Sunday 29 March 2015

The Holiest Ground

I am standing in my dining room. Around me are the signs and struggles of typical family life: toys and art supplies strewn around (where they should not be) a rug that needs vacuuming, half- folded washing in piles on my kitchen table....
It is a silent house.
My husband is on an errand and has taken my two little ones, lending me an opportunity I don't often have (as mothers will exquisitely understand!)
I am alone.

Just before leaving, my eight year old daughter addressed me with an urgent plea... 'Mum! don't forget the colouring competition!'
Her creativity has spilled over into a project that has filled her with excitement and a sense of urgency: she had created four identical images of bunnies collecting eggs. One for her brother, one for me and her dad and one for grandma.
On Friday she put forward her petition: 'Can you and dad please colour in the pictures before we go away on Monday?' (They are staying overnight with Grandma as it is school holidays and I have a full day at University and my husband is away on business)
She wants the competition ready for her to judge on Monday night.
My husband and I promised we would get around to it, but alas, it is Sunday evening and plans for the week ahead crush in urgently on us, cramming themselves uncomfortably into the final rays of daylight. Neither my husband or I have gotten around to the task so precious to her.

Her parting plea, instead of compelling me to action, drives me to anger.
'Don't you realise how busy mummy is? I have study and housework and I have to pack you and your brother's bags before uni tomorrow!' I send her away and I'm feeling exasperated and pressed. The disappointment in her face is the last thing I see as she leaves.

I have two hours in this silent house before they will be back.
Two hours in which I could try and do the three hours of reading required for class tomorrow.
I could begin to prepare dinner.
Hang and fold the mountain of washing.
Enjoy an indulgent and much wanted rest....

I begin my uni readings. It's sensible. It's urgent.
But.
I feel the familiar tug.
God.
He's drawing me away.
Frustrated, I retreat to my bedroom where a hasty, panicked prayer is offered up. 'But God, I have so much to do!'
And then He leads me, as He does lately, one step at a time. One foot in front of the other because it's all my hurried, jumbled brain can handle these days.

'Put your headphones on, go in the sun and colour.'

Frustrated and edgy, I gather the supplies and do as He has said.
I sit for half an hour listening to worship music as I use my son's waxy, richly hued pencils to colour in the picture my beautiful daughter has drawn.
I colour with abandon and I feel tension dissolve on the page as I stroke wild lashes of viridian green grass and ring the sun with cadmium yellow.
This simple, tactile art brings me back to a simpler time and drops an even simpler, pure message into my spirit.
This is what it's all about.
How often I forget.
How often He reminds me.

I suddenly can't wait for my daughter to arrive home.
What else can I do to make this the pleasurable experience she so desperately wants it to be?
I raid the Easter egg collection I have accumulated for next week. I choose a large bunny and tie a string around it's neck. To the string, I attach a label that says, 'The prize.'
Now the competition is really worth striving for :)
I know she will be thrilled.

I leave my entry, along with her brother's and the two blank ones, waiting to be coloured on her little table. (I will whisper in her father's ear tonight).
The prize bunny is there.
So are the crumbs from breakfast.

My perspective has returned.

God tells me quietly, 'This is the Holiest Ground.'

Where self and surrender intercept.
I take my shoes off.
The floorboards are slightly tacky beneath my feet.
My toenail polish is half worn off.
I am Moses.
This is my house, my battle ground.

And slowly, I am learning.



Friday 6 March 2015

The Consolation of God


'Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.' Jesus, The Bible.

There is a special place in the will and heart of God for those who have suffered.
In a world that is full of injustice and atrocities of the worst imaginable kind, it is easy to doubt in the goodness of a God who claims to be all powerful, all loving and completely just. Sometimes we just can't get past the Why question and it has been responsible for a huge number of people rejecting the God of the Bible. And it is completely warranted.

Why has God chosen not to interfere on a grand scale with the happenings of a world that are unjust at best, sadistic and brutal at worst? Why the holocaust, the starving children, the abused and the molested? Where is God when the world most needs Him? Like a veil or a curtain, He seems to have pulled the clouds over Himself and taken into hiding in the heavens above and beyond the accusations of His confused, hurting and angry creation.

Or has He?

Many wise and brilliant men, intellectuals and theologians alike have posed answers to The Big Question of Suffering and I am not seeking to add any great insight that they have not already revealed at a higher, more eloquent and thoroughly researched level than I am capable. I do however have my own thoughts on the issue. Thoughts birthed out of my own experiences of injustice and suffering. And this is what I have found: Nothing that I have turned over to Him has ever come back to me empty.While He didn't stop certain pains and injustices in my own life, He has removed the sting of many traumatic experiences by offering one of the things that our God seems to do best:
Consolation.

There is a strange thing that takes place when we use the pain to turn to God rather than from Him. We find a bittersweet place of abiding in the comfort of God amidst the hurt of the circumstance, the event or the memory. I thoroughly believe that this is why Jesus actually went as far as to say 'blessed' are those who mourn. Not just 'ok' or 'comforted' are those who mourn, but blessed. Those who have drunk deeply of the tender consolation of God can only agree. There is a battle in this life, but I am beginning to believe that is not about justice versus injustice but is a war for the mind. A fight to trust in a God whose ways, at times, confuse us. As autonomous humans, we tend to say to God, 'show me your proof and then I will trust you.' Both wise and frustrating is Father God's response; 'trust me and then I will show you.'