The Wall

I wrote this a month or so ago, and didn't realize I never finished and posted it. I blame it on my wedding brain, which apparently is a real thing.

 
Across the field before me stands a wall, composed of rows of stones, a dozen stones high. I sense this is the way I need to go - but how will I do it? It's so much taller than I am.

Beside the wall he stands. His eyes are on me. "Come on! Let's get beyond the wall!"

I hesitate. I am not sure how I can.

"Come on!"he calls, his hand motioning. He doesn't understand how small I am.

I step forward, slowly.

He is sitting on top of the wall. Another familiar voice calls out to me, "Come. Come beyond." In response, he swings his legs to the other side and looks back at me.

I eye the wall, raise my brows, and step cautiously towards the wall. Step by step I slide closer until I stand two steps away. I look up.

The wall towers above me. I look up and up and up until my head cannot go back any farther. The wall is so tall it seems to curve back over me. It is impossible to climb it. The first layer of stone is three times as tall as I am at least.

"Climb it," he says.

Climb it? I can't even see him. All I see is this huge wall before me, above me, around me. I am surrounded by these giant walls.

"Come, dear." Suddenly he has slipped beside me. I shake my head, and the wall swallowing me has taken shape again before me-still taller than I can see.

He reaches for my hand and pulls me one step closer. "You must cross the wall."

Tears fill my eyes and streak my face. "I know," I murmur. "But..." I lift blurry gaze to towering wall. "I don't know how."

"Just do it," he says, pulling my hand. "Come."

I know I can't. The wall is too high. The first stone on the wall is too high. It's too smooth. There's not even a place to put my foot.

"Step up, dear. Come."

I look into his face and step forward. The stone is hard, cold, impossible.

But I obey, I put my foot towards it, only to show him it cannot be done. And it stays. My eyes widen, and I excitedly take another step and grab onto the stone with my hands.

Maybe I can do this after all.

 I look up. I can see nothing but rock stretching above me. No. There's no way I can do it that far.

Then, at the top, I see legs dangling and a smile. "Come on, dear. You got this."

Maybe, just maybe, I can.

You, Mark

Do you ever feel like Mark?

Around you are amazing men, doing great things, and all you want to do is join them. You want to be known, maybe not as Paul, but at least as Paul's companion. As one who walks with Bartholomew, the encourager.

You don't expect to be great. But you want to help those who are.

But when you join their journey -- suddenly you're overwhelmed. The road is rougher than you thought. You miss your family back in your hometown. You've been mocked and tried more than you ever have been before. You're footsore, heartweary, and headnumb.

All you wanted to do was help. Maybe you wanted a little fame, but you knew that was wrong and you tried to fight it. You really wanted to give Paul a hand.

But now - you're tired, and you aren't helping. You feel like you must be a burden.

So you turn back. At least you won't make everyone else, those who are faithfully serving, enduring through hardship, bear your sin in addition to everything else.

They can probably do better without you.

And then comes Bartholomew, Bartholomew the encourager. "Come with me," he says. "I can use you."

And you resist. How can you be of use to anyone? You couldn't endure when the road was hard. Your comfort was too important to you. You let everyone down. Even if you had continued, you still would have, one way or another.

But Bartholomew insists. He believes in you. So, you don your cloak and pick up your walking stick and step out to try again.

And then, Paul says no.

You failed them. Why should they take you along? Why won't you fail them again? With work to be done and souls to save, who has time to care for an immature, unreliable kid?

And you cannot argue. You agree with Paul. Why would they want your help?

But Bartholomew says no. He wants you. He says you must stay. And when Paul disagrees, they split.

There you go again, causing strife and headaches and distracting from the important work.

You follow on with Bartholomew, resolved to do your best, but with sorrowful guilt nagging at your heart. You can only beg God to keep you from stumbling this time.

And God works through you, and the weariness of the journey does not defeat you, though you have never been so tried. And still, the guilt lies in the back of your mind, dormant in the corners of your heart.

