perhaps this is why i love poetry so much...
"A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings,
but whose lips are so strangely formed
that when the sighs and the cries escape them,
they sound like beautiful music..." {soren kierkegaard}
perhaps i am too happy to be a poet. but i am just sorrowful enough to appreciate the sighs and cries that sound like beautiful music.
i thought of this poem by luci shaw when i kept reading facebook status updates about the school shooting and how it was because we had kept God out of the schools. the thing about God is that He tends to show up WHEREVER HE WANTS TO. and mostly in places we least think He should be. in caves in small nothing towns. as a jewish boy in the roman empire whisked away to egypt in the middle of the night. in carpentry shops. in your boat in the middle of a dry fishing spell. with the least of these. by a well at the heat of the day. eating dinner with tax collectors and women of questionable reputations. and on a cross between two thieves. walking on a road after He was supposed to be dead and buried. He is the God of I AM (here)...
Open
by luci shaw
Doubt padlocked one door and
Memory put her back to the other.
Still the damp draught seeped in, though
Fear chinked all the cracks and
Blindness boarded up the window.
In the darkness that was left
Defeat crouched, shivering,
In his cold corner.
Then Jesus came
(all the doors being shut)
and stood among them.
no matter if we shut all the doors. make the schools as dark as a tomb. roll a stone over the front door. Jesus can still get in and out as He pleases. He still stands in the middle of defeat. in the darkness. when blind eyes can't see. fear can't crowd Him out. memory and doubt are no deterrent. He is Supreme over all these...
as a former teacher in several public school and now as the mother of three public school children, i have seen God in public schools. He tends to hang out places where He isn't asked to go. were the ninevites weren’t begging God to show up and let them repent? heck, even jonah wasn't really keen on them repenting. and he was a prophet. were those money changes weren't asking Jesus to come into the temple courtyard wanting Him to upset their apple carts? the Bible constantly shows us a God who delights in showing up where He was not asked or invited. we can’t keep God from showing up. He lives to pursue. He is the hound of Heaven. there is no place He can't find us. ask adam and eve hiding in the very bushes God had made. God rocks at hide and seek. He is coming to rescue, redeem, restore, revive us. i have seen Him do marvelous things in the public schools for people that weren't asking Him to do marvelous things. i have seen His mighty wonders in the deep.
i have prayed with the "moms in prayer" groups for all three of our schools. i walk around one of the schools once a week with some mothers and we pray for that school. i do a lot of things but i think that when i get to heaven i will see that none of them mattered as much as those hours of prayer. people are praying for the public schools. perhaps now more than ever.
all the doors being shut... Jesus stood among them.
john 1:5 the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
