El Roi

I had already said goodbye, but she turned around one last time to wave at me. The little girl, having slowed her mom’s pace, suddenly lifted off the ground mid-wave, pulled up by the wrist as her mother spun her forward and brought her back in stride. I laughed: this three-year-old bundle of joy is incapable of saying goodbye only once; she says it again and again until we’re no longer in sight of one another. She and her mother are two of the transformed lives at Freedom Home. After her last goodbye, I stopped heading toward the car and stood where I was, watching them walk down the narrow street on their way home from church. They were about to cross a bustling intersection, thick with traffic, and a sudden sense of their fragility hit me. 

They looked so small. Single mother and daughter, two people out of about 700,000 in this city. To most, just two more nameless faces in the crowd. But two people glowing with rebirth and still stepping tenuously through the journey of restoration. The past three years they have spent at Freedom Home have been the most formative three years of their lives in terms of healing and growth. They’re beginning to see the world in color for the first time. I pray that nothing—neither their choices nor forces beyond their control—will break in and attempt to shatter God’s re-building work and slice their mending hearts. As they continued home and the distance between us grew greater, I worried for them. They just looked so…fragile. 

And then a phrase sounded in my mind: I am the God who sees.

It stayed with me through the drive home, and upon entering the house, I scoured my Bible for a reference matching what I had heard. Turns out it was uttered by another single mom. 

Hagar was alone. Once a maid, now she was wandering through the wilderness. Years before, she was forced to lay with her mistress Sarai’s husband—Sarai’s attempt to speed the fulfillment of the promise of a great and innumerable nation to be fathered by her husband. Her short-sighted problem-solving failed, at humanity’s expense, and when Hagar conceived, she hated Sarai. Soon it was mutual. Then the Bible says that Sarai “treated her harshly,” a phrase representing a Hebrew word that elsewhere in Scripture denotes affliction, oppression, and defilement. So Hagar fled. Pregnant and unwanted, she had nowhere else to go. She had been used and discarded. She was alone in the truest sense.

And God found her. 

She was by a spring in the wilderness, east of Egypt, and God found her. He invited her to tell Him her story. He gave her guidance in what to do. He made promises to her. But He didn’t tell her His name; she told Him. 

“She gave this name to the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me’” (Genesis 16:13). 

Many translations of this verse phrase her thoughts as a question, with some version of, “Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him?” (NASB)

She had heard that to see the face of God meant death. Following this thought line, even the most righteous, accomplished people had no chance of seeing the Lord; much less a chance had the servantgirl who had nothing. Was it even possible for Him to appear to her? 

 He didn’t come with a blaze of light, with a royal procession, or with a scepter to smite her. We don’t know how He came, but no grand entry is mentioned. And He must have spoken tenderly for her to be willing to answer Him. And Hagar, just a pawn in someone else’s dream, was given a promise for her own son.

Why?

Because God sees. Hagar didn’t just state the obvious; she stated the profound as well. 

God doesn’t just observe; He intersects our lives. He doesn’t just view our lives, watching them play out from some remote location; He walks through our lives with us.

The name “The God Who Sees” in Hebrew is El Roi [ell-roh-EE]. El is a word for God denoting might, strength, and power. 

It is significant to note when this seeing God saw Hagar. He didn’t see her at her best; He saw her at her lowest point. A runaway servant, she had nothing but the child inside her. Why would the strong, mighty, and powerful God, who sees all at all times, choose to reveal Himself when she was weakest? 

Because of His love.

He didn’t come to blast her with His glory or to tell her how and in what ways she was wrong. He came to save her life and give her hope for her future. 

Think of it: this all took place before the nation of Israel began. “God’s chosen people” did not yet exist. And yet He cared enough to meet with an Egyptian single mom. 

Of course. That’s always been His plan. 

God chose the Israelites to usher in His plan of salvation, but it was never limited to them only. By one nation, and one man from that nation, He gave new life to the entire world. 

With God’s intentions of world-wide redemption made clear, we can see that He tangibly crossed paths with her to save her. She meant everything to Him. 

And you mean everything to Him, too.

Today, as a result of Jesus’ death and resurrection, God’s chosen people, “the Israel of God” (Gal. 6:16), His sons and daughters in all parts of the world, are seen every day. 

-     -     -     -     -    

Because I am an English major, I have a slightly obsessive fascination with words. I value them, I pour them daily from my fingers because I want to, not because I have to, and I analyze their usage and origin. And sometimes, the usage of particular words rubs me the wrong way. Take the word random, for instance. 

In the last several years, this word has been heavily (over-) used by my generation. And let me tell you, we’re not often speaking mathematically, referring to randomly generated numbers on our homework sheets. I hear it incessantly used as an adjective: 

          “We were flipping to random pages in the yearbook and seeing if we knew anybody.”

