A Broken Offering

Well... it's back. The heart-pounding, the heavy chest, the surge of adrenaline for seemingly no reason. The weighty sense of doom and lack of oxygen. I've been waiting all through the last 14 months, anticipating the return, watching with nervous eyes. Of all the times in all the lives, this would be the time. This would be the life. But it's stayed at bay, I think possibly because my body knew I couldn't handle one more thing. And now that life has slowed, the crises have passed, the mountains have been scaled... now the panic comes. Now the anxiety returns. Now the attacks hit and wash over me rapid-fire.

Yes, I am seeing my doctor. Yes, I have told my people and they are both praying and reaching out, arms wide and welcoming, familiar, both with my struggles and with their own. You'd be amazed once you open your mouth to say, "This is where I am," how many people respond with, "Me too." Yes, I rest fully assured in the provision that God will provide for my family and how fiercely He will protect us. But the power of the mind? It isn't logical. The fears? They don't make sense. My triggers? The things that can send me into gasping fits? They don't add up. You can't talk yourself out of it. You can't reassure yourself through it. You just have to let it pass. You have to hold on, feel it, and let it move through you.


You might find this awkwardly personal, weird to share, to fling out into the ether for anyone to read. But this is my healing, my therapy, and I have neglected it lately. I talk it out and think it out and share it (albeit from the safety of my computer screen). But somehow that process heals me. It walks me through and teaches me and puts pieces back into place. So I'll tell you about where I am. And you have either been there and you will nod your head -- yes, yes -- or you have not and you will shake your head -- wow, gosh. But along the way, I hope you all see one thing shining very brightly in the distance: hope.

It feels like that moment when you realize you have made an incredible mistake. You have screwed up, and not just a little bit, but majorly. So majorly that you might actually lose everything. Every. Last. Thing. That sense of doom so powerful that you see no way past it, no way around it, no way to fix it. The only solution is to raise your hand and say, "Yes, I did mess every last thing up, and no, there is nothing I can do to fix it." That feeling, that sinking in the pit of your stomach -- that is what it feels like.

Or imagine you are trekking along a path in the woods, enjoying the light breezes wafting pine scent your way and the sweet songs of finches and sparrows. And you have your eyes fixed on the bend up ahead, fairly certain it is the last turn in the trail before you hit the summit. And as you come around that bend, instead of a bright open scape of mountain views, you come body-to-body with a grizzly bear. You cannot hide, and you cannot run. There he is and he has seen you. Your body smashes you with adrenaline and you know you will either fight or flee. Your heart speeds up and your stomach drops and you instantly feel sick and trapped and afraid -- that is what it feels like.

Except I haven't screwed up majorly and I haven't encountered a hungry bear on a remote trail. Instead, these feelings, these thoughts hit me while I'm, say, washing some dishes at my kitchen sink. Or sitting down to eat lunch. Or getting ready to leave for an appointment. It's not even anything specific, like being afraid of large groups or traffic or rainbows. It just hits and racks. It's chemical and hormonal and in no way based on my trust (or lack thereof) in God or my faith or how powerful or good I think He is. It is my body fighting an enemy that does not exist. And in so doing, creating a new enemy for me.

But it also creates a lot of cause of prayer and reflection. Appeals to God and appeals to others and I found myself in bed the other night thinking about being broken. And I thought to myself, Brokenness is not a barrier to the kingdom of heaven. Reassuring, I know my place before God is secure and cannot be knocked over by waves of anxiety and my inability to breathe. And I sat with that for a while. And it came to me. Brokenness is not a barrier to the kingdom of heaven. In fact, it is the only requirement.

"[Jesus] said to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.'" (Mark 2:17) The Pharisees had wondered aloud why Jesus was hanging out with "sinful" people and this was His response to them. The added layer here is this: none of us are healthy. "No one is righteous, no, not one." (Romans 3:10) No a one of us in all the land or who has ever been in all the land is righteous. Not a single one. The Pharisees wonder why Jesus is hanging out with the "sick" (read: unrighteous) people when He could be hanging out with them (the healthy, righteous ones). Where they miss the mark is in not realizing that they too are sick. They've got it all together. They don't "need no doctor."

