This day was not what I envisioned, upon the first...no second hearing that Bettina was arriving.  For I immediately calculated just how much time with her I could stuff within those few hours when we would not be sleeping.  We could do this and that and perhaps this.

No, this day was not what I envisioned.

Bettina, oh what mercy she showed me.  More than just coming when my terror was great.  Now, alone again, nebulizing and feeling the wild beating of my heart pound within me, I am clinging to the gifts she gave me, the love Christ showed me.

For one, she let me ask a question that meant a lot to me and give her an answer few would want to know.  She let me weep and wail and gnash my teeth.  But the sweetest gift?  My dear friend crawled in bed with me and kept me company even in my sleep.  She talked and then allowed me to flip on my CD of Pastor's hymns and scripture readings so that the room was filled with the Living Word.  My head hurt so horribly by that time, the wee hours of the morning, I shifted again and again and again trying to find a way of laying it upon the pillow that was bearable.  She neither complained nor left.

This morning, during parking lot confession time, she allowed Pastor to come so that I might talk with him.  I truly and honestly and earnestly thought he would be gone quickly.  But I was very wrong.  I let go more distress than I intended, which he caught and held with the hands of Christ, despite the fury with which I spoke at times, despite the weight of my anguish.  Something I found interesting was his response when I could not complete the liturgy.  I could not speak the words.  He offered first to jump to the words I longed for most.  When I could not give my accent, he spoke them anyway.

In the middle of my confusion (yes, that was a purposeful mistake), the gas man arrived and I just about nearly lost it.  I do not care that Bettina and Pastor was there.  I did not want another strange man in my home, without warning, without preparation.  Pastor chided me rather strongly as to the fact that his unexpected arrival was the mercy of our loving God because he came at a time when two people were there to be with me and to help me dismantle the closet to get at, once again, the gas meter.  It mattered not that I said the battery had already been replaced.  The gas man insisted on seeing it.  I saw a crooked path.  Pastor saw one made straight.

He is right.  I am wrong.  But it was not wrong for me to feel so utterly overwhelmed.  Pastor set about not only getting the dismantling done, but he also effected some change to the door so as to avoid this problem in the future.  I honestly did not understand his plan and do not know what he did.  Becky understood it, so I can ask her later.  I was concentrating on not screaming in fear and frustration at the top of my lungs.  Another strange man in my home.

By the time the whole gas man interlude was resolved and Pastor was able to talk me round to receiving forgiveness, his afternoon classes were blown and it was nearly time for Bettina to leave.  He prayed for my dear friend's travel home and I threw a pizza into the oven.  We watched some Dr. Who, and I sat at her feet, leaning against her leg, savoring the last moments of company in my distress.

I cried as she arrived.  I cried whilst she was here.  I cried as she left.  I absolutely cannot believe she would drive so far for so little sleep and so little time with me.  She gave me everything.  I offered her nothing.  Blogging from my couch, she showed me that God had already shifted many things in her life so that at that moment she could drop everything and race to my side. 

She came armed with the Living Word:

Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, "Now the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down, he who accuses them before our God day and night. And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death. For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, knowing that he has only a short time." ~Revelation 12:10-12

I know! You are most puzzled by a word of comfort for someone who is terrified from the book of Revelation.  When she first announced from when her word of comfort came, I about near protested rather vehemently that I was in no position to take on Revelation and surely she had something for me from my beloved Psalter.  But, no, His word is perfect and meet and salutary in all times and in all places and for all men.  Even a terrified, hurt, ill, weak, struggling sinner such as I.

Bettina's word of comfort was that satan is overcome by the blood of the Christ, in which I have already been washed, and by the testimony He is writing upon my life.  She spoke specifically about a testimony I had written, at Pastor's suggestion, for pastors to consider in their pastoral care for women who have abused...and for the women themselves to show they are not alone in their hurt and confusion and weakness and struggles.  To show the message of Objective Grace I found within Luther's teaching:  that is possible to be completely broken yet whole in Christ. Bettina's word of comfort was for a testimony that I had decided was completely useless because of the social contract I see being upheld all about me and the hurt I have felt at daring to violate its terms and conditions and being met with such wretched failure.  Her comfort was that the words I long to speak, to share, are actually good words because they are the testimony Christ has given me, a testimony that defeats all satan's wiles and assaults...even when I do not see how this can possibly be so...even when I feel as if I am lying bloody and broken in the road watching the world pass me by.


How so does the mercy of Christ, does the grace of God unfold?

My godmother spoke a word of comfort that clarifies, in one fell swoop, the primary difference between Lutheranism and Protestantism. She spoke to me of sanctification.

Being sanctified does not mean being a good Christian, a good person.  Sanctification is not you becoming more godly.  Sanctification is, and only is, having your eyes opened, by God, to your sin so that you may know how utterly desperate you are in your need for Him as your Savior.

What an utter blow against works!  But my godmother was not done with me yet!

