My Mom - Part 3

Part 1

Part 2

My mom has a Bible that she keeps by her comfy chair in the living room.  Its navy blue case is faded from the years.  The gilt edges of the pages are long since worn off.  Marked in the margins, between the words, and in the end notes are thoughts and comments from her years of study.  Though I have probably had more formal Bible training than she has, I am always astonished when I know some fact about the Bible that she doesn’t.  My mom has made a practice for many years to earnestly study the Bible to know God better.

Mom likes debate.  A lot.  Far more than me.  But more than debate she likes to know what is true.  Is that really what the Bible says?  Do I agree with the undercurrent of the message?  If not, why?  Why do they say that?  Why do you think that?  All these were questions of my childhood.  And adulthood.  My mom pursues truth in the abstract sense and Truth in Jesus, the Way, Truth, and Life.  She is not content to let untruth simply pass by; it must be addressed and its foundations shaken.

Theological discussions were extremely common in my college years.  Typically, it was Mom and my older brother actually engaged in the debate but I listened and learned too.  Mom and Dad both encouraged us to not merely memorize Scripture but to understand what it means.  And with understanding, to apply it.

When we were little, my brothers and I gave Mom an apron on which we had painstakingly painted the words “My Godly Mom” and signed our names.  I’d make the same for her today.

Conclusion

My mom is awesome.

No, really, she is.

I’ve known it for a long time.  Now you know too.

My Mom - Part 2

See part 1 here

Mom taught me hospitality

My dad worked a lot with FCA (Fellowship of Christian Athletes) when I was growing up.  Often, the group of teenagers would meet over at our house for the Bible study.  Mom was always a gracious hostess, ready with drinks and/or snacks for all.  I cannot begin to count the number of times we would have friends come over after church for lunch and “a few hours” which turned into the entire afternoon and supper and half the evening.  I’m certain there were times when Mom was half-wondering how we would feed everyone (again) but she never complained or tried to shoo people out (considering our friends being over often meant another dozen people, that is no small feat).

In these past few years Mom’s health hasn’t allowed her to host nearly as often as when I was a kid but the lesson of an open house still stands.  I love simply opening my home to let people come in and crash for the night, stop for a drink of water, or snatch a nap.  I’ve even had folks come over after going to a movie without me and just assemble to discuss and decompress.  Without my Mom’s early lessons on having an open, welcoming home, I don’t think these things would happen nearly as often.

Mom teaches me endurance

I’m known for stubbornness and refusing to give up.  Mom called me “Bulldog” when I was in high school for the way I would not let go and give up in a tennis match.  Now I see her fighting against ill health that doesn’t let her sleep well consistently, makes her muscles and nerves constantly ache, and generally leaves her continuously tired and she doesn’t give up.  Sometimes, that works against her as she tries to do too much too soon but she hasn’t let it stop her from trying. 

I hope you know, Mom, just how much I admire you for fighting through chronic pain.  I cannot imagine what it is like to keep going even when everything hurts.  You’re amazing.

Mom shows me love

I’m not the best with emotional stuff.  Or with asking for help.  Or with keeping in touch with people even when they live in the same city as I do.  (I’ve talked about this a little in “Burdens Shared.”)  I’m quite certain there are times when Mom wishes I would just talk to her more.  But she knows the spoken word isn’t my strong point or, honestly, even the way I show love or receive it.  So she’s made a way for us to have special times together.  Twice now we’ve been to a weekend conference and I hope that we’ll be able to set aside time over the summer to “hang out.”  I’m trying to be better about actively talking with Mom for fun – I think that’ll be a lifelong journey.

Mom taught me the love of Story

I am a storyteller.  But I learned that at my mother’s knee.  She read us The Chronicles of Narnia and Caddie Woodlawn and Little House in the Big Woods and The Great and Terrible Quest and Charlotte’s Web and many, many more.  And then as I grew older, she gave me good and great books.  Sir Walter Scott.  J. R. R. Tolkien.  C. S. Lewis.  Rosemary Sutcliff.  Madeline L’Engle.  Jane Austen.  Even Louis L’Amour and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  These days I’m more likely to be handing her books to read, but it all started with her.

