how does one summarize the events of a year? in retrospect, I was countless different people from January to January. Like the repetition of the months, both the same and very different. One identity caught in two places of time.
Hurting, scared, broken and determined. resilient, refined, humbled, arrogant. knowing everything and knowing nothing, mindful of my smallness and big headed about my growth. distracted, focused, late and always on time, indecisive yet determined, clear headed and a tangled mess. Responsible and reckless, employed and jobless, a heart of stone worn on my sleeve, heavy and light at the same time. I’m not sure how all that could be, other than that the only thing I can say with certainty is that I am a walking set of contradictions, wrapped in skin and descriptive words.
In no way do I intend dishonesty, no. I am just learning that it’s easy to define everything around us as concrete, while even as we finish perfecting our perception, that the very nature of it all changes again.
This year was difficult, and delightful. The most painful and the most promising. It made the least bit of sense, yet resounds with significance. My only answer? God.
I was all of these things and then some, but God. I was a mess, broken and confused, but God. I was lost and alone, but God. God bound up my broken heart, even as I cried out in the isolation of losing “everything” (which was really nothing in comparison to what I was about to gain), God put me in a place of community, surrounding me with friends who pray and understand and look into the truest part of who I am and say they love me still. God surrounds me with light, knowing full well how terrified I am of the dark, of the chaos, of the shorter days and the longer nights. God is patient, even as I chase old places, God is faithful, when I’m reeling in the aftermath of my choices. God is there, even when my desires die, fading with their impermanence. And yet, their impermanence only points me more towards His permanence, His forever, like black on white. The more of lesser things that die, the more room there is to see Him.
It’s so easy to be disappointed. Disappointed by things — people— I put my hope in, only to realize that perhaps their impermanence is only there to point me further to His permanence. To remind me that, yes, once again I’ve put my hope in something — someone (myself) — that isn’t God. Their failures, my failures, only attest more to his inability to fail, His goodness, His stability, in His hands - my hope is never lost.
Maybe loss is the only thing that points our gaze upwards, like the Cathedrals of old. Built so tall and so grand and so intricate to draw our gazes heavenward, along with our praise. Maybe we can do away with the grandeur and be reminded of the floor, maybe the only thing that commands our gaze heavenward is the utter loss that raises her weary head hopeful, lamenting. Maybe our God is just one of miracles - taking the gruesome to show us His grandeur.
I am still all these things and more, but, my dear friend, but then again, my God is timeless, and 2015 will be yet another marker of His goodness.
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