Wreckage

I went for a really long drive on the back roads of Little Rock today. Spring is bursting out all over the place and the trees, bushes, and flowers are all in bloom. The grass seems perkier as well and I enjoyed its vibrant green color against the blue skies.

I went driving with the radio turned on and my thoughts for the most part turned off. Sometimes you need to do this in order to achieve a renewed level of sanity. But my thoughts eventually turned back on. It is sometimes surprising to find out what is lurking in the recesses of the mind. At least for me. We live in a world of constant stimulation, and it is so easy (scarily so) to ignore your own heart. Don't want to deal with an issue? BOOM! Log onto Facebook and hear about someone else's for a little while, or at least long enough to forget your own.

What is lurking in my heart? Honestly, a whole lot of anger. This is not surprising to me. It seems that my whole life long I have been dealing with anger about something or other. I think I have many really good reasons to be angry, and many good reason to be not angry. Some of the good reasons why I am angry include other people's sin. I am angry at the way their sin has affected my whole life. I am a broken human being because of someone else's sin.

At the same time, I'm sure other people can say the same of me. We are all broken because of sin. I once heard a quote which went along the lines of "we all live in the wreckage of other people's sin". Sad, profound, and true. I know there are some who would instantly disagree with me and claim that "Jesus came to give me victory!" or platitudes like that, but the plain fact is that while Jesus did achieve the ultimate victory over sin, and one day we will live in a world redeemed from the Fall, we still live in a very, very sinful world.

This is evident all around us, and sometimes it touches us very close to home. I have lived through my share of heartache due to the effects of sin, and it makes me very angry. At the same time, there is a lot of hope in this sin-sick world, a lot of redemption, and I see it all around me. Men who get up in the morning and are faithful to do the right thing even when others around them fail. That gives me hope. Women who love imperfect people imperfectly and will never stop. That gives me hope.

I spoke on the phone with one of my best friends in the world last night. We talked, among other things, about the wreckage we live in everyday. It has touched and changed each of us. She asked and I talked about how I am mostly completely flummoxed by this year in Little Rock. Most days I wake up and think "what-the-h am I doing here?". It makes no sense to me. My life here is so ordinary and I can't for the life of me comprehend the lessons God is teaching me. This makes me kind of nervous. I need some justification for moving away from my friends and family, my life, to Jacksonville, Arkansas, of all places. I thought God had some big, grand reason for moving me here, and although I know beyond a doubt that He wanted me here, I still want a really good, crystal-clear reason for it. So far, no dice.

So what is God doing? The not-knowing makes me angry, confused, and a little doubtful. The last three years of my life have been such a roller-coaster of events, emotions, and spiritual growth all moving me to a place that I didn't expect or want at all: here. While I was making the decision to move here, people kept saying "you should just do what you want to do", which annoyed me to no end. What I wanted to do was exactly the opposite of this, but what do you do when what you want to do isn't an option? Well, you do the next best thing, or in my case, the next possible thing. You obey the light you've been given even as the darkness closes around what you really wanted.

When what we expect to happen doesn't, we are left with so many broken pieces to make sense of, and then, hopefully, gracefully, to move on from into the life we had never imagined, but are nonetheless living. How do we do that? I am still struggling with this question. My times with God are still filled with questions, and even sometimes accusations, mingled with pleas for direction. What now? Where now?

I guess this is a post I've had bottled up in me for a few months now, ever since I closed the door finally and completely on a part of my life that I held far too dear for far too long. I am a fool for clinging so completely to such incomplete happiness. My hands are loose now, and what do I grasp? My Savior, of course, who is the only One who can make sense of my life in the end, who IS my life in the end. I thought I was clinging to Him, but I realize now that I was grasping Him in one hand while holding onto my own plans with the other. Now that both hands are free to grasp Him, I feel a little off-balanced. My other hand is still trying to cling onto other things besides Him. Foolish, but redeemable, girl.

My life is filled with dichotomy. I am surrounded by wreckage and beauty, good and evil, joy and pain. I know there are many "reasons" that I can't fully comprehend or even appreciate now in the midst of it. Maybe I should let go of my desire to know, and instead rest. I always like to end my blog posts on a happy note, or at least a note of hope; resolution would probably be the best word for it, actually. Oh, but things are not resolved. Not at all.

But I'm not working on figuring it all; I'm working on trusting.