Today I sat by the water and read a book called Jesus the Son of God. I’m convinced that by looking at Jesus that I will continue to be healed. By looking at Jesus I will continue to know my purpose, not knowing, in the feeble human sense where there is a purpose set out in my mind, but in a more real sense that I can literally feel that I am effortlessly walking on that path, because I am not the one who is directing it, I just follow it. What was interesting was that as I was reading this book, I came across this story that I heard in a sermon a long time ago, and I’ve heard many times since. Today, that little anecdotal story rings more true than it ever has, and I want to encourage you and show you how it applies, because God has taught me.
About 150 years ago George MacDonald wrote a children’s book called The Princess and the Goblin. Irene, the protagonist, is eight years old. She has found an attic room in her house, and every so often her fairy grandmother appears there. When Irene goes to look for her she’s often not there, so one day her grandmother gives her a ring with a thread tied to it, leading to a little ball of thread. She explains that she’ll keep the ball. “But I can’t see it,” says Irene. “No. The thread is too fine for you to see it. You can only feel it.” With this reassurance, Irene tests the thread. “Now, listen,” says the grandmother, “if ever you find yourself in any danger . . . you must take off your ring and put it under the pillow of your bed. Then you must lay your forefinger . . . upon the thread, and follow the thread wherever it leads you.” “Oh, how delightful! It will lead me to you, Grandmother, I know!” “Yes,” said the grandmother, “but, remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread. Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too.” A few days later Irene is in bed, and goblins get into the house. She hears them snarling out in the hallway, but she has the presence of mind to take off her ring and put it under the pillow. And she begins to feel the thread, knowing that it’s going to take her to her grandmother and to safety. But to her dismay, it takes her outside, and she realizes that it’s taking her right toward the cave of the goblins. Inside the cave, the thread leads her up to a great heap of stones, a dead end. “The thought struck her, that at least she could follow the thread backwards, and thus get out. . . . But the instant she tried to feel it backwards, it vanished from her touch.” The grandmother’s thread only worked forward, but forward it led into a heap of stones. Irene “burst into a wailing cry,” but after crying she realizes that the only way to follow the thread is to tear down the wall of stones. She begins tearing it down, stone by stone. Though her fingers are soon bleeding, she pulls and pulls. Suddenly she hears a voice. It’s her friend Curdie, who has been trapped in the goblins’ cave! Curdie is astounded and asks, “Why, however did you come here?” Irene replies that her grandmother sent her, “and I think I’ve found out why.” After Irene has followed the thread and removed enough rocks to create an opening, Curdie starts to climb up out of the cave—but Irene keeps going deeper into the cave. Curdie objects: “Where are you going there? That’s not the way out. That’s where I couldn’t get out.” “I know that,” says Irene. “But this is the way my thread goes, and I must follow it.”16 And indeed the thread proves trustworthy, because her grandmother is trustworthy.
Keller, Timothy. Jesus the King: Understanding the Life and Death of the Son of God (pp. 24-26). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
I now understand why the thread only goes forward. When I reflected on the fact that my eye sight is gone in my right eye, the first thoughts that came to my head were thoughts about what I was doing and what I shouldn’t have done that has led me to this point. I lamented overworking, not giving myself rest, not going to see the doctor sooner. I lamented relationships that I kept and how I wanted everyone to encircle me and validate me in my effort to please everyone. At the end of the day it was a sick sense of self absorption that even the world validated as “selfless giving.” There was no escape. I couldn’t go back now. I had lost my eye sight, and according to the doctors, my left eye was next and would leave me completely blind. I struggled with this, but there was no going back. The thread disappeared there’s no way to see behind me. What was the worth of everything that had happened in my life up till now? I couldn’t make sense of it, until I looked at the cross.
In a strange turn of events, instead of allowing me to wallow in self-pity as I had done before, God came to me, and I saw Him. I a purposely using words that are attributed to sight because I want you to understand that your eyes, my eyes, they only give us a feeble perception of what the world is truly like. We are comparatively blind to the reality that surrounds us and tears into us. We are all blind. I finally saw that I was blind and had been blind, this whole time, and in all reality, I was now healed and my eyes were now opened to perceive the truth, by the Grace of God.
