Archive for April 2019

Home Archive for April 2019

"There is a time to mourn in silence, but justice aches to hear you speak." — John Lucas

I talk a lot.

It comes naturally. I talked all the time as a child. As the oldest, even for the brief period of time I was an only child, I could talk the leg off a chair. I talked to myself. I read books out loud to the cat (I couldn’t read). As I got older I’m sure I pestered prospective friends with my talkativeness. I’m sure I still pester long-standing friends to this day.

In homeschool circles, the verse about having a “meek and quiet spirit” was idolized as the epitome of the perfect woman, and so I would often have this sense of guilt or dread after leaving a homeschool event because I was quite frequently the very opposite of this verse. I was boisterous and loud. Everything had a funny side (which I still find loudly hilarious), but a lot of people didn’t get my sense of humour. Most probably still don’t.

I fell in love with writing all the words that I wished I could speak very early on. When that progressed to chatrooms, I fell in love with suddenly looking so much more articulate than I was in “real life”. I almost sounded like I knew what I was talking about when I was given a keyboard (plus my 100WPM typing speed). I spent so much time talking with friends online that I was no surprise to them when we finally met in person. I was just as talkative.

As a lover of writing, I tried to wrap words around everything. I wrote short stories, attempted novels, loved poems and six-word stories. As time progressed, I grew to love curating my thoughts on my blog through lengthy articles expounding on this or that topic, or counselling sessions with friends where I would burrow to the heart of a matter and see them find enlightenment. That was always my favourite part; problem solving for others. Spinning words into the perfect web to capture thoughts and pin down meanings. When I think about how the Word of God is living and active, I get a sense of that aliveness whenever I actively use words for the good of others.

Until lately.

Over the years, I have talked so much. I have used so many words, pouring them endlessly into other people’s hearts in the hope of providing enough anchor points for them to triangulate the truth off. I’ve used words like a blanket to wrap around the wounded, or as bandages to stop the bleeding. I’ve used words like a scalpel to peel back the skin and slice close to the bone of painful issues. I’ve used words to stitch up torn open souls, and to ease troubled minds. I’ve used words as lenses to view circumstances and scenarios from different angles and points of views in order for them to be better understood. In some cases, I’ve seen fruit from my extensive efforts through the sharing of words, but most others, I’ve seen the same patterns repeating over and over again; my words becoming meaningless background noise for the opening of the same wounds I tried to patch, the same brokenness I tried to mend. And I’m tired.

These days when I think of opening my mouth, I feel a welling sense of despair in my soul. “What is the point? Why waste your time? What difference does it make?” and I feel the words inside me sink back beneath the surface and disappear into the depths of my soul. Coming to terms with the fact that I am incapable of making changes or fixing people on my own has made me recognise (rightly or wrongly) how meaningless my words truly are. They are not the Living Word of Truth. They may communicate it, but even that communication is pointless if the heart is not ready to receive. I cannot fabricate revelation for a person. I cannot change a heart. Only God can do that. So what’s the point of saying anything? What use could my words have?

Part of my mind is telling me it’s a lie from the enemy to keep me silent. Those whispers that say, “you’re wasting your time, you’re making no difference, ash and dust, that’s all your words are” do sound a lot like lies, but I can’t help but wonder if they’re true. Has everything I’ve spoken and shared; the pouring out of my heart and soul to people in the form of words truly been wasted? If there is nothing to show for all I’ve given, have I been casting my pearls before swine, or is to even call my words “pearls” a stretch? I always thought words were powerful, but now I’m not so sure.

I’ve been lied to and deceived by people so many times in my life. They used words. I hear people’s words now and am discouraged that my first response is usually doubt. How can I believe what you’re saying, when I have been spun so many lies so convincingly over time? When people can talk the talk so effectively yet be walking a walk completely different, I can’t help but be skeptical. Are my words as worthless as yours, I wonder, even if I know mine are as true as I can be sure?

I know my words are not as powerful as God’s Word. I’ve never really thought so, but perhaps I conned myself into thinking that if I was speaking God’s truth it would be as effective as God’s Word itself. Just because I communicate truth however, does not mean it’s the truth that changes a heart. The vessel is not what it contains, it merely pours it out. Perhaps I had more faith in my pouring abilities than I did in the Truth I claimed to be containing.

The irony, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, is that I am using words to articulate all of this. Though I may be quieter than usual on the outside, the words still exist. They swirl like a brooding cyclone in my mind, wreaking havoc upon me by headaches and poor sleep. Swirling words I’m still trying to grab and wrap around concepts that were never meant to be worked out mentally. Mortal words will never fix spiritual problems. I guess that’s why it’s easy to see what I have to say as worthless; my words will never be the Living Word. I can’t fix a broken heart, so why even try? What can my fruitless words do?

But words still exist as a lifeblood for me. To line up the right letters into the right sentences; to translate my feelings and wrestlings into rows of words is cathartic for me. As if I release the pressure built up in my soul into a gushing torrent of writing; my pounding fingers upon the keyboard giving me blessed relief, as though bleeding out onto the page. I cannot fix anyone with my words, but I can express them for myself. Words may not help anyone else, but they help me. The Living Word may not choose to use my words to change a life, but I can still allow them to change mine. God’s loving arms reach out to me not only through His own words, but through the words I write. The words I sing. The words I read. The words I share. Maybe the releasing of words into the atmosphere has all been for me; that maybe, somewhere down the road they’ll all come back to me and whisper the truths I need to hear.

