a poem for my seventeen-year-old son

 

Advice As You Go Out the Door

 ______________

Of life and love

Well, these have a way of shaping you

whether you want them to or not.

Matter drops its weight,

Axe and chisel come unannounced.

 Sandpaper’s rough, but it makes things smooth.

Forget rushing it. 

3-D takes time,

 as do all private wonders.

 _________

Responses.

These are important.

Some will be verbal.

Let Silence cast its vote in the right direction;

your groans be heard in prayer.

There will be interjections, too —

may “Revenge!” not be one of them. 

Leave room.

Push Pull

“Do it!”

“Don’t do it!”

Each tell their stories.

Hook wires up to your heart 

to test you, 

try to steal your grades.

On your marks, get set!

Intentionality is supposed to be a supposed thing

— but it’s not.

Count your steps.

A sentinel puts one foot in front of the other,

walks a straight line.  

Guard the honor of all men,

known and unknown. 

A watchman stays awake.

Now about salt and pepperings:

source, quality, amounts —

these matter. 

Use more or less, to taste.

Ounce for ounce,

good or bad,

all is weighed.

May the scales lean in your favor.

 _________

Obedience is the blessing,

And triumphs are held in a paper cup.

Sorrows can last a lifetime, depending.

 If you’re blessed with a broken heart,

Faith will do the mending.

 Choices can either render a man hopeless

or find him coming up over the hill, carrying the spoils.

Strength is a fountain of grace

and Hope is a well,

but fear of man is a snare.

 Walk forward on bended knee

 — backwards, if you must —

Feel the might of God swell in your chest. 

From Gilgal to Jericho,

take Courage 

and Faithfulness will lead you home.

 _________

Friends.

A necessity.

They come ’round for a game of tackle

and pick you!

From there, 

it’s all field goals and touchdowns.

Others may drop you

for various reasons: 

 fumbles, mishaps, overthrows —

trust the ones who will catch you when you fall.

You’ll be able to count them on one hand, 

and know God sent them.

Joshua, Caleb, David, Nathan, 

your company troop —

Joseph and Daniel,  too.

And a brother is one who goes the distance.

Owe no man but the debt of love,

treat everyone well.

    _________

Of Time and Work

Here’s  what I will say: 

Work is to be done on time

then Time will work for you.

Sleep when you ought

— not too much —

an alarm clock has one purpose:

not to beg.

Up and at ‘em,

Ready or not!

Morning comes early —

Sow in the dark, reap at noon.

When evening comes,

you’ll be glad you had the right tools for planting. 

 _________

The Day has come. 

Arrival for Departure. 

Run hard, run long,

Don’t stop except to rest —

He’s your breath, muscle, focus, agility, speed, momentum,

track and backbone.

Deep breath.

Relax.

 _________

Cost.

Always count it —

Even if it costs you everything (it will).

Remember:

the goal is to break tape

and Freedom came at a price.

It still does. 

When weariness comes (it will), 

hear the cloud of witnesses cheering  

for your second wind. 

Take it.

__________

 As you go,

look straight ahead.

But first, make sure your shoes are shined.

Be strong, 

Stand firm,

Run free. 

Hold fast your crown.

Go.

 

© 2013 Elizabeth DeBarros 

walking under the weight

Daily the brightness of Christ shines
in darkness He dawns
shadows flee,
clouds scatter,
trees bend,
horses run —
I fall.

The weight of glory is too much to bear.

Under His arm, with love swelling and grace girding, I am helped,
but collapse at the thunder of His voice.

He rivets me,
strikes me,
forges what He will against my will.

This is surrender:
His hands are massive.

And what does ascension look like?
Christ in me, hope of glory.

© 2013  Elizabeth DeBarros

in the name of hope and other living things

         

         Evidently last year’s wreckage

had no hold on you

Up from the pitted earth

you sprang—

Shame free,

scot-free.

♦

Was it your color that shocked me?

I thought I was used to that by now.

But your presence

—it scandalized me.

♦

Five decades, not once betrayed

Still

I didn’t think you’d come,

At least not so boldly.

— This 

 stealthy rhythm 

of untimely green.

_______________________

©2013 Elizabeth DeBarros

dunamis

To truly live,

we must walk in the

power of the resurrection.

