My case is urgent, and I do not see how I am to be delivered;
but this is no business of mine.
He who makes the promise will find ways and means of keeping it.
It is mine to obey His commands; it is not mine to direct His counsels.
I am His servant, not His solicitor.
I call upon Him, and He will deliver.
–C. H. Spurgeon
Third Sunday of Advent
This morning our pastor said, “Advent is not celebrated, it is observed.” I loved that distinction. We celebrate Christmas, we observe Advent. That had not crossed my mind before, but I like it. 🙂 Observe away.
So at our [fairly traditional, liturgical] church, announcements begin the service as people hush their children, gather their wits, and begin to prepare to enter the heavenlies. After that, there is a musical meditation where the congregation is encouraged to meditate and turn their hearts to worship. Then comes the official call to worship. It is generally a short responsive reading. During this Advent season, our responsive call to worship includes this:
Peace be with you.
And also with you.
Tell those who hunger for righteousness to take heart.
The Lord our God will come!
Tell the poor in spirit to take heart.
The Lord our God will come!
Tell the orphan to take heart.
The Lord our God will come!
Tell the grieving widow to take heart.
The Lord our God will come!
Warn the tyrant to keep watch.
The Lord our God will come!
Warn the unjust to keep watch.
The Lord our God will come!
Warn the haughty to keep watch.
The Lord our God will come!
I love it. And let me just add that in my head, I add “grieving family” to grieving widow, just because I do. Sigh. It’s an extra way of reminding myself of my True Hope. The Lord our God will come!
On this particular morning my dearest friend Margaret and I sang a duet for the meditation, and I wanted to share the text with you. Perhaps it doesn’t seem necessarily Advent-ish. But, oh, yes it is! As we recall the first advent of Christ, we simultaneously look forward with eagerness to His second advent! That is what this song focuses on. I love the first and last verses the most. Especially the last one. Oh, how I love the resounding call for Christ to claim His Kingdom, for He alone shall reign! Amen!
Lo! He comes, with clouds descending,
once for our salvation slain;
thousand thousand saints attending
swell the triumph of His train:
Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia!
Christ the Lord returns to reign.
Every eye shall now behold Him,
robed in dreadful majesty;
those who set at nought and sold Him,
pierced, and nailed Him to the tree,
deeply wailing, deeply wailing, deeply wailing,
shall the true Messiah see.
Those dear tokens of His passion
still His dazzling body bears,
cause of endless exultation
to His ransomed worshipers;
with what rapture, with what rapture, with what rapture
gaze we on those glorious scars!
Now redemption, long expected,
see in solemn pomp appear;
all His saints, by man rejected,
now shall meet Him in the air:
Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia!
See the day of God appear!
Yes, amen! let all adore Thee,
high on Thine eternal throne;
Savior, take the power and glory;
claim the Kingdom for Thine own:
Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia!
Thou shalt reign, and Thou alone.
~Words: John Cennick (1718-1755), 1752;
as altered by Charles Wesley (1707-1788), 1758;
and then altered by Martin Madan (1726-1790), 1760
One Year Later, Same Place
A year ago (plus a few days) I began reading Nancy Guthrie’s book, The One Year Book Of Hope. I started crying before I even got through the introduction, and declared that it was my new lifeline. And it really was. I gleaned so much blessing and encouragement from that book!
I read it off & on, sometimes doing just one page a day, and sometimes cramming five pages (which is considered a week’s worth, in its layout) into just one day.
And then suddenly, I was done with it. Finished.
That was three weeks ago.
I hadn’t realized that it had taken me just about exactly a year (slightly less) to read it. To chew on it. To swallow it. To digest it.
And now it’s done.
But here I am, feeling like I am still standing in the same place I was standing a year ago. I am not done.
I think a large part of it has to do with the fact that many people (I was going to say most, but don’t want to go that far) experience one event of grief, and then get to work on healing and eventually do find hope and even move onward & forward. That just isn’t part of my story. My story isn’t one event of grief. It is recurrent. It keeps coming. It keeps happening. And the next event happens before I have been able to heal and find hope and move onward or forward.
When I began reading the One Year Book Of Hope, I think I assumed that after a year of plowing through these pages, I would be different. That I would find my grief balmed. That my heart would actually be more hopeful.
And while I do feel like some things are different, I have grown and changed and matured some… many things (this is a place where I probably could get away with saying most) are still the same. And some things are worse.
But I still love this book. I still give it away when I can. And I always recommend it.
The last section of the book was the hardest to read. I am still chewing it, unsure how I will swallow it, and wondering if I can ever actually digest it properly. Here are some glimpses from that section:
[Written to her daughter, in heaven] I want to wake up and find you here. But you are so far away and becoming even more distant in my memory, and it is so painful… Forgive me for going on with life without you… It just keeps moving farther and farther away.
Some days I wonder if the letting go will ever stop. After Hope’s death, I had to let go of her physical body, my dreams for her, and so many of her things. I let go of her room and turned it back into a guest room. Then came Gabe, and I had to let go of him along with my hopes for Matt to have a sibling… Every ripping away takes a piece of us with it, leaving us raw and stinging with pain.
