he made his home among us

I never thought that coming home would be hard.

A friend from college asked how I was and I said something to the effect of “I’m fine, hope your Christmas season is merry, it’s nice to be home…” the usual trite-ness. And then I guess I just realized, that this is supposed to be my friend, my future friend and she cares and I’m doing that UVa thing where you lie through your teeth just to make it seem like life is perfect and you’re strong and joyful ALL THE TIME.

She responded with a “you rock! Love ya!” and I just came out with it. “Actually today is not that fine. I’m kind of really upset.”

I explained what I was feeling. Hopelessness. The kind that creeps in slowly with ennui. The kind that comes when you’re watching other people who seem so happy, listening to songs that make you think you’re supposed to be that merry…and you realize that you’re not. You realize that your life is not as perfect as you wish it was, as you make it seem…and you aren’t sure how to attain that kind of perfection.

Coming home is hard.

It’s because I had to leave a lot of hurt behind when I left. Chelsey and Zach called it a blessing, the cutting of all the strings that tied us to a place. Sure, I’m still tied with a few phantom traces of familiarity and memories. But the future, the near future at least, isn’t here. No matter how much I wish it was here (I always do when I come back) it isn’t. That’s what’s hard.

 I was going to write a post about Christmas trees.

I learned last year in AP French that the Christmas tree represents the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The ball ornaments we place on our Frasier Furs are like the apple Eve ate. On our tree, they are always fittingly red.

So then I was thinking…what else about the Christmas tree points to the biblical narrative. The Christmas lights were once actually candles, which seems dangerous. A tree on fire without actually burning reminds me of Moses’s burning bush. A burning bush and a promise of redemption and salvation from slavery. Slavery is what it feels like. Slavery to doubt. And then there’s our star that we always have to put on the top of the tree…some people have an angel. Nonetheless both announce the fulfillment of the promise and lead the way there.

 “Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:18-19)

I’m trying to forget, and to focus on the future. But I like to dwell and dream and wonder “what-if”…what-if things had worked out differently, what-if things change in the future….what-if?

 I spend so much time focused on the possible scenarios of the will-never-be paths that could have been and could be God’s plan but weren’t and won’t be. All I know is that there is a promise. And there will be a fulfillment and I’m being led towards it each day. 

My friend said “if there’s anything I can do for you, let me know.”

 I responded “can you send me some verses?”

 I have never had a friend like that. Not one who I get to really truly live beside. Surely, surely this is stream in my wasteland. Surely, surely goodness and mercy will follow me even through the darkest of valleys.

 Tonight the verse she sent me was 2 Timothy 2:22-26, this is what I heard:

 

Don’t even try to be involved in a stupid and foolish fall-outs and arguments, they only make you frustrated and anxious and insecure. A servant of the Lord is none of these things. Kate is none of these things. She is kind to everyone, able to teach, and not resentful. She gently instructs with great hope for those who quarrel with her because of the promise God gave. There is hope that perhaps God will open the eyes of the lost, that he will enable them to hear and know truth, to come to their senses, to escape the trap of the devil that they fell in to when Adam and Eve ate of the apple. They are captives, and God promises to redeem his people. He promises. No matter how the future turns out, no matter how the past could have been, this is the promise that will be fulfilled.

 

This Christmas, I ask for patience, that I may be exceedingly and abundantly patient with those who endlessly frustrate me and keep me dwelling on the past. Be strong, take heart, wait for the Lord.

Max Lucado’s Christmas Prayer

Dear Jesus,

It’s a good thing you were born at night. This world sure seems dark. I have a good eye for silver linings. But they seem dimmer lately.

These killings, Lord. These children, Lord. Innocence violated. Raw evil demonstrated.

The whole world seems on edge. Trigger-happy. Ticked off. We hear threats of chemical weapons and nuclear bombs. Are we one button-push away from annihilation?

Your world seems a bit darker this Christmas. But you were born in the dark, right? You came at night. The shepherds were nightshift workers. The Wise Men followed a star. Your first cries were heard in the shadows. To see your face, Mary and Joseph needed a candle flame. It was dark. Dark with Herod’s jealousy. Dark with Roman oppression. Dark with poverty. Dark with violence.

Herod went on a rampage, killing babies. Joseph took you and your mom into Egypt. You were an immigrant before you were a Nazarene.

Oh, Lord Jesus, you entered the dark world of your day. Won’t you enter ours? We are weary of bloodshed. We, like the wise men, are looking for a star. We, like the shepherds, are kneeling at a manger.

This Christmas, we ask you, heal us, help us, be born anew in us.

Hopefully,
Your Children

dance in your blood [Ecclesiastes 3: part 2]

The God-Given Task

9 What gain has the worker from his toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; 13 also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man.

14 I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away. (ESV)

I’ve been feeling recently like life is this cycle of pain, grief, disappointment, and finality. Partially this is due to my curiosity peaked by Dido’s song “quiet times” in which a lyric says “I went back to today last year.” So that’s what I’ve been doing in perverse moments, going back in my journal (NOT A DIARY) and looking at what I was learning, what I was feeling last year at this time.  Though I’ve grown a lot, I see that I still struggle with the same feelings, the same fears just in different ways and different situations.

Even if on particular days I wrote about how much I loved and enjoyed God in that moment, the day that I read it makes me upset that I still don’t feel that. I wish that the good things could have lasted forever, that the holiest feelings did not vanish so quickly. Kelley calls it mountaintops and valleys but it seems like my life is really just full of these long stretches of valleys.

