To Stabilize in Rejoicing

"Stability of the world depends on the rejoicing in Your [God's] works." --John Calvin

Voskamp asks, "Doesn't my world also stabilize when I rejoice in Your words?" (One Thousand Gifts Devotional 31).

I'm trying to process those thoughts because I don't want to be flippant about this relationship that often confounds me.  I think maybe the difficulty is in the word "stabilize."  The first entry on Google says, "Make or become unlikely to give way or overturn."  That makes so much sense to me, because my initial feeling about stabilization indicates an "evenness" I never have in difficulty.  I'm far too emotional--too up and down to be "even" during chaos.  And I've envied people with that kind of demeanor.

But the fact that rejoicing in God may be the very thing that keeps me from "giving way"?  Yeah.  I get that.  In the middle of the darkest days, when I first started praying for God to save us from drowning, I couldn't' see any movement on His part.  I prayed in panic daily--sometimes hourly--because I honestly felt like breathing was an impossible task.  Looking back, I know that "no response" isn't true.  (Though, I only saw Him through this "looking back.")  We never overturned.  We breathed in water, but did not drown.  We walked through the fire, not without scorch marks, but without being burned up.

That description doesn't sound much like rejoicing--simply praying for survival.  But isn't acknowledgement of God in itself rejoicing?  Isn't it honest and open recognition of who He is?  A recognition of the creation in the chaos, to quote L'Engle.

That's how I didn't overturn.  I cried.  A lot.  And I was honest with the One Who Hears.  

So I guess my world does stabilize in rejoicing.  I'd never thought about it like that.

You've Been Weighed; You've been Measured

I've spend this pregnancy in a weird place--overwhelmed and excited to do something again we'd never thought we'd do once and simultaneously cursing the state of my body when we learned Ryan would be a big brother.  It's sad, and I'm mostly ashamed to admit that I've looked in the mirror with far less wonder than I did when my belly grew the first time.


All my life, I've heard jokes about men and how they compare "members" without realizing women are far worse about measurements.  We aren't just concerned about inches, but about pounds.  We measure weeks and months, ounces and amounts.  We measure intensity and emotion and worth and contribution.  We measure cost and time and devotion.  And when the sum total is in?  We almost always find ourselves wanting.

All that measurement leaves little room for wonder.  It suffocates grace and makes gratitude almost impossible.

It's strange to me that a year of focused gratitude would come at a time when I'm so zeroed in on measuring--as strange as last year when the word "peace" was dictated in a year of chaos.  I've spouted sayings that indicate situations like this are how we learn, but I wonder why that's the case.

Ann Voskamp describes thanks as recognizing the gift set before us, and, ultimately, how that attitude makes joy possible.  Because, she points out, "wonder really could be here--for the seeing eyes" (One Thousand Gifts Devotional 27).  Maybe my lack of gratitude stems from my unwillingness to see, and leads to my inability to perceive the wonder of what's around me--the gift of my boys, my coworkers, my church.

Far too often, I see the obligation and fail to receive the gift.  

Dismissive Communication

Contract negotiations at my school are in a much better place than they were two weeks ago.  I've had trouble determining right action during the whole process because I'm not a huge fan of the Us/Them mentality that develops out of situations like this one. 


When those mentalities first developed, I shrugged my shoulders because I believed it really was just part of the process.  My dad served on a school board for a couple of decades, so I feel like I speak from experience there.  I feel like the real loss, though, comes in the form of an unwillingness to reach out for the sake of conversation--people don't want to look at each other.  Forget talk.


We stop hearing each other.  We stop understanding that some (though definitely not all) motives might be good intentioned the way ours are.


I'm guilty.  After several months of emotional ups and downs on a contract, I just wanted resolution.  I got tired of hearing that my one concern as a teacher was money and I was sitting pretty with a "posh" contract and I needed to count my blessings.


Those were the things that were actually said.  What I heard was that it was OK for others to have deeper concerns regarding contract negotiations, but any unwillingness on my part to accept what is offered is greed, plain and simple.  It didn't matter if there were reasonable solutions presented.  At that point, I couldn't hear them.


Sometimes it's hard to hear people.  Hearts are all tied up in words and that may mean there is intention and deep conviction behind something that sounds a little flippant at the forefront.  But I'm so quick to dismiss words--a lot because I'm an introvert and would prefer to surround myself with only people I know and connect with easily, but also because I think I've allowed myself to become dismissive with words, and, as a result, people.


