Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Gianna's Story



What happens when you are rejected?  Not for something you have done, and thus might change, but just for being, just for existing?  Gianna knew that pain.  The rasping scrape of metal against stone, the sound of the wind through the trees, and the bang of a screen door slamming:  any of these might take her back to that time of being utterly alone, unwanted, and abandoned.  But nothing scared her like fire.  When a fire was lit in a hearth or campsite, she would cower in fear and wail.

She began to ask her adoptive mother questions:

            Why do I walk funny? 

            Why do I fall down a lot?

Gradually she asked the questions that unlocked the secret of her past.  The story that unfolded had the power to stop her from joy forever.

Gianna was, like many babies in their mother’s wombs, unwanted. --Did the father know?  Yes. 
--Was he there for the mother? No. 

Her mother was a teenager with an unwanted pregnancy; Gianna was aborted.  But when the burning saline solution did not kill her and she was delivered alive, a nurse took her to the hospital where, miraculously, she survived.

Her adoptive mother worked with her, prayed over her, and loved her.  When she heard the doctors say, “She will never sit up, never walk, and never talk…” she politely refused to believe them.  “God knows the future of this child—she is a survivor; doctors tried to kill her before and now they are prescribing a limited future—but only our Heavenly Father knows what this child can become.”


God said to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”  And he went on to say that Jeremiah was made for a reason.  God made Jeremiah to tell the truth to Israel. 

We read that in Jesus

all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him (Colossians 1:16).

This means that all of us were created by God through Jesus for a purpose. 

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10)

God created Gianna in order that she would do good works. Despite the Dalits, or untouchables, of India, the people who live on trash heaps in Mexico, and the 700,000 babies aborted in America every year, there are no throw-away people.  That we exist at all is not a morally neutral fact.  Being alive is a good thing and it is pointed toward the good because we were made to do good.  He is the source of our existence.

All of us have a God-appointed reason for living.  Gianna was plucked like a brand from the fire to remind us of this.  The proper response to existence is to go to the one through whom all things were made.  I find out who I am after I know whose I am. 

God’s word to Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” might be answered with a reply from David in the Psalms, “behold I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Our existence should arouse respectful fear of the one in whose image we are made.  It should inspire wonder and worship of the creator who is able to make such profound beauty.   


Gianna Jessen is a singer and a song-writer.  She publicly advocates to stop the silent holocaust of abortion.  She bears witness to the fact that God is our creator and that what he creates is good.  

You are not a throw-away person.  You are made in God's image and have a unique role to play in the great story that is unfolding all around you.  

Heavenly Father, you made me through your Son Jesus that I might do good works.  You have plans for me that I don't know about and that others can't see.  Help me walk into the purpose and reason you created me.  When I am downcast and feel as if it would be better for me not to have been born, help me look to you for affirmation.    When I am lost and lack direction, help me discover your purpose for me.  I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  You are a wonderful God. 

Monday, November 11, 2013

Hidden in Christ

My family and I began at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and descended rapidly along switchbacks until we hit a ridge protruding out to "Skeleton Point."  Though it was fairly cool outside, it was hot dusty work to reach that ominous place.  The name conjured up the image of dried bones of a hapless person or deer fallen, eaten by carrion, and left as a testament of the harshness of the land.  The white rocks themselves looked like the spine of the earth as the elements disinterred it.  

It was hard to believe that wind and rain could wreak such ruin--a canyon ten miles across, one mile deep, and 265 miles long.  Wind, rain, and flood in the hand of an Almighty God over eons and eons cut through the hidden places of the earth as if through butter.

One feels very exposed as one hikes through the desert.  The lack of water, the absence of shelter, the merciless sun, and the long vistas in every direction make one feel small and vulnerable.  An eagle's eye might see you coming from 25 miles away.  

What does God see when he looks at me?  Can he see everything about me?  Does he look at all my actions?  Can he see what I do in secret?  Does he know my motivation for everything? 

We say a prayer for purity every week that goes like this, "Almighty God unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts..."  There is in reality nowhere to hide from God's sight.  King David acknowledges God's ability to discover his heart in Psalm 32.  In a moment of great transparency, he admits to God:

...When I kept silent, my bones wasted away
    through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
    my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. 


This shepherd in the desert turned King of Israel knew about heat and exposure.  He also knew that God wants us to be honest about our failings and deal with him about them.
 



I acknowledged my sin to you,
    and I did not cover my iniquity...
and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.

It's not our place to hide our sins from God.  It is not possible, of course; it is also not how forgiveness works.   We are forgiven only as He forgives us.  Honesty and humility about our sins is necessary. 

Halfway down the trail, just past "Skeleton Point," we found a hueco, or hollow, in the rock big enough for my whole family to hide inside in case of bad weather.  The kids climbed up into it and saw that at its top there was another even more hidden cave. 