Oh, she rather wickedly added, you should actually be thanking God for being horrified at the ugliness of your sin, for crumbling beneath its weight, so that you might know the depth of His mercy and grace in His forgiveness of you. 

Forgiveness then, now, and always.

But, wait, God was not yet done.

I texted Pastor (I know, you are horrified I did so after such a disastrous last message...but, to be fair to Pastor, I must admit that did not type the word pray in the message I sent as a prayer request during the morning prayer service.), asking that he call me to check in after evening bible study.  While he always maintains our discussions that are not quite the most calm, courteous, and soft-toned exchange as should be between a pastor and his parishioner are actually good ones, I was/am bothered that once again we were, ahem, raising our voices with each other this morning.  For I did not believe he was hearing me.  He found me utterly deaf.  I thought his answers did not apply for his failing to listen.  He grew frustrated that I made him repeat his words for the twelfth time not believing they could be the words God would have me to hear when they are His Word, not those of the man before me.  And I became frightened by his frustration, even knowing that I am safe, because I know what frustrated men can do to women.  I asked him to call me because I wanted to see if he would do something needful before I lost the courage gained in forgiveness given when I could not speak the words.

Forgiveness and a blessing.

He called.  We talked.  Words less than mellifluous, at times still, but a soothing balm after this morning...words to know that the undershepherd remained.  He agreed to my request.  And he prayed for me.

Yet God's work this day was not complete by far.

My writing student read my distressing blog from yesterday and texted me to ask if she could do something for me (see good can come from technology).  I asked her to stay the night because my heart rate is still high and every four hours, when I nebulize, it skyrockets once more, taking several hours to at least drop back down to bearable.  I am still terrified in the quiet moments of the day.

She is leaving the country in just three days until June.  She has not packed because she has been working all hours of the day for the funds to support her study abroad.  [Praise be to God that He provided so unexpectedly and generously those hours of work for her!]  She had not the time to stay the night, but she gave what she could.

What she gave was the opportunity for me to serve her, even as she bestowed mercy upon me by keeping me company for a while.  She had two scholarship essays that needed finishing.  She prepared me some Bettina-style tomato soup and herself some whole wheat asparagus and cheese ravioli with a lemon, garlic, cayenne pepper Alfredo sauce.  And then she allowed me the joy of helping her rework her drafts into beautiful works of art.  It is an altogether most satisfying experience of writing, rewriting, and editing an essay answer until you get it perfect and then distilling it further into a work of art by making it fit into those blasted restrictions of 500 words!

She also prayed both Luther's blessing and the thanksgiving with me, listened to me as I read aloud a psalm, and sang a hymn with me...without telling me someone as fragile as I had no business straining my lungs with song.

And now the conclusion of His mercy and grace to me on this day that was not as how I had envisioned:

I found words of utter beauty and absolute comfort in a pastoral report that is from a pastor I do not know for a parish to which I do not belong and yet has everything to do with me, for me. 

Baptized. Such a short, blunt word for such an incredibly powerful, precious gift.  I am baptized. I am (not was) baptized.  I am baptized.  Pastor D taught me such joy.

This evening, Pastor W gave me the words to savor this joy more fully.  Words I gleaned and rearranged for you below:

I am baptized.

I am in streams overflowing.
I am given new birth in these waters.
I am embraced in this font of living water.
I am united to my Lord forever.
I am named as Christ's own.
I am washed clean in the baptismal flood.
I am marked with the cross of the crucified forever.
I am harvested by the Lord as one of His own children.
I am made His holy temple.

All of this in just a tiny bit of water and the holy name of God.
Water and the Word doing the job and bringing me into Christ’s kingdom. 

I am baptized.

It does not matter that, despite my great longing to change that day this past summer, I am not be able to remember my baptism, to remember being washed clean and named God's own, I am baptized.  Because I am baptized, each time Pastor speaks the words of forgiveness, tracing the cross upon my forehead, I am washed anew. Because I am baptized, each time he blesses me, tracing the cross upon my forehead, I am named His own once more.

That should be enough...but there was one last loving gift God had for me.

Pastor W framed his report in a passage that is most familiar to me, but the Holy Spirit made clear for the first time this evening:

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek and a time to lose; a time to keep and a time to cast away; a time to tear and a time to sew; a time to keep silence and a time to speak; a time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.

~Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

The wretched, terrifying time from when I awoke struggling to breathe until now is a time of grace. The discouraging, confusing time from when Pastor plunked down the Book of Concord before me until now is a time of grace. The dark, sorrowful time from when my parents first chose not to protect me until now is a time of grace.

All of my time, then, now, and always is a time of grace no matter how it may look or feel to me. It is a time of grace because, in the words of Pastor W, I live in and with and through my Crucified, Risen, Ascended, Reigning and Returning Lord--to whom be glory forever with His all-holy Father and the life-giving Spirit!


Lord, I believe.  Help my unbelief!