The Fast Waking Hours

I am finding that time moves incredibly fast these days. Already, I am two-thirds of the way through my summer and wondering 1) where June went and 2) when I'm going to work on stuff for school that I've been intending to do since I got done in May and really haven't had much time to do.

And, yet, perhaps the most striking thing I've noticed in the quickly passing days is how little of that time I am spending with my Savior. Which self-perpetuates, sinfully, as I am then ashamed of not spending time at Christ's feet and hide myself away - even more afraid that I ought not to come near Him.

My heart longs for so many things, yet I am afraid of those things. I yearn to pursue music (still can't get rid of that itch), but I refuse to sit down and work on it. I desire to write (in general, like a book) about my experiences growing up and how my walk with God has changed over these many years, but I sit down one evening and never return to it.

I find that I am failing at faithfulness. Perhaps I need to just keep that before me and remember the One who is forever faithful.

In all of my oddities, I often return to the poor midnight/haphazard recordings I do of songs after I write them (so that I can at least remember what I intended them to sound like), and I keep coming back to everything I've written in the last few years and just wondering why I feel stuck in the same places.

And I keep re-visiting a song I wrote when I went to my parents' house over winter break (a rare fit of intending to write some music). It was rooted in the following verse, which ought to more earth-shattering to me than it is most days:

They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, "Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?" He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" [Isaiah 44:19]

I so easily forget the ONE God. LORD Jesus, may it no longer be so!

Listening to: The Civil Wars, Live from Eddie's Attic
Reading: Madeleine L'Engle, The Irrational Season

***
Blocks of Wood
©2010 A. Kate Reynolds

I have worshiped my blocks of wood;
I have eaten their ashes and fashioned their shape;
I have used them for fuel and warmth;
and when the days close, I hold them high and say:

“These are my gods;
the fruit of my toil.
I’ve worked and whittled
taking them from the soil.”

These gods can do naught
but rest in my hands -
I need to remember and understand:

That there is one God who formed me,
and one who calls out my name,
who has chosen to redeem me,
and removed my sins and their stains.

So, sing out, oh heavens,
Shout, depths of the earth,
For the Lord has redeemed
and stripped away the curse!

I have worshiped the graven gold;
I have found it a comfort and hated its loss;
I have trusted the men on its sides;
and when the days open, I hold it closeby:

“These are my gods;
fashioned by men.
I think I’ve deserved
every bit I did win.”

But these gods can do naught
except clink in my hands -
I need to remember and understand:

That there is one God who formed me,
and one who calls out my name,
who has chosen to redeem me,
and removed my sins and their stains.

So, sing out, oh heavens,
Shout, depths of the earth,
For the Lord has redeemed
and stripped away the curse!

Gods of wood and gold can’t go before you.
Gods of earth and stone can’t ever love you.
There is only One who...

That there is one God who formed me,
and one who calls out my name,
who has chosen to redeem me,
and removed my sins and their stains.

There is one God who keeps me;
There is only One who came;
There is one God who frees me,
who has loosed all of my chains.

So, sing out, oh heavens,
Shout, depths of the earth,
For the Lord has redeemed
and stripped away the curse!

***

11 & 300

On April 21, I will turn 11.

For eleven years, I have walked with Christ; I have written music; I have seen His faithfulness in every aspect of my life.

And in preparation to celebrate, I have started my annual trek through old prayer journals. I can only stand amazed at the goodness and faithfulness of God.

Even in my moments of utmost foolishness, He was fully faithful. Every year, I walk away with some main thread of what God has been teaching me. Perhaps what this year is about is coming to an understanding of the faithfulness of God.

I picked up one of my prayer journals from my best friend back in December. She had borrowed it many years ago and had kept it for several after that.

It is this journal that I picked up tonight when I couldn't sleep. I can't tell you the last time I read any of its pages, but its pages tell of my last year of high school and my first few years of college.

I must have been an odd specimen as a teenager, though perhaps it was the depression that I constantly battled that made me as introspective as I was. Every page contains depth that I somehow trusted God with.

At my worst, I still asked Him to correct my heart and bless me.

Granted, I was horridly foolish, but foolish with an honest, God-fearing heart.

And yet He was faithful! Prayers that I don't remember ever praying are recorded in the pages of this simple book - prayers for the husband that sleeps next to me, for the shaping of my heart, for perseverance in music, for peace.

Eleven years. How did they go by so quickly? How does each phase seem as if it were another life? I somehow went from 14 to nearly 25 and feel as if I've lived five lifetimes in the blink of an eye.

