Brokenness

For a long time, Psalm 42 has been my favorite psalm. In a way, this seems odd, because there are definitely parts of it that have yet to apply to my own actual life experience. The odd part is that I'm pretty sure more of it applies than did when I first decided it was my favorite. Oh wait! I just realized that more applies than I thought! While I was writing this . . . I'm not kidding.

I don't necessarily want to get into details about why I love different parts of it or what they mean to me in my life. I think that the main point of why the psalm is so important to me is . . . well, we all have negative feelings, right? Sadness, bad moods, days we got out of bed on the wrong side, a day somebody broke up with you, a day you got bad news, a time of your life when it seems like things are ganging up on you, trying to get you to do nothing but sit around and think about all the worst things that have ever happened to you.

In other words, bad feelings happen. Nobody's happy all time. The question remains, what do you do when you're down in the dumps? Do you deny it and pretend, stuffing it all inside you to deal with later? Do you sit around and mope? Or do you ask yourself the vital question:

"Why are you in despair, O my soul?"

Which is followed by the best advice ever: "Hope in God"

The person speaking in this psalm is not pretending that everything is puppies and sunshine and he hasn't got a care in the world. He's also not giving up. He's pouring out his soul to God, reminding himself of God's goodness and faithfulness, and he's reminding himsef of something very important that I still forget as many times as I have read the verses: the thing he's really hungry and thirsty and longing and empty for is God and God alone.

A break from our (ir)regularly scheduled prose . . . *

I try so hard to find the words to say
What's on my heart, so You can make it new.
I'm trying every day to find a way
To force myself to be as good as You.

Perfection is the goal, or so I feel
And that's where I am failing every day;
If this is me, why would You put Your seal?
If You can use me, I don't see the way.

The comfort in Your Word is very clear;
Your love is strong and will not leave my side
Your Son's death bought me freedom from all fear
And to my sin and shame I'm told I've died.

And yet I see the struggle still is there;
I won't be perfect on this side of life
And I will always wish that things were fair
And that our hearts could be quite free from strife.

*see Romans chapters 6-8

Giving Up

Have you ever completely given up on someone or something? Have you ever wanted to?

I know I have often wanted to give up--on myself. Sometimes I think my life is too much and too hard for me, and I want to just cop out of everything and, I don't know, go curl up alone in a hole for the rest of my life? (I've never been completely clear what it is I would do.) But I never have. However, I don't take any credit for that fact. In those times when I have really truly wanted to give up, it has been something from within me that is *not* just me (the Holy Spirit?) that has popped up and said, "No, you are not going to sit there curled up in a ball crying forever. You are going to get up and keep trying." I've fought it, but it's there, and it won't let me give up.

I think that God has been incredibly patient with me. No matter how many times I get melodramatically pessimistic, no matter how many times I have entirely the wrong attitude, He sticks around. And when there's something He's trying to tell me? Does He tell me once or twice and then leave me alone? No. He keeps telling me until I finally listen. He keeps teaching me the same lesson over and over, and I'm the one who gets frustrated about the fact that it seems to take me about eighty thousand repetitions of the same lesson to actually learn it.

One thing I realized just this morning is that one of my fears is that God will one day say, "Oh, she'll never get it, why am I wasting My time?" and walk away. I'm afraid of this because I'm foolish enough to think that God might be like me. It's perfectly obvious to me that in His place, I would eventually give up and walk away.

Thank you, God, for not being like me. That is what makes You so worthy of all my praise and worship, all my life, all my heart, all my thoughts. I'm sorry that I fall so short so often of giving You all that I am.

Change

Weird is the new normal
Terrible is the new good
Crazy is the new sane

I have always hated change. If something is different, if I am going to do something I have never done before, if I am leaving what I consider to be my normal zone of existence in either time, place, or people, I am sure that that means something terrible is happening. I've heard it said that change is the only constant, and it has often seemed that, for me, that was going to translate into "fear is the only constant". Not surprisingly, I have never thought that constant fear sounded like a good way to live. I only thought I might be stuck with it.

Now, there is nothing in the Bible that instructs us to live in fear. The Bible says of fear that "God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind" (2 Timothy 1:7)and that "perfect love casts out fear . . . and the one who fears is not perfected in love" (1 John 4:18). Nor does the picture given in the Bible of what God wants for our lives leave room for fearfulness. Jesus says of His sheep, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (John 10:10), and He also says (in a passage where He is giving instructions on abiding in Him, in His Word, and in His love) "These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full" (John 15:11). I don't know about you, but I don't find living abundantly and having my joy made full to be compatible with living in fear.

But, I think to myself, to *not* be afraid would be a big change. And I don't like change. So, right now, I'm in a really good place: laying down new and better patterns, having more confidence and less shyness, just generally being a lot happier with my life the way it is. And that's great. But it's so different that I find it downright disconcerting. That's why I'm writing this--to remind myself that change can actually be good--to show myself that a more joyful and abundant life *is* God's will for me and not some wacky innovation of my own.

Therefore, I can feel free to enjoy it, and to trust God that it will not be merely a phase.

