WON! COME!

Two years ago to this very day, frightful words freighted out of an unknown visiting doctor's mouth.  A train wrecked in my heart, and I dropped to the feet of my husband and sobbed on his wing-tipped shoes, and I faced my own mortality.  A grim diagnosis of cancer, metastasized.  A flagrant miss on my last mammogram.  Unnoticed by the radiologist.  So noticed by a Good God, not a Grandfather God, but a very Good God Who is always out for doing us good, no matter what.  Jeremiah 33:20---I mean, when was the Last Time that the Sun didn't set or dawn at the right time?  When is the Last Time God refused to be good to me and to you?  My life so wants to tell of the Goodness of God!

Two years down the road and my hand is over my mouth in awe.  I used to have a lot more words, loads of loquacious complaint yet worship and grimace yet gratitude.  But this anniversary, I'm all silenced.  You see, my circumstances have esoterically gone*haywire*awry*languor*imbroglio* 

Struggling for petrichor---the smell of the earth after rain.  Psalm 27:13-14
Struggling for panacea---the solution to at least one of the problems we face. 2 Chron 20:12
Struggling for peace---not offense, blessed are you when you are Not.Offended.by.God. Luke 7:22
Struggling for my place in this worn world---advancing Good News that Christ can be formed in you and you and you. Gal 4:19

Fast Forward to Revelations...
Peruse and Peer and Peek into Eternity---what do we hear there? Rev. 19: 6-8 Hallelujah! Rejoice and Be Glad. Give Him Glory! For the Wedding of the Lamb has come and His Bride has made herself ready! So how are we doing making ourselves ready? 

If we call Him LORD, we'll be doing the right things. But if I make my aim:  Great marriage, successful ministry, awesome kids, fulfilling friendships...wait! That's not what is being proclaimed in Eternity. What is being proclaimed in Revelations 19 is twofold:  Won!  Come!
1. The Final Victory has already been WON! Christ Jesus accomplished His Plan and reigns forever!
2. The Marriage Supper of the Lamb has COME! We have been invited to the Wedding, in truth, you are the Bride. You stand scarlet no more. Your sins are gone. You stand before your Groom, pure and holy as He!

We are not singing a song that we've done it! That our children turned out great! Or, here's our successful ministries planted in Your Name! Or even, my marriage was awesome! Look what I did with my life! No. No. We are singing His Praises from way-down-deep gratitude for lives lived in His Presence, by His Power that changed us and made us who we are walking down the aisle.

And with my hand over my mouth, I kneel this night to close this hard cancer anniversary in surrender to a very Good God.  With Reticence and Rest, I come to find Strength and Power to move out in Life and Love, not counting my way-too-many sorrows, but counting on the opportunities to bring others with me. I hear His Words that He has spoken to me and they are for you too.  Deut 32:47.  No idle words, they are our very life!  Whatever is not of the Attitude of my Christ, Phil 3:15, reveal where I've forgotten, where I've failed, where I faint.  Let me be more "taken" with Your Love than with my failures. With Your Hand of Grace on our Shoulders, and by Your Unbelievable Power, we will change it and truly live.  Not in our own Energy, but in yours, Col 1:29, the Energy of Christ so powerfully at work in you and me.

Blessed are those not.offended.in.God.  Luke 7:22.
In the corridors of truth, may I not miss the Mystery, a liminal place between two threshholds of time.  Today and Eternity.  We will throw all this sempiternal stuff down before the God-Who-Sees-All. Gen. 21:19.   Lay down the doings this day.  There's a Larger Story than just my little life of securing steady work and leaving legacies and growing gardens and fighting foes and creating children and daring to dream.  Doesn't mean we ever stop doing good.  Just says that in Eternity, we will be singing His Praises not our own, no matter what!

Ann Voskamp, http://www.aholyexperience.com/  writes on her blog about the She Speaks Conference in North Carolina.  Ann is offering a random scholarship for one Judges 6:12 mighty warrior like Gideon who was scared stiff in his story but so wanting to serve.  Oh, may our Good God use us to birth stories of service and grace.  I am in the pains of childbirth that Christ be formed in me and in you! Gal. 4:19.

These women,  http://shespeaksconference.com/, are conduits of composing this Psalm 45:1 kind of offer for writers, speakers, and ministry leaders. We all only have this moment, this life to leave a legacy, make a mark, reach out with redemptive rhetoric. If you've held tightly any thoughts of writing and speaking and ministering in leadership, then check out Lysa TerKeurst's blog http://lysaterkeurst.com/ and meet an amazing woman who is a "minister of the Word" (Luke 1:2). Titus 1:1 says that we are all servants of the Word of God for the faith of His People and the Knowledge of the Truth that leads to changed lives---that Christ be formed in many mighty warriors!