Still

Does it hurt you eyes Adonai, to look at me?
If I drown in darkness, can You still see me?
If I get lost again, do You still want to find me?
And if again I return homeless to Your home, do You receive me?

If i get scattered by fear, do You still want to gather me?
If despair ties me, will You still untie me?
If I try looking for excuses do You still want to understand them?
And if You see others better than me, do You still choose me?

Do You still cry because it hurts to see me crying?
Do You still run to catch me if You see me falling?
Do You still hear me calling even if You don't see me talking?
If I stopped and I don't know where I am, do You still wait for me dreaming?

Even If You got tired, Adonai, continue to look at me,
Still search for me, find me, receive me,
Still gather me, untie me, understand me,
Still choose me, catch me, hear me,
Still dream of me... still believe that I'll return and wait for me!

Bat Melech בת מלך
Cristina כריסטינה

I know

I’ve always known that Adonai loves people. I’ve always known that He is merciful and kind and just and good. I don’t know why or how, but I’ve always known it. Maybe it’s because I heard it said so many times that I got to know it for a fact, or maybe because I wanted to believe that even though what I saw around me disproved that fact. Either way, I knew what He is suppose to be like and every time something happened that challenged my so called belief, I would end up a mess, not knowing what to think of Adonai any more. I’d come up with lines like ‘I know you are a good God, so why? Why do You allow this to happen?’ and every time I had to accept the fact that there is no answer. But I was wrong.

In Judaism there is a saying that if you ask the wrong question you cannot expect the right answer, so I had to conclude that my questions were silly, not because they were questioning God and that’s a ‘no, no’, but because I had wrong expectations.

I didn’t understand that my knowledge of His attributes was just knowledge until He taught me.

So, if I say today that God is good, it means that I’ve been more than a thousand times in a place where He could have ignored me because of my unfaithfulness, but He chose to show me goodness.

If I say today that God is merciful, that means that I have been pitiful in His eyes more times than I can count, but He chose to show mercy to this silly child of His.

If I say today that God is slow in anger, it means that I gave Him reasons to get angry with me dozens of times, yet He chose not to be angry.

If I say today that God is a loving God, it most certainly does not mean that He was nice to me, but it means that He found enough strength in His heart to love me and love me until death, not with words or songs or embraces, but dying in my place and loving me even from beyond the grave, so much so that He resurrected for me.

If I say today that God is forgiving, it’s not because I’ve learned by heart the ‘4 steps to get to heaven’ but because I was in need of forgiveness countless times and every time He looked at me and couldn’t bear the thought that I am tormented by the guilt of sin, so He cleansed me every time.

If I know today that God never lets me go it’s not because I heard it in a song, but because I fell so many times that no one in this world or the next would ever have hoped for me again, but He was always there, always waiting that I would hope in Him enough to get up and keep going.

If I say today that God is faithful, it’s because no one has ever been as unfaithful to Him as I was, yet He always… always remained faithful to me.

Adonai is good! Adonai is merciful! Adonai is kind and graceful! Adonai is loving! Adonai is forgiving! Adonai is slow in anger! Adonai is faithful!

People look at a tsunami hitting a country or the fact that there are wars and innocent children die and they decide that there is no way that God can be good, but God doesn’t perform shows for the world to be in owe, He doesn’t do things to impress the crowds, but for the individual, so that no one could ever say ‘yes, we are all just a sea of faces to Him’ but so that every one would know that God reveals His love to each one as if it were the only one in the world.

Bat Melech בת מלך
Cristina כריסטינה

Unlike any other

Listen to me, house of Ya`akov, and all the remnant of the house of Yisra'el, that have been borne [by Me] from their birth, that have been carried from the womb; and even to old age I am He, and even to gray hairs will I carry you. I have made, and I will bear; yes, I will carry, and will deliver. To whom will you liken Me and make Me equal, and compare Me that we may be like? – Yeshayahu/ Isaiah 46:3-5

Adonai decided to carry me even from before I was born, even before He could benefit from me, even before I got to choose right or wrong and even before I got to sadden His heart, although He knew me well… He chose me even before I got to promise Him that I will follow after Him. He carried me on His shoulder until I was able to walk on my own and then observing that my steps were slowed by many burdens, He supported me. I got so used to be carried and supported, that sometimes I took that for granted and being blinded by this world didn’t help me either. So it was hard to train my mind and heart to understand that if I stand, it’s because He won’t let me fall – if I breathe it’s because He never seizes to whisper in my darkness ‘breathe!’ – if I don’t get blind it’s because He is my Light and if I live it’s because He lives within me.

I tried to compare Him to familiar things from my own limited world, so that I could understand Him more. I tried to think of Him as a father, then as a lover, or a hero, or deliverer, but all these are as incomplete as my understanding.

To whom will I liken Him so I would understand His heart? If I compare Him to an earthly father, even if I would think of the best father there is, a father cannot carry you forever because his time with you and his life is limited, how could a father carry you until your hair turns gray? Adonai’s fatherly figure in my life is limited by my understanding of what a father is.

Compare Him to a lover? A human can love you only conditionally… his/her love is always conditioned by time, or circumstances, or failures, or even successes and the dreams that keep changing. If I would have to consider even the greatest love in history, it still doesn’t help me understand His love.

Should I compare Him to a hero? A hero can save the day once and then it’s up to you to save yourself. Even if I would compare Him to the bravest hero there is, I still wouldn’t understand how much courage He used to die for me, to resurrect for me, to ascend to the heavens for me all the while hoping that my blind heart will see beyond thousands of years that He is everything… He hoped against all odds that my deaf ears will hear beyond all the space that separates us that He loves me.

To whom shall I compare Him? There is no one in any dimension or book, or dream or reality that is like Him. The heavens cannot contain Him let alone my heart. He’s got countless angels and heavenly beings that praise Him and their light would blind these eyes made of flesh, still He humbles Himself to support someone like me who is not even worthy to look upon His majesty. He never gets tired to lift me from my failures, He never gets tired of hoping, He never gets tired of loving me and support me and if I hear it or not, He never stops calling me beyond time and space to tell me ‘I love you’.

I won’t compare You to anyone anymore, Adonai, my King. You are everything to me. I am from You, through You and for You and no matter how much I treasure other things, You Adonai… You are thousands of miles higher than anything I may consider high.

Bat Melech בת מלך Cristina כריסטינה

Breathing Life

The LORD God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Bereishit/ Genesis 2:7

Adonai created the man and because He loved the man, He didn’t tie Adam to Himself with an umbilical cord, forcing Adam to depend on Him, but Adonai created Adam with the a will of his own, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living soul. A soul that can think and feel on its own, a soul that would be able to breath on it’s own after that first breath. But Adam didn’t understand that his ‘lungs’ have been created to breath only in the presence of the Holy One, so he tried breathing the toxic air of sin, which lead to his death and the degradation of the whole world, thus making the air unbreathable for all humans. The Creator, seeing His creation’s suffering, became moved with pity and so decided to make a way for humans to breath again. Nothing could change the world’s atmosphere and purify its air, but Yeshua was sent by The Father, to become a breathing device, that anyone that chooses Him, can benefit from clean air. Yeshua didn’t come to change the whole world, but only those that would want to be changed by Him. And the way change occurs, is by spending time in the Word of God which has been inspired with Life (2 Timothy 3:16), just like Adam was when he took that first breath that gave him life.

Bat Melech בת מלך
Cristina כריסטינה