Last night’s sunset was frayed, for each hue left trace of itself upon the next, like fragile fingers trying to take hold of what would come next. As its glow filled the sky beyond us and the space around us, I wondered, did the Israelites find fraying dusk as their deliverance dawned?

A fray is a energetic but unorganized fight, struggle or dispute.  How disordered were the hearts and lives of the Israelites before plagues came like tsitsiths to remind them who held them? That He held them still.

Frays can be a sign of fear and fight, yet within them is pele or wonder.  Sometimes ruckus and rumble are sent to serve, to reckon us back to the beauty of the small wonders that leave breadcrumbs upon the path we’ve feared to tread, while leading to the throughway that beckons awed and astonished.

There, knelt in Nisan, beneath finger-smudged vespers, His people could not yet see passage, only their need of one.  They could not yet grasp the extraordinary ways He ever met thirst and hunger, urgent and imperative.  They must have looked up and let storied stars put words to the letter their hearts needed to narrate.

Dear Miracle Maker,

Come.  

We cry holy again.  It tumbles unrestrained and unceasing from heart hearth and fleshy lips. 

Holy, holy, holy.  So much more than a descriptor of You.  An invitation for you to be holy in us, to do whatever it takes to be holy in us.  

The distance between us is simply the geography of the place to which we have run, but it does not prevent the possibility of our return, to You.  

For who is like You, O Lord, among the gods we tried to put in Your place?

Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, revealing wonders again and again? 

Only You can deliver us to what is yet to be, what will most certainly come. 

We will no longer serve strange, strong masters, but You, our Hope, our Help, our GOD.

Amen.  Faithful and True.  Always. 

Small wonders lead to parted seas for promised people.

I couldn’t take my eyes off the cresting colors of night’s watch.  How often have I found fray instead of His fringe?  How many times have I missed pursuing pele, the astonishingly wonderful healing heart of my holding God?

I love frayed nightfalls, for they remind me of He who hems, who takes threads and tucks them into parts of Him I have yet to experience and explore.  And they revive my memory, awakening it to a storyline of scripture.

Do not be afraid, do not be dismayed.  I will surely save out of distant place, bring you out of exile.  You will once again have peace and security. No one will cause you to fray.    Jeremiah 30:10

These words, poured ink from Jeremiah’s pen, were to a people who would be dispersed then gathered–regathered.  The prophet was instructed not to speak these words, but pen them, so they could be read by a people no matter where they were, until all roads led home.

This chapter of Jeremiah’s book reveals the dawn of his delight, the flashes of light that seared his sorrow.  A brilliance was to come and he could see it in glimpses and glances.  A Liberator was on the way.  With Heaven’s Hero two realities would come and collide with a new covenant and a returning people. Forevered forgiveness and never-ending knowing of the One who forged it, so we would be found.

When fray meets fringe, the world meets a heartbeat meant to marry to the each and every within it.  No more discomfit.  Just sown, sealed and sent.

Praying “a zissen Pesach” or a sweet Passover to you all!