Oh, Ancient Of Days!

Ever have a day where you feel...ancient?  All the world pulling hard on your body, your skin, your heart and your soul?  Ever go a day, a whole, wasted day with out really pulling a chair up beside HIM?  Ever feel like you're so covered in the dust of living that you're never gonna get clean?  Never wash up?  Then, when you want to put it all down for the evening, you can't close an eye until HIS have been all yours?  Even just for a second? 

And isn't it good that we can come?  Just like this?  Covered in the sweat and the dung of the day?  Just to sit with HIM and breathe and be?  Breathe and Be?  Breathe and Be?  Just to listen to the beat of HIS heart and know that it's okay?  That HE's got us?  That HE loves us?  That HE understands?  Us?

And isn't HE kind to listen to it all, and isn't HE good, and isn't it great that HE gets us and that HE's God?

Isn't it wonderful that we're not?

Bernadette

To Be With

Lord, You are lovely here.
Your breath on this life lifts me.
Up into courage.
Up into YOU.
And I wish I could sit the day.
At Your feet, in Your love, In Your presence.
Never leaving.
And will You teach me, Lord?
How to be still, and still be with You?
In the crushing rush?
In all that steals this heart away from Yours?
My Jesus. 
Lover of all souls.
Of this soul.

Mine,

Bernadette

Of A Sunday Afternoon

To slow down home.  The Kitten and I slice bags of country apples to put up for winter.  We prepare for comfort on the endless frozen days and already know the blessing they will be... pie crusts rolled out and placed in the freezer.  Ready for the days when we need an escape from all that is cold.  Hard.  Icy.  Bare. 

I think about friends and roll out prayers.  Holding them in my kitchen.

Allison Krause sings silver shivers down my spine on Pandora Radio, and the laundry sits in neat stacks all down the kitchen table. The Shoulders keeps coming into the kitchen, and I can tell he is comforted by the sight of us.  Two of his girls in skirts and aprons preparing home,  making home with hearts full of him and all his strength for us.  His hand slides on my hip, and I am weak.  Thankful for this little life here.

The Strong Soft begins her first fast for a beloved aunt.  My sister.  My friend.  All these prayers go up in symphonic heart strings for her, and it is good to be still and silent before God.  He bends down and listens to our prayers.  So we ask for a miracle.

Missing my Silent Deep son.  Makes me smile to think of him.  I pray for his life and for his future, and hold him too...right there in my kitchen.

The laundry goes on, the lawn mower drones, and the dishwasher tries daily to die.  But inside these walls, the rush is kept at bay, and we lie deep in His Sabbath rest.

On a Sunday afternoon,

Bernadette

Thanks to You!

The Silent Deep punches out letters on his phone, and a text comes to me that lifts me so high I think I might actually fall down.  His words wrap right there around me bringing me comfort.  Drawing me close to his voice.  My little brown eyed boy has grown up and moved away from me.  He is a grown man, but he reaches to keep our hearts close.  It's too much.  Too much grace.  Too much sweetness, and I am undone by his precious gift.  Fully accepted.  The best ever.

I tell the kids in my class that we all need encouragement.  I see them nodding their heads, even as I nod mine.  "Yes."  We all need encouragement.

So can I encourage you today, friends?  Just remind you that He is madly in love with you, and that He's got hold of your life, and that He is in charge?  If all is falling down, I am praying that you will have the strength to look up.  To see Him.  To look upon His dear face.  To find your feet, again, on solid Rock. 

And may I offer these words of humble thanks, once again, to you who have come alongside when I have so desperately fallen?  May I say "thank you" for your encouraging words and prayers that have helped me to find a way to begin writing my book?  Thank you for helping me to find me feet.  To know that I too, stand on solid ground.

The Rock of my Salvation,

Bernadette

 

Worship

He nudged me out of bed last night.  Deep in darkness, and down on my knees.  Lifting His Name up from the whispering floor lips.  Whispering His Name.  Sacred.  My smallness reaching to touch the very face of God.  The Lord.  Mine.

We meet, and as I fall into Him, all that is ruffled becomes smooth.  All that sin is washed, cleansed and scrubbed down by His promises.  His passion all those years ago, when he was thinking of me on the hill of Calvary,and His passion tonight.  Setting this life on fire.  And I just rest in that.  In Him.  In this.  Time slowed down just for us tonight.

Just for worship here,

Bernadette

A Mystery

The Shoulders takes my face in the dark.  Traces my leaking eyes.  My nose.  My chins.  We barely speak, but his hands, the language of committed love, etch healing on my skin.  He is an artist.  I am his canvas, and I lie, a still painting, as he gives his life and his strength to me.  He loves as Christ loved the church.  Giving all of himself...to me.

