Rock Solid

Some days are glum

grey and

uninspiring

sunshine tends to

cheer me up when

it arrives

a chat with a friend

a hug, a laugh

a piece of chocolate

a spot of shopping

a new pink top

a walk in fresh air

lots of things can

make me smile

for a bit

bring some tempo-

rary sense of

happiness

which

like the sunshine

comes and goes

but my joy

even through tears

comes from knowing

that God loves me

forever

© Meirav M. 2011

Love means catching them when they fall

This is a story I wrote a few years ago - felt it's time to get it out of the drawer.

Love Means Catching Them When They Fall by Meirav M.

‘Let’s make a new being like us,’ said Father one morning.

‘Yes,’ said Son, ‘a being that will be able to love and be loved.’

‘Yes,’ said Spirit, ‘a being that will be able to think and make choices.’

‘Yes,’ said Father, ‘they must be free to make choices.’

So the decision was made. The new beings would breathe oxygen, and a planet was made with oxygen all round it. Trees were made to bear fruit for the new beings to eat, and to give them shade from the heat of the sun. Beauty was put into trees, flowers, even tiny butterflies. ‘This way they will see how much I love them,’ said Father. ‘I won’t just give them what they need – I’ll go over the top, I’ll give them spectacular sights, enjoyable sounds, lovely scents. I want them to know I love them.’

‘Will they love us in return?’ Son asked.

Spirit held his breath.

‘They’ll be free to choose,’ said Father quietly. ‘That means that the ones who will, will love me with all their hearts, out of free choice. That’s the only kind of love I’m interested in.’

‘It’s the only kind of love worth having,’ agreed Son, ‘but it will be very hard, won’t it? Loving those who don’t love us back?’

‘It will be very painful,’ Spirit whispered.

They all looked at each other and nodded. The decision was made. They would totally and completely love each of the new beings, no matter how painful it got.

They watched the new beings tenderly, enjoying their every step, smiling at each new discovery they made. They smiled contentedly as Woman stopped and said to Man, ‘Look at that sunset, isn’t it glorious?!’ They were delighted when Man found food for them to eat. They watched joyously as Man and Woman joined together in lovemaking. They wept tears of gladness when the first baby was formed inside Woman.

‘They’re bound to see how much you love them,’ said Son.

‘Yes, you’ve given them such a great planet,’ said Spirit.

‘I gave them the freedom to choose,’ said Father quietly.

They watched as Man and Woman took a walk one afternoon, Man humming happily, Woman holding onto his arm and pointing excitedly at beautiful flowers, both of them stopping to listen when they heard a bird singing. Suddenly they came to the Fence.

Father, Son and Spirit held their joint breath and watched. They could see Evil moving from the Fence towards Woman and whispering in her ear. Then Woman spoke to Man. ‘Tell me, what is this?’ she asked.

‘It’s something Father made to keep us out of this bit of the wood,’ Man explained.

Evil whispered in Woman’s ear again, and she asked further, ‘Why would Father want to keep us out?’

‘Because it’s bad for us to go in there – it’s dangerous.’

Again came the whisper, and again she spoke: ‘How do you know?’

‘Because Father told me when he put me here.’

Another whisper in her ear, and her voice uttering the question: ‘And you believe everything he says?’

Father, Son and Spirit wept joint tears.

They wept as they watched Man and Woman break down the Fence. They wept as they watched them go into the dangerous place and come out totally changed.

‘You’re just a no good slob,’ Woman was shouting at Man.

‘Bitch!’ Man replied and slapped Woman hard across her beautiful, delicate face.

The birds paused in their singing, disturbed by the ugly noise.

Man scratched his head in bewilderment. ‘The world’s not so nice any more,’ he thought. ‘Where did all these thorns come from? And what are these things flying about and – ouch – they sting!’

