Argh. My heart is so full today it keeps catching me off guard.
I started writing a post I’d planned to share. About why you hear so many people say the holidays are hard and how our bodies keep score of losses – and they ‘celebrate’ anniversaries even when we don’t want them to.
But that blog will have to wait. Because today’s it just a little bit of a love fest.
A love fest for the one who turned water into wine. Even though it wasn’t yet His time.
There’s a question I used to be sure of that now I’m not.
Is 3 better than 1? Is 10 better than 3? Is 100 better than 10?
Look, we all ‘know’ in the Church that numbers aren’t everything, but these days, I’m starting to wonder if numbers aren’t nothing.
We get that they don’t mean everything: that a stadium can be full and people can be flocking to a thing that has nothing to do with God. We know that people love to belong and they love to be a part of movements and that a miracle doesn’t have to happen for them to show up where others do. We have learned that a full room doesn’t mean a movement of God.
The truth is, I’m not good with ‘maybe’s. I love me a ‘yes’. I can handle a ‘not yet’, and I’ve even gotten better at receiving a ‘no.’ But is anyone else exhausted by the ‘maybe’?
When God gives a ‘yes’ we offer thanksgiving. When He hands us a ‘not-yet’ we navigate it with endurance and patience. When we hear the dreaded ‘no’, like Jesus we grieve, surrender and accept. But a ‘maybe’? What’s the right response to a ‘maybe’?
Tell your kids about ME. Put these stones here, where they will see them. And when they ask: ‘what are these rocks? Why do we have this big pile of stones here?’ Then speak. Tell them of the day I parted the waters so you – all 40,000 of you – could be free. Could walk toward rest. Tell them the story of that day so that would know who their God is.
I read that story in Joshua this morning and I keep thinking about how terribly vulnerable it must feel to have a pile of rocks laying around that likely represent one of the most sacred days of your life. That anyone could see and ask about at any time.
Boy. I tell you what, today’s Advent really took it out of me. If you’re receiving the daily emails, you might have noticed today’s was a tad delayed.
Today was the hardest one so far, but not in a bad way. Sometimes a sense of responsibility and the weight of words settles over me and I can’t shake the sense that – this one – this one I want to get right. This truth is too precious to me to share flippantly.
I don’t know what to say. I am out of words. I am humbled, amazed, stunned, leveled by our God who has come to us in the dark of night.