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When God Looks Different Than I Thought

Last night’s small group was a lot more than I expected.

The heaviness in the room made me cry — sitting right there on the floor, with my legs crossed and my striped wool socks on — in front of dear friends and complete strangers.

Because what can you say when everything hangs in the unknown, just waiting to break?

~     ~     ~

This is the product of last weekend’s work, the last of the swiss chard standing alone in the corner. It’s too warm for October, and the bees are eating up the sugar water we left out.

I wandered the yard, taking photos, thinking what a beautiful day, and mingled in with those words was a wordless thought.

Something about pain and joy and what it means that God allows such suffering.

How do I interact with the God of Job?

How do I worship when everything is out of order? When a moment of laughing and cookie-eating is shattered by the reality of a tumor?

~     ~     ~

I am learning to encounter people in their pain, even though I sometimes feel like running away.

No. I cannot handle this. I’m sorry. Please take your pain somewhere else. 

I am learning to face other people’s pain with courage.

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Reflection

I am alone in the kitchen. All the dishes are done, the brown and white eggs are drying on the counter, the sky is gray/blue and the leaves are red, and I am listening to hymns. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

We got back from church and I didn’t know what to do with myself.

Must be productive.

Must work.

Must make something.

But instead, I’ve decided to rest. Rest and think and pray.

Productivity can wait for another day.

This afternoon was made for quiet.

 

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Forgiveness

I was going to save the idea of forgiveness until the end. I was going to write post after post about hope, joy, love, and then finally end with forgiveness. This was my plan, because it’s forgiveness that I’ve been having the hardest time with.

~     ~     ~

A woman from church once told me, when I was small and easily wounded, that “Christ has forgiven so much; we have no right not to forgive others.”

~     ~     ~

Forgiving in a relationship is not so hard for me (sometimes). A friend from my freshman year of college was adept at the plea for forgiveness: “I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I don’t even know why I did it.” I was trained to forgive, time and time again.

It’s forgiving outside of a relationship that has become impossible. How do you forgive someone who hasn’t even asked for it? Who, if given the choice, would do things exactly the same way again.

This is where mercy and justice get messy.

Even Christ demands repentance – demands to be asked.

That stumped me for awhile.

Until I remembered: I am not Christ.

Jesus had no sins to be forgiven, only infinite forgiveness.

But all this philosophizing of forgiveness doesn’t change the heart overnight. It’s not magic. I prayed again, after months and months of not praying about it. I’d stopped praying because prayer was admitting I hadn’t forgotten, I hadn’t forgiven, and I was the only one who hadn’t moved on.

I prayed that my heart would be changed.

Yesterday, I found a bundle of pictures, taken in the cold spring of 2009, on the streets of Newburyport, the beach of Plum Island, the cliffs of Ocean Lawn. I thought I’d thrown everything out, but here was a bunch of photos, with a younger, softer me smiling back.

Instead of throwing them away immediately, I looked through each and every one. And I even smiled.

I was so different then.

After I’d looked at them, I did throw them out. They’d served their purpose.

And that night, I dreamed we were all in a car together, coming back from a wedding. I was wearing his socks, and he looked at me and said, “Hey, I think you still have my socks.”

And instead of being sad or missing something that wasn’t real, in the dream I laughed.

I laughed and took the socks off, gave them to him over the seat.

Maybe that doesn’t count as full forgiveness, but I’m happy with baby steps.

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The Full Life

Some people assign one word to their year, like it’s easily containable. I thought about doing that in January, thought about affixing the latest Christian buzzword to my twenty-third year and breathing a sigh of relief that now I didn’t have to worry about making my year count – the word did it for me.

And while you may have guessed, since it’s September and I’ve only just mentioned it, I did not end up doing it. Partly because I’m not very good at planning ahead. Partly because I’m bad at judging the passing of time, and in March it still felt like January, and I still had time to choose.

But the crux of it is this: there are too many good things in life to pick just one.

My friends have done this: “This is the year of yes,” “This is the year of trust,” and it’s benefited them greatly. I don’t want to say meditating on one thought or one ambiguous philosophy for one year is a bad thing.

I read Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts. I know what it looks like to have your life transformed by the power of one word. Her experience of gratitude was encouraging, and it opened me up to the possibility of a grateful life, maybe even a grateful life before a penitent one. My journal now has lists of the blessings God has given me.

But I couldn’t stick to it. I tried to count up and up and list a thousand blessings, but I couldn’t do it. Not because God hasn’t seen fit to give me a thousand gifts, but because, I think, it takes more than gratitude to have a full life.

I couldn’t stick to just one fruit of the spirit, just one beautiful thought to meditate on for 365 days. 

Gratitude is a huge part of the Christian life. But so is honesty. So is joy. So is hope.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to explore these things. The beautiful things that make life a glimpse of what is to come.

I join the ranks of many good thinkers and observers and writers. I’d love to hear your thoughts on beauty, joy, honesty, gratitude, all the beautiful.

 

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Record-Keeping

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always perseveres.  ~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

I am a wonderful record-keeper.

