As the deer pants.....

This summer I turned 27. I asked for a necklace I had been eyeing online from a gal who makes her necklaces by hand. The necklace was going to be a manifesto of sorts, for the year to come. It was going to be a reminder and a goal to reach for. The necklace was going to be all of these things because I couldn't create for myself the hope I needed. Emily Dickinson's famous quote about hope is etched into a metal tag on the necklace, with a delicate pearl and a stamped feather accompanying the words. It says, "Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul." Of course, this isn't the complete poem that the line comes from, but it's words have significance for me.

Birthday money came along and I ordered up that necklace with great joy and excitement about all the hope it would help me create. We all know how this story goes....hope is not something we can create on our own, right?

It's been two and a half months since I bought that necklace and I've been wearing it frequently. However, the more I wear it, the more I reflect on what it really means.

I get this picture of the most beautiful bird, clothed in vibrant colors, singing cheerful and soothing tunes, perched delicately on the window sill in my soul. It sings comforting songs that offer joy and peace, even lingering in the shadows, persistent and pure.

The only problem with this bird of hope is it's neighbor, grief. Grief has found her place in my soul as well. Grief is a sad old woman, clothed in dark robes, shadows covering her face, hiding the wrinkles that reveal pain endured. Grief is heavy and doesn't often move. She sits and steals the songs of her neighbor, the hopeful bird, and packs them away in the dark recesses of my soul, making them impossible to hear. Grief cries from her step in my soul and digs deeper than I ever imagined she could go when I invited her in. I am not sure who gave her permission to shoo away her neighbor bird, but when she does, the bird flies from it's soul perch and I am immediately aware of the sadness grief requires of me.

What would it look like for grief and that sweet, delicate, little bird of hope to sit and stay for a while? Just when I get accustomed to either voices speaking the truth I need to hear, one is silenced by the other. Grief isn't all bad, requiring me to be cry for the things in my world that need some tears, but isn't it hope that makes grief possible to endure?

The Psalmist David knew this tension better than anyone as we witness the emotional extremes he endured in the Psalms he wrote. Psalm 42 is not just a lament, but a call for God to be his hope, and David found the strength and courage to praise God, despite that he often felt forgotten by God. I find it interesting that in that same passage David acknowledged his need for the stream of living water only God could provide despite his desert wandering.

There is a certain death to self that brings life, but not without grieving what has been lost and diving into what David called, "deep calls to deep." I suppose it is God's mercy that makes it possible to enter grief and His hope that makes it possible to endure.

Perhaps grief and hope are both dwelling in my soul after all.

Psalm 42
¹ As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
² My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
³ My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”
⁴ These things I remember
as I pour out my soul:
how I used to go to the house of God
under the protection of the Mighty One
with shouts of joy and praise
among the festive throng.

⁵ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

⁶ My soul is downcast within me;
therefore I will remember you
from the land of the Jordan,
the heights of Hermon—from Mount Mizar.
⁷ Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers
have swept over me.

⁸ By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me—
a prayer to the God of my life.

⁹ I say to God my Rock,
“Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning,
oppressed by the enemy?”
¹⁰ My bones suffer mortal agony
as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long,
“Where is your God?”

¹¹ Why, my soul, are you downcast?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God,
for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God.

*photo courtesy of: http://www.lisaleonardonline.com/hope-is-the-thing-necklace-P65C32.aspx