by Christie Purifoy | Feb 14, 2012 | God's Love, God's promises, grief, Jesus, Waiting
Alone in darkness.
Someone typed those words into their search engine, and it led them to my blog. It breaks my heart to know this. I wonder if they found what they were looking for. I wonder if they found something else, something good that they didn’t even know they were searching for. Somehow, I do not think they did.
For those of you unfamiliar with the writing of blogs (which group included myself only a few months ago), it is possible for the blog’s author to check his “stats.” One of these stats includes word searches that have led someone to click on that particular website.
These searches usually make sense. Someone searching for a particular poem or literary quotation is often led here. A surprising number of people want to know about southernisms like “bless her heart.” I wrote about that once. And every single day someone types in some variation on “Jesus” and “prostitutes,” which leads them here. That makes me very happy.
Sometimes the words searched are so bizarre I cannot fathom how the google gods led them to my site. I laugh, imagining how disappointed or confused that searcher must have been as my site filled their screen. Yesterday, I didn’t laugh. Instead, I decided that if anyone ever again typed alone in darkness they would find my response here.
Do you feel alone? Has the world gone dark? Then I have something for you.
It isn’t advice. I don’t believe in advice. But, I do have my story, and I know what it is to feel unseen. Unheard. Alone in darkness.
You are not alone. You are not. Yet, I know that it feels that way. I know the weight of it is crushing. There are few things so painful as feeling unseen and unknown.
There is Someone with you. He has always been with you, and he has not abandoned you. He goes by so many names, but the name I know best is Jesus. He made you. He knows you. And he promised that he would always be with you (Matthew 28:20).
Here’s something else I know: when we’re in the darkness we only sometimes feel his presence. Usually, we don’t. We feel alone. It is only later when some grace has drawn us slowly back into the light that we are able to turn around and see rightly. That is when I have known, without a doubt, that I was never on my own. That I was never forgotten. Never unseen.
Why does he sometimes leave us in the darkness? Why doesn’t he swoop in to rescue us? I don’t really have the answers to those questions. “Why” questions are mostly impenetrable. I do have some “whats”, however. I don’t know why, but I do not what has happened to me. Having walked through darkness into light I know that morning always returns. The night never lasts forever. I know that I am loved and that I do not walk alone through the valley of the shadow of death. I know that sometimes I needed to change in ways that only darkness could accomplish. I know that I have never searched for God or prayed to God like I have in the darkness. I am glad to know that I am capable of that. I am forever grateful to know that he always responds, he always hears, even if it isn’t on my timetable.
I will not tell you that darkness is good. I certainly will not say that it is good for you. I do admit that I have been amazed to see how bright the light shines after darkness.
That light is waiting for you. I know you cannot see it yet. Try to hold on. Wait. Pray. Hurl your loneliness and fear at the sky.
He’s listening. He sees.
“I have heard your prayer and seen your tears.” (Isaiah 38:5).
by Christie Purifoy | Feb 2, 2012 | allergies, Family, Jesus, poverty
It’s another dinner conversation with the little people, and you never know where it will take you. This night the middle child suddenly recalls the Christmas boxes we filled months ago.
Who opened those boxes, he wants to know. Who’s playing with those toys? I don’t know, I tell him, but I’m sure it’s a child far away who might not have opened anything else on Christmas Day.
He absorbs my answer and says, “I’m glad we’re not poor.”
Oh, honey. I’m glad too. I can’t imagine facing dinnertime with an empty cupboard. Every time I dole out another of the boy’s pink asthma pills ($100 for the bottle with good health insurance!), I wonder how some parents do it. I imagine them holding out for the really bad wheezing, hording those pills like gold.
Oh, honey, I’m glad we’re not poor.
But there’s something I don’t like about his comment. Something that doesn’t feel right. Am I sensing a bit of “us vs. them”? As in, we are the ones who fill the Christmas boxes (thank you, Jesus), and they are the ones who open them? Yet I know that when it comes to Jesus’s kingdom, we’re all in it together. No “us vs. them.”
What did Jesus say to the rich young ruler? Give it all away, then come follow me. But, he couldn’t do it. Can I? Will my kids?
I’m not asking my kids to give it all away. I’ll keep on giving them gifts as long as there’s still money in the bank. But, there are a lot of ways to be poor, and maybe it’s time to teach a few of those?
To be poor is to know that you don’t have what it takes.
To be poor is to know that you’ve got nothing worth standing on.
The poor in spirit give it all away because they know it was never really theirs. The poor in spirit willingly let go of everything in order to stand on the Rock. They know that money, good looks, good health, good behavior, none of it is as strong and steady as that Rock.
