Mary

I was reading this today and my heart leaped. Hearts leap, I think, every time there is an instinctive recognition! My heart does this for the clear voice of God, when I stop to listen; for rain and snow, for as long as I can remember; for babies; and for puppies and other little things; for missions; for ideas and stories that have been mine and I see in other people's writing... When I was 14, I remember describing this in a composition assignment as the germ of my idea having taken root and grown in someone else's imagination...

My heart leaps for many things (chocolate comes close, ladies!) It leaps for that unmistakable presence of God that comes in worship at church, in the process of cleaning out a stubborn stain on my jeans, or even when I'm singing barefoot in my classroom during planning time! That's a good expression. I admit to being a geek. I looked for something to tell me the background, the story of a Hebrew idiom, what it meant when the babe in Elizabeth's womb leaped for joy. The other place it's used in the Bible is when a woman is pregnant with twins. The story is that they definitely jostled each other and mummy knew it. The twins were going to be pretty important in history and they were fighting for their places! Leaping = strong emotion? Definitely. But I found no contextual interpretation. It is quite literal, I suspect.

Here's the background. An expectant Mary visits her cousin, Elizabeth, who is now pretty darn pregnant! Elizabeth has been waiting for motherhood for a really long time (if you know how that feels, back me up here!). There is joy in the encounter. And baby John kinda skips a little when the ladies are saying hello. He knew who he was meeting. Not his pregnant aunt, but someone else. Inside that cocoon of his mother's womb, he recognises the Spirit of God, now made flesh... and John's giving a little gasp and a stutter and screaming in his head 'There he is! That's him!' and wants to get out. Like your heart kinda flips over and knocks on your chest to reach out to the one you love.

Well, so here I was, my heart leaping, my head thinking about the beautiful account of the resurrection by this amazing blogger and trying to make connections. And I was struck by how another Mary's heart must have leaped on that Sabbath day.

Mary was in that dreadful waiting place with all the others when we just don't know. We think we're facing irrevocable loss. Something as final as we believe death is. Most of us haven't taken God seriously when he said he was going to raise up that temple in 3 days, anyway. We've become used to interpreting statements outside God's vision, inside the most-likely box. Some of us haven't even heard that there is more to the story. We think we've just read the last chapter and we've lost. Some of us think there might be because there is hope but it comes and goes. I know I have to hold on to it with every last ounce of strength some days. I know you all have those days. So we're... what is that word? Oh, 'coping'.

Mary's there (I'm assuming she's also the woman caught in adultery). And then there is a 'But God' moment. Mary sees him and knows in that moment, that Jesus lives.

Still that isn't what made my heart leap today. Those moments when I recognise my God, when I look and find that I'm looking into His eyes - they're beautiful. Heart-stoppingly, undeniably beautiful. And you can't but smile or grin or laugh in joy. But what made my heart leap was thinking about what made Mary's heart leap.

This - Jesus said to her, "Mary!" (John 20: 16)

He knows my name. He knows me. He knows that I sinned and pushed my limits so much that I was the black sheep of my little Magdalene community. The one that nobody really talked about at weddings and feasts, the one that everyone whispered about. He saw my demons. He cast them out. He knows. 


But He also knows just how very, very much I love Him. Because He was looking into my eyes as I faced death, and He was willing me to live. He was there daring everyone else to so much as touch me before He cold reach out and save me. And He saw the light change in my eyes, when I felt it and knew I would never be the same again. And with that one word, He turns my life around. Again. Mary. Just the sound of his voice.

And that's what really amazes me. Love so big that it hurts. That He died for me. That He knows me inside out, better than I know myself, and loves me. I am constantly learning about this God who loves me.  Despite my pastor who keeps telling us more about who God is every meeting, and God Himself who reveals more every day, I will never fully know Him because He's infinite God. But thank God that I do know Him. And this vast, this infinite, endless God with no limits, this Man who simply died and rose again because death had not a finger's hold on him... this God is my God. And this God knows me. Little, insignificant me. And because of that, I am who I am. I have my identity in Him. I am the person He made and loves and I'm growing into who He wants me to be.

And I still can't get my head around this - He knows me intimately. And when I don't see Him because I've forgotten to look, He's gonna call my name.

What's on my heart, Saturday night

Father,

I Love you so so much. But there are so many times I forget how just how much I love you! Maybe I am stupid – in fact, I am pretty foolish. God and your wisdom is so abundant that it rescues from my stupidity.

Sometimes I am almost afraid to admit my mistakes – to sit down and face you and face my inadequacies and my sin. Is this because I am afraid of the potter’s wheel? Of being slung onto the wheel and beaten into a shape that is beautiful? Lord, you don’t do the beating but when it happens, you simply love me and maybe you allow it. And in my life, it has not been terrible – you have always walked by me. Every footprint, Lord, every footprint has had another by it. Right beside it. I’m standing here in tears and as I raise my hand to wipe them away, I’m not feeling my face. I realise it’s someone else’s hand. It’s yours – you’ve been holding me all along. And my heart breaks with how much you love me.