____________

^“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened

in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you,

the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people,

and his

incomparably great power

for us who believe.

.  .  .

That power

is the same as the mighty strength 

he exerted 

when he raised Christ from the dead

and seated him at his right hand

in the heavenly realms,

far above all rule and authority,

power and dominion,

and every name that is invoked,

not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”

- Ephesians 1:18-21

___________________

Doing good, following rules, no matter how sincere, cannot save. Adhering to creeds and memorizing catechisms can be wonderfully useful, but still they’re external to genuine salvation. Religion is man’s best effort at pulling God down. But Christ already came down. Now we each must come alone to the cross of Christ in repentance for the forgiveness of sins, finding in Him mercy and grace through the blood of Christ, shed on the cross. The reality of this faith involves utter death to oneself. Then, and only then, we may walk in the newness of life.

But what is this newness of life? Can it be found in the sweet by-and-by of a church hymnal? The dutiful but tired schlep of “doing the doing”? Or is it hard-won by pleasing men in the name of obedience? Artifice. Newness of life is found in the power of God that is promised to His chosen ones. The rescuing and transforming, informing and empowering, igniting and setting-a-soul-on-fire power of God that redeems men from the eternal grip of sin, death, hell, and the grave. Dunamis.

And this is the flash point: Unless it becomes reality, futility will be the lot of every Jew and Gentile until they’re reconciled to Christ — submitted in love to Him, heart, soul, mind, and strength. While this isn’t done perfectly this side of heaven, there remains the possibility of not loving Him aright — to as yet not know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, to as yet not be filled with all the fullness of God:

For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith— that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

- Ephesians 3:14-19

 

________________________

Ten Years Ago

I once loved God with what I thought was all my heart. But the crash and burn of mounting stressors caused me a hard fall. Prolonged mental anguish was the trial that proved my mind was not aligned and submitted to His Word. A two-year plunge into a pit of paralyzing fear, anxiety, and depression was the holy confrontation that changed me for good — leaving me weak and flat on my back with my face to the ground. Where I learned to take off my shoes.

Holy is His Name.

What I realized only after that wrestling match was this: God was jealous for me. What it took — terrors by night and a coaxing, fragile anxiety by day — to eventually break me of my willful intellect, heal me of my scarred mind. Each synapse led me to the door of defeat, every neurotransmitter fired straight into the gutter, missing the mark. I wouldn’t know what a little depression looked like. Mine was a full-on assault for the ruin and obliteration of my mind. The world was too small; the sky, too big. This stranger wasn’t well. Staring into the abyss, darkness was my closest friend.

After many rivers to cross, my cry for deliverance reached God’s ears. He heard my feeble whisper from His holy hill on His timetable, not mine. There were lessons for me to learn before He was to rescue me from myself and the demons’ fiery darts that plied for my demise. Struck down, but not destroyed. Once He had me where He wanted me, He reached down from on high and held out His hand to help me up. By sheer grace, I grabbed on. Transformation began as He worked to overhaul my mind, helped train my thoughts to rest squarely upon the truth of His Word. Both sleeves were rolled up elbow-high, mainly His.

It took time, but like the dawn, a formidable strength came — what seemed a glorious marble slab built upon the city with foundations and stretching into eternity — was placed under my feet. Blessed assurance, settled in the heavens, had now been poured out on earth. I was learning to walk in the power of God.

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear,
but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”

-2 Timothy 1:7

To those who know what it is to struggle, let me say this:

Come, be reconciled to God: heart, mind, soul and strength. Make your repentance complete in the sight of God. Go to Him on bended knee, receive cleansing for sin, let Him make peace through His blood. He’s your Freedom Fighter. Renounce all lesser strengths, lesser hopes, lesser thrones. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Agree with the Word of God. Trust Him alone as you throw off everything that hinders. Believe and trust in His Name and Word alone. The power of God will be yours.

Dunamis.

Protected: turning fifty

post-holiday

It was a lovely white Christmas. Home fires to keep warm by and snow falling in all the right places. But a few days into the New Year and I’m taking it wide. If I wanted to, I could get up in arms over a few things. Clutter. Delay. Waste. And there’s so much more. All very annoying.

But where’s the glory?

