Never let me go

When I was little, I struggled with a lot of fears and anxieties. My mom and I have talked a good bit about it recently and tried to decide what exactly caused this; we still aren't totally sure. Thankfully, while I am still much more fearful than I should be, by God's grace in growing and teaching me my fears have become much less debilitating as I have grown older. (Except for my fear of spiders. Potential future roommates and life-mates take note: I will never, never, never be the one in the house who kills the spiders. Period.)

I can still remember quite vividly, though, the fears I had and the power they had over me. My memory of one particular fear is particularly poignant. I went through a period (my mom tells me it lasted several months) when I was afraid of falling asleep. It was one of my more bizarre fears, but it was very real, and I used to try to make my mom or my dad sit in my room with me from the time I went to bed until I fell asleep. My mom says I used to say I was afraid of the point when I became "unaware of myself"; I hated the idea of losing control of myself and of not having anyone around me to protect me if and when that moment occurred. Of course, my mom could not always sit in with me (and in fact, she should be sainted for how often she did), and so some nights I had to force myself to pass through that dark passageway into unconsciousness alone. On those nights, I remember I had a coping mechanism. I would wrap my blankets around me in a cocoon and imagine that someone was holding me, very tightly, as I fell asleep, and would watch over me even as I became more and more vulnerable to whatever it was that I feared could hurt me. Sometimes those arms belonged to God; sometimes to an angel; sometimes I didn't really know who they belonged to, and it didn't particularly matter to my little heart. It was enough to imagine that in that frightening moment when I fell out of my own control, I was held closely in someone else's.

This fear came back to me powerfully tonight for two reasons. One, I was at the house of some friends who have kids, and their sweet daughter was crying for fear of going to bed as they tried in vain to soothe her. Two, I was thinking about my future and my family's future in light of all that is changing--for better and for worse--and feeling increasingly panicky as the vital and life-changing details of the future seem so far out of my grasp. In short, I am in a place right now where I am losing control: my life, at least for the last several years, has remained relatively stable and predictable, and that is all changing quickly and in ways I cannot predict. It would be nice to think, even just for a moment, that I can somehow stem this tide of change and uncertainty, but in my heart I know that it is just as inevitable as sleep. It must come, eventually; some of it is healthy, although it is scary; but it cannot be put off forever, or even for long. And when I am faced with that uncertainty, that loss of control, I throw up my arms and think, "I just need someone to hold me through this; I need to know that when I have lost control someone else will still have it."

The truth is that there are many places I could turn for this, and many of them are good in part. Two of my friends tonight gave me hugs and ice cream when I was feeling particularly low; they held me through a moment of fear, and I am so grateful. But they, too, struggle with a lack of control; they can bear the burden with me, but they cannot promise me to stay awake through the scary night. They need to be held, too. I know that the answer is that I need to be told, over and over, that the sovereign God, who is also my gentle, loving Father, holds me through every night and day of my life, through the fearful times I know are coming and through the good and bad times that I cannot predict. This is all a very childish metaphor, and I feel a little embarrassed that anyone who reads it will find it either melodramatic or cheesy, but it is helping me as I wrestle with the sovereignty of God. Sometimes, his greatness and power over all seem intimidating and inaccessible to me; but when I find myself feeling most like the child that I am, the greatest comfort I can find is not an imaginary friend but a truly sovereign Father, who though the night may come and come on fast, will never let me go.

Love that dirty water...

In the fall, I was feeling discouraged and unenthusiastic about next year. I think I was still a bit in denial that college was ending, and I could not get excited about the job search process. I'm typically always daydreaming about the future--maybe too much!--and generally really excited by all the possibilities, so this was all particularly disconcerting and I prayed that God would renew my hope and anticipation of next year.

Over the past few days, I've realized that prayer has been answered. I still don't have a job :), but as I drive around Boston, I am so thrilled by the prospect of living here next year. There's so much that I love about this place. I love driving over the river, even on windy, traffic-jammed Storrow Drive. I love all the three-story clapboard houses on quiet Cambridge streets. I love the piles of snow in the mall parking lot that won't melt until April. I love the Dunkin Donuts on every corner--sometimes, right across the street from each other, so you don't even have to turn your car around. :) I love the accents and the blunt sense of humor. I even love the crazy roads and driving--makes getting everywhere more of an adventure! (My new favorite observation: in multiple intersections, two lights will turn green at the same time for cars from different lanes entering the same lane. Basically, you have to intuitively know that green doesn't mean "go"; it means "merge.")

Oh, Boston, you're my home!

