These reflections, taken directly from my journal over a decade ago, seemed appropriate to share at the beginning of 2020 when many of us are sending kids back to college or simply telling them good-bye after having spent cherished holiday moments together. So thankful that our Lord understands what the empty nest is like. As we glance back at Advent and forward toward Easter, let’s not forget that Jesus left His Heavenly Home to come be with us.
August 26, 2007
Life does not get simpler. It just keeps winding along, a road which sometimes looks familiar and at other times, unknown. We try to prepare ourselves for the road ahead, its inevitable twists and turns. Sometimes we guess right. But so often, what lies just around the bend is a surprise, not exactly what we expected. It could be something as banal as awaking to rain when you’d thought the day would be warm and sunny, or as devastating as a call in the middle of the night announcing death.
Lately my mind and spirit and heart have been crowded with the expected and unexpected and my emotions have seemed to lag far behind the winding road. I knew this week was coming, the week when both of my sons, ages 19 and 16, would head out on their own. The proverbial ‘empty nest’ was coming early to the Musser household. Twenty years seems so short to be a family—a nuclear family, as they call it. It is perhaps only one fourth of a lifetime. I guess I just thought it would last longer, the years where the boys were at home with us, all under one roof, safe and accounted for.
I knew better, deep down in places of the heart I rarely visit. I knew that as missionaries raising MKs, ours would never be a life where we all stayed in one place, not one city or one state or even one country. By virtue of our calling we would be wayfarers and our children, too.
It’s just that it happened earlier than I had expected. Andrew, yes, it was time for him to leave. Well, it was appropriate—the normal age that an American teen leaves home to attend college. Never mind that he left France to go to the States and that the change was huge. It was something we gulped down and prepared for.
Christopher was another matter. For years he had been asking about attending a sports program in Montpellier, and I had always pushed that thought away, believing the timing was wrong—he was too young, the program for baseball unproven and even weak, his spiritual maturity needing to grow.
And then, this past year, I knew it was the right time—the coach would be wonderful Jean-Michel, the program was improving, Chris had grown physically and spiritually and it was time. So we sent him off yesterday, with a lump in our throats and a smile on our faces. Pasted there, and yet, assured, calm in the midst of that panicky feeling of watching him leave.
I had cried many tears in the shower. I’d taken a last wonderfully long walk with him. I didn’t feel prepared and he didn’t either exactly, but off he went…
September 11, 2007
Beau barks at six pm and I think, “Chris is home!” and then I remember that he is in Montpellier. I hang out the laundry on the line—the first load I’ve done all week, and there are 8 pairs of Paul’s underwear and 7 of mine, a few of his T-shirts, some socks. And none of those wonderful teenage clothes that littered the house until a few weeks ago. I go to the store and bypass the shelves with the cookies and the cereals and the stuff of boys. I spend my money on sending packages in the mail, I call their phone numbers and get the answering machine and everywhere, at the most unexpected times, I get that ache, that nauseous ache, that emptiness, that missing…missing what? Their presence.
Even if my days are still pretty much the same—writing and emails and walks and meeting with girls and women–it was the nights that forced me out of myself and into their lives. They needed a good dinner, they needed folded clothes, they needed encouragement on homework, they needed to talk or have a back scratched or time to just be with me. And now, they are not here. And it is hard…
September 20, 2007
I don’t know how to describe the feeling, the being, of the empty nest. In some ways, it feels like we never had children, that we’ve gone back in time and I am taking out the fine china and silverware-wedding gifts-to play house with my new husband. Truly. It feels like that.
We are happily wrapped up in each other’s love.
But then reality crashes in on my heart. Yes, it’s just the two of us, yes, we are happy, comfortable, busy with our lives, but wait! Something is wrong. Something is missing. Someone is missing. Two someones. Where are the children?
I miss them so. I can’t help it, the loneliness that sneaks up on me and taps me on the shoulder. I see a mother with her child and I think, “Never again!” I read of my sister-in-law attending a soccer game and I think, “Never again!” Never again the rush of buying school books and supplies, never again the waiting for them outside of the school playground. Never again spying them laughing with their friends in the hallway of their high school as I volunteer at the library, never again trying to dress appropriately when going to school so as not to shock the boys—or embarrass them.
This line of thinking is not healthy. It is hurting me. I guess it’s just the brusqueness of the departure. They were here, both of them, all summer long and all summer long was family time to be, just be. We walked and talked, we planned and bought, we visited, we traveled, we ate long leisurely meals outside, and the house was full of noise—their music, their laughter as they played ping pong and juggled and wrestled Beau and argued with each other, brothers bound together at last by love and respect.
