The Battle for Hope & the Dawn of Peace
Funny how a thought, a story, a picture can flit about your mind and try as you might you can't grasp it into form. Though you struggle and struggle and struggle it remains elusive until someone says something and suddenly it births in your mind and you know exactly what you have been struggling to say.
In a rush and a flurry I found myself talking with my good friend about our hearts and our struggles and in the midst of it she said, "Have you written that down?" Of course I had not because it was the elusive thing I couldn't quite grasp, but it has been my saving grace these last few months and so I share it with you.
They say that our mind is a far more powerful organ than we realize it can bring on symptoms that we never had, like morning sickness when a woman isn't pregnant but fears she is etc... For me I often battle this feeling of loneliness...almost a despair that this is it, there is no more. A taste of hopelessness that I run from and dread, even though my life is filled with great joy. Yet in the wilderness seasons of life this is the battleground, the forging fortress of faith. Truly truth is the only way to fight lies and scripture is truth so there is no better way to fight the lies the mind likes to believe.
This August the door really closed on the chapter of my first true love even though we had been broken up for a year and a half. Around my birthday he started dating someone new and my heart finally started to believe what my mind had been telling it for quite some time...that I needed to let go and move on. At the time I was meditating on Psalm 27 and it became a bedrock for my thoughts to cling to when my mind started traveling down its dark roads.
" What, what would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
I am not a patient person, I wish I was but it does not come to me naturally. The week of Thanksgiving marked two years for my broken hopes along with news that the man who had led me on for so many years had quickly decided to marry his new love of 4 months. Unfortunately, fairly naturally, my ugly side came out and there were moments of sailor cursing, tears, anger, verbal vomitting on family members and emotional heart stare downs with God (He of course won...not a fair match). As well as strong desires to hook up with anyone I could meet to just be able to forget the emotional pain. God just knows me so well he only provided cows for me so there was no random hooking up, just lots of family having to put up with my voracious tongue and lots of prayers that God would save me from myself....mostly from my mom. Poor mom.
Luckily, a midnight moonlit drive across the rolling plains creates a great atmosphere for heart to hearts with God and slowly He began to show me bits of myself. The verse came to mind over and over and began to anchor itself into my soul against my raging emotions. Slowly the questions came to me " Do You trust that you will see My goodness Crystal?"
"Yes." I muttered at the sky. " I will see your goodness." but my heart said -'and it will look like mundane mediocrity.'
"What is my goodness, Crystal?"
"Well it is obviously not, marriage, love, or romance now it is God?" I sarcastically told the stars.
"Do you believe you will see my goodness Crystal?" and He finally got through my rebellious anger and I started thinking. 'If this is true, God's word, that I will see God's goodness then what would it look like? Not that it looks like it now, but what would really good goodness look like?' I started thinking of marriage and family with its ups and downs good and ugliness and it made me smile and the thought came "and if you don't get married life will be that good and better too."
But again the ugliness came and I snorted at the on coming headlights "Yeah, it will be amazing when I die. I just gotta hold out."
"In the land of the living, in the land of the living, in the land of the living..." who knows how many times that aspect of the verse hammered at my thick skull through on coming headlights before it finally sunk in that this world, at the time this psalm was written, would have been considered the land of the living. In this world, in this life I will see the Lord's goodness.
"But Lord that thought scares me because what if I don't, what if you disappoint me. It scares me to think what really good goodness could look like." I whispered this to to the sparkling snow in the ditches. Its true this is the state of my heart the area where I lack faith more than any other area of my life. What if I let myself dream big and God doesn't show up. "Lord, forgive me and help me to trust your goodness." My mind started reviewing my current life and suddenly I was struck by how blessed I am. How much I love my life, job, family and community. Truly God has and is blessing me more than I could ever hope and imagine and it is good and I wouldn't change anything. Truly I am blessed as a single woman and as cared for as any married woman I know.
Then the first part of the verse hit me like a warning that I had never thought of "What would have become of me had I not believed I would see the Lord's goodness..." I thought of a few of my friends who got lost in despair, fear, bitterness and hopelessness and my heart caught in me telling me I must cling to this truth that I will see the Lord's goodness in this life in one way or another....that I do see His goodness everyday. I must not lose hope or fear or focus on what I don't have, but instead focus on what I do have. Like Puddleglum in Chronicles of Narnia when the Witch is trying to put them under a spell by having them stare at her fire, to serve her forever under ground, by making them believe the sun and world and life above is all a lie. And Puddleglum says:
“One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
In a rush and a flurry I found myself talking with my good friend about our hearts and our struggles and in the midst of it she said, "Have you written that down?" Of course I had not because it was the elusive thing I couldn't quite grasp, but it has been my saving grace these last few months and so I share it with you.
They say that our mind is a far more powerful organ than we realize it can bring on symptoms that we never had, like morning sickness when a woman isn't pregnant but fears she is etc... For me I often battle this feeling of loneliness...almost a despair that this is it, there is no more. A taste of hopelessness that I run from and dread, even though my life is filled with great joy. Yet in the wilderness seasons of life this is the battleground, the forging fortress of faith. Truly truth is the only way to fight lies and scripture is truth so there is no better way to fight the lies the mind likes to believe.