But your story isn't over.

"Get Mark and bring him with you," Paul says, "for he is useful to me for ministry."

In passing he mentions it, as if it means nothing, as if hearing it your eyes do not fill with tears. As if a hesitant smile isn't forming in your soul.

Useful. Useful to Paul. Useful for ministry.

You. You who failed. You who turned back when the road was rocky. You who sought comfort over compassion. Now, your failures are forgiven and forgotten. You're given another chance.

Not only that, but you're useful. You run the words over and over in your mind. You're useful to the Apostle. You're useful to your Lord. Useful for ministry.

God specializes in using failed vessels. Humbled, you go to Paul, ready to serve.

Rejecting the Mask

I thought my last post might need some clarification. Or perhaps could use some elaboration. I wanted to be careful to not offend anyone (by offend, I don't mean offend in the usual sense) by telling them what they could figure out. That is a no-no of writing-you don't want to talk down to your readers. You want to give them enough information to draw the conclusions you intend for them to draw (this is something I need to work on...), and yet not explain to them what is quite clear as if they are stupid ignoramuses.

I have discovered I enjoy allegorical writing. I think the meaning of my last one is discernable, but I wanted to say some things that did not fit into the story. And I also didn't want anyone to think I am crazy, depressed, never really happy, or anything like that. It is an allegory.

Yet, in accordance with the warning of this particular allegory, I did not want to share it, because it is true, nevertheless.

Recently I attended a Cru meeting where the speaker, a counselor, discussed this. He started by reading Genesis, where it says, "the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed."

Can you imagine having nothing to hide? Not being ashamed of anything? No secrets. No ugly parts. No thoughts you won't share.

You can't imagine it. It's like heaven.

If you're married, you might have some idea of what it's like. But even then, you still have fear, shame, things you wish you could hide. Last Sunday, the Sunday school teacher said when he was little, he asked his mom if she wished that they could read each others' minds. When she said no, he thought, "My mom has no imagination!" When he became a teenager, he realized his mom was wise.

What happened as soon as Adam and Eve sinned?

They didn't point fingers. They didn't hide from God. They didn't become angry.

The first thing they did was cover up. The first thing they felt was shame.

Shame, the counselor said, leads to fear. And fear leads to control. When we are ashamed of who we are, we fear someone finding out or rejecting us, and when we fear, that fear controls us.

The teacher turned next to 1 John. I love 1 John. I have read it dozens and dozens of times. Perhaps I will write about my discovery about the verse "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins" some time. He read chapter 1:5-7.

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.  If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.  But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

Normally this is interpreted, as I have done, as darkness/light standing for sin. But that means it says, "If we do not sin as He does not sin...Jesus cleanses us from all sin," which seems odd. He maintained that light stood for truth: "If we walk in the truth as He is in the truth, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."

When we hide the truth from each other, we are kept from fellowship.

He talked about how we all have these masks that we wear. How we put them on, afraid of someone seeing the real us and rejecting it. With these masks on, they can't reject us.

On the other hand, they can't love us either.

At the end of the day, you take off that mask, that mask that others have loved or perhaps rejected, and there you are in your original state. Unrejected. And unloved.

The truth shall set you free.

When something is brought out into the light, its true characteristics are revealed. That's why being open is so hard and frightening and necessary. The first step to correcting a problem is acknowledging that you have it. And sin's foolishness has a way of becoming very clear when you tell-or even consider telling-it in detail to a friend.

Fight the control that fear has over you by choosing not to be ashamed. That is, by walking in the truth, in fellowship.

And the joy of this all?

You have searched me and known me. God knows all. There is nothing about us--no fear, no sin, no sorrow--that He does not know. Though I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. We have no mask before Him.

And He loves us still, and utterly.

Living the Truth

Stretching, I fluff the soft, defined curls around my smooth face.

"Good morning."

I turn to my sister, aware of my smiling lips and eyes. "Good morning."

