Time is human mortality’s relationship to eternity.
I composed this philosophical statement as a response to a question posed in my parents’ home group last fall. Each person wrote a question on a piece of paper, slipped the paper into a stocking, and then, as a game, we all passed the stocking around in a circle, each person withdrawing a paper and answering whatever question was written thereon. I didn’t get the question “What is time?” My mom did. But I pondered it, internally working out the dimensions of this inexplicable phenomenon we accept a priori.
Several months ago I knew I would use that statement in a blog post. The question was merely, “When?” I’ve excitedly approached each entry by trying to squeeze it into my topic, only to realize, “The Time is simply not right.”
“Life Interrupted”
I hit a pretty rough patch the last several weeks. By Thursday afternoon the little Stoic soldiers inside me had rebuilt the Great Wall around my heart. I’ve watched others move forward in life, seeing dreams and desires fulfilled, while I seemingly took 10 steps sideways. Not backward, yet not forward. Comparing my own life, I saw an intelligent yet somehow incompetent individual who has failed, quite literally, every aspect of worldly life save education. I “can’t land a man,” have a smelly dog, don’t get fashion, don’t socialize enough, can’t keep my house clean enough, can’t keep up on yardwork, can’t give my grandparents the care they need, can’t buy my brother’s family a car, can’t solve the problems in the Middle East. Heck, I don’t even own a couch or coffee table. Many would even say I’ve failed education by virtue of not “using my degree” or “becoming the first Dr. in the family.” (Whatever that means! Apparently being a Literature and History major consigns me to correcting papers or staying in school for eternity?) I had a teacher who, astute and effective as a mentor, lined up a perfect life for me: I would complete my studies at LBCC, then go to OSU for a Literature BA, get into the OSU MFA program with an emphasis on Fiction, and then go to Oxford for a PhD where they would pay me to teach while I studied. This would afford me the ability to gallivant around Europe as part of my studies.
A beautiful plan! And, for a while, I pursued it. So many things stood in my way – some imposed externally, some self-inflicted. In the end, I made purposeful decisions that I do not regret, but that shaped my entire future. I believe that the Oxford Goal could have happened. As I pursued academia, I realized I had the acuity to accomplish anything I set my sights on. But I also had nieces and a nephew who I love dearly. And grandparents whose ages steadily creep toward Time’s eternal cradle. And, and, and, and… Dreams dissipated, evolved, mocked.
My 20s were a series of interruptions. Priscilla Shirer coined the term "Life Interrupted," signifying the 'interruptions' that alter the course of our lives. I’m the farthest from any personal dream or desire that I’ve ever been. I’ve said it before, and it still rings true: I’m internally exhausted. I carry this constant stress. How can I make sure my life isn’t meaningless and empty? I lie awake sometimes, deeply burdened by the idea that I’m not only not living my dreams (thus living a philosophically meaningless life), but realistically I’m also probably not living for God’s glory a majority of the time (thus living an unequivocally shallow spiritual life).
By Thursday my heart had grown belligerently cold to both the world’s and God’s embraces. A multitude of shouts intermingled, drowning the calming whispers in my soul. I watched the walls of self-isolation enclose me – felt the asthmatic grip of hopelessness clinch my heart and lungs. All I could see were the impossibilities. All I heard were the voices, some literal and some imaginary, telling me what would never happen if I waited much longer, unless perhaps I did such and such or whatever various contingencies and ‘facts’ the speaker observed as wrong about my life. (It’s amazing how many people think they can solve another person’s life.) Let me assure you, if you haven’t yet discovered this yourself: in the multitude of advisors, much confusion abounds! Or as Solomon would say, “In the multitude of words sin is not lacking, but he who restrains his lips is wise. The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the heart of the wicked is worth little. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of wisdom.” (Proverbs 10:19-21)
My ‘Second’ Chance
God has placed someone in my life who has already impacted me in many subtle yet dynamic ways. This person pursued inviting me to a women’s simulcast taking place Friday night and Saturday morning. Keep in mind, by Thursday I was willfully and belligerently closed off, overwhelmed, and frustrated. But I had that kick in my stomach – that “thing” telling me the conference was where I needed to be. I tried to run, dodge the bullet, ignore the gut…to no avail.