But Jesus said He came for the sick. He came for the "weary and heavy laden." He came to heal sores and stop bleeding and repair vision and make men walk. And every single time He performed a miracle like this, it was to draw attention to the power of God to heal the broken. The physical healing provided a platform to display the spiritual healing, the true reason for Jesus' ministry. And the only requirement to be healed by the Lord was to say, "Lord, I am sick." Several even had sick loved ones far away and asked the Lord to heal them and He did. Their faith was in His power to heal brokenness and their faith was well-placed.

So I raise my hand to the Lord, and I don't say, "Just hang in there with me God. I'll get this all sorted out soon." I don't say, "I know I was weak again, but next time I'll be strong." I say, "Lord, I am broken. I am broken and I cannot fix it. Have mercy on me, Lord." And not a one of us can know how the Lord will respond, whether He will chase away the fears and anxiety or whether they will accompany me until the end of my days. But I do know that the Doctor is in. I do know that my brokenness does not bar me entrance into His presence. I do know that all He requires of me is faith in Him.

And so here I am, frantic and panicked and scared and broken, but kneeling before the King. And the line that keeps ringing in my head is one I sang nearly weekly while in college and one that blew my little mind the first time I sang it and one that I will never, ever, not as long as I live, forget: "If you tarry til you're better, you will never come at all." If you wait until you get it all in line, until you get it figured out, until you feel like you are "fixed", you will never come. You will never approach the throne. You will never feel worthy to come before the King. "Not the righteous, not the righteous, sinners Jesus came to call."

And so I do not let my brokenness bar me. I do not let my brokenness hold me away. I do not let my brokenness come between me and the King. Instead, I hold my brokenness out in my hands like an offering, like an offering of praise, as a way of saying, "Heal me, Healer." And when I offer it to Him, when I trust Him with it, when I lay down what would be my way and instead walk His, I find life. I find peace that stands secure. I find a hold in the storm. And I don't, not for one second, let go.

Over Our Heads

"Anything that is over your head is under God's feet."

I saw this quote on a church sign the other day as I drove to the store. The immediate picture that came to mind kind of creeped me out. Like floating not far above my head is this clear floor through which I can see God's giant Jesus sandals. Like He might fall in on me at any moment. I continued thinking about it as I drove and I kept zooming out from myself, farther and farther away until I was just a little speck in my own mental picture. I thought about how big and how broad and how massive this world, this universe is, and how teeny, itty, bitty tiny I am. All the things that feel like they might swallow me up? They're not even blips on the world's radar.

I used to have panic attacks in college. I still get small ones occasionally, mostly just ones when it feels like I can't quite breathe in all the way. They are mostly out of my control and usually just mean I need to eat more balanced meals (hello, mom's healthy lunch of chips and cookies), but whenever they hit, I make myself stop and breathe. Here we go, Aleah. Breathe in, breathe out. In. Out. As I start to calm, I can breathe deeper. In... Deeper... Okay, out... All the way. Finally, I will hit a breath that fills my lungs up all the way and my shoulders relax and I'm good. I carry on about my day and don't think another thing of it.

I remember sitting with my daughter's neonatologist, trying to figure out how to ask him if my daughter was going to die. I was having one of these small panic attacks, one no one would know I was having. I was coaching myself to breathe while I tried to pull together words that didn't sound frightening. "Is she going to... to be okay?" Whatever "okay" means. "Oh, yes!" he encouraged quickly. "Yes, her autonomic system is functioning fine. We just need to get these platelets under control." Big breath out. I'd been holding it. Forgot to let go. "You know, there are long term concerns and we'll cross those bridges when we get there, but yes, she's going to pull through." In that moment, I just felt washes of relief. I could allow myself to love her and not fear. I could focus on the immediate concerns and not feel like we were teetering on a high wire. I could do this. We... could do this.

Later, I went to write up my report from that day for our faithful prayer warriors when I realized I had no idea what an "autonomic system" was. I Googled it (though I'd been encouraged not to Google things, I felt like this was a safe one) and learned the term for something that all of us take for granted every day. The autonomic nervous system controls what we think of as "automatic" things: heart rate, breathing, digestion, etc. The things in our bodies that just "happen"... they have a control. In my daughter's case, while her platelets were a wreck, her breathing and heart rate and temperature were all holding steady and this was encouraging. This meant she would "make it". Without those things, it gets dicey. But her body was doing it, praise God.

