deluged

I made a cup of tea tonight for the sole purpose of warming my hands while I stood in the driveway to watch the approaching storm.  A violent spring storm storm brings its own sort of chill that travels straight down to the bones no matter how warm the day or thick the clothes. I spun circles in the driveway as part of a furious game of hide and seek with the lighting that was always somehow behind me. Big fat drops forced me back to the safety of the porch and eventually inside the door where I watched sheets of rain billow across the yard like the curtains at my window.

Watching storms always reminds me of a summer afternoon in Charleston over a decade ago where for hours I watched black clouds from hundreds of miles away race to overtake the daylight. Hulking black masses fell over themselves like a thousand hungry demons in a race to deluge the land with their wild torrents of water. It made me feel very small. I'm still awed by the relentless fury of an oncoming storm.  The foreshadowing, the rising action, the tense quiet are the best parts of the story.

The safety of my doorway gave me perspective on the sheets of water twisting across the yard. Someone got caught in those torrents tonight, getting out of their car or heading home from work. I imagined the futile wrestling with umbrellas rendered useless by the sideways motion of the water, the icy feeling of rain piercing clothing, the gross lack of perspective caused as life collapses to a single desire to get out of the rain. I imagined this storm inside of a tee pee or log cabin, with leaks in the roof and without the weather channel app and 911. I said a prayer of thanks and felt very small.

I started Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky a few days ago. Although I enjoy a book that makes me laugh or cry, it is extremely rare for me to find a book that triggers anxiety. Something about the way Dostoevsky gets into the minds of his characters and communicates the darkness of sin, the hopelessness induced by injustice and poverty, and the absurd lies our egos devour on a daily basis makes me feel like I cannot breathe. It will likely take me a year to read this book because ten pages brings me dangerously close to hyperventilating. After twenty pages of reading tonight I was so out of sorts that I snapped at Quinn. I had to leave the room, do some breathing exercises, and speak some truth to myself before I was calm enough to apologize.

In the preface Richard Pevear describes a change in Dostoevsky's writing after his return from exile.  Dostoevsky's later works, including Crime and Punishment, are considerably darker. The flimsy reality of the concrete world plays a secondary role to the darker realities of consciousness. I feel like a voyeur peering into someone else's soul and finding my own struggles being played out as a farce on a stage.  It is both mesmerizing and unhinging. To what would crushing poverty or a hopeless economic system reduce me? How would gross injustice or extreme hunger warp my understanding of the truth?

I've been sitting in a class on Sunday mornings where overfed upper middle class white people talk about theology.  I love the people and I love the discussion, but every once in a while I want to climb the walls and claw my eyes out because we sit there like Job, throwing out God's precepts with so little experience of his person, as if there weren't a thousand hungry demons bearing down on us ready to unleash all kinds of evil.

I'm also reading The Long Loneliness by Dorothy Day.  After being sort-of wrongfully imprisoned, she writes of lying a cell listening to a woman in the next cell:

In the next cell to me there was a drug addict who beat her head against the metal walls of her cell and howled like a wild animal. No woman in child birth, no cancer patient, no one in the long year I had spent in King's County hospital had revealed suffering like this. I pressed my hands to my ears, and covered my head with my pillow to try to muffle the sounds. It was most harrowing to think that this pain, this torture, was in a way self-inflicted, with full knowledge of the torture involved.  The madness, the perverseness of this seeking for pleasure that was bound to be accompanied by such mortal agony was hard to understand.  To see human beings racked, by their own will, made one feel the depth of the disorder of this world… I felt the sadness of sin, the unspeakable dreariness of sin from the first petty self-indulgence to this colossal desire which howled through metal walls! And yet I do not think I thought of these things as I thought of God  while in the solitary confinement cell at Occoquan. I just suffered desperately and desired to be free from my suffering, with a most urgent and selfish passion. The instinct for self-preservation made me forget everything but a frantic desire for freedom, to get away from these depths into which I had fallen…. I could get away, but what of others? I could get away, paying no penalty, because of my friends, my background, my education, my privilege. I suffered but was not part of it. I put it from me. It was too much for me. I think that for a long time, one is stunned by such experiences. They seem to be quickly forgotten, but they leave a scar that is never removed.  

