conviction | Elaine Olsen

a tender ache

December 16, 2009

My heart is completely sad—full of a tender ache that exceeds understanding.

But let me rewind to a week ago, where it all began, even though I wasn’t privy to the beginning; only to the heart-stirrings of a young daughter who didn’t forget to remember her.

Her.

The woman from my “by the grace of God next time” post. Perhaps you remember her as well. I first encountered her five months ago—the memory of that day as fresh now as it was then. Her brokenness intersected with my compassion, and we shared a sandwich and some fellowship outside a Bed, Bath, and Beyond store on a hot July afternoon.

I’ve not forgotten her; just buried her a bit beneath the urgency of the moments that bombard my daily existence. Daughter hasn’t forgotten her either; from time to time she asks about her. Last week she asked about her again.

“Mommy, I wonder if your friend Gayle will get any presents this Christmas? I wonder if she has a place to sleep tonight? Do you think she’s hungry? Could she come live with us?”

“I don’t have the answers, baby, but we could pray for her… pray that God takes good care of her this Christmas and that maybe he would allow us to run into her again.”

We did pray and then said our good-nights. I thought a lot about Gayle over the next twenty-four hours, and then buried her again beneath my busyness. That was until yesterday morning when I nearly ran her over with my van.

I never take my children to school; Billy assumes that role, but the kitchen counter guys were coming, and I don’t do “guys” in my house all by myself. Thus, I offered him a trade–my taxi services for his overseeing of home improvement. After dropping my kids off, I decided to make a quick run to the McDonald’s drive-thru for a biscuit. The four-lane road was packed with the usual morning traffic, moving slow enough to force my irritation. It was then that I saw her sauntering between those four lanes, making her way, it seemed, to McDonald’s as well.

After making a hasty swing into a parking space and dashing indoors, I found Gayle sitting alone at a corner booth. I re-introduced myself and asked her if I could buy her breakfast. She heartily agreed, and then she amply consumed. Knowing that God was calling me to further interaction, I offered Gayle a ride to the place where she was staying; she said she was living at a local motel not far from our location.

We made a quick detour to a local store for some clothing and toiletries before heading “home” to Gayle’s temporary shelter. Upon arrival, I quickly surmised that Gayle had nothing to call her own at this motel—only a recent stay that left the owner questioning whether or not she should be allowed to stay there again. He finally agreed and gave me a reduced rate for two nights with the understanding that Gayle was not to smoke in the room.

I signed my name to the receipt and then drove her to the designated location at the back of the motel—an isolated locale away from the other “guests.” We unpacked her purchases, had a prayer together, and then hugged our good-byes. As I drove away, Gayle was heading back through an alley way to the front of the motel to secure some ice for the Pepsi liter I had purchased.

My heart was fragile in those moments; so much so, that I didn’t notice the commotion going on around me at the motel. I only noticed the empty rooms on the backside of the motel, an open door to one of those rooms, and the gaunt figure of my new friend in search of some ice. I spent the rest of my Monday in contemplative hurt for the entire situation. I couldn’t quite put parameters around my feelings, wasn’t quite sure as to the “underpinning” of my strong emotions, but I felt them… all day.

And then this morning, after dropping our kids off at school, my husband called to tell me about a report he’d just heard on the radio. A double homicide at the very same motel my friend called “home.”

Yesterday, somewhere in the neighborhood of 10:00 AM (the exact time I was unpacking Gayle and leaving the premises), a couple was found shot in their room—employees of the motel, family to the manager that I had spoken with earlier. A couple in their 60’s; apparently, they lived there, worked there, died there—most likely a robbery to blame for their deaths.

I’ve spoken with the police twice today about the details of my excursion to the motel. Thankfully, Gayle is safe. The police told me that she was still carrying her ice bucket around when they spoke with her last evening. Thankfully, I am safe as well. Funny thing, in all my interactions yesterday morning, never once was I scared, felt threatened by my environment, or worried at all about the details of my interactions with Gayle. It wasn’t until I left her that my heart began to experience an extreme heaviness—the weight of our encounter.

Today I better understand the reason for that weightiness.

