I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief!

I rehearse reality in my morning prayers,
And live in unreality through out the day.
With my mouth I confess,
But with my heart I retreat.

I see my wounds and not my healing.
I forget His blood and feel my bleeding.
I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief!

There is no patience in my well-doing,
And I submit myself again to that terrible yoke.
It is for freedom that I was set free,
But I content myself with slavery.

I see my wounds and not my healing.
I forget His blood and feel my bleeding.
I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief!

But God’s righteousness has come
Not as a law but as a Son—
Though I don’t yet see him on his throne,
I trust his power alone.
I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief!

Let me see your wounds my Savior, for in them lies my healing.
Cover me in your blood, to stay my feeble bleeding.
By your grace alone I believe; complete this work in me.

“Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain” (I Cor 15:1-2).

On Doctors and Diagnoses

Why am I still surprised when I dissolve into tears in the parking lot at the doctor's office? Although I feel like I wouldn't even dare to hope that this visit would produce any answers, it's obvious that I do. The woman who walks in and the woman who walks out inevitably wear different faces. Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I don't like being sick. And I don't like having needs.

I'm fighting to apply Titus 2:11-14 to these fresh wounds:

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

I can never really get my mind around this passage. It speaks of salvation and sanctification; it promises self-control and the desire--even zeal--to do good works. It promises that I can live a godly life on this side of heaven.

How is this possible? It's only possible because grace trains us in what we should give up and in what we should pursue. And Titus 2 says that we are to do or to receive these things as we wait for the fulfillment of our ultimate hope. When I am overwhelmed by the not yets in my life, I find it helpful to consider again that God redeems all of our time--even the time spent waiting. I must believe that now, because I feel as though I am waiting for answers and waiting for healing in so many areas of my life.

The Lord has allowed me to begin ministering to a woman with an eating disorder as a result of this essay. This ministry has come at a time in my life when there are more questions than answers and in which I am tempted to doubt God's kindness to me. In the midst of the waiting and all of the not yets, here is a now. I am so grateful to serve in this way.

And yet anything that is brought into the light will be exposed. When we submit ourselves to God's word (even in counseling others), we will find out just how sinful we really are. Perhaps the most surprising, humbling, and (yes) frightening recognition for me is that I don't really have freedom in this area of my life. No, I don't live like a woman with an eating disorder anymore. But much of it is just behavioral modification; my sin is domesticated and kept at arm's length (but never beyond). So, I humbly confess that I am not recovered but recovering. We are never, in this life, beyond the reach of sin. I know that it is always waiting for me, whenever my emotions are a little too high or a little too low. I return to it daily if not hourly, at least in my thoughts.

Luke 11 says, "No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a basket, but on a stand, so that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is bad, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light." While significant areas of my relationship to food and eating have been exposed to the light, other areas have remained in darkness. I like to think that I can set this little sin apart and pursue growth in other areas, but I know that scripture sets forth no such selective sanctification.

"Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance." Here is one area in which I do have a diagnosis, and a Physician who can heal. I know for certain that the treatment for this disease is successful. I am called to repent and, by the grace of God and the help of His Spirit, I do.

I'd write more, but I don't know what to say...

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.

T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets

On Suffering

My pastor has asked me to speak on suffering for about five minutes on Sunday. The next few posts will be excerpts from that longer testimony (which would take much more than five minutes to read in its entirety).

Some of this will be redundant for those of you who have been following along with me for the past few months. I pray, nonetheless, that it will bless you again and that it will stir up my heart and yours to fresh faith and fresh faithfulness.

Click over to Boundless or Between Two Worlds to see a bit more discussion about my testimony.

Slave to Food: My Story

Carolyn McCulley has posted my (verbose) testimony about eating disorders here.

Raiding the Inarticulate

Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate,
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Undisciplined squads of emotion.

T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets

The quote from Eliot expresses something of the way I feel about "The Fig Leaf." Though I can never say precisely what I want to say, I am content to be Moses instead of Aaron.

Writing has been a part of my life for years now, and I've tried on styles and philosophies like bad pen names. I'm amazed at how much of a chameleon I can be. I recall words spoken for effect—more style with less substance; I even recall words intended to turn black to white and vice versa. Surely the things that Scripture says about the tongue apply also to the pen or the laptop.

I am "shabby equipment," and yet I must remember that the Lord made me as I am to show that the surpassing power belongs to him and not to me. He chose what is foolish to shame the wise, what is weak to shame the strong. I once thought that my significance—no, my glory—would be exposed in dark and profound words and the distinctive thoughts behind them. But the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

The Michele that now writes will never "get the better" of her subject. This thing that I am learning (being taught) to say is eternal; the words that go forth, Lord willing, are used to magnify the Word. This is a new beginning, the investment of just a little talent. May the Master be pleased when he returns.