I couldn't help but go back to sitting in that chair with the doctor, controlling my breathing. Telling myself, in, out, in, out. Just for a moment, maybe a minute, max. And then I was back to my life, doing my "thing" while my autonomic system kept going without my reminder. In, out, in, out. My heart, dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum, the blood whooshing in and out. Just going. Going. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for fifty-two weeks, for twenty-seven years and counting. In, out, dum-dum, whoosh. And I couldn't help but multiply myself by all the people who I knew would read my update and prayer request for my daughter. By the people in my family and in my church. All the lungs and hearts and ins and outs and dum-dums and whooshes. Seven billion of us. Nine zeroes of ins and outs and dum-dums and whooshes. And God sees them all.

"In his hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind." (Job 12:10) The breath, the ins and outs, of all mankind. All of us, all seven billion. I have the power to focus on my own breathing... for about a minute. I suppose I could do it all the time, but it would be able all I could do. And eventually I'd have to sleep. God's hand is delivering the breath of all mankind, all the time. This... is a big, big God. A God for whom anything that has me in "over my head" is but a blip, a breath. What a marvelous resource of power! What a great and powerful God! This is not a God we should doubt, but rather one we can turn to, count on, have faith in.

But here's the real kicker: this big, big God, the one who gives ins and outs to the nine zeroes of all mankind... does not stop at giving us life. He offers us Life. Capital "L". "Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.'" (John 4:13-14) We all drink the water of life, the water that we will thirst for again. We all enjoy the blessings of life and breath and beating hearts. All seven billion of us. But Jesus offers a living water, one that promises eternal life. The woman to whom Jesus spoke these words realized he was talking about something more. "The woman said to him, 'I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.' Jesus said to her, 'I who speak to you am he.'" (John 4:25-26) This woman who came for water at the well... she is the first person to whom Jesus reveals Himself as the Christ. She was thirsty. Her body needed something and she was seeking to meet that need. Jesus met her there and showed her that while she could address her physical thirst, only He could meet her true needs, her eternal needs, her soul's needs.

My daughter will be okay. Her ins and outs and dum-dums and whooshes are faithfully doing their thing. God has blessed her with the breath of life, as He has all mankind. But my daughter's Great Need, all of our Great Needs, are only met with the living water of Jesus, the true eternal Life. And it is really quite simple. Jesus' disciples, after His resurrection were asked, "'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' And they said, 'Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.'" (Acts 16:30-31) The eternal Life comes with belief in Christ, submission to His will, to God's will, the recognition that our lives are not our own, but rather are God's. To see this? I say look no further than your own breath. In... and out. In... and out. For however many hours and days and weeks and months and years you have been here, will be here. Your "autonomic system"? Is God... in you... with you. Every moment of every day.

We already live in the palm of the God who separated light from dark, who numbers the hairs on your head and contains the storehouses of snow. We have already cashed in His promise of life and breath by our simple existence, our very being. We have already tasted the water that sustains us from day to day. We have already breathed in deep the air He has given us and enjoyed the blessing of thousands, millions, billions of heartbeats. So many zeroes of dum-dums and whooshes. The promise of Christ is one of eternity, of a never-thirsting, of a new heart. One that doesn't rely on autonomic systems or daily water glasses, but one that endures forever.

It's true. Anything that is over your head is ... not so much below God's feet, like in my hovering-just-above-me mental picture. It is more that God is in anything that is over your head. Just as He is in the hearts and lungs of the seven billion, He is in and around and over and under all things, wrapping around our hurts and hearts and cries for help. If you think you have to call for Him to come, you are mistaken. He is already there, already reaching, already hearing. And beyond the ins and outs and dum-dums and whooshes, He is ready and willing with living water, pumping blood through our hearts of stone until we open ourselves to Him and welcome Him to turn that stone to flesh.

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers,

and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. 

(Ezekiel 36:25-28) 

Woven

Two nights ago, I sat with my daughter in the pediatrician's office (no ear infection, hooray!) and for some reason, I started to wonder how I got there. So many times, we have waited in that very office. So many visits in the last five months to a place that, before June, I have never even heard of. How had it come to feel so familiar, somewhere I knew so well? Life takes those turns sometimes, and you can't always see them coming.

