The Gift of One Thousand Gifts

I received the sweetest gift yesterday.  In the mail.  For me.  Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts.  A blog reader sent it to me.  A handwritten note was hidden inside.  Beautiful words.  Lovely handwriting.  I am an admirer of pretty handwriting.  Mine is atrocious, so I marvel when I see words so wonderfully written.  Thank you, "mbs" for this perfectly timed gift.  You sent it a month ago.  It just arrived.  We could blame Haiti's mail system.  I choose to believe that God knew I needed this book today.  Now.

"Really, when you bury a child - or when you just simply get up every day and live life raw - you murmur the question soundlessly.  No one hears.  Can there be a good God?  A God who graces with good gifts when a crib lies empty through long nights, and bugs burrow through coffins?  Where is God, really?  How can He be good when babies die, and marriages implode, and dreams blow away, dust in the wind?  Where is grace bestowed when cancer gnaws and loneliness aches and nameless places in us soundlessly die, break off without reason, erode away.  Where hides the joy of the Lord, this God who fills the earth with good things, and how do I fully live when life is full of hurt?  How do I wake up to joy and grace and beauty and all that is the fullest life when I must stay numb to losses and crushed dreams and all that empties me out?" (Chapter 1, One Thousand Gifts)

Three pages into this book and unexpected tears were streaming down my face.  Three pages and Ann Voskamp had already burrowed deep into the hidden parts of my soul, pulled up a chair, and gently said..."Let's talk about this.  Cry.  Let it all out."  She squeezes my hand and whispers, "I know."  The words in this book galloped through my soul...fast...hard...like a naughty horse heading straight for the barn.

Set the book down on the bed.  Turn over.  Let the hot tears fall.  There is no stopping them.  "God I want to know that you are good.  And not just to me.  To other people.  To these people."

I know a Kingdom is coming.  Sick babies.  Sad mothers.  Hungry kids.  Abused women.  Molested children.  God will heal this.  One day.  We'll sing the song of justice.  He'll wipe away these tears.  The wrong will be made right.  Restoration.  One day.  In the midst of all the hopelessness....my heart.  It hurts.  It hurts.  It aches inside my chest for God's Kingdom to come.

But I want to be like the man in the Bible who said...

I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13)  

I want to know that God is good today.  In this Kingdom.  This broken one.  In the overwhelming sadness, I don't want to miss where God is already working all things for good.  I want to hear the sound of a Kingdom advancing.  Rejoice over the times when we get to see a glimpse of His will being done.  Right here, like it is in heaven.  I want to hear the song of redemption in Haiti.  Celebrate the gift of seeing a glimpse of the Kingdom that is coming when wrongs are made right, the hungry are fed, the truth is declared, the weak protected. 

One day we'll sing of God's goodness and grace so loudly, all creation will join in.  But today...today.  I just want to hear it.  Hum it.