Take postmodernism. It’s a behemoth — a very present sociocultural threat — but especially to those who reject the gospel and refuse to submit to God’s sovereign rule. When the scrim is pulled back, the shimmer is gone. The Great Oz is shown for what he is: a puny old man destined to die every year in reruns. A cynic’s dream.

Here’s the shake:

Postmodernism is trite. Well, yes, it can be intimidating for all its fancy terminology — the intelligence of Man come to town to assault those who live coram Deo. A champion bully, an affront to the One true omnipotent God. We may stand agape, but from the vantage point of eternity, postmodernism is a nuisance and a bother brought down to size — a mere plaything left in the mulch pile of the devil’s playground. One day, among the proverbial massive landfill, it too will be found caked with dust, bashed in, deflated. On that Day, every hand will be empty and no man will boast of what they don’t know, including both atheists and agnostics alike.

Instead, all will know and bow down.

Meantime, there’s a war on. A collision of kingdoms, an ideological battle that will prove with utter finality the enduring kingdom. But for now, distinctions will continue to be made: between those who bend the knee and those who do not, between those who stand ready and those who sit complacent, between those who know Him and those who do not.

“But God’s firm foundation stands, bearing this seal: 

‘ The Lord knows those who are His,’ and,

‘Let everyone who names the name of the Lord depart from iniquity.’ “

-2 Timothy 2:19 (ESV)

______________________

So, while there’s still time, deal with the clutter, the delay, the waste. Hasten the day of the Lord.

 

public domain

In light of the heartbreaking news of the Dec. 14, 2012, mass shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., I offer this post. My first consideration was to say nothing, but the urgency of the hour compels me to share what is burning in my heart. Soli Deo Gloria.   

__________________________

Inherent to true north is that it provides knowledge of more than just one direction, but it’s the only one you really need to know if you’re lost. It’s the same for the times in which we live. Having a Biblical grid and a sure course to follow in this postmodern, post-truth, post-trauma era is as much a moral imperative as it’s ever been.

But the usual signposts are either missing or they’re wrong. Something else is happening. 

Our children are dying. Tender lambs. Innocents are being taken out by deranged, cold-blooded murderers on an otherwise sunny day. Media bears the responsibility of getting the facts straight before it’s news, but tragedy of such proportions demands answers beyond gathered data. Names and numbers are helpful, but they do not heal.

Therein lies the burden to understand why. 

Grief

______________

When society suffers ills unspeakable, it’s crucial to know it’s not mere happenstance. Nor is it the “cycle of life” and “better days are coming.” Anecdotal band-aids soon fall off. Random is not a meaningful word when blood is smeared on the walls and spilled on the floors of theaters, malls, and classrooms. We must do something. Death has come up into our windows, now at our door. Light is gone from our eyes as we look on the carnage streaming from our electronic devices. Grief is now public domain.

It’s reasonable to ask why. It’s unconscionable not to. Meantime, the sensitive strong offer much-needed calm and hugs of consolation while opportunists aim hard at their targets to further their agenda. But we are post-debate. Guns or no guns, beds are empty tonight. Photos are all that’s left, and cherished memories have a way of haunting still. But they’ll have to do. They don’t, though. Death is not a friend. It’s the last enemy.

The times call for something greater to be done. Silence and reflection is a place to start. May it lead to groans of deep repentance and a return to the ancient paths where one learns to bow the knee and, once there, bows lower still.

And then stays there.

The children are dying. They’ve been dying a long time, long before yesterday’s shedding of blood. It’s been running upon the pelvic floors of millions of women and the gloved hands of the salaried few. Smokestacks testify to their evil deeds; conscientious men and women rally to expose them. And God has heard the screams of both while men faint for what is coming upon the earth. The sirens have been sounding for a long time. Rebellion. Disorder. Disregard for Divine authority. We are now post-alarm. The deaf do not hear the message: the life of the flesh is in the blood.

But for those who have ears, so can be heard Malachi’s prophetic cry:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with a decree of utter destruction.”

—Malachi 4:5-6 (ESV)

Children need fathers who will bow the knee to find strength to carry their sons. Divine authority begins with submission, Divine order ends in blessing. But the redefinition and obliteration of the family does not. Such weighty realities to face if we’re to endure this illustrative age, this bowl of rotten fruit on a table where maggots lay their eggs.