It’s one of those traits that comes in handy, like being organized or detail-oriented. Records of all types: an extremely-un-kept-up list of books I’ve read and my ratings of them; a mental image of what I was wearing when (yes, I don’t know how this happens or why), and a sharp and vivid memory of most of the bad things that people have done to me. I remember everything. I remember almost every slight I’ve ever received.

That sounds like a good thing, maybe. You go, girl! Don’t let anyone walk all over you.

But I am not proud of it. My ability to list all the sideways looks, all the hinted-at slights, all the times someone canceled plans on me, is NOT a good thing. The people I love most are the ones who hurt from this “list” more than anyone – who’s around as much as my family? As much as my closest friends? And with so much time, we’re bound to hurt each other.

I’ve been noticing more, though, that I need to call it quits with this scale, with the constant weighing of mean tones, hurtful words, and apparent or definite thoughtlessness.

Because, I think, it’s a certain kind of person who keeps these records. And it’s not the kind of person I’m aspiring to be.

The kind of person who keeps these records is the one who hasn’t grasped the largeness of Christ’s sacrifice. It’s the kind of person who still clings to inadequacies, to the insecurities that hinder her from living more fully. Because she can’t see herself with the lens of forgiveness, she can’t extend that forgiveness to those around her. Instead of finding her freedom in Christ, she grasps at it by making others pay up. If she doesn’t stand up for herself, who will?

~   ~   ~

I go to work at 9:00 in the morning. I open the door and peer into the house, wondering who’s around. Usually all three kids are up, watching tv, waiting for me to come.

But this morning, I’m nervous. Yesterday was less than perfect. The little girl is five, and we usually have so much fun together, telling stories, singing, dancing, laughing.

Yesterday was different. She was in a crabby mood and I didn’t make it any better. I didn’t hold my temper, and I scolded her too harshly. Whining and whining and I left wondering how we would finish out the week.

So this morning, I peek my head around the corner. I see her lying on the brown couch, her eyes fixed on the tv.

“Good morning!” I say, trying to hide the tentativeness I feel.

What if she’s still angry? What if I hurt her feelings too much?

She turns her head to look at me. Her blue eyes are blank. But only for a moment, because then they light up, bright and excited.

“Catherine!” she says. “Good morning!”

And she jumps up off the couch and proceeds to tell me a half-true story about the neighbor kids and movie night and a crazy man.

That’s the kind of record I want to keep: a short one.

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Blessings and Friendships

This past year (and really, the past year and a half) has been filled with such a mix of things. I wouldn’t call myself a planner — it’s not that I need every step in between before I do anything- but there is a huge part of me that anticipates. I imagine each phase of life, each moment, and when it doesn’t go exactly as planned, it takes me a long time to adjust to reality.

There are times when I feel so overwhelmed by God’s goodness and His gifts that I look at my life and think wow. But then — and sometimes even on the same day — I am equally overwhelmed by the things that are less than perfect. By the hurt I’ve experienced. By the disappointments I’ve faced and/or brought upon myself.

What does it mean when things don’t work out?

What does God want me to learn from all this?

Is it really a scale? Because sometimes, when a good thing happens, I think shoot, what bad thing is just around the corner?

This is not the way we are called to live.

~    ~     ~

I was reading through my journal from last year. It was a hard journal and a hard year. It was filled with confusion, anger, sadness. It’s not fun when someone you thought you knew ends up being a different color after all, a different person from the one you trust. Graduation loomed, and despite all the freedom and newness and excitement that could bring, I was scared.

In the midst of all this, I made a list. It’s what I do.

I listed all the blessings God had given me over the year. It was long. It was diverse.

But what struck me most was the amount of people.

Family. My mother who never tells me she’s too busy. My father who, in his quiet and roundabout way, lets me know that he understands my pain. My brothers and sister who have seen each twist and turn I’ve made as I’ve tried to grow into the woman I was created to be.

Friends. Almost my whole life, I have felt a lack of kindred spirits. There were a few growing up, definitely. Good, fun friends who shaped me. But that didn’t change the fact that I always felt different. It wasn’t until the past few years that I finally feel a kinship with young women like me.

This week I called K. I was driving in my car, and I felt so overwhelmed. Deadlines were coming so fast and I HATE missing deadlines. I was scared about my hospital appointment and I was scared that I wasn’t doing the right thing. So I asked her to pray for me.

She was driving too, but she prayed right there. Over the phone.

I cried while I drove, sadness and joy mixed in.

Because sometimes that is how life is.

Praise God for friends like that.

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From Dark to Light

“Thomas Jefferson didn’t believe in miraculous things,” my high school history teacher told us. “He rewrote the gospels, taking out all the miraculous events.”

