His Voice

In the beginning, His voice filled the silence.  His smallest whisper called forth substance from nothingness.  When He spoke, waves swelled and crashed against shore, mountains thundered forth from the deep, and galaxies burst into being.

At His word, the universe was formed; and by His word, He sustains it all.

Upon His continued command, planets spin, birds take flight, lightening flashes, and lungs draw breath.

It is at His charge that day follows night; it is by His decree that winter gives way to spring.

His voice alone commands the demons, heals the sick, beckons the dead, and quiets the storm.

                       

The simple utterance of His own holy name throws an army of soldiers to the ground.

And as His body hung broken, weighted heavy with the sin of the world, the same voice that had birthed the cosmos sounded the final victory cry:

"It is finished!"

At His declaration, the earth quaked, rocks were split, graves were opened, dead men walked, the veil of separation was torn in two, and the purchase of our freedom was complete.

The whole of creation answers back:

"And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying:  'Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!'"  (Revelation 5:13)

Have you lifted your voice and joined the universal chorus?

The Great Exchange

I know who I am.

I've seen beneath my fragile wrappings, and I know the depths of me.  I'm not blind; I will not close my eyes.  I have seen the swirl of inky darkness within myself, and I know what it means.

I'm ravaged, like all the rest.  It only took one invitation for evil to enter the world, and when it did, it devoured everything.  Whatever loveliness once existed, whatever joy or hope, is gone.  Now, there is only darkness.

The very first of us believed a lie, and every one of us since has fallen for it as well.  The same lie still hisses from the serpent's mouth into every ear:  It is not enough.  We bought the lie, and it ruined everything.  I bought the lie, and it ruined me.  This is all that remains.

I know who I am.

I am Eve, the rebel, who shattered the entire world with her own two hands.

I am Rahab, the sinner

          Ruth, the outcast

                    Tamar, the desperate

I am Mephibosheth, the orphan

          David, the fallen

                    Peter, the coward

                              Saul, the destroyer

I am the lost Ethiopian

          the broken Prodigal

                    the guilty Adulteress

The lie I believed has become my identity:  I am not enough.  I am shrunken and wasted, far less than what should be.  All that remains is what I am not.

And this was to be my end...until the day that He came for me.

The great I AM, the One who is everything, came and offered an exchange:

He would take my sin

          my brokenness

                    my darkness

                              my insufficiency

                                        my death

And, in exchange, He would give me His righteousness

          His wholeness

                    His light

                              His sufficiency

                                        His life

With shaking hands, I gathered up the wretchedness that I had become, timidly placed it in His arms, and watched Him take it to the cross.  There, the sky turned black as He bore the hell that I had created.  His death paid my ransom.  And as life returned to His lungs that resurrection morning, true life filled mine for the first time.

The exchange is complete, and I know who I am.

I am Eve, returned to the Garden

I am Rahab, the rescued

          Ruth, the redeemed

                    Tamar, the blessed

I am Mephibosheth, the adopted

          David, the cleansed

                    Peter, the restored

                              Paul, the called

I am the enlightened Ethiopian

          the returned Prodigal

                    the forgiven Adulteress

He has called me by name, and I am His.

I know who I am.  My name is Grace.

"For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."

~II Corinthians 5:21

"Eggs"-treme Easter Sports

The challenge:

Drop a raw egg from the second-story deck onto the grass or pavement, without sustaining breakage.




The contestants:

My father
His egg was suspended from a helium-filled balloon in an adorable little crate that he fashioned by hand. Always the engineer, he filled his crate with expanding foam, leaving a perfectly-formed "nest" for his egg in the center. Nice work, Dad!

My mother
A creative mastermind. This little springtime baby was gently cradled in a flower-wreathed basket, and hung from a sunny beach ball. (Which, incidentally, was not filled with helium.) Lovely job, Mom!