          “Some random person asked me if I knew where the grocery store was.”

          “No, I’m free to hang out; I was just doing random stuff until you called.”
 

The definition of the adjective random is “lacking a definite plan, purpose or pattern.” In the first example, this definition fits. The yearbook pages weren’t predetermined; they were haphazardly chosen, without any real preference. Something random is something we come across on accident, something we didn’t seek out intentionally, and something obviously needing an additional adjective to describe it. 

The other two examples, however, don’t quite fit the denotation. How can people be random? Even if they do not know their purpose, that does not mean they were created without one. How can the things we choose to do be random? Random-ness excludes choice and intentionality. To my culture, random can equated with insignificance or the condition of not knowing beforehand. 

I say that to say this: with God, there is no “random” anything. Even though this word may permeate our sub-culture, we will do well to remember that to God, there is no person lacking a definite plan, purpose, or pattern. No one and nothing is random to Him.

Because God is the One Who Sees. 

We don’t have to worry about the others who see us, or about the ones who don’t see us but should. We don’t need to lament that our good deeds aren’t noticed. We have to resist the tendency to equate value with worldly recognition. Where the media can’t reach, God has already and always been. No people group, no sector of society is insignificant to God. All people, all places, all entities are seen equally by our Lord; do we think He gives more attention to some people and less to others?

God didn’t just find some random Egyptian girl in a desert. He met Hagar, a name He’s had on His lips since the beginning of creation, with a personalized message of life. 

God didn’t just randomly find you, some random person in some random place, and give you a smattering of knowledge about Him that you’re left to piece together and make sense of on your own.

He gives you His words. He gives you His heart. 

          “…Thus says the Lord, your Creator…and He who formed you, …Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are Mine! When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they will not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched. Nor will the flame burn you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior” (Isaiah 43:1-3a)[.] 

His love isn’t an extension of His sight; His sight is an extension of His love.

God sees His daughters in Moldova. God crossed the street with them that day and went home with them. Remembering that God sees them is remembering that He sees us when we are at our weakest, when we are fragile, when desperation threatens to overwhelm us.

When indecision overwhelms you, whisper that your God is the God who sees. When a sense of insignificance clouds your outlook, speak out that God is the God who sees. When you are burdened for those whom the world has discarded, declare that God is the God who sees. When injustice assaults, shout that God is the God who sees.

Seen,

Renée

When Old is New

“Doroga vroseeyoo. This means ‘Road to Russia.’” My tutor pointed to the textbook cover. “To know Russia, you must know Russian language.” 

And I also must know it to communicate in Moldova.

The first Russian person I ever met was my middle school piano teacher. A prolific musician, she fascinated me as much with her musical virtuosity as with her cultural background, and for the first time, I wanted to learn to speak Russian. I remember looking at the Cyrillic alphabet one day in hopes of learning to write to my teacher and turning away in dismay, daunted by symbols I had never seen. Now, ten years later, I try again, with mounting confidence.

Only sometimes I think I have too much confidence. That is, in attempting to speak Russian after having studied it for only six months.

I’ve learned quite a bit in those six months. I learned that I keep using the term of endearment for a man when I am trying to say the word another. I also keep mixing up the words next and last, which confuses my hearers considerably when I’m referencing days of the week. Once, I meant to tell my Russian teacher that I drink tea at cafés, but I ended up telling her that I’m an alcoholic. Another time, I meant to ask people to pray, but I ended up saying, “Let’s wash ourselves!” And another time, I meant to tell a friend that I understood what she told me about herself, but I ended up saying, “I’m sorry you’re fat.” 

Don’t ask.  

It’s incredible, the grace people show me up here.

From these snapshots of my journey on the “Road to Russia,” you can now see why I grow considerably overjoyed in the moments when I can communicate meaningfully. My excitement at these new linguistic connections is justified. And since they are few and far between, yes, they are still “new” to me.

Living in Moldova, I feel that I have plunged into a world of newness. But almost as soon as the sense of newness settles over me, truth breaks in, reminding me that all this is new only to me.

In America, my sense of “old” as pertains to buildings, streets, and traditions is circa 1776. But over here, “old” goes back into the AD 1000s. Even the city of Chişinău, where I live, was founded in 1436—that’s 340 years before the United States. It’s staggering for me to think that America’s been around about three centuries less than Chişinău has. 

The language, too, is nothing new.

Russian is ancient. Though it has undergone many variations, a form of Russian was recorded as early as 880 AD, when Old East Slavic was established as the official language uniting the ethnic groups in what are now Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus. Slavic gave way to Church Slavonic, which led to mediaeval Russian and eventually to the literary and conversational Russian used today. All in all, I’m not discovering anything truly “new” when I study Russian. It’s only new to me. 

