One of my favorite hangs in Nashville is the deck of a craft beer establishment on 12th Avenue. It is a porch that has heard some of the best, and also some of the silliest, conversations. A deck that I have sat on with the dearest people I know. Beer, like coffee, brings people together in a powerful way, ya know?
The other night, my friend Kate and I were sitting with our Stiegl Radlers (seriously the greatest grapefruit explosion of your life) in the setting sun, talking life. Specifically, talking about what it looks like to let go of something. And the reality of a situation versus false hypotheses about a situation. Because, let's be real, how easy is it to act, react, and make decisions based off unfounded notions rather than actuality? I know I spend far too much time in a world of reality I have concocted largely out of nothing. It is safer and more comfortable to assume we are right; to put on blinders rather than to take a hard look at the facts. Because some facts are hard to swallow. Some facts make us look bad. Some facts don't just make us look bad, they reveal harsh truth about what we have done. Some facts hurt.
Somewhere in the middle of a Radler and potato wedges, we came up with the kind of analogy that can really only come from a beer hang. It's two boats, floating side by side. On the one hand is the boat with all the reality. The boat that isn't loaded down with fantasies and assumptions and biases. It's just a boat of facts. A boat of truth, if you will. A boat that moves quickly and confidently through the water. The other boat rides a little lower in the water, because it carries a lot of baggage. A lot of what ifs, and but maybes, and lies and accusations and pain. It's also got a big armchair, for sitting and mulling over old wounds. This boat feels safe, but is actually dangerously close to capsizing all together.
Imagine, then, that the reality-boat floats alongside the other, and a rope is thrown and the two are connected. You, the passenger, jump from the dangerous armchair and the clutter onto the clean, pristine deck of reality. Phew. But the danger-boat is still attached. And you kind of want it that way. Because what happens if you lose all that baggage? All the things you've told yourself, false or partly true or all true (but twisted in a bitter light), that acted as a band-aid are on that other boat. To let it go completely feels impossible.
Here's what Kate and I decided. Ya gotta let that other boat loose. Full healing doesn't come until the baggage is set to sail. Forgiveness can't happen if you're still sitting on old wounds. There is just literally actually 100% nothing good that can come from hanging onto that sinking boat. I don't know if you've ever felt this way, but sometimes I think forgiveness will hurt worse than holding on to bitterness. I know cognitively that isn't the case, but my mind comes to that conclusion anyway and will not budge. It feels more dangerous to let go than it does to hang on to the baggage of the past.
But here's what I know now: Forgiveness and healing happen when you look at the situation, acknowledge is for what it is (reality and all), accept whatever hurt it brings, find the joy, and choose to move forward. Like my pal Oswald Chambers says, "Let the past sleep, but let it sleep in the sweet embrace of Christ, and let us go into the invincible future with Him."
I'm reminded of the song "Come Sail Away" by Styx.
Beer bonding is a beautiful thing.
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Friday, October 10, 2014
Puzzle Pieces and Planning.
One time I had a crush on a coworker and it was the most ridiculous thing. I was legitimately head over heels for a guy that, sweet as he was, was not boyfriend or marriage or anything material for me. I say for me, because I'm sure he's someone's husband/boyfriend/anything material, but I am not that someone. Still, for about five months of my life I was CONVINCED this dude was potentially it. That some magical thing was going to happen and we would be 2gether 4ever. And I was so frustrated with myself, and with God, and with the unfairness of life in general, because the puzzle pieces that I saw fitting together, weren't. They were very much not fitting together. Like, we weren't even putting together the same puzzle.
It took about two weeks of me not living in the same city as him for the fog to be lifted, at which point I had a great laugh about that most ridiculous crush. And then I felt bad for roller coaster I put my friends on moaning about him for five months, when clearly everything they said about how wrong he was for me was one hundred percent correct. Outside perspective is a valuable commodity in the love game.
Coworker dude is one example. I have more. More examples of me trying to jam a round peg into a square hole, a triangular hole, a freakin' hexagon hole, whatever. (I don't wanna TALK about the summer after my freshman year of college.) Lots of times I saw potential and was sorely disappointed. And, in the midst of it, it was so hard (ie: impossible) to hear that outside perspective which, incidentally, is only a valuable commodity if you make use of it.
Fast forward a couple years. I'm there again. I saw great potential for a beautiful story to unfold, and it didn't. The puzzle pieces ended up not fitting. Round peg, not a round hole. This time hurt worse than the rest, for a thousand reasons that maybe won't matter five years from now. But the story is the same. I'm frustrated, and wounded, and wondering why the plan I made didn't pan out. Why something that theoretically looked so good turned out so badly.