Lord, in the words that I speak, help me to always lift up "Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”

"And so each venture is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate..."

Entering Blogdom (with Fear and Trembling)

So now faith, hope and love abide.

The statement would almost fit a Hallmark card. It sounds so...nice. But the sentiments are much too weighty for a postage stamp. As Christians, we must "fight the fight of faith." We learn that hope is produced in us through suffering. And we are told that love, "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." This language should give us pause when we are tempted to think that faith, hope and love are easy or automatic weapons for believers. I've learned a lot about fighting--and about the glorious "abiding"--over the past few days.

I enter blogdom, both literally and figuratively, with fear and trembling. I named my blog The Fig Leaf, after the quotation from Kierkegaard that you can read in the header. I love the way that this quotation identifies the Word as the remedy for all of our nakedness and how it situates that remedy in community. The Word and the body--these have been all my comfort during the past few weeks.

This blog is one way that I can attempt at least three things:

1. To take every thought captive to obey Christ,
2. To rejoice in the sufferings that are producing endurance, character and hope in me,
3. To make a defense to anyone who asks the reason for the hope that I have.

But I do not take this role lightly and, as I try my hand a as blogger, I offer this prayer from Psalm 71: “But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge. With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come; I will remind them of your righteousness, yours alone.”

I invite you, as you read, to hold me accountable if I should begin to speak more of myself than I do of the Lord’s righteous works. The Lord’s purpose will stand, and my story matters only in that it is one of his numberless deeds of salvation.

Receiving and Demanding

I truly do not know how I would have survived these last 10 days without you. I am grateful to the Lord that he has not called us to bear our burdens alone but has, instead, provided both His body and His spirit to sustain us here on this earth.

The next few weeks, I suspect, are going to be a time of intense battles between flesh and spirit. The Lord himself is going to be working in me all of the benefits of suffering—endurance, character, and hope. Please pray that I will not waste these days.Writing to you has been an important way in which the Lord has enabled me to take my thoughts captive during this difficult time. For this reason, I am going to continue to journal a bit about my experiences, but I am going to discontinue the mass email format.

I have been grieved over the last two days to see my heart, time and again, demanding instead of graciously receiving the support of those around me. I find myself in that strange place of both wanting the world to stop for me and fearing that it will. Truly, the condition of our hearts determines how we receive any gift from the Lord’s hand. My response reveals the sin in my heat, and I will not treat it lightly.

It is likely that there will be no medical news before May 25, at which time I return to the neurologist for another round of testing. I will reconnect with you after that testing is complete.I do plead with you to continue your powerful and effective prayers on my behalf—prayers for my body and for my spirit. I had never known the intimate comforts of Christ, the efficiency of the Body, or the clean and enduring fear of the Lord in the ways that they have been revealed to me in these last few days. So I will calm and quiet my soul again and wait upon the Lord.

Inexpressible

Everything in me wants to sit down at my computer tonight and account for my tempestuous emotions over the past few days. Exhaustion and distress have always been, for me, the contractions that give birth to self-expression. So, why the reluctance now? Labor pains signify…labor. Shouldn’t I be crying and thrashing and pushing out the words that produce new life?

Ahh…but my life is no longer found in those words. This heart has changed so much in the past year. I can finally say that I count even the “gift” of writing and the self-knowledge that this gift brings—I can count it as loss in comparison to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ. And if this weren’t shocking enough, I’ve discovered a new reticence to talk about my heart in terms of its is unless I can also assert its oughts. This is more than just the shift from descriptive to prescriptive; this is a shift from reflective to redemptive.

The tension was almost unbearable today. Within a few hours of being offered a public forum in which to write redemptively about one of my sin struggles, I was pressed hard into the clutches of that exacting master again. I sink into my chair tonight feeling utterly defeated, and I will go to bed with a heavy heart unless I can lay my burden at the cross. So, what do I know to be true? What comfort can I take; what can I give?

Just from Colossians, where I happen to be tonight, I can testify that “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (1:13-14). My sins—even those willful ones tonight—are forgiven! Or, later in the same chapter, that I will be presented holy, blameless, and above reproach before the Lord if I do not shift from the hope of the Gospel(1:22?). This tells me that not only am I declared righteous but I am also being made righteous. I have been redeemed and am being sanctified. And, hearing this, I find courage to put away these “earthly things”—the ways in which I once walked (but now stray).

I have hope, today, that I can put them away in victory. Death, where is your sting? Sin, where is your power? Defeated. All defeated! The writer in me must cling to the fullness of the word 'inexpressible' and cry aloud, “Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!”