So I had a major triumph last week–one I hope to share with you soon. Because it was AWESOME. I talked with friends on the phone out in the sunshine, skipping a little. It’s kind of one of those Who am I, and what is my family? moments, I told them–because that’s what David said when he was over the moon with God’s kindness (2 Samuel 7:18). It was good news I’d been working toward for about 14 years.
And after about two years searching and clawing for joy and purpose, it felt goooooood.
Then, about 24 hours later, I hit one of the lowest moments in my parenting I’d experienced. Wednesday night was spent weeping, and I think we could be dealing with this for a long time.
I’m confused. I’m actually a little bit angry (If I were reading my own blog, I’d say anger was a dashboard light, right?). I was frustrated to have such a short time of triumph, and for it all to give way so quickly to loss and fear.
A Meeting in the Middle
As I thought about this, I valued the words of essayist Andree Seu. She points out that we’re all in the middle. And the middle doesn’t last forever.
Remember, the Polaroid shot of a tossed ball snapped at its arc’s midpoint only seems to be stuck in the air. It won’t stay there. The woman with the 12 years of bleeding (Luke 8) and the man lame for 38 years (John 5)–these are stories short in the reading but long in the living. But see what Jesus brought about.*
(And I have to include her great, albeit dated, quote from earlier in the essay: “Would you really want to be in control of your own life? I can’t even reset the clock on my VCR.”)
Caught in the Middle
In keeping with a theme God’s woven in my life, I am waiting again. Seems God wants me continually in a place dependent on a kindness I don’t deserve; on a generous grace (see what I did there?).
Seu writes tongue-in-cheek,
I’ve been waiting for the day when I can amass just enough spiritual capital to achieve some independence and not have to go begging God for every little thing…
I would possess surplus of purity of heart the way I have stockpiles of paper towels in the pantry.**
Thinking of this, I’ve developed new sympathy for a huddled, ragtag group of 2 million camping out at the Red Sea. It was a few thousand years ago, see. In ten killer rounds/plagues, God had just KO’d their enslavers of the last 400 years (I imagine the bones they’ve buried and to which they’ve said goodbye, the ropes of scar tissue on their backs and calves). They’re headed to the Promised Land as soon as they transverse this nine-mile wide little body of water. (Coincidentally, God told them to camp out facing the sea, and gave Moses a little heads-up about what was about to happen.) I imagine them dancing, making their best food, laughing unrestrained, looking around, enjoying sitting and finally doing nothing. Maybe calling their friends. Can you believe this is even real?
And then, I imagine terror. Perhaps it’s a cloud of dust, or a racket of hoofbeats: their enemies have found them. I imagine the sudden realization: We are not done, and this is worse than before. Or as Exodus puts it, Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us? (14:11).
They are trapped in the awful, horrifying middle.
What They Didn’t See
Of course, there is no thought in their mind of what’s to happen. Who could conceive that one of the greatest miracles of all history would literally open up before them?
The reality: God does not promise me my own miracle. The Red Sea is not mine to claim. In all truth, He owes me nothing despite His capability to form a wall of water.
But what I do know is the end of the arc. I know who wins. I know the Bible is the story of God not just Him comforting me for all that has been taken or lost–but a story of utter and ultimate resurrection. I know that in the end, He restores all to a point even greater than before.
So I wait here in the middle, wondering whether my way through could be immediate or much farther off. At least, I tell myself, I know this is only the middle.
Lord, we pray we never find ourselves without hope, without a glimpse of the empty tomb each time we happen upon a cross. Help us begin our daily journey expecting both crosses and empty tombs and rejoicing when we encounter either because we know you are with us.
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“It’s Around Here Somewhere:” On Fighting for Joy–and Learning to See
*Seu, Andree. “Messy in the Middle.” We Shall Have Spring Again. Asheville, North Carolina: World & Life books (2008), p. 84.
**Ibid, “Dependence Day”, p. 25.