My husband
Claiming to have modeled his creation after NASA's landing package for their Mars rovers, he surrounded his egg with balloons. Very effective approach. Impressive work, honey!



My mother-in-law
As a woman who loves the children in her life to the ends of the earth and beyond, it was only fitting that she chose to cushion her egg within an Elmo bath sponge. In my opinion, Elmo should have taken a dive off a two-story deck ages ago. Fabulous idea, Mom!



My father-in-law
Toilet paper, duct tape, and a Harley-Davidson ("Egg"-idson, in this case) parachute...what else could a guy possibly need?! An egg drop package that doubles as a wilderness survival kit! Nicely done!



Myself
I decided to drop my egg in royal style. There's no sense meeting your death in anything less than your best, after all. Long live the queen!



My oldest daughter
She hid herself in the basement while at work, to carefully conceal her design until the appointed drop time. My only rule was that the children had to enclose their eggs within sealed plastic baggies before packaging them. (I wasn't born yesterday!) This child chose to surround her egg with socks and bubble wrap, place it within this lovely Christmas tin, and seal it all with duct tape. Very resourceful!



My son
He knew exactly how he wanted to package his egg as soon as the challenge was issued. Daddy helped a little with the parachute construction (garbage bag + needlework hoop). Ingenious design!




My middle daughter
She decided to cushion her egg within her beloved pillow pet, Bella. Bella was then placed carefully within a Target bag to avoid losing her grip on her precious cargo while in flight. Well-planned, babe!



My youngest daughter
She took one look at her fluffy Santa slippers, and just knew that they would work perfectly. A jolly package!



My grandma
She chose to place her tender charge within a cloud of stuffing. Pretty and functional - nicely done!



My hubby's grandma
Bubble wrap. The time-tested standard for effective padding. I love how this egg also seemed to be diving for a cause. Very thoughtful!



My uncle
He wrapped his egg in netting from a "cuties" crate, and attached it to a parachute cut from a plastic shopping bag. Boy Scout worthy! (He wasn't completely convinced of the effectiveness of the parachute, so he brought along an egg wrapped in bubble-wrap as a back-up.)



My cousin
If it's good enough for UPS, it's good enough for him. His egg was carefully contained within a box full of styrofoam packaging peanuts. A solid plan, Ace!



The time for the competition finally arrived.

Bring. it. ON!!

The contestants took their places along the railing, and sent their charges plunging off the edge.

We quickly sustained our first casualty. The spring baby was violently jolted from her basket upon impact, and met her untimely demise on the pavement.



Tucker became the self-appointed clean-up crew.



When he wasn't licking up raw egg, Tucker entertained himself by playing fetch in the barely-above-freezing lake...for hours. Crazy mongrel. And I feel the need to add that traveling home inside a truck with a lake-soaked dog really stinks. Literally.



Many of our eggs made it safely to the ground, but the clear winner (based on design, function, and all-around risk-taking) was my uncle. His previously untested parachute opened with a perfect "phloof", and with gentle grace, floated his fragile egg down for a 10-point grass landing. We all stood in awe of his egg-dropping prowess, and he was promptly awarded the coveted golden egg.


Great fun was had by all! And next year, we've decided to raise the standard: everyone's egg must be visible. All of us that chose to bury our eggs within 3 feet of padding are going to have to re-think our strategy for next year! I'm thinking on how I could work out some sort of glider system...

Easter 2009

This is SICK!!! This is the loot that our 4 children walked away with this year - a full gallon-sized bag of candy for each of them! As their parents, we are only responsible for about a TENTH of this mess! Besides their Easter baskets, they raked it in from the church Easter egg hunt, our extended family Easter egg hunt, 4 grandparents, 2 great-grandmothers, and pretty much anyone else who happened to be walking by! Note: these bags do NOT include all the candy they INGESTED yesterday!!

Needless to say, our 4 children will be on a sugar high for the next YEAR! (Well...arguably, that won't look any different than their normal behavior...either way, LOOK OUT!!!)

