What is God Like When..

May 28th has been highlighted on my calendar for a number of years now, not that the majority of those days have passed with fireworks or great celebration. In fact, last year I dreaded its approach and blackened out the date on the calendar, not that it helped… it was still highlighted in my mind. Highlighted because of its sheer importance and because of a series of events that had taken the legs out from under it. It was the elephant in the room. The big elephant on whose trunk my whole life was trying to find some balance.

The logisitics of going to the bathroom and lunching yesterday proved to be the most difficult part of my day at the zoo with my tot Cohen and my two youngest brothers, Joe (7) and Josh (5). First I had the whole debate about which was worse: letting the boys go into the men’s restroom alone while I waited outside or taking a 7 and 5 year old into the women’s…? In the end, I let them go into the men’s room while I spent the whole 2 minutes outside the door, chewing my nails and praying against any creeps who might be lurking inside.

Lunch was less unnerving, but balancing Cohen on one hip (he insisted on being held almost all day, despite the comfy stroller and the fact that his legs work quite well) and a tray with 3 kids meals and drinks and ketchup cups on the other. Eventually we all made it to the table as did the food. Cohen was so happy about the food that he didn’t mind sitting in the high chair. While the boys munched excitedly their food, I studied the receipt amazed at how expensive feeding three boys at the zoo can be…

It was at that very moment, sitting in a crowded cafeteria, surrounded by blue and red chairs occupied by tots and kids and their parents, that it hit me. I checked the date twice.

It had snuck up on me.

Luckily, time only stood still for a nano-second and then the noises rose from that muted moment back to full volume and the world started turning again. My stomach came back down out of my throat and I realized I needed to inhale. And then the day flew back into the busyness of tending to three wild boys and answering questions about the animals, including the one that seemed to be on repeat all day, “Are the animals real? Like really real?”

Driving home from Bible study last night was the next time the world was still enough for me to reflect again on the significance of the day fast approaching. I mentioned it to Aunt Deb, who had hitched a ride home. I could feel her eyes searching me, but she said nothing. My sweet brother Matt, whose mental impairments have never diminished his ability to be kind, piped up from the backseat, “I can buy you flowers, Kate.” For the first time, I felt my throat tighten. I assured him that wasn’t necessary…that celebrating wasn’t at the top of my list for the day. “Ok, but I want to,” he said.

Even though I was tired from the sun and the boys, something in me was compelled me to go to Bible Study last night. Matt and I went in a few minutes early and settled into seats near the front. A gregarious older man sitting across the aisle from me, engaged me in conversation and proceeded to encourage my heart about the path through the wilderness I’ve been beating down. Matt pointed out that Aunt Deb was sitting in the front row and then I saw someone fitting her with the wireless mic.

Aunt Deb found out a few weeks ago, after weeks of awaiting that call, that she has breast cancer. A little over a week ago she had surgery and got good news that not only did the get all of the cancerous cells, but that her lymph nodes were clean (Praise God)

She took the stage and sat in a chair next to the pulpit, confirming what most of the audience suspected. When she got that call, Pastor was there to take her scared phone call. “What am I supposed to do now?” she asked him and wisely he answered, “Find out what God is like when you’re fighting cancer. Get all of Him you can get and then come and edify the body. Tell us. What God reveals to you now about Himself far outweighs any test result.”

So, she had listened and there she was …sitting on a chair next to the pulpit because she was too weak to stand for any amount of time. A normally exhuberant person who can’t stop moving, her quiet tone and stillness seemed a striking contrast. She spoke confidently and deliberately as she told us about the conversation she had with God that first night after hearing the word she’d dreaded.

God said three things to her and on this fittingly bleak Ohio day, I can still feel them resonating inside me. I won’t share them as eloquently as she did, but I want to share them with you…

Reading the book of Hosea some 30 years ago, Aunt Deb surrendered her heart to Jesus. And awake on a Friday night some 30 years later with the world dark around her, God began to whisper these words again,

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her [Israel] and bring her into the wilderness, and I will speak tenderly and to her heart.” [Hosea 2:14, Amplified Bible]

Isn’t that a strange, albeit poetic, refrain? If you want to speak tenderly to me can’t you just get dressed up and take me to a nice restaurant? Can’t we share a tender moment from the very tippy top of a glorious mountain? or at least while watching a perfect sunset melt into the horizon?

Why the wilderness?

