A great shift...

As sweet a love affair as this has been, blogspot and I have officially separated and filing for divorce. I've begun a new relationship with wordpress; it's a little more grown up. This lives, for purposes of posterity and commenting on other people's blogspots. But for now, if you see me walking hand in hand with wordpress, don't be surprised. Please visit; the welcome mat is always out at www.robinsheart.wordpress.com.

Hosea's Heart

God sometimes asks a lot. Hosea was asked to marry a harlot; did he know what his life would become? He had no ten-year-plan, no pre-nuptial contract, no insurance from the Lord that she would ever love him. I wonder what Hosea's hopes were before the Lord spoke, and whether he felt them abandon him. Did he hope for a family, a house with a balcony, the peace of knowing his wife thought he was precious? Did he hope to be respected in his home and his community, did he want to be known as a man of honor? A man who loved God? A man loved by God?

I don't know. I know Hosea was human, and I know his story reflects the powerful love of the Savior for a wandering Israel. And I know that into the middle of his own plans and hopes came the voice of the Lord: go and marry a harlot. Was it a bomb planted in his heart that exploded when she left him the first time? Or was it like landmines planted in his soul, one setting another off? Just because he obeyed God doesn't mean it was easy. I wonder if he wondered what I have wondered: what has (s)he made me? Now where do I stand, and how is my foundation shaken?

And yet he stayed, and yet he bought her back. Paid dearly for her, over and over, as though she was his very heart cut from his side. Regardless of the pity and the scornful looks of those around him, he redeemed her at his own cost, and brought her back into a safe place. He gave her a part of his life, a life of integrity and faithfulness and wholeness -

Why did she wander? How could she wander? How could Gomer leave him – what could the world possibly offer that would be greater than her husband? And yet she did, and yet Israel does, and yet I do.

And sometimes He asks a lot of me, and sometimes I fail or falter; sometimes I hide for days, wandering the roads of my own selfishness as He tirelessly walks with me, leaves directions for me to get home, until the Divine stalking gets the better of me and I come into the open to talk with Him, this sweet Savior who buys my heart back over and over.

Sometimes He asks a lot. Sometimes the consequences of obedience are painful. Sometimes He frightens me with the intensity of His justice and love. But He is always ready to redeem me at even the highest price; and when I play Hosea instead of the harlot, He is always there to be the strength in my heart and the breath in my lungs.

"Simply to the cross I cling
Letting go of all earthly things
I'm clinging to the cross.
Mercy's found a way for me
Hope is here as I am free
Jesus You are all I need
I'm clinging to the cross"
- Bethany Dillon/Matt Hammitt

Why He takes His time on our hearts

There is an incredible question floating around the universe: "Why doesn't God just fix broken hearts instantly? It's horrible to watch other people hurting..."

One of my guy classmates brought this up in a lecture yesterday, completely surprising me (yes, I did fail to recognize his sensitivity to others). But what really surprised me is that this is a question I have asked for what seems like the entire duration of my life, maybe even every day - this is the place I have doubted the Lord the most, and the place where I wasn't sure I could trust Him; did I doubt His sovereignty, or did I just doubt our ability to really allow Him to heal? - and I realised that I'm not asking Him any more because I know the answer.

Every single person on this planet is walking around a little bit broken. There isn't just one way for a heart to shatter. We see broken hearts on every single page of the paper, in every news report; we hear them in sad love songs, in the songs that wish there was one chance to say goodbye to a grandparent, we see them in divorce and suicide statistics. We hear about them in daily conversations, we see them trying to hide behind laughter or giving themselves a label like "emo" so they have an excuse to be sad.

