Refreshed by the Gospel... again.

Today I sat in the backseat of my friend's car on the way home from our church's women's retreat.  My eyes were closed, the wind was blowing my hair in every direction, the sun was shining brightly, and my mind & body & soul were humming to the praise music that we were blasting.

I found myself soaking in His presence.

This weekend revived me.  Between tears on my Saturday afternoon alone with Jesus and howling laughter with friends, God met me where I was at, just like He always does.  I had a web of themes that the Lord taught me this weekend but on that car ride home, I meditated on some of His words to me during our time of communion that morning.

Alyssa, by my wounds you are healed.  My forgiveness is more than the cheap grace you've been making it.  My forgiveness is more than Me just covering your sins.  It's greater than that.  It's about Me making you NEW.  Take Me in.  This is more than just a ritual: It's soaking in My love.  It's being consumed by Me so that You not only rest in Me, but become like Me.  It's newness.  My forgiveness is the restoration of your life, of your relationships, of you and Me.

Our God is a personal god.  That's mostly what He taught me this weekend through Mark 5.  He loves the unloved and sees the disregarded.  In this chapter of Scripture, He could have cast out demons, healed the sick, and raised the dead all alone by a prayer to the Father on His friend's boat.  But He went to them.  He spoke to them.  He had compassion on them.

If God wasn't a personal god, He wouldn't have died on the cross and rose again.  Do we realize this?  Do I realize this?

He could have just left us with the law.  He could have just left us to animal sacrifices.  But the law never made the Israelites new.  The law only allowed for them to reflect God's fading glory, not for them to be transformed into His image in an ever-increasing manner.  The law only covered their sins (imperfectly, might I add).  Do I realize this?

The Gospel message of Jesus dying for our sins is generally well-known in America, and sometimes it becomes dry and taken for granted, even to us born-again Christians.  But He died and suffered and was mocked and flogged and beaten.  For you and for me.  He made the sacrifice personal so that we could be personal with Him.

God allowed Himself to be brutally murdered for me.  Do I realize how personal that is?

And He rose again so that His Spirit could dwell in me, not just so that I could have eternal life in heaven, but so that I could have a living relationship with Him here and now.  The fact that I could have a conversation with Him and feel Him all around me this weekend is proof of the resurrection being personal.

The law doesn't come and dwell in us.  Jesus does.  And the law could never make us new.

His forgiveness--and what we are remembering when we take communion--is more than just the acknowledgement of the covering of our sins (though it is that too, don't get me wrong).  It's also the acknowledgment of us needing His nourishment for our souls, of us needing Him in us in order to be made new.

He died and rose again and lives in me.  That's what makes me new.  It's not just the covering of my sins that transforms me, if that were the case you'd see grander stories of transformation in the Old Testament instead of fading glory (2 Cor 3:13).  It's Him living inside of me that makes me new and transforms me into being more like Him.

He is personal.  He is in me.  He is all around me.  It's a miracle, really, that He not only washes our sin, but desires and chooses to transform us and have a relationship with us.

We are unworthy.  But His love is greater.  His love is the greatest we'll ever know.  And just when we think we're deep in His love, we realize that we've only just scratched the surface of understanding it.

Love is dying to save.  Love is conquering death to transform.  Love is being the Living God who we can hear and see and feel.

The question then doesn't become: Does He love me [or How can He love me when I'm so unworthy]?  The question was never that.

The question is: Am I listening?  The question is: Am I paying attention?  The question is:  Am I being transformed from the inside out by His Spirit that lives in me?

The question is:  Am I engaging with this Love?

He is here.  And He is personal.  And He loves me.
And He is making all things new.

tonight, i breathe in that familiar scent

The past few days have been a whirlwind of emotions due to some unexpected circumstances. Though I don't want to get into the details of those encounters, I did want to note that it was that string of events that brought me to this spot on my bed where I find myself typing from at 2am.

I was tossing and turning about an hour ago, unable to fall asleep, thinking of the trauma my family has gone through over the past several years.  I was replaying memories, mourning deep regrets and painful losses, wishing that I could just do it all over again.  Mostly, I just wanted to rewind the clock and have a second chance at things.  I missed the people who we've said goodbye to and the way our family unit used to function.  I missed the sense of home that I used to know so well.

I got out of bed, determined to find a box of sweatshirts of my mom's that my dad had mentioned still lingered in the house.  After a rather short search, I found it.  Furiously shaking, I pulled out articles of clothing and stopped when I picked up a very familiar navy blue USA sweatshirt.  I held it out before me, images flashing across my mind, scenes from the 90's replaying in my brain.

Hesitantly, I brought the old sweatshirt to my nose and inhaled very deeply.  Mom.  I breathed in the scent of love which used to fill my nostrils every time that I hugged her, and collapsed in a ball on the ground, sweatshirt in my lap, silent tears streaming down my cheeks.  I thought of my unwillingness to hug people now and wondered if somehow, those things were connected.

The pain doesn't go away.  My life has moved on.  I'm four years older now.  I have a college degree and a real life job.  I've met Jesus and my life has been deeply transformed by the Gospel.  I have a new mom-figure in my life for all of those necessary mother-moments.  The reality of her being gone isn't as debilitating as it was when I was 18, but the pain is still the same.  It's still sharp and strong and at times very consuming.

Sometimes I wonder if people think I'm silly for still hurting to the degree that I do over my mom's death, and so I refrain from talking about it.  But what I remind myself of is that the majority of people in my life (thankfully) just don't understand.  I praise God that my friends didn't go through what my sister and I had to as teenagers.  A mom is so significant in a girl's life--especially at our age.  I long for her comfort at every difficult moment and for her celebration at every joyous one.  I wish she saw me graduate college and I wish she saw the births of our little cousins.  I wish she was going to be there at our weddings (if we get married, that is).  I wish I could have shared with her when I found a major to study that I enjoyed and a career that I was passionate about starting.  So many times things happen throughout the day and I think, "I wish I could call up my mom to tell her about this."

I miss her laugh and her constant involvement in my life.  I miss her telling me how proud she is of me.  I miss her cooking and her giving heart.  I miss her making up crazy stories about our neighbors at the beach.  Mostly, I just miss her hugs and having someone who would lay down next to me and hold me.

I just miss her.

I sat on the floor, heart aching from the loss of that comforting smell, lips quivering as they wished for one last chance to apologize and say, "I love you."

Eventually I pulled myself together and dug to the bottom of the box, where I found the sweatshirt that reminds me of my mom more than any other article of clothing.  Walking into my room, I slipped it over my head and gazed in the mirror.  I look like her, only younger and with longer hair and bigger glasses.  And now I sit on my bed, the scent from this sweatshirt I'm wearing rising into my nose.

For now, I smell like her, too.

But the scent will fade, just like it did from the other articles of clothing I've taken from her closet.  And I'm sure over time, the memories will fade too, just like they did of the other family members who have passed away.

And this pain?  Maybe one day it will fade.  But for now, for today, it hurts just as much as it did back then.

me (currently, at 2am)