The Days Are As They Are

So many of these days are marked by crying. Not the I'm frustrated traffic was bad cry or the my students weren't cooperative today cry but, the real crying. The deep-deep-down- something -is -painful crying. The feeling that rests into your marrow.

I can go all day distracted and the moment I step inside the empty walls of my little west side apartment it sinks in, creeps up, and I find myself on my knees or curled up. Stuck on the stairs because I didn't make it through the door. These days I find myself staring, endlessly at the walls, thinking of nothing but that one thing. The one thing that keeps you up throughout the night and, once sleep finally comes, wakes you up again in the morning. Each thought followed by a whispered 'Jesus.' a desperate need for the one that will answer. The one that will draw near. The one that will end the way my body shakes and wash, like that breeze on saturday, over the anxious churning stomach and say to me beloved, what is your need. love of mine, i am your rock. 

It's true that there is no manual in this life of how to get over him, of how to walk diligently through that process of grief. There is no list that allows us to know our end goal and to skip steps to be good again. It's also true that God never promised that his blessing would always be the good kind. He says he promises provision and faithfulness but in the way that means, Shan, you have to walk through a valley now. The thing is, it's a valley he made and one that is just deep enough for me to reach for that hand and know His name. It's just wide enough that each step is exhausting and in need of a reliant strength. It's just long enough that when I make it to "the other side" I'll have a massive hill to climb, but my legs will be stronger, my heart will be purer, and my mind will be set on the one thing that is better for me.

It was a week ago, three days before I turned 22, I was sitting on my bed, in my new room, in my new apartment, feeling some kind of desperate I had convinced myself was also new. I opened up this blog and started reading. Reading words that told me I had been here before. I have felt desperate. I have felt needy. I have felt ill equipped and lost and confused and forsaken. I may have never felt the sort of sadness I do at this moment, but a year ago I mourned the loss of something so deeply, so viscerally, I was convinced that God didn't know me. I was sitting on my bed telling myself that this was the first time I ever truly lost a thing that mattered when I read my own words telling the world that we are not without need and that God designed us to need him. It's true. You and me. Woven together with a gaping, unmistakable need for the direction and nearness of our Creator.

I may have spent some of these tears seeking out the affirmation and encouragement of that person that left. I may have had a few nights whispering to the dark ' I miss you'  before falling asleep. But, it's been in the hundred other moments, the scary ones where you can't catch your breath, or you find yourself staring at a wall in the classroom, or the mundane 'I'm done thinking about this' moments, where I find him. Sitting in our furniture-less "Room of Requirement" forcing my hands open so that my palms face heaven and saying to him, I have nothing. Oh God, I have nothing. I have nothing to give you, but take this burden. Take my empty hands and fill me up. Be my song, my joy. I have nothing, Oh Jesus, I have nothing to give you but, say the word and raise these bones. I have nothing, yet I have you. Be my strength, my all in all. That is faithfulness, dear ones, your desperation, your need, your joy, your thankfulness, your praise, your broken heart, your goodness. It is faithfulness. Go to Him. Go to the thing that is better for you.

"In returning and in rest you shall be saved. In quietness and in trust shall be your strength."

Isaiah 30:15

You are not. We are not.

You are not without need, He says to me as I walk barefoot through the sand dunes. I'd done 14 miles without my shoes so far, why was I having so much trouble? You are not without need, He says as each blade of dune grass is sharper and sharper on my feet. You are not without need, He says as I stubbornly stop, refusing to take off my pack, but putting on my newly purchased hiking shoes.

I had done 14 miles in the dunes and in the woods, maintaining the rear counselor position so that the 15 6th graders doing the hike could have an encourager always at their rear. But, this wind was difficult and the shore line was non-existent. My feet needed a break from the frigid lake temperatures so I cut into the dune line the kids were following. For some reason the dune grass was bothering me. I had taken time at the last base camp removing splinters from my feet and had to walk carefully to avoid getting any more. Walking carefully was making me fall behind. Although I wasn't the last, there were a few kids behind me with our final counselor, I was definitely hiking slower than I wanted. It wasn't really a time that I was seeking the Lord. My mind was blank, really, just focusing on the hike and the wind and getting where we were going. I was holding my sandals and just pushing. I was going to not care about the dune grass. You are not without need. You are not without need. So, I put them on and finished the hike.

It wasn't until a week later when this sentiment, this one truth became important and now, a few weeks later, when it is a constant, rhythmic mantra coursing through my mind.

You are not without need. The helper. The hand to hold. The deep rooted surety that we are sons and daughters of the King. You are not without need. The comforter. The adventurer. The fulfilling peace of the Holy Spirit. You are not without need. The encourager. The reminder that we are all broken and all put back together. You are not without need. The challenger. The voice that tells you change is good because God is good. The whisper that puts you on the track to be all that God intended when he created you.

