knocking on Mercy's door

I woke this morning feeling weary, tired and not at all ready to face the day. There is an achy tightness between my shoulders formed by the feeling of helplessness coupled with hours upon hours of holding a baby on my hip. I stumbled downstairs, quickly tried to make semblance of a breakfast and lunch for my knight, poured a cup of coffee and crumpled into a chair.

It has been ten days, the recent five most arduous, of having a sick babe. First a cold, then croup, now our doctor says viral pneumonia. It isn't the carrying, the holding, the uncertainty of the next moment that weighs most on me but the helplessness--my absolute inability to provide any comfort to her. It isn't the helping that causes my weariness but the not being able to help--seeing and hearing her discomfort but not being able to relieve her, watching her older sisters try to fend for themselves but knowing that they need me as well. My arms full of a baby that doesn't want to be held or to be put down.

Cracking open my Bible, I pleaded with the Lord to meet with me this morning knowing that in my own strength, I wasn't going to make it through breakfast. I read in Matthew 7

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!" 

I was reminded that all I really need is met by merely knocking at mercy's door.

And so in Spurgeon's words my soul knocked hard this morning. I sat there in my chair gripping my coffee cup, holding on to scripture, clinging to His grace. There with two little girls at my feet beneath the twinkling lights of our Christmas tree reading their own Bibles, I sat still before His throne of grace and I did not move. I stayed there until my heart was spread before the Lord and I knew, that I knew, that I knew, He was and would continue to be faithful to keep His promise of giving good things to those who ask Him.

And boy did I ask Him.

While ultimately I'd love spontaneous healing for her, and I believe He is more than capable, I also know that many times His mercy is found in the not-healing of bodies because what ultimately needs healing is our hearts.  It isn't a matter of trusting that God can heal the small body He created but not trusting that He can and will give me the grace I need to make it through another day with a sick baby.

I knocked hard.

In the moment after I surrendered and tension between my shoulders gave way as my Father's arm of grace settled around me, the moment of peace was broken by that little cough barking through the monitor. Before my confidence could wane I reminded myself that mercy's door was open fully regardless of Charis' health.

With my heart laid open before my good Father, I knew that whatever was to be given to me today was not going to be a snake.

She coughed again.

I retrieved our little one from her crib and she snuggled into my chest quietly. Her silence a telltale sign that she still felt terribly. For a moment, the tension returned to my shoulders. Oh how my flesh so quickly forgets God's promises. I can't even make it upstairs and back down without forgetting He is good.

Yet He is faithful though I am not.

Suddenly our morning changed gears and a dearest of friends appeared to "kidnap" the older girls to give them attention and a place to play and their mama a respite as well. She came bearing Starbucks. And then told me she was returning my children this afternoon accompanied by our dinner for this evening. I bit my lip to keep the tears from flowing.

No snakes here--only mercy.

After a brief nap, Charis awoke and couldn't be consoled so I bundled her up and took her outside, the one place she is always happy. The two of us circled our neighborhood in the bright sunlight, our noses turned pink from the cold and she smiled. And then she giggled.  As we walked drinking in the lung-opening cold air and blinding Vitamin D, my mind got stuck on repeat and over and over again I sang the old song

I cry out
For your hand of mercy to heal me
I am weak
I need your love to free me
O Lord, my rock
My strength in weakness
Come rescue me oh Lord

You are my hope
Your promise never fails me
And my desire
Is to follow You forever
For You are good
For You are good
For You are good to me

More than likely it will be a long few weeks but I'll keep knocking because I know that mercy's door is always wide open. And I know that on the days when I don't feel the strength to knock, He will remind me that mercy has already come.

In the midst of sickness, we celebrate Advent which simply means coming. Mercy coming. Grace coming. Truth coming. His coming. Christ came once as a humble babe for the purpose of living the perfect life that we cannot, so that He could be the perfect sacrifice we could never offer. He came to bear the weight of sin and absorb the fullness of God's wrath for His people's sin, so that we might live. For while we were yet sinners, Christ died. There swaddled in the manger and later hanging on the cross, Jesus is God's grace to us--the gift we cannot earn and do not deserve and the one who opens mercy's door.

Our Father who is the giver of all good things did not withhold His own son.

Mercy's door is wide open. Knock.

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? ~ Romans 8:28-32 ESV