It's a work in progress.  It's letting myself share what I think without being able to fully process the emotion behind it and then allowing someone else the same luxury.


That's the difficult part--allowing someone else the same luxury.


Because often there just aren't conclusions--and I need to stop drawing them.

Nostalgia

Since I've closed my blog, my only reader is you, Ronnie.  You'd think that means I'd be more willing to sit here and type the things I'm really thinking instead of constantly editing how I need my thoughts to read, but that's clearly not the case.  Otherwise, there would be more than two posts in the last four months.




I've been thinking a lot about what you said about nostalgia--particularly church nostalgia.  I think tonight I'm super guilty of the same sort of sentiment.  It's not about the old church, exactly.  I can't gloss over the problems enough to be guilty of nostalgia in that respect. 




I don't belong at The View.  I'd like to tell you I know exactly why, but I can't.  Everyone else seems to be finding a little niche, but I can't figure out what I'm supposed to be doing there or why I felt drawn there in the first place.  The deep connections we had before the Josh saga have largely disappeared and few people seem to interact the way they did previous to that incident.  Jermaine and Mallory, who were great connection points for me, have left for another pasture (which I hesitate to identify as "greener" as I'm not entirely sure that's the case) which was further small group displacement.  Not only that, but I really connected with Mallory which you well know isn't something I do easily.  I alienate people.  It's my personality.  But it's weird for church dynamics.  I assumed that being a Mom would automatically connect me to the other moms, but that's a misconception.  I'm probably never going to work in the nursery or kid's church.  It's just not my thing.  (And one Sunday of accidentally saying something inappropriate to a repeater would prove that true.)




I don't want to be a part of Praise and Worship.  I don't want people to look at me.  I don't want to be on the stage.  But music is such a vital part of worship for me.




So I'm nostalgic.  I miss my women's group.  I miss their consistency and welcoming nature.  I miss our understanding and their commitment to drawing others to Christ.  I miss their lack of judgment on how Christ works through individuals.  And that nostalgia means I feel sorry for the people who must really just long for the day when they felt like they really belonged.




You think that's what nostalgia is about?

That Stupid, Stupid Song

I hate the song "Blessings."  There.  I said it out loud and pushed myself to the outside of inspirational Christian music circles everywhere.  I hate it.  And I refuse to listen to it.  Feel free to share your feelings about how this song is so meaningful, blah blah blah, but don't expect me to sit around and soak it in with you if you start singing.

More than once people have asked what my issue is with what has been called a beautiful ballad in many music circles.  In simplest terms, I feel it's a trite response to real human suffering.  I'm sure I haven't been the only person stuck in spiritual quick sand anticipating suffocation only to run into a well-meaning individual who wanted to play this song in hopes that I'd find comfort and the faith to believe God's Word.  My actual reaction was to seriously consider slitting my wrists.  I was praying to survive--for "comfort" or "for Your mighty hand to ease [my] suffering"--but I needed to know that God loves me "way too much to give [me] lesser things"?

That's a strange way to encourage an individual to "have faith to believe."  And I guess I feel like those lyrics do little to outline where one goes from this point:  we suffer; we believe; we understand it will be better when we die.  In the darkest days of my depressive fog, that continual message would have been enough to convince me I'd gotten out of my bed for the last time.

There's also something about the perspective of the song that makes me feel like an outsider for struggling to understand why God allows such deep suffering on the part of some individuals, or why He often chooses to be silent.  The last lines of the song ("What if my greatest disappointments or the aching of this life/ Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy/ What if trials of this life/ The rain, the storms, the hardest nights/ Are your mercies in disguise"), while not necessarily untrue, make me feel as though I'm being chastised by someone outside the suffering circle for not immediately recognizing the situation as one that is clearly meant to bring glory to God.  Frankly, I don't feel like the speaker of this song is in the trenches.  I feel like she's on the other side of the fence telling me to believe God's plan without understanding that's the very thing I'm (and others) are clawing to hold onto--belief.  (And it's a little simplistic anyway, isn't it?  "And long that we'd have faith to believe"--believe what, exactly?  The promises in His word?  In my case, believing those promises wasn't the issue.  Reconciling myself to the possibility of a different plan--one that didn't eliminate my desire or respond to it--was a bigger issue than believing God's promises.)

