Intimacy

And here is what I am going to do, I'm going to start all over again. I'm taking her back out into the wilderness where we had our first date, and I'll court her. I'll give her bouquets of roses, I'll turn heartbreak valley into acres of hope. She'll respond like she did as a young girl, those days when she was fresh out of Egypt. At that time, you'll address me 'Dear Husband'! Never again will you address me, 'My- Slave Master'. I'll wash your mouth out with soap, get rid of all the dirty false god names, not so much as a whisper of those names again. Hosea 2 The Message

Marriage, we know is a picture of Christ the Bridegroom and the church, His Bride. I believe that to be true. I have heard the sermons and I have analyzed the scriptures and I get it. Christ as Husband, me as Bride. Sounds great to me in theory. Who wouldn't want to be that precious and prized to be the Bride of Jesus! Who wouldn't want to be that intimately associated with Him! I sing the songs about being His beloved, and I journal all these deep womanly prayers about being His beautiful Bride, and until now, I was hiding. My heart was pretending to be okay with it, avoiding the shaking truth of what I really feel.

Because to me marriage is not a picture of me and my Jesus. Marriage is not the perfect picture of intimacy, and covenant love. To me, and many others I am sure, marriage is a source of heartbreak. Not beauty. Marriage means fighting and screaming and hating and piercing words and division and heart scarred and deep scar wounds.

Marriage to me means cheating and lying and stealing and breaking. Marriage means loss. It means shame. Marriage to me means broken promises, failed attempts, and love fake, easily shaken.

In a world of pretty close to 50/50 chances of survival,  the let down is so common that it is almost not allowed to hurt. If the majority of us are touched by the tearing of families and the dividing walls and paperwork and money and two Christmas trees, we can't all react the way we want to or our world would crumble. So we say we are fortunate, we are privileged, we are living first world, we are fine.

Two years now of inner healing, and layers peeling back and water washing darkness and wounds healing slow. Yet only now could my heart open enough to see it. Only now am I made strong enough to let the wave of truth hit me. Only now is my heart ready to handle what it means for me to be called a Bride and to be joined as one to someone else, even if that is Our Perfect Jesus.

I am sure that each day I spend in the secret place with Him only breaks me down deeper, but this breaking and tearing is for healing. It is for refining and perfection and redemption. Deeper into the secret place with Him than ever before, I feel weaker still. Two years of crying out for the filling of His Spirit, two years of calling out closer, deeper, more. Two years of stones removed, roots pulled out, and new roots going deep. Two years of wondering what was left standing between me and Him. Here it is.

Fear.

Bowed low in a room of 3000 people, He sends a woman to me with His message. She sits, her spirit sings over me, I weep and she somehow reads deeper into my being than I ever seemed to. Her eyes became His and when she spoke I knew it was directly from Him. Without me saying anything she answered my prayers. Then she looked at me and point blank said "Go ask the Holy Spirit to show you why you are afraid to receive from Him, intimacy is not something to be afraid of ".

God is good, but He lets me get away with no nonsense. So I sit crying with my head bowed, journal opened. "Holy Spirit, why am I afraid?" Almost before I can think the words I know the truth. Infused from His Spirit to my inner being, now rising to my soul. Striving fades and from the dust, I am standing up, ready now to face the fight. The fight of intimacy.

Intimacy to me has meant invasion. Regret, nightmares, it meant divorce, adultery, it meant impurity, it meant violation and young hearts broken. It meant saying yes and allowing the destruction of soul, the ties of darkness and the mark of shame. No one to blame but self, yet somehow feeling like a victimm not of the face next to mine, but a victim of the Enemy and his schemes to steal anything pure.

I hear the words now that I heard in a sermon once "The Holy Spirit is the most intimate part of God, He comes to consecrate us to the Bridegroom". At the time I thought nothing of these words but now they are a sword tearing down high strongholds I have carefully built stone by stone. 

All this time, loving the concept of being a Bride, yet never seeing how it came against every day I have lived in fear of consecration, fear of being truly seen by someone else. I break again. I can almost feel an ache inside that is stretching my heart and making more room for Him.

Memories flood and I feel the weight of sin and pain weighing heavy on my heart. But without a word, without even a prayer, I lift my hands, palms up.

I see the threat of that closeness, the risk of being seen again and denied, I feel the pain fresh and searing, I remember the regret. But God, my God, He is not a man that He should lie. He is God. He is Jesus. I brave the storm, and I take the risk. I open my hands to receive now anything that the Spirit wants to give. I feel I am flying now in freedom.

