Tie-Dyed Laundry and When He Whispers, “Hold On”.

I hide around the corner, by the back door. Safely surrounded by walls, where the laundry lays high, unfolded, thoughtlessly tossed…

And it is here in this shelter I can breathe, pray, wait, pour my heart out to God best.

I find a once tie-dyed splattered towel and think, “Why haven’t I thrown this away yet?” My teens art reminding me that sometimes messy things, others somehow see as beauty.

And in my hurry to the shower, teething baby wiggling in frustration because let’s face it, her little, neglected life has been unbearable up until now…

We both cling tight to the truth that sometimes splattered things are worth fighting for. She holds on, I take my loose arm and scoop up the rough, stained, rag with my other arm…hoping to take a shower after foster child goes to bed.

But then, I hear it, there in my deflated state….

“Hold on.”

It stops me. Words not from my head, but from deep in the well where He has been offering ladles, but I have failed to drink from His blessing.

I respond in my heart of hearts. Quickly. Defensive. Angry even. “I have nothing left to hold onto?”  As if my rationalization, my petty answers, my hollow soul would satisfying a redeeming God.

And like a soldier, like a gentle prince, like a lover scooping up a victim of this scattered life, seething…He whispers. Soft.  Tender.  Gently. Words like oil, His presence full, there in the messiest place of our house….there with the fidgeting orphan, the bankruptcy of my soul….

“Hold onto me”.

And I want to run, argue, fight back….give excuses as to why these walls, and safety, and dirty laundry suit me well.  Explain to Him why there is comfort in my tattered soul…

As if He didn’t know.

But I have known…when The Holy One meets the broken in their toil….no words are enough, no excuses, or purpose, or plans can suffice a God who knew us long before we were born…

So, all that comes from me is silence.

And I stop, tie-dyed towel in hand. Arms full with baby and this plan I had to keep on running from the weightiness of this life…

I leave. Put baby to bed. Place towel on my shelf.  And yet, even after holy words, I keep running as if there is somewhere too far, too deep, too high, in too many pieces that God can’t find us, reach us, lift us, speak to us…

“Aren’t I trustworthy?” He continues later.

I had never said it. But I thought it.  I had never whispered in my heart of hearts about how orphans come and people go, how lives abandoned feel, how labor and work for the Kingdom can leave us dry, weary, or how giving and giving, loving, reaching…can make us see the world as a deficit, a burden, learning effortlessly….people untrustworthy aren’t safe holding onto…

And yet, why do we project our lessons from others onto a holy, perfect, never-failing God?

Again, no words.  Just thoughts.

Oh, I know you are.   I know in my head that God never leaves us, His Word is our hope, love never fails us…and all those others things taught to me from the time I could walk in Sunday School…

But how do we let go and hold on? Loose grip, but yet reach for what seems like vapor and thin to our human eyes? How do we not live life like a Thomas…needing flesh to touch, holes, and evidence to hold onto before we’ll believe?

How do you love the empty tomb when a cross is bones, a hill, wood, stakes, lay visible to the human eye?

How do you trust the filling when lives seem scattered, meaningless, like this pile of laundry I look upon…

So many hands, but none capable or willing to fold it.

And I wonder today, is there some of you that feel tossed, broken, empty, scattered?  Is there some of you feeling “tie-dyed”, like their lives are caught on a spinning cycle that surely will never stop?

Well, today friend, you are not alone.  You are not floating aimlessly, or left wrinkled somewhere behind some wall in a house.

You are seen.  You are heard.  You are known.  If by no one else in this world….by God.

And today, I encourage you, me, all of us…

Let’s stop looking to the achievements of those around us. Let’s stop spinning and really listen to The Trustworthy one.  The One who looks upon us with love, The One who holds us though we are squirmy, suffering, missing those we love in a very real way.

When we are weak, let’s ask for faith, faith rising, faith real, faith alive….the kind that Jesus said is more blessed because we have not seen, and yet believe.

Let’s grip the one who never moves, is never shaken, will never leave, has never abandoned us. Let’s believe what scripture says about our God, that, “He is trustworthy”.

I don’t know about you, but my hands have been full lately.  And sometimes I just need to cry out to a God I can’t see, turn my eyes to a tomb that is now empty, reach up to a Father who intercedes for you and me…

Because isn’t our praise that anchor for our soul?  Isn’t the listening (not speaking) what draws us closer?  Isn’t it a time that maybe striving is useless?  Isn’t it a day where He calls us, whispers to us gently, “Just Hold On”?