He brushes over me breathless.  Forgiven.  He colors life back into his woman.  Paints beauty into every feature.  Even that settling weight, and this chin that becomes neck somehow.  Even in tenderness, he is strong, and my heart is impossibly healed in the space of hours.  This love, surrendered to God, is miraculous.  Deeply miraculous.

A mystery,

Bernadette 

Broken Rib

It has been a week of weak.  All strength crumpled on down in that pile of broken. The aorta pinched tight.  The heart dying right there wearing high heeled boots, and you, the walking dead reach for something to hold you hard down.  Makes you wonder if you'll ever be the same.  And wouldn't that just be a fine thing?  To be truly changed?  To be different this time?

I miss all the strength of him.  The way his arms wrap hard and hold.  The way he carries the weight of our world on his strong Shoulders.  Losing himself for our gain, and, yes... sometimes losing my heart along the way.  He says that I am his rib, but sure I am a broken one.  Barely able to support his chest cavity, the home of his heart, and causing him pain that is beyond bearing.  Flights, trips, conference calls, the full court press.  The pressure to provide for all these hungry bellies, and music lessons, and a school where God is still the King causes a pulling away.  A great tearing of flesh away from flesh.  Killing Adam.  Breaking his Rib.

And though our hearts have fallen down the broken well, we cry out HIS Name.  We reach for the higher way and the Holy Road.  Narrow.  Our feet travel on gathering dust, but our hands weave together in a life that stretches out into more unfolding.  We fall into Him, the Rock of our salvation.  And trust.

The Glue that holds us,

Bernadette

ACTS

The Strong Soft has been saying it for months.  That she needs an acoustic guitar to better lead children's worship.  Can I confess this irritation with her?  For her sixteenth birthday, her dad and I purchased her "dream" guitar, an electric Gretch, and at not yet seventeen, I can't believe she thinks she needs another one.  Makes me feel a bit hurt for some reason.  She says that someone will give her a guitar because Jesus knows that she needs one.  I kind of "humph" at this notion, but she persists.  Believes.  Trusts.  Tells me that would not be too hard for God.  "Humph!"

Driving on to youth group tonight, she said, "Maybe there will be a guitar for me at the coffee shop."  I crawl into my skin...saying nothing.  Feeling nothing.  Being nothing.

I am meeting a dear friend, and we walk into the building together.  That blond beauty goes on in ahead, and when I look at her again, she is walking toward me with a guitar case and a white piece of paper in her hand.  From "Anonymous".  From Jesus.

I literally fall to my knees.  Shake my head, "NO!"  "NO!" Weep at this gift!  Weep at her faith!  Weep at mine so sorely lacking!  The way God uses my daughter's faith to scrape me up off the tar, and the way He shows me again, that He is here.  That He is with me.  That He's going to help me do the assignment, and that I don't have to do it alone.  The way He just cradles my heart like that.  I know, again, that He is a gentleman, and that He leads His sheep; He doesn't beat His sheep.  A new day is dawning.  Another freedom journal entry.    

Right here,

Bernadette

A Kind of Unravelling

What happens when everything begins to unravel, and you can't find the end of the rope to tie a knot in?  When the floor drops away, and your heart falls up into your throat?  When it feels like God is taking you to pieces?  And you have no peace? 

You remember that you said "YES." because you wanted to obey Him with all your heart, but now you wish you could take it all back.  Because this hurts, and you're blind there in the whirlwind, and all you can do is cry out his Name. 

"JESUS!  SON OF DAVID!  HAVE MERCY ON ME!"

You are on your knees, and you are on your face, and you are on the phone begging anyone with a tongue and a heart for God to pray.  And you want to hide in your bed all day because you're a cry baby, but you drive the children anyway to the silent howl of soul, and you come home to these pages and type yourself out to the world.  And know you're crazy.

Oh, God!  Let not the hurricane wind blow me off course!  Remind me, again, that You have never broken a covenant.  That You make them and keep them.  That You are still in control here.

When all is wild,

Bernadette

More

Just that voice on the other end of the line. Reaching across the nation like warm hands that wrap around this heart.  Giving me hope.  And strength.  And perspective.  And a plan.  Her prayers, the hands that lift my arms, and remind me to praise Him.  The One here with me in this dry and forever wilderness.  

Hadn't the Kind and Compassionate just told me so?  Hadn't he said, "Mom, the reason that we all feel lost and alone is because we lack true fellowship.  You need to call a friend.".

