I don’t keep a journal. I know wonderful people that have kept a journal since they were kids. But I have always been suspicious of journals. Maybe, I have just never felt worthy of all those blank pages. Maybe, I have always believed that my story is no different from everyone else’s. Maybe, I just lack trust. Growing up in an environment of parental over watch, I cannot abide people in my private thoughts. So, I have always been wary of journals.
But recently, I have pondered if sharing our experiences is how we get closer as family, as “neighbors.” I have thought about whether we all must be more courageous in discussing the hardships, the hurts, and the triumphs of our lives, so that we can encourage and love one another.
God calls us to two things: love Him and love each other. That is the message. One sentence. Two clauses. It’s the entire universe and the Gospel in two rules. And it is so nearly impossible that we are admonished to think about how to enact it, night and day. Frankly, I don’t presume to know how it works, and sometimes, in my darkest hours, I have doubts and fears about whether God really is who He says He is. Those times when I have clawed at the carpet in my room with tears streaming down my face, begging God for action, I have voiced doubts that I thought would rock the foundations of Heaven. But they didn’t. Instead, those doubts only led me closer to God. After those dark nights, dawn arrived. New hope. New blessings. Small miracles. Some much, so often, that I want to share some of these things.
Perhaps this need to share is a symptom of the narcissism of the Facebook age. Or, maybe it is just a mid-life crisis. But truth be told, I feel pressed. Pressed by watching the suffering of others. Pressed by helping people solve their worst problems as the way that I make my living. Pressed by the Holy Spirit to talk about God and love. Pressed to share how things are; maybe even, to share how things can be. I feel like we all need to start talking about better things.
Frankly, I don’t know where to begin. I have reached a place where my life is both a terrible success and a shambles. Nothing is as I expected it to be. Nothing has gone according to plan. And it is both a blessing and a curse. Yet, I have reached a point where life is becoming clearer.
So, what to say and where to begin? In my linear mind, there should be a beginning in this story, but I am not sure that the chronological beginning is where to start. Rather, now is the beginning. Yesterday and all my days before were prologue, an introduction. Perhaps today is the substance of the story. That is what the Gospel would say. The Kingdom of God is today. Either way, I guess I should get to the point.
In the last three years, I lost all my illusions about life. Like a rebel troop, the world crossed the moat and scaled the walls of my life, destroying every bulwark that I had constructed. Yet God used that destruction to heal me and change me, hopefully into more of what He wants me to be. In the losses that I have suffered, one thing is clear: God is real. God is more real than I thought or dreamed. He is more real than I understand. He is everything. And I will not, cannot, ever fathom His depths. He is all. I was getting it wrong. Daily. Even at my best, I fell (and fall) short. Yet, He loves me for it. That is utterly ridiculous. God is absurd in His whole-hearted, unabashed adoration. It is the most gratuitous thing I have ever tried to understand. It is impossible. It is real. God is more real than everything that I cherish. Like the Velveteen Rabbit who had all his fur rubbed off, the more used and loved he was, the more “real” he became. God can only be real to us, and we can only be real to ourselves through use.
So, let’s share how God is using us to make us more real. That would be a good start.