Her persistence should get her a jewel in her heavenly crown. I decided that attending a church function for a couple hours on Friday night couldn’t possibly kill me, and the worst that would happen is God would just ignore me like He was already doing anyway, and I’d leave with nothing just as I’d come. The conference opened with worship, and I spent most of the time singing (to my pew-mates’ dismay, no doubt) and wishing I’d grabbed some Dutch Brothers before going to a 2 ½ hour church event. Then the speaker announced that our first session would be started with individual time with God while the band played softly. That was the worst thing I could imagine! One of two results was bound to occur: either I’d fall asleep while praying (yes, I’ve fallen asleep in church and school…a few times), or I’d – heaven forbid – make a blubbering fool of myself.
I blubbered.
I managed to blubber silently, but snot is unpleasant whether loudly or quietly evacuated from one’s orifices. I didn’t spend a lot of the time listening to God (thankfully, He’s accustomed to my nonstop chatter and has extended much patience to my personage), instead choosing to throw out words describing how I felt, including: forsaken, forgotten, unloved, uncherished, alone.
Priscilla Shirer is either a wizard, or her Biblical teachings were designed for me, which I guess makes her a prophet, something like a wizard without the ugly beard and hat yet with a big verbal stick to knock sense into listeners. I do not exaggerate in saying that she used a large majority of the exact language I had just prayed. Her message centered on exactly the struggle in which I wallowed. At one point, she shouted: “You are not forsaken! You are not forgotten!” Was she looking right at me??
The entire weekend seemed designed just for my needs. The encouragements and exhortations abound in my mind still. “Are you hemmed in by the Word of God? Even if you haven’t run externally, have you run internally? If God brought us to a place, He must have a plan for getting us through. He is setting us up to experience Him in a way we could not otherwise experience Him. Is what we are facing a Needless Interruption or a Divine Intervention?”
“When As Yet There Were None Of Them”
There’s a song I wish I could attach here, but I’m not “computer geek” enough to work it out. Go on Youtube and search Amy Grant “Overnight.” It’s this weekend’s theme, and trimmed into the key points, goes like this:
“So you’ve handed in your resignation, contemplating why nothing turns out right. A little fed up with all the disappointment, so what’s the point in wasting any time. // [chorus] If it all just happened overnight, you wouldn’t know how much it means. If it all just happened overnight, you would never learn to believe what you cannot see. // I feel like my pace is at a standstill. Do I wait ‘till it falls into my hands? // There’s something to be said for experience. Who knows what’s ahead? Keep on going, take it a day at a time. One foot in front of the other.”
I realized this weekend that somehow in the last few months I shifted my gaze from my Creator to my created. I have unbudgingly focused on my failed plans, on my inability to control my life; I’ve obsessed over what plans to create, then how to fulfill them, in order to enjoy my life. With the visibility of a bat whose sonar is broken on a foggy night in the midst of the toolies (a word my dad used all the time with I was a kid, a.k.a. “boonies”), I have ripped the reins out of my Master’s hands and dashed madly across deserts and mountains and valleys. I unhemmed myself from His Word, opting for the empty and blind wanderings in a wilderness of my own creating. From my Creator…to my created.
Psalm 139:13-18 reads:
For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You.”
If “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” (Hebrews 11:1) and if God went to all the work of forming me precisely, and if He fashioned my days before I even existed, then who am I to present my own plan to Him and then grow petulant when He doesn’t obey. Would it not be better to trust that the One Who sees the entire breadth and depth of my frail, fleeting human existence has a reliable conjecture regarding the daily, monthly, yearly details of my life?
O Lord, Make Me Vulnerable
This prayer began my public journey, and its spectre continues to haunt my feeble soul. But forward He progresses me still – at times my feet trudging, bloodied and bruised, and in other seasons running. I knew that vulnerability to God would be hard enough, and vulnerability to others is wickedly tortuous at times. Thankfully, Grace blossoms in my heart. My name’s meaning has always intrigued me: “God is gracious.” I’m not sure who concocts name meanings, but when I was little my mom would buy me bookmarks, often with my name and its meaning. Grace. “Unmerited divine assistance given humans for their regeneration or sanctification” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grace).
May His unmerited favor and mercy consume your life’s pains, frustrations, interruptions. May your created succumb to your Creator. May Grace heal the chasm between your human mortality and His eternity. One foot in front of the other….
