Hope Springs and Bombs Away

 

I'm not sure if these words are accurate, and how I hope they are wrong. But how can we spend any amount of money on dropping bombs, or trying to control who has them, when just a fraction of that money could solve one of the reasons why nations have in the past gone to war? I understand that war is fueled, not for food so much today as for politics and economics, and this is sadder still. Governments bicker about oil prices and who's guns are bigger than who's, all the while our children die of starvation, suffering one of the most horrific deaths, a death I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy. And I understand that people sacrifice their lives to fight for their countries, and I don't want to make their personal convictions meaningless, it is good to stand for what we believe in. I just believe there is such life to fight for, the kind that brings life by life, not life by death. And the thought of one of these little ones trying to sleep with no food in their bellies, and no hope of when a scrap of food might come their way, how can we do anything but lay down our arms, beat our weapons into plows, and work for the peace the world so desperately needs? 

Lovely boy, won't you stay?

"I don't know him yet, but I just love him so much! And I miss him."*

 It is so intriguing. /I don't know you but I want you/all the more for that/**

 It is so strange. /I missed you/but I haven't met you/Oh but I want to/how I do/***

There is a boy/man...man-child (?) out there, somewhere. And I have been waiting my whole life to meet him. And I miss him so. I don't think I've known I've been waiting my whole life to meet him, but the little ache inside does seem to have grown, from a place deep deep down inside, far far back in time. I thought I saw you the other day, but I realized it was dust floating and sparking in sunlight. I thought I met you a few years back, but still you run up ahead, just out of my reach, in my dreams. 

/but I'm not leaving/I'm not leaving/I'm not leaving/I'm hanging on/it's gonna come/I'm hanging on/****

So I will wait, and hope, and look expectantly. In the daylight and in my dreams. For glimpses of you. Won't you come soon.

/Lovely boy won't you stay/won't you stay/stay with me/

/Oh my my/Oh hey hey/

/Oh my my oh hey hey/lovely boy/won't you stay/*****

*Nikki
**Falling Slowly- Glen Hansard
***To Whom It May Concern- The Civil Wars
****Bird of Sorrow-Glen Hansard
*****Lovely Girl (changes mine)-The Lumineers  

 

When the Bowling Alley is Full

Sometimes you have such grand ideas, good and great expectations. And sometimes, you get to the bowling alley, and all the lanes are full. Having your grand ideas let down is sometimes like walking into the bowling alley and seeing there are no vacancy, no room for you to play.
And sometimes, when you see the no vacancy at the bowling alley, you feel like everything is that way; one great unfulfilled ambition. Melodramatic, I know. But tonight, I feel this great exhale, the slight inward tilt of the shoulders, the sigh of being let down. But at least I drove to the bowling alley; sometimes hoping against the odds pays off only in the strengthening of one's ability to hope. And someday, I will go to the bowling alley, and there will be an open lane, and I will enjoy the simple pleasures of a grand idea being fulfilled.

Choose Your Parents Wisely

/Fathers be good to your daughters/Daughters will love like you do/ *

Those infamous words John Mayer loves to croon, tonight they press against my chest, burning to be answered. "How will you love?" I think is the question their letters ask, if only we could hear beyond the words. 

"Chose your parents wisely!"**

My human bio professor loves to tease us with this caution against diseases inherited from family. She quips referring to genetics, and I am always reminded of John Mayer's soft voice asking me, "How will you love like He does?" 

/Now we are soaked in all the grace that we've been given/Unchained from all that we have done/***

As these words float through my ears I am again reminded, I am the product of my Father, yes, my Father who is above all. The One who was from the beginning, who is today, and who will forever Be. He is the One I long to love, the one who is wildly in love with me, the One I seek to be like in this thing called Love. If I could choose my parents, I would always choose Him; because He has always chosen me. 

Again my heart shall sing, I am my Father's daughter; like Him I want to be. 

I am my Daddy's girl; HIs face in mine I want to see.

A Daughter of The King.

*Daughters by John Mayer

** (Van der Werff, Pam. 2012)

*** Alive by All Sons & Daughters

Love Wins?

The past months have been a roller coaster ride of life, love, and seeking to understand justice in the face of death. Pouring months into a business plan that purposes to bring life and hope to the marginalized and disenfranchised; life. While learning about the atrocities that have happened in South Africa, Rwanda, Ireland, the US; in the face of death. Death taunts, but life and love and grace are triumphant. Always. And in the midst of death's grasping for victory, love still wins!

