comforted.

According to the Webster Dictionary, “comfort” can mean a number of different things, including “to give strength and hope to” and “to ease the grief or trouble of.” The word comes from the Latin, “confortare” meaning, “to strengthen greatly.”

Never once did Jesus promise the kind of fluffy lovelies and nice fabric softener comfort that’s perhaps associated with the word.

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground. (Hebrews 11:32-38)

And these were only those heroes of faith before Jesus came! “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” (Hebrews 11:39-40) Conservatively speaking, the persecution has increased.

God’s promise is this: that we are his.

“Fears and scruples shake us: in the great hand of God I stand; and thence against the undivulged pretence I fight of treasonous malice.” (Shakespeare)

“See now that I myself am He! There is no god beside me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand.” (Deut. 32:39) “I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed—I, and not some foreign god among you. ‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘that I am God. Yes, and from ancient days I am he. No one can deliver out of my hand. When I act, who can reverse it?’” (Isaiah 43:11-13)

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3)

“In the world they had trouble, but in Christ they had peace.” (Matthew Henry commentary on 2 Cor. 1)

We’re comforted—or strengthened greatly—by God who has given us a name, a purpose and a destiny. He’s rescued us from “the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.” (Col. 1:13)

There are times in life, however, when a deeper, more painful question emerges. A little afraid to even voice the question, we whisper, “If you’re the God of All Comfort, why aren’t you comforting me?”

American playwright Thornton Wilder wrote a single act play called “The Angel Troubled the Waters.”

Broken, sick and wounded people are gathered around a pool. They wait—some for days—for an angel to come and stir the waters of the pool (From John 5). Tradition has, it is said, that the first into the pool after the angel troubles the waters will be healed.

A newcomer, a doctor, comes today. He prays, “Free me, long-expected love, from this old burden. Since I cannot stay, since I must return into the city, come now, renewal, come, release.” (Thornton Wilder)

Another invalid waiting at the pool tells the newcomer that if he were to be the first, that the cure would be wasted, as he is not as sick as some.

An angel comes—visible only to the doctor—and kneels, finger poised over the water.

The doctor begins to beg, asking that the angel heal him, that he be free from his burden and melancholy. Repeatedly, the angel tells him, “Healing is not for you.”

The doctor asks again, pleading on the basis of the good that he could accomplish if only he were healed. He begs, “Must I drag my shame, prince and singer, all my days more bowed than my neighbor?” (Thornton Wilder)

The angel pauses a moment and answers, “Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on Earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love’s service only wounded soldiers can serve. Physician, draw back.” (Thornton Wilder)

Perhaps the last line can be rephrased as, In Christ’s service, only wounded soldiers can serve. We don’t have the wisdom or perspective to see how our continued brokenness—our lack of healing—serves the advances of God’s purpose.

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort – we get a full measure of that, too. (MSG 2 Cor. 1:3-5)