Our death culture upon which multitudes feast has come to bear this: the revelation of a fatherless generation.

May we dare to bow the knee, then bow lower still. Find true north.

Perhaps we will heal.

taking measure

If your faith is not prepared to move mountains,  what will you do with a molehill?

Feed your faith on the Word of God.

Be prepared in season and out —

Do away with gnats and flies that spoil the ointment;

Deal cleanly —

purify your lips.

Do justly,

 love mercy,

walk humbly with your God.

________________________

For further meditation:

Matthew 17:19-21; Matthew 23:23-24; 2 Thessalonians 3:1-3;

Ecclesiastes 10:1; Micah 6:6-8; 1 John 5:4

_________________________

After a destructive storm, waking up to the latest new normal means coming to terms with what to do next — after putting one foot in front of the other. Change is always a bit disorienting. It takes time to assess, adjust, figure out how to live amid the aftermath. If a crisis disrupts routine living days on end and you’re fending without power and water, there’s need for the practical: a sturdy pair of shoes, a supply of potable water, a working flashlight, a decent meal, a blanket or two, a shower. These, for starters. 

The tragic loss of home or a loved one is a starker plight, an insufferable weight only His grace can hold. Even so, “weep with those who weep.” Does your faith allow for bearing the pain of strangers? I’m praying for bigger arms.

If guaranteed to suffer in the natural, we’re sure to suffer in the spiritual. Days of great change are upon us, sobering days of change — the kind that say, “Take nothing for granted.” But we mustn’t merely cope. If you’re a Christian, your most pressing need is to have faith. Not the Sunday-best for all to see — but the kind that helps you see in the dark on a Tuesday night, to strike a match to light a fire, to shine a lamp for others who’ve been ravaged by a storm.

Faith — no tool so useful, no light as bright. 

What is the measure of your faith? 

Does Christ live in you? 

If He does, take heart; you have overcome the world. 

session eight: the one-eyed monster, and why I don’t let him in

“I’m not too high-minded for television, I really just don’t like it.”

-Barbara Kingsolver

_______________________________

ENOUGH ALREADY HAS BEEN WRITTEN about the evil schemes fueling the television industry. There is no shortage of studies and stats to show that our culture has been swiftly careening on a downward trajectory. Just tune in to prime time and you’ll need look no further. A gore and carnage fest at the ready. A regular free-for-all.

And although I’d rather ponder the exotic coloration of a macaw in Seeing Scarlet or pontificate on why I both agree and disagree with Kingsolver’s final essay, God’s Wife’s Measuring Spoons (you’ll just have to read it yourself), I’m compelled to end our Small Wonder discussion on the theme of television as found in The One-Eyed Monster, and Why I Don’t Let Him In. 

Why? 

Because, along with Kingsolver, I really don’t like television either. Instead, I’m passionate about the preservation of my mind and it’s my ardent desire to love Him with all of it. Besides, nobody in their right mind actually likes monsters, except of course if it’s green, at least 20 feet tall, and is tucked safely behind the screen or runs through the pages of a story book and gets gobbled up in the end. That kind of monster bears no lasting threat.

But the kind of monster Kingsolver names in The One-Eyed Monster, and Why I Don’t Let Him In is amorphous, a changeling, a trickster. TV — it keeps reinventing itself. And as much as it’s referred to as a box, a thing, a tube, and a telly, it is also equally known as the devil’s mouthpiece, an idiot, a sewer, and a vast wasteland. The thing gets around. It’s grown up with us and we’ve grown up around it.  Lulled to sleep by its charms, we not only believe it necessary but we find it comforting to have a screen in front of us at all times — to tell us what to do, think, eat, drink, and how to live, feel, and what to wear. Or not. 

