Wind gapes through my brunette locks and catches that droplet dripping sorrow and grief. Wet teardrop whisked away to that heavenly storehouse where the God-Man bottles it in His perfect love and healing grace. Clouds are hovering in blue sky and the air is turning heavy with grey. Piercing through, a single ray of fierce light. It fights the black and the cold for a few moments. And I fight the suffering and sin all the same. From those mysterious bowels of cloud and sky, the droplets descend, crashing with a roar upon Mother Earth. Ray of sun shattered in a piercing instant. Feet wade in the fresh puddle. Locks drip wet and eyes close beneath the seeming misery. Tear and raindrop mix into one thundering roar. And it all seems to be too much.

I’m a forgetful creature. A woman of self-absorption, gripped with sin, whose brokenness often blurs that holy perspective. But the skies open and the rain falls and the tears of Grace – that God of abundant grace – descend. And I catch my tears, but only as I catch His. I sorrow, but only as He sorrows. I weep, but only as He has already wept.

His grace doesn’t demand our wounds ignored or forgotten. Grace frees us from the veil of shame because Grace already bore the wound, and Grace still wields the scar.

We weep and we mourn and we suffer – Adam’s fall ever infectious over these lives we live – and we ache for all of this world’s suffering and all of our own immediate hurt to be healed.

Sky sulks. Grey hovers over yellow harvest fields and over my tear-stained soul. I set the kettle on stove and wait for tea leaves to steep into full, majestic flavor. Eyes and heart fastened on the falling happening outside. His tears. My tears. And maybe yours too?

Tears because pain is real and the hurt runs deep.

I pour hot tea into that crackled stoneware. Cinnamon and hibiscus and orange peel dancing wildly together. I feel lifeless. And maybe it’s because I’m thankless? After all, that Word says, Enter into my joy through gates of thanksgiving. 

Oh, dear Ann unveiled that secret and I’m remembering it now:

Deep chara joy is found only at the table of the euCHARisteo – the table of thanksgiving…As long as thanks is possible, then joy is always possible. Joy is always possible. Whenever, meaning – now; wherever, meaning – here…Here, in the messy, piercing ache of now, joy might be – unbelievably – possible!

The miracle of healing – that miracle we ache after ‘neath heavy skies and world’s disappointments and failures run deep and utterly brutal scars – it comes when we offer thanks.

It comes when we, with sorrow gripping fierce and darkness laying low, come unto the Healer, with gratitude on our wet, tear-saturated lips & whisper it true.

And it’s hard. It’s a hard offering up, dear one. But, don’t we desperately long for the miracle? Don’t we crave after beauty and life abundant? Didn’t Augustine say that we are all on this maddening search for eternal joy?

Then this is the secret.

My tea cup is empty. I reach for that white glazen pot and pour until it fills. And I reach for that Word and receive the filling.

John, in His Gospel, says that on the night Jesus was betrayed, He took the cup – the cup of suffering and death and of costly crucifixion – and he gave thanks.

And I take the cup,

of broken engagement,

and loss of love,

and friendship betrayed,

and reputation scarred,

and possessions forfeited,

and plans utterly pierced through,

and almost father-in-law diagnosed with cancer,

and this wounded walk of life,

and I give thanks.

Thanks for the grace and the God of grace Who covers all and sustains all. For the heart of that God-Man and the love of that Beloved, Who is for me and never against me. For the Giver of every good and perfect gift, and that these sufferings are not separate from His goodness. For the Healer, who comforts, but who also cries. For the One in Whom joy is always possible.

 

This, with love from Meg, at Grace Words.
**Because all is just wild grace, there’s a place saved just for you, so stop by…maybe?**

The lovely photo, compliments of this little space in the web-world. 

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