A Full Glass.

            Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who continually goes forth weeping, bearing seed for sowing, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing sheaves with him. Psalm 126:5-6

           

I am told there are two ways of perceiving life: by seeing the glass half-full or by seeing the glass half-empty. I beg to differ.  Life is always full- whether full of disappointment, hope, joy, anger, or sadness.  When we refer to our lives as being empty, we more accurately mean we are filling it with the wrong sort of things.  More often than not, though, we do not control what fills our glass and before we know it, our cup is overflowing with tears.  Life has a way of just happening, ready or not.  The tears that come cannot always be dammed, nor should they be. But how we choose to deal with these tears will dictate the course of our life. 

            My family has tasted their fair share of tears, though fair is hardly appropriate to describe the sleepless nights and years of illness plaguing them.  Last weekend, my parents, aunts, and uncles went to the San Juan Islands to celebrate the one-year anniversary of a new life- in the form of a kidney- for my aunt and uncle, who were diagnosed with kidney disease approximately a decade ago.  While I hardly have the words, insight, or perspective they would be able to convey concerning the grueling and extensive season which they learned to call life, I think they would agree that there are times when all you can pray for in honesty and desperation is a blessing not in disguise.  Nevertheless, unmasking the silver lining, however impossible as some may pin it, was a daily choice for my family.

Of course, the easiest route to take when tragedy or trials hits us, is to let the tears create their own paths as we drown in them.  While initially this requires less effort, ultimately our tears will wash out our joy and rob us of our blessings.  The other option goes completely against our natural inclinations.  That is, we can walk with God on the high road even when the tears fall.  As we follow Him, our tears will water the seeds along the way.  If we are careful not to allow the tears blind us from God’s goodness, we will soon see the reward of filling our life with Christ.  Our cup will be full of joy.

As I mentioned earlier, it has been one year since my uncle was given a kidney by his wife and my aunt was given a kidney by my dad.  As miraculous as the unrelated organ match was in and of itself, I must clarify that my description of this “new life” is a reference to their health alone- the life they lived while under the diagnosis of a disease may have been trying, but it was nonetheless rich.  While I know my aunt and uncle are deeply appreciative of their physical handicap being lifted, I would argue that it is that very handicap which lifted them.  The burden of pain proved to be the wings to greater satisfaction, gratefulness and fullness of life.  I belong to a rich family.  Their wealth may not be acknowledged by Bill Gates, but it is far more valuable.  The Lord gives and the Lord takes away- but the person who learns to pour out their life to Him regardless of what they have been dealt has learned the trick to fulfillment.

So let us raise our full glass and toast- to the richness of life with Christ.

More.

What was your five-year plan, five years ago?  What about your two-year plan, two years ago?  Whenever I ask people that question, it arouses either laughter or frustration.  I know it does for me, too.  I laugh at how naïve I was in thinking I knew what I wanted.  And there are times I am frustrated at how miserably I’ve failed in achieving these plans.  I admit that, despite being only twenty years old, there are times I can already feel the walls of the hourglass suffocating me.  With each precious grain of time that slips out from underneath my feet, I become more aware of how small and insignificant my life has been.  The mirror of reality is hardly reflective of the many aspirations and fabricated ideas I have developed of what a successful and fulfilling life looks like.  I want more.

