Living Phoenix

Tag: daily prompt

  • God Spies With His Little Eye Something Beautiful

    God Spies With His Little Eye Something Beautiful

    Romans 10:11: “As Scripture says, ‘Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.’”

    What an awful, miserable, journey the death march of grief. To suffer the loss of love is to suffer the pain of death a hundred times a day: with every memory, hope, and dream. To suffer shame in grief, is to suffer the pain of death of the person whom you loved a hundred times a day: with every breath, every thought, every wandering moment. By the time the chaos of the mind slows, you are too far along for denial to protect you any longer. The anger and bargaining oscillate at a lower frequency; simple small electrical discharges in random moments throughout your day. Acceptance has visited you as if in a dream but remains an illusive apparition. Yet, now, there lies an opportunity to be still and to know.

    In those moments, rather than pleading “why”, there is a chance to ask the real questions. Your conversations with God have been raw and exhaustive. You’ve shaken your fist, spit, screamed, cried, begged, praised, worshiped, fallen asleep, and woke up with sun every morning. And each morning his mercies were new. But even then, I had to ask: Can God see me through all of this shame?

    So, I asked him, “God, can you see me through all of this shame?” “Can you even look upon me and recognize me?” I look in the mirror and I see the man that failed. I close my eyes and I witness my mistakes. I feel my emotions and they tell me I am a failure, beyond redemption. I am scared. Scared of what it is hard to say: loss, never having my person again, repeated failure, my reputation, my legacy…I’m scared that I am unredeemable. As I closed my eyes and shared my fears with God, I found myself in a beautiful green valley, surrounded by tall green hills, the fire burning off to the side, neatly maintained, and Jesus standing there with his arms held out. Our place, the safe space he created for me to see him and hear him where my thoughts quiet and my heart is open enough to receive.

    God spoke. “I see you. I see only you. I made you from myself, a reflective piece of my body, innocent the day my spirit conceived of you. I named you before you were born. And it means ‘Bold’. I see a compassionate man, with passion to heal others. I see a love for my creation, a joy in the beauty of nature. I see only the man I created and the purpose I created him for. I cannot look upon your sin. I only see you in truth. Your untruths and your sins were forgiven and redemption was purchased, not earned, but given by my sacrifice. I feel your sadness, I feel your hurt, I feel your grief. But shame- I despised the shame I took upon myself at the cross, and it died with me, and I rose again so that you do not have to carry that burden. Your story is not over. I am the way, the truth, and the light. None of these can be obtained without the other. Follow me in truth and you will live in the light. Joy will fall upon your heart again. My kingdom you will serve. My peace I will give you beyond your own understanding. You serve the one true King and you are a jewel in my crown upon the throne I sit. Get up and start moving, I will be your strength in weakness. I see you.”

    I cannot tell you how real my experience talking to God has been. That what he promised he has continued to fulfill faithfully. I wouldn’t have believed it myself, a once staunch diest who never doubted a creator or believed he was interested in intervening in my life. But as I stood up and moved, he consistently performed miracles in my life. I am still sad. I still hurt. I still grieve. And often I find my mind wandering, accumulating fear, whispering to me how disgusting of a failure I am. So, I return to that valley constantly, and he is always there, reminding me of my true identity.

  • Sunday Sidebar

    Sunday Sidebar

    God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in. Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final. Don’t let yourself lose me. Nearby is the country they call life. You will know it by its seriousness. Give me your hand. –Ranier Maria Rilke, Go to the Limits of Your Longing

    When I began my grief, all I wanted were answers to the why’s. Why did I make any mistakes? Why wouldn’t she listen to me? Why wouldn’t she want to work through this and save what we vowed to uphold, for better or worse? Why this pain? Why is God silent? Why can I not seem to move forward? WHY? As my grief evolved, so did my relationship with God. I still don’t know the answers to any of those questions. But I have so many other answers he found necessary to reinstate my identity and to see myself as the man that I am. I carry great pain, loss, and sadness. And I struggle with shame that gets in the way of progress at times. But those are the forming scars; proof that it was real. And God’s voice is proof that he is real.