Everything was for them. Praying for them, urging them gently to plan, to clean, finding ways they could help at home, watching them learn carpentry from Paul, hearing them talking on the phone to friends or looking at the computer and Facebook. Most rewarding of all were the spiritual discussions, the amazing growth, the zeal for Christ, the desire to memorize verses, the way they spurred each other on. It was all there, so full, so busy, so good.
And then in a few short weeks, we’ve packed them both up and sent them off and there is silence. Oh, such silence! The house is too clean, the pool empty, the ping-pong table lonely, the grass getting longer, the clothesline just a long bare, green cord. This hurts! It hurts. I miss them so much.
I envy the moms rushing home to be with the kids. I wonder how my boys are doing, and I want to hear from them. Where are my boys? How are my boys?
I am at a loss. I am just not quite sure what to do with myself. There is always plenty to do, Lord. But I have that emptiness, that lethargy, that lack of inspiration and motivation.
Paul and I take wonderful walks, we sit at a restaurant beside the Saône and eat ice cream, we climb to the top of Rochetaillée and gaze down at life. We laugh and love. But this empty nest will take some getting used to. I guess the hurting will lessen, diminish. I guess we’ll get other ideas. I know You will fill our days. It’s not that. I trust You, Lord, for the next step.
It’s just that this one is hard to take. It really is.
I miss the boys.
At the beginning of this new year, I’d like to give you a glimpse of some of my highlights from 2019.
January ~ Precious time with family
February ~ Seeing Les Miserables at the Fox Theater in Atlanta
March~Back home to France where sweet daffodils and hyacinths welcomed us…and spring!
April~A trip to England and Wales to visit colleagues, discuss Member Care and get to see some amazing sites
May~ Our son, daughter-in-law, and grandkids came to visit us in France. Pure delight. One morning, I looked up to see these cherubs outside my ‘writing chalet’ window. Of course, I invited them in.
One of my greatest joys these days is having my grandkids read to me. Sometimes, they’re even reading a book their father read to me when he was a boy.
June ~ on our way to a missions conference in Spain, we stopped to take a few photos at La Grande Motte where many scenes in When I Close My Eyes are set and where I began writing the novel way back in 2015.
July ~ LB Norton, my dear friend and editor for the past 25 years, came with her husband to see us in France. Of course, I showed her around my ‘writing chalet’.
August ~ While vacationing in La Rochelle and Ile de Re, I was able to do last-minute research for my novel, The Promised Land, coming November 2020.
September ~ A starred review from Publisher’s Weekly
October ~ My daddy reading an early copy of When I Close My Eyes
November ~ The official launch of When I Close My Eyes at the Atlanta History Center with many members of my family there to support me.
What a joy to meet my readers there!
I also had the privilege of attending the Christy Awards with LB and getting to meet Patti Callahan Henry, the author of Becoming Mrs. Lewis, named Book of the Year at the Christy’s.
And November found me writing many blog posts, putting on a Facebook Party, sharing with a book club and sending swag to my street team.
One of my greatest joys is hearing back from readers that my words have encouraged, challenged, and drawn them closer to the Lord. Here are a few graphics readers made of their favorite quotes.
December ~ It’s always a treat to do a signing at The Swan Coach House in Atlanta. They carry several of my novels in their gift shop. I was spoiled rotten with a pot of tea served on a silver platter. Not a bad way to spend an afternoon, signing books and sipping tea.
Last but not least, I breathed a sigh of relief as I typed ‘The End’ and sent the manuscript for my upcoming novel, The Promised Land, through cyberspace, right into my editor’s inbox!
There you have it–a few highlights from 2019. My prayer for you is that, as you look back on your year, you’ll see God’s faithfulness in the past and anticipate His continued love and leading for this new year.
Blessings and love and happy reading in 2020!
Elizabeth
Today’s devotional was about Hope—the hope we have in You. And then I read about the real Saint Nicolas, who gave so freely to the poor. Please let the HOPE of the Gospel permeate every fiber of my soul today. And let me download it to that safe place in my soul which is safer than anywhere on the ‘Cloud’ or in cyberspace.
Plant it deep in my soul, this hope, this joy, this KNOWING that You, God, became a baby.
God became a baby. God became a baby. God became a baby.
May it resonate, may it make the joy well up, may I feel the awe of the shepherds in front of the angels, telling this tall tale that is true.
God became a baby!
And I am like the little drummer boy—with nothing to give that can remotely be appropriate to such a great king. Except…my heart.