And yet, the Lover of our souls often does just that. He woos us right into the wilderness… a place known for its alientation, its threat, its chaos. And there, in the middle of the of the fear and loneliness, He speaks tenderly and to the heart. There, on the rugged and treacherous journey from slavery to freedom, He shows up and changes us with the most personal revelations about Himself.

As the waves of His compassion bowled her over, she found herself praising God and singing a refrain we may all know, “You are Good and Your Love endures Forever”. As she sang, God said to her, “I am Good. I am more Good than I can explain to you.” Deb shared, that her thoughts drifted to the robin who had unknowningly made a nest and laid eggs in her fake tree on the back deck. (Apparently its convincing *grin*) At first, when she’d come on the back deck and sit down, the robin would hop away, keeping a close eye on Deb, thinking her a predator at best. Over the days and weeks the robin has ventured a little closer, but has kept the watchful eye. “I want to tell her ‘I am Good. I would never harm you or your young’ but how can that be explained to a robin?” Deb poignantly and softly said.

Her heart, overrun with all of the Compassion and Goodness of God a finite being can experience, began to ask for God to make her a fit vessel for whatever days she would have left.

With her intoxicating smile and a slight chuckle she recounted, “God said, ‘Well I am glad you brought that up. There are some things we need to talk about’” God, lovingly began to point out the kind of sins she’d grown used to, the ones she’d blamed on being a Holzbauer, the ones that so easily slip her up. God reminded her that in the surgery only days away, she wanted the surgeon to get every cancerous cell, not just the big ones. She knows if the whole area isn’t clean, if even one dirty cell is left… it can multiply…it can take over the healthy ones and contiminate them.

My mind was swirling.

I’ve told God on numerous occasions that I want to learn everything I can from this martial wilderness. When we side-step obedience, God has a way of bringing the lesson back around. Not out of spite, but out of a tremendous Love that acknowledges one dirty spot has a way of festering. I want to be purified. I want to obey now instead of waiting for the consequences and the streching to pile up for later. I want to not wince at the rod of correction.

Just like not everyone gets the good report or prognosis Deb thankfully received, some times the wildnerness leads to a place we’d not expected. I’d be lying to stay I’ve not questioned God in my trek to a destination I’d not hoped for or prayed for or expected. Will you come through? Do you care about me? Are you Good? like Really Really Good?

Sitting in the sanctuary, I saw myself as that robin, hopping around the edges of the deck, concerned for the all that is depending on me. I saw the distance, I recognized the watchful eye.

I saw his hand extended from behind the undergrowth of the wilderness where He’s already a step ahead of me, already making a way.

I strained to hear the kind words, the tender tone. I sat up last night doing the same. I drove to work this morning trying again to recall them.

Nothing.

Not nothing as in He’s not spoken. I can feel that He has. Nothing as in I’ve not heard because I’ve tuned my ears to the deafening shreiks of fear. Surely Perfect Love casts out fear, but Love won’t attempt to win a shouting match. Love speaks softly so that you must hop a little closer and then still a little closer to hear. Love wants us to lean in close enough to feel His Breath on our necks. Fear is cheap. Fear stands on the corner and advertises with big, blinding signs and once you’ve bought in, Fear raises the stakes. Its addciting. Its universal. Love stands in a stark contrast, beckoning to each one individually, whispering in satisfying tones.

I realized this morning that despite my words telling God I don’t want to wander about to learn this lesson, that’s precisely what I’ve done. I’ve run circles in this wilderness for months now. I’ve been searching for a lesson to learn, not for God to reveal more of Himself.

I am parched for Him.

I’m not at the clearing yet, the mountain top isn’t in view though I know its looming large. Why? Precisely because I’ve not allowed Him to reveal Himself in some particularly vulnerable places…

What is God like when you’ve been betrayed?
What is God like when all of your dreams are shattered?
What is God like when the future is uncertain?
What is God like when a marriage is broken?
What is God like in the depths of loneliness?
What is God like when you’ve failed your own standards?
What is God like when you’re a single mom?
What is God like when you’re hearts been crushed?
What is God like when you’re needy?
What is God like when you’re decisions are scrutinized?
What is God like when you can’t defend yourself?
What is God like when depression gets a grip?

Her words uncovered in me a deep hunger; a deep need. Whatever the outcome, nevermind the uncertainty or just what path my life is now aiming for… the real question has little to do with me and everything to do with God and what He is like in the wilderness He’s brought me to.