They say you find out who your friends are when the chips are down… My expectations of those around us were high, and I was often disappointed… I learned that some people are called by God to minister grace in the hard places. Some people aren’t… But don’t think I’m naive. I know that some people are just too self-centered to share your pain. But I’ve come to realize that so much we label as uncaring is simply an inability to overcome the awkwardness and fear of doing or saying the wrong thing.
Those of us connected to the body of Christ experience the tangible love of Jesus through the care and concern of others. Our needs become their concerns… Don’t be afraid they’ll forget. Don’t be afraid they’ll think you’re fine when you are still hurting deeply.
It takes a conscious choice to turn conversations away from my pain, to stop trying to make sure everyone understands my hurt and has considered my feelings. But it is a step toward normalization, and a step closer to Christ.
There is a tyranny in grief. We realize at some point that we have to figure out how to keep on living, how to incorporate the loss into our lives. We want to feel normal again, to feel joy again. But the energy and emotion of grief keep us feeling close to the one we love or connected to what we’ve lost. Letting go of our grief feels like letting go of the one we love… The very idea of it is unbearable.
As I continue to walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and as I mourn the death of my youngest son, I realize that the steps I had taken forward after losing Mercy (I was pregnant with her when I began this book) were lost as I went backwards when I then lost Victory. And while I took some steps forward again after that, I have now again moved backwards in my grieving journey as I grieve my Hosanna-boy.
So while I just finished reading The One Year Book Of Hope, I am kind of thinking it’s time to start all over again. From scratch. Because that’s what my grief has done.
Started all over again.
From scratch.
Second Sunday of Advent
We sang “Wake, Awake, for Night is Flying” (by Philip Niccoli, written in the 16th century) in worship today, and the last verse really catches me. I like both of these translations of the verse:
Now let all the heavens adore thee, and saints and angels sing before thee, with harp and cymbal's clearest tone; of one pearl each shining portal, where we are with the choir immortal of angels round thy dazzling throne; nor eye hath seen, nor ear hath yet attained to hear what there is ours; but we rejoice and sing to thee our hymn of joy eternally.Now let all the heav'ns adore Thee, Let men and angels sing before Thee, With harp and cymbal's clearest tone. Of one pearl each shining portal, Where, dwelling with the choir immortal, We gather round Thy radiant throne. No vision ever brought, No ear hath ever caught, Such great glory; Therefore will we Eternally Sing hymns of praise and joy to Thee.Something about those words reminds me of how we ascend into the heavenlies on Sunday when we worship, and that it’s then that my family is complete, and where I get to worship with all my sons & daughters gathered around the radiant throne of God, and how someday I will get to hear the great and glorious praise, and join in it eternally with the saints. That thought is grand.
Also… the sermon was on Psalm 80. I call and cry out these words to God myself. Plus I really love the refrain from that song of Asaph:
Psalm 80:3, 7, 14
Restore us, O God;
let Your face shine, that we may be saved!
Restore us, O God of hosts;
let Your face shine, that we may be saved!
Restore us, O LORD God of hosts!
Let Your face shine, that we may be saved!We are doing our nightly (or close to it…) routine of reading (we’re in this book this year), singing, praying, and eating Lindt Lindor truffles. Gabriel loved it last year, and of course the passage of time has not changed a thing in that regard. 🙂
Lord Jesus, You are the light that shines in the darkness. Remind us to turn to You, to call out to You, when we feel we’re being swallowed by darkness, by doubts, by troubles and frustrations. Thank You for the very fact of our being.
~G.K.C~And just so you know… this is a must read from Mrs. Wilson, if you haven’t already done so.
Christmas is an emergency! Get a thousand bucks out of your savings and whoop it up with your kids.
~Mrs. W~
Charlie Brown Christmas
After discussing it with my hubby, we decided to cut down a tree on Thanksgiving at my parents’ house, according to our usual tradition. We almost didn’t, and then we changed our mind. So we walked down the hill and cut down a pretty Charlie Brownish tree; it all took about six minutes. I figured that if I got home and decided my heart just really couldn’t handle putting it up in our house, we didn’t have to. So we put it in the garage that night, and by the next day I knew I did want to put it up. So we did. I didn’t want the empty space “where the tree would have been” connected to all those horrible what-ifs and shoulda-beens. The tree is the less of the two stings, I guess.
We usually do lots of decorations and make our whole house really festive, right down to the potholders, hand towels, and dishes. This year, nope. As hubby puts it, we’re doing meager decorations for a meager year. Maybe next year will be different (and maybe not).
I think the tree is very representative of my heart right now: not the biggest, sparkliest, most festive thing in the world… but doggone it, I’m sure trying to fake it till I make it!
So it’s low key, but it’s there. And it’s a good compromise. And I did put out a couple other decorations (Advent calendar, Advent candles, snowglobe, and a wreath) and pulled out 3 of our Christmas mugs. Everything else went back in the boxes and back to the basement. Someday, I will do the whole shibang again. Someday.
So for this year, we are having a Charlie Brown Christmas. And it suits.