And hopefully by the time we finish the Lord will have drastically moved my heart.
I am in desperate need of a heart-shift. Strike that. A heart transplant.
Lord, give me Your heart?
Deployment never ceases to clarify the tension in which we, as pursuers of Christ, are called to live. My current struggle is truly just a variation of some other struggle that I'm sure I've written about before. Ultimately I know what the remedy will be: the Gospel. But first the Lord is calling my heart out of the shadows of obscurity, into a place where diagnosis takes place, into the Light.
The last few days, perhaps for the last week, I have rushed through almost everything. Christmas vacation days could not come fast enough. Then the road trip to Orlando for Christmas could not pass quickly enough. Then emails, phone calls, and video chats with Stephen could not come often enough. The miles home could not be short enough. And now the week drags on as well, despite the fact that it was actually shortened by the holiday.
Unsettled. Discontent. Absent.
There were a few redeeming moments. I do tend to enjoy the evenings more than the afternoons and always more than the mornings. And time with my family was certainly blessed and refreshing. But overall I have been over-eager to cross days off my big calendar on the wall.
The first twinge of conviction came with the first chapter of Priscilla Shirer's "The Resolution for Women," a sweet Christmas gift from my in-laws. The first resolution is "Surprisingly Satisfied," so it's no wonder that I quickly found piercing lines like this:
"I recognized that by rushing through life, I'd been subtly devaluing those around me and the experiences I was involved in, not appreciating the importance and significance they bring to my life at this very moment, not grasping my responsibility for holding dear and treating well these gifts God has entrusted to me."
or like this:
"Then before you know it, you've missed out on the joys in the journey, the growth that comes from battling through the difficulties, the sweet and savory experience of creating the memories."
and questions like these:
"What have you been hurrying through? What have you been hurrying to get to?"
With these thoughts resonating in my mind through the Christmas weekend, I settled into the 7-hour drive home on Monday with a new book from my best friend, Tashi. It is called One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. The theme of the book? Gratitude.
Ok, Lord. You want to teach me about contentment, grace, gratitude, joy. Please do! I'm miserable here.
My mind begins to process all the reasons why I should be actively grateful, constant in thanksgiving, cognizant of grace, etc.
But my heart is still so far behind.
Today is more of the same. I think part of the issue is the collision between expectations and reality. At certain times in my life I have lived with such a high view of eternity with Christ that anything here that happened to go well was nice, but not valued as the norm. Comparatively, everything on earth is infinitely unsatisfying.
Either way, after a longer day of work than I had anticipated, I came home to eat a frozen dinner (if you know me well this is probably the most shocking statement of this entire post). I realized that I had not yet hung up this week's deployment countdown card. The one I took down yesterday is in the shape of a pocket. On the back it reads: "Keep me in your pocket and memorize me! 'The Lord is good, a refuge when trouble comes. He is close to those who trust in him.' Nahum 1:7" I did, in fact, keep it in my pocket today. Thank you, sweet friend, who thought of this.
The card I moved to the current week space is for Week 38, Psalm 84:11.
"For the Lord God is a sun and shield;
the Lord bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly."
I've been living life, viewing life, valuing life, as though I am missing out on something that I deserve to have. The Lord did call me to marriage. This much I know for certain. But He also called my husband to the Army long before our marriage was in the picture. This being true, I am called to the Army as well.
Do I really believe that the Lord is not withholding any good thing from me right now?
Do I really grasp deep down, at the gut level, where all my emotions spring from, that God has allowed our separation because it is good?
Do I view it as a terrible thing that the Lord will redeem?
Or do I see it as a beautiful, if heart-wrenching, gift that He has offered to me?
Do I agree with His word that there is nothing good that He has not already given me?
It certainly depends on how I define the word "good." For that I turn to Romans 8:28-29: "For we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose...to be conformed to the image of His Son."
What is truly good is my conformity to the likeness of Jesus. If wrestling through Stephen's deployment is the best tool for that masterpiece that the Lord has at this point in my life, He would actually be unloving if He did not use it now. What is truly good is for me to have Jesus. So if realizing and rejoicing in my desperation for Christ is the aim of this deployment, it is the sweetest gift and highest good the Lord could give.
I realize this could sound maniacal or despotic, but verse 32 of Romans 8 brings it all into proper perspective: "He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?"
God has not given me His most treasured Son only to deny me of lesser good now.
Such truth is unbearably difficult to feel at times, but how I long to be in that place!
Can I see it as a gift? Not only deployment, but every other part of life that seems on the surface to be a frustration, a waste, a heartache, a hurdle, an obstacle, a loss?
Can I please have Gospel-eyes to recognize that I lack no. good. thing?
Oh! How I do not want to waste this year! Whether it meets my expectations for productivity or not, I want to savor every good thing the Lord brings in and through it.
My entire being wrestles with this tension. I miss Stephen. Separation is a gift. It is good for me to have a husband. It is best for me to be away from him for a time.
Lord, let this only whet my appetite for Your return. Let my heart live constantly in the tension between fruitful labor on earth and the deepest desire to be with You.
I may not be in the Garden
But the lie is still the same
That happiness awaits me
Just beyond what You have named
Crafty serpent, sinful heart
Such a deadly combination
Kill, steal and destroy my joy
Restless gripe of aggravation
Pull me upward now to You
As Jesus' tree of death allows
Serves as reminder of Your heart
You gave all then, You give good now
Give me a heart to live
Out of knowing this is true
So that my heart becomes a blessing
To those around me, first to You