I'm so grateful for the roles that different people have played in my spiritual development over the years. As I read, the names flooded me and I felt the overwhelming desire to track each of them down to express my gratitude. Unfortunately, this would likely be impossible, especially as I'm called to be faithful in the life that God has blessed me with at the present time, but how much I still love them! How blessed I was to know them!

Somehow, I've also reached 300 posts on this ol' blog. 300 posts in five years. Some years have been a little more wordy than others, I suppose, but they're all here - and each one reflects a place in my life where Christ was living and active.

And I am so grateful for that.

In reading through my prayer journal tonight, I was struck by my faithfulness and diligence in seeking God through writing during those years. I wrote constantly. I prayed constantly. I relied on Christ day-in and day-out. God's faithfulness to me over the years calls me to remain faithful, and I am learning what that means in my daily life - all over again.

Life looks so much different at 24 than it did at 14, both in obvious and subtle ways. But there is one thing that remains the same - I am still human and I still desperately need a Savior.

Hallelujah! No kinder Savior waits for me than Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Could It Be?

I wrote a song almost two weeks ago that has haunted me ever since. I've been struggling for the last few months to figure out why I can't maintain consistency in my walk with God, why I can't seem to be faithful in the many little things that I try to juggle...

What I am slowly learning, all over again, is that I need to start letting God pick up the things that I feel I need to juggle - in some ways, I need to let them crash to the ground and see what He makes of all of it. I'm overworked, underslept, and spiritually undernourished; and it's an absolutely horrible combination.

But this song keeps haunting me. I keep asking myself, "Will this be the moment when I feel the nearness of God again?" and "Will this be the night from which I'll feel new again like I did ten years ago when I accepted Christ as my Savior?" It's not that God has failed - I've simply failed to desire Him whole-heartedly.

I've let my gaze drop too many times. I've come to think that "I've" got it all together after ten years of running this race and seeking God on what I now recognize as often shallow terms. I've said "no" to late nights with Him in exchange for meaningless (and unsatisfying) media content.

And it cycles through predictably, as it does in every season of life. I keep thinking that if I get to the next thing, I'll be more faithful, I'll be more disciplined - and, again, I'll finally be more in love with the One who first loved me.

But it's not about asking myself if this is the moment - it's about making this the moment. It's about picking up my Bible when I'd rather watch a TV show. It's about picking up Tozer when my brain screams at me to pick up my textbook. It's about spending my late night hours on my knees instead of wandering around looking for something to do until I'm tired enough to sleep.

The revelation that I do not answer to my flesh at the end of things is sinking in deep over the last few days. I will not stand before my flesh and list off the ways I fulfilled its desires! I will stand in front of a living, holy God who secured both my payment and freedom from bondage by no simple offering. And I will answer for, not boast in, the ways I appeased my flesh. Each and every time.

"It is easy to learn the doctrine of personal revival and victorious living; it is quite another thing to take our cross and plod on to the dark and bitter hill of self-renunciation. Here many are called and few are chosen. For every one that actually crosses over into the Promised Land there are many who stand for a while and look longingly across the river and then turn sadly back to the comparative safety of the sandy wastes of the old life."

[[from "Born After Midnight," by A.W. Tozer]]

So, yes it's true that this moment could be here. Only the passing of time will truly tell if this was the moment I remembered my immense need for a Savior.

But I certainly hope that it is.

For anyone wanting to listen to the rough midnight recording done in our garage, it's up at my PureVolume page (http://www.purevolume.com/akatereynolds).


Could It Be?
©A. Kate Reynolds (Sept 10, 2009)

Here I am -
Here in this moment I find myself in,
this moment where I might possibly begin
to start over.

Could it be
That this moment so full of possibility,
this moment is where I might finally breathe
without going under?

Could it be that this moment
is where I fall back in love with You?
Could it be that this moment
is where I remember my need?
Could it be?
Could it possibly be?

Here I am -
Here in this place I can’t let You in,
this place where I find I’m dirty and broken
and incomplete.

Could it be
That You could even want this version of me,
this me that You can clearly see
is in need of mercy?

Could it be that this moment
is where I fall back in love with You?
Could it be that this moment
is where I remember my need?
Could it be?
Could it possibly be?

Can it be true that You offer forgiveness?
It’s a beautiful and wonderful truth!
Can it be true You offer me my freedom,
in the knowledge it’s only found in You?

Yet, it’s here!
This moment where I know my Savior
This moment I fall in love like never before -
This moment!
It could possibly be.

Could it be that this moment
is where I lift my eyes off of my feet?
Could it be when I fix my gaze
and forget I was unclean?
Could it be?

