A Gift of Flesh and Bones

The moment the breath of life was exhaled through the nostrils of man, each bone, muscle fiber, nerve, and limb had been sculpted in the exact location to fulfill its intended and specific purpose. The man wasn't the first creation. The artist had already designed a solar system, the sun, the expanse of the sky and the round solid earth. He had created the waters of the seas and caused the rivers and streams to come up from beneath. He had planted and grown a garden full of all kinds of trees that were pleasing to the eye. The man had been shown many creatures. He gave them names. There were birds, fish, livestock, each having an opposite according to its own kind. The Lord God had created an entire eco-system where symbiotic relationship, everything working together in glorious symphony, played all around the man. Life meant purpose, union, relationship, connectedness, not only with the creation but most importantly with the creator himself. It was glorious. Glorious, like the One by whom and for whom it was created. The Lord God saw that man was alone, the only one of his kind, and it was not good. Being the imagineer and detail-oriented wonder He is, the Lord God knew exactly what was needed to fulfill and complement the man. This creation would have an intended and specific purpose. The artist allowed the man the honor and privilege of being part of this plan, and the outcome was going to be beyond anything he would ever imagine.  
The man was caused to fall into a deep sleep, a rib was taken from him and used to form the new creation. Every bone, muscle, nerve, and curve was sculpted in the exact place for its intended and specific purpose. The Lord God was forming what would be a suitable "ezer" for the man. One equal to him in humanity, one of his own kind, with the breath of life breathed into her. The Lord God brought her to the man. As Adam studied this gift, he discovered that she was like him in many ways, but different in others. Not made with feathers, fur or scales like the fish, they were both formed from the same material, flesh and bone sharing the same abilities to reason, speak, smile, laugh and respond to each other. She was made in man's likeness as an opposite of his own kind. No suitable helper had been found -- not until that moment. Adam called her woman, because she was taken out of him and formed, made with flesh both in kind and creation. God had used Adam's flesh to cover her wound, making her flesh of his flesh. She was his to be with in both body and soul, to eat of good fruit, to be fruitful and multiply. The Lord God had offered what the man knew he couldn't have made or created himself.  

"This is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; 

and she shall be called 'woman' for she was taken out of man." 

 
Creation, a beautiful representation of what already existed in the heavenly realms. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit existing together in unity and connectedness. Creation, the shadow of their image both in form and function. They were there at the beginning. "In the beginning, was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning."(John 1:1) "Let us make man in our image in our likeness..."   She shall be called "mine" for she was taken out of man. Poetically wondrous. She shall be called "mine" for she was taken out of man. Prophetically amazing.  

Man walked with the I AM who walked in the garden in the cool of the day. The father, Creator of our being. Our teacher, sustainer, helper, caretaker, everything that we were designed to reflect through the gifts he gave us. Awe was to be felt at the sound of His name, for he had created everything from nothing. It was very good. Then one sad day, all was lost. The wholeness was fractured causing a wound. We had been told to avoid what was going to hurt us, but despite a loving father's warning, rebellion reigned in our hearts. Before the ten commandments were given to Moses on the mount, one had already been broken. We didn't honor our father. When we heard Him walking in the garden in the cool of the day, we hid (as guilty children often do.) We knew we hadn't listened and that something terribly wrong had happened because of it. It was not good.    

Hundreds of years later while the earth still groaned knowing that something terribly wrong had happened, God began to create. In the womb of a chosen servant He created a baby. Every bone, muscle, nerve and limb was designed with intention and a specific purpose. This baby grew to be a man in stature and wisdom. When God brought Him to us, we studied him and saw that He was like us in form with the same ability to reason, laugh, feel emotion, and breathe, but He was also different in many ways. He walked with us, reconnecting us with the Father we had been separated from, lovingly warning us which things to avoid for both our protection and ultimate joy. He liked to go into the garden and pray in the cool of the day. He gave us purpose and breathed the breath of life back into Lazarus and those he resurrected from the dead. He told us He is the one prophesied to come and in Him we would bear much fruit, being fruitful in spirit, and multiply, becoming fishers of men. We were meant to be the shadow of the reality, of the image that exists in the heavenly realms. "I am in you, and you are in me," he says.  "I am the vine, and you are the branches. With me, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing." You will be my bride, and shall be called "mine" for you are a part of me.  
In this created man, the Father brought a suitable "ezer" to us. A perfect gift. Jesus. This man was put into a deep sleep, his body was broken and his flesh was used to cover the wound made when man and woman had disobeyed and brokenness occurred. God breathed the breath of life back into His nostrils on the third day, and Jesus left the tomb to go reconcile Himself with those he called his own. "Look at my hands and feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have," he says to the disciples. He was flesh of their flesh, bone of their bone. Not a ghost, or an apparition. He was a man, a gift made in their own likeness. Humanity and God wrapped up in one. After forty days, He ascended into the heavens to be with the Father. He says that he is preparing something for His children. A place where those He calls mine will be with Him once again. Being the imagineer and detail-oriented Creator he is, that place is going to be beyond anything our minds could ever imagine. And it will be very good. Glorious and awe inspiring, just as it was in the beginning.  
 