And so, your fourteen year old becomes much wiser than you, and it's okay.  It's okay, I guess, that your children see you flailing about.  Trying to get your feet down.  On the ground.  Wrestling with God.  Wanting a giant piece of Him.  Not satisfied with being a Christian another day.  No.  I want CHRIST!   I want to bury myself in the folds of His cloak.  Cling to Him with all my life.  Hold His dear face in my hands and cover His cheeks with a thousand kisses.  Tell Him thank You.  That I love Him.  Even as I pound His chest.

MORE!

Bernadette

A Thanks

Falling down, Lord.
Into You.
And this amazing love.
Amazing grace.
That gives me goose bumps.
When You speak that way.
Through Your Word.
Your Words.
To me.
To this life.
So fallen down.
Yet You take my chin in Your hand.
And make beauty.
From ashes.
Yes.
You lift up my head.
Where does my strength come from?
LORD?
It comes from You.
The way You see things.
The way You look here.
At me.  At us.
With a love.
So true.
So sure.
So strong.

It can never be broken,

Bernadette

To Be Yolked

Sitting in the dark.  The white space of the screen the only thing lighting the night.  Bed time conversation with my Shoulders about the times we're in, and how, because I'm not in church, I feel it.  Keenly.  Driving around in the world.  Shopping around.  Touching the world and becoming full of its dust.  The dirt that clings.  To me.  Makes me feel like a plow horse.  Pulling hard.  Yolked hard.  Held hard.

HE says, "Come to me all ye who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.  Take my yolk upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yolk is easy, and my burden is light."  Matthew 11:28-30.

Grateful for this quiet time.  Alone in the late with Him.  Away from all the ways I disappoint my husband, my children, my parents, my siblings, my friends.  The ways I fall short of housekeeping and meal making.  That fat roll hanging over my pants.

Here with Him, the yolk falls away, and I am accepted.  I am ashamed, but He's just glad I came!  Together, we wash down the dust, the doubt, the guilt, the grout.  Here, I am beautiful.  Just here.  And it is good.  To be known.  To be loved.

To be harnessed to the deep rest of His yolk,

Bernadette

Ventilator

Perhaps if I am able to write it down, I won't be stuck.  Wish I didn't need words so much to sort things out.  And why do I need to type it out here?  For all the world to see.  This blight on my soul.  This never ending battle with my stinking, stupid flesh.  Why does the Lord ask us to do these seemingly meaningless things???

Somebody said to me today that everybody is blogging now days, and that it's this mad rage.  The thing to do.  Yet sitting here, still, after all these months, in a giant pool of my own sweat, I think they must be joking!  No way would a sane person do this!  No way...unless Jesus whispered it to them in the depth of their heart.  No way...unless He leaned on them so hard they thought they might break in two.  No way.

So I am out here again. Writing the angst of my heart and simply baring all that is undone.  Angry.  Frustrated beyond belief.  Tired and simply "done".  This is how I come tonight.  And for what purpose???  The thought of these pointless words going out into thin air and taking a piece of me with them, well, it's maddening, you know?  Terrifying.

I tell the Lord, "No.  Not today.  I don't want to write, and I have nothing to say.  I am ugly and ashamed.  Not today."

He asks, (Do you hear me??? The Lord ASKS!) "Will you obey Me in this?".

Even though I swallow them back and try to harden my heart, the tears come.  His love just untangles me like that.  His love is, well, it's rather, unavoidable now isn't it?  His love is so grand that it takes us to the place we need to be.  A humble position.  A lowly spot in life.  A place away from that dreaded question..."What about me?".

And though I want to throw up, even at these words here tonight, I will obey.  I will.  I will myself to obey this Jesus Who poured Himself all out and then said, "COME. FOLLOW ME.".

What is your cross tonight?  Will you pick it up?  Will you follow Him?

Even if it means your whole life is bared and scared?

Like mine?

Bernadette

Praying for Rain

It does seem, lately, that there may be some water after all.  I open my mouth wide for that one, precious drop.  Drip.  Let it slide on down my throat.  Eyes closed in this.  Simple gratitude.  And I begin to wonder, "Is the Lord really doing something?"  I shake my head no.

But there it is.  Another drop.  Drip.  Cool.  Small but quenching.  These other voices raised with mine crying out for something more.  Our lips all turned up and opened to it.  Dying of thirst for more of this Jesus, more of His life in us, more of His power in us, and more of His hand smothering out the darkness in us.  All this fear.  All this fake. 

Our heads tip back and our mouths open wide.  Waiting.  For Elijah's cloud?  We pile on our knees in weakness so that He will make us strong.  We open the book and cry out to the One Who wrote it.  We risk it all and bare our souls because we are tired of walking alone.  We set out to discover what it means to be in intimate fellowship with Jesus and with each other.  We say "NO." to Satan.  We dare to believe that we will not die of thirst in this land.  That a rain is coming.  And that it begins with one drop.

Drip,

Bernadette