5 am Revelations

Hashbrown had to go outside at 5 am. I couldn't go back to sleep. As usual, my mind started spinning, as not so usual, I started to pray.

I've been going through a lot lately. Sorting through a lot. It started with a journaling question in my discipleship group, "Where do you see themes of death and resurrection in your life?" I realized I didn't really believe in a God who resurrects dead things. Maybe in the Bible. Maybe for others. I didn't believe it for me. What's dead in me stays dead in me. What's wounded stays wounded. The God who heals and the God who saves is a God to sing and preach about, not a God I've truly known or fully trusted. I've believed ultimately that all the healing and the saving has been up to me in my life. I gotta make my own way. I gotta take care of myself.

In this prayer at 5 am this morning, I admitted this to God. I said, "God, you've been a neat thing in my life, a nice addition to a world still centered on me. Still run by me. I don't trust you. Even with all you've done, I still don't. I'm sorry. I want to. I'm trying."

And then this name popped into my head. Literally POPPED. "Didymus." I tried to keep praying and there it was still. I could see it even, see how to spell it. This has never happened to me before. It is so surely God speaking to my heart that I had to wake up Phil and tell him. And I have to write this note to tell whoever will read it.

I'd heard it before but couldn't place it. Didymus. It wouldn't go away so I picked up my phone and googled it. Didymus is another name for the apostle Thomas. Doubting Thomas. I opened up the Gospel of John, and I guessed chapter 20. There he is.

So the other disciples were saying to him, 'We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, 'Unless I see in HIs hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.''

After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then He said to Thomas, 'Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing. Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed."

Jesus came, though the doors were shut. He stood in their midst and gave them peace. Thank you, God. How long have I been waiting for evidence? In a world full of evidence, in a life full of evidence, it has never been enough. Story after story of His loving and speaking to me and it's never really been enough to turn my whole heart over and my trust. "Do not be unbelieving, but believing!" I would say that I feel shamed but I don't. I feel invited, pursued, humbled, loved.

The chapter ends like this, "but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.

An invitation to life, at 5 am, and life to the full. My Lord and my God!