Stains

 Isaiah 1:18 

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the Lord, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.

The stain in the above photo is on my desk calendar. It's a tea stain; stained every page from February to December. I actually thought it was kind of interesting...looks a bit like a heart shape. I'll probably turn it into a background for one of my ATC cards because a fellow crafty friend of mine has repeatedly shown me how such things that we'd normally throw away can be turned into interesting pieces of art. 

Stains

They come in all shapes and sizes and colors...they're usually something most of us prefer to avoid...more often than not, they ruin something...and unless you're lucky or a talented household engineer with fantastic knowledge of just the right stain removing recipe, they often make the stained object worthless for anything except the trash bin. 

What happens when the stained object is something of great value? Something we just can't throw away? A beautiful dress, a family heirloom quilt, historic documents, the family Bible. What if the stain isn't that easy to remove? What about stains that can't be treated with a laundry recipe? What about stains to the heart? What about a stained life? What about two lives...or what about a stain on an entire family? How do you deal with those kinds of stains? Is it possible for something so horribly stained to become something of beauty?

                                         Those kinds of stains

                                                 are deep

                                               and painful

And in the middle of the night while trying to sleep on a tear stained pillow, we know those kinds of stains may fade over time but will forever have colored our lives and there is just no way to make it go away. 

The week isn't anywhere near over and yet it's been very long as we struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible...the unthinkable. If I could only go back in time...could I have done something...anything to make this story have a different ending? If I could, would I? Probably...is that the best thing? I don't know. Is that a slap in God's face...to basically say I would have done it differently, my life wouldn't have turned out this way if I was is charge. Do you really know what you're doing? Oh my, that wasn't my intention when I was thinking that, but that's where that kind of thinking goes. 

 In her book One Thousand Gifts Ann Voskamp writes,

 "Maybe you don't want to change the story, because you don't know what a different ending holds." There's a reason I am not writing the story and God is. he knows how it all works out, where it all leads, what it all means. 

                                    I don't."

"Maybe...I guess...it's accepting there are things we simply don't understand. But He does. And I see. At least a bit more. When we find ourselves groping along, famished for more, we can choose. When we are despairing, we can choose to live as Israelites, gathering manna. For forty long years, God's people daily eat manna--a substance whose name literally means 'What is it?' Hungry, they choose to gather up that which is baffling. They fill on that which has no meaning, More than 14,600 days they take their daily nourishment from that which they don't comprehend. They find soul-filling in the inexplicable. They eat the mystery. And the mystery, that which made no sense, is 'like wafers of honey' on the lips." 

I read the chapter containing this paragraph just days before the unthinkable, incomprehensible stain was made evident. Now I wonder...is it possible? Is it that this mystery, this stain, this loss might somehow be able to nourish me? My family? 

Ann continues..."I wonder too...if the rent in the canvas of our life backdrop, the losses that puncture our world our own emptiness, might actually become places to see. 

                                          To see through to 

                                                   God. 

That which tears open our souls, those holes that splatter our sight, may actually become the thin, open places to see through the mess of this place to the heart-aching beauty beyond. To Him. To the God whom we endlessly crave. 

Maybe so.

But how? How do we choose to allow the holes to become seeing-through-to-God places? To more-God places? How do I give up resentment for gratitude, gnawing anger for spilling joy? Self-focus for God-communion. To fully live- to live full of grace and joy and all that is beauty eternal. 

It is possible, wildly."

Really??? Is it possible? To feel joy again? Happiness? Peace of mind and soul and heart? Is there anyway God can be glorified in this MESS? 

The pain, the guilt, the fear...it all gripped me like a vise. I wasn't able to pray...I could barely breathe in and out. 

And then today...I sighed a prayer...God, please heal this, please bring restoration, please be glorified, please fix this.

It was a simple prayer...

it's all I could dredge up from my shattered soul and suddenly it came. I've heard of people testify of peace coming over them, but I've never felt it in such a profound way in my own life...not like this. Suddenly... and I do mean suddenly, the three day old headache was gone, the what-ifs and whys stopped spinning around in my head at dizzying speeds and the guilt...that horrible guilt...it faded and I was able to think more clearly without choking on tears every few minutes. I was able to move through my day and actually function and do my job. God told me I had done the best I could with the knowledge and resources I had available to me at the time and it was not my fault...it was not my fault. We will deal with the pain together...He will be there...He is here. 

I know the pain will come again, the tears will flow again...this story is not over and the restoration process has not yet really even begun, but I believe God will put His loving arms around me again when the time comes and help me endure. I will continue to struggle to trust God to bring nourishment from this that I do not comprehend and I must trust Him that love will win out, that He promises to  be with us because...

                    Jesus paid it all, 

                     all to Him I owe; 

                         sin had left a crimson stain,

                               He washed it white as snow.