Evil.

Pure and prevalent and within reach of where my feet walked yesterday morning. Two dead, less than ten doors down from me… close to me, yet kept from me.

And my heart is completely sad because of it all.

For Gayle. For the couple who were needlessly slain. For the manager, who moments just beyond our encounter, would learn of his relatives untimely demise. For everyone tonight who sleeps without a roof; for those who sleep with one knowing that come check-out time tomorrow, they’ll be back at it again—panhandling for another night’s rest, another day’s food.

Tonight as I sat around my dinner table with my family, the tears poured down my cheeks. The food wasn’t the richest of fare; we live on a budget, and with Christmas just around the corner, there isn’t always the extra we’d like. But we’re satisfied, and we’re safe, and Lord willing, we won’t have to worry about where we’re going to lay our heads for the next season. According to the world’s standards, we are richer than most, and yet my heart is completely saddened by it all. There is a gnawing discontentment that roots deeply within, and I’m wondering what to do with it.

I am exceedingly grateful for all that I’ve been given, but I’m a bit sickened by the disparity that exists between my good and Gayle’s. It doesn’t sit well with me, and while I’d never in a million years want to be her, I imagine she’s thought at least a million times that she’d like to me be… be you.

Be someone who matters to someone else; be loved and cherished by a good man, adored and dutifully honored by her four children. She’s not there yet; I don’t envision that she ever will be. But I am, and my heart is completely saddened because of it.

For her. For my world. For those who’ve never known the truth of the kingdom that is intended for their gain, their ownership, their joyous impartation.

I don’t know if justice will ever roll down for Gayle on this side of eternity. I wish that it would… that in some large way she’d find deliverance at the hands of her Father. But my feeling tonight is that she will have to wait. And that wait is the saddest lingering I can imagine. To not know freedom here but to have to wait for it until her arrival “there,” is a long, arduous, and depleting journey to get home. I hope she makes it.

I am haunted by my experience, friends; this one this time around will not bury soon. I suppose God intends for it to simmer until next time, and I can honestly say this evening, I’m not sure my heart can handle a next time. Not sure I want a next time.

I prayed for a next time back in July. God gave it to me yesterday. And now, I don’t have clue what to do with it—with Gayle and the holy rest of them who walk a similar path.

An odd Christmas ache, friends, that has found its way to my heart this year. It’s found its way to our Savior’s as well; and somewhere between the two—the ache and the heart—Christmas tells its story all over again. It shouts its everlasting witness.

Its glory; its gain; its good; its grace.

And therein, my tender ache finds the smallest inkling of some peace…

for the journey.

Thanks for listening; thanks for praying as you will. May God show himself faithful to the cries of the saints this night. I love you each one.

growing up honest

November 18, 2009

for a boy who grew up to be an honest man… I love you, son.

Out of ninety-eight people scheduled for traffic court this morning, only half showed up. Of the half who made the effort, only three pled an initial “guilty” during the roll call moment. Those three were moved to the front of the court docket to have their cases resolved first.

One of those three was my son. He was part of the three percent willing to take ownership of his mistake. In doing so, he saved himself some time and received a reduced sentence for his crime.

Traffic school (to which he presented his certificate of prior attendance) and $165 in court costs and…

No points on his license.

Honesty wins the day! Honesty doesn’t come without consequences, but honesty often tills the soil for favor in the eyes of the judge. Being able to “own” our issues, our mistakes and our sins, is a key to our continuing growth as a human being.

As it goes with our flesh, so it goes with our faith.

Honesty wins the day. Confessing our sin before the Judge always merits his kind favor, his grace, his forgiving love. Never once does our Judge turn aside an honest confession. Instead, he listens intently for our intent and pronounces judgment accordingly.

No traffic school. No court costs. No points on our license. None. Done. Dismissed from judgment with nothing more than the loving grip of grace to accompany our steps home.

Why?

Because long ago on a hillside, another stood in our stead and received the verdict for our crimes. A once and for all “guilty” so that we might find favor with the King. Instead of allowing us to linger with our punishment, Jesus Christ surrendered his body to our pain. He paid the cost. He absorbed the sharp prick of the “points” applied to his flesh and the lengthy stay required in the courtroom until the work had been accomplished, finished and completed for all eternity.

