In Returning and Rest

“Quietness is a receptive emptiness. Only the meek will inherit the earth because only the meek have room within themselves to receive such a wide and wild inheritance.”–Christie Purifoy, Roots and Sky: A Journey Home in Four Seasons

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength.”–Isaiah 30:15

This was my favorite verse as a child. I didn’t fully understand the context of Isaiah 30, but something in me knew even then about how easily my heart and life could slip away from my deepest need and purpose. The clamor of the world so easily fills up sacred space reserved for relationship with God. “The bread of adversity and the water of affliction” get noisy too.

It’s been one hundred and forty-one days since I’ve published anything here. I had the fourth shunt surgery this year, and God quickly and decidedly picked up our family and carried us to Arizona. The time away from this blinking cursor has been a season of necessary retreat. I’ve leaned into the Lord who waits to be gracious to us and exalts Himself to show mercy to us. Since late August I’ve stepped outside my tent to breathtaking desert and mountain vistas. The sun rises over the Catalinas and sets behind the Tortolitas. This is my manna. This is my promised land. This is my home.

One of only five posts in 2018 was in early February. I was finally regaining my memory from the November spinal surgery and Aslan was on the move. I never could have imagined just how powerful the hope I felt would be worked out in the months to come.

There have been dark days of doubt in this Gauntlet, but deep down I’ve always known every single detail of our narrative was more about Him than us. We’ve pleaded with God for a break in the suffering. We’ve begged for a time of peace and restoration and an end to this story. We’ve ached for something new.

I’m telling you now. Something is ending. God is doing something new.

In Dan Allender’s book To Be Told: God Invites You to Coauthor Your Future he writes about how our culture fails to celebrate endings. He talks about the literary idea of denouement.

“Denouement is an ending that serves as a prelude for a new beginning; there is always a next turn in the road. A new story begins the moment an old one ends. But a denouement is a respite that calls us to stop the journey for a brief interlude–to eat, drink, sing, dance, and tell our story to others…One of our greatest failures in our busy, driven culture is that we don’t celebrate the temporary untying of a complex narrative…We don’t allow endings to be noted, let alone celebrated. Therefore we never let denouement to invigorate the upward movement of a new story. And we will only love our story to the degree that we see the glory that seeps through our most significant shattering. To see that glory, we must enter into and read our tragedies with confidence they will end better than we ever could imagine.”

There is a new story. The words are hard fought. My brain is still broken in many ways, but I hear the call to return and remember. He’s binding up the brokenness and healing the wounds. It’s a “wide and wild inheritance.” Thank you for your great love and patience in this time of denouement. Glory is seeping through every suffering. I’d rather go blind than look away.

(Take a few minutes to rest right now. Be still and know. My childhood friend, John Albert Thomas, is a solo piano composer. His songs are the peaceful background of many of my days.)