My coffee mornings and He dies every day

Today started slowly. I woke up early just to sit at my table and enjoy my coffee and finish Zechariah. I found myself writing small things about "moon-eyed lovers" and a tiny man no bigger than a pinky fingernail after I had mused on my carpenter and His fast approaching presence in my Bible. The New Testament is going to be so good. I can feel it in my bones.

I have become impatient. I swear it's this school year that has driven me to it. Just the idea that I am almost done, that the finish is within my grasp, it makes me squeeze my eyes shut so hard that they wrinkle in a way that might stay there forever. I don't mean to, but I just can't help it.
I apologize to my future self for the crow's feet.

But all that is not what I want to tell you.
What I really want to tell you, is that Jesus died for you. And if you already knew that, I just want to remind you of it.

Jesus died for you.

Is it bad that I feel like that's new to me everyday? I hope not, because it is. I can barely believe it. I have to grab for it every morning when I wake up. I have to let it settle every night. I have to remind myself of it. I cry. Weepy eyes + quiet sobs. Tears on the pages of my Bible. Laments pressed into the quilt my mother made me.
I can barely stand the thought anymore.
And yet,
it's my favorite thought.

It's that warrior part of my soul, the piece of my spirit that just cannot let go of the men of battle.
I promise you that only a fighter will capture my heart.

I think that we have made the cross into something unavailable, something irrelevant. We've made it hard to tell people the honest truth of the matter, and that's inexcusable. That's sad. That is is sad. The cross is undeniably one of the most important parts of the story. Without it, there is no story. Yet. Yet, when we stand there shivering in our own two legs and we try to tell it the way we know it, we can't relate it.
It seems like it doesn't fit anymore.
And God, it shouldn't be like that.

Calvary is relevant. The cross is relatable. And Jesus's death fits.
It just fits.
I need to tell you that. Because I know it seems like it doesn't, but it does. Even when you can't explain how horrible it was, even when you don't even understand the reality of what actually happened, even when you don't have the science to describe His broken heart, know that it fits. Know that your struggle for the right words and adjectives and the biting of your lip in nervousness will not take away from the truth of what happened. Ever or ever or ever.
Jesus died. It matters so much how it happened. Out of all the ways it could have. And it matters that we don't even do it like that anymore. That we don't kill people like that anymore. So keep that in mind.
Jesus died.
And He rose.

And that is enough.

On a carpenter.

Sometimes I think we rob ourselves of Jesus. The real Jesus. I know I do.

I am in love with a carpenter. He lived long ago in many places, with many people. Fishermen's villages. Jewish synagogues. Tent-makers. Dry bones and empty vessels. A Roman dictatorship. Legionaries. Lepers. Olive colored skin. Another language. Another time.
A different story.
When I was little, I imagined Jesus as a prophet. You know the one. The teacher on the hill in Jerusalem. With the white skin and the brown hair and the clean beard and the perfect diction. My Jesus when I was little spoke with a smooth, sweet voice that lilted across hills where hundreds of his followers sat. He was worshiped daily. He was loved. Even when we watch him tear the temple apart, there is just something so right and righteous about our Jesus. He was perfect.
Humanity's idea of perfection.
Jesus was not comely though. The Bible says that, very clearly, very obviously. He was nothing special to look at. It never says that he had the gentle voice, or that his hands that barely touched people and they were healed were smooth and unmarked. It never says that it was all wonderful. It never talks of whether he was clean or dirty or what he wore or how he held his back and shoulders. It never says any of those things.
It never says that it was all wonderful.

I am an adult. I grew up with a wrathful God and a sweet Jesus though. Then I started to make discoveries. I discovered that God is gentle and loving too. And that even though Jesus was perfect, it is not necessarily the perfect we all see or want. It is not necessarily wonderful. When I stepped hesitantly from youthfulness into adulthood, I found a lover. A carpenter. A pursuer.
It is hard to explain to people that you are in love with a dead man. A dead man who you never knew. That you write him letters and seal them, but keep them in your journal. In your drawers. Under your bed. Pressed between the lines of your favorite books. That's difficult to explain. Because my fairytale is just that. It seems so unreal that it must be a fairytale. But it's true. It's happening, every day. I am pursued by the perfect man.
I am in love with the perfect man.

I didn't actually know what perfect is until recently though.
I've come to see that I rob myself of Jesus. I romanticize the story. This is the truth.
My carpenter was thought to be a bastard child. His life was unbelievable from the beginning. He told his brothers to worship him, but he was nothing beautiful. He was probably dark-skinned, nothing fair about his appearance. His hair, his eyes, his lips, all were dark. He was dark. He spoke in a language I only know a handful of words in. He was despised. He was loved too, but by few. He learned his trade, and left it. He spoke in stories; he was a storyteller, and who thinks a storyteller wiser than the wisest man? He touched the sick, the poor, the rejected, the shunned, the maimed, the addicted, the helpless. He touched them. And he was hated for it. He had a following, but that soft voice we imagine was probably not how he spoke to them. I imagine the things he used to say, and they are nothing like the way I grew up hearing them said. Inflections mean more than we know. Pauses are part of languages too. My carpenter hid. He lived a Robin Hood life. He wasn't a thief, but he was a wanted man. His own people denied him. No one embraced him in the end. His very own friend betrayed him. And he died. My carpenter died.
He died the death of a murderer.
There's something about the cross that we have made meaningless. We have changed it. We are dead to it, in our souls. But here is the truth.
My carpenter died of a broken heart. The man who pursues me, he already died of a broken heart.
And it's my fault.

Jesus Christ lived a perfect life. But not wrapped in white robes, walking along dusty trails, and with children on his knee.
Jesus Christ lived a perfect life in the world we live in. The one with prostitutes and drug addicts and liars and rebels and lovers and husbands and wives and kings and poor men and abuse and neglect and new mornings and cold nights and dirty faces and olive branches and normal sounds and accents and hunger and convictions, just and unjust, but all in God's will.

I think my carpenter had hard hands. Beaten, weathered by the middle eastern sun, worn by work, blistered and cracked and dry and ugly.
Perfection is not a physical quality. It is not an appearance.
I think this is one of the most important things I have learned in my adult life.

Because I hold the hand of that man.
I am pursued by him with a ferocity unmatched and unequaled.
I am in love with him.

And I killed him.
I killed my savior, my friend, my grace, my perfect man, my lover, my hope. Mine.
I killed mine own.

It's not all wonderful.

Keep on keepin on (R.I.P. Olivia).

Dear Fleur.
Life has been kind of hard lately. To sum it up for you perfectly:
MY LITTLE SISTER'S HAMSTER DIED YESTERDAY.
&
I have run out of chai tea.

Don't tell me I can't cry at this point.

To make us all happier, Ria made pancakes and coffee in the French Press this morning. De-caf isn't my best friend, but he and I can be good acquaintances today.
I think I'll sit and sew on Flora. She's been lonely the past few mornings.
And I'll probably Skype someone's ear off. Because:

(photo via ican'tremember)

Love from Bella.