I nearly sobbed at these words, seeing myself in both the addict she describes and in her own instinct for self-preservation. John Owen may have taught me the theology of sin's deceit, but Dostoevsky's storytelling is leaving its scars on my consciousness.  Whenever I put down his book, I can only describe my emotional state, like Day does, as a "frantic desire for freedom, to get away from these depths into which I had fallen."

Because of Day's book and Wilson's Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl (which I can't stop coming back to for some reason), I've been exploring the concept of smallness in my quiet time.  What does it mean for Christ, the Word himself, to take on flesh and wash the feet of the men who would abandon him just hours later? Certainly I am completely out of my league, here, but I suspect I have greatly underestimated the role of courage in this story. To face the approaching storm and stand in its billowing torrents without fleeing is a feat unimaginable to my weak frame.  I can't even watch it coming without a teacup to warm my hands and a dry house prepared for my retreat. Even reading about these storms deeply scars my consciousness, so how can I presume to try and face them in real life?

I am deluged by "the depth of the disorder in the world… the unspeakable dreariness of sin from the first petty self-indulgence to this colossal desire which howled through metal walls!" But though I am deluged, I fear drowning far less than I fear the self-inflicted torture of my sinful nature.  And perhaps that kind of desperation, selfish though it may be, is the beginning of courage.

well-aged

My blog and I are in that awkward phase of our relationship where I've been avoiding him for a while wondering if we should break up. But here I am again. Who am I kidding? I know nothing about relationships.

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind of busy, mostly the lovely sort of busy like coffee with friends, late nights playing games, and a trip to somewhere warm. In her autobiography, The Long Loneliness, Dorothy Day describes certain inspired moments she had as a child:

Whenever I felt the beauty of the world in song or story, in the material universe around me, or glimpsed it in human love, I wanted to cry out with joy.

I've shied away from writing because I have felt so much like a better version of my 13 year old self. Not that I'd ever want to be that age again. The horror! But I have felt the overwhelming desire to cry out with joy lately, like one of my students when they crush on some boy at school. And frankly, that kind of girlish delight is just downright undignified and embarrassing for a woman of my age. There's no way I would write about that kind of silliness.

Don't get me wrong, my life is hard. Like HARD hard. Like single mom, want to send my kid to granny's house and hop the first plane back to Costa Rica and live in a hut on the beach selling coconut water forever kind of hard. I weep often. Not just your shed a tear, woe is me kind of sniffling, but the full on I'm ready for heaven kind of ugly cry.  All the time.

Best description of Hell I've ever read: (From ND Wilson's, Notes from the Tilt-A-Whirl)

God is kind and reserves a place for those who loathe Him to the end, an eternal exile, a joyless haven for those who would eternally add to their guilt, a place where blasphemy will be new every morning.  A place less painful and less terrible than the alternative. Unless you change, Heaven, the Shekinah, the close presence of that burning Holiness, the presence of the creator God and the face of the exalted Word, the winds and fire of that storm of joy would be a worse hell than Hell itself, a worse burning than any figurative (or literal) flames.  In the end there will be no escaping Hell because all else will be Heaven.  There will be no need for walls or chains or any kind of cell, because Hell will be that place farthest away from His smell.  A place you will hate but have no desire to leave .

Wow.  Earlier in the book he rants:

Why do Christians think of purity, holiness, and even divinity as something with big eyes and soft fur? Why do we so often ignore the beautify in exchange for the cute? (several pages later) Holiness is terrible. It comes with the whirlwind. It is a purifying fire. We are not the first Christians to trivialize the cherubim.  We are not the first to make things soft on our imaginations and comfortable in our dreams.  

Holiness is terrible. It is a purifying fire. To be unmade in its flames is a terrifying thing indeed. I can tell many stories of myself and others shrinking away from it, pulling back as it draws near, hiding under the bed when it breaks in through the window. The ways we have of wriggling out form under God's purifying thumb are absolutely astounding, but holiness is relentless. It hunts, it devours, it stalks, but if you run away long enough, it may just leave you alone.

I had a chance to try surfing for he first time last week.  I'm pretty lousy, but I loved it.

Our pastor is speaking through Hebrews this year, and he began with Hebrews 12:1-2:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Perseverance that comes from fixing your eyes on Christ is the central theme in Hebrews. Few things in this world will teach you about perseverance like trying to learn how to surf.  Try to get your board out in the waves, get knocked over, nearly drown, paddle around a while, try to stand up, fall over, choke on salt water, gag, then do it all again. If you can't make the connection between surfing and life, then I don't think we can be friends because my life is a whole lot like surfing, and not the Mavericks Invitational, I make this look easy kind of surfing.  No.  My life is more like the Lord have mercy on that old lady trying to stand up on a surfboard, somebody rescue her before she kills someone, kind of surfing.

