My feelings are not true

My feelings are not true,

But Christ is God's true Word,

And over all the howls of sin

And lies let this strong voice be heard:

My wickedness won't win,

Though sin crouch at my door,

Though satan and my heart agree,

It's those like me whom He died for.

And even though sin clouds my view,

Here at the cross my eyes can see

Atonement has been made by You

Who ever shelters me.

More Thoughts on Seeing God

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; 

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

to give knowledge of salvation to his people 

in the forgiveness of their sins,

because of the tender mercy of our God, 

whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high

to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,

to guide our feet into the way of peace. (Luke 1:76-79)

      

     One thing I love about winter is the coruscating frost in the warm morning light like God's very own glitter. It is good of Him to give us light when days are short and cloudy. I love how the frost covers everything on the ground, little plants and dead things too, and how joyously the light dances through the cold wetness, like the glistening, merry eyes of someone laughing. And in December mornings as I drive to church with sparkles in my eyes, I think of Christ, our Sunrise, who brings the forgiveness of our sins and light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.

      How do we write about or even think about these things? God reveals Himself in nature, but according to Romans 1 it is His eternal power and divine nature that we see. We don't open our front doors or wander out in fields and receive specific messages from God. The final word of God is Christ, a light whom the darkness can't overcome (John 1:5). In the Scriptures, God has spoken with finality of the forgiveness of sins in Christ. Yet I don't think it's wrong to see the beauty of God in creation not just abstractly but symbolically, viewing the creation as shadows of true things He has already revealed in the gospel in His Word. God Himself uses creation metaphorically all throughout the Bible to make the realities of our sin and salvation in Christ more clear to us. Yet beauties we see now in creation are not direct messages or even purposeful symbols at that moment from God Himself. We can see reminders of the gospel in them, but they are not signs from God.

      I guess it is easy for us to, on social media and through creative outlets, but also just through our daily lives, use creation and even our own selves as demonstrations of sorts without ending with Christ, the One we're supposedly pointing toward. The whole point of figurative language is to take what we can see and use it to see what we can't see as well. We even devalue metaphors when we get hung up on the symbols or shadows themselves. Again, I have to wonder, if we are trying to see Christ and point others to Christ, how is that done?

      Ultimately, we cannot see Christ unless it is in connection with the law and the gospel. This is how God reveals His Son, who is the precious goal and object of our sight. This means that when we spend all of our energies thinking of His provision of good things, like food or farmland or family, without turning our eyes to our need before Him as sinners and His greatest provision of true food and true drink – Christ's body and blood – we are not honoring Him as we should. Perhaps we are even turning our hearts and the hearts of others to idols instead of the true God and Savior. Should we put so much focus on living our lives before believers and unbelievers as though our lives were some great portrayal of Christ, or should we focus on pushing others to Christ through the law and gospel? Showing Christ through the law and gospel doesn't really have to do with having cute houses or bringing the best beer to the party. In fact, our nice families and moral, supposedly happy lives are not how we are to point others to Christ. Our morality (though we may fail greatly, we will still fight against sin, bear fruit, and do good works) is not what attracts others to Christ. It may convict them as they see their lack of holiness under the law, and this conviction can drive them to Christ, but when we are pointing others to ourselves and our lives as the end goal, we are offering them false saviors and helping them to hope in themselves and earthly things instead of Christ.

      Christ is the Word of God. The gospel is presented to us in words. Words are so important in sharing the truth, much more important than our lives lived out before others. This is comforting for me, because I do a poor job loving others and pointing them to Christ as an example. I am far too unlike Him. But I can use words and say that I am sinful. I can go to Christ and be loved by Him in front of others. I can receive forgiveness and grace from Him in front of others and serve others as a result of that mercy. I can exhort others to turn to Him when they have need and sin. Our God is so powerful. He will receive glory in His people even in our sin, because He will still be there to save us. And it will be so sweet to stand in heaven with so many other justified and even glorified sinners who sin no more and see that He carried us the whole way and that His mercy was so expansive, enough for so many people.

      I want to learn more and more how to use words like God uses them, how He uses metaphors and figurative language to point us to Christ, and how Christ is God's final word. Christ is our end, whom we see through the law and gospel laid out in Scripture. If earthly things can help us understand these things more clearly, they are valuable for us to use, just as God Himself uses them. And it is beautiful to me, more beautiful than the earthly blessings God gives, that He loves us and shows us mercy even when we abuse these blessings and focus on them instead of Him. It's beautiful that when we live the glory story and point others to ourselves, Christ stands able to save us and others. We would wrap ourselves in shadows, but our Father sent Christ, the sun who rises with healing in His wings, to bear away our sins.

