Jesus has been showing up a lot in the past month, teaching me and loving on me. I've felt his presence much closer than I have in probably over a year in this last month. Remember how I said in my last post I feel closer to God in Manhattan? It's true.
What have I been learning, you ask?
"Joy is the realest reality, the fullest life, and joy is always given, never grasped. God gives gifts and I give thanks and I unwrap the gift given: joy." - Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts
"Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice." -Psalm 51:8
"O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall declare your praise." -Psalm 51:15
Joy. Praise. Thanksgiving.
Taking a walk alone and overflowing with thanksgiving and joy to Jesus for His goodness.
Those things have been a big theme for about 3 of the 4 1/2 weeks that I've been here. Then last week hit. It was one sad thing after another. Cases at work, co-workers stories of pain in their own lives or the lives of their families, and the news, you guys, the news last week. Tragedy after tragedy. I felt so incredibly burdened and despondent.
"Jesus, come back. Jesus, why? Why do you allow these things? Why do you allow this pain and this suffering? How can you ask me to engage it, to let myself feel it? It's too much. I can't carry it." This was my almost constant dialogue with the Lord, mixed with a decent amount of good ol' fashioned being pissed off. I was feeling so hopeless.
This is not an uncommon place for me to be in. Most of the time, I have to actively choose hope over despair, truth over doubt. It's without a doubt the biggest struggle in my relationship with God.
So that's where I was all week. Then on Thursday night I went to Ichthus with Kristin. I didn't really want to go - I felt weird about going back to a college ministry that I had been gone from for three years. But I went, and I'm so glad I did. John talked about exactly what I was wrestling with and preached the truth. That hope is real and it's already, but it's not fully here yet. We have to claim it. And we can't do it alone. We need the body. Oh man, it was exactly what I needed. I needed to be reminded of the resurrection power and of the bigger picture. Because, what's that saying? It's hard to see the forest through the trees? There's probably something more profound I could allude to, but just go with it. I get to bogged down in the everyday pain - and that pain is real. I don't want to ignore it or become numb to it; I think it's important to engage with it and wrestle with it. But I can't forget the bigger picture. I can't forget the hope. That Jesus actually lived and actually died and was actually resurrected. And the same power that resurrected Jesus from the dead lives in me. Today. Right now.
I will continue to fight this fight with despair and sometimes I'll be overcome a little bit. And that's when the body of Christ will be so vital to me - to give me a hand up and to remind me of the truth and the hope.
These are lyrics to a love song by the Avett Brothers, but I'd like to think they can be even bigger than that; that they can apply to me and the rest of the body:
"I hope that I don't sound too insane when I say
There is darkness all around us
I don't feel weak but I do need sometimes for her to protect me
And reconnect me to the beauty that I'm missing"
So, friends, when you see me flirting with hopelessness, please remind me. Remind me of the hope of the Gospel. That Jesus has already won the War and it is finished. That someday all things will be made right and the suffering and the pain will be a distant memory as we worship the King in the fullness of His glory. And until then, we get to claim the hope and we get to be His hands and feet to the broken, and the suffering, and the hopeless. We get to bring the resurrection power just a little bit nearer.
Happy Easter :)
Peace,
Emily
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