I haven’t written in an awful long time. This is mainly
because I’ve been working on a novel, and feeling God calling me to focus on
another writerly aspiration, which I hope is just about done, and really hope
is half-decently composed, and really, really hope someone will want to publish.
The last blog post I wrote was about my husband, or rather,
being a wife to my husband as he follows God’s call for himself and our family.
Lots of time has passed—17 months to be exact—since my last update and I can
confidently tell you that almost nothing has changed.
Maybe God is just waiting for an opportune moment to finally
light the fireworks of success for us.
Maybe we have it all wrong.
But no matter if fame and fortune loom on the horizon, or if
living dependently on our families and camping out in the spare rooms of my
very generous in-laws is simply our lot in life, at this moment, I write from
the very same place I was fourteen months ago. It is a place full of hope,
desperation, nausea, exhaustion, and lessons. God has a lot of lessons to teach
in three years. I am beginning to think that, no matter what else comes,
lessons will be the constant, and everyone older than me tends to agree.
Living exceptionally does not always look like living
“better”. But sometimes it has been. Lessons often are learned through
typically uncomfortable situations. But it hasn’t always been so bad. I spend a
lot of time slipping into a nice torrent of panic and self-pity. But I haven’t
stayed there forever, and my visits are growing shorter.
Still, I don’t like living exceptionally. Normal, even if
normal conditions are deplorable, sometimes seems very appealing than being the
oddity in a very well-to-do neighborhood. Perhaps this is naïve.
Still, I am
often forced to see my situation from the perspective of those around me, as that
perspective is the one shared by the culture in which I find myself and,
ultimately, is my natural state of thought.
This culture thrives on want— want to have more, to do more,
to be more.
Well, I don’t have much—actually, I have nothing that is not
a gift or a loan and my figurative and literal debt grows rapidly.
I don’t do much, though people around me seem to be quite
busy indeed with their successes, accomplishments, and paychecks.
I’m not much. I don’t mean this in terms of ultimate worth,
that is a series of blog posts, or perhaps another book, and the topic would
drone on endlessly. I mean, I am kind of a homemaker—who doesn’t have a home. I
am kind of writer—one who is still unpublished and has a blog-following of
maybe fifteen. I am kind of the person I always expected to be, but without a
few critical components to that confounding sum.
Still, I WANT. I want better than probably anyone I know. I
am very, very good at wanting. I would go so far as to say it is the thing I do
best.
BUT I WAS NOT CREATED AND PUT ON THIS EARTH FOR THE THINGS
THAT I WANT TO HAVE, DO, AND BE.
I put that in caps because that is what it looks like in my
mind when I scream it to myself a thousand times a day. I spend an inordinate
amount of time chasing what I want, and getting nothing, chasing what God
wants, and finding no answers beyond “Wait”. I hunt through the Bible daily for
some secret hidden message that will tell me where to go and what to do to get
what I want, or to learn to want what God wants to somehow get what I want, and
come up with only more questions and a lot of frustration.
Because the answer is very, very simple. And like human
beings, I find that simple isn’t always satisfying.
What does God want?
Love.
I don’t have much.
I don’t do much.
I am not much.
But my worth is not measured in what I have, do, or am. It
is measured, probably by the oodle, in love. And certainly not in want.
Do I love my children as well as I want the yard with the
tire-swing for them to play on?
Do I love my husband as well as I want the money to buy him
a real birthday present?
Do I love God as well as I want the answers to my many
questions?
Probably not.
And these things are probably why I feel dissatisfied,
discontent, and why I yearn so much to have, do, and be more.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of
prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute
faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give
all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have
not love, I gain nothing. (1
Corinthians 13 1-3. I’m not just waxing poetic.)
I was not put on the earth to have. I was put on the earth
to love. When I have nothing, do nothing, am nothing, I can still love.
So here is a challenge to myself—and to you if you are one
of my fifteen loyal readers and are up for a experiment— to stop wanting this
next, eh, let’s say, 7 days. And instead, strive for love.
For me, this will probably look like swallowing my self-pity
and consequential exhaustion to be more present in the world and people around
me. I will aim to focus on the needs of others, the awesomeness of God, and
what I do HAVE. It will also look a lot like trying to be less annoyed with
people, focusing on their flaws, and instead praying for them. And no, not
praying in a passive-aggressive, “I want God to change you so you stop being
such an absolute irritant,” kind of way, and more in a “I really pray that I
can see you as God does, with his unfailing unconditional love, and I hope he blesses
you and brings you peace and joy, drawing you closer to him and healing your
wounds,” kind of way.
This will absolutely not be easy, but it’s a valuable
lesson, and I have gotten very good at those in the last three years. Also,
knowing I was never meant to do anything out of my own strength and I will need
to rely on God to equip me with the kind of love necessary to transcend myself,
will come in handy.
Anyone who wants to join me in my little “love quest”, I
would love for you to contact me and let me know how it goes, as well as who
you are striving to love and how you are loving them. This might just be fun.
See you in a week.
