when no praise can find your lips

___

Another day

Filtered thru tears

Cause the broken hope

Has become the fear

Shoulders low

From sorrowed days

You cry an empty prayer

From a borrowed faith

Autumn's gone

& Winter's here

Just know my love

That spring is near

___

Do you have a song that you consistently return to?

Your "favorite song"?

The one you're sure speaks to you on a far greater level than to anyone else who happens to hear it?

Anyone else who claims it as their "favorite song" surely is mistaken, misunderstanding the song's true depth and significance...

Maybe you go as far as to call it "your song" (not Your Song by Elton, though that one is as well, magical)?

For the last few years, the song "Rivers and Roads" by The Head and the Heart has been that song for me. 

Lyrics such as 

"A year from now we'll all be gone

All our friends will move away"

or

"Nothing is as it has been

And I'll miss your face like hell"

or how about this one,

"If you don't know what to make of this

Then we will not relate"

cash money.

"Rivers and roads 'till I reach you."

___

A few days ago TJ Stafford released three new albums with his newish band, The Rigs:

White

Gray

and

Black.

Go listen to them. All of them. So much heart.

___

I was talkin' through my stresses with PJP the other day when I realized that I'm all talk and no joy.

I believe in joy, I really do. But, at the moment, my faith is pretty dang joyless.

What does it take to get back to a passionate faith?

Have I fallen out of it? Is that possible?

We talked about how Western theology has developed a faith that sort of reflects a mattress.

We have it, but we don't find true rest in it because we are afraid of rolling out and off during our sleep.

Like that's even possible... becoming cozy in your faith and rolling out of it while sleeping.

Would God really let that happen? Is that what's happening to me? Did I roll off the mattress onto the hard, cold floor without realizing it?

We contrasted that with a faith that reflects hammock rest.

You get it, you curl up in it and you find true rest because you can't fall out.

I'm not talkin' those lame Home Depot hammocks that have a pole contraption so you can stick 'em in your lawn; I'm talkin gnarly, cocooning hammocks you tie up between trees.

You can get such solid rest in those because they hold you,

they beg you to come over and rest, restore your spirit and then wake ready to take on life in a full and overflowingly Jesusy manner.

They hold you so tightly that while you rest, you can thrash around, cry, scream, curl up in a little ball, question and freak out while still being wrapped up, surrounded by the comfort and consistency of the hammock's embracing fabric. You are held.

Recently my prayer has been a meditation on Psalm 51:12,

"Restore to me the joy of your salvation"

Remind me. Show me. Hold me. Warm me. Winter frickin' sucks.

___

When the night

Has swallowed hope

Rest assured the sun

Is soon to show

Someday soon

The pain will cease

And the sun will rise

On the darkness seen

Take my hand

& walk with me

Cause I met this man

From Galilee

The burden's hard

& the pain is deep

But the blood is strong enough

To set you free

When the cold 

Chills the bone

Know that heaven's near

To hold you close

("Autumn" by The Rigs on their album, Gray)

___

"Restore to me the joy of your salvation"

As I'm working through the grieving process, I often throw my hands in the air and say "I'm done!", I'm over it, grief will no longer define me, I am fine.

I remember when I came back to the States from Botswana having a conversation with my Uncle Eric regarding reverse culture shock.

I left Bots and 45 minutes later was in JoBerg, SA.

After a brief layover there, I flew 18 hours and stepped off of the plane into the heart of New York City.

I then took the subway to Manhattan to hang out with a friend for a few hours, exploring the city and all of its "wonders". 

I remember her showing me this beautiful hotel. The outside was stunning and the inside was so bright! It was lined with golds, silvers, shiny light fixtures, marble staircases, elegant piano music...

I couldn't handle it.

New York City was too much.

My uncle asked me, "Sometimes don't you wish we still traveled by boat?"

Could you imagine, that 18 hour transition time being spread over a few months; all that time to process change and enter into a new life with a new you?

Wonderful.

But then, given the opportunity, don't you think that all of those people who crossed the Atlantic on boat would have given anything to be able to do it by plane?

Those months of staring at the sea, seeing nothing but blue ocean and blue sky? Facing storms that surely seemed like they would be the end, and for many, were? Living in filth and sickness? Rationing food and water? Arrival to your destination not being certain?

I'm sure just about every one of them, at one point or another, wanted to jump ship.

I'm making a conscious choice to take the boat through my grief.

Every time I say that I'm done, I'm fine, I'm over it... I'm not really. I'm just sick of rationing my water and facing storms.

I'm choosing the boat because the boat is healthy. 

PJP and I have talked substantially about defining the bottom of grief. 

Ya know, when you jumped in the pool as the kid and started to sink to the bottom... your ears would begin to pop and you thought that surely you couldn't handle it anymore, but at that moment your feet touched the bottom and you pushed back up to the surface?

That breath, that life above water, that's waiting at the shore.

This trip across the Atlantic will end, and when it does I will have pushed myself towards the surface, I will have had my joy restored and it will be rooted in His salvation. 

___

Jeremiah 31 has been a great comfort to me,

It speaks of restoring Israel to it's intended glory, reclaiming it, re-membering it.

Jeremiah 31:2 says

"Those who survive the sword will find favor in the wilderness."

This promise, this word of encouragement is wrapped up in all kinds of ick.

Yeah Israel, you're going to survive the sword. Hell yeah, you'll survive!

Then, guess what, you'll find favor!

...in the wilderness.

This is a process.

I'm surviving the sword and I will find favor; may I find joy in that favor.

This life, may it be more than survived, may it be lived.

___

When no praise 

Can find your lips

Let the One who knows

Lend you His

When you wake 

& the silence breaks

Hear the melody 

Of the angels sing

___

Autumn's gone

& Winter's here

Just know my love

That spring is near