Woman looked around her and started crying in despair. ‘The harmony has gone. It’s all a mess.’ Somehow she knew they could never get the harmony back… unless… unless Father would do something to repair the damage. But why would he? After they’d disobeyed him, gone deliberately into the place he’d told them not to?

For a brief moment she thought she’d heard the wind whisper through the trees, ‘Father still loves you.’ But Evil quickly spoke into her mind, ‘Don’t be so naïve.’

Father sighed deeply. ‘It has started,’ he groaned, ‘I’ve lost them.’ Son looked at Father’s anguish and said, ‘I’ll go down and bring them back.’ ‘It will be very painful,’ said Spirit.

Son thought for a moment. Then he looked down again, watching those beings that he loved. And he was filled with compassion.

‘I’ll start getting ready,’ he said. ‘These people need rescuing – they’re in a total mess.’

© Meirav M. 2004

Got it covered?

How old were you when you learned to hide things from your parents? or to try and hide them... because so often it seems the grown-ups have eyes in the back of their heads, or some uncanny ability to work out that we're not quite telling them the full story...

I remember going on a date when I was about six. No, we didn't really call it a date, it was just the boy next door inviting me to go with him to the local falafel place and eat a falafel together. (In Israel that is the most basic food to buy.) The tiny problem with this plan was that he didn't have any money, but this didn't faze the young rascal - he brazenly went to his grandma and asked her for money to buy exercise books for school. When we came back, we were surprised by his grandmother's question: nu, what were the exercise books like, were they tasty?

I guess we must have had some tahini sauce smeared on our little faces. :)

So, when we're six we might not be so very sophisticated and we might not be so good at covering up our misdeeds. But judging by all those recent superinjunctions, or just by the headlines we see in the papers so often, it looks like grown-ups don't do it all that well either. Every now and again we hear of another famous person who thought he'd be able to hide an affair, or a shady business deal, or a fiddling of accounts, or whatever. And hey, don't we take pleasure in watching them being embarrassed in front of the whole world... because of course we're not like that, are we?... are we?

Of course the truth is we have all done stuff that we'd rather not broadcast to the whole world. We have all, at times, tried to cover something up.

There was a king a long long time ago who got another man's wife pregnant and thought he could cover it up. He even had the woman's husband killed in an attempt to cover up his adultery, and he thought he could cover the whole thing up - both the adultery and the murder. But then God sent a prophet to rebuke him - God uncovered his sin. But when God uncovers someone's sin, it's not for the fun of embarrassing them. God is not like the tabloids, who seek to make a profit at the expense of someone's suffering. Nor is he like the tabloid readers, who take delight in reading about someone else's misfortune. No, when God uncovers our sin it's in order to give us a chance to repent, so that he could cover it for us!

Psalm 32 - which I understand David wrote after that event, after he was rebuked by the prophet and confessed his sin to God and received God's forgiveness - starts with a cry of delight at how wonderful it is to be someone "whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered", and this reference is not to a sin that is covered up by a fallible human, who, just like my next-door neighbour when I was six, will be found out - if not by man (or by grandma) then definitely by God, who sees everything. No, this is not about a sin being covered up in an attempt to avoid embarrassment and punishment - this is about a sin being covered by God, who forgives us when we stop trying to cover up and confess our sins to him.

In verse 5 of this psalm, in the NIV translation it says: "Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity." In the NASB it says "hide" rather than "cover up", which I feel is a bit of a shame as it misses the play on words in the original Hebrew - the word used is of the same root as the word "covered" in verse 1.

But here's another thought: sometimes we don't try and cover up the stuff we've done wrong, but we still don't confess it to God.

There are things we do which our conscience may be trying to tell us are wrong, and instead of listening to the voice of our conscience, we talk to friends about it - choosing (subconsciously, I think) the friends who will give us the kind of feedback we want to hear. We share it with those friends who are likely to say things like "oh, me too" or "haha, good for you, you really showed him who's boss" or "wish I was there to see the look on her face" or perhaps the more sensitive "hey, don't beat yourself up too much, we all struggle with these temptations" - all things that help us to keep ignoring the voice of our conscience, and keep holding on to the illusion that what we did wasn't really all that bad.

