Like every morning in the intensity of the entirety of my overall spiritual and personal battles – now going in full swing for what seems to be at least five years now but unidentifiable per se – I awake to spiritual, mental and emotional hedgehogs I must get past in order to even resume where I left off the previous day’s and last night’s pre-sleep-time evening battles…
It is some form of Omaha Beach, every morning, simply to get to back into the Ardennes of where I was fighting, thick in the cold winter of my soul – dreadfully wooded, unfamiliar (yet woefully and sadly familiar) forest terrain – when I fell into needed sleep the night before.
The beautiful morning sun through my window, the sounds of animals and human life (cars and equipment rolling past my home) outside, and my three resting-but-hungry cats near me inside, belie the reality of the situation.
I lay there, as I do and have done morning after morning after morning now for seemingly eons of my lifetime, asking myself, somewhat, what is true in all of this, and what is going to be the end of all things in this seeming personal apocalypse of various situations?
And I wrestle with my own thoughts and emotions to grab onto the tether-rope of the One True God as I have seen and know Him to be, expressed particularly in Jesus, my Shepherd and my King.
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It’s a whirlwind of fear and futility – like those who were surviving Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, I seem to be breathing in dust and coughing up mud.
My thoughts whirl as I come into a conscious, waking state and recall fragments of my convoluted dream plot which I managed to live through in my subconsciousness, some time between last night at 11 pm and this morning at 7 am.
This was not a dream I would consider deeply spiritual, prophetic, or otherwise of God in ways I occasionally seem to dream.
It was simply some processing in my psyche during the night and who knows what piece of jalapeno I was dicing and tasting even late last night in my kitchen that led me into such a nighttime excursion during my brain’s down time…
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So I lay there this morning, thinking on various things before me (and behind me) that are both daunting and draining which I must attend to this day. And I contemplated ongoing competing issues of priorities, predicaments, spiritual and personal urgencies and so much more.
Eventually, as my one cat was stretching toward me and the other two were watching something, seemingly in tandem, from the second floor bedroom window perch…I grabbed my phone and snapped a photo.
Why?
Well…why not?
It’s just what we all (or some of us who are expressive
and image-oriented) seem to do these days…
I looked at my phone and saw a funny comment someone made on my Facebook post from yesterday, and I snarked back.
I laugh.
Maybe…just maybe…the other things weighing on me should continue to be pushed away onto some back burner…only to rear their ugly, evil heads during my psyche’s time of resting and dreams…
Maybe…these perceived and previously and particularly discerned spiritual things are less real…less true...than the momentary rush of humor in snarking back something about “where does a hornet fit into the scenario” if a wasp is not a bee but some form of “not right in the head” creature. (paraphrase)
Then, I put my phone down.
Because, what another friend said to me last night, publicly, is more in line with where I am at, in this horrific spiritual battle in which I begin to ask myself, “is there really any meaningful end to all of this?“
And I suppose I prefer to think about that rather than bees, wasps and hornets…so I start to think about and imagine writing, and expressing…as I organize myself to stand up and go brew coffee and feed cats, in that order.
In my seemingly unending state of personal distresses which I attempt, both successfully and unsuccessfully, to navigate and extinguish the flames of…I seem to have a tremendous need to externally process just a small percentage of what my inner world is like and my thoughts about things.
Yet, I continue to find moments and times of joy and purpose on a daily basis, within this War, and am reminded (as I so often am) of a quote from CS Lewis in his book A Grief Observed:
“One never meets just Cancer, or War,
or Unhappiness (or Happiness).
One only meets each hour or moment that comes.
All manner of ups and downs.
Many bad spots in our best times, many good ones in our worst. One never gets the total impact of what we call ‘the thing itself’. But we call it wrongly.
The thing itself is simply all these ups and downs:
the rest is a name or an idea.”
― C. S. Lewis
Once again, I think in general of the book of Job. I think in general of biblical themes and age-old questions such as, “Does God See?”
I decide within myself – fairly easily because in my world I don’t seem to dwell much in the space of questioning God’s seeing of my situation – that God does in fact see every little bit of this situation and way more clearly than I do.
My question seems to be more along the lines of “how long?”
“How long, O God, will this go on?”
My feelings are along the lines of “I am now wearied almost beyond my own strength to endure the entirety of this. I hate and despise parts of what I see in myself and my inability to respond differently and I hate and despise what I now know of the entirety of the situations, to this point in time…”
And I think to myself,
“That is good.
That is a good place to be.”
Because I know, cognitively, that when we acknowledge we are at the end of our own selves and strength,that the One True God feels extra-welcomed into that space…
I still have not put my feet on the floor. Yet. And I think of Truth.
I think of Pilate asking Jesus, “What is truth?”
And I am finding myself metaphorically out of my Higgins Boat, running internally onto the sand of the beach and taking cover behind the hedgehogs, taking in the situation that I see.