    If there is one area I did not fail myself, it was that I directed all of my anger and passion onto Him. I ignored my conditioning to believe that I could only come to him in reverence and I swung everything I had to challenge his realness. It turns out, what I was challenging was myself and he was there to answer. Whether I was cursing him or praising him, he was there. My questions evolved, and so did his answers. There was no silver bullet and no silver lining. Only a God willing to share in the suffering and pull me to safety.

    The day my life fell apart I sat prepared in a bed of suicide. I cursed God saying, how many people have called out to you for help before they pulled the trigger, and you were silent? Suddenly, a startling knock on the door. Dogs barking. Who saved me then? I continued to spiral in pain. Calling out loud for help while simultaneously accusing him of absent fatherhood. A form of bargaining and manipulation aimed at forcing him into instant repair of the life I once had. But the chaos that was surrounding me was because the life I once had wasn’t the life he wanted for me.

    Do not misconstrue my words- it wasn’t God’s plan to upend my life. He didn’t want my person to turn their back on me and walk away. He didn’t want a covenant to be ruined. No more than he wanted me to make my own poor choices. He had chains to break in me that could be freed no other way. He doesn’t make your partners choices for them, just like he doesn’t make yours- he is there to heal your marriage but not force someone else to participate. And ultimately, he is there to heal you even when you lose everything you love or hoped for. Sometimes, in my screaming and crying and constant questioning, the only thing I would hear from him was, “keep showing up”. I didn’t know what I was doing. Still don’t, really. But if you keep showing up, you’ll find he is always there waiting. Not in silence. Not observing you and teaching you a lesson through his absence. He is there. Present and already at work.

    God wanted me to see myself how he saw me. To start with self honesty. To know I am a good husband, a good father, a good son, a good brother, and an amazing human being. It’s hard to say those things. But it was easy for him to tell me- over and over again.

  • Sunday Sidebar

    Sunday Sidebar

    “Hearts can break. Yes, hearts can break. Sometimes I think it would be better if we died when they did, but we don’t.” — Stephen King

    There are some things worse than death: loss of true love and separation from God. The pain exists in the space between the connection had and the seemingly endless future of connection lost. Like a ship lost in a storm with no sails and no rudder, we are at the mercy of the wind and waves, we drown below the surface of the deep waters, or succumb to the pounding rain above. One or both may never recover. One or both may. Only one is not reliant on the limited forgiveness, love, understanding of the will of man. That of the connection of God cannot be permanently deleted. God doesn’t walk away from us with his back turned because of hurt and anger. He cannot. He is part of us. And that connection is always a choice of our own, unlike a covenant between two fallible people.

    I always thought that choice was a one time event. That forgiveness was available but not free. That it required some significant strength or quantity of faith and belief that had to be satisfactory to the cosmic police to get me into good standing. That confession meant saying “I am sorry”. None of that is found to be true when you are moments from being a corpse, with nothing that made you who you were remaining, your life in utter ruins. Sorry, did not connect me to God. Honesty did. And it wasn’t my strength, or quantity of faith, that led him to start picking up the millions of pieces. I know because I had no strength or faith remaining. I was on my final breathe when he stepped in to lift me up. Surrounded by angels. And even if we are still on life support, when he comes because we were honest to him and asked the right questions, we are at least no longer lying in the grave.

  • Asking What, Not Why

    Asking What, Not Why

    “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”
    ― C.S. Lewis

    The ashes of my terminal end seemed to fall about me for months. My panic persisted in abundance as I frantically thrashed about emotionally, desperate not to feel this remarkable pain of loss. Begging and bargaining out loud to nobody, waiting, screaming in an empty house, breaking into sudden fits of sobbing. I watched as she erased me from her life with out a word spoken to me. I thought of what helped in the past to cope with pain. Drugs? Never again, they only made my life worse the first time. Alcohol? I was too fearful I would take my own life if inhibited. Exercise? I couldn’t move. Frozen on the couch in a constant state of terror. Memories everywhere. Thoughts of her moving on to break her own promises too soon. I searched through a dating site and panicked in 36 hours, shutting it down- I couldn’t even imagine touching another person. I googled vacations and places to travel. Why travel with no person to make memories with, especially without the person you traveled with so much before the fall? Okay, all else failed perhaps a new hobby? Fear had become my new hobby. No light could shine onto any new possibility. To be honest, very little light still shines through the cracks of this prison wall. I found that all I could do is ask, why? Why God? WHY?