And this is really sad, because recognising we've done wrong is the first step on our path to freedom! Because we don't need to live with that discomfort, with the burden of guilt that weighs us down - all we need to do is take it to God, say we're really sorry (and mean it) and ask him to help us do better next time. And the blood of his Son is available for everyone, to cover our sins.

---

Small confession:

The idea for this post came from a sermon I heard in church last night. The whole thing about how we try to cover up our sins, how God uncovers them, and how when we confess our sins to him he covers them - that was all in the sermon. I then chewed on it some more, and when I got that extra insight about sins we don't try to cover up but instead talk to friends about them, that's when I felt I should blog about it.

I am a woman of unclean lips

Some things that are harder to learn than others, some lessons we keep needing to be reminded of. Or at least I do...

I am a follower of Jesus. I have chosen to trust him for my salvation, knowing that I can't achieve it myself because I am just not capable of living up to God's standards. I am human. Not a particularly awful human like, say, Hitler; not a particularly wonderful human like... no, I'm not going to try and pick an example. The point is, I'm just an ordinary human, not especially evil and not especially good, just the usual sort of mix. Sometimes I'm nice and pleasant and show kindness to people; sometimes I'm horrible and hurt people. And of course sometimes I've got the desire inside me to be horrible and hurt people but I keep it in check and don't act on it - which is, of course, better than acting on it, but it doesn't make me any less horrible on the inside.

In my head I know that this is the state of play: my heart has lots of horrible stuff inside, and it's only with the help of my Saviour that I can slowly change for the better, but I am never (or at least, not during this life) going to become perfect and pure, there will always be horrible stuff in my heart and I will always have to keep turning to him and asking him to clean me up, and I will always have to keep trusting in his sacrificial death as the atonement for my sins. The trouble is, it's a very humbling place to be, and my heart is very proud and wants to pretend that I can do it myself, it wants to pretend that I'm not so bad really...

I got into the car this afternoon to drive to the supermarket. I switched the tape player on and heard a beautiful song of praise to Jesus and thought: I don't feel like what this song is saying, I'm too full of anger and resentment about some issue that's been annoying me so there's no room in my heart for beautiful praise - even though God is God and he deserves my praise all the time, no matter what else is going on.

The next thing on that tape was that bit from Isaiah: woe is me... I am a man of unclean lips... and my eyes have seen the King...

Dear Isaiah - I am your sister. I am a woman of unclean lips and an unclean heart, but through the amazing gift of Jesus I've been allowed into the presence of the King of Kings, and it is awesome and humbling and I keep needing that coal from the fire to cleanse me. And I keep having to remind myself that through the sacrifice of my Saviour I can know that as that last verse says, my iniquity is taken away and my sin is forgiven.

Hearing the songs and recognising that I didn't feel like praising - it made me feel really uncomfortable - but there is some discomfort which is actually good for me, it's useful if it gets me to turn to God and ask for his help.

One day I'll meet him - an awesome thought!

I was thinking of a friend I've been getting to know online, who lives in America but has mentioned the possibility of coming to England for a visit. It's exciting to think that one day I might get to meet her face to face. We've had great chats using the wonders of modern technology, but there's nothing like sitting somewhere together and chatting over a coffee. (or a nice English cup of tea...)

When I was a kid I had a penpal, a girl who lived in the same country but in some other town, and we wrote to each other regularly, but after a while we decided it would be nice to meet up and her parents invited me to come and stay. It was exciting, meeting her face to face after she'd been a kind of "invisible" friend, someone I'd been getting to know without seeing her.