As Kingsolver states:

The advantages of raising kids without commercial TV seem obvious, and yet I know plenty of parents who express dismay as their children demand sugar-frosted sugar for breakfast, then expensive brand-name clothing, then the right to dress up as hookers not for Halloween but for school. Hello? Anyone who feels powerless against the screaming voice of materialistic youth culture should remember that power comes out of those two little holes in the wall. The plug is detachable. Human young are not born with the knowledge that wearing somebody’s name in huge letters on a T-shirt is a thrilling privilege for which they should pay eighty dollars. It takes years of careful instruction to arrive at that piece of logic. (p. 134)

Meantime, our culture rocks and reels like a drunkard over a single channel on a given day. Bloodlust is upon the people — if only for a season or until the next new series. Voyeurism abounds in the living room, but one click makes it all go away, so it’s not hurting anyone. Oh, how we’ve been dumbed down, no doubt about it — even if nobody ever exactly believed that it was a “wardrobe malfunction.”

At the very least, Kingsolver sees the writing on the wall enough to decry television’s wasting influence. But what she doesn’t address is the trickster part — and how in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan’s predictive observations dating back to the 50′s about twentieth century media culture have now come to fruition.  Indeed, “the medium is the message.” The issue goes far beyond how many people are getting shot up with blanks or how much ketchup is used and whether or not we should let Johnny see. Our death culture is far more sinister than this.

Screens “R” Us. From television to laptop and from DVD players in our cars to the iPad in our hands, we’ve been channeled and changed by the prowess of a masterful media culture.

_____________________________

A BIBLICAL LENS:

The topic of TV can land one atop mounds of food for thought to which all the popcorn in the world would not equal. There’s the good stuff and the bad stuff and then there is the very bad stuff. Beyond that, there exists the unmentionable. Surely the sheer ever-increasing amount of channels has had some bearing on this ratio. I mean, The Carol Burnett Show from the ’70s gave us some really good laughs, thanks to lovable sidekicks Tim Conway and Harvey Korman. Even so, long before there was television, the Psalmist wrote, “I will set before my eyes no vile thing.” Ancient paths are new again. We really do have a choice.

Now, let’s have some fun. Time to think outside the box. In this vast wasteland of electronic suffering, I will play roving reporter and ask a few questions:

How do you choose to be entertained? Informed? Instructed? Influenced?

Or are you even choosing at all?

Perhaps you’re letting television (and other various forms of media) make all the choices and eat you alive as you allow it to nibble on your mind and suck up all your time.

At the most basic level, we were made to think, live consciously, and walk upright for the better part of the day. TV is not only a one-eyed monster. It’s a trickster, and can transform into an invisible phantom that will eat our brains if we’re not awake and watchful.

____________________________

A warm thanks to all who have read along for all or some portion of our Small Wonder discussion. It’s my hope that you’ve benefited  in some way from these sessions. Maybe you’ve gained a deeper understanding and appreciation for common grace, developed a keener sense of some of the issues all around us, or have caught a burden for your neighbor’s soul. More than anything, I pray a window has been opened from which you can look out of and upon the world with a more redemptive eye:

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

-Matthew 6: 22-23

Many special thanks to my dear friends and sisters in Christ, Becky Pliego, Melissa Jackson, and Diana Lovegrove, for your generosity by kindly offering your time and talent in contributing to this project.

Soli Deo Gloria.

session seven: household words

Please welcome dear friend and sister in Christ, Diana Lovegrove, blogger at Waiting For Our Blessed Hope and contributor for today’s session on Household Words. Diana lives in England with her wonderful husband, adorable 7-year-old son, and naughty Jack Russell terrier. She loves nothing better than gentle family cycle rides at the weekend through the English countryside, but she also recently appreciated the opportunity to drive a racing car at speeds of 130 mph. Tea is her drink of choice, and the guitar her instrument to praise her God.

________________________________________

“Home is place, geography, and psyche…It’s a place of safety.”

-Barbara Kingsolver

________________________________

Kingsolver opens Household Words with a modern telling of the parable of The Good Samaritan. Except in this true account, it appears there was no Good Samaritan. Kingsolver is endearingly honest about her own inability to act, as she sits frozen in her car in a queue at traffic lights, and witnesses a homeless woman being assaulted by a homeless man on the sidewalk. As the traffic lights change, she drives away alongside many others, taking her guilt over her failure to intervene with her. I probably would have done the same.