His admission of guilt freed us from having to continue in ours. His willingness to “serve the time” freed us from unnecessary seasons behind bars which, in the end, could never adequately proffer in fair exchange for the crimes against God that we’ve committed.

Jesus Christ became “sin” for us, so that through him, we might become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). What does that mean?

It means that we are as clean before the King. That what Christ did 2000 years ago was enough to purify us so that we can stand before the Judge spotless, guiltless, free to speak our witness because of Christ’s witness on a cross.

A familiar truth to most of us; in fact, one so well-worn that when we hear it again, read it again, we’re tempted to move past it without re-absorbing the impact of its witness. Familiarity often breeds passivity—a complacent forgetfulness regarding the merit of the witness.

Would you be willing this day, perhaps even in this moment, to play that courtroom scene out again in your own heart? To relive that moment when you first tasted God’s grace in full measure? To picture yourself there, before the Judge, when the roll call commences?

You, awaiting the sound of your name from his lips, preparing your heart for your “guilty” confession when the time comes to answer his question “How do you plead?” You’re shaking, perhaps sweating, wanting desperately to state your case but understanding that any objection you can offer for your sin seems as foolishness in the light of his glorified presence. You’re wanting to get a pass, but fairly confident that none will be offered.

That is, until your name is called, and the question is asked, and rather than looking at you squarely in the eye, the Judge casts his glance in another direction—to the One who stands by your side in your defense—and looks him squarely in the eye and says…

“How do you plead, Son?”

“Guilty, Father, let the prisoner go. She is clean; he is clean. I am the One cloaked with the responsibility… the sin. See me; free them.”

And with those words, and because of that sacred surrender, your time in court is over. You leave the scene a free person. No blemish to your record; no shame attached to your name. It doesn’t make sense… this sacred exchange between your flesh and Christ’s, but you receive it nonetheless. Grateful for the reprieve; mindful of the cost.

And today, if you’ve made it this far with my words and with your remembering, then your heart, like mine, should be filled to overflow with gratitude for the One who stands beside us to plead our worthiness before the Judge.

Today, I walk my grace with continued thankfulness for the gift of Calvary. I am guilty of a great many crimes against God. I’m not sure what percentage of the world’s population is willing to admit personal guilt along these lines; perhaps, three percent is too generous an estimation, but if three out of a hundred are going to make the good confession, then I want to be part of the three. I want the honest admission of my heart to be the catalyst that moves me forward in my growth as a Christian, and I want the favor of the Judge on my behalf.

Honesty wins the day. Always. In the courtroom of life; in the courtroom of grace.

Bend the knee and bow your heart this day; your posture of reverent confession is the precursor to God’s pardon. As always…

peace for the journey,

post signature

innocence lost…

November 2, 2009

Today I’m writing with my tears.

It’s not always good to write from a place of strong emotion, but for some reason, I’m compelled to say something. To offer a few words on behalf of a young life that has passed from this world with little more than an on-line epitaph that reads…

“Body of four-year-old missing boy found in a dryer”

In a dryer, friends.

A young life disposed of and temporarily hidden in a place designed for wet laundry, not for the fragile frame of his innocent understanding.

It shocks me, repulses me, angers me, and reminds me that I am living in the middle of a world’s evil. It’s extreme and callous, prevalent and intentional. This is just one story amongst thousands with enough “sensational” value to land it on the front page of an Internet search engine, alongside rumors of “Scientology fraud” and a “rare murder in Mayberry.”

More evil. More senseless acts of violence. More sin. More depravity. Have mercy. Is that all there is these days?

This seems to be the case, at least to a public without the eyes to vision beyond temporal atrocity. Everywhere we turn, everything we read, every news’ broadcast that anchors in our homes and via our computers is littered with the stories of evil and the depravity of humankind. Why?

Because evil sells. Evil roots at our deepest fears, and while our “senses” warn us to run away from the invading headlines, we sometimes cannot help but be drawn to the story. If we’re not careful, we enter into the story and, before long, our minds and our hearts are filled with thoughts that run contrary to what God desires.

