Exhaustion & New Life

Most days start out roughly the same – the alarm goes off for my husband, who has to get up and out before the rest of us, and I lay there, trying to get my internal gears running, while my body laments, “…but I’m still so tired.”

I know this is just a season – a season of parenthood for which we planned, prayed, and rejoiced. But just because something is a blessing, it doesn’t mean that it isn’t also very, very hard. And very tiring.

Perhaps you’re in your own hard season of life right now. Maybe there are more people demanding more from you than you know how to handle – the boss, the spouse, the parents, the children. You give and give and give until you feel like you just might give out under the tremendous pressure to be everyone’s everything with nothing left for yourself.

Or maybe it feels just the opposite is true – the house is empty except for the nattering from the television you keep on to keep you company. No one calls, no one writes, no one seems to remember that you are alive. One seemingly empty day blends into the other, with only a bit of sleep between to tell the difference. Life seems flat, dull, and so very tired.

This life is very, very hard sometimes. There’s brokenness everywhere we look, even within ourselves.

There are those out there who say that if you believe in Jesus, your life will not be so hard. You will be rewarded with prosperity, happiness, and good hair days if you say the right prayer to invite Jesus into your heart. They treat Jesus like a diet pill – you don’t have to change anything about your life to be a disciple. But that’s just not true.

God knows life is hard. God may not have intended it that way, since God created us for loving relationship with God’s self and plunked us down in a beautiful garden, where all we had to do was reach out our hands to eat sweet, perfect fruit until our appetites were content. But we were not content with that…

A clergy colleague of mine made the great point in one of his sermons that we all struggle with telling ourselves “No!” Maybe we’re very disciplined when it comes to exercise or we’re a model employee, but there’s usually at least one place in our lives where we struggle with our appetites. That’s where Adam and Eve got into trouble with the forbidden fruit and that’s the same place many of us find ourselves, too.

So where have your appetites led you? I confess that I have to work hard to rein in my physical appetite for food. It’s easy for me to eat well beyond the point of contentment because the taste or crunch or sweetness makes me feel happy. And I know many folks who struggle with things much harder and darker. Our appetites can rule over us if we are not careful, exhausting our own resources and drawing us away from God.

As we read in Isaiah, “All of you who are thirsty, come to the water! Whoever has no money, come, buy food and eat! Without money, at no cost, buy wine and milk! Why spend money for what isn’t food, and your earnings for what doesn’t satisfy? Listen carefully to me and eat what is good; enjoy the richest of feasts. Listen and come to me; listen, and you will live” (55:1-3).

God offers us water bubbling up within us such that we will never be thirsty and will have eternal life (John 4). God offers us a sumptuous feast for our endless hunger and we don’t have to pay a penny.

And read the Isaiah text closely – the new life God offers isn’t necessarily full of fancy clothes or new cars (i.e. “what doesn’t satisfy”). Instead, God asks us to listen, so that we may live. Listen to the Word of God, who came into creation to teach and to heal and to embody God’s love as Jesus Christ.

When we’re so very tired, when we’ve exhausted our own strength, it’s easy to succumb to our appetites, to make bad decisions, and to suppose that this is all that life is. But life is so much more. If you need some newness in your life, get yourself to worship this Easter Sunday! We’ll be worshiping the risen Savior at 11am and 5pm and there’s always room for you.

Christmas Lists & Dreams Deferred

I’ve been thinking about transition, dreams, and contentment a bit lately. It’s that time of year when my family asks me for a Christmas list because, for many of us, our love language is giving gifts. Or, at least, it’s one of our love languages, a way of saying, I value you, I treasure you, I want you to be happy.

So, my cousin contacted us to let us know that our lists were insufficient. Probably because my grandpa starts Christmas shopping in July. So last night, just before we turned in, my husband remarked, “I don’t know what else to ask for that’s not really expensive.” I thought for a moment, then named 5-6 things I could imagine he could want or need. We laughed at how well I knew him and how good I am at thinking of gifts. Then I asked him to try to do the same for me, since I don’t have any idea of what to add to my list either. He was stumped. I think his exact words were, “If I knew what you wanted, I would know what to get you every year.”

As I lay down, I pondered his words. Why is it that I don’t want things? Why is it that I can’t come up with a good list of things that can be ordered and wrapped and given? Honestly, I think it’s because I’m content with my life for the most part. I have everything I need and then some. Sure, we have recurring needs – diapers, wipes, food, gas, etc. – but not the kinds of things that most folks think make good gifts.

But I refuse this year to ask for wasteful things. In the past, I’ve filled up lists with books that look good that I’ve never read, movies I like but never sit down to watch, or music that sits dormant on an ancient iPod. There’s something within me that has known this was not right, but this year, is adamant in saying, “No!”

Perhaps it’s because I’m in a different place this year. I’ve now been a mom for over a year and my perspective has been radically, irrevocably changed. Honestly, I feel like I’ve been in transition for that year and am just now finding my footing again. The transition of my body that occurred during the birth of my son – that agonizing, amazing time – was only the beginning of this transition of my life.

Recently on Facebook, I’ve been reminded of the fragility of our lives and how many things can cause these transitions. A friend posted the other day that it was 2 months ago that his daughter was born, who has since died. Then today, a friend who had announced that they were expecting shared the hard news that they had miscarried. It all made me think of this poem:

“Harlem” by Langston Hughes

  What happens to a dream deferred?
      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore –
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over –
      like a syrupy sweet?

     Maybe it just sags
     like a heavy load.

     Or does it explode?

Sometimes transition comes on the heels of a dream deferred. And lately, in my experience, that has looked like the lives of children being tragically short. I look at my son, who laughs and plays and tries to run, feeling the precarious nature of things. Last week in youth, we talked about joy and I taught that joy is an abiding gift of God that is deeper than happiness. I wonder in those moments of watching my child, if I could still feel joy if something happened. I trust, by faith, that joy would still be waiting, like a deep pool of peaceful waters, beneath the tumult of trouble or despair.

But when you’re in transition – when all you can do is breathe and cry and curse and try to run from the inescapable pain that will not be denied because it is a part of you – it can be hard to know anything else. I pray for all of us that we will not dry up or fester or rot or become sickeningly sweet or sag or explode. I don’t believe that is the will of God. I believe the tragic times of transition in our lives are a byproduct of the broken, sinful world we live in. But I also believe that God is with us in the transition, no matter how painful, waiting expectantly to bring new life into being.