Choices

This quote is from my favorite book at the moment, A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser. This book has just given words to so many things that I have been struggling with and thinking through, and also helped me to understand just a little better what it means to hope in God's work in the world and keep moving forward even as we see more and more brokenness around us. Here's what I read this evening that I found particularly challenging and simultaneously encouraging. He is addressing how we live in a world where loss and grief are inevitable:

"Choice is therefore the key. We can run from the darkness, or we can enter into the darkness and face the pain of loss. We can indulge ourselves in self-pity, or we can empathize with others and embrace their pain as our own. We can run away from sorrow and drown it in addictions, or we can learn to live with sorrow. We can nurse wounds of having been cheated in life, or we can be grateful and joyful, even though there seems to be little reason for it. We can return evil for evil, or we can overcome evil with good. It is this power to choose that adds dignity to our humanity and gives us the ability to transcend our circumstances, thus releasing us from living as mere victims. These choices are never easy. Though we can and must make them, we will make them more often than not only after much agony and struggle." (46)

Happenings at the hospital

I'll post more later, but my dad's surgery yesterday went as well as they could have expected, and he seems to be feeling better than expected. (Of course, baselines are important--he's not feeling well, but he is feeling better than he expected to.) I've been sitting with him almost all of today, but at the moment I am hanging out in the family waiting room on his floor while he gets some time alone with my brothers. At the moment, there is a little boy in hee with me--he's probably about 6. He is wearing a football jersey and clutching a stuffed dog in a Celtics jersey. He just asked the nurses to find some cartoons on the television, and he is sitting watching Scooby Doo. I just glanced over and noticed that he was singing along very intently with the theme song. It made me smile. A hospital is not a particularly fun place; I'm freaked out here, so I feel for this little boy. But his little grip on something familiar and a moment of childish normalcy just made my evening a little brighter. More later...

Happy Valentine's Day!

In honor of the holiday, I offer both a sentimental and a cynical commentary. (Note: I'm not usually a fan of being cynical and bitter on Valentine's Day--although I recognize that it is easy to bring all those emotions to a head on this day--but I generally like to just enjoy the holiday without investing too much in it. Plus, there's all that candy. But this article was just too funny.)

Sentimental story
I was leaving my house a few days ago when I noticed a bring pink envelope sitting in the front yard, upside down. I turned it over, and noticed that it was addressed to a girl in an apartment complex down the street. I figured the mailman must have dropped it, although it remains a bit of a mystery to me, because while it was stamped it didn't seem to be postmarked, so I don't know if the post office actually got it, or got it but the mailman was going to return it, or what. Anyways, I had a couple of extra minutes, so I decided to go deliver the envelope myself. I found the building and found the apartment. A confused-looking girl opened the door when I knocked, but as I presented her with the envelope her eyes got wide and a slightly embarrassed but happy smile broke out over her face. She thanked me and I left, but I spent the rest of the walk to class imagining who the Valentine could be from--and what chaos might have ensued had she never gotten it!

Cynical story
This column is from the Boston Globe Magazine this Sunday and I really thought it was hilarious--particularly the part about the "patron saint of the redundant":

Dear St. Valentine:

Well, I notice we're coming up on your day again. I realize this because my local pharmacy is now chockablock with boxes of candy the size and weight of an ATV just a few shelves over from the toothpaste and mouthwash. The product placement has rendered your celebration, shall we say, dentally ironic. I'm fairly sure that's not what you had in mind. Of course, there always was some confusion regarding your legacy. In the first place, according to some chronicles, there seem to have been three of you; most scholars have fastened on a certain Roman priest who came to a bad end under the emperor Claudius II as the genuine article. This fellow was nearly off the hook when he tried to convert the emperor, who thanked him by having him beaten, stoned, and beheaded. Against all odds, you did not later become the patron saint of the redundant. Instead, you have come to be known as the protector of engaged couples, married couples, and people who faint, who are not always the same people, but often can be. You are also now known as the patron saint of greeting-card manufacturers, which I suspect came rather later to your portfolio. Almost annually, there is a great deal of huffing about how the "true meaning of Christmas" has been lost amid the commercial noise. Where's that argument when it comes to your feast? You died a horrible death, and for what? Canoodling puppies on a card? Chocolate-covered cherries? Every year, we honor your memory by feeding ourselves so much sugary junk that some of us wind up fainting from the shock of it. It's a good thing that you're still on the job there.

Charles P. Pierce
(http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/magazine/articles/2008/02/10/a_saint_to_love/)

Controlling vs.Trusting?