True, we cannot turn a blind-eye to the problem of sin in our world. Evil speaks to the very reason of its contrast … God’s good. Evil sets the stage for a final showdown between heaven’s grace and hell’s determined intention for destruction. And while, as Christians, we know how that’s all going to flesh itself out one day, today I cannot help but wonder when that might be.

I’m ready for God’s final showdown. For an end to the enemy’s temporary “reign” upon this earth. I don’t want to read any more headlines regarding evil being perpetrated against God’s children, especially those who are unable to retaliate and who blindly trust their “elders” because God has created their young hearts for trust.

I don’t want child sex offenders to receive a “light sentence” because of their perceived “rights” in the matter. They gave up those rights when they made the decision to give into their depravity rather than seek help for their problems. Their excuses regarding their own depraved childhoods hold little water with me.

I’m not unsympathetic to their need to find resolution to their sin; I am, however, unsympathetic to them finding that resolution in a half-way house or group therapy session that sits within reach of a neighborhood school or playground. God’s grace can and does mediate its way behind prison doors—a controlled environment that sometimes better serves the cause of evil’s transformation (just ask my friend Mike, who spends a lot of time behind those closed doors dispensing God’s grace to the needy). Some soils are better left untouched by evil—protected and “out of reach” for the enemy’s intention.

I don’t want any more babies to be aborted in the name of a “mother’s rights” to her body. Our bodies are not our own. We were bought with a price; time to get on our knees and find our thanks for the fact that we’ve been given this moment in time, these few breaths to live our purpose on this earth, because our mothers better understood the value of their seeded womb. There is coming a day when every murdered child will have his/her day in court. The King will hear their cries, and if grace hasn’t been pled over the perpetrator’s heart, then God will exact a sentence in keeping with the crime.

I don’t want any more children to know the physical abuse and torture from adults who claim their “mental instability” as the culprit rather than calling abuse by the name is deserves—evil… sin. Those who decide that having “control” over their children allows them unlimited authority in the matter are those who have never sat under the authority of Jesus Christ. Children were not created for beatings, for the hammering out of our own “issues” upon and within their feeble flesh. Children were given to us as a blessing from God to be a blessing unto him.

No life arrives upon this soil without God’s planning; God’s notice; God’s love. None. Kids are not our mistakes. They are our treasures and are meant to experience their own walk of grace and discovery upon God’s earth. To think otherwise, is to cast our lots into the cradle of evil that births these heinous atrocities like water from a faucet.

Like a young girl being gang raped outside a high school dance while others stood by and did nothing.

Like a child being chained as a prisoner for years in her basement while giving birth to several children, fathered by her captor.

Like a young boy dying after being tied to a tree for days as a discipline strategy to get him to comply with parental rules and regulations.

Like an unborn baby being extracted from his mother’s womb prematurely to meet out a woman’s fantasy about being a “mother.”

Granted, these are extreme examples, but when children are diminished in the eyes of those who are charged with their keeping—with their “rearing” and their shaping—then intention plants a seed toward evil. And seeds of evil, when watered with years of neglect and a refusal to grow in a healthier understanding, eventually grow into a field of sin that harvests as tomorrow’s sensational headlines.

We must stop this, friends. All children of this world deserve better. They deserve our time and attention, our looking at them as our Father looks at them. Some of us are in the middle of our parenting years. Some of us on the backside of them. Some of us have never known the fruit of our own wombs. It makes no difference our “parenting” station in life. God’s children are meant for all of us. And I bet this day, there is a child within your circle of influence who could use your witness.

You prayers, your presence, your time, your gifts, and your wisdom that, in the end, will harvest toward kingdom gain rather than toward hell’s determined intention.

The only way that I know to combat this kind of evil in this present age is to invest my life in its contrast—in the lives of the children I’ve been given and in the lives of others who sit under my influence. Some of them are children. Some at other various stages in life. Regardless of ages, all of us are in need of a better response to the problem of evil in our world.