Book Review of The Choir Immortal

      Most of the books I enjoy, fiction and non-fiction, are 100+ years old, and the Christian market doesn't offer much to my taste. As Christians, I believe our storytelling should be more Christ-centered. We have peace with God through Christ, which is something no other religion or belief-system has, and it is sad that our art isn't more saturated with this message. At the same time, I want to interact with current, living authors and their work. I recently discovered Katie Schuermann's novel The Choir Immortal, and it excited me, because she not only does she tell a sweet story, she reminds readers of the gospel in the process.

      Katie's book centers around the body of Zion Lutheran Church and chronicles their struggles, sins, and joys together. The characters and themes in this book are decidedly Lutheran. Though I am not Lutheran, I and many in my church body have benefited from certain Lutheran teachings, and with its themes of forgiveness, eternal life, and peace in trials, The Choir Immortal appealed to me even as a non-Lutheran. Her flawed but loving characters endeared me as they continually brought their sins and trials to the foot of Christ's cross, and Katie masterfully weaves the sorrows of Zion's people with their joy and rest in Him. Far from didactic, this novel presents real people with a real Savior who receive from His hand both good and hard times. Oftentimes, books with lively characters in sweet small towns are unrealistic, a bit “too good to be true.” With its focus on small town life and its vivid character development, Katie's work has been likened to L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables, a comparison that attracted me to her work. However, The Choir Immortal contains a realism that the Anne series lacks. That realism is an acknowledgment of the cursed nature of this world and the people in it coupled with the freedom and life we have in Christ. Katie doesn't turn a blind eye to sin and its consequences, but she does offer hope. She provides a legitimate answer for joy. The way her characters have hope and peace even amid trials truly blessed me, because it pointed me to the facts that God is our good Savior and one day we will be with Him. In the words of Zion's choir director Emily, we are in “the hands of a loving God” (257).

      One of the most poignant ways Mrs. Schuermann brings the themes of God's goodness and our safety in Christ to light is through the hymns she uses throughout the novel. These are songs Zion's choir sings together, and their meaning seems two-fold. First, the hymns themselves directly relate to the circumstances the people of Zion face and comfort them in Christ. This hymn in particular greatly encouraged me:

Why should cross and trial grieve me?

Christ is near

With His cheer;

Never will He leave me.

Who can rob me of the heaven

That God's Son

For me won

When His life was given?

When life's troubles rise to meet me,

Though their weight

May be great,

They will not defeat me.

God, my loving Savior, sends them;

He who knows

All my woes

Knows how best to end them.

God gives me my days of gladness,

And I will

Trust Him still

When He sends me sadness.

God is good; His love attends me

Day by day,

Come what may,

Guides me and defends me. (LSB 756:1-3, found on page 101)

      As the people of Zion receive grace from God through song, readers are also reminded and comforted with the good news. I found myself singing along literally and figuratively. At the same time, Katie weaves musical language and culture throughout the novel. Quite a few scenes take place at choir rehearsal and multiple characters work as musicians. However, by the end of the story, readers are aware that the music and the choir are not just backdrops for the plot; the believers of Zion are part of a living choir, a church that is larger than themselves, singing on earth and in heaven, “To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and made us a kingdom, priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen” (Revelation 1:5). Describing polyphonic music, Martin Luther wrote, “How strange and wonderful it is that one voice sings a simple unpretentious tune while three, four, or five other voices are also sung; these voices play and sway in joyful exuberance around the tune.”* The voices of Zion dance joyfully with many other voices around the same tune. By the end of the story, Christian readers realize that they too are part of this choir, singing with all God's people of the glories of Christ and His triumph over sin and death.

As a note, a non-Christian character says what many would consider a curse word on page 131. I believe it is within Mrs. Schuermann's Christian liberty to portray her character using this language, but I wanted readers to be aware in case it bothers any of their consciences.

*Quote found in this article - http://thirdmill.org/articles/joh_barber/PT.joh_barber.Luther.Calvin.Music.Worship.html

A Few Thoughts on Dependence

      Summer is so fertile and alive. Soybean fields stretch in green ruffles, corn grows up into a forest, farmers pile hay into beds, and there is green on green all over. Green soybean leaves against green trees and green vines and green bushes and green grass. And all the green and all the crops and all the world hangs on Him who waters “its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers, and blessing its growth. You crown the year with your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance. The pastures of the wilderness overflow; the hills gird themselves with joy” (Psalm 65:10-12).

