Its been longer than I wanted. This whole trying to write while navigating pandemic lockdowns, finishing homeschooling, trying to find moments for rest, and living life with 4 busy boys has proved more difficult than I thought it would be. But the other reason for the lull is that so many things erupting in our life, our nation, our world lately have weighed on my heart. The kind of weight that just drapes heavy across your shoulders like a thick blanket. It has no words because there are none to do it justice. It just needs to be acknowledged. Felt for awhile. Until it sinks deep and eventually, maybe, sometimes words begin to form or notes come together to form a melody that the soul speaks. And in the chaos and weight of recent days I’ve found myself eavesdropping on the refrain of others’ words, so powerfully speaking what my own heart couldn’t say.
As I know so many of have, I’ve watched the America’s Got Talent audition for Jane Marczweski (also known as Nightbirde) at least a dozen times. Her audition was amazing, her song so compelling, but her story is even more so. Battling cancer for the 3rd time and given only a 2% chance of survival, she faces death every day and yet she still radiates LIFE and a peaceful joy. She chooses to believe in a God Who does the impossible instead of what her circumstances dictate should be her story. She chooses joy even though things are hard. Her story so inspired me that I searched and found her blog. (You can check it out here)
“I don’t think it’s meaningless, the story that says God sculpted us from clay. Of all the things He made, humankind was the first that He touched. The first breath we tasted was His exhale.
I don’t think it’s meaningless that the first time humanity looked into the eyes of God, His hands were dirty and He was close.
Maybe we have forgotten what God showed us when He first introduced Himself—that He will crawl into the dirt to be near to us, and He will fill our lungs with air when we don’t know how to breathe.”
Nightbirde
In another blog post she said this, “If you can’t see him, look lower. God is on the bathroom floor.” Yes. This. And in the valley. And at the bottom of the well. And in the waves. And under the broom tree. Far too often I’ve been curled up on the bedroom floor and I have found that He is there too. He is right where we are. And His good plans for us haven’t changed.
Within the last month I have had so many moments on my knees on my bedroom floor wondering how we will heal. As a family, as a nation, as a global community. I’ve listened to my 9 year old son unburden his heart with how much the isolation of this pandemic has broken him. Cried over the lost opportunities and experiences with my kids. Sat with reality of how adoption will change more than just our lives forever. Read the news reports of the rise in suicides, mental health crises, and financial distress. Heard the stories of those struggling alone. Made space to grieve with friends and strangers alike as the wounds of damage done to our Indigenous peoples, both past and present, were ripped open and brought to light again. So much has been taken. So much devastation. So much pain. Graves upon graves. And it can feel hopeless.
I started this blog post so many times over the past few weeks. Never getting more than a few lines in and then finding myself at a loss. But all throughout there has been a soundtrack playing in the background. Calling to me. I just hadn’t fully tuned in yet.
I have been playing the Graves Into Gardens album from Elevation Worship since Easter, but the other day the words suddenly came into intense focus. And it’s become my anthem. Every song. Every lyric. They’ve become like arrows. Finding their mark in my soul, burrowing deep, and planting seeds of hope and life. Words that have been powerfully reverberating over the past few days.
“Oh there’s nothing better than You
There’s nothing better than You
Lord there’s nothing, nothing is better than You‘Cause the God of the mountain
Is the God of the valley
There’s not a place
Your mercy and grace
Won’t find me againYou turn mourning to dancing
You give beauty for ashes
You turn shame into glory
You’re the only one who canYou turn graves into gardens
Graves into Gardens – Elevation Worship
You turn bones into armies
You turn seas into highways
You’re the only one who can
You’re the only one who can”
“Saturday was silent
Surely it was through
But since when has impossible
Ever stopped You
Friday’s disappointment
Is Sunday’s empty tomb
Since when has impossible
Ever stopped YouThis is the sound of dry bones rattling
This is the praise make a dead man walk again
Open the grave, I’m coming out
I’m gonna live, gonna live again
This is the sound of dry bones rattlingMy God is able to save and deliver and heal
RATTLE! – Elevation Worship
And restore anything that He wants to
Just ask the man who was thrown
On the bones of Elisha
If there’s anything that He can’t do
Just ask the stone that was rolled
At the tomb in the garden
What happens when God says to move”
When I started on the journey towards healing from my past and confronting the dark things buried there, I had a picture of a forest, dark and empty, decimated by fire that kept coming to mind. But what struck me wasn’t the destruction and ruin. It was that there were tiny little green seedlings starting to push through the debris. Starting to live again. The picture was so vivid that I decided to paint it. Every so often I would pull it out and paint another portion, always the dark forest, the fog, the shadows, the decaying logs. Never the light. Never the green. I just wasn’t there yet.
Just a few weeks ago, I finished my painting after more than 10 years of working on it and somehow it feels like it was at just the right time. I’ve titled it “Repair”. The imagery that began taking shape on canvas so long ago is suddenly even more powerful today and it struck me that that it is a picture, not just for me, but for our world.
So, I’m hanging on to that promise. Even if sometimes by the skin of my teeth. Because the only One Who can bring life back to this desert is the God Who holds me in His arms. Who whispers close. “I’ve got you. Live!”
Lord, there’s nothing better than You. You see our pain. You hear our cries. You sit here in the dirt with us. And You see what lies ahead even when we can’t. Remind us again that these dry bones can live. Remind us again that impossible isn’t a word that stops you. Let us live again. Let us flourish. Graves into gardens. You’re the only One who can.
For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
Isaiah 43:19
Of Shattered Things 