These feelings of anger, resentment, jealousy, dissatisfaction in the world, the inability to continually be close to God, these are my burdens, the things I toil against each day. Will it ever go away? When? When? When? That seems to always be my question.

I’ve got a 10-hour car drive coming up on the 16^th. I’ll be driving home for Christmas break. There’s a kind of irony in this when I think about it.

Soon I’ll be home, soon it will be Christmas. What else could keep me living? But what is stopping me from finding this “beauty” that Solomon talks about in God’s current timing. What is beautiful about today? What is beautiful and wonderful and enjoyable about the toil of the every day?

I don’t know.

But there is nothing that resonates in me more than Solomon’s statement that God has set eternity in our hearts. Yes, yes, YES! This I know to be true. I want to know now who will be my friends in four years. I want to know what will last, I want to know how NOT to waste my time. I want to think that a relationship will last until I die. I want to believe that when I call someone my BFF that she/he actually will be my best friend FOREVER. Unchanging, infinite, eternal…these are all characteristics that I long for and am searching for in the world. But am I stupid? The world is finite. Why on earth am I searching when I know the results will be futile?

That which is truly pure and holy, that which is forever can only be found in heaven. This is earth. Of course I’m frustrated when the peace I long for isn’t here, but why do I expect it to be?

I remind myself rather than trying to orient life around the external distance, to focus on the inner, to move within.

God has also set eternity within us in the form of the spirit. I should be orienting myself around that. That is where one finds the eternal in a finite world.

Why you orient yourself is just as important. You don’t move out of fear but out of joy. You are to orbit around that which you love. I wish I could continuously be centered on this, but at times I am too small. Life seems too short and too busy to fit God in with everything else. How can I fit a love that deserves so much room and attention in to the sliver of space that is in my soul? MAKE ROOM! Eyes are small but they see great things.

I wish that I could only continually taste the sacredness hidden in this universe. But I’m not eternal and holy. Not yet. I feel limited and bounded by time. And inspite of that, I want to be filled with a love for the infinite and unchanging.

I want to find a deeper love beneath the hurt and grief that seems to follow me, trailing like a lost tramp. I want to lose my own needs in the vast expanse of a greater purpose. I want to become a part of something bigger than myself, something unbounded by the disorder and the finitude of the world.

I want to dance as I walk to class, to dance as I study, to dance even when I sleep. I want to dance when I feel rejected. I want to still dance when my relationships are one-sided. I want to dance when I fight with myself. I want to dance and until my feet are bloody and raw, leaving my wounds and fears uncovered and exposed so that they might heal.

I want even my blood to dance.

And why? Because I know that today is a part of a forever. To dance is to acknowledge that I am perfect and perfectly free.

This is joy to me. This would be pleasure and peace. This would be doing good in God’s name. This is the impossible abundance that we have been promised. This is that gift which is already but not yet. That Christmas present that exists wrapped underneath my tree at home that I haven’t quite made the 10-hour drive home to yet.

The promise beats in my heart and calls me home, calling me to be a part of the festivities even while I am far away. And can’t I be a part?

Like my exams looming ahead, keeping me from being able to go home, my body and this universe keeps me from being ultimately free, from being totally at peace. There is something within that really longs for the eternity of the days after death, but the finality also scares me, urge me on. We want eternity, but something holds us back.

It’s good to exist in the world, as long as I don’t lose the longing for the eternal.

Two nights ago the moon was full and almost on the horizon. It looked so close, so near. I reminded myself that behind the beauty of that moon was the moon-maker. Life is tiring right now, but it still is just as beautiful as it is on the most peaceful day because the promise remains steadfast in both circumstances.

We’re like Joseph, stuck in prison but trusting that the king is on his way to let us out.

Sometimes I become so used to the burden of the world that I forget my need for rest. Our culture tells us more is better, that to be busy is good. We forget to Sabbath. You can grow so used to the pain that you forget the existence of a cure.

There is a love in my chest, whether I feel it or not, and today is part of an eternity, whether I choose to recognize that or not, and every moment is a mountaintop, whether I want to interpret it as that or not.

There is the sunrise in the East, a sunset in the west, and I see both like birth and death. Before and after each we are uncertain exactly what exists, but if god controls it then surely it is perfect and good. Our view is so narrow.

Time surely can’t move in the straight line that I drew out on a poster board when I was in fourth grade to represent my life. Surely time moves in a circle, our time here may have a distinct beginning and ending but before and after who knows…the infinite and wonderful possibilities are controlled by god and are outside the confines and limits and boundaries of our linear view of time.

God’s work is final and perfect. Isn’t it just ridiculous the fact that Jacob believed his sons’ story that Joseph was eaten? Rather, God would guard the heart of his favorite Joseph. Through, in spite of, and with our pain he lassoes us even closer to him, to see his power and to fear him. Why would you not five all to the one who protects so fiercely? His will is final and flawless and with him each day is eternity.

Like children we collect broken dishes and play like they’re fine china. How much longer do we have to be so blinded and have such distorted vision?

Why does go make the same happen over and over? I think because his is tale of love. We destroy his creations and turn our backs on him, and he continually chases us down and conquers us again with his love.

That is what happened before, what is happening now and what will happen in the times to come.

And if I am just a being made in his image, a portrait of a greater man, then who am I to know the mysteries and plans of his heart? Who am I to wonder and ponder on anything beyond this cyclical love story and pursuit of my heart through, in spite of, and with the pain and weariness of my everyday. This cycle shall never fail. This eternity will never fade. To day is forever, and so my blood will dance.