sideways

One of my favorite words is ‘snug’.

‘Snug’ makes you feel all tucked in as a down comforter beside a warm fire on a snowy night. It’s short for snuggle and who doesn’t like a good snuggle? Even the word feels cozy.

I remember our ritual of tucking our little Graham into bed at night, signing off with the words “sleep sweet in Jesus.” He usually never fell asleep until mom acquiesced and laid with him until he dozed off.

On those rare occasions we let him sleep with us he would position himself sideways, his head cradled in Sandy’s side and his piggies burrowed into mine. So long as he could feel both of us, Graham sailed into the ocean of dreamland all safe and sound. Our little bug all snug and warm.

As he grew, those rituals rightly tapered off and Graham needed our touch and reassurances less and less, but never completely.

He never ended a phone conversation or left our company without “love you” as his own ritual. Those glancing words were his way of still touching us both to make sure we were still there, still in his corner, still accessible. More so when he knew he had upset or disappointed us. Even still so when we had hurt him. His love yous were like his fingers thrumming on Sandy’s tummy or his feet kicking me in the night: I’m still here, are you there?

How we wish we had one more night of our little boy pointing east and west to our north and south and completing our universe.

His last night on earth Graham fell asleep all alone and never woke up. We weren’t there to play with his feet or tickle his tummy or tuck him in and, six years later, that still kills us.

A few hours after I found out Graham took another voyage to another place not immediately accessible to us, I tapped the breast of God with my outstretched hands and kicked at the door of heaven with my feet. I needed assurances. East and west, God, here I am… are you there?

More importantly, is Graham there?

I had dreamed* Graham was burning in hell and I could hear his screams. My heart was racing to know, is our Gra-Gra safe and sound with you, Lord? I don’t have the most acute or accurate memory to tell you how it happened, I can only tell you that it happened.

God said, “Go to my Word.”

I opened my Bible to Psalm 85  (didn’t know why) and read these words:

Psalms 85:2

You forgave the iniquity of your people;

you covered all their sin. Selah

I kept reading, and the more I read the more my heart felt reassured. I zipped through the rest of the short chapter, into the next, and on into chapter 87 where I read these words that sealed it for me. I knew it from my head to my toes: Graham is safe. He is snug. He is home. And I’ve never doubted it since.

Psalms 87:4-6

4 Among those who know me I mention Rahab and Babylon;

behold, Philistia and Tyre, with Cush—

“This one was born there,” they say.

5 And of Zion it shall be said,

“This one and that one were born in her”;

for the Most High himself will establish her.

6 The Lord records as he registers the peoples,

“This one was born there.” Selah

Those nations included in God’s census? They were not only Gentile lands, they were rebel nations with checkered histories. And God made room for them in His Eternal Zion too.

My sister texted me this morning saying she knows how difficult this day is for us, but reminded us how much she loves us and how much she loved Graham. I thanked her for loving him with all his messes and goodnesses, that I didn’t understand how God’s grace works, but I sure am thankful for it.

Grace is for sideways people.

Jesus said he didn’t die for healthy people but those east-west souls whose lives are so crooked with sin they have no hope of ever finding True North.

We east-west people were put on an upright cross with Jesus (2 Timothy 2:11), were laid in the grave with Jesus (Romans 6:4), but when he was raised from the dead, he took us with him, pointed us North, and taught us how to walk upright. Straight up.

Graham is in that number. I know it because God said right there in the text, in so many words, “Graham is born in Zion. He’s a registered citizen. He’s mine. Satan, you can’t have him.”

“This one was born in Zion

Make no mistake,

this one is Mine

This one was born in Zion

This one will never,

this one will never,

This one will never die”**

Do you need some reassurance today? First you’ve got to be sideways. But then you’ve got to want to change your direction, and you’ve got to reach out and touch the only One who can make that happen.

You don’t earn it. You don’t luck into it. You certainly can’t hold onto someone else’s coattails and get in. Unless it’s Jesus, and you most definitely can do that because he’s made provision for it. It’s called faith.

In the end I know my son went to sleep sideways, touching Jesus, and woke up on top of the “Holy Mount” where “glorious things are spoken.” (Psa 87:1,3)

Selah,

and hallelujah!

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* I know this wasn’t a “God–dream” because God does not manipulate his own by fear; this was either a construct of my own subconscious or a direct attack from the enemy

** Wayne Watson, “Born in Zion”, from album “Giants In The Land”, 1987