But that is what holiness does to a sinful soul like mine.  It knocks me over, nearly drowns me, makes me gag, wears me out, leaves scabs on my elbows, and salt water in my sinus cavities and then has the nerve to tell me to get out there and try it again without any promises it's going to get easier or I'm going to look better trying.

Wilson's thoughts on heaven:

Heaven will be wonderful (understatement). It will be more wonderful than we can imagine, even if our imaginations weren't so stunted by marshmallow visions. You will have a body more physical than this one. Heaven will be hard and bright, and the winds will be strong. You will have the body and the eyes and the purified, well-aged soul to bear it. We will remake this world with blistered hands.…Do not resent your place in the story. Do not imagine yourself elsewhere. Do not close your eyes and picture a world without thorns, without shadows, without hawks. Change this world. Use your body like a tool meant to be used up, discarded, and replaced. Better every life you touch. We will reach the final chapter. When we have eyes that can stare into the sun, eyes that only squint for the Shekinah, then we will see laughing children pulling cobras by their tails and hawks and rabbits playing tag….But we cannot reach the final chapter by dreaming, by holding our collective breath and staring at an unshaded acrylic escape painting. The only road to that final chapter began at the garden and led into the wilderness. It runs through these chapters. Live now. Relish the tensions, the challenges, and laugh at the petty pains….The problem of evil brings its own strength. We do not need to strengthen it by imagining perfection to be cross-stitch and cookies and… kittens. The world is already more wonderful than we can imagine. Heaven will be better still.

Heaven will be hard and bright and the winds will be strong. But I, yes, I will have the purified, well-aged soul bear it all because I am being unmade and remade in the furnace of holiness.  I am being knocked over and nearly drowned, but I am still getting back up to try again, no matter how ugly the last fall was.  I can weep, but not without laughing.  I can mourn, but not without dancing.

Unless we are changed, we will fear the burning presence of a holy God more than eternal exile. One day recently I woke up to the reality that I am being changed.  I am being made into a new creation.  And if I feel a little giddy, like a school girl with a crush, well, then so be it.

snow globes and black coffee

The other day I craved black coffee, and enjoyed it.  That is a sure enough sign that something is dreadfully wrong with me.

Consider this from N.D. Wilson's Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl:

Honestly, I wasn't expecting this book to be all that deep, but it has proven to be one of the best answers to David Hume and the long tradition of skeptics that I've ever read.  And the book is hilarious.  That helps a lot, especially because Hume is really boring.

The problem of evil is a genuine problem, but it's not a logical problem. It's an emotional one. Wow.  My mind has been dancing around that truth for months now, but I never had such simple words to express it.  The problem of evil is not a problem of God's existence, it's a problem with our humility.  Without God, the concept of evil cannot exist.  Discomfort, yes.  Inconvenience, sure.  But not evil.  If you remove God, everything and everyone from Hitler to Mother Theresa is simply a matter of taste and fashion, not good and evil.

We do not want to hear an answer that puts us so low.  That's the real problem.

Ouch.

I am in a season of resisting the lowness, of not wanting to accept a cosmology that doesn't feature my comfort as the central focus.  Ouch.

In the book Prelandra, by C.S. Lewis, Dr. Ransom travels to Prelandra, or Venus, and attempts to keep Dr. Weston (who has been possessed by something completely evil) from introducing evil onto the maiden planet.  The book is kind of dull, as most of it consists of one long argument between the two men, but at one point Dr. Ransom realizes that words are useless, and he actually has to kill Dr. Weston.  Such an action offends his very cultured, British sensibilities.  Eventually, though, Dr. Ransom realizes that at its most fundamental level, evil cannot be reasoned with, and it must be killed to be stopped.

Wading through the content in my head is like sloughing through a blizzard some days, but every once in a while, a chat with a good friend stirs things up.  Thoughts dance around my head like flakes in a snow globe, and a beautiful landscape is put back aright.  We were exchanging prayer requests, and I finally found the words to express where I am.