Part 3 to come on Sunday

My Mom - Part 1

This post was three years in the making.  Not because I didn't have enough to say, but because I had too much and kept going past my self-imposed deadlines.

Today is my mom's birthday.  Happy birthday, Mom!  As it coincides with Mother's Day, I present to you a three-part series about my mother.

(Mom, I'm going to make you cry.)

You’d think that, growing up with only brothers, I’d’ve been super close with my mom, that we’d be best buds, standing together in the face of all the guys.  Eh, not so much.  I was Daddy’s Little Girl (still am) and I’ve never been much for talking about stuff.  It’s not that we weren’t close but that fluffy, share everything friendship you sometimes see in movies and TV (I’m actually thinking of Gilmore Girls right now) was never ours.  Sometimes, I wonder what that has been like for her.  But I can't change the past, only do better in the future.

Enough about me.  Let me tell you about my mom.

Mom taught me how to sew. 

One of my earliest memories – perhaps even the earliest – is peering up over the edge of a table or desk watching my mom at work on the sewing machine.  She was making me and my older brother stuffed rabbits.  Those rabbits – Whisper and Grocery Store – now sit on my bookshelf, both still with their original outfits.  Grocery Store’s arms got torn off and we haven’t sewn them back on but for an over 30-year-old rabbit, he looks pretty good.  (Clarification: Whisper was mine, Grocery Store my brother’s.  Whisper also lost her arms at various times but they did get sewn back on more often).  Those rabbits traveled a great many places with my brother and me.

And it wasn’t just stuffed animals that she made.  Up until I was about 16, I think my mom made almost every single dress and skirt I owned.  The rare, store-bought dress I owned was most likely given to me by someone else.  We’d go together to the fabric store and pour over patterns to pick which one Mom would make this time.  Then we’d go choose the fabric, matching colors and patterns and analyzing which would look best together.  We picked out fabric to make the boys shirts too.

But every Easter and Christmas, Mom would make me a special dress.  I marked years by my Easter and Christmas dresses.  One year my Christmas dress was cherry red with tiny white polka dots, white cuffs on the short, puffed sleeves, and a white peter pan collar edged with lace.  An Easter dress was a soft, dusty mauve with a coordinating collar.  There was a set of jumpers made for casual wear – one of those was rust and teal with tiny mushrooms in the plaid (yes, mushrooms).  There’s a box at Mom and Dad’s house that is full of fabric scraps from the dozens of dresses Mom made over the years.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we could still tell you what the dress looked like from the bits of cloth.

Somewhere in junior high or early high school, Mom decided that it was high time that I started making my own clothes.  We started with simple broomstick skirts – the kind that is made of three or four tiers of fabric gathered and bunched together (my brothers told me they looked like layer cakes when I twirled).  From there, I graduated to dresses and finer fabrics.  (I even made dresses for three of my friends one year so we could all match).

We didn’t just stop with what the patterns showed though.  Mom helped me understand how the pieces worked together so that we could adapt the pattern to make something new or to tailor it to fit us, not some imaginary version of us.  I have used those skills to design costumes for my brothers and friends that actually fit and look very little like the original pattern.  To this day, if something doesn’t fit right, I’m saying “Moooom – help!” and she has always been there for me.

Tune in Friday for part two

Precious Death

In the last 18 months, I have encountered death more times more closely than at any other time in my life.  In the spring of last year, my grandmother passed away.  A few months later, my grandfather followed her.  Scarcely a year ago, the mother of some of my students also died.  And then two weeks ago, a dear friend also went home.  And while I didn’t know him, one of my best friends lost a close friend as well.

