all things for good

One of the first things I read after Joe passed away was John Murray's little pamphlet, "Behind a Frowning Providence." Of all the excellent things he wrote, the sentence that stayed with me was this, quoting a widower, "If an angel from heaven told me that this would work for my good I would not believe him but because thy Word says it I must believe it."

Psalm 25 became one of my favorites this past spring, not quite sure why. I think the Lord gave it to me to get me ready for grieving. I read it every day for a couple of weeks before Joe died. My daily prayer had been verses 4-5: "Make me to know your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long." And I expected to reap verse 10: "All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies." I guess I had my own definition of what I considered to be paths of love and faithfulness.

And then that horrible day, there it was foremost in my mind. At that moment, the phrase that stood out clearly was, "To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul." And for days after every prayer and every thought felt like it took serious soul effort. A lot of times, that was all I could pray. Like Spurgeon said, "Pray, 'There it is, Lord. My eyes are on You.'"

Since then I've read Psalm 25 countless times, used it as my prayer when I couldn't pray words of my own. Cried a lot over verses 25-18. "My eyes are ever toward the LORD for he will pluck my feet out of the net. Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses. Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins."

Tonight I was in the psalm again, going back to it after another day of tears, another day of wondering why it happened this way. And the thought occurred to me after reading verse ten again and thinking about it that it's kind of like the Romans 8:28 of the OT. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. And that encouraged me. Romans 8 is so triumphant and shoved in my face (not its fault!!) and I just feel so sad. Psalm 25 has given me a voice for my sadness without throwing away one bit of my trust in God's sovereignty.

Where has the time gone?

It's a week after Labor Day, which is freaking me out when I think of all that has happened since Memorial Day.

This year so far has roughly been divided into two chunks... New Years to Memorial Day... Memorial Day to Labor Day. The first part so surprising, so happy, so energized and excited; the second part so heavy and sorrowful, surprising in the worst possible way.

Pretty soon Joe will have been gone for longer than we were together. In a few years he'll have been gone longer than I knew him....I've done the same sort of time tracking with Mom. I marked the year when I had lived half my life without her, then the next year when I had lived over half my life without her. Every day takes me so much farther away from the last time I saw them.

In a million years, we'll all have been with the Lord for so long with no end in sight. That sounds amazing.

This phrase, "Yet once more," indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. (Hebrews 12:27-29 ESV)

how are you doing?

There are two categories of people...those who know what happened and those who don't. Those who don't feel perfect freedom to talk about whatever they like. They ask, "How are you," and are content with any answer at all. I can deal with that. No pressure.

Those who know what happened ask, "How are you," and I just have no idea how to answer them. They want to hear some sort of positive answer. I get that. They're concerned. But "Good" is just not the answer I have these days.

At first I said, "I'm struggling." That seemed to shock people. Really? Struggling? They didn't know what to do with me. I'm not judging. I don't know what to do with me. What do you say? There's not much I want to hear, so what could there possibly be to say?

I've to saying, "I'm ok." It's kind of vague. No one really knows what ok means anyway. We don't even know where we got those two little letters. Ok can mean whatever I want it to mean. Ok is better than bad.

I'm not good. I'm sad. I'm crying. I'm lonely. I'm crying out to God. I am receiving mercy. I am tired. I am having nightmares every night. I am surrounded by dear sweet wonderful friends. I am living. I am remembering. I'm trying not to live in memories. I'm afraid. I'm looking forward to eternity.

Now, a couple of months and counting into this, my ok is becoming shocking to some people. "But God is good!" I was told the other day in answer to my ok. I know. But acknowledging the utter wretchedness of the curse doesn't take away from God's glory. If the curse weren't so horrible, would we be so thankful for the Savior? Death is an enemy that I hate, and if it weren't for sin we wouldn't die.

I'm not doing great, can't stop crying. It's ok. One day God is going to personally reach out and wipe away all my tears. Then I'll be good in every imaginable sense of the word.

On mine arm they shall trust

This morning a sweet Facebook friend posted this selection from Spurgeon's Morning and Evenng. It proved to be one of those times when a word stuck with me through the day. It so caught at me that throughout the day, it never strayed far from my thoughts. How badly I have been practicing what Spurgeon here preaches. 

This has been the sweetest comfort that I have felt since the day Joe died. 

"On mine arm shall they trust." 
Isaiah 51:5

In seasons of severe trial, the Christian has nothing on earth that he can trust to, and is therefore compelled to cast himself on his God alone. When his vessel is on its beam-ends, and no human deliverance can avail, he must simply and entirely trust himself to the providence and care of God. Happy storm that wrecks a man on such a rock as this! O blessed hurricane that drives the soul to God and God alone! There is no getting at our God sometimes because of the multitude of our friends; but when a man is so poor, so friendless, so helpless that he has nowhere else to turn, he flies into his Father's arms, and is blessedly clasped therein! When he is burdened with troubles so pressing and so peculiar, that he cannot tell them to any but his God, he may be thankful for them; for he will learn more of his Lord then than at any other time. Oh, tempest-tossed believer, it is a happy trouble that drives thee to thy Father! Now that thou hast only thy God to trust to, see that thou puttest thy full confidence in him. Dishonour not thy Lord and Master by unworthy doubts and fears; but be strong in faith, giving glory to God. Show the world that thy God is worth ten thousand worlds to thee. Show rich men how rich thou art in thy poverty when the Lord God is thy helper. Show the strong man how strong thou art in thy weakness when underneath thee are the everlasting arms. Now is the time for feats of faith and valiant exploits. Be strong and very courageous, and the Lord thy God shall certainly, as surely as he built the heavens and the earth, glorify himself in thy weakness, and magnify his might in the midst of thy distress. The grandeur of the arch of heaven would be spoiled if the sky were supported by a single visible column, and your faith would lose its glory if it rested on anything discernible by the carnal eye. May the Holy Spirit give you to rest in Jesus this closing day of the month.

