In Which I Compare

I have a confession to make.

I compare myself to others.

This is entirely human and "normal" I suppose. But it's a really unfruitful way of thinking. I spend a lot of time comparing myself to the people I love the most (what an insult to them, when you think about it) and to whom I am in the habit of trying to measure up: my siblings. They are all successful, have university degrees, happy families, busy social lives, and live thoughtful and intentional lives. Then there's the mess that is me- never finished any degree, struggling with parenting, finances, depression, and never knowing where the heck my life is headed anyway.

Some days I feel like I have wasted my life. 

I spent time in prayer today, and decided to be thankful for what God has done through the years I consider wasted and unfruitful.

There's a pretty long list.

It's a really good list too. Not the kind of list that will put money in my bank account or letters after my name, but it is a hidden spring of mercy and growth through darkness and struggle and loneliness. Growth I don't believe I could have ever had any other way; growth I didn't know I needed and wouldn't have known how to accomplish if I'd known.

These aren't all the things I thought of, but the ones I find most important:

I have learned to persevere past emotion, distraction, futility, incompetence, and being overwhelmed. And even past paralyzing comparisons.

I have learned God's utter faithfulness through my darkness. I have learned that He loves me because I am His; apart from all my gifts, achievements, folly, and sin. I am valuable, and not because anyone else thinks so- God thinks so, and it is enough.

I have learned that my emotions do not define me. I can accept them as valid at the moment, but not have to act on them, feel guilty about them, change them, fight them, or dwell on them. I am becoming a person who can continue in a plan in spite of depression, passion, or emotional distraction. My temperament is changeable, impulsive- and I am stiff-necked and proud. It never would have occurred to me that emotions can be both accepted and ignored. The Holy Spirit has worked through my circumstances to train me without me even knowing it. I have always been focused on fighting my emotions: He has been focused on helping me accept them for what they are. 

How could I compare this list with anyone else's life? I am content that He is still leading me- that He began this good work, and He will be faithful to complete it, even if I don't know what that will be like.

Therefore, my dear brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the Lord's work, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.    -1Cor 15:58

If I Were a Bird

A poem from last winter.

If I Were a Bird

I'd be an owl:
wise, precise-
swift and silent as the night

I'd be a blackbird:
trilling joyfully
at home amid the clover

I'd be a swallow:
soaring and dancing
between the cliff and sky

I'd be a chickadee:
fill cold days
with my bittersweet song
of love



More of my poems are here.

A Word from Oswald

As I was flipping through my journal the other day, a few things stuck out at me. One of them was this quote from (I believe) Oswald Chambers. (I was reading "My Utmost for His Highest" at the time, and copied it out from time to time. I was also reading some Tozer but this quote sounds more like Chambers.)

The question of whether or not we reach a particular goal is of little importance and reaching it becomes merely an episode along the way. What we see as only the process of reaching a particular end, God sees as the goal itself. 

What is my vision of God's purpose for me? Whatever it may be, His purpose is for me to depend on Him and His power now... God's training is for now, not later... if we realize that moment-by-moment obedience is the goal, then each moment as it comes is precious.

 

Spiritual Transformation

Last night, Anita Mathias asked a question on her blog:

What has been spiritually transformational for you in the last decade?

I tried to think of something nice to say- something positive, something spiritual and maybe witty. But then I actually started to think about the last ten years of my life, and it was so painful to think about that I decided to pull out my old journals so I could skim over parts I didn't want to remember and be immediately distracted by some other entry. This worked, for the most part.

But what exactly defined, or transformed the last ten years of my spiritual life? Where has God been leading, what is He teaching- is there really any rhyme or reason to the chaos, particularly of the last six or seven years?

This is what I finally came up with, the comment I left on her post:
"The last decade? I have learned about friendships. Specifically: loss, betrayal, hypocrisy and gossip. Also abuse, depression, grief and many of my own weaknesses. However, with all of that I have learned what it is like to lurch forward into darkness and feel God catch me. Over and over."

It wasn't just other people betraying me, gossiping about me, or being hypocrites while I maintained unassailable character. I betrayed. I was a willing party to evil speech. I was a hypocrite. And this is nothing new. I hurt, and I hurt others, but this time I lost a community, through mutual failing. As I relived the pain of that time, I also remembered how God was there. "Lurching through darkness"- those are the only words I can think of to describe it. Crash landing on God's faithfulness, maybe, and right at a moment when I thought I had done what could only earn God's disappointment. Not his faithfulness. Never that.

Of course it has nothing to do with earning anything. And I have found it hard to disappoint God.

So, today, at this place of grief and confusion, I am trying to make some headway, find some healing, trust and hope. I am hanging onto the memory, the certainty of God's faithfulness; trusting Him through this present darkness.