Yet all too soon, newness wears off.  Enter familiarity. 

I am slowly growing accustomed to the pace of life in Moldova. Things that used to baffle me I can now pass by with a muted smile, or sometimes with no additional attention at all. And the Russian language, with its curlique-d alphabet, all too soon told me that its letters formed words which formed sentences which obeyed rules of grammar which are as foreign to me as their country of origin.    

The difficulty didn’t wane with the newness. Instead of remaining new and challenging, it morphed into being old and challenging.

And so I slipped into the delusion of thinking that to solve the depressing feeling of waning newness, I need something else that is new. 

When I first realized that studying Russian retained (nay, increased) a high level of difficulty, I had unvocalized urges to find some quick method of language-learning or begin afresh with a different language. Yes, I’ve studied second-language acquisition and the interaction of language and culture, both leading me to understand the process I’m undergoing, but sometimes the thing itself feels different in context than it sounds in academia.

Initially my thoughts were at odds as I struggled with the duality of systematically pressing on while still wanting a quick fix. When I wax languid, the last thing I want to hear is some version of “keep hanging in there!” All the quotes, rhymes, and ancient proverbs about trying harder that I can recall I can recite until I’m blue in the face, but when I’m trudging through difficulty, I crave something that will re-spark my passion—or at least lessen the load. And  when I reach that point, my tendency is to assume that I need something new.

Proof of this is what transpired during my recent Russian lesson. 

In February, I worked on a reading exercise in my Russian textbook which included a children’s story. I checked the cover of the book again. No, this book was definitely compiled for university students, not for younger kids. Why are we having ‘story time’? (Later I realized that a children’s story was chosen as a means of introducing learners to aspects of Russian culture while keeping the grammar simple.) 

After reading through the story, my tutor spoke again.

“You know zis story?” “Nyet.” “In our culture, very important part of life is story. We tell children story, and all children know. Zis is Russian story. You studied French, da?” “Da.” “Then you know story of frogs? Children’s story?” “Nyet.” “You not know? It is very famous, very interesting story. It is old, from Aesop, I sink. My parents tell me when I was little. I tell you.”  

Inwardly I chuckled: I’m twenty-three and my teacher wants to tell me a children’s story? 

She began speaking in Russian. My smirk fell and I began listening intently because I was afraid she was going to check for comprehension when she finished. I’ll include my own re-telling here (embellished with more words than I know in Russian):

One day, two frogs hopped through a farmyard. They vaulted all around the farm, joyously chasing one another. As they sailed through the air on a particularly big leap, they noticed a large milk pail ahead of them. Unable to slow down or speed up, they landed with a splash in the milk. The pail was deep, and the frogs could not jump high enough to get out. They kicked and kicked, but to no avail. When they stopped kicking, they sunk into the milk, unable to breathe. One frog said to the other, “I can’t kick anymore. And it’s no use. The pail’s too tall and the milk’s too deep. We’ll never get out.” “Don’t give up! Keep trying!” Exhorted the other frog, but his words were spent in vain: in his exhaustion, the first frog gave up, stopped kicking, and surrendered to death by suffocation. The other frog, seeing his friend’s death, shouted to himself, “I will not give up! I will not stop trying!” With labored breathing and tired legs, the frog continued moving. His kicking slowed to a snail’s pace, but he didn’t stop; he reasoned that some motion was better than no motion, in this case. Soon paddling became harder; he wasn’t sure if his legs were giving up or if the milk were becoming firmer. Soon, he knew that both were true: his legs were tiring, but the milk was definitely hardening. He was no longer swirling water as much as he was pressing his feet into a viscous substance. Then, the thing itself: he had churned the milk into butter! He marveled at the work of his feet and walked to the top of the butter heap. He turned round to take one last look at his friend, lamenting his preventable end. Then, he leapt with liberation out of the pail and into the world of the farmyard.     

And that was it. I sat there, staring at my tutor, wet-eyed and grinning. It wasn’t just the feat of translation my brain accomplished that filled me with ecstasy. 

It was the message of the story itself. What may have been a children’s bedtime story had spoken profoundly and directly to my situation.

I sit here, weeks later, pondering why that story had such a penetrating impact on me that day. Reflecting on those moments fills me with wonder but also with a sense of the ironic because everything about the situation was “old.” Old lesson format, old story, old moral. The language was a “new” package, granted, but underneath was the same message I have heard since childhood. As I sought “newness” as a solution, what really revived me was a returning to the old.

My tutor didn’t ask me comprehension questions that day. She knew by my reactions I had understood. She probably didn’t realize the profundity it carried for me, though, because I could tell by the look on her face that she was surprised at how well her re-telling was received.