My first reaction is to blame myself. I love to heap coals on my own head, always have. It's a terrible habit. My next reaction is to blame the guy who (dammit) won't adore me like I want him to. As if it's his fault he doesn't find me totally irresistible (?!). Then, after a while, I tend to blame God. I get really bent out of shape about the unfairness of the world and ask questions like, "Well, why does he get to find someone and I don't?! Will I be single foreverrrr?!" Which sounds silly, but I know every woman asks the same thing at some point in her life. Unrequited love is the worst, and being single is hard. There's no other way to spin it.
But here's the silver lining: The Lord has yet to abandon me in my hilariously tragic quest for love. In fact, He keeps showing up just in time to save me from some pretty big mistakes. He has this way of yanking me out of danger, of making it impossible for my plan to succeed, so that my eyes will open and I will see His footprints in the sand. And, okay, it hurts like freakin' hell sometimes. But I'm learning how to see it like this: "The kinder and more conscientious [the surgeon] is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless." Wise words from my main dude, C.S. Lewis, from his book, A Grief Observed. I keep thinking God doesn't know what He's doing, or that He's out to get me. But then I look behind me and see the landmarks of grace; of times heartbreak turned out to be His version of a rescue mission. Given the evidence, it's probably safe to guess He has my back today just like he did when I was 15, and 18, and 22.
Big picture, the Lord continually pours out love and grace in quantities I will never deserve and cannot fathom. And He is orchestrating something I will not understand until it's right under my nose. He's putting together the puzzle, and He is the only one who knows where the pieces go. His promise is this, "I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out-- plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." (Jeremiah 29:11, The Message). It's a promise He has been whispering every day for my whole life, and there are days I totally miss it. Those days, it feels like everything is crashing down and the world is ending. But it's not. Because He is good.
Which means that it is ALL good.
It took about two weeks of me not living in the same city as him for the fog to be lifted, at which point I had a great laugh about that most ridiculous crush. And then I felt bad for roller coaster I put my friends on moaning about him for five months, when clearly everything they said about how wrong he was for me was one hundred percent correct. Outside perspective is a valuable commodity in the love game.
Coworker dude is one example. I have more. More examples of me trying to jam a round peg into a square hole, a triangular hole, a freakin' hexagon hole, whatever. (I don't wanna TALK about the summer after my freshman year of college.) Lots of times I saw potential and was sorely disappointed. And, in the midst of it, it was so hard (ie: impossible) to hear that outside perspective which, incidentally, is only a valuable commodity if you make use of it.
Fast forward a couple years. I'm there again. I saw great potential for a beautiful story to unfold, and it didn't. The puzzle pieces ended up not fitting. Round peg, not a round hole. This time hurt worse than the rest, for a thousand reasons that maybe won't matter five years from now. But the story is the same. I'm frustrated, and wounded, and wondering why the plan I made didn't pan out. Why something that theoretically looked so good turned out so badly.
My first reaction is to blame myself. I love to heap coals on my own head, always have. It's a terrible habit. My next reaction is to blame the guy who (dammit) won't adore me like I want him to. As if it's his fault he doesn't find me totally irresistible (?!). Then, after a while, I tend to blame God. I get really bent out of shape about the unfairness of the world and ask questions like, "Well, why does he get to find someone and I don't?! Will I be single foreverrrr?!" Which sounds silly, but I know every woman asks the same thing at some point in her life. Unrequited love is the worst, and being single is hard. There's no other way to spin it.
But here's the silver lining: The Lord has yet to abandon me in my hilariously tragic quest for love. In fact, He keeps showing up just in time to save me from some pretty big mistakes. He has this way of yanking me out of danger, of making it impossible for my plan to succeed, so that my eyes will open and I will see His footprints in the sand. And, okay, it hurts like freakin' hell sometimes. But I'm learning how to see it like this: "The kinder and more conscientious [the surgeon] is, the more inexorably he will go on cutting. If he yielded to your entreaties, if he stopped before the operation was complete, all the pain up to that point would have been useless." Wise words from my main dude, C.S. Lewis, from his book, A Grief Observed. I keep thinking God doesn't know what He's doing, or that He's out to get me. But then I look behind me and see the landmarks of grace; of times heartbreak turned out to be His version of a rescue mission. Given the evidence, it's probably safe to guess He has my back today just like he did when I was 15, and 18, and 22.
Big picture, the Lord continually pours out love and grace in quantities I will never deserve and cannot fathom. And He is orchestrating something I will not understand until it's right under my nose. He's putting together the puzzle, and He is the only one who knows where the pieces go. His promise is this, "I know what I'm doing. I have it all planned out-- plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for." (Jeremiah 29:11, The Message). It's a promise He has been whispering every day for my whole life, and there are days I totally miss it. Those days, it feels like everything is crashing down and the world is ending. But it's not. Because He is good.
Which means that it is ALL good.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)