I need to believe my words amount to something. Anything. Yet, even when my words fail—and they will fail—my life is held together by truer words, spoken by the Almighty Word Himself.

And maybe, if I am silent, I will get to hear Him speak.

At least now the dying man looked better.

When I found him, the desert had shown him the worst it had to offer. Bleeding and cracked lips, hair thick with sand, his face chafed, dark from dust and sweat, I had stumbled over him in the gathering shadows on my way to the spring. He became conscious enough to aid me in getting him to his feet, whereupon I was able to help him mount the camel I was leading. Slowly, we arrived at the small wadi before the dusk deepened into evening.

Pulling him carefully down, I let him lie on a rug spread comfortably in a sandy hollow. I took a moment to gather a few sticks and light a quick fire by which to see. The man seemed to have slipped into a restless sleep, so as he dozed, I drew water from the well, and bathed his face and chapped hands, letting the water trickle through his hair and washing away some of the sand. His face no longer looked as dark and burnt as it had, and though his lips were still badly scarred, the blood had stopped flowing. Noticing his ragged clothing, I pulled a robe from my saddlebag. Knowing how cold the desert could get at night, it was a wonder he hadn’t already frozen to death with the bare threads he was wearing. Wrapping him up as well as I could while he was still unconscious, he was much more friendlier on the eye. However I knew it wasn’t his outward appearance that needed revitalising, it was the inside.

Pulling a cup from my stash, I tipped the bucket I had drawn from the well to one side, letting the cold, clear water trickle into the smaller vessel. With one hand, I tenderly lifted the man’s head and with the other, held the cup to his lips. As the liquid entered his partially opened mouth, his eyes flew open and his gaze rested upon me instantly. With a choking spasm, his arm flew out and knocked the cup away from him and sent it spinning out of my hand; the precious water wasted upon the sand.

“Let me alone!” He rasped. “I need no one’s help.”

My anger flamed. “You were dying out there!” I spat. “When was the last time you had a drink?”

“I’ll drink when I choose to!” The man shot back, ignoring the question. “I didn’t ask you for water!”

With that, he clumsily attempted to rise to his feet. I held him back. “You are in no shape to go anywhere,” I said firmly. “Can’t you see you need help?”

“I don’t want your help!” I ducked his flailing arm, and pinned it to the rug he had lain quite peacefully upon just moments before.

“You need to drink.” My tone brooked no argument. With his one arm pinned under my hand, I reached for the cup and dunked it in the bucket, bringing it full again to his lips. I was surprised by his strength for someone so clearly weakened. As I held the cup to his mouth, water spilling down his chest, he clenched his teeth tightly, lips sealed against the life-giving liquid I was desperate to administer. He began to thrash beneath me.

“Drink, you fool!” I gasped, struggling. “Drink, or you will surely die!”

Still he refused. In fact, he held his lips so tight that the cracks reopened, and blood was coursing from the wounds, mingling with the water as it was shaken from my unsteady hand. With great effort, he managed to roll over and pull himself from my grip, and I fell against the ground in the place he had been, cup slamming into the sand next to me; shattering into pieces. My stunned gaze lingered on it for a while, until I realise the man had left my small camp, stumbling off into the darkness; away from the campfire light, and the well.

“Wait!” I cried, a note of desperation creeping into my voice. I could not have this man’s life on my conscience. Not when I had the means to keep him alive. “You won’t survive out there!”

Quickly coming to my feet, I ran after him. In my fervent haste, I would’ve all but bodily picked him up as I approached, but a glint in the darkness made my feet falter a moment. A knife had appeared in his hand. I'd had no idea that it'd been hidden on his person anywhere.

“Come near me,” his voice rasped in anger, “and I will kill you.”

“Why?” I cried. “I mean only to save your life!”

“I will save my own life, for it is mine. Not yours!” He growled and swiped at me with the dagger, and I stepped back hastily.

“This is the only well for miles. I know, for I too, was a seeker like yourself once.” My focus flicked briefly to the distant horizon fading into the deep black and purple of twilight; a horizon broken by hundreds of undulating sand dunes.

“So you say, but I will find my own. If I don’t, I’d rather die than let it be known I owed my life to someone other than myself.”

It was then he turned, and disappeared suddenly into the black oblivion of the desert, the sound of his shuffling footsteps fading into the night.

I stood there watchfully a good while, listening to the silence long after his ragged breathing and the shifting sand beneath him ceased to be audible. My heart broke within me, and grief overflowed; in tears for this soul I did not even know. Words fail as to why it affected me so, but I will never forget the anguish I felt standing there in the desert, alone, weeping for the fact that someone in their pride could choose to keep searching the expanse of the desert for water after discovering its only well.

"Jesus stood and cried out, saying, 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water'."
(John 7:37-38)

"The Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says to the people, 'Come back and quietly trust in me. Then you will be strong and secure.' But you refuse to do it."
(Isaiah 30:15)

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