Loss & longing are constants here in the Shadowlands. What we fear most may happen. How then shall we live? We must stain God’s shirt with tears & announce how difficult it can feel to be here,
but that we still are.
~ joshua luke smith

I hope there are Seasons of your life that you can mark with certain songs, verses, places, foods, textures. Like when you hear some lyrics & it’s like,
in the blink of an eye,
before you’ve quite processed it,
you find yourself taken Back.

Back to a time when those song lyrics were a lifeline for you.
When those Scripture verses kept your soul & mind afloat,
when a coffee shop
or a library
or the view out your kitchen window above the sink
or a corner of that park in town
or the floor of your bedroom
or that space at your friend’s kitchen table
or those familiar arms of a loved one & the heartbeat in between ’em
were tangible flotation devices in the Storm you were in.

I hope you’re paying attention during & after the fact,
’cause those things aren’t momentary;
they’re Ebenezers:
proofs of the goodness of Yahweh in the land of the living.

They’re hearthfires in the Darkness,
places you came in out of the cold & got warm again,
moments of respite before you armoured up once more to ride out & face whatever battle was yours to fight.

Joshua Luke Smith has been that for me lately.
His lyrics, his Instagram captions, his Psalm-like poetry shot through with the pain, Grief, & Hope of human experience & the Christ who sets us free from sin.

‘Cause the Lord is no distant Being in the sky;
He’s a Friend of sinners, who knows betrayal, the edges of despair, complex human emotions that we struggle to define.
He is not afraid of grey areas, He’s sat in them when He wished they were black & white;
when He wished the Cup could be taken from Him as if it were that simple.
But it wasn’t.
It was more nuanced, more uncomfortable, more demanding, more painful than anything He’d ever experienced.
He drank infinte Wrath,
the weight of billions of sins,
the agony of watching His Father turn His back on Him,
the flesh-rending spikes in his hands & feet,
the lashes across His naked back,
the thorny crown digging gouges in his head,
the betrayal of friends who swore they’d never leave Him,
the utter humiliation of His creatures physically spitting in His face when He could’ve annihilated them with a word.

He knows Darkness like none of us ever will.

So when we stain His shirt with our hot tears, announcing how difficult it is to be Here,
wherever Here is for you lovely humans,
whatever Trial is knocking the wind from your lungs;
when we settle in to the grey area of things not turning out like we’d like when we’d rather they were black & white,
may we know that He knows.

He gets it.
There’s no need for pretense, embarrassment, a hiding of our vulnerability, a fear that we’ll be “too much” for the God of Heaven & Earth who also calls Himself our Friend.
We tell Him it’s hard, that we can’t do it anymore, that the waters are up over our neck & we’re gasping for air.
& then we rest.
We announce how difficult it is to exist in This, but that we’re still alive & kicking.
That we’re not going anywhere ’cause where else will we go when He has the words of eternal life?
That we’re not running from Him, only towards Him
over&over&over&over again.

No sugar-coating, something I think pockets of modern Christianity have a tendency to do. Dimming the lights on Pain to instead showcase a Christianity that’s neat & tidy where there’s a verse for everything like a convenient Band-Aid tailor-made for every wound.

Lovely humans, that’s deception; shaving off the True Story to make it more palatable or comfortable. The Scripture has a balm for every wound but most medicine doesn’t go down easy. Hardship here in the Shadowlands requires we use our brains, expand our emotions, mine the depths of unpleasant situations recognizing that healing takes times & things are usually much more complex than we’d like them to be.

Hence why JL’s been resonating with my soul lately. He doesn’t shy away from the unpalatable, he wrestles with Christ, wrestles with the strange disjointedness of this Life where
people we love hurt us & we them,
where dreams go shattered & unfulfilled,
where we make decisions that make us look like a fool,
where disaster strikes & we’re not ready,
where following our Saviour isn’t all pony rides in May sunshine.

It’s why so many Christians find unutterable comfort in the Psalms. ‘Cause David wrote poems dragged out from the depths of his soul, bathed in his blood & tears. & we’re like “ah yes, he gets it, here’s someone who knows what it means to truly Live in this world, more than just a superficial living”.

The Lord Christ knows it too. He, too, stained His Father’s metaphorical shirt with tears & then rose up to meet His destiny.

So, lovely humans,
may you not be afraid to stain our Father’s shirt with your very real tears,
may you not sugar-coat anything for Him,
may you announce how terribly hard you find the place He’s put you in,
&, in the same breath,
may you re-affirm your convictions:
that you’re not going anywhere,
despite the confusion & the pain & the grief,
despite feeling like Boromir getting arrow after arrow to the chest;
you’re not going anywhere.

& neither is He 🖤

Loss and longing are constants here in the shadowlands.
What we fear most may happen. So how then shall we live?

We must stain God’s shirt with tears and announce how difficult it can feel to be here, but that we still are.
We must cut loose from self sufficiency and trust fall into Grace.
We must protect ourselves from bitterness and a cynical heart and so we must keep forgiving.
We must trade in our armour for open arms, raised in surrender and praise and a welcoming embrace.
We must hold ourselves captive in the high castle of hope, blinded by wonder, bound by joy and winded in reverence.
We must put ourselves in the way of awe (and binge worthy box sets).
We must not define our lives by our worst days and neither should we by our best, most of life is in the middle.
We must enjoy each meal for the feast it is and raise our glasses, making extravagant toasts on very ordinary days.
We must keep loving, though the ache remains for the alternative is no alternative at all.

We must keep living.
~ joshua luke smith

‘Cause sometimes Life sure does feel like Boromir getting slammed with arrow after arrow to the chest.

death to the Shadow
courage,
always courage
behold,
we have not lived in vain