Don’t the hours grow shorter as the days go by
You never get to stop and open our eyes
One minute you’re waiting for the sky to fall
The next you’re dazzled by the beauty of it all
Lovers in a dangerous time
These fragile bodies of touch and taste
This fragrant skin this hair like lace
Spirits open to the thrust of grace
Never a breath you can afford to waste
Lovers in a dangerous time
When you’re lovers in a dangerous time
Sometimes you’re made to feel as if your love’s a crime
Nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight
Got to kick at the darkness ’til it bleeds daylight
When you’re lovers in a dangerous time
Lovers in a dangerous time
~ Bruce Cockburn
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” And I heard the voice of the LORD saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” And He said, “Go, and say to this people: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’ Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Then I said, “How long, O Lord?” And he said: “Until cities lie waste without inhabitant, and houses without people, and the land is a desolate waste, and the Lord removes people far away, and the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land. And though a tenth remain in it, it will be burned again, like a terebinth or an oak, whose stump remains when it is felled.” The holy seed is its stump.
~ from Isaiah 6
Oh beloved, it is true. The Grace of G_d is magnificent. Everything that we need to do, He is there with us to go through the process. And the even greater grace is that He knows how much we can handle – and what we can’t.
Each of us has a story. And some of the stories of others i know, are painful too. In this, i know i am not alone. And still each of our stories are only our own. We are the one that experiences them. G_d has uniquely gifted each of us that we might come through our pain, alive and more real – and more like Him.
My pain began in a homelife where anger had few borders. I am sure that the man who is my father, loved me to the best of his ability, and he really tried. But the range and scope of his anger and wrath, towards anything he conceived to be in the way of his comfort, brought a chaos to my inner being. Further, there was other abuse. I also have a good mom, who herself, was working to get free from addiction.
I grew away from this house, but other abuse followed me into my first marriage. Our youngest daughter was molested by my father. The good of all of this was that this fool of a writer learned to navigate the dark waters of doing the right thing in protecting his own children, even when others in the community thought i only had a taste for vengeance against my old man. The pain of knowing my dad had done what he had done, but having family basically lay the blame for the problem on me was very difficult. Really.
All along the way, i had not really learned to lean in Him alone for strength, and so i leaned into lots of other things like food and chemicals and all the alluring imagery available on the internet. Nothing worked of course.
Everything got worse, and then way worse, until my first marriage came apart. And with this coming apart, came the reality that my four kids really didn’t want much to do with me any more. And some many years ago now, i ended up at a place where i did indeed find that it was Him that i needed, and nothing else. Somehow, by His Grace, I was given a new Life and career and calling.
As I learned to shed the pain of the past in my family upbringing, I was invited to teach in Asia. Along with that gift came a new wife and a beautiful little brown boy who really needed a dad. I embarked actually on some of the things that i had dreamed about in years past. And this was really exciting and good.
But with all change comes stress. I received it in loads that i had no idea how to handle. A wife hurt by a terrible past relationship, cultural differences, learning languages, and everything else pushed me to the limit of my strength. Oh yeah, my new little son was a strong willed kid with some developmental delays.
This last paragraph alone has been a four-year battle for life for these two people. Anger and bitterness again became part of the house i lived in. The hurting woman whom i Love was working through a number of things, and had to just finally get to the light in her own life. But the process was a brutal assault on my soul. The evil one tried to bring division from nearly every angle. The liar failed, and G_d won.
i caught my breath for a day, and thought, “Wow, it is so nice to feel the peace in this house.” It was. And i went to bed. Oh yeah… Remember the part about the four (now grown) kids that wanted little to do with me? It was grace that kept this from overwhelming me while battle was being done on another front…