Oh, my little boy, I’m afraid you’re wrong. We are poor. Maybe not in our bank account (though who knows what tomorrow holds), but we are poor. We aren’t good enough. Or strong enough. We’ll never have it all together. But, there’s One who was and is and always will be.
He is our treasure. Our pearl of great price.
by Christie Purifoy | Jan 19, 2012 | Faith, Jesus
Wisdom is a treasure, a precious cargo worth seeking, but it can also feel like a heavy weight threatening to sink our ship.
Through wisdom we know that our days on this earth are brief. Like a whisper of mist. Like a flower that blooms and fades. We are little more than grass and flowers, and we know that “grass withers and the flowers fall” (Isaiah 40:8).
Through wisdom, we do indeed learn “to number our days” (Psalm 90:12).
How, then, do we hold on to wisdom’s treasure without sinking under its weight? How do we keep our spirits from tipping over into despair? “For with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief” (Ecclesiastes 1:18).
The voice of pragmatism and reason would likely advise balance. Seek wisdom but not too much. In other words, don’t overdo it!
Yet, there is nothing balanced or reasonable about following Jesus. He is a lion and a lamb, not some creature halfway between the two.
The best way may be the utterly reckless way. Pursue wisdom with everything you have. Hold tight to it and weep. Feel the grief of that knowledge. For here is another paradox: there is laughter in these tears. Lady Wisdom “can laugh at the days to come” (Proverbs 31:25).
This is the laughter of children, the laughter of innocence.
To be like Jesus is to be utterly wise and thoroughly innocent, a serpent and a dove.
To be wise and innocent is to feel grief and joy that haven’t been dulled by fear. It is the wide-awake life he promised us.
“Awake, my soul!”
Psalm 57:8
by Christie Purifoy | Jan 10, 2012 | Books, Jesus, Stories
“Mom,” she asks, “What happens next in the story?”
I’m distracted, brushing my teeth, checking the clock. I realize that we only have 5 minutes before we need to leave for church. It takes more than 5 minutes to strap three kids into the car. At least, it does if one of those kids is a two-year-old who processes every instruction as an opportunity to run and hide.
“What story?” I ask.
“You know. The story at church. What happens after Christmas? What happens with Jesus?”
I rinse my mouth and give her a look of confusion. She says, “You know, the story! The angels and the stable and the star. What happens next?”
Finally, I understand her question, but I fumble for an answer. I may have an advanced degree in stories (I’m an expert! An authority!), but it only takes a child’s simple question to deflate those ego-balloons.
“Ummm … well … Jesus grows up. Then he starts teaching and performing miracles.”
Even I know my answer isn’t quite adequate, but the girl is thoroughly unconvinced. She huffs and rolls her eyes, and I know she thinks I still don’t understand.
But, I do. I do.
I know that it takes readers years to learn and even more years to appreciate that stories are not simply the sum of their plot developments. You could summarize a book by Agatha Christie and one by Virginia Woolf in the same number of sentences, but which summary would leave the most unsaid? You don’t need to have read Mrs. Dalloway to know the answer, I think.
“What happens next?” is not the only question we should ask. Why and how may be even more important.
I understand that my daughter, a new reader, is looking for excitement. We’ve had the star and the stable, the angels and the shepherds. What’s next? What’s next? Keep it coming! Keep it coming! Or, as her five-year-old brother might say, “Is there another picture in this book?”
We do get a few pictures between Christmas and Easter. Fishes and loaves. A broken jar of perfume. A man high up in a tree. Still, they aren’t quite as stunning as that stable or that cross. Neither the beginning nor the end, this is merely the hum-drum middle, right?
I’m not so sure. The middle may be less of a set-piece, less likely to be carved in wood or clay, but it’s the part that gives me the most hope for my day-to-day.
We live most of our lives in the middle. Between set-pieces. The funeral. The child’s birth. The phone call. The move. Those things happen, and they look like peaks and valleys as we glance back in time, but we mostly live in the in-between.
Jesus breaking bread. Jesus talking. Jesus healing. Jesus praying. That’s what the middle looks like. It’s beautiful and breath-taking in its own way. We only need to slow down enough to see it.
It’s like I always told my students when they first read Virginia Woolf. “Don’t rush. Take your time,” I would say. “If you hurry through only looking for what happens next you’ll turn the final page and realize that you’ve missed the story.”
I don’t want to miss the story. I want to live it.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 25, 2011 | Advent, Jesus
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests.”
Merry Christmas, friends.
by Christie Purifoy | Dec 24, 2011 | Advent, Jesus, Music
O Holy Night
O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour’s birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
‘Til He appear’d and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O hear the angels’ voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.
Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from Orient land.
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.
He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!
Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
His power and glory evermore proclaim.
