“Why is the moon following us Daddy?”
“It only appears that way dear.”
I entered my weekend of retreat greeted by the sweetest story from the lips of a precious woman of God. She tells of a young girl in the back seat of her Dad’s car asking ”Why is the moon following us, Daddy?” And her Father explained in great detail Einstein's theory and other scientific details; trying to satisfy her question. To which she replied, with gratification in her voice, “Ok, Daddy.” After an hour more of driving, again she said, “Daddy, why is the moon following us?” This time her Daddy just smiled and said, “It only appears that way dear.”
Perhaps that this is how we can view Our Father, that He could try, and may have tried, to explain it all to us but our simple and small minds are unable to comprehend and we find ourselves asking “Why” over and over again, and the best answer He can lovingly offer is, “It only appears that way dear.”
I sat in the car, riding to the retreat, feeling the familiar draw of the Holy Spirit within my chest. My mind had found itself buried deeply in the throne room of this heart and there I stood, palms open, waiting for what was coming upon me. I knew it was Him, because I had not even known a season of mourning was owed until He stripped the armor from my body and breathed into me, “Let us prepare for surgery dearest Sarah.” I humbly laid down and with every nerve in tact felt as His masterful hand reached into my side and pulled out the thorn. As long as I had been waiting for it to be removed, I thought elation would be the first emotion I felt but instead, what felt like deep, deep sorrow welled up from within. A sorrow I knew the Holy Spirit felt and shared with my soul as I began to cry. I heard my own lip’s confess, “I will embrace this loss and mourn it with and through You beloved Spirit.” It isn’t a loss as maybe some would imagine. I hadn’t lost a life, a relationship, a job or any other tangible obvious thing. But instead I was losing a thorn, a thorn I had been asked to carry. A thorn that I had felt transform my spirit, my soul, my identity, my story....One that beautifully mingled a journey of pain, of struggle, of indifference, of wrestling, of absolute surrender, of trust, of faith, of revelation, and of identity into the most profound dance I have ever experienced! But today He was saying, “I am removing it from your rib sweet child and though your body has grown over its point and the flow of its shape has joined in harmony with your flesh, it is time for Me to take it out! It will be painful, but it must come out in order for your flesh to heal.”
So surgery began and I surrendered and wept as we walked through it! I knew He couldn’t explain it to me, I knew I would never understand! I knew that why was a question I needed to relent. That there was not an answer in this moment that would satisfy my soul and so He simply breathed once more, “It only appears that way dear.” The thorn held tight to my innermost parts, but He kindly cut away until it fell to the floor. So I grieved....and the women around me grieved with me, in silence and prayer. Most not even knowing what or why I was grieving. But the fragrant gift of silence the Spirit offered us all, left us in a room filled with raw heavenly expanse. The sweet story of the women at the grave of Jesus kept brushing up against my soul. That there they stood weeping and staring at an empty tomb, confused and disoriented. There was no understanding to be found! The promise had been so Alive, for so long, for these faithful women who spent much time in His divine presence, but now had appeared to be dead. The tomb that once held the promise was now empty. He was gone from that place. He was no longer where He was for all those years before. He had departed and there they stood bewildered; mystified at how and why all of this had happened as it had. So they wept and they mourned and they let every raw emotion fill the space between their lungs; as if they had known it was a necessary part of the process. Death and mourning precede resurrection; and Glory can be found woven throughout the thread of the entire process. So as I gazed down at my open wound, now missing the very thorn with which the skin had been held in tact for so very long, I wept. I felt. I painfully rejoiced in my utter uncertainty. I recognized that He was no longer there. He had moved; I didn’t know where. I guess as I stood there I even began to wonder if there was ever anything there at all. But quickly His gentle, loving hand moved in and massaged my heart with the reassurance that this is not about whether He was ever there; He was and I knew it! I had seen too much, heard too much and experienced too much of Him there to deny it! This was simply a time to mourn the loss of what was for so long His work space, and was now no longer. He thoughtfully revisited Abraham and Isaac with me, revealing a much more profound perspective. “Sarah I am right here and I was right there too. There is a reason you cannot make out within your own mind, that which I tell my children for a time one thing and then at a time of my knowing, I exchange it with something new. I desire for them to follow me no matter where I go. However they can get too attached to what I once said, and they will tend not hear what I am saying now. Imagine if Abraham argued with Me at the top of the mountain, “But You said this, I must do this, it must be this way. Because I am certain You said this.” As if he believed that this one Word from Me was the end all be all for his life; as if it were the measure of his entire relationship with Me. As if this happening just as he thought it would was somehow linked to who I was in his life. What if he was so bent on having and doing it right in his mind that this became the objective, and he missed or even rejected Me saying something new to him. Something like, hey don’t kill your son Abraham.”
Why are so many of us uncomfortable with this? With God saying in one moment one thing and then at another moment something completely different? I think it reveals to us our greatest fear; that we do not have God figured out. That we truly do not have the knowledge of the Tree of Good and Evil, and that, if we are honest, we hesitate to believe that the Tree of Life is enough for us. Our desire to give all things meaning sometimes overwhelms our ability to just be wherever He is. Because the beauty of all of these stories from the bible and our lives, is that God is in something new and more Glorious than the place He had first been encountered. It does not negate or minimize the previous encounter but it moves our perspective into a more remarkable encounter ahead. The retreat was so symbolic of how His healing works, He performed the surgery, mourned with me as He healed me, and then quietly invited me over to be washed by His merciful hands. As if to meet me where I stood and offer Himself once more as a sacrifice for my life, my sin, my pain and my struggle. And so in the moonlight of the night beneath all His creation, bare and vulnerable I entered the water and let Him wash over me. As I let my gaze move toward Him, willing to follow Him into the new places we would go, He quietly knelt down and continued washing away the fear, the doubt, the shame, the embarrassment, the judgement and the worry that was tied to where we had been.....setting me free to enter the new space with more joy, and trust and faith and awareness than I had ever known. You are so so good Healer, Father, Redeemer, Friend and Companion. I will go where you go and I will relent that when the moon seems to be following me home that maybe, just maybe it only appears that way....I will trust that the Son will rise with each new day to meet me when I wake with a new and more Glorious breath of Life. I will continue to fill my life to the brim with the water, but I will leave the wine making up to You....
Rest In Him sweet, sweet journeymen!!!
