Psalm 118:17.
It sits scribbled on a blue
index card, sandwiched between the mattress above me and the wire mesh that
holds the bed up, the same bed that has left me with a semester of post
concussion syndrome. My roommate sleeps on the Word of the Lord. I sleep under
it.
I mulled over the verse while
working in the library shelving books, ashamedly the most physical activity I
have gotten since hitting my head. I wanted something different, something
creative to ponder and exegete and revel in as a danced between books and tired students. I wanted to proclaim myself. The psalm returned
again, unwavering.
It is easy to proclaim the
name of the Lord when it is others' responsibility. It is easy when roommates
say kind things and mothers are gentle.
Proclamation always comes, proclamation
of something.
Proclamation of the Lord rarely comes with ease.
The problem comes when the task is given to
you instead of somebody else. The struggle is to breathe God in and out with
every word when roommates hurl softball-sized insults at your stomach and
mothers are still burdened by mental illness. We choose to live in the Lord or
we choose to die in the flesh, this flesh that knows nothing of Holy and yet
is. We choose to show what the Lord has done with this ragamuffin body or we
choose to bury His work, showing our own dirty face rather than His clean,
scarred hands.
We have a face that no amount of makeup and no length of scrubbing can make beautiful. It is a face that must be washed in blood and blood alone to be made clean. Proclaiming ourselves shows what we have done - the filthy rags we have scattered into the wind. My we use this face, these hands, these lips to proclaim the grace the Lord has brought us to rather than the manure we have reveled in.
I will not die but live and proclaim what the LORD has done. -- Psalm 118:17