Maybe it's too much to ask for all song writers to sit in the ditch of lamentation and lay it out honestly the way Rich Mullins did with "Hard to Get."  I guess I just feel like it's my responsibility as a Christian to get real with you about suffering in the midst of belief--that it's not always about a lack of faith or a foundering belief system.  Sometimes we struggle because we believe.  Sometimes we hurt because we can't see the final picture even though we know there is one.  My problem isn't that I can't see suffering as God's "mercies in disguise"; it's that I know God and want to follow Him, but sometimes I have to acknowledge the reality that some things are just His "ways and [He is] just plain hard to get."

The Elusive Priority

One of my great gifts is an ability to make almost anything more difficult than it has to be.  So when I say Christianity is simplistic, that's from a purely intellectual standpoint.  Practice is more difficult--probably because I think far too much about how I should act and then end up acting viscerally instead of according to my belief (which, unfortunately, is not yet that ingrained).

 

This action (inaction?!) is a pattern.  It is one of the main reasons I started leading women's Bible study (for consistency in study and relationship) and likely the reason I need to eliminate outside influences (topix, anyone?) that may not impact other people.  When I miss that stead influence and allow those outside influences play time, I see a significant decline in my attitude and more paralysis in my Christian action.

 

So it stands to reason that I would know what to change when I feel that paralysis creeping up my neck, but, oddly, I don't.  I don't know what I am supposed to be doing despite the fact that I know I belong where I am.

 

A friend told me once that education shouldn't necessarily be a Christian priority.  That thought has been in the back of my mind this entire school year...

• because I believe education can have a beneficial effect on the masses
• because I want my sons to be able to reason through situations instead of simply swallowing someone else's lecture
• because my union is currently fighting a Tier Two salary schedule I fear will impact the type of education students at my school would receive.

 

Should these things be a priority for me?  I honestly don't know, and I don't see a lot of clear examples to illuminate the path.

 

That issue alone would be enough.  But it's rare any person gets to handle one situation at a time so I find myself, as I've said, in this bizarre "in between" place.

 

My word for the year is gratitude.  Like last year's word, "peace," gratitude should be a fairly easy concept to navigate.  After all, there is so much for which to be grateful--my little miracles, Ryan and Eli, in particular.  In the midst of all that baby excitement, though, are the situations that cloud that same sense of gratitude.

 

I'm not writing this because I have conclusions, but rather due to my lack of them.  That's what writing used to do for me--in the days before I started panicking that my kitchen was a mess and neurotically cleaning before bed.  Priorities, y'all.

 

But seriously, PRIORITIES...

• for Christian action
• for consistency in study (and maybe revisiting the idea of a study group?)
• for a balanced view of education

 

But mostly?  For gratitude--in all seasons.

 

And maybe for grace to navigate the in between until everything is a bit more clear.

 

(If you read, forgive the lack of clarity.  My pregnant brain struggles to put one coherent thought together, so it's precarious to write anything at the end of the day.)

The Vortex

I feel like any sort of return to blogging (if one post can, in fact, be considered a return) should be a magnificent spectacle of wondrousness.


Then there's my blog.


And unfortunately, that means no magnificence, just crazy.  Seriously, though, if people read here for any other reason they might be slightly more delusional than I am.  So there's that.


A second pregnancy with a small child at home is no joke.  Lack of a negotiated contract is no joke.  All of the stress and mud-slinging that comes out of those two things--seriously, no joke.


It's a weird way to start a year I think is supposed to be focused on gratitude.  I've asked myself a lot of questions about that word in the last two hours I've stared at this screen:


1.  Why doesn't gratitude undo the awfulness of the last year?
2.  Why doesn't gratitude alleviate the hurt of losing a close friend?  Or replace that friend?
3.  Why doesn't gratitude settle a contract or at least require understanding on all sides?


And then I've been pushed to the other side by all the simplicities that wash over me:


1.  Ryan's sweet laugh and smile
2.  The baby doing the mambo on my bladder
3.  Colleagues and coworkers who are still dedicated despite the climate


I don't know what I want out of 2014.  I'd like it to be the year I get my shit together, but I'm not entirely positive that's realistic.  Maybe chaos is the way of the world.  And maybe gratitude is our way of finding Christ's peace in the midst of the vortex.