To the Mom Who's Barely Hanging On

It was midnight.

I was awake.

I do not like being awake at midnight.

I did not fall back asleep until 3 a.m.

What was I doing? I wasn't sure. I wasn't sleeping, I knew that. As a mom of three kids, ages seven and under, I haven't slept well for years. But only recently, I've been awoken by something other than crying babies and an unstoppable bladder.

I think God may be waking me up. 

I know.

Weird.

I told you. I'm going through something.

Some might just call this insomnia. Or anxiety. Or fear. And they may be right. I'm sure cutting out caffeine or gluten, or adding in chamomile or Vitamin D may help. Or maybe I should check for harsh chemicals in the fabric of my sweatpants. Who knows?

Well, I do. I know what it is. I've heard that voice before. 

I am not a special Christian who has VIP access to some kind of heavenly after party. Although, that would be cool. I think I keep being invited to these middle of the night sessions because I have great need. Like a soul thirst that is taking over everything else. Even what my physical body wants to do. 

God might be waking me up not because I'm holy, but because I'm hurting. Not because I'm hopeful, but because I'm scared. Not because I'm perfect, but because I'm polarized.

And in this season, he is asking me to reach out my hand and hand over my sleep. The very thing that gets me through the days when I am barely hanging on.

My most precious treasure? Are you crazy? Do you even know what you are asking?

And He does.

So I crawl out of bed. Head to the living room. Open the nearest Bible or book I'm reading. And I wait. I expect to hear from him. Because I am fearful. And he is faithful. (Psalm 92:2)

Some nights have become like my own personal church. 

Not every night, mind you, God isn't a cruel taskmaster. But some nights. And on those nights I've heard things like:

Nothing is a waste.

I am the Good Shepherd. 

Awake O Sleeper. 

Like a tree planted by streams of water. 

How much bread do you have?

And sometimes I hear just one wonky word like frontlets and I am left scrambling for my Bible or my phone to figure out what the heck is being said. Usually, he is just telling me to stay the course. Don't give up. Stop that thing you keep doing.

But its constant. This invitation. Once the Bible is in you, it won't shut up.

If you are known by your Bible, it speaks back to you. All day long.

If you aren't known by your Bible, it can seem like a lifeless textbook or a creepy animal sacrifice log (seriously there is so much blood...) or an outdated waste of time. In that place, God can feel distant. Cold. Unfeeling. Uncaring. Mean. Angry. Violent. Gone. Non existent. Silent.

Awake O Sleeper. 

I wish I could say that hearing from God makes me feel like I am not about to slip off the edge of a cliff; it doesn't. It only reminds me of what I'm falling into. 

Him. 

We are falling into the very place where God wrote himself into human history. Into a life giving well of words. Letters are the method he chose. That always blows my mind. So it would make sense that these words are more than words. That are alive. Like the author of life intended. He can only create life. He knows no other way. So every word of His, speaks. Comforts. Calls. Quiets. Holds. Helps. Lifts. Loves.

His words then become an exploration. 

There is this wildly adventurous side to God. He wants to take us offroad and into wastelands where no life should be and create a rain-soaked peninsula. (Isaiah 55, Ezekiel 36:33-36)

He enjoys using unexpected backdrops to unfold his plans. Like night. Like when the shepherds were watching by night and the star appeared or when an angel opened a locked prison door in the night with a snoring guard at the helm.

There's something magical about the midnight hours; those unexpected places when we are awakened to the drama of the story we've been written into.

So if the dead of night isn't off limits in hearing God speak, then nowhere is. Not the bathroom. Your desk. Your shower. Your bed. Your car. Your garage. Your yard. Your pantry. Your wallet. Your injury. Your addiction. Your anger. Your doubt. Your loss. Your much.

God knows what we need. He really does. What you need.

He knows you have need. He also knows your greatest need is to hear him.

He knows the exact words to say too. He knows the exact portion of Scripture that will chip away at our hard places. The exact word a friend can use to remind us how deeply we are loved. The exact podcast that will awaken us to our deadness if we are willing to open the coffin. The exact paragraph that we need to read when we are wordless.

The exact words to catch us when we can't hold on a single second longer. 

And my friend, that's what I've learned. I'm barely hanging on these days. My life is going. I'm going with it. I'm not in despair, I'm not depressed, I'm not discontent–even as I'm facing some of my own personal worst fears.

And that's where the letting go has to happen. 

He is saying, fall. I got you. I've always had you.

I almost feel like God is telling us that he not only wants to spend unexpected, adventurous time with his daughters, but that he also wants to rock us. To cradle us. To mother us. He wants to be for us what we don't think we can be today.

Come my daughter. Awake. Let's steal away. Let me catch your tears. Let me rock you to sleep.

I guess when something is really important we wake someone up.

So God, wake us up. We're listening.