PS: a note on the three lines at the top. It is an expression of how disoriented I feel. My new normal is quite different from the old one; I am enjoying things that I used to be afraid of; I am living in a way that is more intense and "out there" than usual. Here's hoping it lasts!

The Scenic Route

As I was learning my way around a new city this summer, I got lost quite a bit. What can I say? I don't have a good sense of direction. I didn't mind getting lost, though, partly because I knew it was inevitable, and partly because I know that is how I orient myself in a new place. I remember that last time I got lost because I went past that corner instead of turning, so this time I know better. Oh, I see that road ahead? That means I already went too far. My map was my best friend: I would consult it several times in one trip, because I couldn't hold its contents in my head for long enough.

Of course, later in the summer, I knew the city a lot better. I knew the shortest, straightest ways to the places that I went every day, and I didn't have to get lost, not even necessarily if I was going somewhere new. A good look at a map beforehand and I was probably going to be OK. Still, I wanted to see more of the city, and I wanted to see just how good my newfound sense of orientation was, so I found myself turning off on unfamiliar roads and trying to find new ways to get to the same places. And when I did that, I realized that taking the long way, while less time-efficient and more confusing, was an excellent way to see things that I otherwise wouldn't see and, well, generally enjoy life more.

For someone who has repeatedly found herself taking the long-drawn-out route to everything from graduation to getting over illnesses, and has always therefore felt as if she was a bit backwards and stupid, this was an amazing revelation. OK, so I graduated high school later than the average. So I'm not where the conformist in me thinks I should be considering my age. Aren't I in a really good place right now? Haven't I made friends that I wouldn't have made if I'd started college a couple years sooner? Haven't I learned things that I wouldn't have learned if I'd accomplished things more quickly and easily?

Maybe I shouldn't give myself such a hard time for being "slow". Maybe slow and steady really does win the race, but, even if not that, even if I can't tell yet if it's going to be a path to success, why can't I just think of it as taking the scenic route through life?

Superpowers

If you could choose just one superpower, what would you want to be able to do? I suppose it's a question for fun conversations, for laughing and joking around, because of course it's not for real. But I think the way people choose to answer this question can say something about who they are and what they want to be and do.

I used to know what my answer was, always, without thinking about it. I would want to be able to turn invisible. I'm afraid I'd probably use it mostly to spy on people . . . can you imagine how much you could learn that way? It seemed like the perfect tool for the girl who liked people, liked watching them, had a curiosity for knowing what was going on inside their heads, but didn't want to draw attention to herself, didn't want to be looked at, and didn't like the idea of other people knowing what was going on inside her head. To see without being seen seemed like a great idea.

This morning, I realized that my answer to this question has changed. I don't want to be invisible anymore. I'd already noticed that my answer had changed a little bit: I wanted to be able to be invisible sometimes, but when I was visible, I wanted people to see me! But today, I asked myself the superpower question and was about to give the usual answer, when I realized that it just wasn't true anymore.

Which, obviously, led to the question: what superpower would I want now? I don't have an answer yet. I'm not sure I actually want a superpower anymore. I was thinking about it, and--this connection of topics might seem strange, but it wasn't premeditated, that's just where my brain went--I started thinking about showing people God's love, convincing them of His truth, shining His light. That's not a desire for a superpower. That's a desire for the Holy Spirit. That's a desire to be a servant of the Lord.

I don't want anyone reading this to think that I'm some amazing person who's always going around sharing the Gospel with people. To be honest, I'm terrible in conversations like that. Nor am I some amazingly spiritual person who set out to spend the summer growing in my walk with God. I'm growing, but I don't take any credit for that. I didn't seek God this summer nearly as much as He sought me.

What is true is that I am realizing that serving God is the thing that I want most to do with my life. I used to say something else was that, although I won't say what. But I've realized that that was not the right priority. The thing that I like least about my new highest priority is that it's so vague. Well, not vague, but it doesn't exactly answer the question of where I'm going to be living and what I'll be doing 15 years from now or even 2 or 3 years from now. At this point, all I know as an answer to that question is: whatever God wants me to be doing.

Not knowing

This morning, I was reading from At the Back of the North Wind, by George Macdonald (I haven't read it before). In it, Macdonald writes about a little girl's dream in which she opens a box out of curiosity, and her action has unpleasant consequences. The box was something that, if she had really listened to an authority figure and trusted that person to know best, she would not have opened.

This post is going to sound a lot like my first one, because it's about being content with not knowing. Not, in this case, specifically not knowing why, but not knowing what's going to happen next. If I had to say what my greatest fear is, I would have to say "not knowing". Not knowing what's going to happen next, or not knowing what's going on right now. Unfortunately, I'm a human being with a finite brain, someone without the power to read someone else's mind or see into the future. To me, this seems like an issue, a problem that I ought to solve. I'd like to go around as a detective until I know what's going on; I'd love to get God to show me His plan for me, or at least a little bit more of it than I can see right now.

But, like the girl in the book, or Pandora and her box, or Eve and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (I've never found the word "knowledge" in that name so significant before), if I trust God to know what is best, if I trust Him to take care of my future, if I trust Him to let me know as much as it is good for me to know, then I should be content.

I've got to stop trying to open that box.