So take it again this morning as I sit in our little den, next to the beautiful Christmas tree adorned with all the ornaments of our lives, including the seven lost cross-stitched ones that have been found! Found!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZoAucW6eRauFPmZRA
| (Click on the above link for the story of the lost stockings and ornaments that were found. Note: I made this video for a Facebook Party, hence the beginning commentary.) |
I look across at the fireplace mantle where nine needlepoint stockings hang—they too were lost and now found!
Then I glance towards the advent calendar that my dear mother sent us in 1989, our first Christmas in France when the boys were mere babes.
One more turn of the head leads me to the place where the santons are perched, on Grandmom’s chest of drawers, each of them bringing their gifts to the Baby Jesus, each of them testifying to almost forty years of Your faithfulness to me in France.
These symbols are important to me. They remind me of Your extravagant gift. They fill my heart with joy until it swells. And then, I ask You, “What can I give?”
I give You my words, my writing, the thoughts and prayers and hope and joy that You have allowed me to put into poetry and prose for others. Ultimately for You, Lord. But if these words can speak of Your Word, of Christ the King Baby, if they can shine the light in the darkness so that others look for Your light, then let them. This is the gift I have to offer.
It is the gift You gave me, and all I am doing, Lord, is giving it back to you, with my heart filled with gratitude and this petition: use my humble offering for Your glory. Not my glory, Lord. Please not mine. May my words fly up to You, taking wings to offer hope and comfort and grace to many.
And may You receive the praise as I sit here, surrounded by sweet symbols of Your love, and take in this mystery:
“The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1: 14
Merry Christmas and Joyeux Noël!
And if you’d like to know about more of my Christmas traditions (and enter a giveaway), head on over to Faithfully Bookish. The giveaway ends on December 26.
A few months ago, I was in the midst of the final edits of my new novel, When I Close My Eyes, which just released in November. On the morning in question, I read James 1: 1-8 for my devotions, and the words that jumped out at me as I read and meditated on these verses were: endurance and unstable.
“…Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
Here’s my resulting conversation with the Lord:
And what I kept hearing in my head was a line I have in the novel: Faith and mental instability aren’t mutually exclusive.
James says that a doubting man won’t receive from the Lord because he’s double-minded and unstable in all his ways. Perhaps I’m not talking about that type of being unstable. Or am I, Lord? Because I really, really believe what I said—mental instability and faith aren’t mutually exclusive.
Are they? Is that what James is saying?
But of course, that’s not the right question because the other theme in the novel is that depression is a silent killer and those who suffer must seek help. It is hard to seek help when we’re in that unstable place.
Ah, the vicious circle.
And yet. Endurance. Throughout my years of battling depression—that fierce monster that produces mental instability—You helped me endure. Or rather, I would not have endured without You. And that endurance often came through others who helped me hold up my hands when I would have let them fall.
So Lord, my prayer is this: please let the message of this novel be one that encourages, that helps those with unstable hands to find the strength to go on, for those who have wandered from You on rabbit trails to find their way back into Your loving presence.
Endurance sounds harsh. But then so does unstable. Yet these are just words that help me understand feelings and circumstances. Lord, the hard things have produced endurance in me. Even the mental instability has drawn me closer to You, has forced me to look to Your Word for mental sustenance, forced me to figure out how to tape over the lies (back in the 80s) or upload the truth (in today’s jargon).
I say in the novel that most Christians have gone on rabbit trails at one time or another and not received what You offer. But even those wandering times and the trials they produce are evidence of Your love as You call us back to Yourself and teach us lessons that help us endure.
So today, with the sun so bright and the day before me to create, please let me smile at the future because I have learned to learn from the past. In spite of the instability of Your children, You are always stable, and You give us the strength to endure.
My reflections from 2007 when I was back in the US for Thanksgiving for the first time in many years…
Yesterday Kim, one of my oldest and dearest friends, dropped by my parents’ house and we sat in their den—the same den we had sat in almost 40 years earlier as little girls. I put on a CD as we reminisced and caught up on the lives of our children, our siblings, our parents. I asked Kim to listen to one song in particular from Josh Groban’s new Christmas CD. Soft strands began to fill the room with the beauty of Panis Angeliscus.
“Do you remember this?” I asked. “I know every single one of the words of this Latin hymn to God’s glory.”
“Yeah, I remember you singing it while we cleaned out our horses’ stalls.”
Photo by Teddy on Pexels.com
“But think further back. Don’t you remember? We played this song—our first flute duet—in 5th or 6th grade. We weren’t good at all, but for some reason, there we were standing on stage in the assembly hall, terrified and playing a very simplified version of Panis Angelicus.”