May the grace of the cross be the “rooting” that forces our contemplation in the matter and that leads us forward to make a change in our world. Any other “rooting” proffers little in the cause of God’s children.

And God’s children, well, the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.

Thanks for listening to my tears and my words today. How grateful I am for a public canvas that allows them both a safe place to land. As always…

peace for the journey,

~elaine

a worthy pause … God’s worthy cause

July 22, 2009

“Pray that God restores a place in me…”

That was her request. It haunts me now, some seven hours down the road. She spoke it from a place of absolute brokenness and ample isolation. She also asked me to pray that the devil would stop doing bad things to her … that God would be stronger than the devil and make him sorry for all the evil things he’s been doing in the world.We didn’t talk theology and where she had it “wrong” as it pertained to the devil’s power in relation to God’s power. We simply held hands and ate some lunch and prayed for a better day, all the while sitting on the curb in front of the local Bed, Bath, & Beyond.

I found her there, slumped on a park bench, completely unaware of her surroundings. I’d just finished up my Tuesday lunch with the “ancients”. While making my way to the van, I spied her out of the corner of my eye. People were pointing, commenting, and stepping quickly past her obvious brokenness.

It’s not a sight we see very often in these parts. Our lives are fairly sanitized and void of the “in your face” kind of moments that call for involvement. Yes, we take our mission trips overseas, and we stock the local food pantry, but when it comes to “hands on” and “in the moment”, well, rarely are we presented with the occasion. Thus, when such profound “need” comes knocking, it always warrants my notice; not always my intervention, but certainly my notice.

I’ve been noticing “need” all of my life. I suppose it began as a young child while watching my father’s intervention on behalf of the needy within our community. He has a special place in his heart for them, an even more special knack for intervention. If hugeness of heart is learned, then any measure I possess began at home. I learned from the best. My daddy is a foot-washer, both with the tangibles and the intangibles.

Today, my heart was called upon to remember. And so, rather than leaving the parking lot with regret, I circled back around, rolled down my window and simply shouted,

“Ma’am, are you hungry?”

By this point, she was stumbling down the sidewalk, after having been rudely interrupted from her slumber by a honking horn (apparently someone less comfortable with her “park bench” status). Her bleary eyes and mumbling response assured me of her appetite. I told her I would be back and that she should wait for me.

After what seemed to be an extensive wait at the local Chick-Fil-A, I returned to find my new friend sitting on the curb where I’d left her, barefoot and with the few items she carried strewn around her. She quickly offered me her thanks for the food, confident of my needing to make a quick escape. But I didn’t need to … escape. She was where I needed to be.

I sat down on the curb beside her and shared a half-hour of my day with a woman whose fifty-seven years on this earth have left her with some scars and certain hopelessness. She talked about her three children, especially about the one she aborted long ago and how he/she would have been 38 years old this year. When she discovered that my husband was a pastor, she asked if we could come and be the pastors at a church unfamiliar to me. She assured me they needed a good pastor. I assured her I was married to one and that I would like her to meet him someday.

We talked about other things; some strange “others” and some that made more sense. And then, my new friend, Gail, was ready to leave. I asked her if I could pray for her, and without hesitation, she grabbed for my hands and uttered a small request for some restoration within her own heart. Her words; not mine.

For all of the things she could have asked for, for all of the ways her conversation seemed to wander and weave in confusion, when it came to prayer, she asked from a place of understanding. She knew she was in need of God’s restorative power in her life. And so for a few moments, I prayed. Others milled past our make-shift altar with quiet conversation and knowing glances.

And then, as quickly as our sacred intersection had arrived, it passed. I hugged Gail, returned to my van, and she returned to her wandering. Even now, I can’t type these words without some painful tears of remembrance and a few questions alongside.

Does compassion have a limit? If so, what’s mine? Where does it end? Is thirty minutes enough? Should I have done more, been more, given more, loved more? Where do my needs end so that hers can have ample time and room enough to know a deeper sustenance beyond a chicken sandwich and a few moments of conversation? Should I have said more about Jesus, been more declarative about the truth I hold in my heart?

