The beautiful things: Random exert of Joy and Sorrow

So, this is an exerpt from one of my favorite books EVER. The prophet by Khalil Gibran (You should definitely check it out) It really inspires me though, this exert in particular because it fortifies and even expounds on the quote "Prosperity and adversity are but imposters; treat them both the same." which I also love. I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the negativity of people and circumstance. But I love this because it makes me expect sunshine even when it's raining out. It's true and it really inspires me and I hope it inspires you too =)

Then a woman said, "Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow."

And he answered: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit the very wood that was hollowed with knives? When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful, look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.
Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy. Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced. When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.
Copyright @ Kahlil Gibran.

Food for thought: Fear of falling

I remember staring at the delicate, white dress hanging from the window of my Mother’s car, as I revisit my place in the backseat my excitement stirs anew. I was to take pictures in a white dress with a pink bow, with white gloves and a string of pearls while holding a pink and white bouquet of plastic roses. She had asked me what I would like to be in our next photo-shoot and I said a little bride. Being a photographer, she was always looking for new moments to capture, new ideas to try and new influences to channel. I’d waited weeks to take the pictures and the day was finally here!

We pulled into the parking lot of the studio she worked at, and at the sight of the tan building, I unfastened my seatbelt. Before she could slow down to cruise the parking lot I had opened the door and I was being pulled out of my seat by the force of the motion- I was airborne and there was nothing I could do to stabilize myself. My heart seemed to shake my body with each tremendous beat as my vision was blurred by the speed at which I was moving. I could not think. I could not find the voice to scream. I would be lost to concrete maze and I would never find my way home-if I survived, that is.

Before I could complete the thought, a strong hand wrapped around my wrist and pulled me in; my Mother’s eyes were glowing with rage, and panic and relief. We were both on edge, sickened by the jolt of adrenaline pulsing through our veins.

We resumed that day (and my photo-shoot) in silence.

That was a scary day for me. As I got older, I would have nightmares with the theme of falling and being lost, but the scenario would often change-I was lost boarding a train to Chicago with my Mom; I was lost in a crowd at a concert with her; I couldn’t find her in a giant labyrinth of a grocery store. The fear remained that I, someway, somehow would be falling-and she would not be there to catch me.

It’s funny because after I got older and she got sick, I was one of the people that took care of her. I would feed her, administer her medicines, and check on her many times in the middle of the night. I remember praying and feeling ill at ease as I watched her chest rise and fall, sucking in air and pushing out snores that would frighten a grizzly bear. I never realized that I did those things, not only out of love-but out of the realization that if I wasn’t there for her now she might not be around for me later. I remember being so angry in the weeks before she left. I needed winter boots and she wouldn’t by the pair that I wanted-they were too expensive. I wanted to take drivers ed and she wouldn’t let me. I wanted to look for a new place to live and she didn’t seem to care.

“It wasn’t fair!” I mused-seethed, actually.  I didn’t know why I was so angry.

Fast forward almost two years and I’m listening to the Mama Mia soundtrack-songs from a movie that my Mother blatantly ignored every item on my Christmas list to buy me-and missing her so much that I can hardly breathe. I’m faced with the feeling I’ve spent so much time denying-that panic that catches in my chest and seizes me, leaving me unable to laugh or cry or do anything other than wonder how on earth I will find my way home should I survive the impact and injury of hitting the ground-and I know that she can’t catch me. She can’t find me. She can’t even look for me!

It seems like that feeling only comes up when I face cornerstones-my birthday, learning to drive, graduating high-school, getting my first job. Her birthday is in a few weeks too-she would have been thirty-six and let’s not even mention my second thanksgiving and Christmas without her. It’s like the more I do and accomplish, the more the gap between my life with her and the life I live now widens, the more that hysteria seems to grow and at times it feels as though it’s swallowing me whole. Just like my photo-shoot, everything is bitter sweet to me (more so the former than the latter). In fact it stems beyond being without my Mom and into the realization that I am rapidly approaching a place in life where there will be no one to catch me at all most times.

And I have to wonder, where is God in this?

Today it hit me that he will be doing the catching from now on. He’s caught so many times already-most times I haven’t even realized it. I’ve gotten things as big as scholarships and things as small as a few sweaters because of his providence. I have an amazing parental unit. His grace and favor is probably written in invisible ink on my forehead.  Psalms 23:4 says that his rod and his staff, they comfort me. What does that mean? For me the rod and staff represents protection and discipline, and support. Then I head on over to Psalms 91:4 to find out that under his wings, I can most definitely take refuge.

God is my secret place, my hiding place. He’s where I laugh, he’s where I cry. He’s the well that I drink from he is my safety-and when I’m feeling lost he reminds me that he’s my home.

