Gasping for Grace

Surely, just as I have intended so it has happened.  

Just as I have planned, so it will stand.

Isaiah 14:24

A good God plans everything.  Everything.  

So a good God can only make plans for good.  

-- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, page 88.

See that I am God.  See that I am in everything.  See that I do everything.  See that I have never stopped ordering my works, nor ever shall eternally.  See that I lead everything on to the conclusion I ordained for it before time began, by the same power, wisdom, and love with which I made it.  How can anything be amiss?

-- Julian of Worwich, Revelations of Divine Love

...I won't shield God from my anguish by claiming He's not involved in the ache of this world and Satan prowls but he's a lion on a leash and the God who governs all can be shouted at when I bruise, and I can cry, and I can howl and He embraces the David-hearts who pound hard on His heart with their grief and I can moan deep that He did this - and He did.  I feel Him hold me - a flailing child tired in Father's arms.  And I hear Him soothe soft, "Are your ways My ways, child?  Can you eat My manna, sustain on My mystery?  Can you believe that I tenderly, tirelessly work all for the best good of the whole world - because my flame of love for you can never, ever be quenched?  --Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, page 89

See now that I, I am He, and there is no God besides me.  

It is I who put to death and give life.  

I have wounded and it is I who heal.  

Deuteronomy 32:39

...I know all our days are struggle and warfare (Job 14:14) and that the spirit-to-spirit combat I endlessly wage with Satan is this ferocious thrash for joy.  He sneers at all the things that seem to have gone hideously mad in this sin-drunk world, and I gasp to say God is good.  The liar defiantly scrawls his graffiti across God's glory, and I heave to enjoy God...and Satan strangles, and I whiten knuckles to grasp real Truth and fix that beast to the floor. -- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, page 90

I am David lamenting, "O Lord, why...?" (Psalm 10:1).  Why this broken world punched through with losses?  "O Lord, how long?" (Psalm 13:1).  How long until every baby thrives and all children sleep down the hall from a mom and dad wrapped up in love, and each womb swells with vigorous life, and every single cancer clinic sits empty and we all grow old together?  I know a neighboring...woman folding away the clothes of her dead son and I sit in a room full of the battered and busted and I lament: please.  And He takes the empty hands and draws me close to the thrum of Love.  You may suffer loss but in Me is anything ever lost, really?  Isn't everything that belongs to Christ also yours?  Loved ones lost still belong to Him - then aren't they still yours?  Do I not own the cattle on a thousand hills; everything?  Aren't then all provisions, in Christ also yours?  If you haven't lost Christ, child, nothing is ever lost.  Remember, "Through many tribulations we must enter the Kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22) and in "sharing in [my son's] sufferings, becoming like him in his death" you come "to know Christ and the power of his resurrection." (Phil. 3:10).  -- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

 
Threw myself on that bed extra hard.  Frustrated.  Angry. Can anything ever go right?  Can it?  Huh?  Can it?  I don't need you to prove to me that you love me.  I could list one thousand graces towards me and mine, count them right here...real fast like...my life overflows with goodness and grace.  But what about these people God?  This place weighed down heavy.  Broken.  It seems like you have forgotten.  Like you won't turn your face this way.  No matter how many times we ask you.  No matter that we jump up and down, raise our hands, and yell.  Yell until our voice is weak.  Gone.  The ship of grace keeps sailing right on by.

I know you are God.  You plan all things.  Everything.  It is you who heals. It is you who kills. This is yours.  Every moment.  Every soul.  Every sadness.  Every smile.  All yours.  Not mine.  Not ours.  Remind us.  Please.  Won't you?  That this is your story.  Not mine.  Not ours to write. The weight of the pain and the pen is not ours to bear. The glory is not ours to gain.  Yours.  All yours.

yours

yours

 yours

yours

yours

 yours

yours

yours

[Satan] sneers at all the things that seem to have gone hideously mad in this sin-drunk world, 

and [we] gasp to say God is good.  -- Ann VosKamp, One Thousand Gifts

We will continue to gasp, God.  Fill our lungs with the grace to gasp.

photo credits:  pics 2, 3, 11, 12, 15 Joanna Howard; 7, 9 Tara Livesay; 8, 10, 16 Beth McHoul