Holy

What does it mean to be holy? I think so often we tend to think of holiness as something we achieve by being a "good Christian." Bible reading? Check. Pray for a little bit? Check. Serve in some way? Check. Go to church? Check. All of these things are good things to do, but they don't make us holy. That's works righteousness.

Last night before bed, David and I read a Dennis Kinlaw devotional entry together about holiness. It said that holiness is being in the presence of God. Wow! Do you sense the grace in that? It's amazing. It's not about outward perfection, but surrendering our heart's imperfections in the presence of God. This is holiness! God meets us in our most broken places and transforms them into holiness.

It reminds of a book I read a year or two ago. I think it was a Brennan Manning book. He was recalling a time (or two!) when he had fallen asleep praying. God doesn't get mad at us when we do that. We chose to be in God's presence in that moment and God knows our hearts. To me, that is an example of how even in our imperfections and what we label as "mistakes", God is surrounding us with His holiness.

It almost makes me wonder- is holiness something we "own" per se, or is it something that is strictly God's that he clothes us with? Food for thought....

In His Mercy.

Tis the Season

Happy Advent everyone! I've been so bad about writing this year. Things got complicated earlier in the year and emotionally, I just kind of excused myself from caring about much of anything. I've always enjoyed writing, so when I writing became an event that rarely occurred, I knew something was up. I've slowly started to come back to it all. That's the thing about healing, it only takes an instant to be torn-up, chewed-up, and spit back out; its what happens afterwards that poses the biggest challenge.

Healing is something that I have thought about a lot lately. There is a precious little girl- a younger sibling of one of the four-yr-olds at the preschool- who is terminally ill with a rare form of cancer. When we received the news, my heart immediately began to ache. Let me back up. She had a liver transplant in the Spring that was successful and we were all under the impression that she was in the clear. Just before Thanksgiving, they found four more masses, all cancerous and all the same rare cancer. At this point, not much can be done. She's been given a 0% chance of survival. I barely know this family, but I found myself in tears at our morning staff meeting. One, I cannot even begin to imagine the pain the family is going through. And two, I cannot grasp why this happens.

I believe in God's healing, but I also believe that sometimes God's healing does not look how we want it so look. For example, when my grandmother passed away from cancer at the age of 89, I believe her death was her healing. She lived a long, fulfilling life and God ended her suffering. Healing. But here is this tiny child, not even 2 years old, and medically-speaking, she has no chance of surviving. I believe in God's miracles and I pray that He would "wow" the doctors with a miraculous healing of this sweet, innocent child. But what if He doesn't? Does that mean He did not hear the prayers of His people? Does that mean that he does not love this little girl? Of course not. I just have a hard time comprehending this all.I just wish that sometimes we could just get our way.

The truth be told, I am glad that I cannot understand God. There is something strangely comforting about not fully grasping onto who God is. God is God. He is in control. And even though it's scary and uncertain, I believe He is holding sweet Aubrey in His lands, loving on her, and loving on her family.

Healing is a very mysterious thing....

In His Mercy.