More.  Generally, Christians don’t give this four-letter word enough credit, labeling this innate desire as sin and encouraging us to suppress it.  But just like friends, money, and sex, the hunger for more is not wrong unless we feed it with the wrong things at the wrong time.  Wasn’t it Christ who commanded us to “Be perfect”?  Jesus was in no way naïve to our incompetence in carrying out this order.   Rather, He knew that if He merely commanded us to “try hard” or “do your best”, we would no doubt, in our own minds, find that we had achieved this.  He built the drive for more into us in hopes that it would be the vehicle to bring us closer to Him. We must stop perceiving this instruction to “Be perfect” as a gauge in how miserably we’ve failed and begin to view it as an invitation to always grow nearer to the God of the universe.  Whenever you begin to crave more of success, relationships, money, food, sex, etc., redirect that desire toward Christ and I promise He will satisfy you.  I am convinced that if we were to truly realize how many gifts, hand-wrapped by God, we let pass us by daily, we would wake up each morning feeling like a ten-year-old child on Christmas morning. Throw out any mentality of finding a “happy medium” in Christianity- for to be happy is to be fully devoted and passionately pursuing Christ and to be “medium” is to be miserably discontent or falsely comforted.  Never settle for how good your walk with Him was yesterday.  His plan for you and I is always unfathomably better than the ones we create for ourselves.  Without realizing it, each goal I make can become an additional layer on the wall separating me from experiencing God’s best.  My own high expectations become the cage imprisoning me.  There is so much more.  Free me from my own definition of success, Lord, and feed my hunger with more of You.

Tears

There was a time in my life when I hated to cry.  I resented each tear as if they had personally betrayed me by escaping and revealing my inner state of weakness to the outside world.  The transparent drops running down my face might as well have been windows into my hurting soul.  I don’t know which I feared more: others peering into this window of pain, or having to look in the mirror and recognize who I had become.

Three years ago, I was a very different person than I am today.  I was filled with hate.  Hate toward my family, hate toward my peers, hate toward my coach, and most passionately, hate toward myself.  I had let the wounds of life, many self-inflicted, shape me into a hard and sad person.  The last couple years of high school had affirmed to me that every relationship which I had invested in was a mistake and that trust was just another word for a broken heart.  I trained myself to not care.  I concluded that if I never made myself vulnerable, then nothing would affect me.  And if nothing affected me, nothing harmed me.  I remember the night a couple of friends and I sat in the theatre watching P.S. I Love You.  They were on either side of me bawling like babies, and I was hailed “cold-hearted” as I laughed through it.  It hit me a little at that point that I had changed.  I lied that this change was me becoming stronger as a woman.  In reality, I was a little girl, too afraid to face the root of her depression.

Something happened over the next few years, though.  It was a long process, but the walls came down.  I learned to forgive those who had hurt me; I learned to forgive myself.  I allowed Christ to heal my wounds, whether caused by my own rebellion or by those I held dearest to my heart.  And eventually, I learned to cry again. 

Now I cry when I’m overwhelmed.  I cry during sad movies- whether The Notebook or Toy Story 3.  I cry when I come before the Lord.  This month, I cried when I found out my aunt’s kidney was working for the first time in years.  Most recently, I cried as my mom and I apologized to each other after an argument.  No longer do I view tears as a sign of weakness.  Rather, I see tears as a sign of maturity.  Where I was once unable to make amends with the curveballs life threw me, I now face them with honesty.  I see tears as one of the many signature marks of a life filled with love.  Where I once refused to trust, I am now blessed to be close with many friends and family, despite the fact that we will inevitably let each other down.  I see tears as just part of my journey with the Lord.  Where I refused to move on with my life, my eyes now focus on a never-changing, always-moving Savior, whose grace restored my broken heart and whose love caused me to weep.

Of hospitals beds and church pews...

   In a few days, I am taking off to Portland to be with my family as my daddy donates one of his kidneys to my aunt, who has been sick with kidney disease for over five years now.  Undoubtedly, I will be spending the majority of my time in the hospital- a place commonly associated with death, illness, and sadness.  While I can identify with the negativity surrounding hospitals and while they have hosted countless upsetting and impromptu family reunions within my lifetime, I can’t help but acknowledge that I am excited to spend some time in a hospital. Now, let me explain before you diagnose this confession as completely absurd and slightly creepy.  I find the atmosphere within these underappreciated facilities to be unlike any other - a haven of realness, rest, and reflection.  A hospital is a place of raw emotion; what’s left in the strainer of life after a hard rinsing.  While technology and doctors combine to reveal one’s state of health, the gravity of the situations which are a constant in hospitals serve as an x-ray for the soul, exposing the innermost thoughts and emotions of its patients.  Amidst all the chaos filling floor after floor of scrambling staff, ailing patients, and distraught family and friends, time seems to slow down and priorities begin to surface.  When I step into a hospital elevator, I can feel the grief weighing down on me.  And yet, when I walk through the long corridors on each floor, I can almost hear hope echoing off the walls.  Such rawness penetrates through walled up relationships and hidden agendas, affairs, and addictions.  So much is brought to light by means of sickness.  There is something so right about the recognition of our fragile state and the admission that we need help which is found in a hospital and which is lacking in our churches.