We had a wonderful Easter. We went to the early service at our church, and our two oldest children came into "big people service" with us. On Good Friday, our three oldest children came into the service with us because childcare stopped after age 4. It was then that we determined our kindergartner does not have the capacity to sit still quietly for 2.3 seconds, let alone an hour, and we're pretty sure she won't develop that skill until she's around 43 years old. So, she got booted into Sunday school along with her younger sister on Sunday! :-) It was really neat to have our two oldest go through the whole Easter experience at church with us - the dramatic change from Good Friday to Easter Sunday morning. Our oldest daughter took communion for the first time on Good Friday this year. She asked Daddy if she could, he peppered her with a whole bunch of questions about what it meant, she aced his test with flying colors, so we decided she was ready. Pretty special.

Both sides of our families gather in one big group for major holidays - one of the many positive aspects of having grown up with your spouse! We all piled into my husband's parent's house and had a fabulous time together. After dinner, all the kids did a big egg hunt outside - beautiful weather for it! Probably the highlight of the day for me was when my father-in-law gathered all the children in a circle around him on the floor and they did the Resurrection Eggs together (a set of 12 eggs that each contain a little trinket that helps tell the Biblical account of Easter.) It was neat to see the kids answer his questions, and tell the Easter story in their own words. One of those parental moments where you start to think that maybe, just maybe, you might be doing something right after all!!

We hope you had a wonderful Easter this year too, celebrating our chance at eternal life!

Alone

Something stands out to me when I think about Good Friday from Jesus' perspective. He was very, very alone.

I hate to be lonely. I enjoy solitude well enough, but I don't like the feeling of truly being alone - I think it has something to do with the idea of identification. I don't necessarily need someone to be physically with me in a given moment, but I need to know that there are people who understand me...who connect with me...who live life on the same vibe I do, and who experience what I experience.

There were a lot of people around as Jesus walked the path to the cross, but He was very much alone. No one in the world could have resonated with Him in those moments. No one had ever done (nor will ever do) what He was about to do. The disciples were...somewhere else. Judas had completely betrayed Him, Peter had denied Him, Scripture doesn't even mention where the rest of them are. The closest was probably John. The gospel of John records that Jesus spoke, from the cross, to John and His own mother briefly. Matthew, Mark and Luke record that all His other followers and acquaintances were watching "from afar" or "from a distance." I imagine that most of His followers probably ran in fear. I certainly wouldn't want to be identified with someone who was being crucified!

Jesus' mother and His best friend tried their best to be there for Him, but is there any way that they could have understood what He was going through? I doubt it. There was no one there to truly share His pain, to share His burden, to lend support. The only One who could begin to understand would have been His Father. I can't imagine what it did to Jesus' spirit when the Father was forced to turn away as well.

Alone. Terribly, awfully alone.

Jesus was literally taking the weight of the world on His shoulders. He endured the wrath of God for our sin. No one else could do it. No one could help Him.

It strikes me from a spiritual standpoint. By all natural rights, I stand before the Father alone as well. I am blessed with more than one person in life who resonates deeply with me. People who really understand who I am, love me anyway, and live life on my vibe. They are Godly people, whose faith I admire. But not one of those people can stand by my side when I stand before God. Not my husband. Not my two dearest friends, who I count as sisters. Not any one of my four parents. I don't stand before God in the company of my church, or my Bible study. When God turns His eyes upon me and sees me for who I truly am, I stand alone. And it's not enough.

The beauty of the cross is that it shattered what should be. My alone-ness is part of the penalty for my sin that Jesus paid for that day. Jesus identified with me more deeply than anyone else ever could when He took my sin upon Himself and died in my place. He became what I should have been. No one on earth can stand by my side when I face God at the end of this life, but I will not stand alone.

"...we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense - Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins..." (I John 2:1-2)

Jesus stands before God in my place. And, unlike me, Jesus is enough.