Sister, I feel like this word is for you: Carly Bratcher

“I feel like this word is for you, Sister:

‘I hear you. I’ve heard your cries. I’ve heard you.

I am with you. I tell you, you will not lose your mind. You will not lose it. I love you. I hear you.’”

Last night, I told my friend that I was beyond excited about coming to her church, at which she leads worship, after longing to attend for weeks. I’d never been to Rebuild Fellowship before, but I knew from her description of its Spiritual discernment as a body that I needed to worship with them at least once. 

This morning was that day. Dancing in the halls of God was refreshing and good. I was brought to tears by the beauty and by the longing of my heart for this beauty—the beauty that I once knew intimately and daily. I sat on the third row from the stage, to the sunny eastern side of the repurposed municipal hall. Pastor Chuck had just begun his sermon concerning our means of worshiping God. Then, he stopped, looking at me, a stranger and newcomer, and said:

“I feel like this word is for you, Sister:

‘I hear you. I’ve heard your cries. I’ve heard you.

I am with you. I tell you, you will not lose your mind. You will not lose it. I love you. I hear you. I’ve heard your cries. 

I’ve heard you.’”

I’ve been longing for beauty. “Let the bones that you have broken rejoice” seems to be my constant cry to God these days. And out of the whirlwind of dust and the worship proclaimed by the dust, God spoke. To me. And I praised Him before. And I praised Him during. And I praise Him now. He constantly changes my heart even as all else remains the same. 

I will not lose my mind, He said to me, His servant. And without speaking it, this has been my constant fear. What if I’m left in this mental anguish I’ve felt for so long? I quiver in the cold and dripping loneliness of that thought. How can I serve God if I can no longer recognize Him? 

But He recognizes me. And He always will. He will always see me with His ever-clear mind, a sound judgement, a compassionate heart, a patient Spirit, and Jesus’ lovely, gentle touch. And I am transformed, though I remain the same. There is no higher, no greater, no one like God. 

And the waters of my baptism—baby Carly, shrouded in white, held by the hands of her family and of Christ’s Body—pour out over my head all over again. And I soak, bathing myself, nude and exposed, letting go of every real thing. I am consumed by the Realer things. This flesh the Lord gave me at the first is now holy, now radiant, now shimmering with the brilliance of a thousand mountain springs reflecting the brilliant dawn of spring. And I haven’t just found beauty; I’ve become it. I haven’t just witnessed it as a mountaineer swinging her legs over the bluff’s ledge and embracing the majesty of the view before her. No, I have become the very wind which whips through the valley, the sunlight which warms the hiker’s skin, the mist of the clouds which replenishes the soil, the birdsong which bounces off the trees, the breath of the field mouse who huddles beneath the underbrush, the yearning of the roots for the pockets of nitrogen, the slight movement of the petals toward the rising and warming sun, the hunger of the lichen for the softening flesh of the fallen elm. And the beauty is my very life, my very soul. The Lord commands it all to be beautiful, and it is so. I am no exception.

Holy, holy, holy LORD God of power, God of might

Heaven and earth are full of Your glory

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord

Hosanna in the highest.