Cathedrals
“You built no great cathedrals that the centuries can applaud but with a grace exquisite your life cathedral’d God.”
I don’t who wrote this quote nor even if I’m quoting it correctly. I've searched for it many times online but can’t find it. If anyone can help me, I would greatly like to give credit where credit is due. For the sake of time and urgency, however, I wanted to get this written and out to the world. I have no idea how big or small this “world” will be; I just know I’m going to explode if I don’t get the words of my heart and a bit of what God is revealing down on paper. Hopefully, my words will bring to light some of what I’m discovering about an increasingly dark and heinously evil subject.
Recently I’ve discovered that when I purpose to diligently seek what is really true and I’m fully open and surrendered to following the Holy Spirit, I am made aware of the depths that evil will go to destroy the image bearers of our Holy God (which is all of us). As a result, I am not able to sleep at night without knowing I am doing everything in my power to stop it, nor am I able to carry on casual conversations about seemingly meaningless topics like fashion, sports, movies, TV shows, etc. The further I search for truth, the more often I find myself wanting to scream, “But who’s fighting for all these precious souls?!” How do I gaze into the innocent eyes of my oh-so-precious granddaughter, knowing the horrors of what is done to others who are equally precious and innocent? I just can’t continue with life as normal, knowing what I now know.
Having lived the majority of my life in Washington, DC, I have spent many hours in the sobering and somber Holocaust Museum. We homeschooled our four children and hosted many out-of-town visitors, so this afforded me many opportunities to reverently walk through this place that memorializes so many lives devastatingly lost. Without fail, each and every time I consider this particular moment in history, I ask myself what I would have done if I lived at such a time? How would I have responded to such heinous and yet culturally accepted evil? Would I have spoken up for the staggering number of people who were being ripped from their families, denied their God-given potential, maimed, and slaughtered?
Recently as I posed this question to myself once again, I was met with this simple question in reply: “What are you doing now?” Through this simple inquiry, I realized that what God has been revealing to me about what is going on under the cover of darkness IS my Germany. This Holocaust includes the murder of millions of innocent babies, the selling of their body parts, and the trauma inflicted upon their families, particularly their mothers. I’ve learned that the further along a baby is in gestation, the more he or she is worth when he or she is aborted. In large part, this is why we now see an unimaginable press for full-term as well as even post-birth abortion (infanticide) to an alarming degree.
As I’ve been seeking God for how to best use my voice in the midst of such a time, I have found myself frustrated by my lack of direction. I’ve continued crying out to God, talking to anyone that will listen, and supporting causes that help mommas keep their babies. Additionally, I have stopped supporting candidates that don’t protect these most precious of lives. I’m researching for further truth and developing keen insight into how things really are versus what the media and world present to us. I continue to look for deeper revelation—any ways that God shows will help stop even one more baby, born or unborn, from being sacrificed to the evil system that is at work all around us.
Often times it feels like we are living in a movie like The Hunger Games. Everyone who is not affected by poverty, mind-control, and bondage simply goes on with his or her life, focused on fashion, parties, glamour, decadence, or simply a life unconcerned with all that is going on outside of their comfort zone. This feels more and more true to me, and it feels increasingly bizarre that this is happening in real life. This evil is real, and these lives are real. And, but for the grace of God, it could be me, or you, or any of our loved ones.
This last month brought the devastating news of the Cathedral of Notre Dame’s destruction due to a raging fire. As I watched the unfolding news footage, God reminded me of my opening quote. This was written to me in a book that my husband, Jim, gave me in the early days of raising our four kids: “You built no great cathedrals that centuries will applaud but with a grace exquisite, your life cathedral’d God.” I sensed that Jesus was saying that each and every one of these precious souls that He has fashioned and knit together in their mother’s womb is far more worthy of wailing and mourning than this temporal structure built by man.
I do not want to diminish the profound loss many are experiencing as a result of this catastrophic fire. However, I do want to elevate the weight that I am giving to God’s most precious of cathedrals—His innocent and precious image bearers. I want to use my voice and spend my money, my time, and my talents on behalf of what grieves and breaks His heart.
My prayer is “Lord Jesus, you have opened my eyes, my heart, and my mind to so many things that absolutely break your heart, and you have placed within me a desire to step and fight for the least of the these. I know you have equipped, anointed, and prepared me to step into this battle at ‘such a time as this.’ Direct my steps, guide my path, and anoint my words.”