We, Who Have Seen the Prophecies Fulfilled, Testify

It's Christmas Eve and I cannot sleep. I wonder how sleepily Bethlehem slumbered on that not-so-silent night. Peace. Peace is what the angel proclaimed. A man of sorrows was coming to take on the world's sorrow. I'm so glad He was acquainted with our griefs. Cause, my dear friend, I need some peace tonight. I'm sure you can relate.

Sunday is always my favorite day of the week. Sabbath puts me in my place. It grounds me. It shows me what really matters – it exhibits God's tangible mercy and painful grace. But tonight, I just can't sleep. Sleep may be evading me because of too much sugar from the homemade cherry cobbler that my dad and I made or too much caffeine from the coffee mom brewed so we could sit at the table and just talk. It could be because I'm nervous about tomorrow's church service as my brother and I are singing or because I'm excited to be with those precious women at the jail and then with a very special guest at church in the morning.

But in truth what keeps me up tonight is the brokenness in my own soul and the poverty of my heart.

Oh, I am indescribably rich. I am surrounded by so many precious friends and family. But He keeps me up tonight, wrestling with either an angel or demon, begging to be released of my shame – begging for a new name.

So much of who we are is confused by what we do.

I leave for Uganda in two weeks. I pray I shed a piece of my self-deception during that 8 hour flight across the pond – that it lands in the deepest portion of the Atlantic, never to be seen again. I pray that I die to myself there and come back brand new, a different girl than the one who presently wears these skin and bones. I hope a new heart is conceived in that brazen land and that it will grow to beat and engulf the one of stone that currently resides in my ribcage. There is hope for me, yet. I cannot wait to be amongst God's people in a foreign land; a people who have less than what I've ever seen while in the States; a people who have far more of God than I have ever seen. This barren, mother's heart cannot wait to be amongst the orphans again.

But tonight, I think of the prophet Jeremiah, watching his beloved people being taken into captivity:

All homeless on the hilltop and weary from the years,

this poet of a prophet finds no solace for his tears.

Darkness leaves no peace of mind;

Sorrow's incessant core reminds

that for everything living, comes a time to die

And for everything dying, there's an end in sight.

Prophecy of sacred ruins,

Reality of death remains

Steadfast, oh you brokenhearted;

For God Himself binds up the lame.

And after the judgment

Only love remains.

I often question if I'm bipolar and a mere prescription could solve these “inner turmoils.” But I know the truth is simply I need more of Him. I don't feel like a priceless metal, but I am. The dross has come to the surface but He hasn't quite skimmed it off yet. I don't understand the Master's hand or His time – why He tarries with all my dirt still floating, marring the surface.

“And the man of all sorrows, he never forgot
What sorrow is carried by the hearts that he bought
So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God
The aching may remain, but the breaking does not
In the holy, lonesome echo of the silence of God”

So with tear-stains drying upon my cheeks and 3:30 pulsing on my alarm clock, I bid you goodnight and a late Merry Christmas. To say that I eagerly await the reckoning would be an understatement. All shall be made right.

Isaiah 53:

Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
² He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
³ He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.

⁴ Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

⁷ He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.
⁹ He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.

¹⁰ Yet it was the LORD’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the LORD makes his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the LORD will prosper in his hand.
¹¹ After he has suffered,
he will see the light of life and be satisfied;
by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
¹² Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.

Even so, come, Lord Jesus.