Down.

My internet has been down for, like, four hours.  Ohmygosh, what is the world coming to!?!  So now that puts me up at 1:09am, writing away.  I had to stop myself from clicking the little Fox-that-is-magically-wrapped-around-the-entire-world button.  Like, eight times.  I kept going to do the same thing: check my e-mail, check my Facebook, listen to music.  Habits.  They're hard to die.  (Where did that gigantic fox come from anyway?  I mean think about the proportions of that Firefox.  I know God doesn't wear it as a scarf because, well, God wouldn't do that.  For himself anyway.  For Adam and Eve he did it.)

Anyway.  I digress.  "Today" is Sunday, and it was a very relaxing day.  I was able to visit with a very dear friend, Jodi, and her two boys Z & T.  I have known them for almost 10 years, which is a really long time.  What an impact they've had on my life.  And, they left me Gassy Gus - only the coolest game ever invented.  I show it to every little kid that comes to visit me, and some adults too.  You pump his head up and down a handful of times (filling his stomach...a balloon), and it has gas!!  Best game ever.  Some kids don't think it's that funny.  A lot of adults don't either.  I just tell them to lighten up.  Live a little, right?

That's what I was saying as I was heading down into the basement this weekend on a blanket and a board to hang with some kiddos while my parents, and their amazing small group coaches, got "down" at a Christmas shindig upstairs.  Oh man.  You should have seen me coming back up.  It was well worth it: the change of scenery, the wonderful time babysitting, the laughs.  What I'm incredibly thankful for?  The ability to relate, just a little bit, to the man who was carried by his friends to see Jesus.  I mean, maybe they did laugh on the way there.

I have been so encouraged by the many, many people that have been praying for me in the last month.  It's amazing to me how important the people around you are.  God designed us to do life together, and it's so evident to me.  I think about all of the people who have made the trek to my house, and to the hospital while I was there - I have every single one of my cards hanging on my wall, and have been deeply blessed by the many books, games, and fun coloring pages people have brought me & sent me.  But, the most important thing out of everything mentioned is how thankful I am to have so many people praying for me.  The only reason that I am able to feel hope & peace right now is because God is a God of grace - he is the one supplying it all.  I can't stop saying it; he is the one that deserves the credit.  God is writing the story.  He deserves the glory.

Nothing can portray this better than what I read moments before my fingers hit the keyboard tonight.  I got an e-mail from a sweet, merry friend, one that I have had the pleasure of getting to know over the last year while I've been in Milwaukee.  Before I describe her words, I think it's important to say that we shouldn't "rank" one another, or order our illnesses & injuries, sufferings & snares - pain is pain, and I will never put a little kid's cut above or below what I have had to endure.  God sees it all, and he wants us to come to him for help.  (I learned this, also, from a friend - Kathy taught me to pray with every child that came to me with an injury & it will always stick with me).

The pain that my friend has had to endure for the last few weeks is truly, truly heavy.  In her note to me, she talked about how in her anguish and suffering, she was struggling even to breathe.  I can't imagine what she was going through in the midst of such deep, intense pain, even though I experienced deep, intense pain recently.  She said to me though that within that anguish and suffering, God came to her, and he rescued her.  Tears welled up in my eyes, and I started to shiver because it rang so true, it hit home.  The same exact theme is stitched into my heart.

It's quite scary to me, in fact, because on the night of my fall, while I was in the hospital, I kept thinking of this song:

Falling on my knees in worship
Giving all I am to seek your face
Lord all I am is yours

My whole life
I place in your hands
God of Mercy
Humbled I bow down
In your presence at your throne

I called you answered
And you came to my rescue and I
I wanna be where you are

In my life be lifted high
In our world be lifted high
In our love be lifted high

I remember laying there in the hospital bed at night, my mom asleep, sobbing & singing this song in my head so as not to wake her, my hands in the air like a child needing to be held.  Weeks before I fell, I had sung it, and I had meant it.  It's one of my favorites.  I still meant it when the morphine was wearing off & my eyes grew tired & I struggled to breathe.  He met me in that moment, and he continues to meet me.  When we call, he answers.  I don't know how to make it more evident to you.   And when we sing "My whole life, I place in your hands", we have to be ready when he leads the way.

It's exactly what my friend was describing in her note, in her story.  A God who comes to us in the midst.  In the midst of it all.  Rescuer. Provider of rest.  Giver of strength.  Intimately investing in us.  When we are down and out.  When we just feel down.  When we fall down.  When we're down to our last penny.  Even when the sky is falling down.  (Thank you, Jay Sean.)

I don't like to perform in front of people - I love singing, but I can't stand performing.  With that said, I so wish that you could sit with me right now in this moment.  If you don't know this song, Came to My Rescue by Hillsong, I would teach it to you & we could sing it together.  The part where it says, "I called, you answered" is long and drawn out, connecting to "I want to be where you are."  We would sing it until the silence in between verses was no longer silent, and our voices grew tired of calling.