And that’s okay.

-  -  -  -  -  

The day I heard the “Frog and the Milk Pail” story, I realized that I often mistakenly equate hearing a message with taking it to heart. And those are two entirely different things.

Sometimes we can hear a message for so long that our senses become deadened to the truth it carries. Maybe when we first heard it we had no frame of reference for its implications, so we misinterpreted it, or with the best of intentions we set it aside for a later time when we thought it would be more applicable. And then when areas of our lives need reviving, we search for a new message because the potency of the old has long faded. 

Sometimes what we need isn’t something new: it’s something old. The Israelites, our Scriptural model for God’s dealings with His people today, learned many a time about the potency of “old” words and concepts. The prophet Jeremiah sharply illustrates this lesson for God’s chosen people in the 35^th chapter of his book. The events in this chapter took place during the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, only a few years before Judah was invaded by the Babylonians. Throughout Jeremiah’s prophetic ministry, the people and leaders of Israel persisted in idolatry as God repeatedly warned them through his prophets that a time of judgment was coming. Jeremiah prophesied for around 40 years to his countrymen, filling up the longest book in the Bible with many of the same messages: the need for repentance, the threat of coming judgment, and the promise of restoration. In chapter 35, God contrasts the Rechabites’ obedience with Judah’s reticence to obey the messages they’d already been given.

The Rechabites, though not Israelites, were a nomadic people group on friendly terms with God’s chosen people, and many Rechabites lived with or at least near them. The Rechabites traced their lineage through Rechab, a Kenite (who came from Moses’ father-in-law). Rechab was the father of Jonadab, a pious man who aided King Jehu in destroying Baal worship in Israel. Zealous for the God of Israel, he laid out several injunctions for his people group, one of which was abstinence from wine.

God told Jeremiah to bring the Rechabites into the house of the Lord and give them wine to drink. The Rechabite men came, saw the wine pitchers, and refused Jeremiah’s offer, citing Jonadab’s words as their reason:

                “We will not drink wine, for Jonadab the son of Rechab, our father, commanded us, saying, ‘You shall not drink wine, you or your sons, forever’” (Jeremiah 35:6).

In verses seven through eleven, the Rechabites go on to explain other rules they observe because they “obeyed the voice of Jonadab the son of Rechab, [their] Father” and “ha[d] done according to all [he] commanded them” (vv. 8a, 11b). 

Roughly 250 years before Jeremiah prophesied, the pious Jonadab had set forth these guidelines. Jonadab was no longer living when Jeremiah brought the Rechabite men into the house of the Lord. His words? Pretty old.  

The Rechabites were obeying the words of a leader they had never met, but the Israelites were repeatedly rebelling against the words of the Lord their God who daily intersected their reality?

And that was God’s point. 

The age of the words doesn’t matter. The concepts they embody are still relevant and applicable.

Whether a truth-statement was spoken two millenniums ago or is uttered first today, truth is truth and remains as such. God’s words are not tainted with time. His meaning is not altered simply because we live in cultures that are worlds apart from those in which the writers of Scripture were inspired.

Though the message the Lord spoke to me through a children’s story and the message the Lord spoke to the people of Judah through Jeremiah are unalike, the uniting factor is their “oldness.” Their words encase truth that does not fade with time.

So instead of asking, What else are You saying, God? Why don’t we ask, What have You been saying already that we’ve missed?

Sometimes we need the old-new. Sometimes our hearts have to be chiseled-on by disappointment and difficulty until enough hardness has been chipped away, allowing for a renewed receptivity to the message we needed to hear all along. 

And when our hearts are moved and softened by the words of the Lord, even when they are words we’ve heard countless times before, new life springs up. Sometimes it takes dying to pride. Sometimes it takes a willingness to admit that the understanding we previously derived from a biblical passage was at best patchy, and that it deserves another and more thorough run-through. 

May we not search for newness any more ardently than we scour the Scriptures for His “old” words. May we ask the Lord to search our hearts and illumine them to understand “old” truths in new ways.  

This is, if you will, a different type of new. 

And when old is new, we discover that those things we desired from something “new” are actually the effects of taking “old” truths to heart.

When old is new, we realize that the truth God spoke from of old, He still speaks within our realm of time and space and distance.

When old is new, the Holy Spirit has not only illumined our understanding but empowered us with the reviving direction and motivation we so desperately need. 

As for now, you’ll find me back to the books—specifically, the Bible. And that Russian textbook.

Relishing old newness,

Renée

Wet-On-Wet

Today I’m imagining the time I spend each day analyzed on a pie chart. Maybe that’s because I have over-analytical tendencies. Or because I’m hungry and thinking of pie.