Both my grandparents’ deaths and my students’ mom’s death we saw coming.  We had a chance to prepare.  My friend and my friend’s friend, not so much.  The whole week after my friend’s death I had a line from a song by Andrew Peterson running through my head:

“'Cause every death is a question mark
“At the end of the book of a beating heart”

(Andrew Peterson, “Come Back Soon”)

When death comes, no matter how expected, we cannot help but feel like something has ended that should not have.  Even more so when it is sudden and unexpected.  I find myself thinking of all the things I wanted to do with my friend and which I never will be able to do.  Why has her life ended before she’s lived it?  Why?

“There’s a grief that can’t be spoken,

There’s a pain goes on and on.

Empty chairs and empty tables,

Now my friends are dead and gone.”

(Les Miserables, “Empty Chairs and Empty Tables”)

Death aches.  I still search for words to speak of my friend’s death.  I know it must be a hundred times worse for her husband and parents and siblings.  How do you speak of a life that ended at their own hand?  How do you reconcile a faith in Christ that drove someone to pray with all their might for their siblings’ salvation with that same person’s suicide?  I don’t know.

When someone is married or a baby is born, we rejoice.  We recognize that life is precious.  What I think we forget sometimes is that death is precious too.  Psalm 116:15 says “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (NKJV).  Death entered the world through sin and is not part of perfection but God does not take it lightly.  The death of his saints is precious to him.

I read Psalm 116 sometime around my grandmother’s death last spring and that verse stuck with me.  With every new person who passed away, it came back to me.  After my friend’s suicide, I went back to the Psalm wondering if the context was martyrdom but it wasn’t.  It’s just David crying out to God for salvation in a difficult time and then declaring that the death of his saints is precious in God’s eyes.

Think on that.

The death of God’s children is precious.  It’s not wasted.  It’s not pointless.  It’s not meaningless.

It is precious

Valuable.  Costly.  Prized and priceless.  Not empty.  Not worthless.  Not hopeless.

Even now, I’m not sure exactly what I want to say.  Or how to say it.  But I think it comes down to this.  All life is precious.  But the death of His saints is also precious.  It isn’t meaningless.  No matter how it seems, the death of God’s children is not pointless.  Death is not part of perfection – one day it will be done away with – but God can redeem even that.

I don’t know how God will use the death of my friend for his glory.  But I know he can.  Maybe I’ll never know how he’ll use it.  I hope that it will draw her friends and family closer to God and to each other.  I know that my Redeemer lives and that he holds his children close.

We grieve when a loved one dies.  We grieve for what we lost with them.  We grieve for the pain that their dear ones are in.  But we do not grieve without hope.  Because of Jesus, we can have confidence that Death will be defeated forever.

Christ has died.

Christ is risen.

Christ will come again!

And when he comes, “…the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.” (1 Thessalonians 4:16b-17)

Come back soon, Lord Jesus.

“So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

'O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?’

The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

1 Corinthians 15:54-57, NKJV

For Me and For You

I’ve been having trouble figuring out exactly what I want to say in this post.  I could blather on about how great my new job has been – I’m loving it, by the way – but that is only a small portion of what I want to convey.  I’ve talked it out with a few friends and tried several times to gather my thoughts enough to write a cohesive post.  We’ll see if I succeed this time.

I think the theme of what I’ve been learning over the past months is how good God is to me and how much His love is for me.  How He wants my good, not just to use me for others’ good.  I like for my life and the things I do to have a purpose so the thought that what I do and what I go through is so that I can encourage others has never bothered me.  I’m not sure it ever occurred to me – until recently – to consider that events are not merely meant to strengthen me to help others, but to build me up just because.

Just because God is love.

I’m not particularly good with emotions; love and loyalty go hand in hand for me but I’m not great at conveying it.  Nor am I good with expecting others to actively show me that they love me.  The knowledge is in my head but I still act like I have to go it alone and don’t consciously expect those who love me to show it.  I don’t expect someone else to actively seek my well-being without any other motives.  It sounds weird when I put it that way but it’s the best I know to express how I act.  It isn’t fair to my friends and family, I know, and I’m learning better.  I think that’s a little of why I hadn’t thought of God’s love being for me personally.