Kingsolver considers homelessness to be an “aberration” of a civilised society. She is right. Homelessness is a sign of the curse we are living under, ever since Adam and Eve were banished from their God-given home in the Garden of Eden for their sin, and Cain, their son, was told he would be a “restless wanderer on the earth.” Homelessness is what living apart from God looks like, and I’m not talking about those without a permanent roof over their heads. What Kingsolver doesn’t realise is that those who have comfortable homes to live in are just as homeless as the man or woman on the street packing cardboard inside their clothes to help to keep them warm at night.

Whether or not we agree with Kingsolver’s political views of how to help the homeless, I am grateful that she has a compassionate heart, recognises that the home she has to live in is due to providence (although she doesn’t call it such when she recounts the conversation with her wheelchair-bound friend: “Barbara, the main difference between you and me is one bad fall off a rock.”), is aware of the sinful attitude of pride in all of us (“…smart like me, hardworking like me…they’d have a house like me.”), and has the urge to do something to help her neighbour in need.

I am arrested by her definition of home:

“Home is place, geography, and psyche; it’s a matter of survival and safety, a condition of attachment and self-definition. It’s where you learn from your parents and repeat to your children all the stories of what it means to belong to the place and people of your ken. It’s a place of safety.”

________________________________

A BIBLICAL LENS:

I read Kingsolver’s definition of home and I am silently awed…common grace pours from her heart. I read it and I want to share with her how this is all so true, and how God fulfils all of this! How He calls us to Himself and adopts us as His children through the blood of Christ, so that where we were once estranged from Him and restless wanderers, now we can enjoy the embrace of our Father. I want to tell her that really understanding what it means to be adopted as His child and welcomed into His family sends a thrill through my heart every time I contemplate it. Attachment to Him, being defined by Him…there is no greater security in life. How He assures our survival and safety: “But not a hair of your head will perish.”  How we regularly gather with other believers, our family members, children through to grandparents, to celebrate and remember all the goodness He has given us in Christ. I want to show her the limitations of Robert Frost’s quote:

“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,

They have to take you in.”

My Home is a gift. “They” do not have to take me in at all, given the extent of my sin. BUT…because of the sheer grace of God, because of Christ’s sacrifice, because I can now call God “Abba, Father!” I don’t even have to go there alone, hoping my knock at the door will be answered:

“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

-John 14:2-3

And then I want to look Barbara Kingsolver right in the eyes. I want to tell her how the story with which she opened this essay walked right into my heart. How it wasn’t merely her vulnerability and honesty in telling the story and her subsequent soul-searching which stirred my heart. I want to tell her how I personally identify with her guilt of not intervening when witnessing the abuse of a homeless person. How I was aware that my own sister was at risk of being abused by a “care worker” in the “care home” she was living in — a home in no meaningful sense of the word, but which epitomises the curse we are living under — not a home of safety, but a place to be survived. How I desperately wanted to inform the authorities, but for complicated reasons (which make no sense to me now, this side of the events) felt I couldn’t…so did nothing. How I have had to sit in court in recent days and listen as my sister described before judge and jury the harrowing extent of the abuse she suffered as a result of my saying nothing. Yes, I know something of that guilt.

How to deal with it?

I want to grab hold of her hand here and tell Kingsolver there is a much better way than how she dealt with her guilt, of rehearsing a different scene of the abused woman in her mind so that, “If I meet her again, I hope I can be ready.”  There is another way to deal with guilt, a way that leads to forgiveness, to life, to hope, to HOME!

When we have failed to love our neighbour as ourselves, we need to cry out to the One who did, who left His own Home to come to this earth where He had nowhere to lay His head. We need to cry out to Jesus, who took all our failures to love our neighbour in need on His own shoulders, died and rose again, that not only could we be forgiven and have our hearts sprinkled by His blood to cleanse us from a guilty conscience, but that He would give us His love for our neighbour, and a new Home.

It is no coincidence that she concludes her essay by referencing this Martin Luther King Jr. quote: “True peace is not merely the absence of tension. It’s the presence of justice.” Here, God has revealed His very heart to her of what Home really is:

“Justice will dwell in the desert

and righteousness live in the fertile field.

The fruit of righteousness will be peace;

the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.

My people will live in peaceful dwelling places,

in secure homes,

in undisturbed places of rest.”

-Isaiah 32:16-18

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Next Thursday: The One-Eyed Monster, and Why I Don’t Let Him In

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