     God is gracious to strip us of the things we use to secure our good. It doesn't always feel like grace. It can feel like panic, like loneliness, like drowning, like “evils have encompassed me beyond number; my iniquities have overtaken me, and I cannot see; they are more than the hairs of my head; my heart fails me” (Psalm 40:12). We cradle high thoughts of ourselves, unwilling to admit our guilt and helplessness. Because we fear being left entirely to Christ and His work, we sing lullabies of lies to quiet our consciences. When I think about my sin, I fear, because I can't fix it or control it. If I am worried, I tell myself the gospel not so that I might believe the truth, but so that I might control my unpleasant emotions. Polluted, I use Him to feel better, and I'm sinning just as much. Nothing I do is good enough to please Him or secure joy for myself. Nothing you do is good enough. We ruin everything, and sin spirals out of control. As I think about my sin, sometimes I want to pull out my hair, and sometimes I want to run outside in the rain and let it pound and sting and clean me. Eventually, we come to the end of ourselves, and there is no where else that we can go but to Christ. (The whole Christian life is a continual coming to the end of ourselves and coming to Christ.) “When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions. Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!” (Psalm 65:3-4)

      In every chloroplast, sunbeam, and raindrop, He has wrapped us up in reminders of His goodness and our dependence. And it is the safest, most beautiful thing to hang on Christ who atones for our transgressions, the sin that is too strong for us, that has gone over our heads. He takes that sin and rains down blood instead, blood that is so different from our polluted efforts, pure and sufficient blood that can cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14). 

 

Paintings, "Landscape at Auvers in the Rain" and "Haystacks Under a Rainy Sky," by Vincent van Gogh, accessed from Wikipedia

When Beauty Swallows

i stir a pot of orange and cloves
boiling rapidly up on the stove,
a steady, anxious heartbeat.
while spices dissolve, wet warmth rises to meet
the air as dry as my cold and cracked elbows.
a Rose unfurls in a vase on the window, 
and as winter melts in surrender to Spring
May i wither into You.

"I Am Who I Am"

You are holy.
You are happy.
You are God.
You are wise.
You are strong.
You are just.
You are jealous.
You are righteous.
You are gracious.
God. Gracious.
You are clean.
You are pure.
You're...beautiful.
You are sure.
You're...beautiful.
You are good.
God. Good.
You are lavish.
You are Love.
You are All.
You are for me.
You are worthy.
You are true.
You are You
And mine.
Shine. Eclipse.
Drown me in this.

Quote: Precious Communion

"No happiness that all the glory of this world could produce is equal to that of a broken heart at the feet of Jesus. It is sweet to creep into the very bosom of Christ, while we feel how utterly worthless and unworthy, yet how welcome, we are." 

"I think, if I had ten thousand hearts, I would give them all to Jesus!"

From Walking with Jesus by Mary Winslow (italics mine)

Look Up

Dear Believer,
This is a land of hungry, roving eyes. It is so easy to lock in on things that are so much less than Jesus, to lock in on a “worldly” life or a “righteous” life. There is a clean, warm sky above, but perhaps each time you sin, you find yourself gazing more deeply into the mud, greedy for idolatrous mud and muddied righteousness. It is so easy, perhaps, to look even too much to how you are looking at Him! But if and when you look up from your sin, you will find that He is still here. And He still saves even those who are so messed up that they can’t even look to Him rightly. You will find that the cross still stands and His blood still covers you. You will find His eyes waiting for you, even searching (and He finds) for you, full of love and warm welcome. You will find eyes that say:
“…where sin increased, grace abounded all the more…” (Romans 5:20)
“The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning…” (Lamentations 3:22-23)
“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)
“Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37)
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” (John 10:27-28)
And you won’t be able to take your eyes away.

An Introduction

Hi, and welcome to this little blog! I hope you find a beautiful place here. The whole Christian life is very much a life of seeing beauty. In the gospel, God reveals and invites us into the most beautiful Beauty imaginable- Himself. There are a lot of blogs out there, even a lot of blogs about “beauty,” beauty in every day life, food, family, fashion, projects, the arts. Many of these sites point, not only to the beauty in this world, but the “beauty” of you, humanity’s “beauty.” But He is so much more than these things, and He is shown so little in this world.

Even on Christian websites and blogs, even those sites with wise words, I fear we miss out sometimes on that which will bring us the most joy- a simple sight of Christ. In Christian circles, we do a lot of focusing on ourselves. How can I be better at this or that? Sometimes our motives are sheer self-righteousness, other times perhaps a desire to honor Christ. It’s not wrong to seek wisdom and growth, but these things don’t come through five helpful tips on how to be Proverbs 31 woman or how to reach out to our communities. See, we are not so beautiful as we think, but there’s a lot of “freedom in failure”* and a lot of life in being helpless. What if we are totally needy and entirely ugly in our sin, but offered a complete salvation and an infinite love in Christ? Now that is beauty. It’s arresting beauty. He is Beauty, that He would live and die for wicked sinners who hate Him so that He might justly bring them to Himself, justly and fully welcome them into His presence in which there is fullness of joy.* Seeing Jesus in this way changes us and makes us live as fiercely His.* 

So, in all things here, be it a poem or theological thoughts, I hope what you read here will help point you to the beauty of Christ in the gospel. There will be no perfection, just a weak girl needing Jesus and receiving His grace. Hope you will join.

*Quote from Brave Saint Saturn’s “Recall”
*Psalm 16:11
*2 Corinthians 3:18-4:6