There's a reason websites like SecretZen have become so popular: they give broken hearts a voice, and for those who don't have the courage or the desire to speak, a place to recognize: I am not alone in this. I won't lie; I often hear an echo of my own heart in someone else's words. "We are half lost"...oh, I am half blind; I long to see my Savior's face, I have to wait for that, and it leaves me feeling a little lost. "I wish I was a child again"...me too, oh, me too. Sometimes I save other people's secrets, because they're mine too (and not so secret). Sometimes I only visit these websites because I think I might be the only person to pray for them, and I hold some hope that it will make a difference. God will hear me...and He will meet the girl who feels trapped, even though the truth is supposed to set her free, and the boy who wants to know why his father is missing. Do we see the broken in others and long to see it mended because we are seeing with Jesus' eyes, or do we desire healing for others because if it can happen for them, it can happen for others?

So why doesn't He mend us straight away? Hasn't He taken our iniquities upon Him, haven't His stripes healed our wounds? Oh, yes they have, and they cost Him everything. We cost Him everything, and our healing broke the very heart of the Father.

But I know something else now, too. I know exactly what a broken heart is like - not just from a broken engagement, but from a broken home, from a shattered dream, from watching a world that needs Jesus so bad slowly dying, and I know what it's like to spend hours begging God to please make it better soon.

But if I was never broken, would I know Him as my mender? If I was never empty, could I ever see Him as my fulfiller? If I was never lost, if I was never in pain, could I ever know Him as the One who found me wandering the paths of my own choosing or the comforter of my heart? If I never came to a place of recognizing that on my own I cannot save myself or anyone else, would I ever know Him - really know Him - as Savior? And if I don't know Him as these things, would I make Him Lord?

Even greater: if He isn't everything to me, if He isn't the only One who can save me, then how can I take Him to those who are broken? What have I got to offer anyone? If I'm never in a place where I need to lean on Him and He proves Himself faithful, I will never know Him as faithful.

I feel well qualified to say that a broken heart is a blessing or a curse and we choose which it will be. In brokenness we choose who will reign, and whether there will be victory, whether we grow or whether we sink into self pity. I know one thing now more than anything else: I would not trade even one second of my broken heart for a quick fix.

If you looked at my life as a map, I could show you each place of brokenness; they would be in valleys, in deserts, in wildernesses and on infinitely lonely mountaintops. I could tell you each of the stories, and I could tell you about times when everything looked right but felt wrong. But if He showed you, I think He'd mark places differently. Where I mark myself broken, He marks a place where He proved faithful. Where I mark myself failed, He marks a place where He taught me that He is Lord of all situations. The valley I mark as the end He marks as the beginning. I mark an endless desert where He marks the place that I begin to stumble into joy.

In these places we learn more about ourselves, but we gather something precious: little awarenesses of God, knowledge of who He is, intimacy and relationship with Him. So He strips us, so He kills us, so He removes our self-sufficiency and our crutches. So what? Would we trade them for knowing Him? I wouldn't, I won't. Because I want to stand upon the mountain of God, and if I want to stand there with Him, there is a valley that must be walked through and triumphed over.

Noodles and Orange Juice

If I wasn't going to name this entry noodles and orange juice, I'd call it the questions God asks that shake my foundations.

When I was in Wellington and the world didn't feel right, I used to drive to Newtown to the Meditteranean Food Warehouse and buy chocolate gelato (with little chips of coffee beans...mmm). I would drive to the shoreline between Island Bay and Happy Valley and sit and eat icecream with Jesus, and talk to Him - yes, out loud - and my heart would come right by the time I got up off the sand and went home. In Tauranga, places that sell gelato are closed by 8 most nights. So tonight, I had sambal chicken noodles and orange juice. On the beach. And I shamelessly talked to Him, out loud. And I loved it, until He started to ask me questions that uncovered things I didn't know were there. How He breaks my heart with tenderness, and even though I ache, I love Him more than I can ever, ever express.

