Come what may

God's Everlasting Love

What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can beagainst us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long;

we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:31-39, ESV)

I've been working on this post for a long time. I've even deleted a finished copy in absolute frustration...twice. But it wont's stop eating at me. So here I am.

My parents separated when I was a baby, 1 1/2, and divorced when I was 3. When I was an adult I once saw a home video that was taped on Christmas morning sometime during their separation. In the video my Dad announced after we had finished opening presents that it was time to go to Mommy's house. I spontaneously burst into tears squalling that I did not want to go to Mommy's. When I saw it I felt sick and desperate to reach out to that little girl, take her in my arms, and comfort her. It wasn't that she didn't want her Mommy, it was that while her parents were trying to figure out their adult lives, probably thinking their kids were too little to really be affected, this little girl was in a broken home with either no Mama or no Daddy depending where she was. Now that I have a whole family in which my husband and I are completely devoted to each other and our children, the thought of my kids going through that makes me sick.

I was lucky though. Even though my childhood was very rocky at times and sin often abounded in very public ways in the early years for my parents and step parents, my Dad and my Mom both stayed in the picture for the most part. They both loved me and my sisters. But from the rocky start I developed a deep seated fear of lack of control and lack of stability and of being alone, especially at night.

Last week I had the opportunity to face this fear head on when my husband left for the entire week to go to the seminary for his doctorate classes. Normally when I know he's going out of town the kids and I pack up and go visit friends or we have friends or family come stay with us. But this time, even though I had 3 offers, I turned them all down.

I'm feeling a lot less scared these days. Actually, in place of fear is a certain anger...cynicism...and stubbornness. 

But when you've been attacked in your own body and home by sin, well, it has a way of bringing out the Mama bear in you. 

I'll spare you the gory details but a couple months ago my worst nightmare came true. I was home alone with the kids when someone tried to kick down our front door. I handled it in rockstar fashion if I do say so myself. 

That incident, combined with having your own body turn against you and fail you and deliver six babies, dead, has a way of making you want to lace up your gloves against sin and its minions. 

Last week, after two days in temps so frigid that schools were cancelled, the kids and I had to get out. It was a gorgeous sunny day even if the temps were still unbearably cold so we warmed up the van and headed towards the lake. For the next hour we got lost in the city and by the lake taking beautiful wintery pictures with the sun shimmering on everything it touched. The kids stayed warm and toasty in the car while Mama stood on the edge of steep drop offs to get awesome pictures of the lake below. While I was walking around taking the pics at the deserted lakeshore my mind began to wander. I thought about fear, about isolation, about brokenness, about death. And I thought about heaven. And Jesus. And love. And suddenly I thought about a couple of Bible passages:

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” (Romans 8:15, ESV)

for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.(2 Timothy 1:7, ESV)

I highly recommend you look them both up and read all the surrounding verses, such beautiful passages, but at the time when I thought of these verses I wanted to shout out "YEA!" Because it's so true! (ha!) This earth, and everything in it, is the very handiwork of God. It is HIS. And WE are HIS. Which means this earth is ours. It is ours in Christ. And in Christ we are more than conquerers. 

Last year the second Hunger Games movie came out. I enjoyed the books tremendously. What I liked was the ending of the trilogy. I loved that it ended so real with Katniss broken and washed up like a soldier no one remembers once he's home from war. I liked that her character was powerful and yet a mess. But now I'm reading the Divergent series and I love it even more than Hunger Games. Cynical, yes. Dark, yes. But anyone who doesn't see that this world is indeed darkening each and every day as we head to the eschaton is fooling themselves. 

And so there's a certain comfort in cynicism. A defense mechanism if you will. But I don't think that's such a bad thing. Because cynicism, by definition, is fact. The devil prowls around tearing creation to shreds right in front of our faces and in our own homes and bodies. And we have to stay and endure it. And it SHOULD make us angry, cynical even, to have to watch it all as we groan as a woman in labor for our release. 

But in the end cynicism cannot rule us or it can turn to pride, arrogance, and even hate. Instead we strengthen our weak knees and fight through as best we can, but in and before and behind us always is Christ. 

At least a few times a month I marvel at the Divine Service: at how whole it is. And yesterday, while in that service, while receiving Christ's Body and Blood and thinking on the beauty of Worship being about what Christ does FOR ME, it occurred to me that the Divine Service is like a Bride and Groom's honeymoon. Christ, The Groom, comes to His bride, the Church, and He makes Himself one with Her. In the most intimate of ways, He gives Himself into her body, and they become one flesh. There is nothing more sacred, more Holy, more precious, and more complete than that. 

And so we are strengthened. We are forgiven. And we go out to love, to serve, and to put off fear. Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.