"You look pretty this morning," she says. "Your eyes are so striking."

"Thanks," I smile, running my hand over my even, oval face and showing my perfect set of white teeth. She returns the smile and pokes the end of my cute little button nose.

I hum cheerfully as I prepare for school, finding some earrings that color-coordinate with my cute new shirt. Before class, I see my friend.

She notices me and a broad smile lights her face. "Hi!" She runs to meet me and wraps her arms around me. "You're looking cute today," she says, patting my face. "How are you doing?"

"Good," I reply. "I'm doing well. How about you?"

"Uh...okay," she replies. Surprised, I look at her bright face and smiling eyes. She looks like she is doing well, I think. Strange.

When I leave her, she hugs me again. "Thanks," she says. "You're such a good friend. No one else noticed I was upset."

"It's nothing," I smile, turning to enter my class.

"You're late," the professor calls from the far corner.

Slipping into my usual seat at the front, I nod. "I am sorry."

The old man's wrinkled face turns to the check in sheet with a little grin. "Don't worry about it. I'm sure you had a good reason."

The day passes quickly, full of encounters with classmates and coworkers, with friends and family.

"You're making great improvement," my blonde-haired manager says. "Keep up the good work!" She picks up her enveloping mustard green bag. "See you tomorrow!"

"Sure thing!" I reply, turning to close the register.

When I get home, my dad asks me, "How was your day?"

"Good," I reply.

Heading upstairs, I shut the bedroom door behind me. Pulling at the roots of my hair, I peel off my mask and hang it on the plastic red hook.

Turning to the irregular broken bit of mirror behind me, I put back on my smile that I have allowed to fade. It does not match my eyes, which are some nondescript color as well as bloodshot red. Sighing, I take up a cloth lying on the floor and wipe the moisture off the back of my mask.

"People really like you," I tell it. I gaze into its bright eyes. "You're beautiful."

Slowly, I hang it again on its hook and turn to climb into bed.

6:30 wakes me up, and I slip off my bed without using the ladder. I go straight to the hook and lift that smiling mask.

Don't.

I startle as if the voice spoke aloud.

Leave it.

Quietly turning to stand before that mirror shard, I hold the mask of me up beside my sleepy face. I look into the  bright, happy eyes beside me and then gaze steadily into the tired, still-red ones edged by tiny, thin lashes in the mirror. I run my hand over the freckled skin dotted with red and pick at my chin till I must wipe blood away.

You don't need it.

I frown at the high cheekbones of my squarish face over my fingerprinted, crooked glasses. I note my wrinkled scar between my eyes, the odd pulling in at the corner of my lips, my almost-double chin, my grayish hair, and weird, almost Asian-looking eyes. Through my fake smile, I look at my straight teeth, yellowish from bad habits.

The vision of my friend's smile as she hugs me tightly, looks into my eyes, and says, "You're so pretty," fills my mind.

I look into them, with dark circles beneath, shudder, and press on my mask, carefully sealing each edge.

I'm sorry, I whisper. I have to. Or they'll know who I really am.

"...God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin..." 1 John 1:5-7

Important Work

Before you rests a pile of dark, heavy dirt. You sigh, looking from it to the shovel with a split wooden handle grasped in your hand. You know your task.

Slowly, you jab your shovel into the dirt. When you remove it, you deposit the part that doesn't fall off into a new pile. Complaining of the crack pinching your palm, you press on, knowing your duty.

You know you need to move this dirt. But you don't know why. So you toil on.

But then Joe bounds towards you. "Hurry up!" he cries, jabbing his thin trowel into the pile. "Come on!" In a few moments, with his small tool he has doubled the pile you've been toiling over.

Raising your eyebrows, you press your shovel into the dirt. "What's the hurry?" you ask.

"What's the hurry?!" Joe cries, without turning from his work. "Don't you know he'll suffocate if we don't get him out?"

Suddenly, you don't notice the pinching on your palms, the weight of the dirt, the sweat marking trails down your neck.

