It would be simple to say that the past 3 months were really hard. I struggled with a lot of stuff that I honestly wasn’t expecting to deal with. School was frustrating and I really did not enjoy my classes, I felt as though my influence in my house was absent and my relationships drifted further apart in some aspects, my job was draining and exhausting, as Cru grew I felt less and less like an important part of the movement and community, I’m seeing less of my own sin and am wrestling with some apathy, I haven’t really felt pursued, some serious idols surfaced that I had to begin to root up and confess, my dreams for the future have become so confused with fear and uncertainty and passion that I have no idea what my life will look like... The list could likely continue for years.
Looking at this semester, so much has happened yet it has gone by so incredibly fast. For the first month or so God provided me with an insatiable joy that permeated me. I found so much joy in the people around me, in pursuing the freshmen from the dorms, in recruitment for my sorority, and in just everything. I was seeing prayers answered in tangible ways, and things appeared so fruitful. It definitely felt like a harvest season.
(Our girls! <3) It was during this period when the storms started forming. Hurt and resentment reared their ugly heads in my extended family and caused the deterioration of relationships resulting in gulfs of emotional distance. In addition, Kate and Alex called off their wedding and were dealing with pain of their own. My family felt wrecked, pulled and stretched apart, moaning under the weight of undeserved resentment and brokenness. Yet in the midst of this season God’s presence was so real to me. I experienced true hope, the complete confidence in the assurance of the goodness of God and his promise to work all things for the good of those who trust in Him, and unshakable joy that was based solely in the beauty of his salvation and promises of peace, love, forgiveness, grace, reconciliation, and simply the pleasure of knowing God personally. And then I get the chance to spend a weekend with the community from summer project. Our chance to catch up, and the opportunity to IN-PERSON(!) share with them these feelings, struggles, victories, hurts, joys... And I don’t think words can fully express the joy I feel. It’s something unnatural, it’s true love experienced in the relationships I have with these friends. True friends, the ones whose love is not of them but from the Lord. The ones who I will only see a handful of times before eternity is ours. Not to say I’m like Paul, but in Romans 1:11 when he says, “For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you-- that is, that we may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith, both yours and mine,” is somewhat how I feel. The most I have ever cried was on August 10th-August 11th. Saying goodbye for an indefinite period of time, knowing that what we experienced was so sweet, so real, of eternal significance. A community that was the closest thing to true community I had ever known. Joy and love and acceptance, affirmation and honesty and confession. People whose eyes were looking upward to the Lord, walking side by side, hand in hand. To be reminded of this even for 36 hours spent in Chicago is unreal. To know that no amount of time or distance in miles can separate us from the love of Christ and the supernatural love that we have for each other from Christ. To feel that again in the physical presence, to see it and feel it in the embraces and to know that it’s real despite my inability to express it fully. C.S. Lewis claimed, “friendship is the most unnatural of loves.” It is not needed for survival, but I don’t think I would know what life really was meant to be or could be without it.
No matter how awkward or ineloquent I feel, no matter how many silly things I say, how selfish I can be... These people love me. It’s truly absurd. And no matter their silly or awkward moments, their selfishness, when they disappoint me... I love them. “It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace...” (Philippians 1:7).
These friendships, this incredible fulfilling joy... God wants us to experience this. He wants all of my relationships to be like this. He wants us to live in community and radically share his love with the world, that they may know Him through the love that we have. It’s not just the people who made it to Ocean City Summer Project 2012, and those that could also make it to the reunion. It’s for all who are his children. James says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” He doesn’t want to withhold this from people, but yet not all of my relationships are like this.
But why not? People are sinful. I am sinful. Relationships are broken. I am selfish, focused on myself, not walking in the spirit so much of the time. But I want my life to reflect this love all the time. I want to love without expectations, without limitations, with Christ’s love. I want to forgive because God forgave me. I want to love because He first loved us. I can yield my life to him and bow down to Christ, who is on the throne of my life. He is willing and ready to fill me with energy, with compassion, with patience, with self-control, with joy, with gentleness, with humility, with generosity, with strength...
This is just a shadow of the future joy that awaits us, but eternal life starts here and now. Therefore, although we can’t fully know and experience all these good things, we can see the reflections of them. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Although it is unfortunate that we can’t see fully now, that there is work still to be done before Christ comes back, I don’t focus enough on the fact that we can partially know now! Yes, sin corrupts everything, but God is at work. He lives in us! He is here with us now, Immanuel. Therefore, I am not a slave to sin. “For freedom, Christ has set us free.” Not to live in bondage to sin, but to be set free in the truth of Christ and his suffering and death and resurrection. Therefore, we can experience love and community and grace! We can share these things with others fearlessly. I don’t live for the approval of man, but of God. And the beautiful thing is that when I am striving for the approval of God alone, he gives us the gift of community which is also the co-laboring with other believers who will accept me not on my own merit, but only because they too have been undeservingly accepted and loved by God. When we live with nothing to prove, we can accept each other freely. And yes, the storms of sin will affect our emotions and interactions at times, but that does not affect our friendship, our faith, our love.
I feel like there are so many thoughts, so many praises, so much reflection going on in my noggin right now and it’s coming out so random and jumbled. Yet these are all themes that have come up over the past semester at school that I am finally starting to understand and put together. God really does work all things together for good, and his timing really is perfect. Oh Lord, how good and perfect you are! May these truths sink deep into my heart and soul and not be lost easily.
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