so for a long time she sat-- remembering, wondering, and thankful.

For some reason, my words never quite fall the way I want them to. Especially when it comes to nights and moments like this, times that matter and that deserve eloquence. I’m just really not the eloquent kind of girl, I suppose.

It’s New Year’s. Happy 2015, my friends!

Apparently there is something about this day that makes me melancholy every time it rolls around. Maybe it’s the vast amounts of reflection it requires, maybe it’s the tidal wave of emotion that sweeps over me as I remember every big & small thing I encountered throughout the past year. 

Whatever it is, it almost bowls me over every year. In fact, last year it really got me.

Last year, God told me on New Year’s Eve that 

“someone will die this year.”

Just that one sentence.

That terrifying fact,

Whispered repeatedly when I asked for an explanation.

I remember it so vividly- I was in the theatre watching The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug for the second time, and He dropped it on me.

And when I asked “why?’ and “who?” and “when?’ and “WHAT?”, He simply restated Himself.

Sometime in the past couple of months, I have realized it was me He was talking about.

It was me that was to die in 2014.

It is me that sits typing at almost 1 A.M., tired of holding back tears, tired of having no words that adequately explain my heart condition, and dead.

Dead to self. Dead to false hopes. Dead to frivolity. Dead to shallow relationships.

And I think the reason that this particular New Year’s is so melancholy is because I know that I’m not done dying yet.

And I hate dying. And I am so bad at it. And I wish I were a natural.

It almost do wish it were easy for me present myself as a living sacrifice. 

But it’s not. 

It’s freaking hard. 

And I feel like such a wimp because I cry about it a lot.

Because I should have expected this. People told me it would be hard.

But I don’t know, I guess it’s one of those hard things that you don’t understand until you’re under the weight of it yourself… and by then it’s too late. By then, all you can do is cry and hope to find someone along the way who will encourage you and remind you:

It isn’t easy to offer yourself up to be crucified. It’s not supposed to be.

And the fact that you finally are offering yourself up doesn’t mean you’re some awesome, strong person; it means you’ve come to the end of your weakness and realized you have absolutely nothing left to give. You are the utter weakling. At least for me that’s how it’s happened. It’s almost a last-ditch effort, this final surrender. It’s the:

“OK OK HERE, TAKE IT!” that seems to be human instinct when we are met with someone who wants something from us and won’t back down.

On Christmas Eve, Jesus did another of his whispering acts. Except this time instead of warning me of coming death, His words were spoken so softly and tenderly it was almost like a proposal.

But instead of “Be my wife”, it was

“Be my cathedral.”

And I really don’t know why or how or what, but something in my heart understood that. Something clicked.

Before I even really had a chance to think about it, my heart was whisper-screaming and crying out and twirling around before Him the most wholehearted

“YES!” 

I think has ever existed in a human heart.

I didn’t even know it was there; it’s like she, strong little Yes, had been lying dormant and growing stronger as the other things in my little human heart died off in 2014. And when enough of them had finally had died off, she had the space to stand and twirl and leap and shout her strongest.

It was then that I remembered that lovely (though terrifying) C.S. Lewis quote:

“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”

It turns out, Jesus was never interested in turning me into an adequate little residence. He wants me to be His Cathedral. 

And don’t you think it’s fitting that in Cathedrals, you find stained glass windows? 

And that this year of the most brokenness of heart I have ever encountered has surely left some tinted glass bits behind somewhere?… they, I am sure, will be used for the windows.

It reminds me of Joel 2:12, (the first verse I am memorizing this year!) where the Lord calls on His people to come back to him AS THEY ARE: broken/shattered/weeping/etc.

“Yet even now,” declares the Lord, “return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments.”

If you haven’t heard of it before, that verb there, REND, literally means to rip apart violently. Applied to the heart, it means “to harrow or distress the heart with painful feelings.” (thanks, Webster).

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve completely understood this verse until right now as I type, but here it comes:

He is inviting us to let our hearts be distressed.

COME BACK TO ME, EVEN NOW, he says, WITH ALL YOUR HURT. RETURN WITH YOUR WOUNDEDNESS AND ODD MOURNING RITUALS AND LET YOUR HEART FEEL ALL THE PAINFUL THINGS AT ONCE.

After all, a broken and contrite heart is an offering He will never turn down (Psalm 51:17).

Last NYE, I posted something about sweeping out the dark corners of my heart to make more room for Him, and boy has that proved true. I almost think God is in the business of Corner-Sweeping-Out of Hearts. Mike Donehey, lead singer of Tenth Avenue North, put it this way: 

“We are never trying to win divine approval, Christ has already bought that for us. No, we are in search of simply creating more space where He can fill.”

And all the little corners in my heart need to be swept out and filled with Him.

So 2015 is a year of that. Of continuing to sweep out and let Him fill the vacancy. Of inviting Him to renovate this old shack into not just an “ok” cottage, but a palace, a dwelling place where He alone will reside, a stunning CATHEDRAL.

“What does it mean to be a Cathedral of God?

We are “sanctuary” for each other.

Like those great and mighty structures of old, 

we too can be a place of refuge for those in trouble.

People are no longer a threat.

They are fellow sojourners searching for that eternal spring.

Weary sinners can find a harbor for their souls when they come 

to those who know they have been redeemed.

We are safety for the stumbling and still waters for anxious hearts.

We have tasted.

We have seen.

And now, we can show them the way.” (Mike Donehey)

So with that, let me share my few resolutions for the year:

1.  Become a Cathedral, or at least more of a Cathedral than what I am now.

2. Within that, stop viewing other people as a threat. Stop seeing myself as “small sauce” (thank you, Hannah Brencher, for those perfectly paired words). The time of “we seemed to ourselves likegrasshoppers” in comparison is OVER. Love people, be a hospital, and claim what the Lord has given you and built in you, so that you may use it to bless others.

3. Write one encouraging/thankful note per week.

4. Memorize 24 scripture verses- one every two weeks (I'm doing this with Beth Moore & friends...  "SSMT 2015", they call it. Please join. It's going to be a tough and so worthwhile commitment!)

I’ve only recently finished re-reading an old favorite book of mine, Hinds’ Feet on High Places. 

At the end of it, when Much-Afraid has reached the High Places and received her hinds’ feet and had her name changed to Grace-and-Glory, she runs around on the High Places rejoicing.

And then, at the close, it states: 

“So for a long time, she sat silent—remembering, wondering, and thankful.”

May that be each of our hearts’ attitudes today and throughout 2015.