                As a disclaimer before I make these comparisons between church and hospital, I must say that I am indebted to every church I have every actively attended and I consider myself exceedingly blessed to have been challenged and comforted my whole life by my pastors and congregation.  Nevertheless, there is something deeply wrong when I am surrounded by a deluge of tears in the hospital while the parishioner sitting next to me on Sunday dams in the emotions they fear will stain their façade.  Why is it that when we cross paths with someone in a hospital and ask how they are, we expect to hear the diagnosis or dilemma, but the same question in church is rarely met with more than a one-word response?  Why is it that more souls are laid bare beside the stretcher than at the altar?  I believe that God chooses a desperate and humble cry over a smiling face and Sunday best any day. Church was not intended to be a gathering for the righteous, but a hospital for the sick.  I’ll never forget what my pastor once said in response to those who accuse Christians of using God as a crutch: “Yeah, God is my crutch… and my stretcher… and my hospital…  and my doctor!”  We’ve all heard Matthew 9:12, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.”  And yet, we have successfully fooled not only ourselves but the world around us into thinking that church is a place where the upright congregate and sinners steer clear of.  We are a people in a desperate state of urgency for a Savior.  If our churches don’t reflect that urgency, how will everyone looking from the outside in know that God is the answer to their needs as well?

Because He Said So

The second I hit “post”, I will have conquered one of my greatest fears.  You see, I love to write.  I am going to school to be a Journalist.  One of my aspirations is to write a book… And yet, ironically, I am scared to death to share my writing. If I had it my way, it would be kept strictly to the confines of my journals. I can’t exactly explain why I’m so hesitant for other people to see it.  Perhaps, it has to do with the fact that I’m a perfectionist in this specific area and it is never good enough in my eyes.  Perhaps, it is that I feel I have nothing important to write about.  Or perhaps, it is that I fear how others will receive it. I don’t consider myself to be an insecure person, but for someone who regularly gets told that “before I got to know you, I thought you were stuck up” or “my first impression was that you weren’t very friendly”- I strived to live up to the only first impression I have left to offer.  And I had to give that up.  Why? Simply, because God said so.

I guess I was waiting for something monumental to take place in my life in order to write.  It was always, “Well, when I go to Africa… or when I have a career… or when I have a family… then I will have something important to write about.”  But that line of thinking derived from the misconception that my life’s importance revolves around what I do, where I go, and who I am.  That’s a whole lot of “I’s”! In reality, Christ is my worth and wherever I am in life- take for example, living with my parents and working at a coffee shop while attending community college- I can continue to learn and have the adventure of a lifetime as long as I am in the will of God.  Whatever I write is to be a testimony of His goodness, not mine.

      These past six months or so, God has been teaching me to embrace the unknown. No matter how elementary the principle, I need continually reminded that we walk by faith, not by sight.  I don’t know, maybe that’s why the Bible says, “Your Word is a lamp to my feet”: because often times, we can’t see more than one step ahead of where we’re at.  It is so like my God to ask me to jump off a cliff, only to provide wings after I’ve taken the leap.  I don’t know why He wants me to write or what He wants me to write about, but if He tells me to write, gosh darn it, I better write.  Not because I will be punished if I don’t, but because I will be blessed if I do.  So when He says, “Randi, get over yourself and write already”- in the kindest way possible, of course- I have to trust that even if not a single person reads or benefits from my ramblings, He knows best and will bless my obedience.