Seeing Double.

This week I have been harassed and blinded.

By unforgiveness.

I'm deceived and overcome by the tempting lie that forgiving someone means he gets to move on, scot-free and applauded by people who should love me but don't see while stumbling I bear the cost, dishonor, toil, sorrow, shame of releasing my transgressor.

For to me, it feels unfair, his freedom for my chains. How can I forgive? It feels like death.

O LORD of hosts, who tests... who sees the heart and the mind,

let me see your justice for to you have I committed my cause.

Hans gently reminded me to consider: Before God, who is more set free? Who has kept living his dying life and who has died into lasting life?

In the sight of God, Pashhur--a priest who had persecuted God's servant for speaking the true words of the LORD--is called Terror On Every Side. 

Yet to the world, it appears to be Jeremiah who represents that "Terror is on every side!"

I pray against blindness, against my worldliness.
I pray that the eyes of my heart be opened,
I pray that the double-vision be renewed.
I pray as Rebecca challenged me to when we read chapter 19:

Daddy, change our hearts. The ones that don't... see the world as You do.

You're beautiful.

o LORD, haste the day when my faith shall be sight
the clouds be rolled back as a scroll
the trumps shall resound and the LORD shall descend
even so, it is well with my soul

it is well with my soul

it is well, it is well with my soul

when we arrive on eternity's shore

where death is just a memory and tears are no more

we'll enter in as the wedding bells ring

Your bride will come together and sing

You're beautiful.

Remembering.

Mama Shiou loved me. When she passed away a year ago today, she was the only "adult" who shared a terrible secret I kept. The only parent, anyway. The three were kind to befriend me through the pain, but gently urged me to grow up through it. She knew, and she still loved me. She knew and she gave me the space to be a child. Made me feel fully known, yet fully loved. Told me I was still precious, clean, that I could still go lightly...

lots of girls walk around in tears

but that's not for you

you've been lookin all around for years

for someone to tell your troubles to

come and sit with me and talk awhile

let me see your pretty little smile

put your troubles in a little pile

and i will sort them out for you

// the white stripes

She told me not to take myself so heavily.
A beautiful necklace for a beautiful girl, she said when she fastened it on me.
Always smile at least as bright as the beads, she told me.
The picture was taken the day after God took her Home.

He loved me devastatingly. I rejected Him.
Didn't doubt His love or mercy--admitted it and spat on it.
He held onto me. He will love me to the very end.

In her absence I now know, she is not The Safe Place. The Sanctuary. or The parental arms and acceptance. My Father in heaven covers me, and gave me a taste through her. Now I see.

In all circumstances He continues to lift the veil to see what I never dared to believe: that exile was en route Home.

Notes along a mournful mountain climb.

Tasks.

They come.

As waters.

Garrison, NY. 2011 February.

As deserts.

Phoenix, AZ. 2010 February.

As mountains.

Newport, RI. 2011 March.

As goodbyes.

This one, this time, rises treacherously steep. But as the rest, it rises into life. There will be no sidestepping, no easy way through. Nor should there be, for such a prize.

But the path is lit one step and one reach at a time, with the promise of a glorious sunrise at the summit, where light and height flatten all the clefts, all the crags, all the cliffs.

Seattle, WA. 2011 January.

Just a bit farther, longer, onward, upward, is rest at last for aching calves, joy at last for aching hearts. Where the ropes and axes are done away and the rest is a matter of flying, the climb was just a little hike, and the hike was just a little while. CS Lewis, "Man or Rabbit?

***

It's dark on this climb, give me a new song to rejoice yet.
But I am sure of tomorrow's sunshine,
And sure that it is worth waiting and walking and working for.
Easter sunrise cannot come soon enough to melt the ice of the next 40 days.

sunshine, won't you be my mother

sunshine, come and help me sing

my heart is darker than these oceans

my heart is frozen underneath

***

You told me I couldn't climb this one looking and reaching behind for the comforts and dear companions of the valley plain; that backward grappling was too tense to not resent. So I hope I'll see you there. It sure would be nice to try, both of us bettered by the ascent.

If not, even so--it will be well; you are not the mountain-top nor am I.

With or without you--I'll rejoice before the LORD, before whom the mountain writhe. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feel like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places.

Hab 3, John Piper, Velvet Steel. God make our feet
like mountain deer
to rise and cleat
the narrow path.

A reflection.

The mirror kind.

I'm convinced God put him in my life so that I could see myself more clearly.

A sight of an appalling and true kind.

***

The bleed from the wound he inflicted reveals a double-sourced flow.

It stains the one hand with the blood of the defrauded crying for justice, and washes the other with the blood of the Lamb slaughtered pleading pardon for the guilty.

The pain for years bisected my faith between the LORD who meets the poor, the orphaned, the widowed, the needy--and the God who abandoned his crucified son.

I'd heard it said that the LORD my God, the LORD, was One.

I could not see it.

***

Still an ass after all these years.  Still justifying his crimes and buffering his conscience.  Said I obviously just wanted to make him feel bad.

A forgiven ass, I told him.

***

Released him, because Christ has freed me, has covered me.  Because He stands to offer the same freedom and healing to the perpetrator as to the victim. The world does not divide neatly into these categories, for all have sinned and fallen short.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

***

He responded near to Well that's nice, I've forgiven myself too.  Not sure why you felt the need to tell me, I already know all this.  I've moved on.

How could a life upheld by such grace not be transformed, I thought distinctly.

At times I feel like my Father in Heaven is giving me a cosmic noogie, and Friday afternoon was one of those times.

But for Your grace, Lord...

I would still be a slave in מצרים

Thank You for bringing me home,

for making all things new.

Night

Every color must have drained out from and into my face tonight, watching.  It felt so at least.  Terror and remembrance of two mid-Septembers ago shot through my heart and gripped me, to the pinkies of my hands and toes.  They're unsure even now, five hours later.  Unsteady.  The chatter and the din of dining noises continued, how could they?

Lips formed (help) but only a scream screeched out.  911.  God, somebody, now.  WTF.  DO IT!  Utensils dropped.  Silence.   No, God.  The other restaurant patrons must have thought me wacky, I was shaking my head, a furious cautious plea.  No no no no no, I said.  They told me it was okay.  Or that it would be.  Not if it's a repeat, no. No.  A best friend on the cusp of abundant passionate adventurous life.  No.  Not her.  Take me... You can't... Please don't.

An EMT-trained Asian guy happened to be dining there.  Helped restore order and a delicate calm before the emergency responders arrived.  It's only been a short breath of air... And, recalling that year's devastation, I can't get whirled under. Too soon. Not again. Not yet. No.

Return, O my soul, to your rest;

for the LORD has dealt bountifully with you.

He restores your soul.

If you lie down, you will not be afraid;

when you lie down, your sleep will be sweet.

For you have delivered my soul from death,

my eyes from tears,

my feet from stumbling;

You gave a wide place for my steps under me,

and my feet did not slip.

Things I didn't know I didn't know

how to ride a real bike