    Driven by fear and pain, “why” is the first question on the lips of every suffering child. It necessitates a satisfactory answer. It mandates a response that is fulfilling. I only want to hear one thing- I’ll fix this. My entire being is so consumed by the flames of fear that any response to my cosmic questioning, except all that I lost will be reinstated, will not suffice. “Why did this happen”, falls from my mouth and lungs so many times that it eventually evolves unnoticed to “why aren’t you answering me”? My mind is so chaotic all I can hear is the constant drone of unwanted memories and the sound of my heart breaking into more pieces. My body and mind buzzing with a million thoughts, regrets, alone beneath a blanket of shame. I ask for forgiveness but cannot even come close to forgiving myself. Hanging myself on that cross without the respect of a burial and certain of no resurrection. I believe God exists. I believe he can put me back together, speak miracles into existence, calm my storm. But I only want one thing from him. So, what I perceive is silence.

    When I found him in the garden, he was praying quietly, but he was speaking to me still: calling to me. Not giving me an answer. Not taking away my pain. Just inviting me to sit and share in his own experience of grief, even to the point of death. I had to wander in on him, there in that garden, several times. It took multiple invitations. Eventually, I sat there long enough to hear him speak again. “Now come with me to the cross”. Fear again took over because the cross demands my confessions. But this is what I asked him for: to hear him speak. Even then he did not answer my why. He wouldn’t because I already knew. I know why I am here. Instead I finally asked him what- what should I do? What do you want? What can I learn? What am I? What do YOU WANT ME TO UNDERSTAND? And then, the slightest movement. The next vision. The next image. Coming in more clearly every time. Speaking to me. First he demanded honesty. He demanded me to speak the truth in my confession. Then he walked toward the cross and I hoped to follow. That was my first real experience knowing for certain that I heard the voice of God. No voice at all- but I heard it still. What now? Well, I don’t know. But I do know, at least, He is real. And He speaks to me.

    “Why” still wanders into my heart every few minutes, it seems. It still sucks the air out of the room and pierces my chest with sudden pain. I try to redirect my question to “what”. Knowing that “why” will trap me and “what” will eventually free me. Hoping. Wanting. Wishing. What do you want me to understand, Lord?

  • Sunday Sidebar

    Sunday Sidebar

    God still speaks to us. Why is God silent when we need him most? He isn’t standing by. He isn’t teaching us something through silence. He isn’t sadistic. The answer is chaos. There is so much chaos. So much pain and loss that terror fills every part of us so that all we can hear is the echos of our screams. For the same reason we are unable to see someone’s love and commitment to us when it is right in front of us and we make choices that contradict our true identity- we don’t see that we are standing in our own way while God speaks. He speaks: through feelings, emotions, thoughts, dreams, words, visions… But if I am so surrounded and filled with FEAR, I cannot hear the voice in the storm. Fear of losing what we had forever. Fear that we already know it will never return to “normal”. Fear that what God will say we do not want to hear. Because only one thing, one single response, would do. And that is what we want most and most what we cannot have. And fear is so damn loud.

    My vision comes to me in low resolution, like an old television, bunny ear antennae straining in different directions to pull in bits and pieces of the image across the screen. Christ kneeling in a garden. It’s dark. It’s dark all around in the trees that surround him with a single torch burning in a small clearing. He doesn’t look at me. I cannot see his face. I see his clothes. His robe- brown and white, his low resolution bare feet behind him but I cannot make out his toes. Odd that I look every time. I hear him praying quietly, desperately, and with fervor. He is sweating and it drips to the ground. I hear him praying. And I hear him say “come sit with me”. He doesn’t pause his prayer, he doesn’t turn to say anything to me, but I hear him.

    This is where my journey with him often ends. He doesn’t speak any further wisdom to me. I have nothing profound to walk away with. Nothing to change my life back to whole. Only an invitation to kneel by him and suffer beside him. To witness the pain on his face as he prepares to lose everything he has known in life. His friends, his family, his hopes, his dreams, his comforts. Only an invitation to hear his desperate whispers. To be still. And to know.