Grace to know more

What does it feel like to let your heart break for the hurt you've seen but to feel the closeness of God's presence like a blanket of strength? 

What does it mean to weep with those who weep and worship God at all times?

What does it feel like to crumble under the pressure of doing life on your own strength but to hear the voice of God quiet your heart?

What does it mean to sing praises in the face of hopelessness?

Asking these questions terrifies me, because I know they have answers.  The answers are beautiful and deep beyond words, but they are so, so hard.  Yet, I want to know God in these ways.  I do want to see his bigness.  I do want to know his love.  And I know that if I do not risk pain and failure and incompetence, I will never see anything bigger than myself.  That smallness terrifies me more than the questions.  God calls us to be strong and courageous, to fear not.  He promises to give grace to the humble. 

So, I will pursue the awe of God's strength perfected in my weakness. 

I will learn to
have courage
be brave
stay soft
and seek that grace. 

The Red Sea

Have you ever wondered what trust looks like in the wilderness on the other side of the Red Sea? 

First, what does it feel like to camp directly in front of your pursuing enemy, with nothing but God's physical presence between you and them, while "one does not come near the other" all night? 

Then, what is it like to walk across the sea on dry ground and make it safely to the other side? 

But what I really want to know is this: what does trust look like when your enemy starts across after you on the still-dry ground, baring down with purpose on the rapidly diminishing safe space between evil and your children?  What does it feel like to watch God wait until every last member of the enemy's army willfully enters into judgement before he closes the walls of water and executes justice? 

There's a girl at the Oasis right now whose life is one such battlefield.  Her mind is the wilderness, her past full of Egypt.  Her stay in the home has felt to everyone around her like the 10 plagues that are supposed to bring liberation, but feel a lot more like oppression in the here and now.  In her journey towards truth and freedom, she has been pinned between the giants of her past and the hopelessness of her future as she sees it.  The mental pressure has all but broken her. 

She accepts Jesus Christ as her savior and asks to be baptized.  Somewhere in the peaks and valleys of her painfully disoriented mind, she understands the gospel.  Two days after her baptism, she's busting out windows with a broom handle and using the shards as weapons against anything that scares her.  Which things are many. 

I don't know how to take this.  Are we looking at failure in the face of a sad, angry, scared girl tied to a bed in the psych ward?  Are we witness to victory in the truth that cannot be stolen from a daughter who has accepted the new identity and love of her true Father?  Is this a war zone?  Is this God trusting us with even more of his justice in the battle against evil in this world?  Will we live to see her healed? 
Maybe. 
I do know who is with her when she is out of reach of everyone else in the world.  When her house moms, therapists, friends, and parent figures are blocked out of her reality, God is there.  When she can't see him or feel him or hear him, God is there.  Throughout the entire maze of mental illness in her traumatized young mind, God is.  He is good.  He is love.  He is present.  He is powerful.  He is not worried.  He is just.  He is boundless.  Even.  Here.  Nothing can thwart his plan for her life. 

Though I walk in the midst of trouble,
    you preserve my life;
you stretch out your hand against the wrath of my enemies,
    and your right hand delivers me.

 The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me;
    your steadfast love, O Lord, endures forever.

Psalm 138:7-8

How long, Lord?  For how long will the many multitudes of terrifying enemy soldiers march across the sea on dry land towards this struggling, vulnerable child that you love so much?  To what extent will our team have to bear the brunt of this brokenness in order to house the fullness of your justice? 

Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me,
    for in you my soul takes refuge;
in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge,
    till the storms of destruction pass by.

 I cry out to God Most High,
    to God who fulfills his purpose for me.

 He will send from heaven and save me;
    he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah
God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!

Psalm 57:1-3

We welcome you, God.  All of you.  Everything you have to give.  But we need your strength to carry it all because it is too much for us.