Hoping for Resurrection

Maybe it's just March.

Now, I am not superstitious, but the last several weeks have just been debilitatingly (I know that's not really a word) exhausting, somewhat in terms of work but mostly emotionally. I wrote below about losing one of the students I loved most dearly; at the same time, multiple other students have been going through various unconnected personal crises that seep into their lives in the classroom as individuals and as a grade. Given the general instability of teenagers and their "group mentality," with this many individuals in unpredictable circumstances I've felt walking into class everyday like I'm walking into a battlezone -- I have no idea what's about to get lobbed at me. I haven't felt quite this nervous about classroom dynamics since October so, needless to say, it's been discouraging. Not to mention that apart from concerns for myself, I am extremely worried for my students. On top of all that, we are in standardized testing season for English, and I'm starting to feel the pressure. I had not realized quite how deeply it was all affecting me until this weekend, when I did absolutely nothing productive except sleep for three days straight -- and I still woke up exhausted and tense Monday morning. Sigh.

It just occurred to me today (incidentally, a relatively good day at work -- a bit of a respite) that I felt exactly this kind of exhaustion and bewilderment at exactly this time last year. The circumstances were completely different -- this time last year, my stressors were the fact that I was home in the middle of a busy semester at school for my dad's surgery, I knew I was about to graduate and leave friends and I did not feel ready, and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life -- but the general "abandon hope; just grit your teeth and try to make it through" emotion was there, too.

Truth is, I don't really believe it has anything to do with March, but the similarity occurred to me because I was reading someone else's blog post about how appropriate it was to be mourning during Lent, and I thought, "Oh, I'm there -- how fitting." And then I distinctly remembered hearing a similar talk last year (maybe in a sermon) and having the same reaction. While I want to shy away from saying that this somehow signifies that God has it in for me during Lent (although the thought did cross my mind), I do wonder if he allows me to experience these things at this time to remind me that the suffering of life in a broken world is real...but so is the hope.

The hope is the resurrection. It's coming, but not yet. Or, to put it more directly, it came in Jesus, but it has not yet fully come in my life. It has not yet fully come in the world. But just as surely as the time to commemorate it will come at the end of this season of Lent, the time when there is redemption of all things that seem now unredeemed (or unredeemable) will come. We talked in my community group this week about what it means to be "peacemakers," which seems, on its surface, to be the most agreeable beatitude. (I mean, who doesn't want peace -- in theory?) But by the end of the night, we had all agreed that it was probably the hardest beatitude to embody because it requires so completely the heart of Christ for those who have wronged us, and a hope in Christ in the midst of situations that inherently seem the least hopeful. Someone in my community group pointed out, though, that at his worst moment of suffering -- as he was dying on the cross -- Jesus did not give in to hopelessness or lash out but was instead a peacemaker. He prayed that God would forgive those who were wronging him -- not after the pain had subsided, not after he'd had some time to process, not when he could see the resurrection on the horizon -- but in the very moment that he was being turned against completely by both humanity and God, in the moment when redemption seemed farthest, he brought redemption closest by loving us. And becuase he did, we now have the hope of the resurrection even in the darkest moments.

After community group I read the following quote that seemed related because it reminded me of just how deep our hope is even in--or, perhaps, especially in--the darkest places, so I'll end with thoughts smarter than my own. (The quote is from Frederick Buechner. To avoid any pretense, let me be clear that I'm pretty sure Buechner was a pretty smart guy, but I don't know much more about him, and I haven't actually read anything besides this quote that he wrote. Like most really smart quotes I discover, I just found this in another book, and I liked it.) The quote reads:

The love for equals is a human thing -- of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely.

The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing -- the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing -- to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy -- love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.

I'd love to say I'm feeling more joyful...

... especially after my last blog post, but this week it is hard. Tonight, I am heartbroken. The child at school that I have prayed for, wept for, tried to love probably more than any other child is leaving tomorrow morning. He is being sent to live with his father in another country, and I did not get to even say goodbye. The situation is complicated beyond words and this may really be what's best for him. I just don't know. But I am sad that it had to happen this way. I am sad for his mother and sister, who are saying goodbye to him at an incredibly tough moment. I am sad for his best friend at school who has had a terrible week, fearing that this was coming and now learning that it's reality. I am sad for him, and for ways he may be confused/frustrated/afraid/ignorant right now about his future. I am sad for me, probably mostly selfishly, that I do not get to see how the future develops for this child. I may never get to see it.

A few months ago, I asked this child how he got his name (I could guess, but it is spelled in a unique way and I wanted to hear his response), and he said very simply, "It means, 'God with us.'" That moment keeps playing through my head. I do not know how God is with us in this situation. I wish I could point to a way that I can clearly see redemption, but right now, I can't. Maybe some day I will, but I have to face the reality that I may not this side of heaven. God give me strength to believe and rest in a plan and in a love that is far beyond what I can see with this limited earthly vision. God be with us in the midst of the pain, when sometimes it's hard to see that He is.