I've been getting to know Jesus for a long while now - since 1989! I've had chats with him - no technology required :) - and I've been reading his letters (yes, I mean the Bible) but I do get excited at the thought that one day I'll meet him face to face, I'll see him for real and what's even more exciting is that I'll see him looking at me. I feel all warm and tingly thinking about it, because I can feel his love shining onto me just sitting here thinking of the prospect.

And yet - there is that part of me that feels a bit... I don't know... uncomfortable... because I know I so often don't live up to his standards, I know I let him down. If we take that penpal analogy - the girl I corresponded with was my equal, she was a schoolgirl like me, around my age, with faults and weaknesses of her own. But imagine if you were a child in some third world country who has been sponsored by a grown-up abroad, someone who pays for your education and who writes to you to show their care and concern for you, someone who you might feel has a right to expect you to do well... imagine if someone has been doing that for you because they want to give you the chance to fulfil your potential, but you've often done the childish thing and played truant from school... When you hear that person is coming to visit, you might feel a bit embarrassed, a bit sheepish...

That's why I have mixed feelings when I think about the day I'll get to meet Jesus - whether it's when he comes back or when I die, whichever happens first. I am excited about meeting the love of my life, the one who loves me so much that I can barely grasp how much he loves me, the one who loved me enough to give his life for me... the one I've been slowly getting to know over the years, and I know he is utterly wonderful... and at the same time I feel uncomfortable because I know I have, again and again, let him down.

Thankfully I know that he is not going to let that stuff get in the way. I know the theory - in my head I know that he loves me unconditionally, I know that he has already paid for all the stuff I've done wrong and all that I'm still going to do, I know that he chose to love me despite my weaknesses, I know all this stuff in my head but it's hard to take in. It's awesome - literally, it fills me with awe.

Someone to lean on

I don't know who it was that first came up with this thing about God being a crutch that people lean on - supposedly only those who are weak enough to need something/someone to lean on. When I was young I bought into this notion - I was still young enough to believe that only weak people need a crutch to lean on, and of course I was going to be strong forever...

Oh, how strong we felt back then, me and my friends, making fun of those who chose religion, those who, we felt, weren't up to facing life without relying on some deity that we believed was a totally made-up being anyway. We felt superior, more sophisticated, more advanced. We looked down on religious people as though they were still stuck in some lower phase of development and hadn't quite caught up with the rest of us.

At that time I didn't personally know anyone who knew God for real, anyone who had a relationship with this being. I knew about people saying prayers - reading out (often mumbling quickly) prayers from a book because those were the prayers you were supposed to say at that particular time/in that situation. But I had no idea that there were people out there who could talk to him freely, not to mention hearing him talk to them, feeling his presence, knowing he is there with them personally. I don't think I heard about that till after I started going to church, which was in my late twenties.

By that stage I had already learned that I am not invincible. I had come face to face with my vulnerability. That's part of why, when I finally met God personally (to my huge surprise, as I had no idea this was possible), I was at least partly ready to start letting go, to accept my need for someone to lean on, to allow God to offer me his arm.

I didn't learn it all in one go. I still continued to use other crutches from time to time - there were phases when I was using them more, phases when I was allowing crutches to destroy me more. What do I mean? I mean, for example, that stage in my early 30s when I was feeling extremely insecure after coming out of a long-term relationship - even though it was a very unhealthy one and it was good that I came out of it, I was very vulnerable immediately afterwards. Instead of turning to God for comfort, I turned to two things: men, who would for some brief moments make me feel valued (valued for the wrong reasons, but hey, when you're desperate you take whatever crumbs people throw you); and alcohol - which numbed the pain, and also made it easier to believe the rubbish those men said.

So I know about using crutches - I've done it. At that particular stage, gin and tonics were a crutch for me. But that sort of crutch costs... The price I paid came in various forms: half my weekend was wasted on being hungover (after seven G&Ts on a Friday night, we're talking major hangover); I did stuff that in the light of day I felt ashamed of (which doesn't, in the long run, help restore one's battered self-esteem); I lost not just self-respect but also respect from my work colleagues; and there was the trauma of an abortion following a drunken one-night stand with a colleague. They don't tell you all that at the pub when you ask for a double, they just tell you the price in pounds and pence.