I couldn’t look at her feet, Heidi, and not think about washing them … literally. Not just her feet, but her entire body that signaled it had been a long time since her last shower. But I didn’t offer her a basin. Instead, I came home and immediately washed my own hands and thought about taking a shower to further separate me from the unpleasant smell.

I’m conflicted about it all, and quite honestly, I don’t know what to do with these feelings that wrap themselves around such “open-ended” moments of ministry. Chicken sandwiches aren’t cutting it for me; most assuredly, they’re not cutting it for her. Not really. Seems a pitiful offering when the need is so great.

Still and yet, I suppose it’s something. A beginning, perhaps. The seeding of a further wrestling that seems to be growing in me now more than ever before.

There’s got to be more to my mission on this planet than my words and my feeble attempts at pacifying a temporary ache. I know I can’t be all things to all people; who needs that kind of guilt? But, maybe, I can offer a good thing to the few people who God so graciously scripts into my every day and my along the way. Wasn’t that the lifeblood of his ministry here on earth?

The everyday and along the way? The one over the many? Jesus never rushed his earthly encounters with his created. Instead, he offered people his time and his undivided attention. He even offered a basin and a towel and the humbled posture to cleanse the needs of a very dirty people in order to make them ready for very difficult walk to the cross.

He’s still doing it, and he’s using the likes of you and me as his conduits of reconciliation. He’s entrusted us with a great deal; seems a bit risky to me, for I am well-aware of all the times I could’ve, should’ve offered grace at a deeper level. I’m not there yet, but I’m growing closer in my need to do so. Christ’s love compels me along these lines.

I want to walk like Jesus and touch like Jesus and give the “Gail’s” of this world the peace and restoration that their hearts are hungering for so that, indeed, the devil will get his due and my God will get his glory. I don’t always believe God for the restoration of lives that seem so lost … so far gone and so deeply broken. Tonight I confess my unbelief and ask God for Gail’s complete restoration, for the tiny spark that was lit this afternoon to flame into a full-blown fire of holy cleansing within her heart.

I don’t know what that might look like for her in days to come, but I believe God knows the best way to get there. I only wish I might have done more.

Next time.

By the grace of God, next time, thus I pray…

Grow my heart to a Jesus-sized heart, Father. One that doesn’t put boundaries on love; one that is willing to bend and to wash and to pray until restoration finds its home within the brokenhearted. Forgive me for my complacency and move my will to action on behalf of the kingdom. Guard my friend, Gail, this night with your careful watch and tender care. For all of the demons that assail her flesh and invade her mind, speak your peace and freedom over them all. Let this be the day of her new birth and understanding in you, Lord, and remind her of your love and mine with every step she takes. Thank you for intersecting my life with hers, and should our paths never cross again on this side of eternity, I pray for her salvation that will land her in my path when I get home to you. Break my heart for your people, again and again and again until I no longer have an agenda of my own but only one that lives and breathes for you. Amen.

post signature

A Spring’s Visit to a Winter’s Prison

January 26, 2009

“Then she called, ‘Samson, the Philistines are upon you!’ He awoke from his sleep and thought, ‘I’ll go out as before and shake myself free. But he did not know that the LORD had left him. Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.” (Judges 16:20-22).

There is…

no prison so dank,
no shackle so confining,
no disobedience so egregious,
no blindness so dark,
no winter so long,

so as to keep Spring from making its arrival. None. Its buds and blossoms come regardless of the bleak season preceding its entrance.

Resurrection is the hallowed crescendo after the harrowing silence of a winter’s death—a season’s stripping that reduces branches to the bare and wide-opened embrace of colder winds.

It’s hard to think Spring when Winter continues its insistent knock. It’s hard to think grace when the consequences of sin leave a soul chained and blinded with remembrance.

Samson knew something of winter’s bite.

His life began well. He ended on the upswing, but the living in between reads more like a tragedy rather than the famed position given him in the Hebrews “Hall of Faith” (chapter 11).

God wanted more for him. His parents planned for more. But for “more” to be his portion, Samson would have to walk the plans of his God, and subsequently, of his parents’. And for all of the ways that he might have been faithful to those plans and to his covenantal vow as a Nazarite, we are privy to a majority of his “less” than moments. Moments that included:

- Chasing after all manner of foreign women.