Joy Comes with the Morning

In the famous words of Alexander, yesterday was a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!” For maybe the first time I can remember this year, I left work angry – at the students who had misbehaved on the field trip I had planned, at the students who didn’t misbehave but also didn’t step up as leaders to encourage their friends to do the right thing, and at myself for being angry at all of them rather than acknowledging that, well, they’re teenagers, and this will happen sometimes. Then, on the car ride home, I got a phone call from a friend in a really tough position, and I got to sit and listen to her and pray for her but still hung up the phone feeling pretty helpless and knowing that I had not been able to say/do much that could comfort her. So after all that, by the time I walked in the door, I was just done. My roommate asked me how my day had been, and I honestly could not even speak. I just sat down on the couch and cried for a few minutes, and then the words started spilling out as I just let loose a torrent of complaints and frustrations that lasted for about an hour. Even after other fun happenings that night and many efforts by my roommates to comfort and distract me, by bedtime I was still brooding over the bad field trip and despairing over my sad friend as I fell asleep.

This morning, I woke up to no less than 5 different text messages from my friend (complete with way too many exclamation points) about an amazing set of circumstances that God had orchestrated that neither she nor I had anticipated. I sat in my bed in a bit of a stupor, unable to comprehend that only a few hours ago I had been adding her situation to my list of reasons to abandon hope. Yet, here I was, being ridiculously pleasantly surprised again by God's goodness and by the intensity of the joy that I was feeling only a few hours after such intense sadness.

As I thought about this throughout the morning, I realized that this is the pattern that has kept repeating itself over the past few months. These months have been hard -- there's no way around that -- and while I don't always completely lose it like I did yesterday, I often fall asleep with that same sensation of giving up. And as I've talked and prayed through this, I am increasingly recognizing that I am prone to purposely drive myself to give up. Let me explain. Yesterday, I was angry also the field trip, but as I said, I was also angry at myself for being angry. I realized that my anger was mostly a result of my own self-centeredness. I realized that I was angry because I had put months of my time into planning this trip, and not only had the kids not shown me (what I deemed) appropriate appreciation, they had also made me look bad in front of my coworkers. And so my anger ultimately stemmed from the idea that my students were meant to serve my interests, which, I realized, was a completely wrong approach when I profess to be working at my school to serve their interests. Needless to say, this was all pretty humiliating. And so as I came to that realization in the midst of my anger, my gut instinct was to say, "I cannot go to God with this. I deserve all of these negative feelings because they are of my own doing. I do not deserve to be comforted; I do not deserve encouragement. I deserve to suffer and so I will prove to God that I properly recognize my sin by continuing to suffer." With that attitude, unfortunately, there is no way out. Try as they might, my poor friends could not convince me that "the kids were not as bad as you think " or "your friend's situation could actually turn out ok" or even "it's ok to have a hard day." I was actually forcing myself to abandon hope as I fell asleep because I believed that, somehow, that was the "godly" thing to do in recognition of my sinful contribution to the whole mess.

But this attitude, ultimately, must be wrong. It must be wrong because I never deserve anything but suffering, if we're going to be completely honest about it. I am never not sinful. I am never not selfish. My motives are never pure, and God is a god of holiness who cannot stand impurity. So by the standards I claim to hold myself to, I should never feel joy or comfort from God if I'm really going to demonstrate that I recognize my sin. And yet, the Bible is full of verses on God's comfort, on God's mercy, on God's love for his people, who were and are all sinful. How do I reconcile those with my own tendency to refuse to be comforted? The answer is that I can't. And so then why do I think that it is more "godly" to go to bed hopeless than to go to bed believing that Jesus loves me and accepting his comfort and hoping for his redemption? The answer is that I am still trying to earn God's favor and love, rather than accepting that he has given it as a gift. The irony is that by wanting so desperately to earn that love, I often miss getting to actually experience it when it is laid out in front of me.

So this morning, as I lay in bed reading all those exclamation points, I was thankful that the news was dramatic enough to wake me out of my stupor and surprise me with joy. I was forced to come to grips with the fact that, in spite of my sins of self-centeredness, anger, and hopelessness, God was comforting me even though I didn't deserve it. The verse, "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning" (Psalm 30:5) kept whispering through my head as I got up, drank my coffee, and began the business of my day. Only now have I finally gotten a chance to sit down and read the context of that verse, which begins with "for his anger is but for a moment, but his favor lasts for a lifetime." I've been thinking about that "moment" and thinking about Jesus on the cross, taking upon himself the wrath that I deserve and imputing to me the benefit of God's favor for a lifetime. When I deny that gift, I am not more godly; I am just plain stupid. It is right to grieve over my sin, but the kind of grief that I love, the kind that keeps me falling asleep in forced misery, is foolishness. I keep picturing a child who opens the most wonderful present but, to prove to her mom and dad that she knows it is too good for her, refuses to play with it. I am that child now, but I want be growing to be one who can "sing and dance in the love of the God the Father, the Son and the Spirit." I feel like I'm just starting to see my heart turning a little more in that direction. I pray it continues, but will try not to "earn it" by forcing myself to be joyful--only by grace.

Lord, thank you that you woke me up with joy this morning, too early for my senses to fight back against it. Forgive my pride and teach me to rejoice, even in the midst of mourning, in the joyful circumstances that you bring me so often. Even more, teach me to rejoice in in the joy of your presence that, even when the circumstances continue to be grievous, is always with me.