Yesterday before church I was blessed with some time all to myself.
What I really needed was some time to reconnect with God. I felt like a piece of spaghetti being held up in the wind, tossing all over the place and not able to just be still. In classic form, the Mandie I'm trying to stop chose to watch a random video that came up on YouTube before cracking open my Bible. That day being the Sabbath, I knew something comical wasn't the order of the day. So I chose something based on a disaster.
I thought it would be a quick 10 minute video showing how a tsunami came in. Maybe the one in Japan. I had seen a few of those before. It was slow and easy, and deceptively quickly became a force that could not be controlled or helped. But about 2 minutes into this particular video I realized this was actually a well done documentary on the devastating tsunami of 2004. I have almost no memory of this happening. I was a relative newlywed, very self-involved and unaware of the world, and enjoying my own sense of invincibility.
It was unlike anything I had ever seen before. The individual stories they followed. The footage they caught. The screams. The death. They showed the death like no news station ever has, or would, because of the "damage" it could do to people. It was stunning, overwhelming, heartbreaking, exhausting, gut-wrenching reality. It was heavy stuff.
picture taken from http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&docid=LlTBlhy3URajYM&tbnid=4kkkMFJhvRooAM:&ved=0CAQQjB0&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.express.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fuk%2F298%2FBoxing-Day-tsunami-The-aftermath&ei=0v_bUqKHIcWD2AWu2oHIBg&bvm=bv.59568121,d.b2I&psig=AFQjCNHK3LgzpaL4V85wGdDG9nsyCwpT1A&ust=1390235911469608
About 5 parts in (50 minutes total), I remembered this was actually Sabbath morning and I had only a short time left before needing to go out and help get my three young children ready for church. I pulled myself out of the story flow and immediately realized I had squandered all the time I could have been peacefully studying the Bible with watching this incredible story unfold and laying the heaviness of God's power and wrath over my new found inadequacy and realization of how little control I have over anything of value.
The story of the woman who had three children and afterwards was clutching one, explaining to her husband in tears that she couldn't physically hold them all.
The story of the other woman running up the beach as her husband was filming the coming water yelling, "I can't do it! I can't carry them both!" (meaning her children)
The story of another woman who only had one - a daughter with blonde hair who was just 5 years old. And how she tried to hold on but somehow after it all, her daughter was gone.
As I envision my own three beautiful kids and consider all the reasons we should or should not have a fourth someday I entertain the thought that maybe three is enough to manage in a disaster. And then I realize watching this that it doesn't matter. One can be taken just as easily as four. Four can be saved just as easily as one. I have no control over outcomes. Only control over choices.
After I realized the time and that I hadn't even opened my Bible as I cried for these people and my own lack of control (and cried out for faith) I flipped it open. It randomly opened in Jeremiah, but I already had something in Revelation about the end times in mind so I start over that way, keeping my hand in Jeremiah. A couple seconds in I wonder and head back to where my hand is and see "The People Mourn in Judgment". I read...
Thus says the Lord of Hosts:
"Consider and call for the mourning women.
That they may come;
And send for skillful wailing women,
That they may come.
Let them make haste and take up a wailing for us,
That our eyes may run with tears,
And our eyelids gush with water.
For a voice of wailing is heard from Zion:
`
How we are plundered!
We are greatly ashamed, because we have forsaken the land,
Because
we have been cast out of our dwellings.`"
Yet hear the word of the Lord, O women,
And let your ear receive the word of His mouth;
Teach your daughters wailing,
And everyone her neighbor a lamentation.
For
death has come through our windows,
Has entered our palaces,
To kill off the children--
no longer to be outside!
And the young men--
no longer on the streets!
Speak, "Thus says the lord:
`
Even the carcasses of men shall fall as refuse on the open field,
Like cuttings after the harvester,
And no one shall gather them.`"
Thus says the Lord:
"Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom.
Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
But let him who glories glory in this,
That he understands and knows Me,
That I m the Lord, exercising lovingkindness,
judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
For in these I delight," says the Lord.
"Behold, the days are coming," says the Lord, "that I will punish all who are
circumcised with the uncircumcised-- Egypt, Judah, Edom, the people of Ammon, Moab, and all who are in the farthest corners, who dwell in the wilderness. For all these nations re uncircumcised, and
all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart."
Jeremiah 9:17-26
(emphasis mine all the way through)
I'm telling you - stopping where I stopped (right as the waters started to recede and thoughts moved toward cleanup) and reading that... it was a bit like a bucket of cold water being thrown in my face. Or perhaps even a slap across my face. ALL the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart... I will punish the circumcised with the uncircumcised... All the house of Israel... uncircumcised in the heart...
I've heard a couple messages on this topic recently. I know I have. This phase of life is so hard. Everything is such a fog. But this is deep - important - relevant. This is now - immediate - urgent. This is hard - challenging - bigger than me. This is an assignment that I can either push to the side with the rest of life that is too hard to face, or take head on and grow into a whole new chapter of my life. One where God is front and center. This is a process where my heart is going to be trimmed. Trimmed of all the excess as a sign between God and me.
Oh God, be merciful as you cut away. Please, please be gentle. And help me to yield those parts You take willingly instead of grasping at them with my human stubbornness. Father, it's scary to say, "yes". Life can get hard fast. Help me to resist the temptation to set parameters up for You to work in - like not using my children, my husband, my safety to do the cutting. It's so hard to give You all control. But You have it anyway. Help me. Help me. Father, I believe. Help my unbelief.
If you are interested in walking the mental path I walked, here is a link to the full movie. PLEASE be advised - this has nudity, destruction and death. It's absolutely not to be taken lightly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikq0P7U0x4Q
God be with you all. And may we all be given the gift of life more abundant.
