In my day job I'm a web and graphics designer. Other than that, I enjoy books, coffee, craft beer, and my husband. I'm small talk intolerant, visibly lacking in people skills, and my cooking is not for the faint of heart.
Obviously I'm a hit at dinner parties.
Most of the things on this blog are unimportant. In a hundred years and more, it will not have mattered whether I wrote them or you read them. This page is not one of those things. It's important that I lay out my beliefs here. Take them, leave, the choice is yours, but so that you know the perspective from which I write, the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith is perhaps the best summary of what I believe.
I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.
And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; God of God, Light of Light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.
Who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary, and was made man; and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried; and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; and ascended into heaven, and sits on the right hand of the Father; and He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end.
And I believe in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of Life; who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified; who spoke by the prophets.
And I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; and I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
Diapsalmata, meaning "refrain" or "repetition," has been defined as, "a word that recurs in the Psalms of David at the end of a verse, and which can easily acquire the meaning... of ‘refrains’, i.e. something (a mood, for example) repeated over and over again” (See Kierkegaard, Either/Or, “Preface” 31 n4). Though not found among the classical writings, the term was used in the Septuagint (Greek translation of the Jewish Testament) as the plural Greek form of the Hebrew "selah," meaning "suspension (of music), i.e. pause."
I have borrowed the idea to portray the pause between faith and doubt; the hushed and holy silence that falls when what we believe fails to match the reality before our eyes. It's the tug of war, belief battling unbelief; it's the father crying out, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)
It's a theme reflected in the Psalms to which they refer. The Psalms reflect life in the major and the minor keys, with all the suspended space in between. Majesty meets misery, rage and grace collide. And in the middle of it all stands the heart of the God was not afraid to record the angry dismay of His saints—the ones who brokenly asked “why” and those too crushed to even wonder. And so, for every Peter who has whispered,”Go away from me Lord,” for every David who has cried out, “Look away from me, that I may smile again!” For every Mary who has wept with a voiceless sorrow, for every one of us who has wrestled hard in His hand, there is grace. There is peace. He knows how we pray when we are desperate and He knows how to hold us when we weep.
Perhaps there is no immediate answer to what you are facing — whether loss or regret, or one of those inevitable, inescapable seasons of life. Or maybe the color of your question is tinged with shades of other things. Regardless of your circumstances, He loves you, my friend. He loves you. His promise is the rainbow as He stands with us in the storm.
This is blog is my diaspalmata, my space to write and wrestle through my doubts and questions and the Scripture that is strong enough to sustain them all.