The Story I sing

Boom. Crash. Rumble. Clap    

I slam upright, jolting the bed and waking to water audible on the panes. I breathe in deep, aware of my hands tightly gripping the covers. I gently sweep them over the thin sheets, the bed under me as I exhale, and fall back on my pillow. Autumn sometimes comes quietly to the North East coast of the United States, other times it comes in thunderous and with beast-like downpours and heavy mists. The clock at my bedside reads three-thirty in the morning and I groan internally, hoping I can steal a few more minutes of the night in slumber—a futile endeavor. So, I lie there staring at the ceiling, listening to the rhythmic pelting of water against my window, the bellowing of the wild winds and find the irony of it all in the mimicking of my untamed pounding heart. I push back the sheets, open the curtains and stare out the window, take another deep breath and will myself to begin my day. The moon shines bright despite the storm and scattered clouds, the gleam highlighting the mess sprawled out all over my bedroom floor as I make my way to the kitchen for my coffee and back. It’s steaming as I slowly stir in the creamer, the sugar, and take a sip…as if there is strength in it for my aching stretching bones, but too sweet is all it is. With heavily burdened steps, I make my way to the desk and attempt to journal every dream, desire, swallowed cries, lost battles, feelings of homelessness, undealt dysfunctions, pains, heartbreak, victories, rants, brokenness, grief…to organise it all; to make all the pieces fit. But all I find is that these are a bunch of pieces to a bunch of whole different puzzles and I cannot see the connecting factor.  With a muffled cry of frustration and flowing tears of exhaustion, I close the journal and like a David in my own cave I whisper, head bowed with clenched fists,
“Lord, it’s too much. I’m tired…are You here still with me? Father, do you hear me?” (Psalm 13:1-2).

It’s been a hard year and a half—unexpected and endless seasons of just utter brutal…and these past two weeks, the painful tempo has only picked up; where faith and strength are tested, when you get the calls and hear the words that you pray against, beg to go away and are never braced for, when lament is the only wailing song that flows…

It’s not a new song, but a familiar one that I’ve been humming through the years.

 “Bind my wandering heart to Thee… … It is well with me… … Be Thou my Vision oh Ruler of All.” (Psalm 34: 8, 18).

Born in India and raised in the Middle East, I call that region home, specifically UAE. It is there my life story and my faith story begins. I slept on the floors of the pulpit through worship, sermons and altar call even before I could walk, immersed in the faith even before I was born. You see, growing up as a pastor’s kid and always being in church, it’s kind of hard to not know Jesus. So, I have known about Jesus Christ my entire life and accepted Him at a very young age. However, growing up from my childhood to my preteens, I watched and lived life through a wounded immigrant’s eyes, as I was severely bullied. I understood the harsh reality of how cruel people could be at an early age, understood the pain of not belonging, of crisis, of seeing people not have a home, family tragedies and life robbed of joy and zeal. Life was not easy for my family or myself, and as I grew up, the pressures of being who I was, was supposed to be (daughter, sister, pastors’ kid, friend) and honestly to just be, began to pile on. Like most people, my teenage and early young adult years were dark and painful, with lots of confusion, mental and emotional anguish that caused deep pain; on top of the wounds, I carried from my younger years. These just served to put me further into hiding and pits of depression. I had moved to the United States during my teenage years and by the time I was a freshman in college (18 years old), my faith in Christ and a God was nonexistent. I had gone on a spiritual search, tried many worldly things to fill the void and studied many religions (reorienting myself with Islam and Hinduism as well) to find meaning, comfort, peace, home and belonging. Like the prodigal son, I did find it, but it was temporary and buried me in the pigsty.

The deep hurts and abuse from life, people and the church- left me more broken, lost, confused and angry. Convincing me my life was worthless and my existence, pointless. For a while I led many lives, and built my empire in self-defense, to hide for my safety and sanity and to nurse my wounds. But isolation breeds bitterness and more anguish. The pain of life and homelessness (of spirit and mind) that I felt, erased the knowledge of Him and the desire to live. I gave into the traps of the world that professed would soothe the pain and turmoil my whole being was in.

It was a November much like this one, a decade ago that I believe the Lord had enough of my rebellious tantrums. And thus began the start of my prodigal-daughter-journey back to Him, through a series of unforeseen and semi-fortunate events. I had what I like to call my Hagar moment, where He found my huddled self in my closet, tired and exhausted of fighting with and for myself to live. It was in these moments of torment, that I heard a voice whisper the word “pray”. I had forgotten how to pray, but my eyes fell on the Bible I had hidden away in my closet years ago, under boxes and clothes. I vividly remember pulling it out and not knowing where to turn. But the ever-present God of Peace and Comfort led me to a bookmark at Ezekiel 16, clearly Divinely placed for this moment.

