We sang the song regularly at our weekly Cru gatherings. The University of Texas circa 1990. (We called it Campus Crusade for Christ back then.) Sometimes there were two or three hundred of us singing this…

That weekly worship gathering is still a powerful memory, and that song was one of my favorites. I’m pretty sure the name of it was simply Lamentations 3:22-23, because those lyrics are straight from Jeremiah’s song of lament.

Without really being intentional about it, I have found myself beginning many prayers lately with a combination of those Lamentations verses and Psalm 118:24…

Something like this before I even get out of bed…

And then I got to thinking about that word…mercy.

Baby Cooper…and drugged, post C-section mama.

What does it mean that His mercies toward me are new every morning? Is He really having to withhold punishment and deserved consequences or wrath before I even put my feet on the floor? Isn’t “mercy” something you cry out in order to be released from some painful, torturous circumstance? Didn’t the cross take care of me needing mercy today?

So, last month, as I was pondering and praying about the new year and the coming 365 days of new mercies, I looked up the Hebrew word.

The word is racham.  It means womb.

Womb.

Wow.

Every time the word racham is found in the Old Testament, it is translated “mercy” or “compassion”, because of the tender relationship between a mother and the child in her womb – or later, the child from her womb. It is also used to refer to a father’s love for his child…the child who came from his wife’s womb. It even makes me think of my friends who long to know the feeling of a child in their womb. They hope for, love, and grieve the child who is not even there yet.

From Blue Letter Bible And “cherishing the fetus”? Well…that’s another blog post, I suppose, but noteworthy in light of the current culture, to say the least.

Robert (with no white hair), Kory (with red hair), and Coop (bald).

Maybe this has been written about extensively somewhere, but it was totally new to me, and such a sweet, sweet revelation. Sadly, this is partly due to my tendency to still think I’m undeserving of His mercy, unworthy of His love, expected to work to earn His approval, and falling just short most of the time. Thankfully, He used my curiosity (actually, He gave me the curiosity) to discover the same truth one more time: He loves me. His love for me is like a mother’s toward the child in her womb, but even more so. Incomprehensibly more so. The use of the word womb is just the closest He could get to communicating His love to us in human terms.

(Sadly, we’re growing cold in our love for the child in the womb, though, so the image is a bit tainted.)

It made me think of missing my oldest son’s phone call yesterday afternoon. He’s 2000 miles away and in his senior year of college. But, we were in the middle of our afternoon church small group, so I couldn’t pick up. The last person left around 4:30pm. The house was back in order by 5:30pm. I had a seminary quiz due at 11:55pm and still many pages of reading to do before taking it.

(And the Superbowl was on at 6:30pm. I ended up making a 100 on my quiz during the 4th quarter, and I’m just gonna go ahead and give the credit to Tom Brady, because…wow. I did have to Google GOAT, though, and yeah…I suppose he is. 😊 Incredible.)

Anyway, this morning Robert and I did our usual work-out-at-Planet-Fitness-eat-breakfast-at-Whole-Foods-Monday-morning-thing and I kept seeing Kory’s call notification on my phone. It made me miss him. It made me regret the busyness of Sunday and missing our weekly conversation. It made me want to talk to him as soon as possible. He’s got a torn meniscus (most likely), and I wanted to see how he’s feeling. Wanted to hear about his weekend. Wanted to talk Superbowl. Wanted to hear about his classes. His girlfriend. How his job interview went. I just longed to hear his chipper voice.

Needless to say, my “mercies” and “compassions” toward Kory this morning (and toward all of my kiddos… most of the time) were new, abundant, and overflowing, and God used it all to help me understand again His mercies toward me.

The sonogram pic above was emailed to me last week from dear friends expecting their first child. They are in love already, and so am I. Another sweet reminder of racham…His new mercies and love for me, His child, and for all of His kids.

So when I prayed about how to rehearse and recall His racham this year (that’s what Jeremiah was doing), I got the idea/prompt to read the gospels over and over. Each gospel each month. One a week. The life of Jesus. His words. His actions. His parables. His miracles. His death. His resurrection. His commands. His love.

