Since my last blog post, I’ve found myself in a season of one family crisis after another. In early August, one of my closest family members (biologically that is) in our very small family “accidentally” took a whole bottle of pills and, even though she did survive, her life and the life of our family will never, ever be the same; and, since that overdose, three other close family members have been dealing with health challenges which, though not life-threatening (or so we’ve been told), are surely quality of life zapping. And to be quite frank, finding my footing on the other side of all this, and still in the middle of much of this really, has been rather difficult. In quiet moments, I’ve often found myself in a state of melancholy because it simply feels as if some sort of unpalatable news is around every bend, as if countless threats to our well-being loom ever so close. I can hardly stand to tune in to the local or national news anymore or even to answer my own telephone, as this life’s heaviness seems too much to bear—and I find myself sick of such heaviness and yearning for just the opposite, yearning for some real, tangible “lightness.”
Christ tells us that in Him our burden is light, and I so need to remember that, to remember that it is not my job down here to shoulder all the sorrow. The Word also tells us that in Him we are free and that we are to live as such—to live freely and with much joy and thanksgiving. As I remember all this I think, “Wow! What a crazy, crazy contrast! Freedom, joy and thanksgiving in this world as it is right now!?!” And, well, as I contemplated the stark contrast between celebration and sorrow, between how this life should and will be and how it actually is now, I decided to turn to those who seem to most console me—writers like C.S. Lewis. I needed to know that this overwhelming feeling of dread was not unique to me, and I quickly discovered that it most surely is not. In one of my devotionals, a thematic compilation of excerpts from many of Lewis’ works, he actually said that he would rather leave this world for the next (would choose for his flesh to die) than ever live through another war; and, ironically, the book in which he said such a thing is entitled The Joyful Christian. No, trying times were not absent from and were certainly not new to Lewis’ generation nor are they to mine–trying times are the norm for this realm.
Being reminded of this, though, did not make me feel very much better; it only made me feel less alone. And sometimes, especially when life here does seem overwhelming, we don’t need fuzzy falsehoods; we don’t someone to tell us that everything is going to be okay. We simply need someone beside us, preferably a silent someone since the human tongue does appear to possess the uncanny knack of making a heartbreaking situation feel even more tragic. Yes, we do tend to often say precisely the wrong thing, yet we want so very much to help—yet another contrast; we hurt versus help when that’s the last thing we really want to do. I think about how Jesus was when he was here as a man. His very presence made all the difference. Sometimes he did engage verbally, but other times he showed us his heart by barely speaking at all—like when he was being accused and abused. Yep, sometimes words are overrated (an assertion coming from a verbose talker/writer). Sometimes we just have to show up. I think it was Elisabeth Elliot, martyred missionary Jim Elliot’s widow, who said that some days all you can do is the next thing. Well, I’m seeing now that I am in a true “next thing season.” There are just too many uncontrollable variables I’m dealing with right now, and I don’t feel like I can afford to look too far ahead. I simply have to choose to do the next thing and to do that next thing with as much joy and gratitude as I can muster up; and doing so truly does feels like a supernatural act, as I know it is something I can do only because I now have the real and risen living Christ in me making it all possible.
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