Not all crutches are as destructive as a seven-gin-and-tonics habit. Some are not destructive at all in themselves - people use all sorts of things to numb the pain of life, sometimes positive things, like doing good for others for example. Keeping busy is one way people try to avoid facing the stuff they don't feel up to facing, and you can keep yourself busy with charitable work, with church activities, with looking after family - things that in themselves may be positive, constructive. But if we're using them in order to hide from the pain, then they are just crutches. These kind of crutches don't cost in the way that my alcohol habit cost me - the price is more subtle... the price is that you miss out on getting your pain dealt with. A bit like if you had the beginnings of cancer and someone gave you a fantastic new painkiller that doesn't have any side effects - it doesn't make you drowsy, you can keep taking it as often as you need, there's no harm in it - so you'd keep taking this painkiller and avoid going to the doctor to have treatment for your cancer.

That's what we humans do a lot of the time with our emotional pain. We pop painkillers - in the shape of alcohol, chocolate, keeping busy, drugs, exercise, sex, meditation, television, computer games, whatever - anything that will numb the pain or help us ignore it. Because the truth is we are all weak and vulnerable and we do need a crutch to lean on.

There is only one crutch that is really totally good for us, totally non-destructive. God is there for us to lean on, he is there to listen, to hear us crying or howling or yelling or whatever we need to get things off our chest. Any time, any place - it's not like you have to make an appointment, go somewhere special, catch him when he's not busy with something else... Always there. Totally dependable. 100% rock solid, reliable, trustworthy - he won't run off and blab your secrets to someone else. And he cares about us more than anyone else ever has and ever will.

Why is it that even though I already know him, I still forget this sometimes, I still catch myself now and again turning to something else other than him? Is it my pride, my desire to cope on my own, without admitting my need for a crutch? Like a child refusing his mother's help, insisting "I can do this myself" - and of course it's healthy to try doing things for ourselves, but when we fall over and scrape our knees, the sensible thing to do is go back to our loving parent and let them attend to the healing. Too often I don't, too often I ignore the scraped knee and carry on as though it never happened - why? it's a stupid tendency I have, to ignore problems, ignore pain in the hope it will just go away. But once in a while I do the sensible thing and turn to God and say: look, daddy, it hurts! This happened only yesterday, when a message I had from someone online upset me, and instead of ignoring it and soldiering on I allowed myself to pause and cry to my daddy. I felt so much better after that - so much better than bottling it up as we so often do.

If you have a good friend or parent or family member who is good at listening to you when you're hurting, then you've already had a small taste of what it's like, you've already experienced what it's like to offload your feelings to someone who cares and understands. God is like that and more so - friends and family all have their limits, they will have their off-moments when they've got too much on their mind or they're just tired or something and not up to listening properly, they'll have certain issues that they just don't understand, there'll be certain subjects that you don't feel you can burden them with, etc etc. With my dad I know there is absolutely nothing that he can't understand, there are no moments that are less convenient for him, there isn't any subject he is incapable of dealing with... and nothing I say is going to shock him, because he knows it all anyway.

And more than that - what he reminded me yesterday when I cried about that online message which I'd found hurtful - he knows what it's like to suffer. All the painful stuff I go through - it's all familiar territory to him. Whether it's physical pain, humiliation, rejection - whatever it is, Jesus has been through it and is alive to tell the tale! He has not only gone through extreme, unbelievable torture and suffering, he has gone through death and he survived it. Yes, I need a crutch - and I'd much rather lean on a strong one like that!!!

My Lord, my God, you are my refuge and my strength, the rock on which I stand, the crutch on which I can lean and carry on walking.