I managed to make it through all four last month. Listening through the Bible App helped – combined with lots of time running and driving. I’m a visual learner, but I’ve found that listening forces me to pay attention differently. I’ll switch it up each month, though. I’m reading from actual pages this month, but from a Bible that presents the text in one column rather than two. That also causes me to read the stories with more attentiveness, since I’m used to my two-column format.

After one month, I’m in awe of Jesus all over again. It’s such a gift and answer to prayer. It’s not something I can produce on my own.

The curiosity He gave to research racham.
The prompting He gave to read His gospels.

It’s His way of giving me exactly what I need: the assurance of His love.

I can rest in that. I can serve freely out of that. I’m rehearsing it every morning.

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It’s been two weeks since I wrote about the Women’s March. I think I’m finally sleeping through the night without cold sweats and heart palpitations. I really had no idea the response it would elicit. I never post anything controversial or extremely personal without Robert’s approval. He agreed with my confusion over the participation of Christian women, but he warned me that some would not like it. Still, I was naive in my expectations…as usual, but sometimes I wonder if it’s a God-given naivety. I don’t know…

I wanted to say thank you to those of you who reached out in encouragement. For two weeks now you’ve sent text messages, emails, Facebook messages, or posted your thanks here in the comments or on the Facebook post. Thank you so much. It’s always helpful to hear that you are not alone in your concerns. And thank you for praying. As I heard from you (and as you well know), I recruited you to pray – for God to use the post for good, and for the enemy to be prevented from twisting, dividing, and stirring up anger. I’m still praying that on a daily basis. It was not my intention to hurt or cause offense. As I sat down to pray about why my heart was so heavy that Saturday of the March, the stories of those biblical women came to mind immediately. The words just flowed. They required no research except for the actual verses from each story. It truly felt like I was being led, but I cannot claim that with absolute certainty.

Though it is a very unpopular view, the Bible teaches that Eve was deceived. Adam was passive (and other “Adams” were dominant and abusive, I know), but Eve was deceived. The New Testament restates it. But Paul is unpopular, too. I am not unaware of this. It’s just that as Christian women, we don’t have liberty to avoid the Scriptures we do not like. We’ve got to take God at His Word, and know this tendency we have to believe the wrong thing for all the right reasons. It’s a liability of the nurturing, compassionate, life giving natures the Lord gave us.

And no, I’m not claiming that every Christian woman who marched was deceived, but I do think it’s worth considering and praying about.

I came across a few interesting articles and sermons regarding the March (and our possible deception) and also the relationship between the gospel and social justice. I’ll post them below in case you are interested. The only one I can truly and personally vouch for is Matt Carter who is a pastor in Austin, TX and whose church we attended while on sabbatical there five years ago. The other two are women whom I’ve only done minimal Googling about. While I think they have very important things to say, please keep that in mind.

I listened to Matt Carter’s sermon twice and was in tears both times – once on the treadmill at Planet Fitness! His is a picture of how the gospel fuels social justice and how his church has been used by God to transform a city. I “made” all of my kids listen to it, by which I mean, I sent my boys the link and a mother’s plea, and forced Kayla to listen to it with me as we drove to our ski program in Vermont two Thursdays ago. She was affected by it almost as much as I was, I think. Here’s the link.

How To Live in the Tension of Gospel and Social Justice

And here are two articles specifically about the Women’s March:

Dear Daughter: Here’s Why I Didn’t March For You

Women’s March Toward Islam?

I’m a little nervous about facing a couple of more weeks of restless nights over lots of comments negative and positive. I am willing to talk to you personally if you like, or via text/FB message/phone. Would you keep that in mind if you choose to respond?  I’d appreciate it so much. But I also understand that if I’m posting publicly, you should have the freedom to comment publicly, so if you must voice your disagreement (or your approval), please go ahead.  I just might respond to you in private this time around.