Thirty-Two

Today I turn thirty-two. Thirty-two years hold a lot of memories, some good, some bad; some incredibly hard and sad. The years hold memories full of laugh-until-you-cry hilarity, of wonder that humbles and hushes one. Some memories are rich with tender sweetness, with glory unspeakable and beauty that can only be felt deep inside.

I marvel at the pressed-down, shaken-together, overflowing gifts I have been given in thirty-two years. They come in a variety of persons and a myriad of heart shapes. They come in funny little packages, wriggling and red all over, crying their first cry. They come in meals and conversations around tables of all sorts and sizes; on dorm-room floors and grassy bowls, under stars and up rocky paths. They come in sacred moments of stillness, in loud hullos and hugs in airports, and in all the vows I've heard spoken before God's altar. They come in overwhelming swells of music that raise one's heart to God, and in unexpected finances taking one across the Ocean. I have been given the gift of two ears and a lot of time to listen to story after story, sigh after sigh, laugh upon laugh, and so many words of truth and encouragement.

To enumerate the gifts, sheer gifts, I have been given would take many trees and all the books they would make. If I look at just one of my family members or friends, I could write pages about all that we have shared, experienced, or thought through together. Each person God has put in my life is a story of their own, and I love that our stories intertwine—even when some of our together-story has had rough parts. God has used even those sharp, painful, unkind things to shape me—and often a repaired relationship is even stronger because we had to work together (under God) to bring about that healing and repair.

Thirty-two has dawned bright with Colorado blue skies. It has dawned with hope—hope that whatever steps God has for me to take this year, they will bring me closer to Him. Whether I stay right where I am and seek to change, or whether the road takes me on a new adventure, change inside is necessary. Ever since my dad had cancer and other unexpected, devastating things have happened in our family, I have been different. But it hasn't been a good different. I have, in fact, been indifferent. Unconcerned. Uncaring. As if all of my joy got eaten up by a different kind of cancer and betrayal.

For a year or two I had friends tell me I was different, not myself, etc. I felt it—felt like I had turned into someone else, someone I didn't like. Someone who didn't have time or energy to be filled with joy, to simply revel in each day. I miss being that person. I miss being full of vivacity. In the process of recovery, I got sidetracked by a couple of relationships that inhibited my healing. I have prolonged my indifference. Because of that, I told a friend the other day how excited I was to turn thirty-two and put the past three or four years behind me. He didn't ask me why, he instead asked me what I loved about the last year. I began jotting down a short list of highlights, which burgeoned into a hefty paragraph or two. Thirty-one was filled with wonderful people, new experiences (cross-country skiing, for one), beautiful views, the weddings of my very best friends, a lot of prayer, growth inside and professionally, lessons learned at great expense, and some really honest moments.

One of those honest times birthed some some healing that is ongoing. It opened my eyes to a truth I didn't know was true about myself—I feel like everyone thinks I am inadequate because I think I'm inadequate. I spent a lot of thirty-one focussing on myself and my needs, because I've been in recovery mode. I still am, but recovery mode doesn't mean focussing on myself. Healing doesn't come from myself. It comes from God. I want to know God and pursue Him single-heartedly, single-mindedly. I have felt warped and drained by passive aggressive people and by work many times in the last year—my mind divided and scattered. I have felt crushed by the mound of paid and unpaid work I had on my plate. I even felt exhausted by my dear friends, when it seemed like every evening was full and I had nothing left to give. My thoughts have been flighty and undisciplined. I have been living without purposefully sought, well-invested margin for far too long. I have been unstructured in my down time because I think I deserve a break.

Freedom doesn't mean a lack of structure or boundaries, however. Freedom means utilising the boundaries I have been given to become more fully who I am. I am created in God's image. How can I be fully myself, or myself well, if I don't know God well? Not knowing more about Him by reading books, per se, but knowing HIM, like I know my family's inside jokes and habits and moods... I want to know God like that, and so much more than that. Socrates said, "Know thyself," and he was right, it is important that we know ourselves. But we cannot possibly know ourselves if we don't know the One whom we image. We image. To say that make the noun a verb. We image. By being, existing, we image God. And yet we image Him even more clearly in certain ways—caring unselfishly, loving what is good, true, and beautiful—and sharing it with others in a variety of ways; by being single-minded, by being truthful and kind.