So I can read this and assent to it with mind and spirit as heartily as I could wish. And I can tell to myself to rejoice in the trial and to trust in God, but I cannot shake the sadness that shades everything I do, and I cannot pretend that I do not hurt. I can trust God's providence and yet am still ill at the mention of what happened. Is that ok? 

I am feeble and crushed;

I groan because of the tumult of my heart.

O Lord, all my longing is before you;

my sighing is not hidden from you.

My heart throbs; my strength fails me,

and the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me.

But for you, O Lord, do I wait;

it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer.

For I am ready to fall,

and my pain is ever before me.

I confess my iniquity;

I am sorry for my sin.

Do not forsake me, O Lord!

O my God, be not far from me!

Make haste to help me,

O Lord, my salvation! (Psalm 38:8-10, 15, 17, 18, 21, 22 ESV)

the dream is dead

The main room has sold out, and they are at overflow seating at the Desiring God National Conference. Yes, I know we're not going, and yes, I know I'm working that weekend.

This was a deathblow, nonetheless.

What I wanted to see most:
N.D. Wilson's session - Think "Story": Understanding Your Place in the Drama of Redemption
John Piper's address - "The Life of the Mind and the Love of God"
& a live broadcast of the White Horse Inn, featuring one of my favorite super heroes, Captain Orthodox (aka Michael Horton), and his band of merry theologi, discussing Textual Narcissism.

Now Piper I can download, and the White Horse Inn I can download. But I'm not so sure about Wilson's session. Hopefully it's being recorded, but who can say for sure? Alas and lackaday.


Ok, so I know there are not a few heavy hitters at the conference this year--Mohler, Chan, VideoSproul, not to mention Kevin DeYoung (!!!!) and Billy Graham's grandson (because I can't spell his name, but I can spell 'Billy'). So why do I want to see N.D. Wilson?
1. His writing style blows me away. Notes from the Tilt-a-Whirl was one of the most interesting, memorable, and thoughtful books I've ever read. I'm interested in hearing from the mind behind it.
2. I naturally think in terms of "story." He's bringing redemption into a setting and language I am fluent in.


Oh, and if I could go see the rest of the conference, too, I wouldn't complain. :)


Maybe 2011??

post-party joy

Despite my fears and disappointments, people seem to have enjoyed the weekend. Maybe I'll be able to sleep again.......Thank you, TFC, for proving me wrong in all my doubts and frustrations. This has been the most humbling summer of my life----a very good thing. God is a good, powerful, loving, sweet God. I recently read something along these lines in a book on the Trinity-- "Father is not just a description of what he is like--father is what he is." Where would we be without his extravagantly kind providence? There is only joy in my heart, and all the labor is a memory--a zephyr of eternity.

bad flashback

the last time i blogged on this topic, some guy i didn't  know got mad at me and posted a mean comment. :)

I listened to Dr. Silva from Westminster Seminary lecture on textual criticism while driving home today. He mentioned a scholar named Streeter, and immediately all I heard in my head was a deep, deliberately slow voice drawling, "Seven-ty fiiive rea-sonss whyyy Iiiiii Chooose the Kiinng Jaames Version.............Num-ber One...." An odd combination of mental cringing and giggles distracted me from the rest of the lecture as I flashed back to Dr. Streeter's painful chapel messages. But the textual criticism lectures and the flashback to Dr. Streeter really do make me wonder about the TR/KJV only position.

How in the world do you get away from the Greek Septuagint, which varied significantly from the Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament, and that Jesus and the writers of the New  Testament  all quoted from?  How can you expect something to be done for the New Testament when translated from Greek to English when that same thing was not done for the Old Testament when translated from Hebrew  to Greek? If it were a problem, wouldn't Jesus only quote from the Hebrew texts? Why do we have him quoting from the Septuagint? Why do the writers of the NT all quote from the Septuagint? How can  the  NT writers quote three different versions of Habakkuk 2:4, even in the Textus Receptus, if changing  one word of the Scriptures is the same thing as willful perversion and amounts to a leavening of the whole  lump?

I wish just once in all the lectures we were forced to listen to at PCC about the King James Version and the Byzantine Text and the very righteous Erasmus (Luther just rolled in his grave) and King James (William Brewster just rolled in  his grave) and the very wicked Wescott and Hort (and they just rolled in their graves), that just once someone had meaningfully engaged the Greek Septuagint and its implications for Scripture translation. Or even the textual criticism that Erasmus engaged in, and the extent to which he borrowed from the Latin Vulgate when the Byzantine manuscripts didn't supply enough information, and how in the world his  textual criticism was any different from Hort's textual criticism. I still have inner panic attacks when I remember the sloppy scholarship and awful writing demonstrated in the book we were forced to read, Touch Not the Unclean  Thing.Talk about an unconvincing argument!

Jesus and the inspiring Holy Ghost apparently didn't have the same standards  for translation that the Received Text scholars do. Even Erasmus didn't have those standards, and he's the one who put the whole TR together! It blows my mind.

My very favorite PCC KJV-only moment came when in Touch Not the Unclean Thing I read that Westcott  and Hort were involved in the occult and some other Very Bad Things, only to later learn that there was a man in London named Westcott who practiced  black magic. It was not the same Westcott, but hey, the similarities are striking. I mean, they both lived in the same city at the same time. It doesn't take much of a leap to figure out that since one Westcott was a bad egg, the other must be one too!