- Gleaning honey from the carcass of a dead lion and feeding it to his parents.

- Exacting revenge via foxtails and torches, the jawbone of a donkey, and the sword of his own hands.

Playing games with God’s truth rather than honoring God’s truth with sacred and in reverent fear.

Indeed, some would argue that Samson had earned his chains, his blindness, and his mockery by men. Open rebellion to God’s ways always yields a well-deserved humbling at some point. I know. I’ve hosted my fair share of showcase moments along the way.

But to remain stuck in our chains … to assign ourselves a place of permanent shame and penance within the cold and barren of Winter … is to delay or to altogether miss the promise of Spring.

And to miss the grace of Spring is to miss everything.

Samson’s Spring came near his end. If you are one prone to spectacular endings—to the grandeur and polish of an epic finish—you’ll miss it. Samson’s resurrection didn’t begin between two pillars (Judges 16:29); it began in the dark and in the depths of a lonely prison cell.

“Then the Philistines seized him, gouged out his eyes and took him down to Gaza. Binding him with bronze shackles, they set him to grinding in the prison. But the hair on his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.” (Judges 16:22).

Just in case you missed it, let me type it again.

The hair on his head began to grow again.

Grow. The verb tsamach in the Hebrew language meaning, “to grow, to spring forth, to sprout.”[i]

No matter Samson’s sin and no matter his rebellion, God’s promise of Spring came to him in his darkest night, the seeds of which would grow and would ultimately result in his finest hour. God visited the cell of a sinner and planted his grace accordingly and in a very literal way.

I don’t know if Samson thought a lot about his hair in those days, but I imagine that he did. When a soul is stripped, both in the spiritual and in the physical, one cannot help but look for any sign of covering … of hope and rebirth … of new growth and of springing forth. With every passing day and with every difficult grinding, whenever Samson ran his fingers through the sparse seedlings of a new and growing strength, he was reminded of just how far he had fallen and of the grace afforded him for its gradual return.

It did return, at least in part. That’s the way of God’s grace. Despite our willful choices and hardened rebellion to God’s plan for our lives, his mercy is ready and available for its return. He planned for grace’s arrival, long before our sin mandated its need.

“‘The days are coming,’ declares the LORD, ‘when I will fulfill the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line; he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called: “The LORD Our Righteousness.”’” (Jeremiah 33:14-16).

Just in case you missed it, let me type it again.

In those days and at that time I will make a righteous Branch sprout from David’s line.

Sprout. The verb tsamach in the Hebrew language meaning, “to grow, to spring forth, to sprout.”[ii]

God’s grace. Shooting forth and bursting onto the scenes of our lives. Sometimes through the simple of a hair’s sprouting. All the time through the profound of a Son’s coming. A Son’s dying. A Son’s springing forth on a Spring morning, announcing once and for all that resurrection is here to stay.

That resurrection is the gift of Spring; it follows the stripping and cold of a Winter season. A season when remembering God’s promises is critical to survival. There is…

no prison so dank,
no shackle so confining,
no disobedience so egregious,
no blindness so dark,
no winter so long,

so as to keep Spring from making its arrival. None. And that, my friends, gets a hallelujah from my spirit and a prayer of thanks from my knees as they hit the bedroom floor, once again, in absolute wonder and awe of the gracious grace that has been seeded on my behalf and that is growing in strength with every passing day and with every intentional glimpse I make into the treasures of God’s Word. He is the worthy pause of my heart this week. Yours too, thus, I pray…

Grow us, Father, into a deeper understanding of all things eternal. Let us not settle for our prisons; instead, renew our hearts toward a healthier life—one that is free of the chains and of the condemnation that seeks to keep us captive in sin’s remembrance. Spring us forth from our cells and grow us in the light and truth of Spring’s renewal—the resurrected life of Easter’s Gift. In the name of the Father who knows us, and the Son who loves us, and the Holy Spirit who so willing tends to us, Amen and Amen.

post signature

Category Archives: conviction