“You just wait.”
Eventually, we stopped counting the number of times we were forewarned about our lives “coming to an end” once the little ones entered our home.
Four children later, though, I now understand a little bit better the pain which might cause (what felt like) a curse to come out of the lips of others over our long-awaited family.
Life is all about surrender, at every pass. And whichever ones of life’s props we hold closest to our chest are the ones which cause us the most pain to relinquish. But the myth is that this pain is the final word over surrender. Though my greatest (felt) surrender may not be parenting, all day long I’m tempted to believe a lie that says: as I pour into their life’s starts, mind ends. No more long workouts, stretches of detoxing in the sauna,
sinking into my chair for hours in the prayer room. Loss just seems to weasel its slinky way into my vocabulary, even at this stage of a life I’ve welcomed.
The real truth is that surrender is like a gun shot. A burst of noise into clear air that says “go! now!” Me losing another part of me, means me finding another part of Another.
And for me, these days, that search must be active. My flesh is too stubborn to walk with new perspective passively.
So, I’m taking the charge I heard from the front of the room this past Sunday morning. Opportunities for adoration are popping up everywhere in all different shapes and sizes. I think I’m getting the hint.
In Revelation 1-3, John’s vision highlights 30 descriptions of Jesus’ majesty. Thirty. (Just enough to take me from today to March.) He doesn’t spoon feed us here; He allures us. A treasure hunt designed for the seeker, the hungry. The desperate. A phrase here, a word there, each one of them an invitation. To me, and to you, to not sit passively at the well of loss and despair and take subtle drags on death — but to find the treasure tucked away in this surrender.
He is the treasure and adoration makes it practical.
If you need a refresher on how to adore, read this post.
(So, each Monday, the column of 
adoration to the right-side of my blog moves front-and-center, here, and I invite others who are doing the same — stretching their heart to lift God’s Word up and back to Him, despite every obstacle the day presents — to add their link below in the comments section. You can link people back here from your post by grabbing the code on the right side of my blog. If you don’t have a blog but are, yourself, a lover of words and of God and of God’s word, feel free to add an adoration of your own in the comment section. Whether there is one of us or one hundred — and even if the words are written “merely” on our hearts — we will give Him the praise He’s due.)
…and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness… Revelation 1:5**
You testified, You bore witness, You were the witness. You saw and spoke, but, really, You embodied.
A new kind of witness, clearing a path I’d one-day walk.
Not just a bystander, You wore the evidence by Your life. We saw Him because they saw You. You walked with them and glory of the unseen was unveiled.
Who is this God who sent a witness in flesh for my flesh to know Him?
I worship You, God of mystery, clothed in skin like mine. I adore You Father of access. You spoke the world into being with one word and that Word then walked the earth. How could I ever find You boring?
I praise You, God, for sending a witness. A faithful witness. Faithful to all You are, over the ages, and faithful to me, stumbling in my day-to-day.
I get lost in what I’m not and You lift me out with what You were and who You are. You are not aloof, far-off or distant from my heart pains. You are near. Present. Watchful. You sent witness. You are a witness. He was the witness whose Spirit now puts a witness within me. I know You because You hide inside of me, now. I have all that I need to grow in You and know You within me. And when I seek You, I find more.
A life of witnessing for us was initiated by the faithfulness of this Witness. All that You have was in Him and all that was in Him is in me. So I can be a new kind of witness. He was a deposit and the return is exponential.
He ever lived as a witness so that I, today, right now can witness the beauty of His very gaze. His beginning-of-time gaze … of witness.
**For a context to this little space on my blog, read: Why I Adore. You can easily subscribe to these devotional meditations as they are delivered, by using this feed: http://www.EveryBitterThingisSweet.com/posts/chai/feed or by entering your email address in the second box on the right-hand side… (scroll up a bit).
Photo compliments of Mandie Joy.