If how I spend my time in Moldova was pie-charted, more than half of it would be belong to one partition: school. Each weekday I spend time with the Raatz daughters, three wells of endless creativity, as they pummel through elementary, middle-, and high school.

Now if only that pie-chart were real pie.

With the girls, I am challenged and stretched. I go from evaluating the geographical features of South America to considering the repercussions of Old Testament battles to chugging formulas for the nth term in mathematical sequences.

Because I spend so much time in the classroom, much of my growing comes from my experiences there. And while I’m quantitatively giving, I am qualitatively receiving.

Let me share with you the most painful lesson I have learned yet: an art lesson.

It is also the most beautiful lesson I have learned in the classroom.

Lauren, the youngest, is currently in an art class, and earlier this month, she was watercolor painting. On the first day of school of this semester, she pulled out two fresh boxes of watercolor paints. We humoredly marveled at all the synonyms paint companies can come up with for primary colors. As we looked at names, I turned one of the boxes over to read about two watercolor techniques: wet-on-dry and wet-on-wet.

For the wet-on-dry, I read that people “use this style of painting when sharp edges are desired.” I thought back to all my past art classes, recalling that I chose to do most if not all my watercolor paintings in the wet-on-dry method. I like it best that way. Growing up, I always wanted my art to look as close as possible to reality. With wet-on-dry, the shapes appear clearer, and the product looks less like Impressionistic art. The colors don’t bleed or run farther along the page than I intend. Well, except when I use too much water. And then I unintentionally turn my sharp-edged masterpiece into a wet-on-wet. 

And a wet-on-wet, I read, is when “colors will spread easily and will appear fuzzy.”As soon as I read that description, I recalled my “failed” paintings, the ones that were too wet for my taste, the ones that did not look as lifelike as my mind’s eye imagined, the ones in which the paper was rippled and almost torn through because of the weight of the water and the thinning of the paper due to my relentless brushing, my attempts to darken the color in places where the paper was too wet to retain the shapes I painted. 

Watercolor paints run on wet paper, but when the paper dries, the color remains. The bright veins and splotches that have spread all over the page don’t recollect; remain as dehydrated, silent testaments to what the power of water can do. The color applied to the paper will have the widest spread—the most influence, you could say—when the paper is wet. 

And I heard God whisper, “That’s what I’m doing in you right now. I’m painting on your life in this way.” 

Because lately I’ve felt like wet paper.

To understand, journey back with me into the schoolroom so that we can have a science lesson. About paper.

Paper is made of wood pulp. The two main compounds in the cell walls of trees, lignin and cellulose, are separated through chemical or mechanical processes, and the cellulose is preserved in long fibers. These fibers are layered in thin sheets to create paper. Cellulose fibers are hygroscopic, meaning they absorb moisture. When paper comes in contact with water, its fibers naturally absorb water and they are plasticized, or weakened, because the bonds between fibers relax.

I feel that my fibers have been weakened recently.

I experienced a marvelous visit to the U.S. after my first four months in Moldova. Goodbyes were hard, but the Eastern European welcomes were sweet this month, as is the knowledge that my steps are ordered of the Lord (Psalm 37:23). Cultivating relationships, forging new ones, and seeking direction for both types are ever-pressing matters. Living boldly for the Lord during my last five months in Moldova is crucial. Seeking the will of the Lord for my short summer visit to the States and then for my year in Russia is imperative. I feel the pain of missing, the excitement of the present, and the anticipation of the unknown all at the same time. These factors pour over me like water as I seek to balance these concerns in order focus fully on my present.

And this water hasn’t trickled; it has dumped. And sometimes the weight of the water feels like it’s not only weakening those fibers but breaking them.

Back to the science lesson: what determines the behavior and strength of paper is how it was manufactured, not the source of the fibers. 

And the same is true spiritually: ultimately, our strength is determined by our Source--our God. He did not construct us faultily. The fibers of our beings are sourced in Him. Our Source is not weak when we are weak. The one who created our fibers also, at one time, was composed of them.

The author of Hebrews explains that Jesus identifies with us: “Since the children share in blood and flesh, he too shared in them, in just the same way” (2:14)[.] New Testament scholar and theologian N.T. Wright, in his book Hebrews for Everyone, comments on how crucial this is for our understanding of Jesus’ identification with us: “The point of [this] passage is that Jesus…could and did come to where [we] were[.] He identified with [us][.] […]He is no distant older brother, unable to cross the gulf to rescue his siblings. He shared in flesh and blood, and even death itself (v. 14). There is nothing we face, today or tomorrow or the next day, in which Jesus cannot sympathize, help and rescue us, and through which he cannot forge a way to God’s new world.”¹  

He was once paper, too.

