by Christie Purifoy | Aug 30, 2011 | book of quotations, God's Love
I keep a book of quotations. It looks exactly like any other journal, but it’s for a different kind of journaling. Journaling with the words of other writers, if you will. Here I scribble down quotations from all kinds of books: poetry, theology, memoir, literary theory, fiction, you name it. I write down anything I want to remember.
Sometimes I use these quotations later, in my own writing or maybe just in conversation. But, it isn’t really about utility. It’s about beauty. Language can be so beautiful it stuns. However, I am generally reading so much, so quickly that I need a way to hold on to those beautiful bits that I just can’t bear to let wash down the stream of words, words, words.
During our recent vacation, I read Ian Morgan Cron’s Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir of Sorts.
It fully lives up to its title. Which means that the story it tells is crazy and beautiful, wise and, frequently, very, very funny.
Toward the end of his story, Cron describes the life-changing moment when he hears (or thinks he hears) the voice of Jesus asking him, Cron, for forgiveness. These words heal an ugly wound in Cron’s heart, but they puzzle him too.
He knows in his head that Jesus is perfect. Knows that there can never be any reason why He would need to ask for forgiveness.
When asked, theologians, pastors, and priests consistently fail to unravel this apparent contradiction. Finally, a woman named Miss Annie, a woman with no seminary training, does exactly that. She tells Cron, “Why wouldn’t Jesus humble himself and tell a boy he was sorry for letting him down if he knew it would heal his heart?” Cron interrupts with what he knows: “But if Jesus is perfect?”
“Miss Annie ambled the five or six feet that separated us and took my hand. ‘Son,’ she said, rubbing my knuckles with her thumb, ‘love always stoops.’”
Since finishing the book, I’ve been considering the truth of Miss Annie’s words. I can remember years where the things I knew about God seemed to stand like a wall between me and His love. Learn just a little bit about God’s power, his glory, his holiness . . . do that, and it can be hard to fit your own miserable, tiny little self into the picture.
Maybe there are those who can hear a Sunday School lesson on God’s love and then feel it in their bones. All I really know is that it didn’t work that way for me. Perhaps my head and my heart are farther apart than they should be.
I will always be grateful that Love stooped down and came looking for me. Like Miss Annie said, Love humbles itself, Love stoops, and what this means to me is that Love pursues. Love chases. Love makes itself small enough for even our short-sighted, human eyeballs.
Love searches desperately for one lost sheep, and love keeps on searching until that sheep is safe, until that sheep knows and feels that she is loved.
by Christie Purifoy | Aug 25, 2011 | God's Love, Religion, Scripture
I’ve been listening to Mat Kearney’s new album. These words from the song “Hawthorne” keep running through my head: “the Jesus of prostitutes is chasing my soul.”
Those words seem so wonderful and comforting, but it takes me a few days before I stop to consider why. Why does it feel right and good to sing about “the Jesus of prostitutes”? Wouldn’t I rather sing about the Jesus of overly-educated-suburban-mothers-of-young-children? You know, the Jesus-of-me?
No, I really wouldn’t.
I am not actually a follower of the Jesus-of-me (though, some days, I act as if I am). I am a follower of the Jesus who loves the least, the powerless, the set aside, the unseen. I am a follower of the One Who Sees (Genesis 16:13).
Pain. Injustice. Small, seemingly insignificant people. We may look away or keep our eyes closed, but He never does.
You would think that prostitutes would no longer be among the unseen. Not in our hyper-sexed, anything-goes culture, right? But, of course, they are.
I am reminded of this when my friend tells me about a group of locals organizing together to show love in practical ways to the prostitutes who work a particular street. I hadn’t realized there were prostitutes on that street.
Unseen.
Ironically, God shows us throughout his Word that one reason he loves prostitutes – one reason he is their God – is because they see.
Pushed to the edges of her community, Rahab saw the truth. She knew whose side she wanted to be on. The woman with the expensive perfume? She was the only one who truly saw the Beauty-Deserving-of-Worship in that room.
I strive to have the clarity of vision those women had. I accept that one reason they had it was because they were not among their community’s successful, powerful elite.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
This is Kingdom-of-God logic, and it turns the Kingdom-of-the-world logic on its head.
It isn’t telling us to close our eyes, to accept injustice. Rather, it says to us: “Take heart! The Kingdom of God has come. And all around you, and even through you, the tables of this world are being turned. The moneychangers are kicked to the curb, and all is being set right.”
The One who Sees, the One Who is Making All Right: He is a lion, He is a lamb. He is the Jesus of prostitutes.
by Christie Purifoy | Aug 23, 2011 | Books, Family, guest post, healing, motherhood, Uncategorized
My love for books is well known. However, books haven’t always come through for me. They haven’t always given me the answers I’m looking for.
In my house, there is a particular shelf of books that have failed me utterly.
