Mercy

I've been thinking a lot about that spiritual gift called "mercy." It takes all forms of servanthood, but is universally characterized by immediate response: someone needs help, and who will go?

It's enough to say that my life was touched by tragedy, but that wasn't the end of the story. Things return to normal but there is a part that will never be calm again. Vestigal hypervigilance. The foundational need for human fellowship, shifts. It evolves. The need to rise to action is advancing a sizeable element of the soul. It ultimately will confine a typical desire for community.

I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.

That's what YHWH writes in the Old Testament. Jesus stood in the gap, for me. And that makes me want to stand in the gap too.

A few nights ago I watched a new movie starring Jodie Foster called "The Brave One". She said "I never knew how people lived with fear. Then it touched me." In the movie she works through tying the shock of the unreal with the real, to regain her senses. The lens of life shifts for her from the things the self needs, to the restitution needed for others. I thought it was amazing to watch her wrestling with conscience down the road of individuality. In the movie the main character finds solution by handling a gun. I would be different here since I was consecrated by grace and truth. I perhaps choose the non-hypocritical tools of forgiveness and peace, and my weapon is the sword of the Spirit.

This post is nearing that something I've been trying to write about for a couple of years now.

I love to walk and drive the streets of my town, and listen to the leading of the LORD for whom it is that needs to be heard. It is just like a dancer who listens to the music, though I am not trained, not completely talented and flexible. But when the music is on, I make my on-the-spot choreography, advocating the sounds that can't be seen. I retreat to the sanctuary of my family and recharge, and refocus, and I am ready once again. I well love the life God has given to me.

Thank you, Jesus, for the cross.

Listening to: "Sanctuary," Rachel Lampa