You are not without need. And you are not without promise. Take this moment to acknowledge your thirst and find Him; to understand your need for living water and find Him. Because this is His promise, "I will make you lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know [me]."

God does not say that He might do what is good. He never once says that he might get around to showing us the clear and perfect path. He never says that he'll let us wander and drown for a bit until he feels ready to force us in the right way. He says that he will. He will  be your safety, your righteousness, your faithfulness, your justice, your love. He will.

Will you be deeply needy and allow Him to be all that He promises he is? Will you submit in humility that God's will is so much better, so much sweeter, so much grander than the small ideas we could ever imagine for ourselves? If you have that want, find the need and let Him fill you up.

A Practice of Faith:

You thought you wanted them, the questions about your time in Uganda, but as they fly at you the panic makes your heart beat a little faster, you aren't sure. No matter how many times you've heard the most annoyingly general inquiry, "How was Africa?" you still don't have an answer. Debrief taught you to have a planned response, but each time you forget what you meant to say and have to decide again how you will, in one or two sentences, describe the experiences that left you sobbing uncontrollably on the dorm step, or the incredible laughter you had with a roommate that was so joyful it made your heart explode, or to explain how the challenges of what you thought would be your career destroyed your confidence and rattled your belief in God. So, you take a breath, look wide-eyed at the half-curious person and say, 'It was great!' or maybe if you really like them you spice up the adjective by saying, 'It was really great' and wait for their reactions. Do they inhale as if to ask you another question or do they nod, drop your gaze, and move on to the thing they actually wanted to discuss. You hope for the former. You hope you'll be able to tell them that it was the most challenging experience you've ever had but also the most life giving thing. You hope they will want to hear you talk about the days spent in the classrooms, or the dinner you made for all the roommates or the trips to the market with other girls from the program. You hope they want to know that God stripped you of everything you relied on so that when you came home you were left with nothing but a need for him. But, they don't. So you move on with them. You write it all down though because you want to remember. Quickly, heart-breakingly fast this grand adventure, this life-changing experience stops being the thing you are doing and becomes the thing you did. Every new day is just 24 hours separating you from the sun, the red dirt, and the brown skin. How do you handle the end of it?

I sat and journaled and cried because my people didn't ask and I found it hard to honor my time there without telling stories. I felt guilty each time I started with a 'when I was in Uganda...', but I remembered the whole Ugandan journey was about digging in. I realized that digging in is really a practice in faithfulness. We have a faithful God who was here in the pages of my journal among the pressed leaves and dried flowers, even in the smell my pages had adopted from four months in a foreign world. I began to understand that God is faithful so that we are faithful. I came home to no job, no school, no functioning car, and a heart that hadn't been ready to leave yet. I was unsure of God, unsure of my belief that He was tangible, existent. I instantly went from routine, homework, responsibility, and intense independence to nothing but reliance on my parents for transportation and endless hours of free time. God was carving out space for Him. He was telling me, 'That nothingness you feel? It's room for me" He was telling me, 'You can't find me if you don't seek me.' He said, 'You can't know me if you don't open your heart and your hands to my plans'. He said, 'You can't follow me unless you take a step' and I said, okay. 

At first, it was easier to live in that wildness, to thrive in the high of the nothingness and to avoid His gaze. He kept carving, stripping, and calling me to Him because he is Elohim. I can't tell you what has happened because words aren't enough, because it is deep and still unknown but He calls us to be obedient and I've often believed it's that JUMP of faith, the here is ALL OF ME, but really we don't know what that looks like. I'm only 21, I don't know what ALL OF ME is. I don't understand how things will go or end. So you take a step, you write down how you drank too much and kissed a boy and then you did it again. You write it down and realize that isn't the wildness you crave. You realize your life needs to reflect the faithfulness of your creator and to honor the work He put into designing your heart and its desires, and to whittling away the things that hinder His goodness. As five weeks without a car goes by and you've now spent most mornings finding peace in His presence you feel changed because God is good. And then one morning you are talking to the newest good thing in your life and decide to put away your phone because you want to be with Jesus. You walk into that space He made and God says, "Receive it. My Grace. My Love. My Truth as I pour them over you like water. Here is my Presence. My Peace. My Goodness as I see you taking my hand. Here, Receive my Calm. My affirmation that your fear has no place because I have won the battle and lead you to where I want you."

I guess I just want to share that 6 months ago I was giddy to leave for the trip of a lifetime. 4 months ago I experienced the refinement of God. I was stretched, broken, and built up. (Almost) 2 months ago I came home feeling empty, rebellious, and apathetic. Today, though, I am singing his praises. God is Faithful so that we can be faithful. He is all about holding hands, walking slowly. About putting down roots in a dwelling place and experiencing harvest. He asks us for trust, for the reaching out to touch his robe, the willingness to cross the lake into an unknown place, and the ability to follow and do as he did.

he is the faithful father so take a step. 

"Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength, my song, and has become my salvation"