No. No. No.
In the past month, we've attended too many funerals (masks and distancing making it even harder). For an 11-year-old boy who drowned in a creek. For a man who succumbed to suicide leaving a wife and three children. For a mother who died in her sleep five months pregnant. We’ve grieved for those who’ve lost family and friends to Covid-19, one who lost her brother and her twin sister. We’ve agonized with friends who stayed by their youngest daughter's side as she delivered a stillborn son.
I’m flooded with “it-should-not-be-this-way” raging shouts in my head.
No! No! No!
I keep saying “No, No, No” for friends wounded by betrayal from fellow Christian teammates. For a widow forced to face the total chaos and renovation to her home and belongings because of smoke damage. On her own. For single friends longing not to be single. For my 88-year-old mother and all those locked away in their retirement homes, wondering if it’s worth not being able to touch anyone for a year. For political tensions separating family and friends more than any medical pandemic. For all those waiting for justice, for steady employment, for a child, for healing (or at least an easing of pain), for adult children to return to faith, for peace and safety in their own homes and hearts and minds.
No. No. No.
I am grateful Jesus tells us to come to him as children, even when we’re weary, confused, hurting, “hissy-fit” children. I am grateful God will not let me go as I pummel him with my angry and fearful prayers. I am grateful I can’t pry myself away from his embrace. This truth is embedded in me from Romans 8:38-39, TPT
So now I live with the confidence that there is nothing in the universe with the power to separate us from God’s love. I’m convinced that his love will triumph over death, life’s troubles, fallen angels, or dark rulers in the heavens. There is nothing in our present or future circumstances that can weaken his love. There is no power above us or beneath us—no power that could ever be found in the universe that can distance us from God’s passionate love, which is lavished upon us through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One!
No. No. No.
That’s been my honest, wrestling prayer with God this season. I love the word “wrestle” because rest is nestled right in the middle of it.
I will wrestle until I rest. And then wrestle and rest again.
That rest isn’t found in pat answers but in the mystery and wonder of a God who is beyond my questions and tantrums. That rest isn’t in my understanding, but in a God who understands and loves me. His answer is in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
In this Advent season, I am meditating on Luke 1, on Mary’s wrestling with “how will this be?” releasing into the rest of “let it be to me according to your word.” I think about Mary’s yes in a No! No! No! world
Her yes to not be afraid. Her yes to receiving God’s favor and grace. Her yes to being overshadowed by God’s power. Her yes to his word and will. Her yes to the impossible. Her yes to bearing greatness. Her yes to magnify the Lord and rejoice in God her Savior as she births the son destined to die.
In this dark, waiting-for-his-return Advent season, I long for Jesus to come and change all the “no’s” of this broken, painful, not-right world into that glorious final “YES!” of making all things as they should be.
Rest. Rest. Rest.
If you’re a wrestler like me, I pray Psalm 131 comforts you. It takes a lot of squalling and squirming before I settle down and rest, quieted, my soul humbled in his presence. I pray in this hard season, you will find rest and contentment in his presence.
Lord, my heart is meek before you.
I don’t consider myself better than others.
I’m content to not pursue matters that are over my head—
such as your complex mysteries and wonders—
that I’m not yet ready to understand.
I am humbled and quieted in your presence.
Like a contented child who rests on its mother’s lap,
I’m your resting child and my soul is content in you.
O people of God, your time has come to quietly trust,
waiting upon the Lord now and forever.
Psalm 131, TPT
Wait. Wait. Wait.
As we long for things to be made right and for Jesus' return this Advent, as we wrestle to come to the point of surrender of “Let it be to me,” may we quietly trust and "Wait with hope. Hope now; hope always!"(Ps. 131:3b, MSG)