And Kim nodded. She remembered. Thirty-five years of memories we share, and I am so thankful for that today on Thanksgiving.
I am thankful that I can share a meal with my extended family for the first time in 9 years, back on American soil for Thanksgiving.
I am thankful that my college-age son can share this moment with me.
I am thankful that by email and internet and phone lines I can be connected to my other family—the men in my life who are far across the ocean in a land that doesn’t celebrate Thanksgiving.
I am thankful that I can sit beside my 94-year-old grandmother and help her sip Coke from a straw in a plastic cup, her eyes a glassy blur, her body slumped forward in the wheelchair, oblivious to all that is around her until, once in a while, a flash of recognition lights her eyes and she is once again here with us.
I am thankful that I can ask the blessing and speak of Jesus and have no fear of being arrested, or perhaps killed.
I am thankful that my parents are here with me, having stuck together through 50 years of ups and downs.
I am thankful, so thankful, for my husband who awaits me in France, who loves me deeply and purely and that we are indeed one.
I am thankful that we have more than enough to eat this Thanksgiving Day, but how I wish we could eat it more slowly, savor each dish that has been prepared, take our time and eat leisurely and sip good wine and leave the table satisfied but not stuffed and groggy. I wish the dessert would wait for an hour or two to be served and that tea and coffee would come after and people would stay a little longer. And in saying this, I realize that a part of me is indeed French.
I am thankful for the plenty I have always known, but I am also thankful for lean years, and suffering, and times of great doubt and darkness and things that didn’t go my way. I am thankful for the little ways I can relate to others’ lives, not through fame and glory but through stark humanness.
And I wish, how I wish that America did not seek so much the big and beautiful and rich and powerful. I wish that we Americans could step outside of ourselves and our country and our culture and see how very, very fat we are. Fat on food, on opportunity, on consumerism, on selfish waste, on superficial striving. There is so much that is great about America, but sometimes as I sit in France and look across the ocean, I am saddened to see the enormous mountain of success sinking into the ocean, far, far away. Sinking from our success and greed and naiveté. Sinking from overspending and credit and fads and stress and hurry, always hurrying to accomplish much.
I walk around the block on the street where I grew up, and I feel wonder at the beauty of this neighborhood and sickness at the same time. Huge, massive monstrous houses are replacing the ones I knew. A ten bathroom, seven-bedroom mansion across the street rises in testimony to gluttony.
The disparity continues—those who have way too much and those who will never have enough.
Oh, Lord, let me always be thankful and let me not be proud and let me remember that I have had so much, so much, and not judge others for their greed, but somehow, somehow, let me communicate a message of love and simplicity to others. If we would but simplify, get rid of junk, reach out again, how much better America could be. We can learn again, and I pray we will. Before it is too late.
What do you think of my reflections about America from 10+ years ago?
Inspired as I walked through the woods around my former high school campus in November
~Atlanta was in the midst of a serious drought and so was a dear friend of mine~
During the Drought
I think the leaves are brighter for the drought,
Their canopy of color overhead—
Luminous orange, feisty red, burnt yellow—
Shuddering or applauding in the breeze.
The creek crawls slowly far below the path.
Perhaps the leaves worked harder to find drink;
Deeper, deeper the roots, searching for life,
Drink their fill and then the trees explode in
Exuberant boasting—their vibrant flash
Of color sizzling into my memory,
A happy burn.
The maple does not watch the oak beside,
With iridescent flames of orangey red,
And compare them with its own crimson leaves.
Nor does it know its gorgeous garb of red,
A holy proclamation.
Too busy with its arms outstretched to God—
Creator of splendor, Giver of life—
Those sparkling limbs offset by cobalt sky,
Offering praise to God who reigns on high,
And then when leaves float softly to the path,
Painting it with hues for squirrels and deer,
And limbs are bare,
The tree waits patiently for its rebirth.
So let me be, dear Lord, ever reaching
Deeper into You to find, in my drought,
My nourishment in the soil of Your Word.
For the dryer it seems, the deeper I must reach
Until I am like the oak or maple,
Bright and resplendent, a testimony
Of your grandeur, and I do not see it
Or others, nor care, so focused am I
Upon Your face,
My leaves a gentle ripple of applause
For Who you are.
~ Elizabeth Goldsmith Musser, November 2007
Reflections from Fall, 2007, when I spent 7 weeks in the States.
The flight attendant announced while we were waiting at the gate that the electrical system on the plane seemed to have malfunctioned and that there would be no music, no movies, nothing on the long flight over the ocean. She told us to get to know our seatmate and buy something to read.
