Red curtains

“Didi, it is like those curtains in the temple”
she said in innocent wonder.

Her 19 year old body masks a little girl just now having eyes open.
Just now feeling a freedom to speak.
And what beauty she sees
What beauty she speaks.
She does not filter what she says for the approval of man.
Her heart just speaks.
It cries
It exclaims.
Words leak out
Making messes at times
But because of her willingness to be a mess
She makes worship with her words

“You know, they were probably red”
(the curtains)
“And you know how after He died…they were split?”

“Yes, I remember” as I pause spreading the new curtains out over the splintered rod.
I listen to such eternal truths spill forth like water came from that Rock in the desert.
She sees eternal beauty in the new red curtains.

While I was just thinking how the muted red tones
Were splashing a gorgeous, relaxing hue throughout the house
A hue that did not even need an instagram filter to make it look glorious
That is where my mind was

While she looked on in childlike wonder
Bewitched in His glory
Seeing even the minutest detail as a moment of Truth

These new household curtains are not just a decorative emptiness
They are beauty and they speak to her heart
They remind her of a curtain torn on her behalf
By a God who became man to live among us
To take our punishment
To breath His last

And when He breathed His last
We can truly breathe our first

And when He breathed His last
Those curtains, they split
And our words, they are permitted
Even in the Holiest of Holies
We need not fear
We need not tremble
We simply need to take a bended knee
We simply need eternal eyes
To see the glory in each and every moment

Like she did
Despite her lips charred that testify to a youth of pain
She has heard Him say
“You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood…
He will call you back as if you were a wife deserted and distressed in spirit…
A wife who married young only to be rejected…
I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON YOU”

Though each day is maybe stroked with pain
It is hemmed in grace
And she gets it
She knows His compassion is real and it is there
And when she sees those red curtains
She remembers

His blood
It speaks
It washes
It cleanses
It remembers not
And it redeems

She remembers
They tore
So she is free
To the foot of the throne
She can curl up her aching body on His Abba lap
And she can cry out the longings of her heart
And she knows He will listen

So last night
When all I want is a peaceful night
When all I want is health and warm cookies and a cool breeze
I am met with a boy, feverish again
Cookies burnt
And relentless heat

When the fever spiked
Husband got to work on things important like medications and care
I do such things as make cookies
And try to  make it look all creative
Futility and meaningless
When my son is fever hot
Why do I bake cookies?
Because I want to escape
The heat, the fever, the pain he is going thru
I want ease and comfort
When He tells me “in this world you WILL HAVE TROUBLE”

I am promised it will be hard
But there will be grace to uphold
And there will be a call “take HEART, I have overcome”
She gets it
So she sees the Truth in the curtains
I forget it
So I see temporal in the curtains and the cookies

So when husband and she take my feverish boy to the doctor
And I stay home with Little Bear
I take off my shoes
Because I remember this is Holy Ground
And I take a knee, bended
Before those muted red, warm hue making curtains;)
And I call to Him
For He is the Author
He is the Perfector
He is the Sustainer
And the Healer
I read these words from those Puritans of old

“I marvel at my insensate folly, that
with such enriching favors within my reach
I am slow to extend the hand to take them.
Have mercy on my deadness for They Name’s sake”

I bow down low
And I share my doubts and fears
And I ask for my son’s healing
And I thank Him for her words, eternal
And I look at those red curtains so much differently now
So much more than a good deal on beautiful fabric to cover bare windows
They are glimpses of the Truth that He is
And that He came
And He invites us in

And as they curtains blow up with the night breeze passing thru,
They balloon up and nearly tent me in
And I am reminded that His temple curtains are wide
And inviting
And longing for our entrance
There is enough of Him
For each of us and each of our baggage and burdens and fears
Let us not linger outside the temple gates
Let us run, walk, crawl in
And behold His nearness to humanity

His last breath
Opened curtains long seared closed, for only the cleanest of hearts
And His blood makes each of our stained hearts like the cleanest of hearts
For it is no longer us, but Him who lives
He invites us in
To be ballooned beneath the glorious red of His garments
Join me there
As I plead for my son’s fever and so much more
He is more than ready to meet us
Let us not be ridden with folly
But let us dance in the gratitude that He invites us in

Dear ones, thank you for your prayers and encouragement regarding last night’s requests
Adam is on medicine and is doing a bit better
Still fussy and such
But fever is coming down some
Still need forces;)