Babylon to Jerusalem

I went to see the great Behold the Lamb of God concert last night, which has become somewhat of a required Christmas event. I love this show for so many reasons, and while I won’t go into them right now because that’s not the point of this post, I cannot encourage you enough to check it out. It’s an amazing piece of work.

But anyway.

One of the regulars on the Behold the Lamb tour is Jill Phillips. My very first Christian music album (WOW 2000) included a song by Jill ("I Am") which has always been very close to my heart. After seeing last night’s show, I decided to pull out some of my old Jill Phillips albums and listen to them, since they never really got much play before (no particular reason...I just liked other things more). Today I was cleaning up the downstairs while my little monkey was napping, and a song came on that made me sit down to write this post. Because I’ve been thinking about this for months, but it seems like I never find the time. So here goes.

Jill’s song, “By a Thread,” articulates a lot of my own feelings during this season of my life.

I can’t help but feel like there’s something missing
I hear the same old truth; this time it’s not convincing
All the promises are hard to swallow when
I’m hanging on by a thread
I still believe every word You said,
but I can’t get it down to my heart from my head

I remember the story of someone who needed
help with his unbelief even when he believed it
But You didn’t come to heal
the ones who never feel they’re hanging on by a thread
I still believe every word You said,
but I can’t get it down to my heart from my head

I need you to make a connection, make a connection, please

It’s foolishness to hide because You must know that
I am hanging on by a thread
I still believe every word You said
but I can’t get it down to my heart from my head


I have been wanting to write about this for a long time, because, well....there’s no better way to deal with a problem that you feel deeply troubled and ashamed by than just putting it out there for everybody to see. Talk about accountability! So here it is.

I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Living God, sent to reconcile a sinful people to Himself. I have acknowledged my own depravity and my desperate need of Him. By the very definition, I am a Christian. But I don’t feel like one. I haven’t FELT like one for a very, very long time. There is a serious divide between what I know to be true and what I put into practice. And Jill’s song really says what I mean here. I still believe the Gospel, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I NEED it each and every minute of my life. I know what is required of a life sacrificed to Christ. I yearn for fellowship and communion with the one who redeemed me from my sinful nature. But there is something missing. I don’t know what it is, but it’s like there is a physical barrier between me and God, and even if I put it there myself, I have no idea how to remove it. Or, rather, I have ideas how to move it, but I can’t seem to make it happen.

For one, I need to be immersing myself in the Word of God. But am I? No. I had no idea how being the mom of a busy toddler would affect my ability to have personal devotions. Sure, there are (usually) naptimes. But I have found that, during his naptime, the last thing I ever end up doing is sitting down to read my Bible. Instead, there are always a million things that actually need to get done around the house, or decompression time on Facebook that I (at the time) feel is absolutely necessary. To just put it out there, again, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I have sat down to read the Bible in the last 6 months. That’s fewer than five times in SIX MONTHS! That’s the first part of my problem.

Also, I can’t seem to pray. I feel like I’m talking to a wall. And I feel like my prayers are all very me-centric. Which they are. Often the only times I remember to pray are when I’m gripped by fear over the safety or wellbeing of someone I love, which has a knack for instantly driving me to God. Corrie Ten Boom once asked something along the lines of, “Is God your steering wheel, or your spare tire?” (Some of my readers are groaning - I know who you are!- but despite the triteness, it makes my point). But anyway, it seems like I only pray in times like this. So, since praying is hard and awkward and seemingly ineffective, I just avoid it. Problem number 2.

I have begged God to just supernaturally lift this divide, to rip out my heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh. I know my desperate depravity is a state of being, not just a laundry list of sinful actions. My own natural desire is to be an enemy of God. But there is a war within me, because there is also a will in me to seek His forgiveness and mercy. I just can’t seem to get it through to my heart that this should be the most crucial priority in my day-to-day life. But why?

My goal with writing this post is to kind of reinvent my blog, give myself a reason to write, and in some ways restore the original intention of the blog’s title (it’s called Babylon to Jerusalem because I am trying to document my sanctification and journey from this broken world toward the restoration and perfection of Heaven, inspired by the return of the Jewish remnant from Babylon to Jerusalem in the book of Ezra). I plan to write about this and other things that are on my mind and heart. This season of my life has been long and seemingly without an end in sight. I have been far from God for so long I’ve almost forgotten what real communion and fellowship with Him feels like. But I like to remind myself that this is a season, which is an appropriate metaphor. As my dear pretend-blogger-friend Katie said, seasons have good days and bad. Some days in winter are cloudy and snowy, and others are bright and beautiful, but the season itself is still there. So, in line with that, not all of my posts will be full of despondency and desperation. Some will be full of hope and promises, because I still experience those too. But I need to be honest with someone, anyone (everyone?) about what’s really happening in my heart. Because I feel like this is one way I can start healing and breaking down this longstanding divide between me and God. In another song, Jill Phillips wisely writes, “Don’t whitewash the truth about yourself because nobody’s got it all together.”

So here's the truth about me. Thanks for listening.

So, Fox is teething (yes....still). My poor kid still only has one tooth that has erupted, but I can see the one above it trying very hard to push through the gum. This, of course, results in a grumpy baby. I've been giving him teething tablets every day, and that seems to do fairly well. But this week he's been waking up insanely early (between 4:30 and 5:30), and Mike and I thought that maybe a dose of acetaminophen might help him be more comfortable and therefore help him sleep longer. Since pretty much every infant Tylenol product has been recalled, I had picked up some Target-brand infant drops to have on hand in case Fox started running a fever. He's never had them before, but I assumed they'd be pretty comparable (in taste and effectiveness) to Tylenol. Not so. Apparently, the dye-free cherry flavor Up & Up infants' pain relief drops taste like death. Fox took one taste of the dropper and proceeded to throw up everything (or so I thought) that he'd had for supper. We cleaned him up and calmed him down, and I sat down to give him his bedtime bottle. He took about half of it, leaned forward, and threw up again. And again. And again. It was scary to see how much stuff came out of my little boy's belly. Poor baby! We cleaned him up and calmed him down again, called the doctor, and talked with a triage nurse who gave us protocol for what to do if he continued throwing up (which would indicate a virus). Thankfully, he didn't throw up again. He slept soundly through the night, and he has felt fine ever since.