The One Cry
This is the chapter that made me cry. Not for what she found, but for what she lost...
Sister to truck, self to night fears, mother to asylum, daughter to time.
The words stay with me...
How long until we are gone?
If I don't close eyes, I won't die.
Why can't I hold on to now forever?
And in the center of it all, as a young woman, she courted death with shards of glass, bled onto the floor. It is that bleeding I want to stay with. That cry of "I don't want to die," even as it looks like death-invitation.
This is the cry of humanity, is it not? This is why we bleed each other, is it not? (Why can't I hold on to now forever?)
Jesus never gloried in death. He raised the dead, wept over them, asked to be exempt from his own. He made space for lament, became lament itself. He gave life-blood.
If I close my eyes, I can see Him holding Ann to his heart. "I'm sorry," he is whispering in her ear. "I am so, so sorry."
___
Quotes from Chapter 8 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.
Sister to truck, self to night fears, mother to asylum, daughter to time.
The words stay with me...
How long until we are gone?
If I don't close eyes, I won't die.
Why can't I hold on to now forever?
And in the center of it all, as a young woman, she courted death with shards of glass, bled onto the floor. It is that bleeding I want to stay with. That cry of "I don't want to die," even as it looks like death-invitation.
This is the cry of humanity, is it not? This is why we bleed each other, is it not? (Why can't I hold on to now forever?)
Jesus never gloried in death. He raised the dead, wept over them, asked to be exempt from his own. He made space for lament, became lament itself. He gave life-blood.
If I close my eyes, I can see Him holding Ann to his heart. "I'm sorry," he is whispering in her ear. "I am so, so sorry."
___
Quotes from Chapter 8 of the beautiful book One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are.
Labels: Ann Voskamp, grief, One Thousand Gifts, Zondervan
posted by L.L. Barkat at
12:18 PM
9 Comments:
I just received Ann's book yesterday, so I haven't reached this chapter. How tender, full of a sense of fragility, it must be.
I have not dared past page 12 in Ann's book yet, but this post - you are making me cry...
Actually, it probably should have been the first chapter (in some altered form), because it puts everything else in perspective.
Here is a woman who seems to have suffered from (perhaps still is?) post-traumatic stress syndrome, and look at how she moves through the world. It gives me hope for my own deep troubles, to think of how resilient we human beings are, even as we falter and fear.
resilience. that was what i was thinking on today playing with my kids in the back yard. living the 'yes'...
this was all hard and the cutting...yes, that made me cry and bleed deep...
i thought how in so many ways Ann has gone before and brings back a message...i think of the epidemic of cutting in schools...and the hope, oh the hope...there has to be...
in resilience may i live it...as she has...as He does--the only Way.
I am reading this book slowly in small incremental chunks and in the quiet of the day it churns my stomach and stirs my heart, it is good, it is awesome, it is the unveiling of a heart to another. Read slowly and take it in.
expressed with such elegance as always.
I've read through,
but can't quite speak as yet.
and L.L.
I pray for you always.
You changed me forever and I always hope for your hope.
I have been crying all the way through. I feel the loss echoed throughout. This image of Jesus holding Ann...this is beautiful. He does. He holds our dear sister.
I feel like I've waited forever for the NOW I'm currently experiencing. But what I am NOW living is a much closer relationship to Him...hoping for the faith to maintain that relationship even as my NOW evolves into something else.
Blessings!
ps - recommending your God in the yard to my book club...prayers, please.
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