42 years, 255 pages, and dozens of attempts later, it’s done. I’m finally a published author!
Though He Fall: My Journey Through Surrender, Loss, And A Thousand Healings is my testimony of God’s sustaining grace through disability, grief, and a parent’s worst nightmare. Above all, it’s the story of the overwhelming goodness and sustaining grace of God.
Early in the summer, I was pressed, rather than prompted, by the Lord to “finish the book.” It seemed urgent back then, so I laid aside almost all of my other activities and sank myself into the discipline of writing in order to get my story “out there.”
With the generous help and keen eye of some friends, I’m happy to report it’s done. I couldn’t have finished this assignment without Kelli and Tim and Mark and Kim and, of course, Sandy. The book is a whole lot better because of them.
I’m honored to share this project with you and pray you will be given a wider lens through which to see the amazing mercies of God. Indeed, He doeth all things well.
What’s the most surprising thing you’ve learned about God?
Jesus told a story that is clearly about God the Father. In the story there are two villains, a younger brother and an elder. While the older brother stews in his self righteousness the younger son repents of his many reproaches and heads back with tail tucked. In the story we are surprised to find the Father running to meet him.
Imagine: God, with robe gathered, feet flying, running!
There’s another place in the sacred text where I’m caught off guard by God. We know about his communication skills but how many knew God could sing?
In Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew, we find Aslan singing the world of Narnia into being:
In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing…Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once…One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out – single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world…All the time the Voice went on singing…The Voice rose and rose, till all the air was shaking with it. And just as it swelled to the mightiest and most glorious sound it had yet produced, the sun arose.
—C.S. Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew (New York: Collier), pp. 98-99.
I am in a season right now where my most challenging obstacle is not disability. I confess it’s gotten the better of me on those especially trying days, but God faithfully meets me in his Word and whispers, “I’m for you, child; stay the course. Trust that I’m up to something good here.” Those words quiet me.
God doesn’t just speak, however. Sometimes he sings. Elihu told Job of a God who “gives songs in the night.” I know of such a God. I’ve heard his night songs echoing softly in my mind when I thought I was out of my mind, lost and forgotten.
The Almighty has been singing a long time. Twenty-five centuries ago Zephaniah, great-great grandson of Hezekiah, said, while God “quiets” us by his love (‘ahava’, e.g., Song of Songs 2:4), he also anthems over us and silences the roar inside our hearts.
The LORD your God is among you; He is mighty to save. He will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing.
Zephaniah 3:17
The Hebrew text reads, “he exults over you with loud singing.” Great peals of thunder ring out from the bellows of God’s voice when soothing words won’t do. The NLT fashions it, “He will rejoice over you with joyful songs.”
How very cool is that? When we are cowed by the dissonance of our skewed culture, our Heavenly Father starts singing, and when he sings all the noise fades into the background.
The people God sings over are so beleaguered they want to quit. They’re flat-out exhausted from battling the insufferable. All they can hear are the “slurs and taunts of Moab”; the “pure speech” of Zion’s completely drowned out. God’s whispers do them little good; they need him to SHOUT his love in their ears.
That’s the beauty of Zephaniah 3:17. The word we get isn’t “lullaby”; of course there’s a time when a lullaby is appropriate. I love when the Holy Spirit quietly sings over me, calming me with his sweet reveries.
But sometimes we need reveille! Life can get so messed up we need a victory song. We need God to ROAR with assurance that all this is under Aslan’s massive paw. That’s the idea in this text. Sometimes he quiets us with love, sometimes he rejuvenates us with a victory chorus.
God is so happy in the love he bears to his people that he breaks the eternal silence, and sun and moon and stars with astonishment hear God chanting a hymn of joy.
—Charles Spurgeon
The older I get, the quieter I get. And the quieter I am, the better I’m positioned to hear the still, small Voice, so familiar, so intimate. But there are times I need an anthem, not a sonnet. God’s playlist always seems to give me just what I need in any given moment.
How about you? Are you greatly bothered by the noise in your life? Can you hear your Father in heaven sing over you? Or is the tumult drowning out the truth you need to hear? I pray the Lord of the Dance surprises you with his playlist in coming days. May God grace you with his joyous reveille and surround you with songs of deliverance.
In Eugene Peterson’s classic, A Long Obedience In The Same Direction, he writes of a time when he needed to sharpen the blade on his lawnmower. He got the biggest wrench he could find and worked on that nut but it wouldn’t loosen. Then he got a long length of pipe to add leverage to lean into. Still, no go. Next he took a large rock and beat it repeatedly against the pipe.
He writes, “By this time I was beginning to get emotionally involved with my lawnmower.”
As the story develops, Peterson tells of a neighbor who saw him struggling, walked over and shared that, as it so happened, he once had the same lawnmower. “[I]f he remembered correctly, the threads on the bolt went the other way.”
Sure enough, it worked. A simple change of direction loosened the bolt and released the dull blade.
Today I celebrate my 62nd turn around the sun. I wish I could say every turn was in the right direction, but there’ve been some turns in there that challenged my sanctification. But I’m still here and I can only say that by the good grace(s) of God.
I’ve had several close brushes with death; I even coded once, which is pretty cool, so I know God has me here for a reason. I have a good idea why overall, and sometimes I even know why in the immediate. As long as God puts oxygen in my lungs, I’m here to offer up my life as a praise to Him.
But how I do long for home.
I’ve lived 22,630 days on this planet. There have been some really good wins and some embarrassing losses filling the pages of my story. God has been in it all.
I don’t really have a whole lot to share, except to emphasize how much I love the life God has given me. It’s not a perfect life, but I’m perfectly happy. I adore the one who helps hold the wrench alongside me. I’d like to think we’re turning it in the right direction together. She’s been that “neighbor” to me, getting things to work right and better.
I apologize for all the first person singular pronouns throughout this post. That’s unfortunately necessary in a post like this, but I know that you know my story is not because of me but Jesus in me.
I do want to share this brief section of Peterson’s book. He puts just the right words to my ‘turning 62’ meditation:
…each step we walk, each breath we breathe, we know we are preserved by God, we know we are accompanied by God, we know we are ruled by God; and therefore no matter what doubts we endure or what accidents we experience, the Lord will guard us from every evil, he guards our very life.
Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience In The Same Direction, 45
This morning I closed my journal entry with these words,
“Bless this day. Make it holy. Make it fun. Make it memorable. Let me see a bird or some creature that fascinates and makes my heart soar!…Thank you for this life you’ve given me. If this is my last year here, I’ll be a happy man. If it is not, I’m still here for you! In Jesus’ name, amen.
Selah, beloved.
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