My Haunting

On my Facebook post, I recently used the phrase, I'm being haunted. It might sound hyperbole, but in my mind, heart and spirit, I am being haunted. My friend asked me what is going on and commented, that sounds ominous. Well, she's right. It is ominous. Ominous things are menacing, threatening, scary, foreboding, and very unwelcome. For some, the word haunted might conjure creepy shows dealing with ghosts, demons and supernatural evils. Well, I'm not experiencing shaking tables and ghoulish spirits but there is something compulsively and excessively bothering my spirit to the point that it has at moments overcome me with deep despair, and a feeling of oppression in my soul. I know what it is. I'm familiar with it because I experienced something similar to it about ten years ago. Since, I've been used to it coming and going like an occasional high wave washing up on the sand. It hasn't stayed for long during those times. But for the past week and a half, it has been lingering. I'm at the point of annoyance. It has occurred to me that perhaps the best way to allow it to float away is to stop enabling it to linger in my mind. Maybe the pen will be my sword. I'll warn you that it's not the most uplifting story, nor will it be easy for some to read. The following images are the ones that stand out most. Together they form a story. I know not a complete one because they are only based on my view of the situation. Everyone in my family would have something different to say, but these are snapshots of moments that I experienced. The span of time was seven months, and I don't know everything. Much was never talked about. But it was real. My mother's unexpected illness and painfully lonely death is my haunting.  


SNAPSHOTS

• Walking in the door to see her head on the bar not knowing why she was crying.  
• Hugging her trying to think of words to console her as she cried on my shoulder telling me she wanted to always be here for me.  
• Her looking at me while talking with a friend on the phone saying she knew I was the reason she should fight it.  
• Holding the syringe while she became annoyed at my timidity to give the shot in her hip
• The horrifying image of her strong body slowly turning to a bloated frail skeleton.  
• My grandmother's understandable forcefulness trying to get mother to eat peaches even though she felt sick and weak from her chemo.  
• Seeing her try to wear a wig but give up wearing a handkerchief.  
• With tape bounded around her wrists from being poked so much with needles for iv's, she sat at the table putting puzzles together to give her something to do.  
• Watching her cry and agonize how hard it was for her to handle it all while my grandmother made her recite the Serenity Prayer.  
• Not knowing what to say to my grandmother when she sat at the kitchen table crying knowing that her daughter was not getting better.  
• Getting yelled at for attending a grief support group with my boyfriend at the time's mother who loved me through all of it.  
• Crying on my aunt's bar because I was tired of being told how I didn't love my mother because I wasn't spending every moment by her bedside.
• Not knowing the answer to the question of why my mother was sick because she was so young.  
• Sitting next to my mother hoping she might have something special to pass down to me only to listen to her apathetic voice saying it doesn't matter who ended up with things, because none of it mattered.  
• Watching a woman begin fighting as hard as she could, only to end up laying in a hospital bed after receiving radiation. Listening to doctors convince her to take medicine even though they knew it probably wouldn't heal her.  
• Never hearing her tell me that she was going to die. That the medicine wasn't working, but overhearing it in conversations my grandmother was having. Watching my mother despair knowing her life was finished.  
• Watching Hospice come to the house during the final weeks. Telling us what to expect and how much longer.  
• Entering her room one day, and in a moment that seemed both chaotic (as I watched my grandparents cleaning up the waste the body releases before it ends its existence), and surreal, I sat at her bedside and watched as her chest began to move in a sharp, shallow way. I watched her breathe her last breaths, while my grandparents were oblivious that their daughter was leaving. Seeing the sadness, and hearing my grandfather ask me if she was dead, I got up and left the room to call my aunt. Mom had died.  
• I don't remember crying. There were people, plants, caskets to go pick out, rides to the church, the cemetery. The awkwardness of wondering what my aunt and grandmother would feel that my dad had brought my step-mom to the funeral.  
• Wondering where I would live now. My dad lived in a different city, but all my friends and family lived there. I was fifteen. I was self-absorbed. Looking back, I was completely detached and in a foreign land of confusion with no guide. It was survival. It was unexpected tragedy in a disconnected and messed up family.  

