If the praise of man elates me and his blame depresses me; if I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself; if I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
I am returning to posting If questions from Amy Carmichael’s powerful little book by the same name. I invite to you follow along this journey. I pray you will be drawn to Calvary love.
I am giving away a copy of this book the next three Sundays and a little olive wood cross donated by my friend Cindee Re. To enter please share one of the daily If posts on social media (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) with the tags #CalvaryLove and #If. Add a comment here on the blog post you share.
It was our first night. After an exhausting day of travel we thought we would check in to the hotel and crash. Instead, the first whiffs of fresh mountain air gave us a second wind. We felt the enormity of the gift we were given in this time away and didn’t want to waste a minute. I changed out of my airport clothes and slipped my freshly pedicured feet into open toed shoes. We floated down the grand lobby staircase hand in hand and settled in to a cozy spot on the expansive patio overlooking the city lights. I’d been there before. I loved sharing the nightly tequila ritual and toast and special menu secrets at Salud. We sipped drinks made with cucumbers and fresh agave juice. Something shifted as we bared our souls in several hours of conversation under the Tucson stars. We hadn’t wanted to admit the way we were holding insecurities and hurt in tight fists. Now we wondered out loud. How long had we moved through the motions of marriage? Recognizing one another’s unique fragility we cared too much to make even the slightest movement. We knew even one bump had the possibility of upsetting our delicate balance of survival. With open hands and hearts we purged the pain and sadness and cast it all in the fire on our way up to our room. It was a fresh start like only Jesus makes.
The next morning we woke tangled up in silky white sheets and duvet after the longest exhale of love. It had been years since we had the time and place, desire and energy to slow our intimacy to the metronome of breath. For the first time in almost eight years I let him fully see me, and he wanted to look. He traced every single scar with his fingers, and we took turns telling the story together. Not my story. Our story. I never doubted we were one heart, but something about all those wounds often made one flesh a difficult proposition. With every surgery and every long recovery I felt a gulf widening between who I once was to him and who I had become. Suddenly I could see in his eyes and hear in his voice a truth I’d not known before. He loved me even more because of the suffering not in spite of it.
Today marks a week since we returned home. When I stepped out of the plane onto the jet way here the temperature was below zero. I began to cry. I rounded the corner in the airport to see my Danica running towards me bundled from head to toe. I was wearing ballet flats with bare tan feet exposed and no coat. I hugged my sweet girl and cried even harder. Coming back here, a place I know causes very specific pain and many of my symptoms, was heart breaking. Dan looked over and winced as he saw the Monica Kaye he had reclaimed already slipping away.
It was a week ago I exiled myself with my Savior for His forty days in the wilderness. I’m daily sitting with Christ as best I know how. I’m listening to His heart as He prepares for the immense sacrifice He’s been asked to make on the cross. I am brought face to face with a God who knows every ugly sin I’ve committed or will commit. He sees my unspeakable mistakes and feels the bitter shame that wounded Him. His humanness, his hunger, his temptation, his pleas for release from this before the world began plan break me again and again. He is God made man. He sympathizes in every way without sin. My redemption could only come through a sacrifice this understandable and this unexplicable.
I’m walking closer to the days when I will see Him crucified. The wilderness, however uncomfortable, is just a preparation for the week when I will have supper with Him, tell Him I love Him, turn around and deny Him and then watch Him take the lashes, carry the cross and be wounded for my transgressions. At the last hour He will be completely forsaken by His Father and suffer hell for me.
When I’m face to face with Him I know for sure the scars I bear both inside and out are completely redeemed. His dying love stops my breath. His resurrection starts it again.
Since Tucson I pray for fresh starts and new beginnings. I long to live in a place that gives me a more whole body and healed spirit for my husband and daughters. I ache to take all this pain and turn it into a beautiful ministry for others walking this similar road.
When I’m face to face with Him. When I remember His love for me. I trust Him completely.
Every cut of my flesh has healed into a bumpy red reminder of God’s mercy to me. Every sharp memory of sadness and sin has kept me on my knees even though I’m completely free.
Dan and I hiked several miles up a mountain into the Sonoran desert. On our way we stopped to build Ebenezers. Each of us chose seven large stones to symbolize our seven years of tribulation. They stand as altars to God’s faithfulness. We were living something impossible. We were away together on vacation. I was hiking. I was breathing. I was well. We lifted prayers of gratitude as we moved on and my Dan began singing softly as he led the way.
Come, thou Fount of every blessing,
tune my heart to sing thy grace;
streams of mercy, never ceasing,
call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I’m fixed upon it,
mount of thy redeeming love.
