Right Here

I'm going to get real with y'all, because apparently me getting real gets a lot of people free. So why not?

This will be less of a scripture exegesis and more of a pondering about God and Jesus and life. More poetic, I hope.

I almost wrote a poem instead, but I decided y'all wouldn't like that.

I'm going through some grief over multiple things, and a bit of shame that has tried to come upon me--some that had roots that were already there, and some that has newly crept around, trying to attach itself like a leach. I've not often experienced grief and shame, so these two emotions, even in the smallest increments, seem very heavy to me. One is healthy, and the other is not. If you read the Bible, I'll let you guess which one.

But that's not the poetic part.

Just to clarify, my life is beautiful, and I really have nothing to complain about. But sometimes things happen to us that aren't our fault because we live on earth. We experience grief. And then shame comes: "It was your fault," it lies. Or, "You ought to be better." You might find yourself U-turning five different times because you're too emotionally distraught to find the on-ramp for the interstate, and you're caught in traffic telling yourself, Just hold back. Just make it home before you start crying.

But then God might call you by name, in your car, and say to you, You can't run from my love.

{That's in Psalm 139, speaking of poetry...and the Father of poems.}

Sometimes, that may happen after a long day of teacher training. It may. And you may remember that He said the same thing to Adam and Eve in the Garden: "You can't hide from Me." He pursued them in their deep shame. And He pursues us. He's not afraid of the emotional mess.

I think I've told this story on my blog before, so if I have, forgive me. But I've been thinking over the past few days about a student I had a few years ago in my reading intervention tutoring program. Let's call her Precious. Her real name was something like that--a word that gave her an identity of beloved.

But when I met Precious, she seemed the opposite of her name. She was rowdy, hyperactive, impulsive, spastic. She didn't smell good. Her clothes were a mess. She was disobedient. She looked for every excuse to talk back. She wanted to run the show. None of my tutors liked working with her, and they seemed to get nowhere every time they tried to help her learn to read. She refused the bright future we were trying to give her. And on top of that, she was one of those kids who just really wasn't cute at all. (You know the kids I'm talking about.) It was hard to find something to like about Precious.

Finally, I started working with her because the other tutors couldn't manage. I expressed all of her issues to my boss--who was an extremely positive, undaunted woman in the face of my negativity. (I later appreciated this a lot.) She suggested that when I read with Precious, I put my arm around her in a gentle, motherly way. I thought, Yeah, like that's gonna work.

But it did. When I put my arm casually around her as she attempted to read a book, her whole body relaxed. She was able to focus. Later, I found out that reading right next to her on the floor was also effective. She felt the special sitting where other kids didn't get to sit, and she focused during the lesson in order to maintain the privilege. I did a lot of things differently with Precious than I did with the other kids, allowing her more choice (within my control) and special projects. With this kind of attention, she started to grow.

It wasn't an easy journey. She was still rambunctious. But she improved. And I hope that maybe she began to see the meaning of her name--because, working so closely with her, I finally did. I learned that she was funny and high-spirited. She could think and respond, when given the opportunity. She had just had no clue how to behave, and she was crying out for attention.

I later found out that Precious had been homeless. Her evenings were spent in shelters. That's why her clothes were unwashed and she never had a backpack. She had been sleeping with strangers around her. Probably nobody had ever sat with their arm around her that way, not even her mother. She thought like an orphan, like somebody abandoned and in danger.

And that explained a lot.

A few months later, I was praying--frustrated with myself and with my life, asking God why I couldn't seem to suddenly be different. He was silent--except that He kept bringing the image of Precious to my mind.

I got even more frustrated with that. So finally, I asked Him why He kept showing me her face.

He said, Because you are Precious.

We all are.

And when Jesus came to earth, He didn't come with marching bands and trumpet blasts and an army of angels. He came down from heaven, got right next to us, and put His arm around us.

Precious didn't understand that what we were trying to give her was good. Nobody had given her anything good or kind in her life. As a child, she didn't have the capacity to understand that she needed to learn to read because it would help her succeed, that we were trying to give her a future. All she saw was something she didn't want to do, given to her by people she didn't think she could trust. She was in survival mode, and she only saw the moment in front of her.

But I met her in that moment, and when I did, something beautiful happened.

If I, who was so unwilling to work with a disobedient child, could make a difference like that, how much more does Jesus know how to meet us in our pain?

And that is what I have learned about God most of all through the past month or so: that He is here. I mean that, in the midst of the grief, frustration, longing, pain, disobedience, and violent desperation of the human condition, He is right next to us. So close that He can smell our stench and hear our obscene words. And He still doesn't mind putting His arm around us.

When He does, shame melts away. All the ferocious, deafening lies of the enemy are silenced. Because somebody truly loves us, somebody who has compassion on our condition. It's not our fault. We aren't to blame for our homelessness. And even the things that we bring on ourselves with our sin...He isn't afraid to touch those, either, and make them clean.

What other God is like Him?

He taught a lot when He walked on the earth, but He did way more touching. Think about it. He healed so many people. He broke bread for them and ate with them. He wasn't offended.

He isn't surprised by the dirtiness of you or me. He is delighted with us. And that's not from a wall-art decal or a Precious Moments coloring book (no offense, Precious Moments). It's real. I'm understanding it beyond scripture.

His love is impossible to describe, and it might need a poem to be fully expressed. It's like He shattered my heart with light, but it felt wonderful somehow. It's like there were holes in me that I didn't know were there until He came and filled them. It's like being curled up like a baby in a womb, surrounded completely by Himself. Sorrow becomes strangely joyful, even as it still hurts. When you're there, you know that you know in your depths who you are--it's like you see everything that you were meant to be, but there are no words for it. You can't describe that, either. You'll just end up sounding like a crazy person if you try. When you feel it, you want to get out of your car at 10:45 at night in downtown and hug a homeless man under a bridge, because you want Him to know that God wants to touch him, too. (I didn't actually do that. I just wanted to.)

Like, I think I'm finally beginning to understand His compassion....for me. For all of us.

Right here, where He meets us, our grief becomes His grief, no matter how small or big it is. He doesn't ask us to do anything but lie there and receive from Him. And shame is laughable in that place.

It's hard to get there sometimes, because we feel swallowed in our own emotions and thoughts. Some people are afraid to go there, because they feel too ashamed. But if we will calm down for a moment and invite Him to enter our hearts and do what only He can do--no matter if we can explain it or not--we will discover that He is something we didn't quite expect, something that doesn't fit our box. In the midst of our pain and struggle and frustration, He isn't afraid of our emotions. Even the wind and waves know His name. He is someone we can trust, even if we can't explain Him.

Right here, you belong to Him, and belonging to the Creator is one of the deepest cravings of the human heart. Only He can satisfy it.

So let him.

In order to receive, we become like little children. Children like Precious. We are able only to receive. And when we do, when we open our fists and allow Him to give us what He wants to give us, we find belonging.

Even Jesus had difficulty describing this feeling, but He said it just like poetry when He prayed to the Father:

All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. (John 17:10)