On the Last Page

"Mimi don't,' his voice pleaded, 'don't finish the last page!" We had begun a tradition of reading one book in the Chronicles of Narnia series every Summer. Before I would begin reading I would whisper, "Do you want to go to Narnia with me?" This was the seventh Summer the seventh book and now we were on the last page.

He left for camp on Sunday the last page still unread. He still doesn't know the how it ends but I do. This is not my first time to read these books. I have visited Narnia many times with my children and now I go there with my grandchildren. The last thing he let me read to him was, "The light ahead was growing stronger." What he didn't let me read to him was, "And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story."

"It was only the beginning of the real story." That echos the feeling I have when I read the last book in the book of books. "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more." (Revelations 21:1) The first book told the story of creation which thrilled the soul until evil was introduced with marred the beauty. In the final book evil is done away with and there is a new beginning.

"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."(Revelation 21:3)

Lord Jesus, on the last page of Your book I read Your promise, "Surely I am coming soon." I add my voice to those who say, "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen."

In the Clefts of the Rock, In the Crannies of the Cliff

She was hiding behind a wall of self consciousness even though he had sought her out with words of love. She wanted to be loved but like a dove she hid herself in the clefts of a rock. She was afraid and weak and timorous. Because she was more aware of who she was than who he was, she hid.

"O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the crannies of the cliff, let me see your face, let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet, and your face is lovely." ( Song of Solomon 2:14) Whenever I become to self focused I find it hard to leave my hiding places. Yet even in my secret places of self contempt I hear the voice of Jesus inviting me to come boldly to the throne of grace.

"Let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet" and I respond, "It is good to give thanks to the LORD, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning, and your faithfulness by night." (Psalm 91:1-2) Whenever I respond to the love that God has lavished on me by turning my eyes away from my unworthiness towards Him my heart is lifted. I become like one who has been set free.

I woke this morning while it was still dark. I sat in the pre-dawn coolness letting my heart respond to the steadfast love of God with praise. My thought and words of praise became a lamp shining in the darkness waiting for the day to dawn. Wrapped in the awareness of God's love through praise I was aware of the morning star arising in my heart.

Lord Jesus, You have invited me to begin my day with words of praise and thanksgiving drawing my attention away from my unworthiness to look instead at Your unfailing love. In the evening You call to me to remember Your faithfulness and rest in the shadow of Your wing. Forgive me for the fear my self focus brings. Help me today to lift both my face and voice to You in praise.

" but who can survive a broken spirit?"

It happens. Sometimes it happens. The wall is breached or something inside shatters and suddenly the questions and the doubts come unbidden, unwelcome and yet they come. "What if there is no God? What if it's all just a farce, a fairy tale, make believe?" With these questions comes a smothering darkness. A darkness so great that it is able to break the spirit of a man. "Who can survive a broken spirit?" (Proverbs 18:14)

When the spirit is broken the light of the eyes is extinguished we find ourselves stumbling in the darkness, shrouded by a since of hopeless futility, groping for something to hold onto. This is the place where the spirit is broken and the heart is sick and the question is asked, "Is there hope?"

A heart and spirit that has been bruised and broken needs a physician. Someone who is lost needs to be found. When Jesus came to seek and to save the lost he also came as the great physician but he came gently as a man of sorrows who was acquainted with grief. He reached out and touched blind eyes. He found those broken not only in body but in soul and mind and healed them.

I am one who has been found. I am one who has been healed. The message I bring is one of hope. The hope I have I have been given. I did not find God but He found me. He spread His healing wing around me and comforted by His presence I rested in His love and breathed in His Spirit.

Thank You Jesus for coming and finding me when I couldn't find You. Thank You that You did not stand aloof appalled by my sin and the sickness of my soul but instead You came and brought healing. Please show me how to represent You well in my generation reaching out a gentle hand to those in need. Please let me be a vessel through which Your light can shine.

An Invitation Not an Obligation

I volunteered to make a chart for the prayer vigil at camp this year. The prayer vigil covered from 9 PM til 7 AM. A teenage boy signed up for 5 AM and asked me a very honest question, "How do you wake up to pray at five in the morning?" I told him my understanding of the invitation we have to come into God's presence.

"The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son." Matthew 22:2 When I consider the invitations I find in scripture to come into God's presence through prayer I see myself invited to come into the presence of God to participate in a feast He has prepared. "So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock ad the door will be opened to you." (Luke 11:9)

In the parable Jesus told that those who were invited to the feast were unwilling to come. I see a similar problem concerning prayer, "You do not have because you so not ask." (James 4:2) In both cases the lack of desire for communion with God seems to be because the invitation is viewed more like an obligation, an unwanted obligation that interrupts plans that have already been made.

"How do you wake up at five in the morning?" Sometimes I am awaken by the words of the Song of Solomon, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me." I wake while it is still dark with a since of anticipation. I have been invited to have communion the lover of my soul, my Redeemer,Savior, High Priest and friend.

Lord Jesus, thank You for inviting me to be Your guest at the banquet table.

