Thanksgiving and Forgiveness

"Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry, you don't know how lovely you are."
-Coldplay

I find it funny how sometimes song lyrics describe just the thing that you are attempting to say. The lyric above pretty much says exactly what I am going to spend the next few minutes attempting to elaborate on, so if you hate me or just don't have time to read on, there you have it. All right, on I ramble.

I spent Thanksgiving in Chicago, chowing down on the traditional Thanksgiving fare and attempting to keep my ears from freezing off of my blond little head. Chicago is such a fantastically interesting city, with buildings as tall as mountains, art that can amaze and mystify at the same time, and every kind of person imaginable. And all of this is bundled into a few square miles, many of which I traversed with my sister and a few friends that I have in Chi-town (pronounced Chai town), the affectionate term for Chicago. For those who are trying to guess the names of the friends that I met in Chicago, if you guessed Rochelle Comeaux, Melissa Johnson (The Red Stallion), and Katye Renz, you would be correct.

It is hard to describe what it is like being reunited with people that you were so close with just a few short months ago, but with whom you have not had much, if any, interaction with since. The people remained more-or-less the same, but the circumstances, the context, the interaction, is all different. Well, not completely different, but different enough to make me miss "the old days" something fierce. The interaction also brought up old memories. Good and fun memories for the most part, but also difficult memories. Memories of pain and rejection, memories of me running away from friendship when I should have attempted to seek redemption for it. These thoughts all reminded me of a quote from Stan Gaede's book, An Incomplete Guide to the Rest of Your Life. The story is about a man named John whose marriage to Jen was failing. Everyone around him told him to give it up, seek his own happiness, and try again fresh. Everyone except his friend Greg, who had this to say:

So what? You say, John, you don't think you could ever be completely happy with Jen. Well, so what? What makes you think your happiness is all that matters? Why isn't your word, your vow, more important than your happiness? Why isn't Jen more important than your satisfaction? And why, oh why, oh why...why in the world can't we live in discomfort any more these days? I mean, are we called to escape painful relationships or reclaim them? Are we supposed to flee hurting marriages or redeem them? Did Jesus say, throw off your cross and do your own thing or take up your cross and follow me?

All right, so obviously the situation described in this passage is much different from what I am talking about, but take a second look. All of this can be related to other relationships as well. It really makes you take a second look at how you respond and react to those around you. How have you responded when things get hard in a friendship? When a friend does something that causes you pain? Do you run away? Shut down emotionally?

I know that most of the time I do a combination of things. To the person in question, I shut down emotionally. I may still correspond and act like things are okay, but they aren't. And I retreat inside myself. "Run away." What about when you are the one doing the hurting? What then? For me it is about the same thing. If I feel like I have betrayed someone or hurt someone, I tend to shy away from the person, worrying about how mad the person must be at me. Or how much I don't deserve forgiveness.

Are we called to escape painful relationships or to reclaim them? Is there even a question? Reclaim them for goodness sake! Damn our culture for telling me life is all about "my" feelings, "my" happiness, "my" fulfillment. How much better would life be if we didn't settle for broken relationships. If we all took time away from our pity parties and sucked up our pride to seek healing from our peers, our boyfriends or girlfriends, our fiances, our spouses. If you have been hurt by someone, seek her out and FORGIVE her. If you did the hurting, don't wait around for the person you hurt come around, actively seek him out and FORGIVE him. Because people are worth being reconciled to. And through seeking reconciliation from peers, perhaps we can learn something about what it means to be reconciled to Christ.

Because people are lovely. Even in brokenness. Even in Chicago.

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry, you don't know how lovely you are.

The beginning of the rest of life

The phrase "nobody said this was easy" (taken from a Coldplay song called "The Scientist") has really been hitting home lately. For some reason I always thought that getting through college would make the rest of life easy. I mean, no more homework, having time for a life, having a job, what is there to make life hard? Oh yeah, not having a place to connect with many people your age, rent, taxes, loans, utilities, loans, an eight-to-five work day, loans, car payments, and simply the realization that churches just want to put on a show instead of creating true disciples of Christ. That last one may not be common to all or even many college students, but it is certainly on my mind. Along with wondering how to live as a Christian outside the comfort of family or the school community, how to live as a follower rather than a leader, or even how to be a leader outside of Westmont. What the crap? Why can't life just be easy?

But I guess that is the whole point. If life was easy, if all of these questions could be pondered and answered in an hour, or looked up on Wikipedia, how would we grow or mature as human beings and as Christians? We would end up being simple, superficial people caught up with all of the humdrum, meaningless things of life like celebrity gossip and jelly beans. It is the hard times in life where we are forced to dig down inside ourselves to find something that we didn't know was there. It is the hard times in life where God is able to show us more vividly, in ways that are easier for us to see, that he cares about and loves us. We have to trust that God knows what is best for us. For me. It is always easier to say that phrase in reference to others, but much harder to apply it to self. And I cannot say that I truly believe this all the time. I definitely have my times of doubt. One thing I can say, though, is that I certainly hope that this is true all the time, which Dr. Wennberg would say is apologetically acceptable for a time.

So, I suppose that is where I am right now. Somewhere on the border between believing and hoping. That God will give my life meaning. That He will guide me and grow me and restore me. That I will be a benefactor of His promise to never leave or forsake me.

Thus I shall leave you with one of my favorite quotes. It is from the book Searching for God Knows What, by Donald Miller. He is having a conversation with a friend about the realities of life.

'But the facts of reality stink,' I told him. 'Reality is like a fine wine,' he said to me. 'It will not appeal to children.'