Here I raise mine Ebenezer;
hither by thy help I’m come;
and I hope, by thy good pleasure,
safely to arrive at home.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
wandering from the fold of God;
he, to rescue me from danger,
interposed his precious blood.
O to grace how great a debtor
daily I’m constrained to be!
Let thy goodness, like a fetter,
bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love;
here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
seal it for thy courts above.
My song today.
Heal the wound but leave the scar.
A reminder of how merciful You are.
I am broken, torn apart.
Take the pieces of this heart and
Heal the wound but leave the scar.
I’ll build an altar of the rubble that You found me in and every stone will sing of what You can redeem.
Don’t let me forget everything You’ve done for me. Don’t let me forget the beauty in the suffering.
Heal the wound but leave the scar.
(This beautiful song by Point of Grace has been on my “healing” playlist for years.)
If I cannot catch “the sounds of noise of rain”* long before the rain falls, and, going to some hilltop of the spirit, as near to my God as I can, have not faith to wait there with my face between my knees, though six or sixty times I am told “there is nothing,” till at last “there arises a little cloud out of the sea,” then I know nothing of Calvary love. *I Kings 18:41
After the gift of time away with my Dan in Tucson I am returning to posting If questions from Amy Carmichael’s powerful little book by the same name. I invite to you follow along this journey. I pray you will be drawn to Calvary love.
I am giving away a copy of this book the next three Sundays and a little olive wood cross donated by my friend Cindee Re. To enter please share one of the daily If posts on social media (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) with the tags #CalvaryLove and #If. Add a comment here on the blog post you share.
My heart is nearly bursting. There is much to write as I sift through the free flowing scrawls in my pen to paper journal during this precious time away. I want to share a photo of Dan and I on Valentine’s evening before our dinner date. It speaks volumes about the time we have been gifted here and the change in our bodies, minds, hearts and spirits.
When I travel I always buy a new book of poetry to bring along. The Singing Bowl by Malcolm Guite was my choice before this trip. It is rich with word-art. I have read through each poem several times now, and have begun to make notes on certain passages that particularly speak to me. The following poem titled “A Renewal of Vows” explains what is happening in Dan and I’s marriage through this precious time away.
So, open up the treasure-casket, love,
the treasure is still there, the hidden things
that love contains. Old words, like wedding rings,
surround their mysteries, they live and move
as breath renews them, burnished as the gold
around our fingers, glowing as we make
the vows that make us new again: I take,
protect, and comfort, cherish, have and hold.
The same old words, that cannot stay the same,
for they have grown, as we have, more than old.
They change and deepen like all things that live,
they compass more and still have more to give:
All that I have is yours, all that I am
I give again, with all I will become.
“..that sanguine expectation of happiness which is happiness itself.” ― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Today is Dan and I’s anniversary. We are leaving for Tucson, Arizona early tomorrow morning. I can’t remember a time in our life together, even waiting for our babies, when we have longed for something in this way. The past few weeks have been full of wistful conversations about our upcoming trip. We have been flirting. We have been writing love notes and texts. We have been aching in anticipation of eight days of vacation from the long hard here. I am excited to take Dan back to a place I traveled a year ago following my shunt revision. I healed and tasted wellness there. I want him to see me this way. I want to be only one thing during this time. I want to be his Monica.
Song of Solomon keeps coming to mind. It is a book in the Bible I have mostly skipped over. Since I was a child I felt like reading it was akin to sneaking into the 612.6 section of the library to learn what I could about sex. It’s full of strong erotic imagery telling a story of lovers. Chapter two explores the expectation of them running away to be alone together but also speaks to restoration after a bleak time in their relationship and lives.
The voice of my beloved!
Behold, he comes
Leaping upon the mountains,
Skipping upon the hills.
My beloved is like a gazelle or a young stag.
Behold, he stands behind our wall;
He is looking through the windows,
Gazing through the lattice.
My beloved spoke, and said to me:
“Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away.
For lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of singing has come,
And the voice of the turtledove
Is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth her green figs,
And the vines with the tender grapes
Give a good smell.
Rise up, my love, my fair one,
And come away!
O my dove, in the clefts of the rock,
In the secret places of the cliff,
Let me see your face,
Let me hear your voice;
For your voice is sweet,
And your face is lovely.
When I think back over the last sixteen years of my life there is one constant thread binding the story. Before I really knew what Calvary love was; Before I had tasted real Grace that changes you from the inside out; God gave me Dan. I separate my life into chapters easily. I know telling the whole truth out loud about those years before Dan will someday be important. For now, I can only tell you Dan’s love saved my life as surely as God’s love saved my soul.