The truth of the situation being that which exists most deeply when it is not obscured by needful, pragmatic daily obligations, activities, diversions and distractions.
It is for good reason that the scriptures both tell us in places that a little wine gladdens our hearts, helps our stomachs and more…yet also gives us warning to remain sober and alert because our adversary, the devil, is scheming and seeking our destruction.
This morning, I lay there also thinking about Truth and Lies, and the scripture which says we are to expose the deeds of darkness.
I struggle, as many do, to know how to apply this scripture in real-time life situations.
I am in the Fog of War.
I have temporarily set aside (out of personal necessity) some significant battles since the terrain is so murky. And I remind myself there is nothing wrong with re-grouping and re-strengthening.
(And as days trickle on, I will find myself listening aloud to the wisdom and heart cries of the Psalms…all the way up through around Chapter 64…I like listening aloud while I work).
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But as I proceeded on through my coffee time this day, my quiet and reflection time, I think about the God who sees me.
I turn to listen aloud to the next chapter I’m on in the book of Job: Chapter 7.
Ironically, and timely, the theme of God seeing is thick in this chapter.
I think about where Job is, which is not quite where I am. Job is to the point of questioning God’s seeing of him and his situation. Job is to the point he does not want to go on.
I listen to the audio at least twice and I have a YouTube selection that shows the text also, which is helpful.
I identify the statements that are relatable and those which are particular to Job and not my own thoughts and feelings.
I think about my feelings and perceived situation, which seem more in line with those of Hagar and Leah. I have always identified with aspects of these two stories.
Hagar was seemingly used in various ways and then discarded when the others in the situation found it necessary. Only God knows all the deeper particulars of how she found herself in that story which is one of the most significant stories in Genesis (there are so many), but we do know that this woman was banished into a desert with her child and was surely humanly desperate and deeply afraid.
Hagar was afraid first, for her child, who was vulnerable.
God saw her and the child, and he came to her in this desert and provided for them.
Because God sees and God cares and God acts.
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God acts – as He does in Job – and God (eventually) responds – as He does with Job – in His time. Which might seem to us to be the timing Jesus showed when He finally showed up at the tomb of Lazarus and was greeted not my mindful Mary but by feisty and frenetic Martha who straight up told Him:
“If You would have been here my brother would not have died.”
I suppose that took a lot of active faith. And Jesus show His faithfulness to her, her sister and to that family.
And of course, I thought about Leah. Oh do I identify with Leah. She was never any human’s first choice for anything. Even her own father considered her some type of less valuable property and he used her as some type of ante to keep Jacob – who apparently had issues with seeking sensual outward beauty and really really really wanted Rachel – in the game, serving him for more years in order to obtain his heart’s true desire: RACHEL.
Not LEAH.
In some ways, perhaps both Jacob (one who wrestles with God) and Laban got that which they really wanted.
Jacob eventually got beautiful Rachel and Laban got more servitude – Jacob’s bondage.
But, God got what He purposed.
And, God saw.
It’s a tremendously suspenseful and deep story of two women (sisters, no less) in some strange battle of the wombs. God sees that Leah is unloved.
God opens Leah’s womb (and those of her maidservants) quite a number of times, with one son being Judah, of which the genealogy of Jesus is humanly traced. God opens Rachel’s womb just twice (but she also, uses maidservants in this competition), and she dies in childbirth with Benjamin, and Jacob buries her along the way to Bethlehem.
And then, I suppose, he is left with his consolation prize…Leah.
What a story.
So, then, as I listen to Chapter 7 of Job, I think about Job’s response to his afflictions as one who is male. And I think of my own identifications with aspects of his responses, as one who is female but in situations that are yet relatable.
And then, I think again about Hagar, and Leah, with whom I can more deeply identify.
And possibly, for that reason and other reasons, including that my losses have not yet rivaled, apparently, those of Job, I recognize in my own thoughts and psyche that I am not asking the same questions as Job.
I am not (yet) at the point of not wanting to go on.
I am not (yet) asserting that my way is hidden from the Almighty.
Yet, I find a number of things striking and compelling that keep pulling me intently into the story of Job.
Yet, Job must also be understood with reference to Jesus.
In my world of spiritual understandings, ultimately, all things are understood with reference to Jesus.
And so, I think about Pilate’s question to Jesus, “What is truth?”
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Pilate represented in some sense, the corruptness of this world and all that is good and right and holy and true. Pilate had a role of given authority to send Jesus to His scourging and to the Cross. In a very real sense, Pilate was permitted more authority than Satan was given, since he was used to open the door of the Cross which led to our Redemption through the death of Jesus, rather than simply scourge some poor soul named Job.