He wore our paper skin, held people with our paper hands. His paper heart throbbed with excitement. It dropped with despair. He experienced the limitations of the finite when he had one of our paper minds. He knows how we are made.

Psalm 103:14 says that “He knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.”

Dust. Fraglity. Paper. Fragility. Humanity. Fragility.

Recalling our Lord’s intimate identification with our humanity bolsters my trust in His sovereignty. It steadies me when I realize that He is sovereign over the water that soaks my paper. He controls its flow. 

Regarding the Lord’s understanding of us, Isaiah presents a beautiful word picture of God's character shining forth through in fragility: “A bruised reed He will not break, and a dimly burning wick He will not extinguish; He will faithfully bring forth justice” (42:3).

Exegetists Karl Keil and Franz Delitzsch, in their Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, note that the Hebrew words for bruised reed and dimly burning wick aren’t referencing Jews versus Gentiles so much as they are making a general reference to people “whose inner and outer life is only hanging by a slender thread. In the statement that in such a case as this He does not completely break or extinguish, there is more implied than is really expressed. Not only will He not destroy the life that is dying out, but He will actually save it; His course is not to destroy, but to save.”²

Our paper's not going to break through.

The Apostle Paul, after he had been given surpassingly great revelations, was given his ever-mystifying thorn in the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7). After pleading with the Lord to take it away, the Lord spoke to Paul in a way that communicates a timeless truth to us.

“[The Lord] said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness’” (2 Corinthians 12:9). When Paul was weak, the power and influence of God in his life was strong. And yet again the truths of Scripture break into the world of art: The colors have the farthest spread when the paper is at its weakest.

In watercolor painting, the purpose of the water is to extend the influence of the color. Sometimes we, in our pain-sensitive short-sightedness, become so concerned with the water that we miss its point: the color. The water is a medium for the color; it’s not an end in itself. The artist does not apply water to paper without having a goal for the finish and a plan for the process.  

Water weakens cellulose fibers, but it also makes the color spread farthest. Our times of weakness enable the work God is doing in our lives to have the most powerful effect and the most influence.

It’s more about Him than it is about us, anyway: we’re just the papers. He’s the Artist.

It’s not so much about the water as it is about what the painting looks like when it dries. And it will dry.

And the color, in a sense, leaves a fortifying layer. Although water has been applied and threatened to break down the paper, the substance of color remains through the drying and bonds to the paper. It serves to strengthen, to define, and to characterize in an undeniable way.

What are the colors He is applying to your life? A broader perspective? Freedom from fear? Deeply-rooted peace? Fresh direction?

He is not a breaker of bruised reeds. He is not an extinguisher of fading wicks. And he is not a shredder of wet paper.

Let the Reed-Strengthener, let the Flame-Fanner, let the Color-Maker have His way. For when you strengthen, when you burn brightly, when you dry, you will shine His work more gloriously.

Thank You, God, for bringing me to a schoolroom in Moldova to give me an art lesson.

Soaked and Colored,

Renée

Notes: ¹ Wright, N. T. Hebrews for Everyone. Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge: London, 2003.

²Keil, Karl and Franz Delitzsch. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament. Hendrickson Publishers: Peabody, 2006.

From Story to Song

As a child, I loved bedtime stories. After donning my pajamas, I thumbed through rows of colorful books lining my bookshelves and picked as many exciting tales as my parents would agree to read before bed—usually one, but two or three at most. My imagination was sparked as rhyming plotlines weaved their way through faraway adventures and framed lifelike illustrations. But today I realize another more-obvious reason why I loved my bedtime stories: aside from being filled with the stuff of dreams, they were written in English. And that’s the only language I understood for most of my life. I mean, if you tell an American kid a bedtime story in Russian, things just don’t fly.

It works in the reverse, too: when you tell a Russian girl a bedtime story in English, she doesn’t like it so well.

I speak from experience.

- - - - -

Three weeks ago this past December, I spent a night at Freedom Home, a place of restoration for those who have been rescued from human trafficking. I visit weekly to teach English and spend time with the women and children, and I had been looking forward to spending the night for quite some time.  

The evening, which followed the annual Christmas party of that afternoon, was marked with merriment and conversation. As usual, I understood bits and pieces of what was said and communicated slowly in broken Russian. I am overwhelmingly grateful for the grace and friendship extended by these women when even simple questions are a struggle for me. Thankfully, my presence nearly always induces laughter because my language mistakes, which are almost a given in my interactions, are quite humorous. 

Relatively early in the night, the children were put to bed so that the women could have a time of prayer and sharing. This time was even more special than usual, however, because a woman from Ukraine had come for the weekend to tell her story of restoration after human trafficking. This was going to be a late, powerful night for all except the children.