Thoughts on Grief and Joy

It has been twelve years since I last found myself in the throes of deep grief. Twelve years of grief, depression, and, finally, redemption. As its recurrence begins to circle once more, I keep pushing it off to the edges of my mind - hoping that in doing so, enough time might pass where either it will be found that the truth of what is now reality is not actually true (and that everything is as it should be) or that it might not hurt as much when I finally do turn toward its face.

I am quickly discovering that I do not know how to move on from here. It’s not as though I’ve been through an exact replica of this process before. Before, I was lost in and of myself long before grief overcame me. Before, I felt that there was no one left, that no one truly cared at all for what I was experiencing.

But now, my life is so drastically different. At age 12, I was just beginning to discover what corners life so deftly hides away until one comes of age. Here, now 24, I am firstly redeemed, secondly married, and third, no stranger to mourning.

The hardest part is perhaps that there are now twelve more years of memories with this beautiful woman. Twelve more years of being welcomed, loved, fed, and entertained by her hospitality and antics. Twelve years where she lived even though what she had so dearly loved - her husband - had been snatched out of her beautiful, slender hands. Twelve more years of Scrabble and sweet tea and game shows and pictures of all the grandchildren (and great-grandchildren) on the fridge.

The second hardest part is I didn’t think the last time I saw her would be my good-bye. I saw her fighting her aging body, recovering her speech and movement and sharpness of both mind and wit. I saw her in all her stubbornness, desiring to return home and return to living.

And now, she’s gone. Nothing remains but memories and the haunting scenes of my last pieces of time with her, ending with her telling me she loved me.

That was her greatest gift to me - that she loved me.

My grandmother, Eula Frances, was a strong woman. She didn’t have to maintain power or have people think of her as more than a homemaker. She was just strong. She knew who she was and who she loved, and that was more than enough.

She married one man, my grandfather, and remained his wife until the day he died. She raised four children, who from her inherited wit, wisdom, and a love of words. Her home was always open, the candy dish full, and her hands always ready to slip into someone else’s. Following my grandfather’s death, she knew the blessing of another companion. Many women can’t seem to find one good man, but my grandmother was wife to two. They lived, and continued to love and welcome all into their home.

I can still remember reading books in my grandparents’ living room, in that small yellow house in Camby, Indiana, and listening to the family gathered around the eat-in kitchen that didn’t have the space to be an eat-in. They would talk, play Scrabble, and argue about whether or not words were valid. As a child, it might have been the happiest place I knew. It had all the sounds of happy. I’d pause, smile to myself and keep reading.

I have to keep telling myself that I will once more experience that ‘happy’ - that, one day, sitting in a room of people and hearing their murmurs and exclamations will bring joy and not overwhelming sadness. I know that one day, I’ll hold children of my own and I will tell them stories of their great-grandmother, who was a beautiful woman, and it will be healing to share her with them, instead of pain-filled.

I know that joy will return. Happy will return. The problem is surely how to get there. The battle for joy is not won by laying in bed all day, weeping and praying that what is now true is not. And it is certainly not won by going into hiding, as I am so apt to do when life brings its ‘little’ changes. It is won by being obedient to what God has called me to, even when I don’t feel like doing so. It’s not a horrible thing to cry, and I know that I probably will in spurts for years to come because this wonderful, strong woman will not be known by further generations in this world, but I am not to waste my life in a fog of depression.

Joy will return in the steady understanding that she is in the presence of her King, Jesus Christ. The only way I can come to know that joy again is to once more understand what it is to live and breathe for an audience of One - the One who was there before this grief, the One who is there now in its midst, and the One who will usher me into His presence at the end of my life here.

You make known to me the path of life;

in Your presence there is fullness of joy;

at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

[[Psalm 16:11]]

I so often allow my gaze to drop. I so often forget for what I am striving. If I have fifty more years on this earth, I don’t want them to look like the last ten, as amazing as they were. I want to be strong. I want to seek joy. I want to stop looking to this planet for what makes my life worthwhile. I want to keep moving forward.

Heaven is home. May I fix my gaze there, and find joy here in the time between.

That’s what Grandma would have wanted.

To know God...

"To know God is to know fear. The fear of God is a heart-pounding, knee-trembling, spine-tingling, shuddering recognition that God is infinitely more good and powerful and important than me. It means that I live and think and act and speak with a keen awareness that He is the Creator and I am the creature; He is holy and I am not; He is wise and I am a fool; He is powerful and I am weak; He is ruler and I am servant; He is self-sufficient and I am utterly dependent.

To fear God means to be ever-aware of His all-pervasive presence, conscious of my absolute need for Him, mindful of my responsibility to follow His way, determined to obey Him, cautious of offending Him, and overwhelmed in amazement and gratitude at His incredible goodness and grace."

[[Mary Kassian, Knowing God by Name]]