"As for me, I will always have hope."

It started yesterday morning in yet another typically distracted time with Papa. I finally realized two very important things: first, that my greatest loss during this past season wasn't my beloved Jettie but the disruption of the amazing intimacy with Papa that He had brought me to over the past few years; second, that He is inviting me back into that intimacy right now, and I don't have to wait any longer to start that journey. And what better time than now in this season of wonder and marvel? In my typically transparent way I paste some of yesterday's entry. Don't be concerned about how bleak it sounds in places--the story gets better.

Papa, the other part of this, of course, is that if I look anywhere but to you for what only you can supply I am short-circuiting your plan for me (or delaying it, at least). Yet as always, I don’t want to view our relationship as a duty, so please, Papa, draw me close to you and woo me away from things that don’t matter. Ora Rowan’s hymn again comes to mind.

Ah, Father! I go back to find the first Ora Rowan entry for this year and it’s from May 16, and I weep and weep. So much loss, Father! Yet what I was mostly writing about there was intimacy with you, and I know all of it’s still true. I just don’t know how to get back to where I was because I am so stuck in grief, so lost, Papa. I know you know where I am, but I don’t seem to know where I am. Yes, Father, as I re-read the entry for that date, I see how lost I am. My failure to lay hold of healing has left me bereft of any ability to get back to that place. When Jettie died, everything seems to have died with her…

Yet I will always have hope. And I see now more clearly than ever how I have substituted human relationships for intimacy with you. Yet how can I change all this? I am miserable and feeling so lost so much of the time. How do I ask, how do I posture myself, to be so inundated by your love that you really do become “all I need”? And what do I do with all this grief?????

Father, my greatest loss in all of this is the journey itself, I think. But I know you are holding onto me, and I trust that at some point this whole thing will indeed result in my being “deeper.” But right now, as you know, I am a mess, and the surrendered/saturated life seems impossibly far from me. And so I wait, still painfully easy to distract, still smarting from my loss.

That was yesterday's entry, and I must admit that nothing changed noticeably throughout the day, excerpt perhaps the "grief of the season" got deeper. But in the back of my mind (deep in my spirit?) God planted a two-part seed from the morning, the quote from Psalm 71:14 ("I will always have hope.") and two of the stanzas from Ora Rowan's hymn:

What has stripped the seeming beauty
From the idols of the earth?
Not a sense of right or duty,
But the sight of peerless (matchless) worth.

Not the crushing of those idols,
With its bitter void (emptiness) and smart (pain);
But the beaming of His beauty,
The unveiling of His heart.

And light began to dawn on me in a way that I haven't experienced since Jettie's passing: there is nothing, not even my deep grief, that hinders my re-engaging the journey of intimacy with Papa. I know this is a no-brainer, but for some reason the painful journey had caused me to lose sight of the obvious (my guess is that this was due to my loss of trust in Abba because things didn't turn out how I thought they should--but that's a subject for another time). So it is that this morning with blinding clarity, I saw the way back to Father's embrace (which has never left me--His arms have always been around me, of course), and this morning's entry ended with a new commitment to the Psalm 27:4 life God calls all of us to. In short, I see His beauty again, and it compels me to His embrace and steadies me in my grief.

What makes this rather remarkable in some ways is that, according to experts on grieving, just the opposite should be happening. Christmas is supposed to trigger the worst sense of loss for those who lose loved ones. Perhaps because so many are praying, perhaps because the wonder of the season is so undeniably present--I don't really know--but for me, "I will always have hope." And another of my favorite passages now rises up before me, expressing the now reawakened longing of my heart: "Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts. My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you." (Isaiah 26:8-9a) And so the beauty of His love, the kindness of His face invites me closer, back to His heart with the promise of even deeper love because of my brokenness!

I have written in this transparent manner not because I want this blog to be focused on me, but because I sense that there are others whose "loss" has left them in a fog, obscuring the loving face of Papa. May my journey be an encouragement to you: "As for you, you will always have hope" and that hope is God Himself.

Tom, one of Abba's little boys

You can access a previous blog where I wrote about Ora Rowan by clicking here.