Patience, hard thing!

Patience, hard thing! the hard thing but to pray,
But bid for, Patience is! Patience who asks
Wants war, wants wounds; weary his times, his tasks;
To do without, take tosses, and obey.
Rare patience roots in these, and, these away,
Nowhere. Natural heart’s ivy, Patience masks
Our ruins of wrecked past purpose. There she basks
Purple eyes and seas of liquid leaves all day.
 
We hear our hearts grate on themselves: it kills
To bruise them dearer. Yet the rebellious wills
Of us we do bid God bend to him even so.
And where is he who more and more distils
Delicious kindness?—He is patient. Patience fills
His crisp combs, and that comes those ways we know.

Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), Untitled, pub. 1918

Not Destination 'A'

Well, it appears that--once again--I am not headed towards the expected Destination A.  I'll know more certainly about the job this coming week, but the latest is that it's going to someone else.

Now it just remains to be seen where I'm headed instead...

Love, Remembered

I recently found this email which I wrote to a friend back in 2007, during a difficult and beautiful time while I was at university and God was using pain to teach me about love. Finding it was encouraging to me, as it reminded me again how manifestly kind God was to me during that time, and to remember anew how amazing His love really is (...if only I didn't forget that so often). It's nothing "original": The things expressed here are things which I have been taught my whole life. And yet I remember, when I wrote the letter, how excited I was to be knowing them—"realer and deeper"—through experiences, for the first time. And anyway, truth always bears repeating, hey? So, as we approach Christmas—our celebration of God's craziest act of love—may you, too, be encouraged by who He is.

Hey ———,

When I ran into you on campus today and was saying how God was doing crazy things and it was good and hard and all that jazz, it made me start thinking about some of the things I've been learning. And then I wanted to share some of them with someone, because they're the kind of thoughts that well up within me and want to be shared, because God is so good and so immense and so Himself.

...I felt like I was in sort of a strange place internally that day we had our walk, and that I couldn't or wouldn't fully articulate what God was doing. My eyes weren't so much on Him at that time, even though looking back now I can see how He was holding onto me and showing grace to me even when I wasn't really seeking it. Since I missed my chance on our walk, here's some of what I would have said if I had known it at the time...

God is good. Something I've "known" since Sunday school, right? But He's not just good to me or good to His people. He is good. Completely.

God is everywhere. That should be terrifying in some ways, hey, since that means He knows everything about us, when we sit and when we rise and when we sleep and what we do and what we think. But that also means that when I'm facing something that seems insurmountable to me, I can't be anywhere where He is not. Ever. There really is no temptation that can seize us or anything that can mess with us outside of the context of Him being there.

But the thing I think I've been thinking and learning about the most is the whole idea of the love of God. And how mysterious and great and freakin' amazing it is. He is love, and He has shown that love to us. Lavishly. He loves us not for any of our individual qualities or even all of our qualities together, but because we're His. He loves us when we aren't lovable by any standard we can muster. He loves us in and through our weakness, more fiercely and protectively and jealously than we can imagine. I think it was the fearsomeness of His love which struck me last night: how overpowering and crushing the force of His love would be if it was anything but His love. He—the infinite, omnipotent, eternal God—is love, and that love is poured so completely on us and around us—finite, broken columns of dust—that it really is rather a wonder that we survive it. A glorious, beautiful, awesome wonder.

In that context, I guess I was thinking about the self-condemnation I often seem to fall into. I see my sin and how it sucks and how I wish it wasn't there and how I must be doing something wrong or praying wrong or "having faith" wrong if the same struggles come back again and again. And I realized I was having this thought that when I sinned, I couldn't turn to His grace immediately, because I thought that somehow cheapened it: I felt like I was "taking advantage" of the fact that He has forgiven my sins and so I needed to wait awhile (or something) before turning back and flinging myself on His mercy. But really, I'm beginning to see that "taking advantage" is the point...that's what makes it grace, hey? And that is so incomprehensible to me. In the best way imaginable.

But with that self-condemnation is a tendency to get myself all confused about what in my head is from God and what is not, and how He could ever possibly like me, and whether I'm actually selfish and petty and mean and arrogant and whatever else is thrown at me. Depraved and crazy. Seeking God "incorrectly". A sorry example of Him for the world. Full of fear and doubt and insecurity. I'm sure I could list more without much effort. And when I get caught up trying to figure whether each accusation is true or not, I think I only confuse the issue. Especially since it is true, really. All of it. I am selfish and petty and mean and arrogant and all those other things.

But I think that by claiming that—by taking those accusations and saying, "yeah, I do that" rather than trying to convince myself that maybe I'm not so bad—when I then point to God and His love and the measure of His sacrifice for me—when I point to the complete and sufficient work of Christ on the cross—His glory can be reflected all the greater. Because it is in those sins that I can see some glimpse of how amazing and all-encompassing and desperately, desperately needed is His grace towards me. Am I seeking Him "incorrectly"? Probably. Like CS Lewis calls our prayers badly-aimed arrows that God has to redirect, it is only His compassion on us that lets us address Him at all, much less to have any of that communication be effective. 