We're in this together,
M

A Day at the Sea

The train seat hummed. I flipped a page in my book and looked out the window. Then back to the page again.

My husband and I swayed. The low grade forward motion toggled between Southern Californian hill and brush. Another glance out the window and I saw that the bushes, once robust, were starting to give way to small streams of golden dirt. The empty streams snaked like veins where life used to flow. It made you wonder where and when the life left.

A slow in our sway announced a change of scenery.

We took a lean left and broke onto a portion of track that hugged the Pacific coastline.

Birds broke out. Grass danced. The waves crashed. The sea stretched. And I sat up. Entranced and in love.

The scene called to me. It serenaded me. It awoke me. 

And I quietly wondered, "Why can't everyday be like this? Why do I have to have such long lapses between what inspires me and what bogs me down? Why does this feel so different than every other day?"

So I fixed my gaze again. I needed to memorize the scope. The scale. The feeling. The freedom. I knew she would be gone soon; that the ocean would lap and laugh without me. So I studied her froth and fall without taking my eyes off her.

Then she disappeared around a curve in the track. And I didn't even get to say goodbye.

But the question circled back. "What am I doing wrong? Why doesn't life feel like a day at the sea?"

I felt another forward push and the sea wall gave way to graffiti walls. We were crossing city lines into Los Angeles.

I could feel it creep up on me. The grit, the grime, the greed and the lust. I've called this place home before, and it hurt me. It still pushes those places to the color red when I visit. The chain link fence wrapped itself around the train window. And I felt like a caged animal.

This spray painted city pumped out messages wall after wall; messages that it was made on. I just watched them swipe by feeling vandalized over and over.

But.

Then I saw a beautifully manicured hedge. A random, flourishing collection of leaves and twigs that stood at the back of an abandoned warehouse.

What was it doing here? Of all places. A hedge this beautiful belonged by the sea.

The care was noteworthy.

Someone had trimmed the lines of its leaves to perfection. Even the color was saturated bright green. The soil was dark and deep and watered and well loved. It was about 8-feet-long, sandwiched in-between trash and broken concrete. It stood out in the most beautiful and wasteful way.

This was the work of someone who understood the currency of secret devotion. 

This gardner was someone who didn't tend so that the masses could applaud him. The skyline was clearly hidden from the view of it. It was tended by someone who sweat and stooped and dug and pruned for the love of it. And maybe, somewhere in all of that hidden work, it was because he hoped that someday some deep feeler on a train would pass by and see God.

And I did.

We need more hedge men in our day.

Just like the Israelites, the most ancient of God lovers, did.

Moses was the original hedge man.

He introduced an entire generation of wilderness believers to a new hedge; a hedge of protection: the Torah.

The Torah, and namely the book of Dueteronomy, was a combination of speeches and covenants and laws and promises and blessings and curses that gave spray paint junkies a grid for understanding God. He handed lost folks a guidebook to get them out of the empty streams and into the ocean. He gave them reasons not to vandalize the temple over and over again with godless graffiti that looked like unholy grain.

So this verse stopped me in my tracks when I began to ask God why I didn't get more sea days in my ordinary life. 

"For this commandment that I command you today is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 

It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear and do it?' Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, 'Who will go over the sea for us and bring it to us, that we may hear and do it?'

But the word is very near you. It is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it."

It isn't far off. It is very near. It is in my mouth; like a kiss. It is in my heart; like its beat.

God is speaking directly to me. To you. To all of us who think that someplace out there can fix what is in here.

It speaks to the Bible belters who believe that it requires a heaven stamp in our passport before we can live out the kingdom work here on earth. It speaks to the ones who worship their calendars assuming that obedience is a vacation they put off because they can't afford it. It speaks to the star-aligners who are waiting for the sea wind to blow the dust off their Bibles.

It is for those of us, like me, that long for the sea instead of the dirt. 

That want salt on their skin, but not in their tears.

Lately, by the grace of God's word, I can see where He really is. He is behind the broken down warehouse; without an audience; giving each of us 8-feet of faithfulness for the glory of God and, gasp, maybe the benefit of just one.

Obedience is the tending.

The hedge is the fruit.

The fruit is the reward.

The reward is not needing the sea to be satisfied.

The Word is very near to you. 

Jesus is close. He may be sitting on your bookshelf, curled up next to your bed, holding one of your hands, kicking back in your memory, tatted on your arm, the bread in your mouth, the art on your walls, the nap you're needing, the song on your radio, the bottle cap on your whiskey. But wherever He is, He is close. Very close.

Open your Bible. Read what it says. Do what it tells you to. Love the man who tells you to do it.

If so, you might just hear the roar of the sea in between diaper changes or data entry.

It's a least worth a try.

We're in this together,
M

Blog inspired by Emily P. Freeman's Simply Tuesday and Sara Hagerty's Unseen. If you'd like to read more on this topic I recommend both those books wholeheartedly.