the beautiful

There’s no convincing them that you’ve walked that path, maybe not as long as they have but it was long enough to know –

There is no life in attempting to make a success.

A full-bodied hope in a fully-Alive God.

I fall apart again. But the breaking doesn’t become greater. Every barrier broken down, I’m falling at the Cross. I hardly see the way, tears fog my vision. The weariness lives deep in my bones.

Yet the foot of the Cross is never irreachable. The foot of the Cross is the place our knees fall on dirt, softened by this bleeding –

This mud at the food of the cross.

Isn’t it this –

This dirt, this watering –

That is the growing of Life?

The Cross planted, deep in this ground,

This crucifixion, this dying to the dead:

To the curse of inability and insufficiency and the way we’re burned and frozen so easy.

“For I have been crucified with Christ and no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The live I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

Outside, it’s dark. If the clouds aren’t too thick, stars nestle over the blanket of night.

The dirt and the blood,

Our knees deep in mud.

Our Creator: our Maker.

Because He loves us.

Is on this tree, His blood this watering over our death,

This blood that falls and flows and drips, this steady pouring out –

On the dirt that is our tomb, our shade,

This death we don’t escape.

There is darkness all around and there is me, on my knees, the mud soft, my hands sinking,

And the Father, his feet that walked what I walk,

This is them here, nailed and bleeding and bruised,

These blistered, broken feet that walked the broken path that was my life.

And you think, this is me, here. No-one would live this. Nobody would take this dead life I’m responsible for. This dead life I’m fully deserving of. This is what I am worthy of living: this failure and insufficiency and barefoot wandering down a rocky path.

You did.

You became me,

This every unworthy.

My bruises covered your arms and the streaks of blood over your cheeks, that is mine –

These tears that fall, that fall into the dirt with the blood,

These tears of Christ –

They are my tears.

In that darkness, my eyes became your own,

And this heart, became Your emptiness.

“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”

It grew dark as You became us.

You became our life –

to share with us Your Life.

“Meanwhile, be content with obscurity, like Christ.”

I am every unworthy and there is a Man who carried His Cross –

The cross that is actually mine.

This death I carry, dragging, this death I stumble against.

You knitted me like Nana knits the first grandchild a tiny little jumper –

This precious unworthy,

You see it worth every Beautiful.

And there’s not justifying it and there’s no worthiness,

There is only us, this people,

With a Creator.

Because You made me, that’s all I can think it is –

You love me.

This is grace. This is the Beautiful.

Us, every unworthy – loved.

You say, love one another as I love you.

Love not to be loved –

but because we are loved.

Live in Me.

“You can give up the need to compete in the world when you accept being complete in Christ.” – Ann Voskamp

Absolutely nothing more to gain,

And absolutely nothing left to lose.

For Christ loves us,

And this is absolutely Everything. 

"What do you have?" He said. He took it, blessed it, broke it. 

Gave it to the disciples, who gave it to the people. Who ate, were satisfied. The leftovers were gathered and given to Jesus. 


Maybe it's nothing about all the words.

But the Presence of Christ.