Since I lost my job and in the days and weeks that I was hurting and looking for a new job, God has been showing me how much He cares for me in a myriad of ways.  A friend who invited me to stay with her for four days – I had hoped for two at the most.  My Mom and Dad being steady rocks as I was floundering.  Another friend who I am used to encouraging turned the tables and was instead my encourager.  Yet another friend with whom I reconnected and who has played a role much like what I imagine an older sister would.  New friends from a Bible study group who I’ve barely known a month and yet are calling to find out if I’m coming to join them at volleyball.  Learning how to mow my own yard so I can feel that accomplishment.  A double rainbow more brilliant than any other and a myriad of other things less easy to put into words.

And the consolation that no, this trial that I am going through right now is not a good thing in and of itself – but good will come of it.

God’s love is as vast and powerful as an ocean.  It pulls you in, drags you deeper, and erodes the shifting sands of what you think is your foundation.  It is terrifying at times but glorious in its immensity.  We can never plumb the depths of His love.  Never.

Because God is love, He is not content to leave us as we are; He is unwilling to let us live as less than what He has planned.  And that often means trials, struggles, and general unpleasantness.  His love isn’t easy but it is rich.  And it is for you.

God’s love is for you.

He doesn’t put us through hard times, terrible times, only so He can use us later on.  We are not, I am not, merely a tool that He refines so that it will work better.  Not just a knife He sharpens to carve someone else into a beautiful design.  No.  I am His workmanship, His carefully made work of art, which He is constantly refining and tweaking and testing so that I will be something beautiful just because.  I may be a very useful something – like an elegant tea set – but the beauty is despite its functionality, not the cause of it.

It’s like when I make an Excel workbook for someone (don’t laugh, I really like building complex workbooks).  I don’t just make it functional for the person who needs it.  I’m tweaking the formatting, adjusting the column and row widths, adding extra flourish to the formulas just so the document is visually appealing.  It would be just as useful if it wasn’t brightly colored and used plain fonts instead of fancy ones.  But I add the extra pieces and I’m always working on it just because I enjoy it and I want the document to be pretty.  I want it to be lovely because the spreadsheet is, in a way, a reflection of me and I want it to be a good one.

I guess God is the same way.  The verse that says we are His work of art goes on to say that we are “created in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:10).  In the beginning, man and woman alike were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27).  And one day, those who have put their faith Jesus as their savior will see God as He is and “we shall be like him” because of it (1 John 3:2).  In 1 Corinthians 13, commonly known as the “love chapter” of the Bible, we see that we know God and ourselves only as a dim reflection, but someday, we’ll see God face to face (vs. 12).  Until the day comes when we are perfected before him, God is working on us so that we will be a beautiful reflection of Him and His love.

The mirror may be dim, but He’s polishing it clearer day-by-day.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

“You turned the tables over
There in your father's temple
You cracked a whip and raised a shout
My daughter asked me why
I said, "Love is never simple
It draws 'em in and drives 'em out."

I saw you there but it was too late to change my course
And I collided with a beautiful immovable force
And so the stone that I rejected
It has become the Cornerstone”

From “The Cornerstone” by Andrew Peterson

It Will Be

Not so very long ago, I was reading a new book before bed.  I was completely wrapped up in the story, eager to know what happened next as the tension increased and the impact of the character’s decisions grew greater.  Then something happened that had never occurred before in my memory.  I had to put the book down.  I had to stop reading.  Not because something bad happened or the story just took a wrong turn.  Rather, the author had given voice to a concept commonly referenced in Christian circles but in such a manner that I had to set the book down and actually think about what it meant.

In the passage, a character named Jovann walks in the land of dreams where things may appear differently than in the waking world.  The Songbird, who is more than merely a bird, has guided him in the Dream before and asks Jovann to follow the new Path laid before him.  Jovann hesitates a bit but answers with the following:

“‘My Lord,’ he said, ‘I must find the phantoms who plague my Lady Hariawan.  Will this path take me to them?’

‘It will,’ said the bird.