The danger in talking to God while you're driving is that He starts to answer. Tonight I had to stop the car and pull over to even begin to take in His words (nothing to do with tears, of course). There are very few people who can truly call me on my faults and failures who I listen to, but the Lord is one of them. He said so quietly, "I am teaching you to need me more than you need life, more than you need someone else to complete you, more than you need water or bread, far beyond any concept of need you have. I am teaching you to feel as I feel, know as I know. I am laying a foundation. If you want to be with me in my glory, and share my joy, you must also learn to share my sorrow. Loving someone else, for you, means being Jesus to them and having them be Jesus to you, and this is a good and a right thing because this is what I have set in your heart. but you can't be Jesus to someone else until you know Me more then you know yourself, and until you love Me more than your own life. Until you will lay down your life for Me you will not lay down your life for another." Oh, my, have you ever felt the conviction of God flood you as if there is nothing else in existence but Him and you? And with infinite sweetness and generosity He shows you where you fail, and where you are beginning to measure up? And you just have nothing you can say to justify yourself, but you don't need to, because the very fact that you're still breathing means that He still wants you? And He is perfectly stubborn for us.

I was so conscious that He was testing me, a little. Do I really want what I'm asking Him for? Am I really willing to give everything else up? If it comes to it, will I sacrifice everything I love and hold dear? "Will you even give up your desire to one day be married if I ask you to? Even if there is no earthly reward? Will you give up everything and love Me anyway, not resenting Me? Or do you hold some dreams dearer than you hold Me?" I didn't know...I didn't know my heart harbored such things. Is this what it means to work out my salvation with fear and trembling?

I don't know if the heaviness we have been experiencing lately is because there is a heaviness in His heart, andd we are learning to share His heart because we have prayed that He would "break my heart for what breaks Yours, everything I am for Your kingdom's cause" or not. But I do believe that if we are longing to know the weight of His glory, and He grants our hearts' desires in that, then it's right and fair that we also know the weariness of His heart and His suffering. That is the consequence of praying dangerous prayers and asking for adventures with Him. Before we pack for the journey, we have to tidy our rooms and sort out what to keep and what to carry with us.

"Come to me dear, with your broken heart
When the thorn will not fall from your side
You’ve waited too long and life’s passed you by
Come to me dear, with your broken heart"
- Matt Brouwer

something just isn't right

Something just doesn't feel right. Nobody has done anything, or not done anything; there's just a heeaviness, an aching, a desperate desperate hope for more sitting inside my chest...and my chest feels like an unfillable cavern. This is a quiet storm that keeps taking my breath away.

I have known what it's like to be bowed before Him with the weight of His glory so tangible that I was certain that if I opened my eyes, I would see the face of God and die. But this is not the weight of glory; this is something else formless and weightless, yet heavy as the universe resting on my shoulders, on my heart. It's like watching the world from a different space. Oh, yes, He is good and oh, He is kind; His beauty is everywhere. But this is a sadness I don't know well but am becoming familiar with; there is a depth to it that doesn't exist in my own, and a hope that burns me up. I am not certain that it is even my own. But I am certain that it is driving me to the foot of the cross over and over and over.

I love debate and I love discussion, but tonight, I am just not up to it; I don't want it, with every fiber of my being. All I wish for is that I could see Jesus sitting here in my room, and I could sit at His feet and just listen. Listen to the Lord of Eternity speak peace to my heart. Listen to His voice, and by His word the fury in me be quieted. Listen to His perfect wisdom making sense of my confusion. Listen to the King of my glory and the Prince of my Peace spill love into fear until fear is overcome and there is no more to say anyway.

I don't care about arguments and doctrinal issues and theology right now. I just need to hear Him say that He is near. Everything is right in the world, yet everything is out of place.

I am homesick for Jesus.
I am so, so homesick to see His face.
If I could just sit at His feet for a little while like Mary
See His face for a moment
I am certain everything would fall back into place
I am just so lonely for Jesus right now

What Waiting Means

I have just discovered the loveliness of Shawn McDonald's music through the accidental stumbling on his blog. I thought he might have been one of those indie musicians from the somewhat emotional nature of his writing (yes, just my kind of music). But no. And oh, my, I have been missing out! But maybe I love it more now that it is all real, more than I would have before? It is music that feeds the soul something wholesome. Between the Roots album and a photo of a dog, I'm thinking about what waiting means and why it even matters. I think that all waiting can be summed up like this:

Waiting means becoming more of who we are as we long for reconciliation with eternity and the precious Lord of eternity whose existence and involvement our restless hearts bear witness to.