I’m honored to be writing over at Lisa-Jo’s place today. Won’t you join me there for the rest of the story?
by Christie Purifoy | Aug 18, 2011 | Family, God's promises
(photo by yours truly)
We recently returned from our week in the mountains. The luggage is still unopened, the mail stacked perilously high, and the backyard pool is green with neglect. At breakfast, the middle child sighed and said, “I miss the waterfalls.” We answered him with our own sighs.
A great vacation is a rare and wonderful thing, but it exacts a high price: the unhappy return to everyday life.
Still, we remember the mountaintop views and know that it was worthwhile. We have seen something precious.
There is a mountain in North Carolina called Pisgah. It is named for the mountaintop on which Moses first saw the Promised Land, a fact which surprises me not at all. Hazy blue vistas and cool breezes are my idea of milk and honey, too.
While I watched my family slide down a waterfall in Pisgah Forest (a feat I was more than content to simply observe), I thought about that land Moses saw. I’ve been living on promises for a while now, and I considered the view from my own mountaintop.
And then I thought about promises themselves.
Why are promises the currency of our relationship with Him? From rainbows to revelations, it seems we can’t know God apart from his promises. Why is that?
In my own life, I’m usually confused about the value of a promise. So much so that I can never make up my mind whether I should promise some good thing to my kids or let them be surprised. When the grandparents told us they’d be setting up old bunk beds in the guest room for our Christmas visit, I knew it would be a better gift than anything Santa might bring.
But should I tell the kids? Should I wait to see their faces when they realize that their bunk-bed dreams have finally come true?
I decided to wait and let them be surprised and then promptly forgot my decision and, in a desperate attempt to distract them from their argument, their summer boredom, told them what they had to look forward to. Bunk beds! For you! At Grammy’s house!
Oh, wait, didn’t I mean that to be a surprise?
I promised them bunk beds. Why?
I did it in a moment of forgetfulness. I was tired of their grumbling. Why does God do it?
The truth is, I don’t know. I started writing this post and imagined I’d have it figured out a few paragraphs in. But, I don’t.
I do think that God’s promises reveal Him to be very humble in His love for us. My own love for my children is tinged with a lot more self interest. Give them something to look forward to so they stop bothering me? Let them be surprised so I have the fun of witnessing? Me, me, me.
But here is our God writing these incredible stories for us and, as if this weren’t enough, He is reassuring us again and again: you have nothing to fear, good things are in store for you, it all turns out well.
He is a writer who generously gives away the ending. In humility, He wants us to know that He’s not about to give us a surprise that rewrites the whole story.
He’s writing, creating, and taking us along for the ride. Showing us, through his many promises, what it will all add up to some day.
“Then Jesus said, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’” (John 11: 40)
God’s promises are mountain views. They are a vision of what will be and what truly is. Most importantly, they are ours whether we’re standing on the mountain or walking through the valley.
“Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best Thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.”
– from “Be Thou My Vision,”
8th century Irish hymn, translated by Mary Byrne (1905)
by Christie Purifoy | Aug 15, 2011 | Family, grief
We’ve been putting it off, but at dinner yesterday we finally told the kids that their dog is dead. We were able to put it off because Casey lived, not with us, but with faraway grandparents. Still, they had always considered him their dog.
Because the miles are long, and we cross them so seldom, I imagined frowns. Concerned questions. I didn’t imagine tears, let alone heartbroken sobs.
There are some phrases that seem to show up only in books. They are clichéd, like “sat bolt upright” and “burst into tears.” And yet, considering it now, “burst into tears” really does seem to get it right.
Her face crumpled, like a bubble burst, and there was a fierce and terrible sadness pouring out of her.
I was amazed. Who taught her to feel so deeply? It wasn’t me. I have never poured sadness over anyone. I keep it balled up tight like a painful tumor in my throat.
I am grateful that my daughter knows how to hurt. Grateful that she will not or cannot keep it all inside (though I wish she had no need for tears; I wish she never would).
Today, I think of someone else. I wasn’t with her, but I wonder if she looked like my daughter when she understood the news. When she knew what had been lost.
Once, so many years ago, I sat in a church pew directly behind her. I can still see her two long braids, perfectly combed and parted. She shook with sobs.
We were at the funeral for one who loved us both, for one we’ve missed every single day since. Back then, I wished I could cry like that.
Remembering that day is difficult, but it also gives me hope. I hope that she will, once again, have the strength, the child’s wisdom, to grieve.
Our culture rarely talks about grief. We talk about recovery. We focus on getting over, moving on. Surely, those of us who believe in the restoration of all things have no reason to smooth out the emotional peaks and valleys of our lives? Jesus wept. Shouldn’t we?
“Now, O women, hear the word of the Lord; open your ears to the words of his mouth. Teach your daughters how to wail; teach one another a lament.”
(Jeremiah 9:20)
(photo by yours truly)