I started to follow the threads... from check ups and cranials and emergencies all the way back to her birth. We were blissfully unaware of any problems until she arrived and looked like a blueberry muffin. "We're contacting the pediatrician on call." Okay... Is she okay? "Let's just wait for her to get here, okay?" Okay. Okay. In less than a minute, she looked her over and figured it out. Diagnosed her (though not formally, but she would be proved right). Told me we would watch for a while, but that she was going to contact the transport team. Transport team? "Yes, in case she needs to go." Go. Okay. It wasn't more than a half hour later when she came back. "Okay, mom, we're sending her." Her eyes. Her big, honest eyes filled with resolve and compassion. As awful as it is being the mom whose baby is being taken away, how awful is it to be the one to make that call? Deliver that news? Okay. I trusted her. I trusted her eyes, and so they took my daughter away.

Fast foward. "Who is her pediatrician?" Um, we don't have one. "All that matters is that you have someone you can trust." And I could see her eyes. It had to be. In that moment, I realized that God had sent her to us. He had woven her into our story because we would need her. We would need to trust her. We would need to lean on her. She would be the center of our medical world, the one holding all the revolving specialists in line.

And I wasn't wrong. We did need her. We needed her when I rushed in without an appointment, afraid for my daughter's leaking tube site. We needed her to keep a watchful eye as it healed. We needed her to recommend help for my daughter's flattened head. Amazingly, help we could find so easily in one of her partners, another one woven in. We needed her other partner when she would go on leave to have her own sweet blessing, a doctor who cares for other babies we love, who has compassion for a mom who brings in her perfectly healthy baby simply because she's worried.

So many threads and they weren't placed on accident. We didn't trip into a pile of strings to get tangled up in this mess. We were grafted in, worked in, placed. We had needs... big, big needs and they were met. Not by the hands of fate or by some great chance, but by the Meeter of needs. I felt at home in that office, that familiar waiting room with the receptionist who knows me and my daughter by name and the nurse that soaked up her shot-induced vomit with paper towels and a caring heart... I felt at home there because I was given a home there. I was given a rescuer, one to trust and rely on because I needed her and God met that need.

He didn't meet that need two days ago. He didn't meet that need when her tube fell out. He didn't meet that need when she was discharged from the hospital. He met it before she was even born. He put her doctor on call that day because He knew she would be the one we needed. He knew I would trust her honest eyes and He knew she would know exactly what to do and that she would do it, even though it was hard. He started weaving that tapestry long before we could see the picture coming into view.

It would be easy to think that just the good parts are the woven parts. The stellar pediatrician with excellent partners in her practice. The star neonatologist who just happened to be the one to admit her. The amazing nurses who cared for her like she was their own... and who held my hand through a lot of scaries. Our incredible family -- both physical and spiritual -- who prayed and walked with us and shared our sorrows. It would be easy to think that those were the parts God wove together for us. But He wove so much more. He wove us into a world of platelets and bilirubin and calories and pounds. A picture that held feeding tubes and hypoallergenic formula and PICC lines and heel sticks. A tapestry of broken ears and surgeries and weighty, impossible decisions. The picture is more complicated than that. The scene is deeper and fuller and stranger than we can know.

I can't explain to you, to myself, how this picture all comes together. I'm not the artist, the weaver, the conductor of the grand orchestra. But I can tell you there is a picture. The Word speaks to God's plan, His power, from the very beginning. And it also speaks to His goodness, His love, for us. Sometimes the picture is so ugly and confusing, like a mess of tangled threads. And sometimes, even while sitting in a doctor's office, the picture can come into view, if just for a moment. And it is so, so beautiful. So beautiful because it is a picture of love, a picture... of Love. And for that moment, you can see the care, the deliberate weaving, the purpose in each thread, even the ugly ones. And for that moment, the glimpse is not just of the woven, but the weaver. The One whose hand knitted my daughter together in my womb, held her back from death, and delivered her to life. The One who hand still carries her, carries me, now. The One who continues to weave our threads into a glorious picture of Himself -- Love, Peace, Home.