Thirty-one wasn't horrible. In fact, it wrapped up more perfectly than I could have asked. The week began with dancing, I got to host a couple of dinners with friends, there was a helpful breakfast conversation with my supervisor and co-worker, I caught up all my looming projects, editing is full-but-doable, and I spent last evening in earnest thought and conversation with a friend whose zeal for the Lord and for life breathed fresh insight and life into me. And much tea was drunk yesterday. So. Much. Tea! And all manner of things are well...

And all manner of things shall be made well. Thirty-two is just a number. But I hope and pray it is a number that reminds me of the year in which I became single-minded. The year I began to know God more deeply than I could have dared to ask or dream...and that I get to live the dream.

Remember...

Sometimes special dates slip by, unnoticed in the hustle of other things. Today, even though my family and I spent an enjoyable, full day at the Creation Museum, I knew underneath that what day it was. Today is my grandmother's birthday... The first one we have had without her. She would have been ninety-five if she had not passed away in March. I think it was a hard day for my dad, but he didn't say anything about it; just patiently drove us to and from the museum, treating us to dinner on the way home.

Sometimes I think folks forget that Christmas isn't all joy, peace, and cheer. For many persons, Christmas is a lonely time of year, an angry season, an unmet expectation, or a painful time. We feel more keenly the loss of loved ones, the inability to afford gifts, or the bitterness of disappointed hopes.  

This Christmas in the Midwest feels more like Spring than Winter—with foggy mists, rainy nights, and bearable temperatures. It feels more like a long visit with my family than a holiday. It feels like anything but Christmas. There are a myriad of reasons for this, one of which is the loss of my grandmother. I sat in, or near, her pew by myself on Christmas Eve, holding back tears. Not only was my grandmother's place empty, but my Dad decided not to attend with me this year. I'm glad he didn't, because life has been hard enough for him the last two or three years—he didn't need to be sad on Christmas Eve, too. 

So, I inhaled sorrow co-mingled with the joyous annunciation to the shepherds that a Saviour was born unto them—those rough, smelly, unnoticed men. To them, the ones who lived on the fringes, beneath the lower class, out of the minds of nearly everyone—outcasts. Yet, not cast out by God. He remembered the lowly and forgotten shepherds. He remembers still those on the fringes of society, the edges of church sanctuaries, and the ones separated from everyone else by grief, loneliness, and heartbreak. God remembers. He gently nudges those of us who feel like outcasts, reminding us that all those years ago, the Timeless One stepped into time to be the Saviour of the world. And that is what He is, still. In the midst of the pain and disappointment that separates us from feeling like it's Christmas, God is with us—Emmanuel. 

This Christmas feels more like Spring than Winter—perhaps this is God's physical reminder to us that new life is stirring under the mud and dirt. We must remember that the grave is not the end. Even things that seem dead and buried might be raised to new and beautiful life, like Spring flowers. Perhaps I am naïve, or put too much faith in impressions, but the winds of change seem to be blowing away the ashes of this last year to the four corners of the earth. In the soil of hearts and relationships, the life of the Spirit of God is breathing. He is stirring up the earth 'round the roots of the good seed and bulbs of Truth—life is wriggling beneath the surface of the new year.

New years themselves are the edges of one season blending into another, of one year gracefully giving way to the next in the Great Dance. Sometimes the sadness in our lives slowly fades into joy, without us knowing the moment of transition. And sometimes new life is breathed into dead hearts and relationships. As G. K. Chesterton explains:

"...boundaries are the most beautiful things in the world. To love anything is to love its boundaries; thus children will always play on the edge of anything. They build castles on the edge of the sea, and can only be restrained by public proclamation and private violence from walking on the edge of the grass. For when we have come to the end of a thing we have come to the beginning of it."

Said another way: fringes and edges are where change is occurring. New beginnings are at the boundaries of old endings. The shepherds on Bethlehem's hillside were on the cusp of a new life, of seeing the world turned upside down. Surely they remembered the night that angels rent the heavens with the news of a Saviour in those silent, dark days. So, too, at Christmas we remember the hard, the dark nights, and the loss—but those horizon line is drawing near and we are coming to the first word in the first chapter of a new beginning. Let us remember, and look forward with eager expectation to what Jesus has set before us.