Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.-Matthew 5:4

My soul does not need to be told that I am "good" in my place of discouragement over sin. I do not need to be puffed up to be lifted up, I do not need my pet-sins-turned-bengal-tigers to be groomed and given a heart-shaped dog tag. When I point to the boils covering my skin, I need a cure, not a cosmetic cream. I do not need a compliment, and neither do I need good advice--I need Good News. 

Just as there is a godly sorrow and a worldly sorrow, it appears to me that there is also a worldly comfort and a godly comfort. When the godly sorrow comes--when the conviction of sin brings an upheaval on our hearts--the comfort of this world will not suffice. It offers a counterfeit ease, a shot of caffeine in place of real rest.  

What does godly comfort look like? 

Looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. 

He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He became sin who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God. 

Jesus, our sweet, perfect comfort. He does not flatter us--He shows us we are far worse than we can imagine--but that He is the friend of sinners. He justifies the ungodly. We are wicked and unworthy--but He loves us. 

Godly comfort corners you into self-forgetful joy.

"If God doesn't want me to be married, then why has He given me the desire to be married?"

I've thought this myself. Once, years ago, I heard a Pastor make the argument that God will surely give you a spouse if you desire one. I took comfort in that word at the time, but it hasn't been until the past few years that I've begun to consider that marriage is not a certainty. It is assumed upon and by many of us--but it is not a promise. Marriage may happen to many, but it does not come to all. I don't make that statement to throw a pity party--it is, objectively, true. 

What do we do in these cases? What do we do with the longing? 

Do we curse it, deny it, suppress it? Do we become bitter? Do we harden our hearts? Do we just find a way to ignore it? 

I have been there, reader. I have committed all of these at one time or another. 

Recently, while on one of my walks interwoven with prayer, I felt the frustration of the longing. There are times when loneliness feels pointless. It feels like a waste. 

There have been times, in all of their well-meaning ways, that "Women's Ministry" events have left me feeling less-than-womanly. In all of their lovely descriptions of the very "fit-ness" of women for the role of a wife and a mother, of the detailed made-for-eachother-ness of a man and woman together, I have been left feeling lacking. If I have been created for a man, what am I to do without one? If marriage is a good thing, then why has God withheld it from me? Why the wasted blood every month? Why the wider-than-masculine hips? Why the empty, aching place for a life-long friend moving in the same direction? 

After my mind had wandered on that walk, the Lord placed a thought in my mind:

Maybe God's given you that desire for another purpose.

Maybe God's given you that longing for a purpose that does not climax in an earthly covenant.

Maybe God hasn't given you that yearning to bring you into relationship with a man, but seeking to accomplish something even more significant through it. 

Every marriage here is momentary. That is not to take away from its beauty or its gospel-picturing glory by any means. We must yearn for Someone greater. We must thirst for a better wedding toast. We must hunger for a richer wedding feast.

Some on this earth will partake of the gift of husband-and-wife. And it is good. 

All who are in Christ will partake of the gift of being the bride of Christ. And that is the far better thing.

On "Uprootings" and the Like

I don't do well with heights--or really with any copious degree of space around me. I get dizzy. I might pass out if I stand around it long enough. Even staring up at the sky, lying flat on my back, stirs me to feel although the laws of gravity will suddenly rebel, and I will fall upwards into the vast blue gap. It's entirely unlikely, I know. But it is still a very disturbing feeling to have. No matter how much I try to talk sense into my head about it, my breathing still quickens, my heart still races. I feel as though I could, even if I can't.

I may never fall into the sky in the literal sense, but metaphorical "uprootings" are the stuff of non-fiction. Can you hold the picture in your head--the one of the arrested carrot caught in the farmer's grasp, its hairy tendrils grasping what it can of its familiar surroundings, its green locks drooping like the ears of a captured puppy? It flies towards the sky before it hangs suspended above the earth and is transported away for other uses. No farm-grown vegetable is given the luxury of being a homebody. It's a part of the vocation.

