Splashes across my foggy rearview mirror.

How long, O LORD? will you forget me for ever? how long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I have perplexity in my mind, and grief in my heart, day after day? how long shall my enemy triumph over me? Look upon me and answer me, O LORD my God; give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death; Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” and my foes rejoice that I have fallen. But I put my trust in Your mercy; my heart is joyful because of Your saving help. I will sing to the LORD, for He has dealt with me richly; I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High. Psalm 13

Look upon me and answer me, O LORD my God; give light to my eyes.

That I might see.

That I might see. The Joy Dare for today is dusky light, surprising reflection, lovely shadow.

But really, things are pretty dark in my little world. The four-thirty-in-the-morning-living-room is pitch black except for my glowing computer screen with This morning’s office to be observed.  Yesterday I tried all day long to squint funny. Picture myself kneeling down. Repeat after me, my Strength and my Redeemer. Again and again. And I get it, in my head, that I am not wrestling against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world.

But really it looks like big mucky glops of mud on my windshield. Those squirmy cursing angry flesh and bloods all day long.

The darkness of this world.

Give me light.

Yesterday in chapel once again we sang, “This little light of mine. I’m gonna let it shine. Don’t let Satan puff it out, I’m gonna let it shine.”

But still, as we stood together in a crowded hallway at the end of the day with all of the honor roll students and said what we were thankful for before we gave everyone back their cell phones and let them go home or to the library or to the tutoring Centre next door where a fresh batch of momma cookies in ziplock bags was waiting, I wept tears of hopelessness. And last night, that’s how I went to sleep.

And on Tuesday night, when Pastor Chris asked me what was the point of the past year and a half, what was my take away, I could only shake my head sadly, and repeat again and again, I don’t know.

On Wednesday at the Tucson Museum of Art class, I painted a small canvas with a bright pink and purple and blue and green “Embrace” dancing across the center and sprinkled it with rock salt and blew bubbles of rubbing alcohol across it.

What does it look like to stop trying, and let Him? To let go and bury myself in His arms?

Every single day I try to step down from the throne of my heart. Bend my knee. Rest. Die like a seed.

Try. Try. Try.

IdolaTRY. Really?

What does it look like to stop trying, and let Him? To let go and bury myself in His arms?

And once again the Psalmist answers the question:  I will sing to the LORD; I will praise His name.

Eucharisteo comes before the miracle.

And as He entered a village, He was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”

Jesus, Master, have mercy on me.

And my Friday prayer for myself is and has been for oh-so-long: I pray that I will be a light to the nations as He declares new things. 

I’m gonna let it shine.

And when I step out of my dark little living room to head for Hillenbrand Pool, I am going to look for dusky light, surprising reflection, lovely shadow.

To notice.

You only have shadows when there is light.

And really all of the light looked dusky this morning as I drove home. There was not even a glimmer of sunrise on the eastern horizon.

And the biggest surprising reflection came from the pool of water that fills the new pothole at the corner of Broadway and Stratford boulevards that has eaten away more than half of the right lane.

And all of the shadows this morning were lovely, red and white and green lights splashes across my foggy rearview mirror.

I will sing to the LORD; I will praise His name.

Waiting for that second marshmallow

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I have perplexity in my mind, and grief in my heart, day after day? Psalm 13:1

But I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help. I will sing to the LORD, for He has dealt with me richly; I will praise the Name of the LORD Most High. Psalm 13:5

It’s all about the wait. The distance between the first and last verse of David’s psalm. The long distance.

Somehow the couple lighting the advent candles last night developed the theme of joy by detailing the oft-repeated 40-year longitudinal Stanford University study demonstrating the power and strengthening of delayed gratification.  I mean, if you as a four-year-old can wait fifteen minutes before eating your first marshmallow, it is likely that your SAT scores will be almost 300 points higher.

Then Jon Phillips taught last night about embracing the wait from Luke 1, and the story of Zechariah and Elizabeth, and their long waiting. A waiting filled with lack of provision, shame, and haunted by impossibility.

Jon asked, What are you longing for God to do for you? Are you willing to turn it into What are You longing from Me? Often waiting seems like a time of suffering. But the good news for us is that God steps into these places of waiting to reveal Himself and His love. And unfortunately we often greet His provision with, What took You so long? And the truth is that through the wait, we get to be part of God’s bigger plan, just as how the long-awaited baby John was the prophesized One to come in the spirit and power of Elijah. God does things according to His plan to make clear that it is from Him, and not is of us and our power and strength. To embrace waiting is to wait for that which is not of me, but of God.

Zechariah’s immediate response was unbelief. But God moved forward anyways. His plan does not depend on our faith. We get insight into what God does through this process of waiting by reading Zechariah’s response: Blessed be the name of the LORD God.

A story from Jon’s life began when Kirsten went in for her four-month ultrasound. And there was a problem, that the child’s kidney was filling up with water, and most likely the child would die before birth, and if he would be born, he would most likely lose his kidney. In the midst of this, Jon had a crisis of faith, a mixed feeling of God is able to heal my son with that whispering doubt of Would He work in my life? And the doctors kept marveling at the swelling kidney, which Jon compared to being like a grapefruit while the other kidney was like a pea, and of course that made Jon feel worse. And Kirsten wanted to call the boy Zachary, which means Remembered by God. And Jon wasn’t feeling very remembered. But then the graduating Intervarsity seniors came in and prayed for Zachary, and the next day he was totally well. In the midst of that waiting and that suffering Jon learned all about God is with me, He sees me in my need.

Jon’s invitation to us in this time of advent is Look for what God wants to give you of Himself. This might not necessarily be what I think I want, but really, it is want I do profoundly long for, Him. We are to invite God into this place of pain and see what He might do. And the other more important thing is that the world needs people like us, people who know how to wait. As we go into our own suffering, He also wants us to look around us, and see where our story is needed to give hope to our neighbor.

Closing question: Are you willing to look for God’s work in the midst of your suffering, and are you willing to sit in the suffering of the world?

So, I don’t know when it happened exactly, but there has been a shift in my heart. And I don’t know whether it was during Nicholas’s after-dinner chat about our identity in God’s love being the key to sharing that love with the world, or really, maybe even if that mysterious rainbow arching across the sky yestermorning led to a fabled pot of gold.

But as Cameron and his band led us through U2’s question, which of course also was the question in today’s fixed-hours morning office, I could with an undivided heart answer: I will sing, sing a new song.

I waited patiently for the Lord
He inclined and heard my cry
He brought me up out of the pit
Out of the miry clay

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song

He set my feet upon a rock
And made my footsteps firm
Many will see
Many will see and hear

I will sing, sing a new song
I will sing, sing a new song.

I will sing to the LORD, for He has dealt with me richly; I will praise the Name of the LORD Most High.