Do I know how to respond to love? To being pursued? I am afraid that I don’t. How, Lord? How do I respond to someone who always thinks I’m beautiful? How do I know that you are the One who means it? The One who sees? El Roi. And that for you, it’s never phatic communion. It’s not everyone’s eyes that are beautiful – it’s mine. It’s my heart you desire. My love. My eyes you’re looking into when your body is broken. Me. Part of the church. Me. Broken, undesirable and yet so passionately, single-mindedly desired, because nothing is impossible for God. Me. Every single broken member of your bride. And it’s you that is beautiful, you that is glorious – and yet, I am the pursued. Father, I want to seek you and to be found by you and to know you and the power of your resurrection and the fellowship of your sufferings. This is my meagre response. Ecce, Dominus.

Headless Driving ;)

Ever heard that expression '... like a headless chicken'?? Well, I think I know its equivalent now. I've never understood, always thought it was a heartless comparison, and it usually put me off my curry ;)! Now, however, I feel like said chicken. Decisions, decisions.

Someone wisely reminded me a couple of days ago that God has these questions already answered in his perfect plan. It is comforting to remember that... That however much 'headlessness' I encounter in my everyday decisions and interactions, He's got it covered. So tonight I am going to put my goals down on paper. These are my goals. Some of them I know that God put on my heart. Others I can simply trust him with. Much of my wondering boils down to this one question which I wrote down in a blog post, on another blog.

What is it about missions and worship that makes me cry and hurt so much both with happiness and longing?

I sometimes wonder if this decision-making process would be easier if I weren't in India, in Chennai. Some day soon I'll blog more about this - hopefully it'll make you guys laugh! It almost seems as if one is answerable to everyone else but God and oneself here. Suggestions, opinions, ideas - they all become quite categorical, and turn into moral issues. And I have to struggle hard within myself to focus on the One person who must influence all my decisions, to whom all my answers must point, in the final instance. I've taken a pretty major career decision on that one pivotal idea. Now to stick it through! Whether I choose a job in the corporate sector with a fat enough pay-check for those goals, or go the teaching route on this school contract and gain the international corporate management experience in the evenings, or take up a position abroad, I'm hoping pretty hard to choose the shortest way possible to be doing both those things.

D'you know that involuntary cringe when your patient but ever so slightly annoying SatNav lady wheezes: 'Tu-urn missed! Go 2 miles and take the 2nd exit off the roundabout!... Tu-urn missed. Go 1 mile and...' Lol, and everybody in the car groans harmoniously... Uh. I'm switching on my SatNav, cranking up the volume to max. Ecce, dominus.

Ecce, Dominus

I'm starting afresh. Not life - I mean, I do that pretty frequently so it doesn't deserve an announcement... ; ) but this blog is a second attempt. One in which I will stick more closely to my own rules for blogging.

My blogging may still be a three-cornered conversation but -

I will not seek people I know (i.e. friends or family INR) to read this blog. If they find it, they find it... I'm depending on this policy as a sort of filter : P (heh!)

I will have no deadlines on blogging. It's an exercise for the soul - but part of a larger training routine! So some days I suspect it will be blogging. Other days it could just as well be music or listening... really listening.

Because through all of this, you have one of those precious, not-so-rare moments when he looks at you, in your muddy clothes and grimy face and messed-up hair - and he simply does a double-take and goes: WOW.

This morning I shared the word - on the God who is the resurrection. We studied its centrality to history and our lives. : ) One of the things we came up with was that God didn't just design you before you were born and say it was good. And then 'rest on the Sabbath'. He gets a good look at me pretty much every sordid day - and his reaction still is: You are so gorgeous.

You see, I'm not just in love with a Man who loved me so much he died for me. I'm in love with a God who did just that and lives so we can belong everyday. And lives so my foolishly inept attempts at loving back are made whole by his love. So that my extensive creativity at being able to fail will never keep him from me.

And in that 'WOW' moment, I know my sin is gone. And I know He's alive.

I guess that's what my blogging is for. I'm happy to have those 'WOW' moments alone or in community. I know there will be times I long for more readership. But I don't think I know how to get it, and I'm not going to try. But maybe, maybe there will be some times together when we look at him and at each other... and say Ecce, Dominus... and be lost in his beauty. And all of a sudden, the father will turn around and pick up his child and say: You, you are beautiful!

Maybe you and I can share just one moment like that. One laughing moment when we know he's alive because his beauty is in us.

Happy Valentine's Day!