How Turning Over Your Life Is More Crucial Than Returning to Life as Usual

I called my Mama today. It don’t matter how long it’s been since she folded my clothes—sometimes I just need my Mama. I can’t feel her hands through the phone. I miss her. I need her, but her voice will have to be enough.

Affection is not something she lavishes, but if you come into her arms, she won’t be the first to let go. Over the last few years I’ve made a habit of dropping my head into her lap, hearing her maternal voice hush, “What’s wrong, honey?” And tears get permission to say what words can’t, and I’m all of seventeen again.

That early, summer morning 39 years ago, I didn’t need to tell her I was pregnant. Sitting up in her bed, a small shade glowing from the nightstand, I saw fear in her face. Kneeling at her bedside, I lay my head in her lap. Her hands trembled in my hair as she surmised my news. I don’t remember our words, only the softness of my Mother’s midsection quieting the voices quarrelling in my head, her fingers gently unravelling my long, curly hair, wishing we could always stay this close.

How can we know when something enters our life with such a ruckus the power it has to nurture so many more tears of joy and laughter? 

We never know what’s coming next. We plan and dream, work and wish but who can add one single hour to their list?

After the Messiah poured like wine and broke like bread a whole new body rose from the dead. A body made for believers. Cause ya know…God is body building. Using us. There is this amazingly beautiful holy gathering of His flesh and bones He calls His people. And we are contrasting and assorted, scattered, broken pieces, found and refined into a perfect man named Jesus.

A Building even the crowd of hell cannot overcome.

But there’s one firm fact about God’s glory. One big blasted reason why they walked away from Jesus. They couldn’t turn away from their own way.

The storm of guilt makes us hide—afraid all we’ll ever face is the bloody cross of our own shame. But here’s the whole burning truth, “God, who is rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.” There’s nothing Jesus can’t take away to take us in. There’s nothing Jesus didn’t give away to make us His.

The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world…takes away…He doesn’t make you pay.

Going to our knees before the One who already knows where we’ve been, is the only way we laugh in the end.  I get it…sin is a monster to admit. But lugging around this pride makes a girl want to quit. And life is only getting harder, not hard like a rock, hard like a hit and run. But birth in the Spirit is like first light to one born blind. Understanding stretches farther than it’s ever gone. Hearts tune into things above. Present sufferings can’t hold a candle to what’s coming ahead. Our citizenship switches to heaven, where we’re no longer constituted as “We the people” but “We Your people.”

God knit us in our Mother’s womb so Jesus could raise us from this deadly tomb. Born again. Not of man and woman, but He who is the head—firstborn from the dead. A body begotten to a living hope. Though grief ensues, our soul still sings over an inheritance indestructible and unstained that cannot fade or be taken away. No longer slaves to sting but children of the risen King.

“Draw near to God and He will draw near to you.” Rest your head on the loving lap of the Abba, Father. Hear His eternal voice hush, “Fear not for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.”