Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Dearest God,

What is the value of faith if it does not call for trust? Faith that arises out of one's own person is shallow, without roots. But faith that comes from the deep, knowing well that God has placed the seed within, has watered, weeded and grown it is faith alive. This faith arises out of trust in you, Gracious Beloved. Trust is the substance like yeast that give the potential for growth. Without it, there is nothing.

And what is resurrection but a rising up from the grave. The grave of hopelessness and death. Sorrow and suffering is death, death of something, someone so close, so deep. But trust is the hand that reaches out, the voice that calls for a rising up. Why continue to lie in the grave, you say, why? Rise up, child, rise up and trust.

Resurrection is not just a living in eternity after human death. It is your offering in human living. It is the gift of new life, arising out of the sorrowing ashes. Resurrection is necessary if life is ever to have meaning and value. Resurrection is trusting you, Lord. It is believing that new life can happen, even to me. It is trusting you to be God and my being the child, turning to you for a new creation.

Resurrection is the stuff of faith. It is knowing God has a plan, a unique plan just for me, a plan yet unfulfilled. It is a belief that you expect us to move and not remain in our brokenness. You take the stuff of who and what we are. You hold this broken vessel, broken pot and somehow in the deepest place you whisper words of love to it. I have loved you, I have loved you, broken pieces of clay. You give meaning to the brokenness and you begin the refashioning process. You do not rid the pot of life experience or all that has given shape to it. Rather you take the cracks of hurt, disappointment, loss and grief and you fill them with yourself. It is you that holds the cracks together. Those pieces that we simply cannot let go of are held in hands so divine and somehow, someway, sometime we recognize the need to surrender. I say to you I cannot manage the brokenness and so I have to release it into your capable hands. That is the first moment of resurrection, trust and faith.

I danced
in the cold
early morning.
Shivering on
the outside,
my insides
cried out
for you,
Living God.
You called me
from death
to resurrection,
from lack
of trust
to trust,
from self doing
to faith.
As the sun
began to rise,
the Son
of faith
called out
to me
alone at the
water's edge.
Child, child,
let go,
surrender to me,
release your sorrow
into my hands.
As the sky
began to turn pink,
and the sun
promised its rising,
so did my
soul rise up.
I am
reaching for
resurrection
because you have
called me
to it.
I can
only pray
that I will
spend more time
each day
living in resurrection
rather than
in death,
God of
my faith.
Your love
is constant
and big enough
to hold
my broken parts.
Receive me
into your hands,
O Lord.
May my soul
breathe trust,
trust in you,
Almighty God,
trust that
breathes faith.

Love, Andrea