(And then, we'd sing Jay Sean's "Down".  Dani, HJ...I know you'd be with me.)

It's scary to me because it's a reminder of how big God is - the constant movement and knowledge that he has.  It goes way beyond me - it extends into different cities, states, countries; it spans across languages, ethnicities, cultures.  His listening ears.  He hears. 

He is working simultaneously in my life, and in my friend's life, and in the lives of her family members.  The same theme is woven into our veins.  He's working in the lives of the family whose daughter died on the same weekend that I fell; their daughter also fell on accident, but only two more stories farther than I did.  She slid down a railing, just messing around on Halloween, fell off & her life ended.  He's working in her mom and dad's life.  He's working in the life of the man in Grayslake, IL whose dog saved him from a house fire.  He's working in the life of the sixth grader who just found out he has a brain tumor by getting a concussion at a football game.  He's working in the life of my old neighbor whose daughter was born with heart defects.  And these things are happening in Illinois.  He's working in the lives of the kids in my city, Milwaukee, some of whom I, embarrassingly, don't know well enough.  Those that don't have homes, don't have answers, and don't have a warm place to sleep tonight.  About 20,000 of them to be exact - and homeless families are on the rise.  He's working in the lives of the family whose 15-year-old was killed by a decorative stone that fell in a parking garage near Lake Michigan because structural problems remain unchecked, year after year. He's working in the pain within the city I'm growing to love.

God is a God of paradoxes; he is both a God of mercy & a God of justice - at the exact same time.  I don't understand it, but I'm not called to understand it; I'm called to obey.  To go and do likewise, to do as Jesus did.  To try to emulate him, and be like him, and follow him, even when I don't understand where He's leading.  He works, and He moves, and He never sleeps.  He's alive.  And right now, what I want most is to slip out of my covers, out of my bed to simply bow down before this God of Mercy, to worship the God whose love I do not deserve.  I can't.  I can't get down on my knees without getting stuck.  Because I don't know how I would get back in bed.   But you.  You can.  You can bow.  I'm not going to lie, I'm jealous of you.

In my heart, and in my mind, I fall on my knees before him (slowly and without rocks, of course), but I so look forward to the day when I am physically able to just bow and be.  And, I'm thankful that I will have that opportunity because not everyone that I know physically can.

Here's the thing, not only can we bow, but we can follow.  Not only can we follow, but we can be a part of what God is doing.  Not just in our next-door neighbors' lives, but around the world.  Not just around the world, but in our next-door neighbors' lives.  Even in the midst of suffering.  Even if they cause the suffering.  Our brokenness, figuratively and literally is made complete in Jesus.  We chose to place our whole lives in his hands - we are the only ones that can choose for ourselves.  As he rescued me, he has rescued you.  The choice is yours to make - will you bow down?  Will you follow?  Will you be a part of what God is doing?

After Simeon had prophesied about Jesus in the temple (yesterday),
"The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him. Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.

There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem."

God is working in Grayslake, IL, and he's doing good things.  He is working in the city of Milwaukee, and I can see and testify to those things.  Even when we can't see how he's working, he is.  Because he is a God of grace, strength, and power.  And, He has invited us to be a part of the process; we can pray.  We can act.  We too can move.  Because we're following him, right?  In Milwaukee, I've seen him working through organizations like City on a Hill, which is reaching out to thousands and thousands of people in their community, many of which live in poverty; God's Kidz in the Hood, a home opened up to the homeless & hurting; Hope Investors, one of the only places in the United States to have actual beds for people who have been rescued from sex slavery in America; InterVarsity; so many different churches.  I've seen him work in a plate of cookies delivered by a beautiful 2-year-old bringing reconciliation to her neighbors that get mad about parking spaces.  I've seen him work in car rides home from Pic N' Save because groceries are heavy, and home is far away.  God hears.  There is redemption and reconciliation in the Messiah.

The Pharisees thought the Messiah would redeem the actual place called Jerusalem; for gain in structure, politics, class, and money.  But, you see, that Jerusalem that Anna was talking about wasn't just the city; eventually its walls came down.  There was structural, political, positional, and monetary loss.  Jerusalem was God's people.  He has extended the invitation, but we are the ones who choose to accept it, or to walk away.

Here's the thing, not only can we bow, but we can follow.  Not only can we follow, but we can be a part of what God is doing.  Not just around the world, but in our next-door neighbors' lives.  Not just in our next-door neighbors' lives, but around the world.  Even in the midst of suffering.  Even if they cause the suffering.  Our brokenness, figuratively and literally is made complete in Jesus.  We chose to place our whole lives in his hands - we are the only ones that can choose for ourselves.  As he rescued me, he has rescued you.  The choice is yours to make - will you bow down?  Will you follow?  Will you be a part of what God is doing?