Ezekiel 16 “As for your birth…And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’. I made you flourish like a plant of the field…”

 While my brain knew it was about Israel, those holy words touched the deep caverns of my heart and all I remember after is the hours of weeping. Wept as I understood and remembered Hagar in the wilderness and the God who saw her; I wept as I read the words now in this Holy book that said to “Live”, of the covenant, of flourishing and healing, of belonging. Those words called my wandering and battered soul home to the Father and I recommitted my life to Him.

“Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God; He to rescue me from danger, interposed His precious blood…. O to grace how great a debtor, Daily I’m constrained to be! Let Thy goodness, like a fetter, Bind my wandering heart to Thee.”

It started a new journey of binding up wounds, healing and coming out of hiding, and reconciling my life. It has been onwards from there, for as the Divine Healer has healed me with the balm of His gospel, that part of His heart has He placed in mine as well. (Psalm 147:3, Romans 5:8, Psalm 51)

My faith has only grown and is firmly established in Him, because I have tasted and seen both ends of the spectrum, and I will always choose Him. For every pain, struggle, doubt, shame, and other tactics the enemy has thrown at me, Christ has given me so much more. The closer I drew to Him, the longing to serve became louder and the acknowledgment that the Middle East and Asia will always be home, always be my people became clearer. And also, why my heart beats to care for people the way the Lord cares for me. Over the past couple of years, I have had the opportunity to serve and be a part of various ministries, including refugee care and prison ministry. It is through these acts of service and being obedient, the Lord has healed the wounds that I associated with Asia and the Middle East.  I have always prayed for the unreached in these areas but one night in 2018 as I was reading through my Bible plan of Psalm 2:8 and letters of Paul, I realised and saw a glimpse of the beautiful story the Lord was using in my life to glorify Himself. The Lord had chosen to weave my inheritance (the nations) within me. From my heritage to the lands I have grown up in, to the good and bad people I have met, to the Asian culture, the Middle Eastern culture, to the Western culture, even down to the studies of the religions I had done when I was out of the fold of Christ. In all that seeking and searching, He was allowing me to clearly see, so that I could one day relate and show Him to His people, who are also my people. (Romans 8:28, I Timothy 2:2-6)

“It is well with me…” 

One pillar of my life is that He being my good and steadfast Shepherd leads, and He leads well, so I follow. For He has begun a good work in me and shall complete it (Psalm 118:1). And oh, the adventures our Lord has taken me on through missions and medicine—places and people I’d have never thought. And everywhere I go, not only do I have the privilege now to be the healing hands and strong feet of Jesus, but I get to be like the Samaritan woman who receives and then shares the Living Water, I get to be like the healed paralytic at the pool of Bethesda and tell all how He has healed me. I get to tell all you other Jairus-like sons and daughters to rise up and I get to be like one of the four who lowered their paralyzed friend through the roof and plead with the Lord for your own healing and redemption.

Of all of these, I hold being His disciple as the highest and most undeserved privilege. To encourage and intercede, and tell you that truly there is no place or distance you can run and hide, where the love and blood of Christ cannot find and save you.

So, to you discouraged ones, hurting ones, lonely ones, pastors and non-pastor kids confused one, the ones teetering the line of following or not following Christ Jesus, to those of you that feel like you don’t belong, feel not seen…to all of you holding in the anguished tears and breath…I know you’re tired too. Stop fighting Him so hard, it’s time to surrender and lay those burdens down at the Cross. Not everyone will understand you, whether in the church or outside, not even your parents and family. The Lord gives to each of us our own testimony that He will use for His glory, so let Him write it dear one. I see the tears sitting there at the edge of your eyes, threatening to fall and I want you to understand that in Christ alone can you be silent but still seen, hidden and yet still known, be desperate and delighted in, be broken and whole, be who you were created to be because you were created by Him. And that is the beauty of the gospel of Christ- the freedom and healing in it.

“Be Thou my vision, Oh Ruler of All…” My friendship with Christ has taught me that the ache of lament and suffering can only be comforted by the continual communing with Christ Himself. He has also taught me that it’s alright if sometimes tears become the only prayer you know because they cut the path home to Him.

It’s here He comes to me, tenderly takes my hands, unclenches my fists, raises my head, meets my tear strung eyes and whispers back,

“Daughter, let me be God. Beloved, let me be your Lord.”

And it’s in this truth, this invitation that I am continually learning and relearning slowly His heart for me. Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine…

It is the same heart He holds for you.

My prayer for you dear beloveds is that you abide in Him. That you let Christ fill your heart and souls’ empty spaces of loneliness and grief or pain to be full rooms of invitation, of opportunity, of rekindled fire and passion. That in the coming days you remain unhindered, continue to be faithful and trust, being “like a tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:7-8

Until then my heart is joined with yours as it prays Maranatha.

Humbly, Your sister in Christ,

Penninah Abigail Menezes