I've spent most of my life steeped in the soil of Education. The earth's composition around me changed as I grew father down, but my movement was always in the same direction. I could still navigate the terrain below. And then--then there is the tug. The upward jolt. The slipping up.  I have been ripened. I have been readied.

I've dreamed about making journeys to foreign lands. I've swooned at a myriad of possibilities to fill in the blank of the "When I grow up I want to be a _____" statement. I remember, when I was around eleven, deciding that I should be a writer, so that I could just write about all of the adventures I imagined about. My thoughts are very well-traveled--my mind has circled the entire sphere. My body, however, has conformed to the rhythms of the underground world. My imagination could scale the seven wonders, but my body loves the habits of Home.

And yet, even within the same neighborhood, there is the upheaval of seasons. We cannot escape the hands of the Farmer. No matter if you are dressed from head to toe in knits and wool, Summer will not wait till you are tired of Jingle Bells to call you out of hibernation. The time is now.

I faced the panic of space recently. No soil to hold me in place, no place to steady myself. Or, at least--that is what I felt. I felt I could fall, I would fall--and it would be a bitter end. But that is when the Gardener spoke to me of the better Ground that holds me up, the better ground from which I cannot fall. That the soil I sought was as sand, without traction, supplying the feel of security without the strength to keep me secure. "There are things that you think you need that you do not need," I felt He said, and I shifted my weight upon the Rock.


On Christ the solid rock I stand,
All other ground is sinking sand
All other ground is sinking sand

Joy in the workplace. Joy in the job searching. Joy as a missionary. Joy as a barista. Joy as a mother. Joy as a single. Joy as a wife. 

Joy that I belong to Jesus. Joy that I am His child and anything I can do can be most radiant under His sovereign hand.

So teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom.-Psalm 90:12

You are never too young to think about getting old. Or at least this is what I hold to. We are all dying every day. You are the youngest you will ever be at this moment, but you are also the oldest you have ever been. 

Sometimes I wonder how we would view age if we kept track of the number of days we have been alive, rather than the years. Would we feel our transience a little bit more, or would would the days get buried in the abundance of trailing numbers? 

On June first I turned twenty-four. I'm not going to crack jokes, trying to take hold of the privileges of a higher number while maintaining the benefits of being "young". But I do want to grow in the wisdom that comes from God, and I do want to take hold of that wisdom through processing life as it comes. None of us, no matter our number of gray hairs, will ever "arrive" this side of Heaven. I may not have the benefit of a large breadth of experiences, but I don't want to miss out on gleaning from the ones that I have. Give me a small library to be well-versed in over Powell's books barely scanned any day.*

I am "young", but I am also older than I was before. My body is breaking down--slowly, to be sure, but  it has settled upon being chiseled by the crashing waves as I pass through the waters. My outer person is wasting away with the hours, but my inner self is being renewed day by day to look like Jesus. The world is dressing me down, tearing at my dress like Cinderella's jealous stepsisters, but the Father is dressing me up in a wedding gown. Sin and death scratch their claws over our skin, but there is a transformation taking place that neither have power to reverse. In Christ, death dies. In Christ, the dead are brought to life.

That is something to look forward to.











*No offense to Powell's and their fans. I know that if I ever get to visit Portland one day I will get woozy at the sight of all of those books.

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who 

comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the 

comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in 

abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.

-2 Cor. 1:3-5

That the aches and groans rising from my soul now can one day become the balm for another's soul is a source of great joy for me. It is this that causes me to eye the thorn so stubbornly embedded under layers of skin with a greater understanding when my Maker refuses to remove it, the red haloed thing that it is. It teaches me that my wisdom has a limit, that my perception's strength is finitely numbered. The glory of God may flash forth with greater brilliance when I run with a limp, my crooked steps may take on more of a dance. 

How can I know which would be better, with or without?
I have come to see that my joy may run deeper in the waters I would never ask to swim in.