I have loved this silent flight. No announcements from the captain, no TV screens flickering, no bells making noise. I don’t know why. It has been so nice and simple, I guess. Not that I slept. I have been too high on adrenaline these past weeks to sleep. I suppose when I finally get to my bed and collapse, I will sink into a wonderful slumber. This is what I hope and pray.
But a silent flight is just a glimpse at what could be if we could turn off technology and progress for a little while. Oh, it must move forward and for many things, this is good. But still, I long for simplicity and appreciation and recognition that what we have is enough, much more than enough. It is hard to live in America and not consume. Very hard.
In Lyon, I can be at home and be satisfied. In America, everything reaches out and tempts me to buy it—the junk food, the clothes, the music, everything, and none of it is needed.
I am so happy to be going home.
As always, I am thankful too for the time in the States. Almost seven weeks and once again, even as I preach simplicity to myself, I have crammed every waking hour with activity. I have once again been squeezed out in every possible way.
I hope and pray it was for worthwhile things, Lord. You know that. You have taken me on a trip back into myself. I have visited so many, many places and people that were part of my past.
Yesterday was the culmination—the first time I went to the ring and watched Mom riding Greta. Then I too climbed aboard this mare and I was transported back to the days of my youth with the deep blue sky and the rustling leaves, red and yellow and orange, dancing around the ring and the smell of horse and leather as my legs gripped the saddle. Riding.
Westminster and Vanderbilt and Lookout Mountain and Columbia and friends in training at International Teams headquarters in Chicago and teammates from France and much more—it has all been here to mix with family in Kentucky and Atlanta. Mix and stir around and around, my head is swimming. It is how I like it, I suppose, the intermingling with so many friends and family.
I take it with a huge gulp of thankfulness and ask You to remind me again and again of Your provision, in every situation. And when I am cramming and controlling on my own, without You, will You please take away the technology, the things of life, and let me soar with You again on one more silent flight?
Have you ever been on a silent flight? How did you like it?
I wrote this journal entry five years ago, but I needed the reminder today.
Psalm 139: 7-12
Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Lord, this morning as I did the Lectio Divina from this psalm, the words ‘flee’ and ‘darkness’ jumped out at me. I was discouraged with this, because I love the beauty of this psalm and the truth in it that I cannot flee from You and that darkness is light to You.
But as I continued to read, I had all the images of You caring for me, in spite of me feeling darkness or wanting to flee. I don’t usually want to flee from You, but sometimes I have such an image of fleeing from all the demands of this life and being alone, alone, alone with You on a beach with all the time in the world to write about all that You have let me live.
Yesterday we spent about 10 hours on the train from Bucharest, Romania to Stara Zagora, Bulgaria, with one change. Paul had spoken of the great 1st class train he’d been on in Ukraine so he’d asked for our colleague to get us first class tickets. But forty-five minutes after pulling our luggage all over town (even though we’d been told that the train station was only five minutes away from where we’d parked), we arrived just in time to find the train and hop on. Second class. Very, very second class. A compartment with 8 seats.
My heart sank and I said (more like demanded!), “Paul, I want you to change us to first class!” Oh, my wicked little heart.
Of course, there was no changing and no buffet on the train, but we did have a little food with us for the long ride. And water. Thankfully my smart hubby had gotten water.
And there were gross bathrooms. Of course. But it could have been worse, lots worse.
And gradually, it became okay, Lord. I settled in, and we had the compartment to ourselves except for one man who left early on. And You were there with us, in that compartment with the weathered and cracked orangish brown leather seats and the faint smell of cigarette smoke and the chill of November.
I know You are always with me. I love that You surround me, You know my thoughts before I say a word, that You won’t let me get away from You. As the praise song says, “Oh, no, You never let go, through the calm and through the storm. Oh, no, You never let go, in every high and every low. Oh, no, you never let, Lord, you never let go of me.”
As we took the train into Bulgaria, there was the most gorgeous sunset just boasting outside the window for many miles, smiling at me. How marvelous is Your creation, so much more beautiful than anything we can come up with, Lord! And You were allowing me to enjoy it from my seat on an old Bulgarian train, jostling through these post-Communist countries where there used to be such fear.
As I watched, I thought again, “Lord, if You have given me the gift of writing and also the gift of seeing other worlds, then somehow again You will give me the time to write about these things, will allow me to hand out this beauty and depth and care to others.
I am eternally thankful that I cannot get away from You—not on a Bulgarian train with dirty bathrooms and faded upholstery and the sun setting so brilliantly outside the window, just in case I forget.