The perpetrators are just as loved and covered in grace and sought out by the Father's heart?
This is a truth I have struggled with and been so convicted of these past months. Watching footage from the South African Amnesty Hearings of war crimes committed by police officers. Things so horrible it feels a crime to even hear them spoken aloud. And in those minutes, feeling the tug of righteous anger I've known; and all of a sudden a revelation of something new:

The love the Father has for His creation extends beyond every evil every produced by mankind; and He yearns for His child who is so enslaved to death.

What is this news?

The price Jesus paid was for the Hitlers, the lynchers, the mass-murderers as much as it was for me. Because they, too, are Children of the Most High. And their Daddy is calling them Home, into His embrace, His love, and His astounding Grace.
Oh Death, where is your sting? 

And with tears streaming down my face, as I feel the Father's heartache, His longing for His sons and daughters to come home I find, I want them to come home too. My brothers and sisters are lost, and my Daddy waits for them in heartache and great love, watching, waiting for them to return to His Love. And that is what I want for them to.
Oh Grace, what is this you've grown inside of me?

And how can they come home if they don't know of their brokenness and need for redemption? And who will tell them, if it is not me and my fellow princesses and princes who go and show them what is this Good News? Death; is dead! The grave is overcome! The time for hurting is past, the time for healing has come!
How far does love win?

And I wonder in hope and expectation, who will I meet when I get to heaven someday? How far does love go? beyond the grave? This great mystery, to me bring a hope that perhaps, someday, in the presence of the One who's love knows no end, I will see my brothers and sisters who are lost and have taken life standing side by side in communion with those they have oppressed. Oh what a day that would be! That death and his dealers would be cast into an empty place- because love has redeemed! What if when Jesus died, He paid for all of the sin of the world? Past, present, future. What if we get a chance as we cross from this realm into eternity, as we see the face of our Lover and our Friend, to chose Him still?
Oh what a sight that would be!

Because Justice, I think, is not seeing the oppressor, "get what's coming to him." Justice, perhaps, is seeing the oppressor and the oppressed standing on even grounds. The ending of violence, justified or not; perhaps this is the secret Justice longs to share.

And maybe I am a dreamer, but maybe I dream with the One who teaches me first to love.

When I Exchange My Heart for Yours

"I'm so terrified of getting married," my friend said to me today. "I have this fear that I'm going to wake up one morning and see my husband and realize that I'm not actually in love with him and not know what the hell I was thinking."

Then we hear these words floating from the radio. /And I'll surrender up my heart/And swap it for yours/. *

And this is what I think it might be talking about, this whole idea of marriage and falling in love, and then staying there. Working for it, and protecting it, and reveling in that heart exchange.

I don't know about love, or romance, or marriage first hand, but I think it might be a lovely thing. An adventure, certainly, it will be. And someday, maybe, I will have a heart with which to exchange this one I temporarily call my own.

Oh, Darling,
Let us be adventurers,
You and I. **

*Ed Sheeran- Lego House
**- Izabella  

The Thing About Being Brave

The thing about being brave is, you can never go back. you can look back, but never retry or repeat.
the roller coaster ride that never loops back around.

Tonight it's raining, dark, thunder and lightning.

"I don't wonder, when it thunders, if I'm safe in Daddy's arms." *

But I do wonder, when I take risks, if I've made a huge mistake

But that's the thing about being brave, you can't hit "Redo".

We use the sound of thunder that follows a flash of lightning to measure how far away the lightning is.

And maybe, in some strange way, I use the magnitude of my heart's quaking to measure the height from which I jump each time I take a risk.

"You are so brave!" my friend said to me this week, "You talk about stuff, and then you actually do it! You take the risk, and it is such an encouragement to me, to see you stepping out in love and risking it all."

I sometimes feel brave, and mostly I feel foolish. Sometimes, I even feel a slight pang of regret.

But if thunder reminds me of how close I am in my Daddy's arms. Perhaps I can learn to feel the same with each new cliff I jump, and step I take, toward a braver and more risky me.

Because, I would much rather live life doing all the things that fear tries to hold me back from, and feel the fragility of my heartbeats, then reach the end of my days and realize, I have yet to live.

*lyrics from When It Thunders by Jason Upton