Your only focus is to get him out. To save his life.

Now, the obstacles don't matter. You only wish you had known before the importance of the task, that you might have done better. Why hadn't someone told you? Why hadn't you realized, so that you would have known to work diligently?

I think this is often how we approach all of life. There is gravity and purpose for our lives -- but we live as if we know we need to live but don't know why. We grow weary living, we act lackadaisical, we live without a plan:

We don't remember that there is a reason we are living.

But there is.

Ephesians 2:10: For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Revelation 4:11: You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created.

If we remembered this, could we live lives of such unintentionality? If we really believe that Christ gives  meaning to life, that God sees all that we do, why do we think it doesn't matter?

And if we know that what we do with our lives is important, why don't we act like it?

 Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it. ...Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus: not with uncertainty. Thus I fight: not as one who beats the air. But I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.   I Corinthians 9:24-27

Acting

It's like death,
this watching a muted movie,
this asking why
and what the actors are saying.
This repeating
over and over and over
as if you are praying,
the Author has a plot
this pain is not for naught.
This hoping
and knowing
and trusting
that the climax is needed
for the conclusion,
and that when the credits roll
(with the author's name
listed after every part)
we'll know then
the meaning of the script.
This knowing the story is good
because He's a published author
with satisfying subplots
but still letting the tears fall
because it's death
becoming an actor
to a plot not your own.

The Hidden War

The world is a battlefield.

All around you, there's a war. The woman you passed, thinking she was a grump? She was just mortally wounded, and her blood quietly seeped out on the parking lot.

But you didn't see it. You just saw a woman scowling as she whipped grocery bags into her SUV. And when you said, "Well, that's a pleasant woman," you didn't know.

You didn't know her hope has died. That today she knew for sure that she could not believe in a God who would let her husband leave her, just like her father did. That the reason she glared at you was because she was demanding of God why.

Why do you look so happy, herding your little kids into your car?

Yes, they're disobedient children, and your voice sounded irritated and weary, and your van has scratches and that big dent you were so upset by. But you take your children home so your husband can discipline them, and she'd give away her shiny car for a little taste of the joy you have and take your weariness if she could get rid of her heartache.

Yes, in the world there's a war. But the war's not just outside.

Your daughter complains that she gained five pounds and her face is all broken out, and her friend isn't talking to her. You tell her everyone gets pimples, don't worry what other people think, and by the way, she needs to clean the bathroom.

You don't see the soldier aiming his machine gun at your daughter's heart; you suggest a stroll through the countryside, unaware of the snipers and the deep fear she cannot explain.

Then you wonder why she seems angry with you and how you have failed her.

The war's for you, too.

Yes, that person has just cancelled on you again, leaving you scrambling for a fill-in and wasting those two hours you meant to use to make a nice dinner for your family. Yes, she always does it.

But, though you imagine her shooting her poisoned arrows into your back as you wish, she isn't your enemy.

The enemy is deeper. He's put his weapon inside you. The poison that is killing you isn't from her arrows.

It's sin.

It's a powerful force, an unrelenting enemy.

You live in your little village in the mountains, far away from the booming cannons and explosions of war. But you are not safe. Your enemy has signed the contract for military law, but the enemy is a thief and a liar, and he will not obey them.

The neutral party is not safe. In fact, the neutral party is not neutral.

If you remain unaware of the war, living in your little out-of-the-way village, the marauders will come though, burn your helpless home, and shoot you through your unprepared heart.

You cannot afford to not prepare. The enemy is a burglar, searching the lonely places where there are quiet people whose inoffensive nicety keeps them from building fences and oiling guns, where the enemy can knock on the door with his gun slung over his shoulder and be welcomed in as if he were the owner of the house.

But really, the enemy has already infiltrated. He is the owner of the house. You cannot resist his thieving rule unless you join the defeating Army that is coming.

But even if you do, you'll lose battle after battle if you don't see the war.

Be on the alert.