‘Ah.’  He’d almost hoped for a different answer.  ‘Well.  That’s good then, yes?’

‘No,’ said the bird.  ‘But it will be good.’”

From Golden Daughter, Page 264.

Read that again:

“‘That’s good then, yes?’

‘No,’ said the bird.  ‘But it will be good.’”

It will be good.

There are a lot of things that happen in this life that are hard.  That are not good.  Death.  Anger.  Unfaithfulness.  Jealousy.  Backstabbing.  Disrespect.  Hatred.  But for Christians, we have the promise that “...all things work together for good to those who love God…” (Romans 8:28)

I’ve heard Romans 8:28 used many times as a comforting verse to people when things aren’t going well or when they’ve lost a loved one.  “It’s going to be ok,” we’re told.  “God has a plan for all this.”  What I think we often fail to consider is that “No” that comes before “But it will be good.”

As a Christian, I can take comfort and have hope in the fact that God will work all things out for the good and for his glory.  However, that does not mean that everything that happens in my life, or in the lives of others, is necessarily good in and of itself.  Joseph being sold into slavery by his own brothers and later spending years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit was not a good thing of itself.  The martyrdom of Jim Elliot Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Nate Saint was not in and of itself a good thing*.  Jesus’s torture and death in and of itself was not a good thing.  What came out of these events, though, was.

Because Joseph was in Egypt, he was able to interpret Pharaoh's dreams and assume a leadership position that enabled him to save his family (and the entire country) when famine spread across the land.

Because of the example of the five missionaries in Ecuador, their families were able to return to the Auca people and bring the Gospel to them and other people groups nearby.  Jim’s wife, Elisabeth Elliot, also has a far reaching ministry sharing the Gospel and fundamentals of Christian living in part because of the notoriety of her husband’s sacrifice.

Because Jesus humbled himself and took the punishment that was mine for sin and was tortured and killed, there is hope for the world.  I can be saved and become a child of the Most High God forevermore.

And those are just three examples I can think of off the top of my head.

Its easy to lose sight of the fact that just because nothing happens outside of God’s plan and that all things will work together for good, it does not mean that all things that happen are good things.  We live in a fallen, sinful, broken world in which bad things happen.  Often to good people.  It doesn’t make sense.  If God is good, why would he have all this evil occur at all?  Why use evil for good instead of just keeping everything good?  The short answer to that?

I don’t know.

Yeah, not a particularly helpful answer.  But I do know this: our concept of good is often far too small.

We tend to think that a decent job, a happy family, a nice car, fair weather, and faithful friends equal “good.”  But if we look at the larger context of Romans 8:28 we get this:

“28And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.” (NKJV)

Now, Christians have been arguing about the whole predestination vs. free will question for decades (and will probably continue to do so until the end of time when God answers it for us) but that’s not what I want to consider here.  Rather, take a look at what we are called or predestined to:

“according to His purpose...to be conformed to the image of His Son”

God will work all things together for good - and that good, is becoming like Christ.  Its not health, wealth, and happiness.  It may well be torture, poverty, and death.  It is becoming more like Christ.  Christ, God himself who took on the most torturous death known to mankind all to save an ungrateful bunch of people.  Christ, who came to seek and save the lost.  Christ, whose love knows no bounds and whose grace has no limits.  No matter how how bad this thing is in and of itself, God can and will use it to make us more like his Son.

The times where we live in the “No,” when things are bad and life is just hard aren’t fun.  Sometimes, we “don’t want to know the end.  Because how could the end be happy?”**  But for those who trust in Christ, our hope is not merely a feeling or a desire for things to eventually work out well.  Its a certainty, a confidence that “it will be” good in the end.

Right now, I'm living in the "No." It isn't easy. I'm far more scatterbrained than normal and I'm having some trouble remembering every little thing that needs doing. But God has been good even now and has let me see glimpses of the "it will be." By his grace and through his strength, I will walk with him through the darkness so that in the end, he can work out his purposes and make me more like Christ. It isn't easy and it isn't pleasant but it will be good.

