looking through me

Tag: lessons

June 21, 2015

present tense God

I wrote this one year ago today, but the words remain true as I wend my way through new griefs and new mercies . . .

 

I went to a funeral today. It was a hard one. Fifty-four year old single fathers aren’t supposed to die. Staring at the back of the heads of three fatherless daughters makes no sense.

How do I reconcile the relief that his 12-year battle with cancer and devastating complications is finally over with the void in the lives of his daughters? I struggle to hold the inequity. Eternal joy and immediate, indefinite grief feel out of balance any way I position them.

But as I sat and listened to the reminder from Lamentations—today there are mercies for today’s burdens, and tomorrow will have new mercies for tomorrow’s burdens, but today’s mercies aren’t for tomorrow’s burdens—I remembered God is a present tense God.

Only the present moment can be lived. The mercies for today are for now, not yesterday or tomorrow. And I AM is present now.

Yes, I Am Who I Am was . . . and is . . . and will be to come, but only because He Is right now. He is ever present and ever present tense.

So often my mind races ahead of me and trips on the “what ifs” and “what thens” of the future. But God is here. He is now. He will be there when they arrive—if they arrive—but at this moment His presence is in the present.

When I get lost in the imagined future I remind myself: to what end? Tomorrow will bring its own trouble regardless of my anxiety today. My worry now does nothing but take my eyes off Jesus as He sits with us in our grief and meets our mourning with comfort.

So I hug an oldest daughter and listen to the fear at 25 of feeling responsible for her sisters though she’ll be leaving them here and returning to her home 1400 miles away. And as I hug her I pray she’ll find her way back to the safety of the One who is present with her dad and wants to be present with her, too.

Because only a present tense God is big enough to carry us through today.

 

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June 13, 2015

circles

I glanced to my left in the stop-and-go traffic. Eight men were sitting in a circle eating lunch mere feet from cars. A respite from their work widening the freeway.

Hours later I watched my two-year old niece draw dozens of “circles” of various sizes and shapes. She was satisfied with each one.

There’s something about circles.

I’ve been in countless circles over the years from my lunch group in high school circled up on the band room floor to the softball huddle in the pitcher’s circle to hand-held family prayers before holiday meals to a team-building community circle with my fourth grade students to small groups putting ourselves out there and finding gentle hearts ready to hold us.

What happens in a circle can’t happen in rows or even shoulder-to-shoulder. There’s a level of exposure—everyone can see my face, I cannot hide. And safety—we’re all in the same position.

Circles can be damaging: being the one left out or the one in the middle. I’ve stood on the outside and known the whispers were about me. And I’ve sat defenseless in the middle and known I would not leave unscathed though the wounds would be deep inside.

Circles are elemental, instinctual. So who’s in my circle? And whose circle am I in? Are they people I’m living life with face-to-face? Or are they pseudo-communities of people I think I know from the crafted selves we show online? Are they static and cliquish or dynamic and welcoming? Are they making me braver by unmasking my false fronts? Are they reflecting truth and grace? Am I?

Some days my circles feel as wobbly and undefined as a two-year old’s crayon marks; but still, they shape me.

And other days they feel as freeform and natural as construction workers on a lunch break.

 

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