Am I insecure and prone to fear? Yes, I am. But even when I'm afraid, He is holding tightly to me and providing for me in ways that I cannot begin to see. Do I screw up His image when I present it to the world through my life? Yes, I do. And even so, He does His work (I think I make myself more important than I am in how much influence I think I have at messing up God's plans...I mean, really, it's not like they all hinge around me), and regardless, I can rest secure in His love for me. His grace is sufficient for me, and His power made perfect in weakness. So I can boast all the more in my weaknesses, because then others (and I) can see Him better. I screw things up all the time. And I don't have anything really figured out or nailed down. And it is that very fact which makes His love so astounding, and makes the fact that there is no condemnation now in Him because of Christ— none—such a glorious truth to hold onto.

Again, I really wonder how that love doesn't just evaporate us with it's immensity. But He lets us taste it, and sustains us in it, and holds us so tightly that even when we're too tired or stubborn or bewildered or weary even to cling to Him any longer, we are safe and protected and loved.

...This sounds perhaps too much as if I think I understand what's going on. I've noticed that God teaches me the same things over and over and over again, and each time it's realer and deeper and seems to provide such a fundamental part of the whole picture that I wonder how I could ever have thought I knew anything without that piece. And then in His grace He gives another one. And another one. And I see more and more how little I know or see or understand. But the tiny bit I can see is so beautiful, and God is so...God-like, that I wanted to share with someone.

I hope that with school and work and the people God has put around you that you can see that you are loved so utterly and all-encompassingly that there's no escaping it, and that the most mind-blowing part of that love is that it is completely non-dependent on what you do or accomplish or think or say. You are loved because you are ———, and you belong to God.

May you and He delight in each other this week.

Shalom,
Marybeth

Snowflakes!

I found out how to make five-pointed paper snowflakes this past week!

They're so much more fun than the six-pointed kind. (And yes, I'm aware that "real" snowflakes are six-pointed.  Consider it artistic license.)

Now these and others are a flurry hanging in front of my living room window, and it cheers me every time I see them. Some of them, like the one on the left, I made with aluminum foil, just to mix things up.

I'm probably much more excited about this than a grown-up person is supposed to be, but hey. It's Christmas-time. I like making snowflakes.

Destination Unknown

Obedience can be a tricky thing.

I've been doing a lot of waiting and listening the past few years. Lots of waiting. So much waiting that I have often wondered whether I'm totally missing something. (I know, I know, a few years isn't really that long, and some people are asked to wait decades, or even lifetimes. But it has seemed like a long time to me.)

Then several weeks ago I found this intriguing job posting, and I got excited. As I thought more, I began seeing all the ways my experiences and decisions were converging on this one point. Closed doors and disappointments of the past were suddenly filled with purpose: to lead me to this job at this time. And as I prayed about it, and began the paperwork, God lined up circumstances to clearly confirm that yes, I was to apply.

Finally. No more sitting around.

...And then, I remembered. All those closed doors and disappointments of the past? They had looked like open doors and possibilities precisely because the experiences and decisions of the years before them were converging. I had seen God providentially lining things up and confirming that yes, that was what I was supposed to do.

But, you know, I think that God in fact was providentially lining up circumstances and events in all those cases. And I think that all those "disappointments"--rejected applications and canceled trips and changed plans--were not because I had heard Him wrong in the first place or because He sadistically likes to string me along and then yank away the prize at the last second. I think they had more to do with me not understanding what it means to obey.

When God clearly tells me to do something--"apply for this job" or "move to that city"--I often hear what I assume will be the result of my obedience, as well. It's like I assume such explicit guidance must be leading to the obviously best outcome. ...Obviously best as I see it, that is.

Apparently I'm not very good at seeing what the real "best" is, though. Because more often than not God points me towards Destination A, only to veer me without warning a couple steps later towards Destination B. Or K, or Z. Or even &, which is not only unexpected but on an entirely different dimensional plane, which I hadn't known existed.

So. I've applied for this job in a faraway state. Does this mean I will get the job? I don't know. Does this mean that if I'm offered the job, I will take it? I don't even know that. I just know that God said "apply". That one step.

So I took it.

I've already thought of several reasons He may have had me apply for this job even if I'm not supposed to get it. Several Destinations B-Z, as it were.

And I'm still preparing myself for another Escher-esque moment where I take a step through a doorway and find myself upside-down and breathless on the ceiling of Destination &.

I don't pretend to understand God's will for my life perfectly, even in the small steps. I often feel like I'm in darkness, alternating between stumbling around aimlessly and standing very, very still. The insanely comforting thing, though, is that God knows that I'm confused and finite and impatient, and He's got me anyway. He consoles me in my disappointments even though He knows He's working out something inexpressibly better than the "best" I thought I wanted. He remembers that I am dust, and still chooses to love and lead me.

It's just that He tends to lead me one step at a time, while I try to obey in miles.

So praise Him again for His patience and re-direction. And here's to small steps of obedience--in and through and with Him--towards unknown destinations.

...Embracing the wave, hey?