I know these things, but sometimes it hard to believe in the sense that as a physical being, I am always looking for a physical refuge, a physical comfort. But God is always drawing me deeper into what is spiritual-what transcends the realm I dwell in.  I have to submit and follow him. God is not a man that he should lie, but my heart (the emotional one) is deceitful above all things. So I’m letting him be my shield and buckler on a very strict basis for the next few weeks.

I have to remind myself that falling and changing and being lost are all good things. I have to remind myself of God’s concept of what is good in contrast to mine. If I never fell I couldn’t ever be caught, if I never changed I’d still wear diapers, if I was never lost I could not ever be found. I have to remember that I am writing a story for my King with everyday that I live, and that I have to keep actively working to make that story a good one, grammatical errors and all.

I am weak to prove him strong. I am ignorant for the sake of his wisdom and my righteousness is as filthy rags when I’m faced with his GLORY. We are the perfect team, and I must do my part and rely on him as heavily as I possibly can.

I often wonder what things would be like if my life had gone how it “should” have gone, grow up in one house with only two parents and be members of the YMCA (I know, my vision of domestic life leaves much to be desired haha). The truth is, I would most likely feel no different but have different reasons for feeling that way. I will never be a shiny, poreless, freshly painted vase-not for as long as I live.

God creates us as who we are, knowing the flaws and faults that accompany our freewill.

I almost fell out of that car because I chose to open that car door. I would have probably made that choice regardless of whether or not we entered on the right or left side of the parking lot, or if we had stopped and gotten ice-cream along the way. My nature is ingrained.

I’m always making mistakes and falling, I’m always acquiring more cracks and believe it or not God LIKES this.

With every crack I accrue, I’m allowing another opening in myself for his glory to shine through.

Cracked pots water the earth; cracked pots allow God’s light to filter through.

God’s arms can reach through the chasms of time and space to catch what no human hand can touch. His eyes see into the hearts of nations. His heart has more love and good than what I can dare comprehend.

I would say that’s a pretty good compensation.

Jacob, son of Abraham learned to love and rely on God for himself, apart from the care and guidance of Abraham, unencumbered by Sarah’s words of wisdom-alone. In the quiescence of night, he struggled to know God instead of merely knowing of him; to cry out for his own blessing instead of parading around displaying the power of his Father’s prayers-the catch of his hands, if you will. I think, in a way this is just my struggle, my night to fight and break through and see God’s face stripped of another veil.

So to my fear of falling I say God, you’re my God! I trust in you. 

Food for thought: Feelin' good

“How can you tell when something is a perfect fit?” I wonder as I sort through clothes that were littering me and my younger sister’s bedroom floor.

Most romantic comedies and coming-of-age movies, hapless peers and well meaning adults say that you can only know after you've tried every other thing and it "feels right".

There are many problems with this theory, in my humble opinion.

You see, from where I'm standing (Months off from my seventeenth birthday, unemployed and newly graduated.) Nothing feels right. At best, I feel small and cold...and lonely. Everything seems so much bigger than me-so impossible! How do I find a job to work on the weekends? Much less choose a career for the rest of my life! How do I choose a college, a major, a mate-how do I even know if I want these things!? I can’t even contain a five year old long enough to keep our room clean!

I always start out so resolute and sure of myself, "I'm going to X school in the year 20XX and I'm going to drive X car until I can afford..." (you get the point) and for the longest time after I make that choice, I feel really secure in it-no anxiety whatsoever...then things start to go downhill. I propose this newly minted masterpiece of a plan to my parents and they pick it apart.

They say: "Well that's a pretty good school-it's kind of expensive and I hear the kids there are really crazy-you would have to really focus. X car is cute-does it have all wheel drive? You're a new driver so you have to make sure it's maneuverable-and keep an eye on that gas tank." 

But I hear:  "Well that sounds good, but X school is so expensive, we’ll have to buy a house just so we can mortgage it and pay off half your student loans! And it’s quite a lot of work-you could expect to study a minimum of eighteen hours a day. Also, it's a party school...so you probably won't be able to focus what with the contact high your roommate's 'glaucoma medicine' is giving you. And by the way, X car failed every safety test on keepyourkidwhodrivesalive.com-besides, gas prices are through the roof and you make negative ten dollars an hour!"

And then I panic. All my peace is gone. How could I have ever thought I could make it with such idiotic thought processes! I'm not ready, I'm not ready-NOT READY!

This is the pattern, even with my best plans. Plans that obviously, with a bit of elbow grease would be pretty hard to flub. I look at the things my parents did-getting married at 18, raising kids at 14, enrolling themselves in college and walking miles to get there everyday at 19-and I feel so inadequate. I feel like they have something that I don't, I pray about it and I realize that they did-they had faith (and some other really important things) for the women they were becoming, whether they realized it or not.