 I said goodnight to a beautiful two-year-old girl with whom I weekly play as I listened to her mom tell her a bedtime story; it was in Russian, of course, so I didn’t understand most of it, although I could tell that it rhymed. One of the staff workers came into the room shortly afterward and said that the Ukrainian woman was about to share her story. Both staff worker and mother looked at me. “Can you tell her a bedtime story? You only have to stay with her until she falls asleep.” “Sure!” I responded. They looked grateful, kissed the little girl goodnight, and went downstairs. 

I moved to the chair next to the little bed and started answering in Russian to cries of, “Momma! Where’s Momma?” I explained that she was downstairs, that she loves her, and that she would be back. 

That didn’t help. 

So, faithful to my assignment, I started making up a story in Russian. Since I can probably count the number of Russian words I know at this point, the story wasn’t that interesting. Or that long. But it quieted her for a few seconds. As soon as I began hesitating for words, though, she chimed back into her pleas for her mom to come back upstairs. I tried for a few more minutes, but gave up when she only grew louder. 

Then I switched to English. I placed more emphasis on a steady, upbeat voice than on picking an interesting story. And it worked—for a few minutes. But then the Russian cries rang out louder from the little body, and I was afraid that the other sleeping children in adjacent rooms would wake. As soon as I started thinking about the possibility of calling her mother back in, I stopped because this was a special time of healing for the women with a woman that had traveled to Moldova to spend one night for this very purpose. 

I turned back to the screaming child, who had now added crying to her nighttime repertoire. A good twenty or thirty minutes had passed since I had been alone with this girl, lights off to help her sleep, in the second-story of a Moldovan house on a lonely street. The sun had set hours ago and I turned toward the window to see the falling snow as the cries in the room grew louder. I tried to keep talking, in both Russian and English, but nothing was working, and she seemed more awake than ever. I didn’t know what to do. God, I don’t know what to do. I—

Sing. 

What? Sing to her, I heard God say. Um, God? No. I’m not singing, I retorted. 

Sing. It came again. Never.

Why was I so obstinate? Because this was the third time I was called upon to sing in the past few weeks. 

Confused? Allow me to digress briefly. This is necessary for understanding my frustration.  

I’m not the best singer. I can do it, but I don’t consider it one of my strengths. As far as strengths go, I’d much rather write something or perform a classical piano piece or teach grammar. You see, if I’m going to do something in public, I want to do it well. Those things I do well are my strengths, and I prefer to operate in them when people are watching.

In the past few weeks, however, I’ve been called on to operate in areas that are not my strengths—namely, singing. I’ve shown up for worship practice, been given new songs, and then been asked to lead them for the congregation only a few minutes later. With a head cold. I’ve been asked to sing with a duet roughly half an hour before they performed. In other areas outside the musical arena I have recently needed to do things with and for people that put me in pride-swallowing mode as I stepped out, knowing I had little to give. 

Being asked to operate in my not-strengths—and without ample preparation time—has been stretching for me. Common sense tells me that people will benefit more when I do something that I’ve practiced, something that I have confidence in doing. I was shocked the first couple times that God asked me to do something more or less “in public” that was a stretch for me. Several times after that, I was a bit confused. And this final time, I was worn out. 

Just for clarification, though: singing to a toddler? Not on my top-5-fears list. Or even on my top 500.

(But I don’t actually have a top-500 list, just so you know.)

I wasn’t afraid, and I knew I didn’t have a listening, critical audience. It’s just that this was like the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.

Still, I knew was that something had to be done to stifle the shrieks of the beleaguered child, and all I could do was what God told me. Her cries begged immediate action. And so I sang.

“Jesus loves me, this I know / For the Bible tells me so—” I had to clear my throat and cough before getting to “Little ones to Him belong.” My throat’s sore, and I’m just getting over a cold. I can’t sing. I tried this Sunday. Remember, God? But I dared not interrupt the flow of sound too long lest my silence be interpreted as permission for “Momma!” cries to resume. 

Well, we duked it out with our words—mine in raspy song, hers in high-pitched wails, interspersed with whimpering sentences. I’ve never encountered a worse reaction to my singing.

By the time I reached the end of the song, significant gaps existed between her cries, so I moved onto the next song that came to my mind: “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” My voice was really starting to crack. Oh, God, just help me keep going so she falls asleep! I don’t care how it sounds anymore! I started in a key too low for my voice. I modulated up. I wheezed. She was still awake, but she was less noisy, less agitated. I sang it four or five times.

After that, she was out. Her mouth was silent, and her body turned from side to side every so often in the beginning stages of sleep. But as I sang, I realized something: the fact that I was nervous to sing in front of a little child who does not understand English showed me that my qualm is not with who is listening so much as it is with what I have to give. I grow uncomfortable when I’m not putting my best foot forward. My reluctance indicated that I had been willing to sacrifice meeting the needs of the moment for my own personal comfort. I was making ministry more about me than about God and others. And that’s a serious problem.

