looking through me

Category: Uncategorized

October 24, 2016

not strong enough

Life is heavy + I am weak = I need to be stronger.

I think that. Sometimes I even pray it: “Please make me stronger. I can’t carry all this heaviness.”

But, what if I’m not meant to carry it?

I’m a youngest child. And I’m small. (And competitive.) I’ve spent my whole life trying to keep up, trying to prove I could do what my brothers or friends or whoever could do, trying to prove I was big enough and strong enough.

But . . . I’m not.

And as the heaviness settles on my heart—from life’s challenges, my friends’ pain, my own loss—I realize the answer isn’t to try to match my strength to its weight. I can’t balance the scales. I will never be big enough or strong enough.

And, for once, my smallness, my weakness, is an asset . . . because the weight shifts from manageable to burdensome in a breath. I sense the “too much” and the “too heavy” quickly because it doesn’t take much weight to buckle my knees.

I cannot stand under this load. My slight frame speeds me to a place of surrender as I remember Jesus promised light burdens and an easy yoke. This soul-straining pressure is not that yoke. When my legs are shaking and my arms ache, I know I have traded His truth for another’s lies.

That’s the problem with my equation: when I pray to be made stronger, I’m praying for a one-to-one solution. I’m asking to break even, to hold my own. But my own strength will never be sufficient, no matter how strong I am.

And I feel my load lighten as I accept the weight of grace in its place.

 

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October 11, 2016

too much

The headlines are maddening. New—but not—every day. Shootings. Bombings. Protests. Finger pointing. Name calling. Scandals. Broken Promises. Natural Disasters. Wars and rumors of wars.

Even as I process the details I feel a little less shocked than I was by the last fill-in-the-blank atrocity.

I feel my heart hardening. Because how can I care about all of it? There’s simply too much. The scope is too big to swallow. The pain is too great to comprehend. It’s easier to look away.

Then I remember why I have to care.

I Skype with my long-distance nieces. I see the older one’s art projects and hear about soccer. I watch the younger one crawl for the first time.

I spend an evening with my local niece and nephew. I play make believe and Zingo. I throw paper airplanes and read stories. I give good night hugs and kisses.

And love roughs up my calloused heart.

Looking into the eyes of my brothers’ children I remember statistics are more than numbers. They have faces and names.

I check on sleeping children tucked soundly in suburban beds, and I think of how many children aren’t growing up in a safe place be it their home, their city, their country or their refugee camp.

The death tolls rattled off by the media rip un-mendable holes in families and communities whether it’s half a block from me or half a world away. And that doesn’t go away with the news cycle.

So . . . I listen and learn. I choke on the hatred and horror, but I don’t turn away.

 

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