Part of a Bigger Story

I was asked to lead creative writing at camp last week. The theme of each session was that we are part of a bigger story. The last assignment came from my reading about Hezekiah. "Hezekiah trusted in the LORD God of Israel; not one of the kings of Judah was like him, either before him or after him." (2 Kings 18:5) Yet, when he was thirty nine years old he became terminally ill and the prophet Isaiah came to him with this message from God, "This is what the LORD says: 'Put your affairs in order, for you are about to die; you will not recover.'" (2 Kings 20:1) The question I asked was, "How would you respond if this was a message you heard from God?"

When I picked up my pencil to write the memory flooded back into my mind;

Whenever I went to visit my little sister I would smile at her three sons who were four and under. They had the ability to make the room seem more like a three ring circus than a living room. Ah, but then Steve, their daddy, would come home. He would change from his suite into clothes suitable for a romp on the floor with his boys.

"Ya'll go out and enjoy the evening they're mine for the night." A backward glance was all I needed. The Daddy was covered with his children and his face was covered with a smile.

He was a picture of health, so much so that he had been asked to be a model. He was keenly intelligent and at the age of thirty three he was already a partner in a CPA firm. He was thirty three. He was only thirty three. It was a fast growing cancer. I had seen him that Spring laughing, a boy riding on each of his legs and one in his arms, but in August two weeks before his wife, my sister, turned thirty he was dead.

I was with Trisha when she came home. I watched as she walked to the refrigerator and took the postcard someone had sent her. The postcard read, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for wholeness and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11) I held my breath and wondered how she would respond. She paused and the said, "The plan God had for Steve was Heaven but I believe that the plans He has for me are for wholeness and not evil, to give me a future and a hope."

Lord, there are somethings that happen that I just don't understand and I believe can only make since with an eternal perspective. Please help me to follow my little sister's example and trust in Your promise even if my heart is broken.

My Grandmother Taught Me

"Southern women don't sweat, they glisten." My grandmother was a southern woman and she took her role of raising me to be a gentle, strong southern lady very, very seriously! From the time I was a young girl she began to train me in what was correct and what was not correct. It was as if she was teaching me to dance to the music of the South. The music was inaudible to those who hadn't been trained to hear it and the dance steps could seem odd and old fashion to those who couldn't hear the music.

Grandmother had studied elocution at the university. She knew the art of effective public speaking. Because my grandmother was a southern lady she spoke with a gentle style and with grace. Imperative requests seemed rude but I do remember the times when my grandmother became very bold in her communication.

Grandmother not only took her role of raising me to be a gentle, strong Southern lady seriously she was also serious about teaching me what it meant to be a Christian. Grandmother believed the Bible when she read, "You don't have because you don't ask God for it." (James 4:2) Grandmother spent hours on her knees pouring out her imperative requests before the throne of God. I know because I was watching.

"Do not let you adorning be external--the braiding of hair, the wearing of gold, or the putting on of clothing--but let your adornment be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is in God's sight very precious." (1 Peter 3:3,4) I believe this kind of beauty happens when you understand that you have an invitation to come boldly before the throne of grace. Grandmother taught me to understand my heritage as a southern lady but more importantly she taught me, "how the holy women who hoped in God used to adorn themselves." (1 Peter 3:5)

Father, now it's my turn to be a grandmother. Please help to pass onto the next generation the things that were passed onto to me.

Waiting for the Dawn

The creaking of the door hinge was the only sound that interrupted the pre-dawn quiet. I took my seat and joined with all nature as we waited together for the coming of the Sun. As the light began to once more overtake the darkness I participated in the art of worship. Slowly the new day dawned, first shapes came into focus and as the Sun rose higher those dark shapes were given color. The silence was replaced by the chorus of birds. As the light unveiled the beauty around me I was reminded that all of creation is eagerly longing for the return of the LORD who, "wraps himself in light as with a garment."

Long ago when sin first entered the garden, "the creation itself was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." (Romans 8:20,21) When the ones created in God's own image rebelled against Him a curse was placed upon all of creation. Because man loved what was created more than he loved the Creator the ground was cursed, "thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you." (Genesis 3:18) As a result of this curse all of creation groans.

God is a God of beauty and creation and in the beginning when the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters His plan was to take the earth, which was then without form and void where darkness was over the face of the deep, and create light. As I read the words of Genesis again and again I see the joy of creation. "The LORD wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a tent." (Psalm 104:2) Day after day the Creator looked at His creation and saw that it was good.

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over all the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth...And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good." (Genesis 1:30) God's invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature were clearly perceived in what He had created. But the man and woman whom He created in His image did not honor Him as God but became futile in their thinking and their foolish hearts were darkened. The enemy of their soul offered them the forbidden fruit and, "Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for the images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles."(Romans 1:22,23) With the fall of man came the curse and the thorns and the thistles.

The same God who subjected His creation to futility because of the rebellion of the first Adam also gave the promise of a second Adam who would come and set it free from the bondage of decay. The second Adam, Jesus stood before Pilate and declared that His kingdom was not of this world. In mockery of Him the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. Jesus bore the curse of death and the curse of creation as He hung upon the cross. In Him the full promise of salvation was completed.

Morning by morning I join with creation in the art of worship. As the Sun rises calling forth the song of birds and revealing the beauty of all that surrounds me I am reminded that this creation like me is eagerly waiting for the return of the Son of God. There will come a day when the one who wore the crown of thorns will come and night will be no more.