I want to carry this unfulfillable longing without falling into despair or covering it up with a false reality.  To do so, though, I must both accept the smallness of my place in the grand story of everything and simultaneously put to death the sin and evil in my own heart.  I must both be still and put on armor.  Somehow it all ties back into Tolkein's concept of fighting the long defeat, but I'm going to need more coffee before I think about that.

fighting the long defeat, santa, and a soapbox

Tis the time of year for Christmas concerts, readings from the Jesus Storybook Bible, shopping, scarves, coats, and unfriending my uptight Christian friends on Facebook….


...okay, so not really unfriending, but definitely hiding them.


I was reading a great article from The Gospel Coalition about Tolkein's phrase "fighting the long defeat." His uses of the phrase both in his fiction and to describe the Christian view of history are pretty amazing.  He talks about our war against evil as one continual fight against the long defeat because until Christ returns, evil will come back, and sometimes even appear to win.  But be careful.  This isn't a hopeless view of our struggles, indeed it's just the opposite.  Fighting the long defeat is about recognizing that there are battles worth fighting even if we expect we're going to lose. It's about sending your men into battle knowing they might die with the hope of giving the hobbits a little more time to destroy the ring.  It's about fighting poverty and injustice one case at a time, knowing there are millions more out there in need and no one may notice what you're doing.  It's about starting another round of chemo when you'd rather give up, or apologizing when you'd rather lash out in anger, or even getting out of bed when it's too cold or hopeless or lonely.  It's about fighting even when you may lose simply because the fight is good. Fighting the long defeat is looking at the Shire or your childhood or your family traditions, it's about fighting for the possibility of joy and hope and laughter on this dying planet and trying to preserve the possibility of freedom.


And when I think of Christmas and growing up in a secular family, I remember the sacrifices my parents made to make it special.  I remember the family trips and crazy food and Santa and shopping. And I love it.  Yes, I love Jesus, and I love Santa and gifts and elf on the shelf, and all the other things people want to make me feel guilty for.  I love it all. And I don't feel guilty.


Why?


Because I know what it means to fight the long defeat.  I have no illusions that life is easy if I just find that magic solution.  If I just act Ike a certain kind of Christian, then suddenly I'll be rich and happy and carefree.  I know that pain will come no matter how hard I fight, but I still fight.  And I know that fighting the long defeat with grace and joy is about imagination.  It's about being able to imagine a new creation, to look forward in hope to things yet unseen, to pulling from past experiences of wonder, awe, and hope and peace so we can find strength in the moments we can't muster them up on our own.


Because when I'm tempted to fall away from the fight, it isn't just a Bible verse that corrects me, it is the Spirit of God who brings to mind not just a verse, but the smile of my son, the memory Emmett's laugh, the knowledge of what my family has sacrificed, the stories lived out by my friends, and the the knowledge that these witnesses are just a small part of the great crowd of witnesses watching history unfold. Mine is a faith that has been fed by imagination, well trained to hope in the Gospel because it was raised on fairy tales and imaginative play.  A fairy tale isn't evil because it isn't true, and people didn't stop celebrating Christ at Christmas because of Santa, the elf on the shelf, presents, or any other tradition.  People have stopped celebrating Christ at Christmas because there is sin in the world whose whole goal is to separate us from Christ, and maybe just maybe Christians are spending too much time making each other feel bad about their family traditions instead of sharing the joy of the gospel of Christ.


Last I checked we are saved by grace alone through faith alone, and you can give everything you have to the poor, but if you don't have love, then it's meaningless.


So if, like me, you are feeling a little beat down by all those holiday Scrooges who wave the banner of self-righteousness because they are more holy than you since they don't this, that, or the other and can slap you with Bible verses to prove it, then remember that the courage to fight the long defeat comes from a life filled with joy, laughter, and hope.  Whatever traditions you do, infuse them with grace, mercy, love, and laughter.  And if waking up each morning to look for the elf on the shelf gives my son a memory of joy and expectation that in some tiny way makes him look forward to the new creation where each day we will get to explore the depths of God's infinite majesty, then I will wake up early and move that silly elf.


Because one day my son will be discouraged.  He may lose his sense of wonder, feel lonely, be tempted to abandon his own family, lose his way, or any number of things.  But I know that what will hold him steady or bring him back is the Spirit of God using the longing, the hunger, the desire for truth, beauty, and justice that fairy tales and stories, both real and imaginary, give him.  This kind of longing keeps us fighting the long defeat when the nights are darkest and Christ is impossible to see. So I will cultivate that longing, that imagination, that desire while I still can, in any way I can.  And I trust that God will use my flawed, human efforts for his glory because after all this is his story, and there is no perfect formula to achieve my comfort.  There is only a good fight that may kill me and those I love, but the hope fueled by faith and fed by stories tells me this fight is still worth fighting.