The child was asleep, and I was free to leave. But I was not moving. Conviction welling, I knew that I had to compose my own hymn of praise. 

I began to sing my own song.  I suddenly grew tired of using others’ words from worn-out choruses, during which I oftentimes focus more on the sound of my voice than the alignment of my heart with the words I utter. All at once I was fed up with trite melodies learned by rote and sung by rote while my brain went on autopilot. I had a song I needed to sing from within my heart, so I began to tell God what He meant to me. What came out of me wasn’t ground-breakingly original or poetic. A modest, hymnlike melody and chorus coalesced rather quickly in my mind, and I kept singing them, each time inserting fresh words with my croaking voice. I told God how thankful I am that He fights for His children. I told Him how grateful I am to know that I am never alone. I told Him that I will tell His story all over the world. All over—wherever that takes me and whatever that costs me. Because I am His.

As I sang from my heart, something inside of me broke. And at that point, it wasn’t about who was listening. I could have opened the windows, could have stood on the roof, could have shouted down the stairs. But it wasn’t about who heard; it was about Who heard. 

And in a darkened room on the top-floor of a Moldovan home on a snowy night, I found freedom.

As I write this, I hum in vain, trying to recover the lost melody. I probably will never hit upon it again, but the reality of that cold Moldovan night still rings out.

-----

I had a revelation that night. God wants to stretch us out of our comfort zones even when that includes doing something that is not our best work.

Sometimes we get the idea that God’s going to use us only in our strengths. I beg to differ. And so does the Apostle Paul. Second Corinthians 12:7 says that to “keep him from being conceited,” Paul was given a “thorn in the flesh” that ultimately resulted in weakness. We are not told what this thorn is, although many plausible suggestions abound. But the fact that the “thorn” is not further described makes me think that its type and size is not as important as its result; so many things can render us weak. Even singing in a nursery.

Paul asked the Lord three times to take it away. Huh. I also had three instances, singing-specific, in which I asked God to remove me from or change the situation. And, true to His timeless nature, the Lord’s response to Paul was His same response to me: “Each time He said, ‘My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness,’” (v. 9). 

Upon hearing that, Paul turned glad. He realized that his weaknesses were disguised opportunities for the power of Christ to rest on, work through, dwell in, and reside within him (v. 9). 

So, this is my weakness-boast. And it’s not about my singing; it’s about Christ’s power being displayed through me. 

In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul also connected weakness and power. He reflected on the first time he visited the church in Corinth and noted that he didn’t come with “superiority of speech or of wisdom” but “in weakness and in fear and in much trembling” (1 Cor. 2:1,3). Robin Dowling and Stephen Dray, in the Baker Bible Guide to 1 Corinthians, note that upon his first visit to Corinth, Paul “decided to do without the…philosophical flourishes of Greek ‘wisdom’ [and instead] proclaim[ed] the most scandalous of all truths to the Greek thinker, the humiliating crucifixion of Christ.” In sum, Paul “felt vulnerable and even the message itself seems to have caused him anxiety, making him feel inadequate to preach it” (Robin Dowling and Stephen Dray, 1 Corinthians: Free to Grow [Baker Books], 34-35).

 Paul says himself that his message was “plain” and “without persuasive words of wisdom” (v. 4), but somehow, Paul’s message was still effective. This effectiveness came from outside himself.  His message and preaching did not reflect on his own skill as much as it demonstrated the Spirit’s power (v. 4). Why this pairing of personal privation with spiritual power? “So that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God” (v. 5). 

May God shake our misplaced faith in us and rightly rest it on His power.

Are we okay with being used by God when it stretches us out of our comfort zones? Even if we know that we are being called upon to give something that’s not drawn from our reserve of well-polished abilities? 

He’s okay with it. 

We must trust God enough to allow Him to bend us in initially uncomfortable ways if He so chooses. This is not always His method, but such actions do not conflict with His character. He has more in mind than keeping us comfortable and happy. He desires to display His power through us, engendering joys vaster than any happinesses contained in a passing moment.

What a deep love—to look into the caverns of our soul and grapple with our insecurities, to lead us to an understanding of His activity which extends far beyond our self-stuck views, to call for vulnerability in order to foster in us a self-trumping desire to see Him glorified. God, “grant [us] a willing spirit, to sustain [us]” (Psalm 51:12b). 

As we enter this new year, may we ask ourselves whose story is at the forefront of our lives. And whose song. May God’s pen write bolder and God’s melody ring louder than ours.

Still singing,

Renée