Part of me wonders, was Job a real person? Or, was this an OT genre and parable of sorts? I don’t know and it doesn’t matter, because the book of Job is absolutely true, as is the story of the one true God, Jesus, that I find myself within.
I think about Jesus saying, “I am the way, the truth and the life…no man comes to the Father but through Me…and He that follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of Life.” (paraphrased from memory…from book of John)
I also think of Paul writing that Jesus endured the Cross “for the joy set before Him…”
But today, I both go on not because of some immediately tangible sense of joy (though it is certainly there, like a dormant crocus beneath the winter snows…) but because I have and embrace the cognitive understanding and faith in Jesus and His words, yet, humanly, I articulate that before I put my feet on the floor this morning, I thought of the Psalm with a promise “though weeping may last for a night, joy comes in the morning…”
That is a lot. And, too much.
Last night, as I dropped onto my pillow (and yes, Chapter 7 of Job mentions his torturous nights, too) and put on a hymn, I found myself suddenly and deeply weeping. I was being held in the hand of the Almighty – so much so it was somewhat tangibly felt in my spirit and body – as I experienced the cleansing and connecting power of acknowledging in my weeping and deep spiritual groanings my untethered sense of many things and my powerlessness in a situation that appears to have no hope and no end.
That phrase, in particular, was spoken to me by a spiritual leader many years back…
“…you appear to be in a situation that has no hope and no end…”
And I suppose this seems it should be a place of coda in my expression this morning (yet it is not), as I go off into my personal war zone…and as if these thoughts about biblical figures and stories were not enough (and really, too much for anyone including myself, in this horrific War), I also thought about Elijah.
Thinking about my recent readings from a few weeks ago, prompted by two true friends, I formed my title to this piece. In the past several weeks in some of my various writings and communications I have been intentional in saying “the one true God.”
It was a phrase from the account of Elijah’s encounter with the prophets of Baal in I Kings.
Because as if all this was not enough to wade through, I discern other gods have been and are being inserted into this situation I find myself and those I most care about in.
I find myself asking a lot of deep, spiritual questions about the nature of the entirety of the situation.
Yes, I think of Elijah confronting the false prophets of Baal – on top of it all.
I contemplate, carefully, since I am in no way, shape or form Elijah…how does a woman…and mother…navigate such things, spiritually?
Sometimes I think about this scripture, and wonder what it means:
‘The Lord doesn’t become angry quickly, but he has great love. He forgives sin and law breaking. But the Lord never forgets to punish guilty people. When parents sin, he will also punish their children, their grandchildren, their great-grandchildren, and their great-great-grandchildren.’ (Numbers 14:18, NIV)
It’s an OT text regarding generational cursing.
I dwell within the NT covenant in Jesus.
It seems to be a worthy question in my mind, given all things.
It is so desperately and darkly painful that many times, like last night, it is only in my dreams that God can work and break through the evil that has befallen me and those I most love.
Fire.
Hells.
False gods.
Elijah.
It is a lot.
I suppose anyone reading might strain to find some connection in my morning’s ruminations to Job 7. It may be a far stretch, but from my view the book of Job is so very thick, so enigmatic yet specific, that one could find an almost endless amount of relatable things as we navigate through this world of evils in authenticity and with an ultimate view toward the One True God.
Job 7 New International Version
7 “Do not mortals have hard service on earth?
Are not their days like those of hired laborers?
2 Like a slave longing for the evening shadows,
or a hired laborer waiting to be paid,
3 so I have been allotted months of futility,
and nights of misery have been assigned to me.
4 When I lie down I think, ‘How long before I get up?’
The night drags on, and I toss and turn until dawn.
5 My body is clothed with worms and scabs,
my skin is broken and festering.
6 “My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,
and they come to an end without hope.
7 Remember, O God, that my life is but a breath;
my eyes will never see happiness again.
8 The eye that now sees me will see me no longer;
you will look for me, but I will be no more.
9 As a cloud vanishes and is gone,
so one who goes down to the grave does not return.
10 He will never come to his house again;
his place will know him no more.
11 “Therefore I will not keep silent;
I will speak out in the anguish of my spirit,
I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
12 Am I the sea, or the monster of the deep,
that you put me under guard?
13 When I think my bed will comfort me
and my couch will ease my complaint,
14 even then you frighten me with dreams
and terrify me with visions,
15 so that I prefer strangling and death,
rather than this body of mine.
16 I despise my life; I would not live forever.
Let me alone; my days have no meaning.
17 “What is mankind that you make so much of them,
that you give them so much attention,
18 that you examine them every morning
and test them every moment?
19 Will you never look away from me,
or let me alone even for an instant?
20 If I have sinned, what have I done to you,
you who see everything we do?
Why have you made me your target?
Have I become a burden to you?[a]
21 Why do you not pardon my offenses
and forgive my sins?
For I will soon lie down in the dust;
you will search for me, but I will be no more.”
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