For a start I have to cite the indisputable fact that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. A brilliant metaphor my Grandmother (a woman who’s been raising children for at least 34 years and counting.) always uses is that of the acorn. The acorn is small, there’s nothing special or attractive about it-in fact those who had never seen one might find the acorn’s appearance odd, and its habit of falling in showers and littering the shady refuge beneath the oak tree annoying. But that doesn’t matter, what matters is that within that tiny little acorn getting stronger everyday is a burgeoning oak tree; a tree that will withstand the generations through rain, sleet, hell and high water. The acorn goes through so much just to become! I can’t imagine how painful and frightening it must be to outgrow your own body, breaking up the protective shell of your own being to become something that seems so awkward and freakish-a seedling. Or the tumult of pushing with all your might into chilly, wet soil to take root; let’s not forget the discomfort and frustration of being an oak that is fully formed but devoid of the strength and shade and beauty of its mature counterparts, and for this cause often ridiculed, overlooked, neglected and harshly judged-Oh, the plight of a young oak.

I’m sure the acorn never feels ready. I’m sure the seedling finds little comfort. I’m sure the young oak never feels quite right. But none of this-this ebb and flow of emotion and corresponding insecurity-changes the fact that God made the oak tree with a purpose in mind; nor does it carry any weight in determining whether or not the acorn will accomplish that purpose. What matters is the amount of nourishment and grooming the acorn gets-and even that doesn’t make it an oak, it only determines how far the acorn goes in the development process, and how healthy the finished product is.

Wait, I can imagine that. I envision it perfectly, it’s so realistic-it’s my reality. I am a newly sprouted oak, trying to find the strength to push and thrive and I need to have faith-faith for the oak I’m am, and to let God refine me into the oak I’m becoming.

Ultimately I have to trust the fact that God created me as an infant with a woman inside. A woman that has appeared in poignant flashes of childhood pursuits-womanly courage to jump even though I risked a skinned knee, womanly joy to smile when I was hurting-a woman that fretted through the seeming paranormal malady of converting my childish form into the fledgling silhouette of a being I didn’t quite understand and now, a fully formed woman who must learn to trace the pattern of her own design-and peel away the final scraps (and in some places, enormous chunks) of that rough old acorn seed. It is my responsibility as a young oak to cast my cares on the One who created me and thank him daily for the tree I fell from, to gorge myself on his provision-the Word-and immerse my spindly branches in the light of his spirit so that joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control will be carved like a mosaic pattern in my bark, and finally to cut away the stunted vines and withering leaves that I incur simply from being rooted in the fallen earth. Everything else is up to him.

“Everything” I repeat to myself mentally.

To be frank, for many reasons, this hurts me. In short I would have to say it’s because of my pride. Like Job, I question God’s administrative skills, like Moses I’m swift in delivering a thousand reasons why I’m not qualified, like David I trespass against him and I don’t even realize it. I can see my actions so clearly that it scares me: I doubt God’s sovereignty, I rebel against him with the intimation that I, Samantha Reneè can do it oh so much better. Me, an oak tree-not even a mature oak tree-telling the great I Am how to do his job!

After this realization, I repent. I want to hide my face from his but he whispers to me so softly, “Lean not unto your own understanding, Sam” and he pulls my heart into what I can only describe as a fearsome embrace. “Be still and know that I am God. Can you, by fretting in the mirror make yourself an inch taller? ” No, I say, defeated and limp in his arms. “Your Father knows you have need…cast your cares on me…I’m your caretaker”

I will choose to believe my Father’s report. I will not give heed to fear of man, or death or anything else because he has reign over all things in the earth, above the earth and below the earth and I REFUSE to be tempted by the Enemy-I take captive every prideful, accusing thought-I don’t need details! I KNOW my Father’s plans for me! Plans to give me a hope! Plans to give me a future! Plans to wipe every tear from my eye! HE LEADS ME BESIDE THE STILL WATERS AND UNDER HIS WINGS I TAKE REFUGE!

I don’t need a job (unless he tells me to get one) He is my provision. I don’t need to go to school until he says I do-he’s my Teacher. And I don’t need to find a mate, he’s the greatest match-maker of all time. Or maybe, He'll give me the favor for a full ride to X school, I'll lead my pothead roommate and all her friends to Christ and on the way to Starbucks to meet them I'll run out of gas because X car gets bad mileage and my future mate will be the one to give me a boost to the gas station. I don't know-I don't need to know.

I just need him. I just need faith. I just need faith in him.

I rightly ask for the wisdom to nourish and activate that faith.

 So I have it. I have everything I need.

Where I’m standing (on his word) and where I’m living (in his promise) is EXACTLY where I need to be. It’s just-“wait, what if?”

“Be still and know that I am…” He reminds me before I can finish the thought.

To that I say “God, you’re my refuge. I trust in you and I’m safe.”

I’m becoming exactly what I need to become and because this is where God has placed me, sorting clothes on this floor is exactly where I need to be. Serving him within the walls of this family structure is the perfect way to mature this young oak.

It’s just the right fit.

 Even though I’m not feelin’ it.

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