Out of my mouth bursts forth a new language. A language between my spirit and His. A channel has opened. It is a channel of intimacy. And the cost is great. It means letting go. It means fear falling down hard, and it means nakedness of soul.

This intimacy means courage. It means stripping myself bare before the King of Kings, in my weakness, in my sin and shame, it means coming to Him with no covering and letting Him truly see me, over and over again until every part of me belongs wholly to Him.

I remember now the vision last year in this same room, in this same church, at a conference like this one, with a different set of worshipers, I remember what row I stood in,and the worship band that was playing when He showed me myself dressed as the Bride at the Marriage supper. I remember the way my heart broke in half when I realized one year ago that He loved me, deep. I had no idea what was underneath, or what comes after the celebration and supper. Consummation. From the marriage supper to the inner chambers. Weird, bizarre, new. Yet biblical and pure. The cloud of witnesses before us always have this in common, they experience intimacy with the Divine. I forget sometimes the He died to unite us to God in Oneness. Nothing is closer than Oneness. And nothing represents that in our world better than marriage. Do we ever really open our hearts to believe that God wants that with us?

Only now one year later can my heart even allow for that to be true. How gentle and kind and slow and loving is my King. Never forcefully, always invited in. I love my God. And I am sure I have never loved anything or anyone as deeply as I love Him now. Yet next year I hope it is new again, and each year the love goes deeper and the intimacy grows more precious and the moments together in prayer and worship are moments that define my life and who I am. This moment of breakthrough is one I will remember.

He washed my mouth of false god fears and left my heart beating bare before Him. He did what He promised. He brought me back to Toronto where me and the Bridegroom had our first date, and He gently allured my heart. He again captured my attention, and my mouth no longer cries out with the names of shame and mistakes and falsehood. My voice cries from deep within, in a new language, pure, desperate, in love, "My Husband"!

Martina Sobey

Seeing God

I walk-run down the hallway and I can hear the beeping. I go fast not wanting to miss the best parts. I feel myself almost excited to watch someone be fixed and to be a part of the gore. Hospital has become a place of rush and thrill. Alarming noises that ring in my ears for hours now ring sometimes in my sleep. That beeping I hear means something. A heart is beating too fast, or too slow, breathing is stopping, blood pressure rising or falling. An inside world being monitored by outside machines. Beeping and beeping and body failing and failing. Poking and sticking. Taking blood and pushing fluid. More beeping. Routine. Silence becomes abnormal. I look around and in a room of wires and machines and needles and drugs, bodies blend with the machinery and we make ourselves fit into to the list of steps. Could it be that I blend here too? Pain, blood, medicine and gauze. Normal. But the beeping in my ears has made me deaf. My ears long to hear again.

Leaning slight on tip toes I find myself eager to see. Always getting closer, moving one step to the left, I want the best view. Head wound ripped open, ugly, torn, bleeding. Hair matted with blood and skull peeking through broken layers of skin. I see but sometimes long to un-see, and  I secretly close my eyes or squint. But can we ever half-see? The eye, even if squinting is either open or closed. Now opened wide I see gore and mess and I am fine. I blend. But at home before I sleep I cry out for true vision and feel the sting of this man's head wound. Here in this room of professionals I suppress and push down the Compassionate One inside me in order to be like them. Blue scrubs all the same, we are just a part of the room, a part of the procedure. We are following steps and completing tasks and chatting about lunch. Does anyone see the broken skin wide open? Beneath this skin is a soul and while his head is broken and his body is failing his soul must be searching. The ears deaf to the beeping now eyes blinded to pain. Why can't I just be quiet and interested in this room full of eyes all amused by the intensity? Why can I not stand and watch and feel nothing, why am I making it personal? It is not my head torn open or my skin being poked. It is not my heart making the machine beep. But 12 hours of holding sharp instruments pinching skin, writing numbers on a page and talking science I become blind too. I try to cover my inner eye. Maybe I am torn open, and maybe I close my eyes afraid that in the mirror I will see the same gore and mess I see here now. Maybe the layers of gauze I opened for this procedure have somehow been packed into my own heart wounds. Covered up means no sight. Blinded by self-protection. Sometimes the dressing meant to keep a wound clean causes infection. Sometimes new skin must be exposed to air to breathe and heal. I cover the wound in front of me and I cover myself too. The skin of my soul heals fast to the gauze meant to protect me. But if ever true healing is to come that gauze needs to be torn away. I can't live blind.