The things that happen because Jovann finds the phantoms that haunt his lady’s dreams are not particularly good or pleasant.  But in the context of the larger story, they bring about something that is good in a way the characters could not have imagined.  I had to stop reading at that passage to be reminded that sometimes, we live in the “No” and that’s okay. Because that "No" is followed by "But it will be good."

“Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,

“Let this blest assurance control,

“That Christ hath regarded my helpless estate,

“And hath shed His own blood for my soul”

From the hymn It is Well With my Soul by Horatio G. Spafford



*Jim Elliot Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, Pete Fleming, and Nate Saint went as missionaries to Ecuador to reach peoples who had never heard the Gospel.  The Auca were known as a particularly bloody tribe and they were warned against going.  The men went anyway.  After meeting a few of the men of the tribe, the missionaries were hopeful that they could really begin to share Christ with them.  But instead, the tribesmen came against them and killed them.  though they had guns and could have defended themselves, the missionaries chose to die rather than kill those who had not yet received Christ in the hopes that their sacrifice would pave the way for the Gospel to spread among the Auca.  It did. The book, Through Gates of Splendor, by Elisabeth Elliot tells the story in detail.

**Partial quote from The Two Towers movie as spoken by Sam Gamgee.  :-)

Burdens Shared

There’s a saying that a burden shared is a burden halved but a joy shared is a joy doubled.  I’ve seen and experienced the second half of that saying but in this last month I’ve really, truly experienced the first.

Overall, I’m an introvert who’s also rather shy and awkward in normal social interactions.  I try but I’m not always sure I’m “doing it right.”  I show my heart and give my full trust to only a few but will gladly be a true friend to anyone who honors me with that title.  I want to be able to help others, to be known as someone fully trustworthy, someone to whom it is safe to confide your hopes and hurts alike.  But I’m not used to the idea that someone else might want to do the same for me.

When things grew suddenly difficult at work, I spent two weeks trying to bear the burden alone.  “My friends and family have enough troubles of their own right now.  They don’t need me adding to them,” I thought.  And I struggled.  I dreaded leaving for work in the morning - wanted to call in sick several times though I was physically fine.  The stress ate at me and I did get sick(ish).  When I got home, I wanted nothing more than to curl up under the blankets and hide (it didn’t help that the weather was rather dull…).  But I didn’t tell anyone that I was struggling because I thought I was strong enough alone and didn’t want to be a bother.  And there was one person I wanted to tell before anyone else and we just couldn’t seem to find a way to get together for those first two weeks.  It was not a fun time.  At all.

And then the meeting I was hoping for happened.  I got to tell my mom what had been eating at me for a fortnight.  And just telling her felt like I’d dropped a heavy pack - her encouragement after was like massaging the kinks out of my shoulders.  Then I told another friend and my brother.  And I wrote how I’d been feeling down and shared it with y’all.

It was like the sun breaking through the clouds after a thunderstorm.

My burden, my struggle, didn’t weigh anyone else down when I told them.  In fact, a couple of folks said it gave them relief to know what was going on because they’d seen that something was off but didn’t know what.  And for my part, I felt lighter, freer, more relaxed.  The weight wasn’t gone, but it wasn’t pressing me into the ground any more.  I could breathe again.

As Christians, we’re told to “bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2) and also to “rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” (Rom 12:15).  Now I really can see why.

After my last post, I had a friend apologize for telling me about her problems with class and say that she wouldn’t have bothered me if she’d known what I was struggling with.  Maybe her problems seemed insignificant to her but I never want anyone to feel that way.  I’ve friends who are battling physical ailments and family problems and others who are trying to find the direction God wants their lives to go in but knowing their struggle doesn’t make mine worse.  Rather, it reminds me that I’m not the only one with difficulties to overcome.  It lets me focus on others rather than myself.

And it reminds me to go before the Throne of Grace.