Thus concludes my soapbox.

the blubbering cripple

Oh mercy people, I think my ENT must have accidentally tweaked my anterior cingulate cortex.  Yeah, don't go thinking I'm smart here.  I had to google what part of the brain controls the executive function that allows the brain to override emotion (at least most likely).  Because I've been a seriously emotional nut case recently.  I can't get through a morning advent reading from The Jesus Storybook Bible without choking back sobs.  Cracking my Bible to Deuteronomy sends me nearly into hives, and two verses in my heart is racing like my Bible's on fire.  And Christmas music.  Seriously do not get me started on the choking sobs evoked by a really good rendition of O Come O Come Emmanuel.   And when you've just had sinus surgery, let me tell you the last thing you need is to open up the floodgates with a good cry.

Sometimes I feel guilty for reading fiction. Well, actually at any given time I feel a little guilty about something I'm doing in my life that's actually harmless or even good for me, but lately it's been about reading fiction. Now don't get me started on a defense of good fiction, because I can whip out some G.K. Chesterton and C.S. Lewis, leaving you begging for mercy and a good novel. But no matter how much I defend it, I can still feel guilty about reading even the best fiction because I have a professional grade guilt complex. And it's better than yours.

I just finished The Ashtown Burial SeriesI'm actually going to have to go back and re-read the last book because I read the ending so quick, I can't exactly tell you what happened except that all the right people survived. It's a juvenile fiction novel series written from a redemptive paradigm, like most books I love, and it leaves you all inspired to be brave and awesome and a teensy bit rebellious. Except this time I've been left feeling all terrified.

I'm sitting here recovering from sinus surgery drowning in mucus, with a dead husband, a leaking roof, an overly emotional six year old son, a full time job, and an NPO on the side because I get bored easily, so pardon me if I'm feeling a little like hiding under the covers and never coming out. ever.

But there he is. Everywhere. It's like you can't get away from him. I mean, we'll take prayer out of public schools and then blast The First Noel over the loudspeaker of every department store for a month straight. And just when I want to hide, too. Dang it.

Because he loves me. And I can run from anything.  But not love, not love.  And believe me, I've tried.    There is beauty and there is terror in knowing that the bonds of love are stronger even than sin and death.  It's like Jesus lures you in with this beautiful promise of love and redemption just before he delivers the sucker punch that you're supposed to go out love like this too.

But you can't run away because you've known love. And it's just too amazing. But Christ took this love and knelt down to wash his disciples feet. He went to the cross and died when he could have just changed everything with a word. And it terrifies me that this kind of love is beginning to make sense. I can't hide behind doctrines and rules and pet projects and a thousand other walls of self-righteousness that keep from actually dying to self.  No wonder I want to throw up every time I open my Bible.

I put Quinn to bed tonight with one of the old nighty night mixes Emmett made for him years ago. The first song on the list was Carbon Ribs. I love that song.  Here's why:

A Thousand pairs of firey eyes
Burn like a serpent down the hwy 5
As the Long amber tail to Los Angeles unwinds
I've got his resurrection down in side my skin
But for all my revealating
I just cant make sense
Of this gravity we're in

Cause I'm a dead man now
With a ghost who lives
Within the confines of
These carbon ribs
And one day when I'm free
I will sit
The cripple at your table
The cripple by your side 

Right now I feel like a blubbering cripple at the table. Completely useless, unable even to live the life before me with some modicum of faith and courage. But then comes these words:

A thousand miles of pain I'm sure
Led you to the threshold
Of my hearts screen door
To tell me what it is I'm dying for
Gravity comes
Like a cold cold Rain
To lead me to the rope again
But someone is standing in my place

 Because every time I pray about dying to self, I find someone else standing in my place.  That is grace. That is mercy. That is love. And those things are terrifying. Beautiful and true and necessary and amazing, but mostly terrifying right now.

eight signs your ent surgeon is a sadist

8 - The last thing you hear before blacking out goes something like, "huh, looks like she's having an allergic reaction to the anesthesia.  oh well."

