A Happy Anniversary

Praising God for 10 happy years of marriage to my best friend, Nathan Fullerton! We've got a few more lines, a little more grey (me), a little worse eyesight (him), and just a couple more responsibilities :), but I still love him up to the moon (and back). Here's to several more decades!

Not As Those Who Have No Hope!

I have a 5 year old and a 7 year old, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to send them off to school one morning and find out a short time later that they had been gunned down in their classroom. The thought literally makes me feel ill. And so I grieve for the parents in Newtown, Connecticut who faced such a horrible tragedy last Friday, and who will spend this Christmas--and likely many others--weeping over the loss of their little ones. Gifts already purchased with no one to receive them, plans already made with no one to take along, empty beds with no one to kiss goodnight... this is every parent's worst nightmare.

And yet, this is exactly what God the Father did in love one Christmas two thousand years ago. He sent his Son off into our world as an infant, a child just like our little ones, and he did it not unsuspectingly, but knowing full-well that his Son would be hated, rejected and put to death on a horrid cross though he was completely innocent, having committed no sin, being crucified for no good reason (on the part of the murderers) other than their jealousy, anger, self-righteousness and amusement. He bore the grief of a bereaved parent; he knows the agony of losing an innocent child. He sympathises in complete understanding with every parent who has ever lost or will ever lose a child.

But because of this very sacrifice, we do not mourn as those who have no hope. Because of Jesus' death on our behalf, for our sins, we who believe gain the right to become children of God! And because Jesus not only died, but conquered that terrible enemy Death when he rose again on the third day, we who believe will never truly die. Death no longer has dominion over us because we are forever fully alive in Christ!

I don't know the reason for Friday's events. Only God does. But I do know that the death of every person on this planet--tragic or not--points to our desperate need for a Saviour who will come to rescue us from the awful curse of sin. And Christmas points to the joyous news that this Saviour has actually come and that he has broken the curse of death by his resurrection from the dead, so that we can indeed say, "Death is swallowed up in victory; O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"

As I celebrate Christmas this year, with my 2, 5, 7 and 8 year olds happily sitting around the tree--Lord willing--I will mourn with the families in Newtown who are mourning, and at the very same time, rejoice in the fact that Jesus' birth was the ushering in of a new hope that signals the end of all such tragedies, all such searches for meaning and answers, all such evil and death.

So sing loudly with us this Christmas, "Joy to the world; the Lord has come! Let earth receive her king...No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessing known far as the curse is found!"

Hallelujah! Come Lord Jesus!

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
and the day of vengeance of our God;
to comfort all who mourn;
to grant to those who mourn in Zion—
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit;
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.

They shall build up the ancient ruins;
they shall raise up the former devastations;
they shall repair the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.

Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks;
foreigners shall be your plowmen and vinedressers;
but you shall be called the priests of the Lord;
they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;
you shall eat the wealth of the nations,
and in their glory you shall boast.
Instead of your shame there shall be a double portion;
instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot;
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portion;
they shall have everlasting joy.

 

For I the Lord love justice;
I hate robbery and wrong;
I will faithfully give them their recompense,
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.

Their offspring shall be known among the nations,
and their descendants in the midst of the peoples;
all who see them shall acknowledge them, that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.

 

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;
my soul shall exult in my God,
for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation;
he has covered me with the robe of righteousness,
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,
and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations.

(Isaiah 61)

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A few of the multitude of really good links related to Newtown, if you haven't seen them already:

School Shootings and Spiritual Warfare: Russell Moore on who the real enemy is in this

And Slew the Little Childer and follow-up post That Will Be Soon Enough, both by Douglas Wilson on what (and what not) to say immediately following horrific events like this...

Faces Do you know that on the same day 27 innocent people died in Newtown, 30 children in China were injured in a random, but apparently not unprecedented, attack by a knife-wielding man? And helpless children and others around the world face these horrors on a sometimes daily basis... Having seen some of the effects of such carnage in Rwanda several years ago, I appreciated this post from Tanzania.

The Desiring God blog also has a whole host of good links, some specifically about Newtown, others about suffering in general, among them How Jesus Comes to Newtown and a video version of John Piper reading his relevant poem The Innkeeper.

Understood

Our two-year-old is not the most articulate kid on the planet. She loves to chatter, but much of what she says is unintelligible to us. Over the last few months, though, we have begun to comprehend some key words and phrases, like "woh" (water or milk), "shee" (cheese), "beh" (bread), "cangy" (candy) and the all-important "banky" (her 2--yes, two--essential blankets). Today in the car, she asked for woh, and to her great delight, received a cup in exchange. One of the other kids then wanted to know why Ruth consistently responds to getting the thing she has asked for with squeals of joy. Well, it could just be the joy of getting something she wants. But I've noticed that she does this primarily when she has made a verbal request, and the level of joy doesn't necessarily correspond to whether it's a few sips of water or a big piece of candy. So this is what I told my son: Ruth has spent the last several months in the frustration of recognizing that while she knows exactly what she wants, she can't seem to articulate her desires in a manner that anyone understands. She repeats the same phrase over and over and just gets a blank stare... or 15 different things held up questioningly, none of which are the desired object. But now, at long last, she can say something and even if no one else computes, at least Mommy does. I think her reaction of joy is not so much of getting what she wants, but of finally being understood.

Don't we all love to be understood? We hate to feel inarticulate, unable to put thoughts to words, unable to communicate the desires and feelings of our hearts in a way that even our closest friends can fully grasp. We often mark the deep kinship of a spouse or friend by the way they get what we mean even when others don't, when they complete our sentences, when they get the look in our eyes before we even catch the meaning ourselves. We get angry when others misjudge our meaning and intention. We are greatly comforted by the encouragement of someone else who has "been there".

Indeed, the moment that I first began to really feel a bond with Nathan was after I had explained to him that due to frustrations in a recent relationship and the ensuing emotional turmoil, I needed to take things slow and not get involved too fast. The words that got me were these: "I know I can't completely understand what you're going through, but as much as I can understand, I do (and I'm not going anywhere)."

The comfort of being understood is one of the reasons that I love these verses:

"Then the LORD said, 'I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey...'" (Exodus 3:7-8)

"Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted... For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Hebrews 2:17-18, 4:15-16)

But what about when we feel that we don't have the words to draw near with any confidence, when we don't even fully understand what is on our hearts, or what we need?

"Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Romans 8:26-27)

Sometimes we feel like the toddler who just can't get their message across. Sometimes we don't seem to be getting an answer when we've asked the same question 20 times, and we wonder if God is listening and comprehending. How joyful it should make us to realize that the Father gets every word, that Jesus can make sense of the babble of a human life, that the Spirit is translating our needs and desires even when we don't know what they are, so that we are fully understood by our God.

This Christmas, be delighted by the fact that the transcendent, almighty God has made such point of understanding the weak and lowly people he created that he has come down, lived the life we live, made a way for us to have a relationship with him through his death on the cross, and sent his Spirit to continually intercede for us when our words fail! We are understood.