I drive home and the sun looks like fire and His glory pierces my heart. My eyes close squinty and water to protect themselves from light. But driving now I fling eyelids open. Four weeks of beeping and watching their pain and guarding myself from feeling it comes now as a wave hard against my chest. I didn't even realize I had closed my eyes and covered my ears but now tears well and my eyes sting and loud noise causes my sensitive ears to ache. Patients become people and my blindness becomes sight.  My ears that had dulled now hear too loud. I break and their pain becomes my pain. Instead of medication and band aids my heart groans for true healing. So the Healer whispers soft:

Open your eyes, open your ears. Hear my voice and behold my glory. Take down the shield you are using to cover your afraid eyes, open wide, see them the way I do, and then you will see me.

He has been drawing and tugging and now even in His gentleness something has snapped. His hands are slow and He waits for me to be ready yet I feel it, a piercing of my defenses. I have been living with eyes closed and ears plugged because to see and hear means to know the suffering. To live opened up means to stand close enough to see it all and hear the breaking. To be present in the trauma means to be stained by blood and soiled by the mess. I have been there physically, I have been looking and listening and learning. I am a hungry student wanting to see it all. But inside I have been moving with eyes squinty and ears plugged and hands covered safe in gloves. Numbness and sameness make me blend and I too talk about my lunch while a wife cries and a little brother holds pudgy hands that shake.

I feel the invitation now because I am drowning in the darkness of blindness. He is light. I have been pleading to see His face and behold His glory and hear His voice during this semester of school in the hospital but I've closed my senses. To see Him I have to be willing to see it all. To be filled with Him fully I can't live closed shut. I have to be torn open with rended flesh. But won't I break open if I feel it all the time? Won't I be wounded and crazy and burnt out if I am really that opened to the pain of every person I meet? What about boundaries and safety? They teach us empathy in school, but we all demonstrate distance and protection. We claim compassion but only from behind the glass with hands in gloves and mask over mouth. But He teaches death to self and washing dirty feet and cross over shoulder and life laid to be slaughtered. And I want to see Him. I want to see Him if it means only being blinded again by glory like Paul.

It will look weak in a world of speed and intensity. It may mean I go slow while everyone else moves fast, patients in and out. I will look broken and my tears might be awkward falling to the ground as people work. But He wept. And His tears made the dead come to life. His willingness to live wide opened and to be wounded by love was so powerful that the thief went to paradise and the prostitute fell at His feet restored. He reached down to the leper with an un-gloved hand. His compassion made dead people walk out of graves.

With eyes opened there is risk. I will see things that traumatize and the pain of other people will touch me and I will feel it. But to live blind is loss. I might be safe from seeing them, but then I don't see Him. And if I don't see Him I am dead, and my heart fades slower and the machines beep and the alarms go off and I too will blend in with the noise. I don't know what it will look like to see everything through teary eyes all the time but I can't live under wrapped gauze and self-protection. I can't be His hands and feet if I am numb to the ground I walk on. I want to feel intensely the way He does. I want the dead around me to be raised up because of the One who lives in me, I want their wounds to be healed by His stripes. I want to see His power and His glory fill our hospital. And if I want to see Him, I will have to open my eyes wide and bare myself to see everything.

Driving home I let out a sigh and let go of the bandage I've been holding firm against my own wounds. I release the images of people suffering and the stories of death and dying. I let the tears ruin my makeup. I make a silent vow to the One I am chasing after. I tell Him I will live with eyes wide open and I repent of all the self-protecting fear. I cry out to Him and He cleanses my heart and reminds me of the promise He gave for all of us:

And you all, with unveiled faces will behold me as in a mirror. As you behold me, you are being transformed yourselves into My very image from glory to glory. Blessed are the pure at heart for they will see Me. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with your whole heart. 

With eyes covered by self-protection I look in the mirror and I see the reflection of brokenness in this world. But with a face unveiled I behold Him in all His glory and am transformed into His very image. With eyes opened brave to peer into the broken hearts I will feel weak and vulnerable with them but I will not be stained and ruined by their pain, instead I will look more and more like Him. The drive home from another day at work is almost over and I roll down my windows and blast the heat. Exposed to the cold and icy wind I can breathe deep the fresh air and let the tears on my face dry. I missed the feeling of fresh air this winter because I was afraid of the cold. Freedom comes and windows are rolled down just in time for spirng.

Martina Sobey