Wind, rain, hail, flood, and searing sun could not touch us in there.  Maybe David found similar places for himself and his flock at times of bad weather.  We know he hid in caves as he was hunted by Saul and his armies.  He often calls God his "rock" or "crag"--a place of security and safety. 

If we can't hide from God, maybe God can hide us from the consequences of our sin.  David started the psalm like this:

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven,
    whose sin is covered.

How are sins covered?  If I can't hide them and if God sees them, what will cover them? 
God covers us with himself.  David goes on to say,

You are a hiding place for me;
    you preserve me from trouble;


I learned to pray from my mother when I was five years old as a tornado roared down our street towards us.  We huddled in the basement darkness with my three year old brother and said the "Our Father."  And our Father protected us.  The tornado turned and went off in another direction. 



It wasn't the basement--it was being hidden in God that saved us.  How can we be hidden in God?  We pray like David who said

let everyone who is godly
    offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found;
surely in the rush of great waters,
    they shall not reach him.
You are a hiding place for me


Great rivers of water carved out the canyons of the west.  Floods as of Noah's time split the rocks and scoured the dirt away. --no other explanation exists except, as the insurance adjusters say, "an act of God" did it.  How will I be saved from the flood of his righteous judgment?  

I hide in Jesus.  

Almighty Lord and Father, there is nothing hidden from you.  I stand uncovered before you.  My faults are as apparent to you as a solitary stone in the desert.  You see my sins; wash me and cleanse me from them.  Let me hide in Jesus.  Let his righteousness so cover me that on the day of judgment I will be safe.  This I pray in Jesus' name.  Amen.

Friday, May 24, 2013

learning to speak


Anger, frustration, darkness—these characterized the daily existence of a little girl in Alabama.  Because she had an intelligent mind, she had the capacity for normal life, but the normal windows into her mind, her sight and hearing, were shut.  She would become enraged when she didn’t get what she wanted, and even as a six year old, she was getting no closer to sharing what that was.  When through the gift of a persistent teacher Helen Keller was given a language—even a rough sign language drawn on her hands—she said she moved from being almost brute beast into much fuller humanity.  Ideas that were impossible to think and emotions that were impossible to feel were now real and present to her.  Where before she could not relate to people now she could interact, understand, and love . 

It would be correct to say that in some very real way language creates us.  Without it, we would have no complex thought; we could not interact.  Without it, we would have no personality to speak of.

The language of humanity is prayer.  It forms and shapes our character.  As God communicates to us, he educates us in the fullest sense of the word, drawing us out of ourselves and into a relationship with him and others.  Prayer teaches me to love him; it teaches me who I am.  




When God speaks into a heart, it awakens with light the way a crystal outcrop hidden in a cave sparkles in front of a flame.  There is some faculty in a person ready to receive, to hold for an instant, and to reflect back the truth and light of God.  The giving and receiving of that light is called prayer.  Prayer is a true giving and receiving between a human and God.  As mathematics is the language of science, prayer is the language of interaction between creature and creator.  As a mother and father speak to a newborn, God gives words to us and waits for us to understand them.  And we do.  And then we speak back to him.  At first we do this in halting syntax and lisps.  Later, we develop an easy conversational style.  Correction, expression, direction and affection are communicated to us.  We question and thank and resist or comply with prayer.  It is the gateway to becoming who we were made to be.

In Harold Bloom’s “Shakespeare:  The Invention of the Human,” Bloom stakes out a very modern understanding of what it means to be a person.  Bloom writes of Shakespeare’s characters that “they develop because they reconceive themselves…this comes about because they overhear themselves talking…self-overhearing is their royal road to individuation.”

We become human, not by some self-conscious dialogue with ourselves—as if the key to maturity were introspection—but by our conversation with God.   The name of this conversation is prayer. 

Overhearing oneself speak, introspection, and everlasting dialogue with self when there is no outer corrective or partner higher than ourselves with which to speak is rather the path to the hell of solipsism.   

Prayer can be funny; it can be touching; it can be stern and demanding; but it is always asking me to look past myself into a greater reality than that which exists in my own mind. 

The Hebrew scripture begins with this:

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.  And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.



Listen to the rhythm:

Darkness

then word

then light

The Gospel of John begins in similar fashion

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.

Creation and enlightenment comes through the language of God.  Echoes of creation still reverberate in the development of every human being. 



Lord, teach me to pray.  It is in conversation with you that I am given a language to understand the world, myself, and you.   Lord, give me the words and concepts and feelings that are necessary to become a person made in your image.  I cannot love unless you write the language of love in my heart.  I cannot be compassionate, merciful, forgiving, holy, or courageous like you are unless you teach me.  Form these gifts in me and form me in your likeness.  Give me ears to hear you, a mouth to speak to you, and a mind that sees you.  Let your word, like light, come into my heart and transfigure it.