How has the Lord reminded you recently that He will never let go of you?
I wrote these reflections several years ago when I was recovering from burnout:
Lectio Divina—Isaiah 9: 2-4
2 The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.
3 You have enlarged the nation
and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as warriors rejoice
when dividing the plunder.
4 For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
you have shattered
the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.
There are so many lovely, strong words in this passage, Lord, but the one that strikes me is ‘shattered’—as in ‘shattered the yoke that burdens them’.
I think so much of my spiritual journey has been You shattering the yokes that burden me. The yokes of perfectionism, of false guilt, of shame, of ‘doing enough’ and ‘being enough’, the yoke of comparison and control.
I love how the people living in darkness see a great light. And Lord, You are my great Light. You have come into my darkness again and again and again throughout my life. So in this season, as I rest and wait and write, I open my hands and let You shatter.
Shatter is a very strong, violent word. I think it helps me view Your power as so much stronger than the lies of the enemy or the whispers in my mind. You shatter. I think of the verses in Matthew about Your yoke being easy and Your burden light. But here in these verses You are shattering a different yoke—one that is a burden—the bar across the Israelites’ shoulders, the rod of their oppressor.
It seems like You have to get violent with us at times. Like C.S. Lewis says—pain is Your megaphone. You have to shake us up, shake away all that is clinging to us, so that it will only be You. You alone.
So dear Lord, shatter again any false yoke so that I can take up Your easy yoke, the one that You share with me. The one that will never be too heavy or overwhelming because it comes from You, and You carry it with me.
I also read Colossians 3 today, another favorite passage, and especially the part about being thankful (v. 15). And here in this passage in Isaiah 9, the people are thankful. They rejoice because they have seen a great light. They have seen You! So today, may my heart burst with gratitude and thankfulness as I worship the ‘Shatterer of False Yokes’.
Then I read I Thessalonians, an epistle that usually uplifts me. But as I read of Paul’s love for these believers and the way he lived among them, I felt failure—like I haven’t lived among the people we serve in the same way. It’s not the first time that those verses have brought on guilt and hurt.
Fortunately, You kept reminding me as I read to ‘stay in the present’ and shake off the yoke of the enemy’s lies. And as I did this, You reminded me of the wedding I just attended where many girls and women I’ve been able to encourage and serve in these past years actually came up to me and thanked me for the role I’ve played in their lives. That has happened through Your strength as I wear Your yoke.
Forgive me, Father, when I take on a yoke that is not mine. Please, Lord Jesus, move me past shame and guilt to freedom again today. Just for today, staying in the present with You.
What yoke that you’re bearing do you need the Lord to shatter today?
Lord, it happened again today. That quickening in my spirit as I came to Your Word. Today I get to read one of my favorite chapters in all of the Bible! Oh, I guess I could read it every day, if I chose. But today it’s the next chapter in my daily reading.
At last.
The first half of Isaiah can get pretty heavy. So much so that I stopped reading it for a while. Endless curses pronounced on faithless Israel. Yes, with a sprinkling of hope. But even some of my favorite verses in the first part of Isaiah are hopeful if I only read half the verse:
“In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength…”
The rest of the verse tells the whole story:
“but you would have none of it.”
Ugh!
Anyway, I’d finished the part of Isaiah that details some of Hezekiah’s reign. I like him so much. I mean he was a really, really good king. He turned the people back to You, Lord. He trusted You, and You gave miraculous victories. He honored and loved You. And all was well.
Until…
That subtle pride seeped in after You granted him healing from an incurable illness, giving him fifteen more years of life. He was thankful, so thankful. But he let down his God-guard and in a moment of weakness, showed all his wealth to foreigners. He bragged, Lord. And that goof would bring about Judah’s exile. Eventually.
That part of Hezekiah’s story always scares me. He’s been faithful all his life and then he slips up, and it has devastating consequences. Oh, Lord, keep me faithful until the end, by Your power and grace. I know it’s not my own.
And another thing that Hezekiah does at the end of his life makes me wince because I could so easily do the same: “Then Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ‘The word of the Lord that you have spoken is good,’ for he thought: There will be peace and security during my lifetime.”
The traitor! The lowdown scum! He doesn’t care that his sin will bring horror for generations to come. For his kids and grandkids and so much more. He only cares about himself. His comfort.
Oh, Hezekiah.
Oh, me.
Please Lord, purify my heart again and again so I won’t end up letting pride steal away the wisdom You’ve grown in me by Your Spirit. Protect and guard me against myself.