I went home and looked it up – there it was: a miracle-less version of the gospel. I remember thinking how boring the whole thing was. And then I got to the end (it’s a little long, but it’s worth it):

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elijah.
And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
The rest said, Let him be, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.
Jesus, when he had cried out again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him:
Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.
The Jews therefore, because it was the day of preparation, that the bodies should not remain upon the cross on the sabbath, (for that sabbath was an high day,) besought Pilate that their legs might be broken, and that they might be taken away.
Then came the soldiers, and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him.
But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already, they brake not his legs:
But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.
And after this Joseph of Arimathaea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.
And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.
Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen cloths with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid.
There laid they Jesus,

And rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

I have never felt the power of Christ’s sacrifice until that point. Tears streamed down my face, and I realized for the first time that, if this Jeffersonian take were true, all was meaningless. I had never seen such hopelessness. There was no good, no hope, no joy.

It took complete absence of hope to show me the magnitude of Christ’s sacrifice, and it gave just a glimpse of what life would be like if we really were left with nothing to look towards.

I remind myself of this when all I can hear, all I can feel, is Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? The Psalms cry out to God in pain, in suffering. They do not make excuses or pretend that the suffering is less than it is. They call it what it is: horrible.

And then the Psalmists remember what God has told them. They remember what God has shown Himself to be.

A friend set this Psalm for me to sing at my senior recital. I chose it then because I knew what it was like to be in a dark stage of life, and now the light had dawned bright and warm. Every time I read it, now that I have been in another dark place (I almost wrote “somewhat dark,” but who am I kidding? If the Psalmists don’t pretend everything’s okay, maybe I shouldn’t either.), I am reminded of the hope I have in Christ.

Psalm 77

I cried out to God for help;
I cried out to God to hear me.
2 When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands,
and I would not be comforted.

3 I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.[b]
4 You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.
5 I thought about the former days,
the years of long ago;
6 I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart meditated and my spirit asked:

7 “Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
8 Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion? ”

10 Then I thought, “To this I will appeal:
the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.
11 I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
12 I will consider all your works
and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”

13 Your ways, God, are holy.
What god is as great as our God?
14 You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples.
15 With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

16 The waters saw you, God,
the waters saw you and writhed;
the very depths were convulsed.
17 The clouds poured down water,
the heavens resounded with thunder;
your arrows flashed back and forth.
18 Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
your lightning lit up the world;
the earth trembled and quaked.
19 Your path led through the sea,
your way through the mighty waters,
though your footprints were not seen.

20 You led your people like a flock
by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

 

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[Notes from The Student, Part 3]

[train thoughts]

That idea of “do not throw your pearls before swine” keeps running through my head. Maybe it also means that we should be careful who we tell our deepest thoughts to. Maybe we should guard ourselves – not open ourselves up too much to people we call friends, but who time and time again prove less than trustworthy.

K. says we’re dreamers. We think and dream and hope big. And that’s not necessarily bad, but that it could (and probably is) a large part of why we are so often unsatisfied. See the less-than-perfect sides of even our biggest blessings. Maybe dreamers are more likely to be unsatisfied than concrete people.

G. is funny, clever, gets things and people quickly. But there’s not a lot of grace in her. What’s the point of knowledge – even a shade of wisdom – if you don’t have grace? I see too much of myself – of how I could be.

[we don’t have to be all things for all people. we are finite. there is actually a lot of peace in that.]

[that was the only thing about last night; i looked around while i was dancing and just saw so much desperation. it was gross and sad at the same time.]

“I will walk about in freedom, for I have sought out your precepts.” -Psalm 119:45

So seeking after the Lord’s precepts – His laws, His will – is what brings freedom. Structure brings freedom. So counter-intuitive to how I think.

[overheard on the subway: “i went to zara and spent $700 on, like, nothing.”]

Gave a guy 50 cents. Said he needed $2 to get home, but I didn’t have $2 (literally, I did not have it). Can I have just $2? No, I don’t have $2. Can I have all your change? No, you can have 50 cents. Did I just help his drug addiction? Maybe. I don’t know. Where in the Bible does it say, “make sure they use your money wisely”?

[i keep thinking about M. maybe because i realized i’m older than he’ll ever be – i’ve already been given more time. i’m not sure. maybe i should email his mom, tell her we still think about him. tell her a story where he’s the young hero, showing me how to laugh, how to flirt, how to smile into twinkly, mischievous eyes.]

Marriage is such an excluding relationship. When others get married, you are eternally on the outside. Weird.

Don’t reduce your life to only one passion.

[in thinking about “Legends of the Fall” and how grotesque all the characters are; they could have lived beautiful lives, but instead they chose selfishness and reduced themselves to one passion, flattening themselves.]

A lot for a day, and yet only a piece of it.

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Kinship with Strangers

I am already past the halfway-point of my TEFL course, and I can’t believe it.

Mostly because that means the time of decisions is feeling terribly close.

I was hashing it out with someone (my mother? myself? i can’t remember), and I realized that I don’t like this making of decisions. It’s not that I’m indecisive – that is far from any trait I possess – it’s that I hate the idea of being boxed in a year down the road by a choice I make now.

What if something better comes along?
Or if not better, at least different?

What if I choose something and its permanence becomes a chain on my ankle?

I read this article today on Image.org, and despite the differences in our circumstances, the woman sounds scarily like myself at times. She’s scared of making decisions, too, and actually has put off long-term decisions for 22 years.

It seems even people nearly twice my age have the same thoughts.