On a one night anniversary trip in 2012, two and a half months after my brain surgery and fusion and a month before I would head back to Maryland for my tethered spinal cord surgery and Tarlov cyst removal, I laid on Dan’s strong chest, my happy place, in a beautiful room at Gervasi. I was feeling ever discouraged with the never ending pain and suffering. I listened to him talk of his dreams for our family. He shared his new found peace with where we were. He asked me if I believed we would really move past all this in the future. He told me why he did.
My heart trusted him. To hear him verbalize something about our tomorrows besides being “stuck” gave me the very hope I was needing to move forward. He rescued me and faithfully loved me when I was so unlovable. He has always believed in the promises we made. He has laid down his life, his wants and his needs over and over again to care for the girls and I. He’s shown me Jesus when I couldn’t see Him anywhere else. I look at my husband, Dan, and see more than human love. I see Calvary love.
We will keep dancing.
We will keep sailing.
We will keep doing hard things because we promised, and His promises are true.
We will keep dreaming.
We will keep expecting good things.
Our Hope remains.
(Thank you to those who generously made this trip possible. You know who you are. Thank you to those who are genuinely rejoicing with us. God has been so good to continue to give me a measure of health since my December plasmapheresis. Will you please pray I will stay well and be fully physically present during this trip? Will you please pray for safety in every way for our sweet Delaney and Danica as they remain here? I will be offline except for sharing photos on social media because so many of you have asked to see glimpses of our happiness. I will return writing here soon and will resume my “If” series and giveaways. LOVE.)
This is one of our favorite love songs by Andrew Peterson. It plays often in the soundtrack of our lives.
If when an answer I did not expect comes to a prayer which I believed I truly meant, I shrink back from it; if the burden my Lord asks me to bear be not the burden of my heart’s choice, and I fret inwardly and do not welcome His will, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
The entire month of February I will be posting If questions from Amy Carmichael’s powerful little book by the same name. I invite to you follow along this journey. I pray you will be drawn to Calvary love.
I am giving away a copy of this book every Sunday this month and a little olive wood cross. To enter please share one of the daily If posts on social media (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) with the tags #CalvaryLove and #If. Add a comment here on the blog post you share.
Let’s meet at the foot of the cross together.
Photography by Cindee Snider Re. Used with permission.
If I am inconsiderate about the comfort of others, or their feelings or even of their little weaknesses; if I am careless about their little hurts and miss opportunities to smooth their way; if I make the sweet running of household wheels more difficult to accomplish, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
The entire month of February I will be posting If questions from Amy Carmichael’s powerful little book by the same name. I invite to you follow along this journey. I pray you will be drawn to Calvary love.
I am giving away a copy of this book every Sunday this month and a little olive wood cross. To enter please share one of the daily If posts on social media (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) with the tags #CalvaryLove and #If. Add a comment here on the blog post you share.
Let’s meet at the foot of the cross together.
Photography by Cindee Snider Re. Used with permission.
If I am content to heal a hurt slightly, saying Peace, peace, where there is no peace; if I forget the poignant word ‘Let love be without dissimulation’ and blunt the edge of truth, speaking not right things but smooth things, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
The entire month of February I will be posting If questions from Amy Carmichael’s powerful little book by the same name. I invite to you follow along this journey. I pray you will be drawn to Calvary love.
I am giving away a copy of this book every Sunday this month and a little olive wood cross. To enter please share one of the daily If posts on social media (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) with the tags #CalvaryLove and #If. Add a comment here on the blog post you share.
Let’s meet at the foot of the cross together.
Photography by Cindee Snider Re. Used with permission.
If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting ‘Who made thee to differ? and what hast thou that thou hast not received?’ then I know nothing of Calvary love.
The entire month of February I will be posting If questions from Amy Carmichael’s powerful little book by the same name. I invite to you follow along this journey. I pray you will be drawn to Calvary love.
I am giving away a copy of this book every Sunday this month and a little olive wood cross. To enter please share one of the daily If posts on social media (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) with the tags #CalvaryLove and #If. Add a comment here on the blog post you share.
Let’s meet at the foot of the cross together.
Photography by Cindee Snider Re. Used with permission.
If I am soft to myself and slide comfortably into the vice of self-pity and self-sympathy; If I do not by the grace of God practice fortitude, then I know nothing of Calvary love.
The entire month of February I will be posting If questions from Amy Carmichael’s powerful little book by the same name. I invite to you follow along this journey. I pray you will be drawn to Calvary love.
I am giving away a copy of this book every Sunday this month and a little olive wood cross. To enter please share one of the daily If posts on social media (Facebook, Twitter or Instagram) with the tags #CalvaryLove and #If. Add a comment here on the blog post you share.
Let’s meet at the foot of the cross together.
Photography by Cindee Snider Re. Used with permission.