And so I come to Chapter 40, and I breathe a sigh of relief and joy swells as I read those first two words: “Comfort, comfort…”
You’re going to make it right. You’re going to prepare a way for us, as Isaiah prophecies in verse 3.
And Your Word endures: “The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.” (v. 8) Oh, how that little verse spoke hope and joy to my troubled teenage soul.
Hang on, Lizzie. What God says is true.
I love the action verbs in verse 11 that describe what the Lord does for His people: He protects, he gathers, he carries, he gently leads.
And then in those last mighty verses in the chapter: if we trust Him, he renews our strength so that we can soar and run and walk faithfully after Him.
How does all this happen? It happens when we know. When we know.
Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been declared to you from the beginning? Have you not considered the foundations of the earth? God is enthroned above the circle of the earth… (v. 21)
God is enthroned and earth is merely his footstool. And He’s got it all under control. He knows that we’re like withering grass and fading flowers. But because we trust in Him, we get to remain forever. His Word keeps us. Jesus, the Word of God, keeps us.
He keeps us when our strength fails and we stumble and are weak. He keeps us not by our own strength, but by His.
As we trust in Him.
When I read those gorgeous verses at the end of the chapter, I see Eric Liddell running at the end of Chariots of Fire with the Word of God being narrated along with Vangelis amazing soundtrack. He trusts in the Lord, He obeys God, and he wins.
Israel is going to win. That’s what You say in Chapter 40. And I will win. I’ll make it faithfully home to eternity with You as I rely on You to give me the strength for each day. Some days I’ll be so high on You and Your Word that I’ll sore like an eagle. Some days I’ll run the race with endurance as Your Spirit fills up my lungs. And some days, most days, maybe, I’ll just walk, step by step, faithfully putting one foot in front of the other, not growing weary because You are the God who renews my strength.
You renew my physical strength to keep doing the work You’ve given me. But You also renew my emotional and spiritual strength as I work.
How is it possible? Just little ole me? I can ask that again and again and again.
And Isaiah simply whispers: Do you not know?
I’ve heard the expression ‘the Hound of Heaven’ for many years but wasn’t sure where it originated. So today I went looking and found the poem by Francis Thompson and then read the first chapter of John Stott’s Why I Am, in which Stott explains:
Francis Thompson was expressing what is true of every Christian; it has certainly been true in my life. If we love Christ, it is because he loved us first (1 John 4:19). If we are Christians at all, it is not because we have decided for Christ, but because Christ has decided for us. It is because of the pursuit of “this tremendous lover.”
But all this resulted from a rabbit trail. I was reading in Isaiah about two months ago. Then I decided I needed a break from gruesome prophecies for a while. I needed a dose of hope. Of course, Isaiah also offers some of my favorite hope-filled passages in Scripture, but I hadn’t gotten to those yet in my readings.
Anyway, after reading Ezra, Nehemiah, and Esther along with their accompanying prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, I wandered back to Isaiah yesterday, reading Chapters 30-33.
As I was fixing breakfast this morning, Paul asked me about Jesus cursing the fig tree in Matthew 21: 18-21. We had a long discussion about this and what Jesus meant by ‘if you have faith enough and do not doubt’ you can do the same thing as he did to the fig tree (i.e. make it wither) and much greater things. Good food for thought.
Then Paul left, and I sat down with my breakfast and my Bible and turned to Isaiah 34 to begin reading. First I decided to get out my commentary on Isaiah to read about a few troubling verses in Chapter 30—troubling and hopeful—so it took a little while until I finally began to read Chapter 34.
And then I stopped.
I only got to verse 4 before I had that feeling, Lord. The feeling that You, the Hound of Heaven, were after me. Here’s verse 4: “All the stars in the sky will dissolve. The sky will roll up like a scroll and its stars will all wither as leaves wither on the vine and foliage on the fig tree.”
And it made me almost gasp. The fig tree. Withered leaves. The very words Paul had read me a few minutes earlier. Yes, a different context, and yet…
In the poem The Hound of Heaven, the poet is being pursued against his will. But for me, I love how You pursued me as a child and have continued to ‘hound’ me throughout my life, like a sheepdog. It’s not that I need convincing of who You are for salvation. I’ve got that. But time and again, You remind me that You are right beside me, closer than breath, aware of my every move, of my morning conversation with Paul about fig trees.
Did You inspire him to read that chapter in Matthew and mention it to me so that I’d be encouraged when I read this chapter in Isaiah? Or vice versa? Or was it back two months ago when I stopped reading Isaiah for a while. Did your Spirit whisper ‘wait’ to my spirit so that today I’d be in this chapter when Paul was in that chapter?