7 - You're not allowed to blow your nose, sneeze, pick your nose (maybe, see #6), or let it drain down the back of your throat, but here's a handy bottle of saline you can spray into the wound every hour to keep it fresh. Just because we care.

6 - After specific vehement verbal pre-op instructions to pick my boogers like a stealth ninja, every post op sheet specifically warned agains the serious perils of picking your nose. The phone nurse then evades all booger-related questions like a highly skilled lawyer.

5 - Whatever pain meds they give you are specifically designed to both dehydrate you and cause you to hallucinate about drinking the water 2 inches from your mouth so you won't actually get any relief.

4 - Your son (most likely prompted by a phone call from your doctor) announces every bowel movement and trip the bathroom like he's trying to make you jealous.  Then he sings and tells himself stories really loudly while in the bathroom so you'll make sure to know what a joyful occasion it is.

3 - The stint in your nose feels suspiciously like someone shoved their leftover chopsticks up your nose after taking a lunch break in your OR.

2 - After your best efforts to convince the nurse on the other end of the phone that you're dying, her genius solution is that you come pick up a new prescription downtown in rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon when you're in so much pain you can't even sit up.

1 - You wake up from a drug induced nap, brush your nose very slightly by accident, and erupt in a string of curse words, most of which feature your surgeon's name.

big, big hands

There's something about going in for surgery that makes you feel incomparably tiny.

I remember being quietly terrified for my second c-section.   For my first c-section I was completely knocked out so quickly and unexpectedly that I hardly even knew what was happening.  All I remember was lots of drugs, a doctor's head doing things heads aren't supposed to do (hopefully because of the drugs), and some anesthesia intern clamping my airway shut (I still have nightmares about him).  But I had months to anticipate the second one, and I felt like the bad kid being sent to time out when they took me into a room to give me the spinal block.  I was pretty sure the command to "hug a pillow" was going to be followed by a firing squad to the head.  Sometimes parenting makes me wish it had been.

Tomorrow I go in for sinus surgery, or as my students and I like to call it, "Nose Job November."  I'm hoping for some relief from these crazy long sinus infections I get because my severe dust allergies and tiny sinus passageways have been secretly conspiring to bring about my demise these past ten years.  But I kind of want to fake a fever in the morning.  Or maybe cut off a toe.

Too bad they give you so much time to think about these decisions, because right now I'm pretty well convinced that some med school dropout with a fake diploma is going to miss my sinus cavities and suck out my brain instead.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  Actually, I'm probably going to be fine because I suspect my death will be infinitely more absurd, like tripping over a student's backpack and accidentally impaling myself on a meter stick.  If I were writing a script of my life, that's how it would end because occasionally my life comes dangerously close to resembling that old Alanis Morisette song, "Isn't it Ironic."

Sometimes I read the Bible.  I say sometimes because other times I open it and the words bounce off my eyeballs as if they were one way mirrors, determined to let nothing pass through to my interminably slow brain.  Then comes Deuteronomy 8. Of all the obscure passages to make it past my crazy old eyeballs, this one is pretty far up there.

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4 Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. 5 Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you.

Their feet did not swell.  Of all the random blessings to point out to the Israelites, God picks this one.  Talk about a God of details.  Although, I think after 40 years of wandering in the desert, not having swollen feet might be more than a minor detail.  Think about all those pregnant women whose feet didn't swell.  Wow.  I'm jealous already.

There is something about being led that is very humbling.  There is something about being fed without earning your bread that makes you feel very small.  In our culture we don't have much experience with being made to feel small.  I avoid feeling little.  I'd rather cut off my toe or pretend I'm sick.  Seriously.

I also feel a little lame because I live in America where we have surgery to correct our sinus problems and other people in the world can't even get a Tylenol for a headache.  Seriously, shouldn't I just suck it up and shut up and be thankful?  But God has a way of making everyone feel small, whether it's sickness or surgery or leadership positions we can't quite seem to master or bills we can't pay or…..  Yes, we have a very creative God who finds ways to make us feel tiny that we never thought existed.  But his promise of provision, even in the details of swollen feet and dirty clothing, reminds me of his tenderness.  He makes me walk through some crazy wilderness, but every once in a while I get tiny enough to see his hand in the details.

So tomorrow morning (actually, now it's later this morning) I'm going to try to embrace my tiny-ness and rejoice that there are big, big hands leading me.