Month: October 2014

The God of our Lonely Journey is Silent…

I am reading Abba’s Child by Brennan Manning, and it is hitting, carving, digging, and pulling out things in me that I was entirely unaware needed to be dealt with. There are nights that I can only read a couple of paragraphs, and then must put it down because the emotions are just too much and I need space to process… Sometimes giving myself a week or more before I drag myself back to this amazing book that plants me in emotions every time I read it.

Tonight is a night where one of the 10+ pages of quotes I have pulled out have just sat and resonated with me… I found myself overcome with the need to share.

Here are two of the latest quotes that I cannot shake:

“How does the life-giving Spirit of the risen Lord manifest Himself on days like that? (he described a bad day from beginning to end that he had experienced) In our willingness to stand fast, our refusal to run away and escape into self-destructive behavior. Resurrection power enables us to engage in the savage confrontation with untamed emotions, to accept the pain, receive it, take it on board, however acute it may be. And in the process we discover that we are not alone, that we can stand fast in the awareness of present risenness and so become fuller, deeper, richer disciples. We know ourselves to be more than we previously imagined. In the process we not only endure but are forced to expand the boundaries of who we think we really are.”

And secondly, I have spent months like this, finally I have words..:

“When tragedy makes its unwelcome appearance and we are deaf to everything but the shriek of our own agony, when courage flies out the window and the world seems to be a hostile, menacing place, it is the hour of our own Gethsemane. No word, however sincere, offers any comfort or consolation. The night is bad. Our minds are numb, our hearts vacant, our nerves shattered. How will we make it through the night? The God of our lonely journey is silent….

We are able, as Etty Hillesun, the Dutch Jewess who died in Auschwitz on November 30, 1943, wrote, ‘to safeguard that little piece of God in ourselves’ and not give way to despair. We make it through the night and darkness gives way to the light of morning. The tragedy radically alters the direction of our lives, but in our vulnerability and defenselessness we experience the power of Jesus in His present risenness.”

– Abba’s Child, Brennan Manning, (pp. 105-106).
(emphasis added by me)

Slowly, I feel as though I am healing. I have begun to ask for it, which I’m not entirely sure I have ever done before. And, not even healing from the last couple of years, but across the board. Insecurities created in me as a small child have come up and begun to be dealt with, healed, and restored. Issues I have struggled with my entire life have begun to be looked in the face and replaced with Truth.

It is quite the emotionally exhausting task to sift through your heart’s pain and allow yourself to feel each emotion, identifying why and where it came from, then slowly… ever so slowly, opening my hand and allowing God to examine and talk it over with me.

To say that I am tired and worn out trying to work through these things with God is laughable. I would love so much to just be done, to drop them and move on.. But, I do not see that happening overnight. Everything is a process, and so this too must also be one I guess.

But, I finally feel as though my faith is being led by hope.

So, I leave you with yet another quote from the book:

“‘The mystery is Christ among you, your hope of glory’ (Colossians 1: 27). Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted.”

 

The Single’s FOMO…

I was talking with a couple other girls not long ago, and we were discussing the difficulty in being single in Christian circles…

In many instances, and in many churches, getting married quickly becomes the goal or at least the thing that girls (and guys I suppose) should aim towards. Getting married young is common, and in some cases being married is seen as automatically having more maturity than single counterparts.

Quick side note before I plunge deeper into this thought; I am still firmly in the I think it would be great to find someone one day, but this post is not at all a reflection of feeling lonely or jealous of my married friends.

I know from personal experience, it is pretty frustrating to have someone who got married much younger than I am currently, try to offer encouragement in the form of “just be patient”. And, not so much because what they are saying is not true, but because they have not experienced the additional years of patience, and it can feel like they are entirely missing the feelings of desiring to find someone and being unable.

However, while we were talking the other night, we stumbled upon what I believe is the real (ok, maybe just a huge portion of the) struggle for girls (and maybe guys) as they get older and find themselves still single: The fear of missing out (fomo).

“What if I don’t get married until my mid-thirties and miss so many of the things my friends are getting to do now?”
“What if I am too old to have kids when I get married?”
“… I don’t want to miss the possible ten or more years that we could’ve spent together!”

It can definitely be hard at times to watch so many people get married young and have amazing love stories, being so happy and thankful for the person God has brought into their life… While you are still single, and in some cases single for many more years to come. Watching others have these experiences of building lives together, someone to adventure with, someone to support and encourage, families, children.. and of course someone to help you through difficult times… all while being told to be patient just feels like an insult at times. There is a very real fear of missing out on years of love, laughter, and support…

“IF I end up getting married, will I regret the years we didn’t have together?”
“IF I get married, will we be young enough to also have years and energy to enjoy each other’s company?”
“IF I do get married, will we be young enough to have the number of children I’ve always wanted?”

But, the fear goes deeper than just fear of missing out on being a 20-something with a spouse.. What if, by the time you do end up getting married, you still regret and mourn the lost years that you were single?

I do not know of many pastors or churches that even touch on these fears.

But, the reality is, both faith and hope in not just who God is, but how much He loves us, and how much our singleness (for however long we have it) bring Him glory.

I am by nature a more adventurous person, I enjoy seeing what could happen, traveling to far away places, or just sitting and talking with friends laughing until way too late into the night. And while one day, I would love to find a man, fall in love, and get married, that time is not now, and I do not regret my life so far. There have certainly been difficult seasons, and they would have been easier for sure with a partner, at the same time, I realize there are elements of things that I likely would not have learned… and would not be able to use to help someone else later.

So, in my experience, if you have a “young but older young single” person in your life, be gentle and wise in the way you encourage. For the love, do not quote Jeremiah 29:11 to them, instead take time to wade through the complicated maze that is their heart. Understand where the fears come from, and instead of offering trite quick bits of advice, take the time to share their journey with them… I have discovered that my struggle to traverse my singleness (alone) is much more satisfying when I feel like my situation is understood by someone else, I feel less alone when I am not given a quick “you just need to..” and instead, my heartaches, thoughts, fears, wondering, and desires are listened to and responded to with wisdom and insight.

Being single and fearing the potential loss of years of building a life together are real, but put in the right perspective that our God is a good God, He tenderly loves us, and looking back we will have the satisfaction that even Job experienced at the end of his (much more traumatic) journey.