It can get very complex, can’t it, Lord?
But this is what I see. What I mean. What I want to say: Thank You, precious Hound of Heaven! Thank You for Your relentless pursuit of Your kids. Even after we’ve relented and repented and run to You for decades, You still keep reminding us that You are right here, watching, caring, pursuing.
Last week it was with fasting and prayer. The way You brought up the idea in three or four unrelated ways, culminating in our pastor announcing a week of fasting and prayer.
And today, it’s the fig tree.
As an added wink from You, our own little fig trees are right now producing many, many figs, and we’ll serve some tonight, warmed in the broiler with goat cheese on top.
You are a God of endless detail, and a mind that blows my mind. You know everything about every one of us. And yet, even knowing all the details, good and bad, You love, You pursue, You hound us until we allow ourselves to be caught, like a sheep cornered and rescued by the sheepdog, not to be devoured, but to be returned to the flock, unharmed.
How has the Hound of Heaven pursued you? How are you aware of His intimate involvement in your life?
I have recently read two novels in which one of the protagonists is unreliable. The unreliable narrator is a term coined in the 1960s to refer to a narrator in a novel who gives false information, either through insanity, naiveté (as with a child) or deliberate lying. Having just finished Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train, I found myself enmeshed in their characters’ unreliable narration. Fascinated. Disturbed.
But before I read either of these novels, I myself contemplated writing a novel with an unreliable narrator. Perhaps I will. It’s a story with a great twist or two. A story I dreamed up because it was a story I could work myself into.
As I contemplated this, I came to a startling conclusion. I am an unreliable narrator. I don’t mean this in my novels. To date, I have presented protagonists who are pretty much telling the truth of what they see.
No, it’s not in my novels that I find unreliable narration; it’s in my life. I, in fact, am an unreliable narrator of my own life. That’s a little scary to admit, considering the above definition of unreliable narrators. That means either I am insane, naïve, or a liar. Ouch.
Surely not!
And yet, and yet. I repeatedly remember things in the past with a skew. I am very good at hearing ‘lies’, those whispers of the self-conscious that say what I’m doing isn’t good enough or the yanks of false guilt that throw cold ice on my best efforts. I think I am telling myself and others the truth, but in fact, I am not.
I am an unreliable narrator.
A case in point. I have just returned from a book tour in Holland in which I spoke in two churches and five bookstores, before fairly large crowds. But one bookstore canceled my signing because not enough people had signed up. So what do I tell myself about the whole book tour? Um, it wasn’t that great. Or to spiritualize it, God couldn’t really use me.
Ah, but he did. And it was ridiculous for me to narrate this successful tour as a failure.
Fortunately, I have a very reliable narrator in my life: the Holy Spirit. He knows truth and lies and he points out in my spirit when I have truly messed up. He convicts me of sin, no pudgy half-hearted feeling of unrest, but a sharp pang of guilt. So I must run to him constantly throughout each day so that my narration doesn’t become self-pitying or filled with debilitating self-criticism, as Eugene Petersen puts it (see I John 3: 20-21 in The Message).
Humans are, in and of ourselves, unreliable. We state truth from our own points of view. At different times in the history of the world, it has been in vogue to believe that all truth is relative. We can each make up our own truth. We can each narrate our own stories however we see fit.
But it doesn’t work. History is filled with the errors of men narrating their own lives to the hurt of others.
Reliable narration comes when my truth and God’s truth intersect. I come to him with my story—however I perceive that story—and then I let the Holy Spirit shed light on the real truth. Sometimes it is excruciatingly painful to admit. Other times it brings enormous relief. But almost always, the Holy Spirit shows me a part of myself or of the events I am remembering that are not in fact totally accurate.
I long to become a more reliable narrator of my own life. I long for my mind to race quickly to truth, to God’s Word, to confession and repentance, to grace.
I see progress over the past decades of being a child of God. And I know my story isn’t fully written, will not be fully written until eternity. And I also know that I can rely on the Great True Narrator to put adventure and twists into my story in a way that works for my sanctification, for my soul’s good.
That is the truth I hold onto in the midst of the unreliable whispers from the world and myself. That is the way I will finish the story. A story well-written and ultimately filled with truth.
Can you relate to this idea of being an unreliable narrator of your life? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
***Author’s Note: I wrote this journal entry several years ago, and the novel I was contemplating writing at that time is When I Close My Eyes. And yes, there is a bit of unreliable narration in the new novel=).
*Photos taken during my Dutch book tour during fabulous tulip season.
Elizabeth Musser 