“Casting all your cares upon Him for He cares for you,” we’re told in 1 Peter 5:7.  If sharing my burdens with other mortal beings who cannot actually change my circumstances makes me feel this much lighter, how much more when taking them before the King of kings who controls all things?  A not-distant King who walks among His people and will gladly bear us up if we will but ask.

Does this mean everything is smooth sailing?  That it’s all sunshine and roses?  No.  It does mean that I am never alone.  That my troubles are a passing thing compared to what will come.  Though the way may be rough and filled with turmoil, I have the truest of friends who will walk beside me into His glorious kingdom.  And that Friend has been generous enough to give me other friends and family who will lighten my burdens when I share them – and whose burdens I can help carry until the day when He takes them away for good.

“…In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33b)

Hope Unquenchable

As most of my friends know, my favorite character from literature is Samwise Gamgee of The Lord of the Rings fame.  His down-to-earth practicality, his unwavering loyalty, and his unfailing hope made him my favorite very swiftly.  I liked Sam’s lack of trust in strangers until they’d proven themselves – even among the Elves of whom he was in awe he did not immediately let down his guard. And then he killed Shelob too (my nightmare for years was being trapped in a cave with a giant spider in front of me – I never had that dream again after reading that passage in The Two Towers).  I saw myself in Sam.  Or perhaps, myself as I would like to be.

I recently came across a passage by Tolkien that said the name the Elves gave Sam meant “Hope Unquenchable” and that they called Frodo “Endurance Beyond Hope” for their efforts in destroying the One Ring.  That little snippet has been rather significant to me.  It’s two different kinds of strength – one to never lose hope no matter how dire the circumstances and the other to keep going even when hope is gone.  I have a friend to whom I would give the name “Endurance Beyond Hope.”  She’s much more pessimistic than I, tends to “see the glass” as half-empty, and doesn’t easily find the good in the world.  But you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  She keeps the Faith and keeps going.  And she is a lot of fun to be around.

That’s not me.  I’m “Hope Unquenchable” and I’ve only just begun to see what that means – and how hard it can actually be.  I’m having a really tough time at work right now.  A tough time that just exploded in my face and for which I was utterly unprepared.  I’m terrified in a way that I’ve never been before.  I’m used to the fear associated with going strange places and meeting new people.  As paralyzing as it is sometimes, it’s an anticipated reaction and I know how to deal with it.  Not so much right now.  I’m finding it really hard to smile, especially at work, which is a strange sensation for me.  When people at work ask the casual “How are you?” my response used to be “I am doing well” in an upbeat tone.  Now it’s “I’m ok” with the hint of a question or a sigh.  I don’t want to lie because I’m not doing well, but I couldn’t say that I’m terrified because my job that I enjoy is on the line.

And then I realized, I am ok.  Despite everything, I’m ok.  I’m not happy per se but that’s ok.  I feel like a deep river might when there is a storm crashing overhead.  The surface waters are rough and choppy, you can’t see a thing.  The river is a mess with debris clogging the waters and making it exceedingly treacherous.  It’s frightening and horrifying and it doesn’t seem like anything could be ok

But deep down near the riverbed, all is calm.  The current flows smoothly, steadily, heedless of the wrack and ruin above.  It’s pulling the mess along, dragging it further along the flow, dropping bits and pieces as it goes until the storm is past and even the surface flows clear again.

I’m in a big storm right now.  One that stirs the water at greater depths than I have felt them disturbed in a long time.  But the deepest parts still flow clear because my Hope is secure.  I’m worried and scared and more flustered emotionally than I really know how to deal with but that’s ok.  I’m ok.  I’m not despairing and still going on anyway because of my Savior.  Somehow, I find an undercurrent of hope – even hopefulness – instead because of my Savior.

I still don’t know what tomorrow holds.  I’m frightened of what it might.  I don’t want to leave my position here, especially under sour circumstances.  But even if that should happen, I’ll still be ok.  I will have hope that will not be quenched.

“I will lift my eyes in the darkest night for I know my Savior lives.  My Savior lives!”

--From the song “How Can I Keep from Singing Your Name?”