Why does this haunt me today? That's easy to pinpoint. I'm healing from a surgical procedure. It was nothing serious, in fact, when I'm all healed, my quality of life will be even better than before. And it was great before, so realistically, I should just be enjoying my time of recovery. Instead, as I lay here with my feet propped up, and my daughter and son have to help me with even the smallest of tasks, I hate it. Not because I don't think it's good for them to learn how to serve others, but because I'm still being compulsively and excessively bothered in my spirit by this haunting. I transfer my fear that my children will have an image like I did singed into their psyches unreasonably, and I despise it. As I sit here I face the fact that even twenty-one years later, the past still has a hold on me. Yes, there was tragedy in my life, but I desire to be as Joseph and see that what was meant for evil or despair, God meant for good. My life is not anyone else's, it's mine how He purposes it. I am His and what that promises me is liberty under His grace, abundant love from a powerful, loving Father and a promise that He will never leave or forsake me. That is a power and promise I never saw nor heard through my family in our time of tragedy. It's a horrible and terrifying way to face suffering. But may the Lord allow it to be different with me. May I be a faithful servant through suffering, hardship, and blessing. I swing my sword and may the haunting go away.


 


 

Guilty As Charged

     It was early morning and Jesus was sitting down teaching all the people who were coming to Him.  A large scuffling of feet mixed with a woman's wailing distracted them.  With strong hands cuffed around her arms, a group of prominent religious leaders dragged the woman towards the center of the court and set her firmly in front of Jesus.

"Teacher, this woman is an adulterer!  We bear witness that she was in the very act of it when we caught her," the men spoke, disgusted at her wretchedness.

"Now, in the Law Moses commanded to us, it says that such a woman is a sinner and should be stoned.  What then do You say we should do?" they asked, their hearts filled with malicious intent to trap and accuse Jesus.

Jesus was quiet and stooped down to write on the ground.  Impatient with His pause, the prominent religious leaders persisted that Jesus give them His answer.  As Jesus stood up before them, the group of men hushed ready to hear His verdict.

"He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her," he said to them.

After speaking this, He stooped down and continued writing on the ground.  The group of leaders slowly began to dwindle, leaving one by one, the older men first.  Only Jesus was left, and the woman in the center.  He stood up and said to her, "Woman, are there any left that accuse you?  Is anyone left that condemns you?"  "No one, Lord," she answered.  Then Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn you.  Go, and from now on do not sin any more." (John 8:1-11 paraphrased)

I sat amazed at the scene that had just played in front of me.  My heart began to stir with affection towards the man called Jesus as I realized the depth of His words.  Of all those men, who among them had legitimate claim as one without sin?  Who had the right to throw the first stone at the guilty, adulterous woman? ... Jesus did.  But what did He throw at her?... Grace, mercy and freedom from condemnation.

     

A painful death of stones hitting her body with brute force would have been the lawful punishment due her had Jesus not spoken for her.  But for His unmerited favor at that moment, the story would have had an alternate ending.  I wanted to follow the woman.  What happened after she left the temple?  Did she run home relieved and a bit confused?  As she sat at her table the next morning was she filled with awe?  Did a sudden giddiness that her many sins had been forgiven by the man others were calling "the Lord" fill her soul?  Did her giddiness turn into an unexplainable joy?

     

There were others that witnessed the scene.  The people had gathered to listen to Him teach, and what a lesson He had taught them in that moment!  Perhaps they were amazed.  Quite possibly there were many sinners in the crowd around Him.  Sinners who had come to the temple to present offerings to cover their guilt.          

    

Did they go tell others, catching the ears of others like her?  Others like the harlot who had the audacity to enter into a prominent religious leader's house upon hearing that Jesus was there.  Bringing an Alabaster jar of expensive perfume, she did a taboo thing and entered the scene without a head covering.  As she stood behind Him weeping, she began to wet his feet with her tears, wiping them with her uncovered strands, kissing them and pouring precious perfume over them.  Because she had been forgiven much, being near Jesus and worshipping Him was worth more than the approval of the arrogant man reclining at the table silently scoffing her as a sinner.  Accusation against her mattered not because she was desperate for what she heard Jesus could bestow on her, an unclean sinner.

     

Jesus made certain she didn't leave His presence disappointed.  In a brilliant moment, He praised her before her accusers, pouring over her the forgiveness for her many sins and a peace that would pass all understanding.  "Go in peace," he said.  She was now saved by His unmerited favor.

     

Just as Jesus did for the woman caught in adultery, He did for the harlot who washed His feet.  There was no need for a guilt offering that day.  Jesus covered them.  He bestowed forgiveness over them.  Sinners having nothing to offer but guilt, tears and vulnerability, He spoke on their behalf.  He so compassionately and lovingly covered them with what only He could give.  He was enough.

  

     "Then He said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here and observe My hands.  

Reach out your hand and put it in my side.  Don't be an unbeliever, but a believer.'" (John 20:27)

Lord, stir in us a new longing this Easter.  A longing for what only You can give, making us believers, restoring any doubt that we might have in You.  May Your death and propitiation for our sins be enough.  There is no longer any need for guilt offerings because You speak on our behalf.  As we kneel at Your feet and pour out our souls, bestow on us words that are life giving.  Words of peace for our broken souls.  Restore in us a faith and belief that it's You.  You are enough for us.  Amen