There is no going back. That thought used to haunt me when the doctor first told me of my eye sight being gone. Now I say that with joy and hope. I had come to the wall of rock just like Irene in George Macdonald’s story. I saw no way through, and then God gave me sight, he helped me through and I found a treasure trove of hope, grace, love, joy, acceptance, healing and peace. Would I want to go back? Not anymore. Now I choose to go forward.
In the garden of eden, Adam and Eve were presented with a path forward, the path forward was that if they didn’t eat the fruit and instead obeyed God, they would be in his arms forever. His loving, protective, hopeful, joyful, amazing arms, forever. They couldn’t see the path forward because they lacked love for God. The devil had stolen their love and replaced it with self love, self absorption, self focus, a sneer, he mocked God and they stopped looking at Him and started to look at themselves. They went blind to the truth. They covered themselves in fig leaves and couldn’t see anything more, and so the story goes. The same situation took place again, the anti garden. The garden of death, where eating from the tree (the cross), would mean death but God had commanded it. Jesus saw the love of God in that situation. He saw God, and struggled. He saw God holding the ball of thread and He saw what was before him, and he struggled. He saw the amount of suffering and pain and abandonment He would have to endure if he ate from that tree; He struggled, and yet, he went forward. He could have gone back many times, but he went forward. He cried out to God because he experienced eternal separation from the only love that he had ever known, so free, so full and went blind to that love. He did this so that I could see that love.
It is a profound mystery that I pore over all the time to think how it is that his weakness and his loss has resulted in my strength and gain. I do not understand this grace, it is too wonderful for me. I saw, and crucified him, by not obeying him when he said to follow him. I broke his heart by paying lip service to Him when He said and showed me that He loved me and I said the same thing back but never truly meant it. It was all about me, and what He could do for me. How he would take care of me, how he would heal me, how he would provide for me, how he would do, do, and do to serve me. My “relationship” if you can call it a relationship with Him was premised on a deep self absorption. Despite all of this, he went forward into loss, abandonment, pain, and faced death itself and separation from true love; for me.
What did I do to deserve this? I thought that I was intelligent and could understand such love and value because I had been seeking it all my life. In a sense, He did serve me, but not in the way that I had intended for Him to serve me. Like a child being given vegetables so that they could have the proper nutrition despite feeling like the right nutrition was chocolates and the like; This is how he served me. He washed my dirty feet, and lay his hands on my eyes and healed me. He helped me to finally see. Grace, all sufficient for our every need, grace given for free. I’m in a season of Grace. This is why my daughter was named Grace, because he marked it at the beginning of this time, this journey started in 2016 at the end of everything. I was 33 when I died, and Jesus came to bring me to life when I was 40. I sail upon an ocean of His tumultuous, powerful grace and mercy. I’m tossed and flipped from hope to hope, from faith to faith.
I know now that the thread that Jesus followed he followed in an understanding of His Father’s love, saying “...yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent (John 16:32 - 17:1-3).
How can you know someone if you can’t see them? Today I urge you to follow the thread to God, it doesn’t go backwards, only forwards. In infinite wisdom and love, God sent His only begotten son to follow that thread forward not for your pain and suffering, but to turn the tree of death, that old rugged cross, into a tree of life, the one that was guarded by that flaming sword. The flaming sword that was put in front of the tree of life has been satisfied. It is now gone, because He faced it and overcame it. It fell on Jesus in order for you to see that tree, to eat from that tree and live. There’s no need to turn backwards my dear loved one. There’s no need to undo anything. Just keep moving forward and following that thread. If you feel lost, just look at Christ, he is THE way. If you feel like everything around you is a lie, and out for your ruin, look at Jesus because he is THE truth. If you feel like your life is slipping from your hands because your health is failing, or your spirit is fading, look at Jesus because he is THE life. He is THE way, THE truth, and THE life. Keep going forward knowing that God holds the other end of the thread. Keep going forward knowing that someone has already walked it and overcome it. That same someone will empower you to keep moving forward on that path, and at the end, you will come to a tree of life and then... and then my love... you will SEE God.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take; The clouds ye so much dread are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
I pray that your eyes, will be opened, as mine were, to see the infinite love and acceptance and healing that comes from following that thread forward. God’s grace does not depend on you, it flows outward from Him to you, and is offered without end, it walks with you each day.