I loved calculus in high school. I think I found it so satisfying because I could always figure out the right answer, and guarantee that it was the right answer. If I knew "a" and I knew "b" then I could determine "c"--and then I was done. No editing, no guessing, no evaluating the morality or sustainability of "c." It is true, and always will be true, because I used the correct formula.

The problem is that calculus, however satisfying, is not life, but I often try to make it that way. I think that with enough planning, soul-searching, evaluating, and analyzing I can find my "a" and "b," put them in the right order, and then guarantee "c." I realized the futility of this years ago when I started describing to a friend how I like to plan conversations. Eventually, he just looked at me and said, "But does the other person ever say what you expect?" It's funny now, but at the time I think my most honest initial reaction was, "No, but that's because I just don't think about it enough beforehand!" My problem wasn't that I can't predict another person's response; it was that I just hadn't put enough effort into trying.

I know now that this is ridiculous, and yet I often find myself still trying to find that perfect formula that will eliminate all confusion and pain. I recently realized how much I do it in the area of discipline; I believe that if I can just figure out my sins, and eliminate them (on my own, of course), then God will not have to discipline me. To be fair, I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who feels this way. I had an older woman tell me once, "The only reason you're still single is because you haven't yet learned to be content with God. As soon as you are, then He will send you a husband." First of all, as much as I'd love to be married someday, I'm not sure how comfortable I am with the notion of assuming all singleness is God's discipline, even though it can certainly be used that way. Secondly, I'm quite convinced that not everyone who is married--including that woman--have found perfect contentment with God. :) But I think that it is fairly common to assume that we can somehow "work the system." As my pastor's wife reminded me recently, though, we will never be sinless enough to not need discipline, so if that's the only reason to pursue righteousness, we might as well give up right now!

On a more serious note, I feel especially frightened sometimes when I wonder if different events in my life are God preparing me for some future suffering. These are the worst to avoid, because I find myself actually wanting to avoid ways God is teaching and growing me to depend more on Him, out of fear that once I depend on Him He will suddenly test me by taking away people I love. (As though God worked that way and were out to get me.) The root problem, I am realizing, is that I do not like to trust God. I want to control Him. I think that I am more safe in my own embarrassingly crazy formulas than I am in His arms. I forget that His arms are truly good, sovereign arms that belong to a Father who loves me.

I had a good conversation with my friend Jennifer this week that brought all of this up in my mind. Jennifer is a missionary in Romania, and in the past year has seen more than her share of suffering and death. As we talked, my heart just hurt for her, because it has seemed like tragedy is ready to meet her around every corner. She confessed that it briefly occurred to her that God could be preparing her for even more tragedy in the future. But then she said, "But I had to stop myself, and realize that I can never know or predict that. What I can know is that, even if I feel like I could never handle that now, God will provide me with exactly what I need when I need it." Her response reminded me of I Corinthians 10:13: "No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so you can stand up under it." I have always heard and thought about this verse in regards to bodily temptations (earlier in the passage, Paul mentions sexual temptation so that may be why), but I looked and saw that in the broader context of this chapter, Paul is actually discussing idolatry. He specifically mentions the Israelites who crossed the Red Sea with Moses but did not trust God, and therefore committed themselves to idols. I know that my heart is so easily like theirs; I see the desert, and I assume God has forgotten me, and I cling to my pathetic idols of control, intelligence, watchfulness that I think will save me. The truth is, though, that these idols will destroy me, but God promises everything I need. He doesn't promise safety; Jennifer may still experience more tragedy (although we pray not), and the Israelites were still in the desert. But He will provide the way for us to stand up under it.

Can we?

I like this:

www.yeswecansong.com

Like a good Calvinist, however, I am still trying to decide whether I should like it so much. (That's the part where you laugh, even though I'm still mildly serious.) I think it's definitely good at triggering an emotional response, and I think in some ways that's legit--it's exciting to see people hopeful instead of cynical about government and politics. But I'm wondering if my excitement borders on celebrity worship and/or on assuming that a person (Barack Obama) or a system (democracy, the Democratic party, viral marketing, etc.) can be our "salvation" when I know the problem is bigger than that. Barack Obama, nor anyone else in America, will end sin or all of its effects. But is it wrong to be excited about someone who seems to lean more in that direction than other candidates?

I'm also wary of wholeheartedly supporting one individual--just because he is that, one individual. No one needs to be idolized, in fact it's destructive and so I don't want to take part in it. From interviews I've read it seems like his wife does a good job of giving him regularly reality checks (ahh, the power of a critical wife) so that is somewhat encouraging. :)

Despite all my moral conundrums...it's still kind of a cool song!!