Waiting matters because it makes us whole and fills the emptiness with the sweetness of the Lord. And without that, we are nothing (I am nothing).

won't You take me,
and make me
beautiful,
beautiful?*

I am not patient, and have never been. My best friends could tell you stories that would be alternatively embarrassing and hilarious about moments in time where my impatience has, well, not landed me in the best positions. But I am learning to manage my restlessness with grace and temper my impatience and impetuousness with careful consideration. With all the learning, though, there is often a tug in my heart for understanding. Why do I have to spend so much time in waiting rooms? I am done with here! But He isn't. Sometimes the only thing that can keep me in waiting rooms, rather than running away, is the awareness that here is where we are made beautiful. There is nowhere else we are broken and remade, with light shining through; nowhere else where what has already broken and mended crooked or is too crushed to even mend crooked is melted and molded and skimmed until the face of the Craftsman is reflected from its surface. These patient place are where we are somehow dissected and then put back together the same, yet somehow different; we are more of ourselves now, if that is possible, more of who we were meant to be. How can this be even possible??

There are songs that put peace in my heart while I'm waiting, and sometimes give me the sweetness I need to keep waiting.

Oh, but you know what? I hate waiting, I hate being temporal and fixed in time and space and endless not knowing. I hate waiting for wisdom, and I am not happy about having to wait for other people. And yet...if we want to inherit the earth, we must be made meek; if we want to be filled, we must hunger; if we want to be satisfied, we must thirst; if we want to inherit the kingdom, we must bear poverty, and perhaps be persecuted; if we want to be comforted, we must learn to mourn; if we want to be shown mercy, we must extend mercy; if we want to see God, we must become pure in heart; if we want to be called His children, we must be peacemakers; and still sing glory to the Almighty.

It's late, and I'm tired, so I leave you with this thought tonight:

"I have tasted of a love so wide that it stops all my time"**

And yet we live in time with that Love. What an incredible God!

* waltz in 3 by Shawn McDonald
** have you ever by Shawn McDonald

why we run

i'm always running [away].

The crazy thing is that girls want to be pursued, want to know that their hearts are worthwhile. And yet, we run away. Is it because we are afraid that someone will find us beautiful and will pursue us? Or is it because there is a terrible fear of being weighed and found wanting, and being left alone?

We want to spend our lives with men "like these, they are just like trees, planted near the streams of water; with roots that grow deep, deep into the ground" (Shawn Mcdonald). But what is the cost? Being women like these, learning to be planted just like trees near streams of living water? There are all kinds of water, but we need to be planted near the living streams.

I think we want to be taken and made beautiful.

this week is going to be interesting. will i spend it running away? i hope i won't. i hope i will be brave and sweet and strong and kind. Jesus, give me grace [i have so little on my own].

I am embarking on a journey. It is a journey that I know is dangerous and where so much about the destination is still unknown. The map says the destination is the heart of God. But there is so much between here and there that I am almost taken aback by how far I haven't come. The start of this journey is learning about desire and my own heart, made in His image and twisted by the fall. I live a little in trepidation, because I know that where I am going requires change, and even though I have lived with myself for almost 23 years, I'm not exactly certain of what I'll find in the deepest places of my own heart. I'm not afraid of finding glory, but of finding darkness; not of potential, but failure; not of power but of infinite weakness.
But once I get there I KNOW I will find not only who I am, but who I need God to be, and what He needs me to be. I am glad, in some ways, that it will be a challenge, an adventure that spells ruin. To be ruined for the ordinary, ruined for the past, ruined for everything but the glory of the Lord and intimacy with Him is all I want. That's really why I am allegorically packing my hypothetical bags - to get rid of them.