and so i wait...

Hi. As you know it's been a while since I have posted anything. Quite possibly this may be the longest I have ever gone without posting, especially posting something of my own since my last post was hocked off of John Eldredge. My lack of posting is due to a number of things really, none of which I can fully explain in a way that will enable you to understand.

I sit silently straining deeply inside myself to try and cover something up that can't be covered. I bury it. But then some time later these little sprouts, evidence of weeds that haven't been pulled out by the roots, start shooting up all over the place and the garden of my heart is a disaster again. I do some weeding, trying to pull them out by their tips but the pruning and pulling is painful and so I give up before I get to the root leaving evidence just below the surface. And all I feel is bare and ugly for a time. I am left with nothing but time to wish I could just go back to the days of long ago when I was lush with flowers and blooms of every variety and I bent toward the sun, untouched and unscathed by humanity and its depravity. I was fed continuously by the Gardener and drank deep from the water he provided. My soil was richer then. Before the evidence of the weeds some asshole planted in the Garden some thousands of years ago, because he was arrogant and afraid, began to show, ruining its true beauty and marring its glory forever after.

Lately, I have just had this longing. I don't know how else to describe it. A longing for life lived with reckless abandon and to explore and ultimately know what that would even look like for me. A longing to hole up in a cabin by the lake in the mountains somewhere and just write like Thoreau did. A longing to open a small new/used bookstore/coffee shop/cozy-corner-in-a-harsh-world in a small mountain town. A longing for family, not family of my own exactly, but my family, my childhood family. A longing for my mom. A longing for Jesus and to just know him so intimately that I am filled with an aching, and, again, to know what that would even look like for me. A longing for connections, for community. (I actually have a good community of believers, and non believers, at work but I want something that carries over to outside.) I have friends, don't get me wrong; and I am not desperate. It's just different than it was before I finally listened to my heart and what was being whispered to me there and decided I needed to go live in Alaska for 2 years and just up and left. Friends I had before I left I haven't heard from since I have been home; and a few people I knew on the surface before leaving have become more precious to me.

While I was away changing and growing, everyone at home was changing and growing too. Why did I not expect that and look for it? Why did I think I could just come back and re-enter everyone's lives like I had never been gone? And why am I now surprised to find that people moved on, found others to confide in, spend time with, call to make last minute plans? I feel as though I have been replaced. But I find myself turning to other "friends": the characters in the books I have been voraciously reading lately. That's just not normal. In fact, I sometimes consider that I might become this person that they'll make a movie out of one day. It will be all about how I plummeted into some dark false reality of living in the landscapes of the books that I read and my relationships with the people there.

Again, don't get me wrong. I have friends. I interact with people on a regular daily basis, in person and on the phone. And I have not started talking to imaginary people about their journalistic adventures in Africa or their own murder that they describe and investigate from their own version of Heaven or their road trips across country or their life on Cape Cod or in Nantucket. There's no need to call a therapist or have me committed. I do feel that it's a good thing that I am aware that it's not normal. I fully acknowledge that while it is easier to hide behind books than it is to step out from behind them and enter into actual relationships, it's, by all means, not healthier.

But I still feel a little vacant. I know this vacancy cannot be filled by other humans. It must be filled by the Holy Spirit. Quite frankly the idea of that scares me a little. And the knowledge that that scares me, scares me. Why would I prefer to cling to the company of men (used in the general sense of the word) – broken, imperfect, fallen, bound-to-hurt-me men – than to cling to God and his holy, unconditional, whole, heals-my-wounds, perfect love? It makes no sense to me. Why am I so stubborn? Why can't I just accept what's best for and being offered to me instead of "knowing" that I am, and will always remain, the single exception to the promise that God's grace is offered freely to those who will receive it? It's true. I just know that it's true for everyone else but not me. It doesn't matter how many times I hear it or someone tries to drill it into me that Yes, indeed. It is true for even you, Christina. It just will not sink in to my thick skull. Or my thick heart. Whichever.

Part of me is constantly battling those feelings of entitlement. I want what others have and I feel I have a right to these things: relationships, possessions, feelings, deep spirituality, a seemingly easy life, to have it all together, etc… Through talks with my friend, and chaplain here at work because I am so blessed to have one, I am learning that if I want to give up my wrongs (attitudes, feelings, actions, etc…) then I have to surrender my rights. I have to live free of the idea that I am entitled to or deserve anything good that I have in this world. The truth is, I don't. And, like Bill reminded me, Christ didn't deserve the Cross. It wasn't fair. But he did it anyway. Bill explained it a lot better than I am doing here, in a way that led me to one of those moments where you sort of sit back, smile, and soak in the light and truth that has just been unveiled to you as though shrouded for years under some great, dark, dusty lies.

It's frustrating to struggle with the same thing over and over and over again. To know the truth and still live in and believe the lie. To see light but remain in the dark like there's a thick "pain" of glass preventing you from ever truly getting there. You begin to chip away at it and it seems like the more you do, the more the little shards stick in you, penetrating deeper, until you're bleeding out everywhere. And so you stop the chipping because your bleeding heart is driving people away. And you start to believe that you will never make it through that wall. If only Someone could come and just shatter that pain of glass all at once, then you would be okay. Only it doesn't really work like that. It has to be a process. Otherwise the shock and hurt of that sudden shattering would probably kill a person. More than shatter the pain, it would shatter the life right out of them too. And you thought just the sight of a little blood was messy.

Just a couple weeks ago I was in Dallas with about 15 of my coworkers and friends. We went down to our new facility to have a service in which we dedicated the company, its customers, employees, the building, everything to God and gave it over to him in prayer. We shared in worship and communion together, celebrating what God is doing. Bert, the owner, and Bill, the chaplain, shared a word with us. They were words that I had been hearing from nearly everyone since I have been home, if not longer. We are all characters playing a role in a larger story. We are all here for a purpose. We may not know what that is this side of life, but have no doubt. Your role in this is important. We could not do this without you. You are vital to this company, to this ministry, to this extraordinary church we operate without calling it a church. It is you. And the hairs on my arms raised and my heart skipped and the corners of my eyes got leaky. Oh how I wanted so desperately for that to be true of me. To be a part of something larger than me. Beyond anything that I could ever dream up or imagine. Is this what I have been preparing for these last 30 years? Has it all been leading up to this? Is it here that I will find my true calling and fulfill my life's purpose and imbibe immense satisfaction? And my questions have gone unanswered. Or maybe I am just not listening and hearing, not tuned to his voice. How I want to be tuned to my shepherd's voice so that when I no longer hear it, I know I have somehow strayed a little too far from the flock and know to stay and wait for him to come and bring me back. And so I wait.

Abba, I thank you for unknowns, for the times in my life when I cannot clearly see the path or where it is leading me. I know in the past those are the times that I have had to learn to lean into you, to trust you with everything in me, even though it was a little scary. It was in those times that you took my mustard seed faith and increased it and showed me things that are far beyond my wildest imagination, more than I could have ever fathomed would be possible. You have a proven history of blessing me so much more than I deserve in the times when I have fully trusted you with the unknowns of my life. May I continue to seek you with fervor and to entrust all my moments, known or unknown, into your big and more than capable hands. Lord, I believe. Only help me with my unbelief and forgive me for my doubt of you. Forever and ever Amen.