This August the door really closed on the chapter of my first true love even though we had been broken up for a year and a half. Around my birthday he started dating someone new and my heart finally started to believe what my mind had been telling it for quite some time...that I needed to let go and move on. At the time I was meditating on Psalm 27 and it became a bedrock for my thoughts to cling to when my mind started traveling down its dark roads.
" What, what would have become of me had I not believed that I would see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord."
I am not a patient person, I wish I was but it does not come to me naturally. The week of Thanksgiving marked two years for my broken hopes along with news that the man who had led me on for so many years had quickly decided to marry his new love of 4 months. Unfortunately, fairly naturally, my ugly side came out and there were moments of sailor cursing, tears, anger, verbal vomitting on family members and emotional heart stare downs with God (He of course won...not a fair match). As well as strong desires to hook up with anyone I could meet to just be able to forget the emotional pain. God just knows me so well he only provided cows for me so there was no random hooking up, just lots of family having to put up with my voracious tongue and lots of prayers that God would save me from myself....mostly from my mom. Poor mom.
Luckily, a midnight moonlit drive across the rolling plains creates a great atmosphere for heart to hearts with God and slowly He began to show me bits of myself. The verse came to mind over and over and began to anchor itself into my soul against my raging emotions. Slowly the questions came to me " Do You trust that you will see My goodness Crystal?"
"Yes." I muttered at the sky. " I will see your goodness." but my heart said -'and it will look like mundane mediocrity.'
"What is my goodness, Crystal?"
"Well it is obviously not, marriage, love, or romance now it is God?" I sarcastically told the stars.
"Do you believe you will see my goodness Crystal?" and He finally got through my rebellious anger and I started thinking. 'If this is true, God's word, that I will see God's goodness then what would it look like? Not that it looks like it now, but what would really good goodness look like?' I started thinking of marriage and family with its ups and downs good and ugliness and it made me smile and the thought came "and if you don't get married life will be that good and better too."
But again the ugliness came and I snorted at the on coming headlights "Yeah, it will be amazing when I die. I just gotta hold out."
"In the land of the living, in the land of the living, in the land of the living..." who knows how many times that aspect of the verse hammered at my thick skull through on coming headlights before it finally sunk in that this world, at the time this psalm was written, would have been considered the land of the living. In this world, in this life I will see the Lord's goodness.
"But Lord that thought scares me because what if I don't, what if you disappoint me. It scares me to think what really good goodness could look like." I whispered this to to the sparkling snow in the ditches. Its true this is the state of my heart the area where I lack faith more than any other area of my life. What if I let myself dream big and God doesn't show up. "Lord, forgive me and help me to trust your goodness." My mind started reviewing my current life and suddenly I was struck by how blessed I am. How much I love my life, job, family and community. Truly God has and is blessing me more than I could ever hope and imagine and it is good and I wouldn't change anything. Truly I am blessed as a single woman and as cared for as any married woman I know.
Then the first part of the verse hit me like a warning that I had never thought of "What would have become of me had I not believed I would see the Lord's goodness..." I thought of a few of my friends who got lost in despair, fear, bitterness and hopelessness and my heart caught in me telling me I must cling to this truth that I will see the Lord's goodness in this life in one way or another....that I do see His goodness everyday. I must not lose hope or fear or focus on what I don't have, but instead focus on what I do have. Like Puddleglum in Chronicles of Narnia when the Witch is trying to put them under a spell by having them stare at her fire, to serve her forever under ground, by making them believe the sun and world and life above is all a lie. And Puddleglum says:
“One word, Ma'am," he said, coming back from the fire; limping, because of the pain. "One word. All you've been saying is quite right, I shouldn't wonder. I'm a chap who always liked to know the worst and then put the best face I can on it. So I won't deny any of what you said. But there's one more thing to be said, even so. Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things-trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones. Suppose this black pit of a kingdom of yours is the only world. Well, it strikes me as a pretty poor one. And that's a funny thing, when you come to think of it. We're just babies making up a game, if you're right. But four babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow. That's why I'm going to stand by the play world. I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it. I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia. So, thanking you kindly for our supper, if these two gentlemen and the young lady are ready, we're leaving your court at once and setting out in the dark to spend our lives looking for Overland. Not that our lives will be very long, I should think; but that's a small loss if the world's as dull a place as you say.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
What ...what would have become of me if God had not set around me hope... now Peace fills my soul and Joy like a sparking fire is burning low soon to jump to and fro. I saw their pictures a few days ago and for the first time I felt nothing...like I was seeing two people I didn't know, but had a vague hope for. A hope for joy and happiness for them even a hope for them to have a beautiful wedding. When i saw their photos pain did not wrench my gut. Agony did not tear out my heart. There was nothing... just joy for them and happiness that was not me.... I think it was a miracle.
I guess break ups are a weird thing. They come and go and ebb and flo they flit around your mind and pop up at random inopportune times. They spit you out and when the time comes that you realize you are still walking, still laughing, still healing they don't make sense; but you are glad you are out of spin cycle. Usually it takes a conversation with a friend for you to realize that you are happy again, with light twinkling in your eyes and Joy to help you see all that you have.
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