Most Holy Place

This past few weeks and months have been full.  Full of things to do, full of new things, full of moments that have been both incredibly painful and incredibly beautiful and I have felt every emotion I think a human can feel… shame, pain, elation, joy, anger, frustration, freedom, silence and moments of “why?”.

Through it all I have spent more time on my knees or before the Lord in prayer than I have in years. Asking God for His grace, His patience, His wisdom, His forgiveness, His love… when it occurred to me. 

“Is this prayer? Or is this worrying in the presence of God?  Do I actually stop to listen to His answers or have I entered the Most Holy Place to whine?”

I imagine myself in the Temple walking on shaking legs, trying to find my courage as I walk towards the curtain, the barrier between my Most Holy God and myself.   Those that have walked in His presence with unworthy hearts have died.  And yet, I am compelled to approach. 

Who am I to enter the presence of my God?  Who am I to think I am clean enough?  I know my heart and the dark and dirty place it is.  I know all the things that I do that look good to others but really I do just to keep appearances up.  I know the shame and pain of having failed as a parent, of hurting my husband, of thinking only of myself and my needs and taking it out on others when they need more from me.  I know the spaces of my heart that are so dark.  Places that I give over to God and then choose to fill with inky blackness by my choices.

And it is with this heart that I plan to enter The Most Holy Place? 

I realize I will die.  I am unclean.  I am unworthy, unholy and deserve nothing but death.  But I am stuck.  I will die if I go forward.  But going back is only returning to the helplessness. 

Someone enters ahead of me carrying something ugly and bloody.  He turns to me and says “This is my body.  It has paid for your dirty heart.  My blood will make you clean.  Will you accept it?  Will you accept me?”

“It comes with a cost.  If you do this, you can freely go before your God.  But I will own you.”

I know my heart is not worth His life.  My dirt for His clean.  I have tried for years to change my heart and it is impossible!  I can’t do it.  I have spent many wasted moments trying to clean it up only to have it be blacker than when I started.

But if he is offering to change my dirty for His clean, I am in.  Even if it means He owns me.  He created me.  He can do far better with the life He has given me than I can.

“Take it, for what it is worth, my life is yours”

He walks to the altar and lays the broken and bloody body down on the altar.  And I am in awe.  And my spirit’s accusing voices are silent for once.

I continue my trek towards the Most Holy Place.  This time I notice the curtain is open.  It doesn’t change who I am about to talk to but there is no longer the fear of death.  No longer the fear of failure. 

Fear is replaced with awe.  An overwhelming sense of my mortality.  My smallness and my God’s vastness.   My weakness and His Power.

In that space, I realize there is nothing I need to remind Him about.  He knows all things.  My concerns, He knows.  And it’s more than just understanding my worries, He understands everything.  He sees all the hearts involved. He sees answers I cannot even comprehend.  He knows the plans he has for it all.

Rather than whine before my God, I am silent. 

I listen. 

I am changed.