When Love Shatters

It's a drippy, foggy week before Christmas and I am on a trail run in the woods behind my house (family's house, my second home--or maybe my first). Feet pound rhythmically and the questions fire beside and behind them. And foremost among the questions is one:

Why does love break?

Because I'd said before, I told it to my parents, what I'd been thinking for months now: Everything I touch shatters. The friendships, the love, the relationships, community, everything. Everything breaks, sooner or later, when I've touched it.

Why? All I did was love them. All I did was care. And it shatters. Time and time and time again, it breaks. Is it worth it, to keep loving? Is it right, to keep reaching out, when it will only cause them worse pain later? (And that's not even counting what it does to me.)

So my feet pound the trail and my heart pounds questions. The trail slopes downward and I break to a walk to save my knees. My prayer drifts out, mist into mist. "Why, God?"

And just like that, there's an answer that stops me cold; my feet freeze in the trail and I grab the nearest tree and hang on, like the force of the thought might knock me over if I'm not careful.

Love always shatters. 

Always?

Always, on earth. Because Love will always be colliding with evil. And that causes shattering.

The lyrics of a song drift into my head: "Love's like an ocean..."

Those waves--they roll on and on across the deep, strong but peaceful, gentle--until they reach the shore. That wave breaking, it can break you, it can kill you, it can drive you under, make you feel you're drowning. But it's not the wave that does that. It's the wave breaking. Striking the rock. Clashing with something completely opposite to itself.

Like Love. Like Love always is, always will be, as long as there is evil in the world.

Love's collision will break others, will break itself, will create a million pieces out of things that looked whole. But the only alternative is to abandon Love and choose evil. Because there is no middle ground, no safe walled-in place, not in this case.

And perhaps, as we choose, it's worthy to remember that sometimes, breaking is the only way to healing.

Love by the Wayside

I have wondered, in the dark damp days, Can love be wasted?

I see it lying by the wayside, after all, in the ditch, like a tossed away rag, like a child given up for dead. It looks wasted. It looks used-up. It looks dead. It looks as if it would be useless and inefficient and half-broken and hopelessly out-of-date, even if you could and did revive it.

But Love is not a rag and Love is not even a person. Love is greater than all of these.

Love is a seed. A seed that never dies because it is a piece of the very heart of God. And so when it appears used-up and dead and thrown away, that is the most magical time of Love. 

Because that is when Love grows. It sends out a root. It anchors itself deep. It brings out leaves, more roots, stems, and, eventually, it blooms. 

Oh, the birds will try to snatch it away. And the thorns will try to choke it out. And the winds will try to blow it away and sometimes they succeed. You know what? 

They only blow it somewhere else. Where it's dropped, and it looks dead once more, and then, bit by bit, it revives. 

Nothing that God IS will ever be wasted. Ever.

May He give us courage. Not only to be the seed, but to accept it. Not only to grow again, but to nurture what comes to us. Not only to love, but to be loved.  Because Love is never wasted.

Christmas Home

It's almost Christmas.

That makes twenty-three Christmases I've been through. That's a lot of holidays. A lot of "Jingle Bells" and "Silent Night." A lot of packages. A lot of readings of Luke chapter two.

And I am home for Christmas. But not really. Allow me to explain...

Once upon a time, all of us were little. And once upon a time, all of us wanted nothing more than to grow up. To be on our own. To forge our own path into the wild, beckoning, rosy world.

Then we got there. And of a sudden it wasn't so rosy any more.

Everyone tells you of the bills to pay, the job to hold down, the lack of "freedom." But those are the easy parts of growing up. Bills can be earned. Jobs can be fulfilling. Freedom is a relative thing.

Nobody told eight- or ten- or thirteen-year-old you of the pain you'd encounter. Of the friendships you'd lose. Of the times you'd want so desperately to cry--but you couldn't. Of the long walks in the woods just trying to find your heart and maybe put two pieces back together again. Of the suffocating darkness that would strike at you from every corner. Nobody told you about all that.

I'm still not sure if they didn't tell us because they didn't know--or because they didn't know how to explain--or because they'd tried so hard to forget, that they did forget...

It doesn't really matter. We're here now, and there's a part of us that desperately wants to go back, to be a child again, to go home. But we can't. There's no turning the clock back. There's no stepping backward.

What does Christmas really mean when you realize you will never be home for Christmas again? That there's not a place in this world that is your true home?

Maybe--just maybe--it's remembering that once, two thousand years ago, a Baby was born into a world. A world that, though He'd made it, would never, ever be His real home. Yet He chose to be born here, He chose to live here, He chose to die here--

So that, Someday, we could go Home. Home for Christmas. Home for eternity.

Because it wouldn't have been home for Him--without us.

Story

Bible class is always the hardest.

Oh, and I know why too. *Someone* isn't happy with any focus on the Bible or on our relationship with God. And thus it increases my prayer life, not knowing what I'm going to talk about until Friday or Sunday! ;)

This last week, praying (again) for inspiration, especially after stumbling across a revealing Bible journal entry by one of my kids, I was impressed by a thought:

Story, Bri. 

What story? I don't have stories.

Sure you do. 

THOSE stories? Oh my kids love stories. They don't care what it's about either. The magic words "I'm going to tell you a story..." get them all quiet and staring rapturously, no matter how uninteresting the story itself might be. But...really God?

Those stories.

 On my walk, I started thinking...God redeems everything. Every fall, every stumble, every pain and tear shed. And He has wired our hearts and souls for hearing stories. Even His Word is primarily stories. Perhaps story--our story--our testimony of His faithfulness--is the primary way He redeems the past.

So why should we be reluctant to tell, even though it may be raw and unpolished and stumbling? Why should I hesitate to share how He has worked and is working, even if it isn't "amazing"? Maybe, just maybe, the common everyday life stories of God's little and big providences are what we are missing.

Maybe, just maybe, some more of them should be told.

What's your story today?
What's mine?

IRL: A Thursday (Head Teacher Version)

It's 7:50 and I finish my e-mail to Mom and step outside my office. Turn on lights, unlock the front door, re-lock the inside door. Check over my lesson plans to make sure I have everything. Go back to the office. I've been here an hour now, been up for three and a half, and there are probably at least eight more to go. They'll fly, though--I know that much for sure. Having no more than half an hour of sustained "focus time" on one element of one subject makes for a fast-moving day. (Yes, I set it up that way on purpose...)

At four the kids will probably be gone (earlier if I'm lucky), and I'll have (hopefully) finished most of the grading while I wait for them to leave (perks of having a class of only six students!). Then it's attendance records, final grading, and plugging in the grades, organizing some sort of structure out of the chaos that seems to plague my steps (regardless of what others may see), and making phone calls as I drive to see my horse, hopefully leaving before 4:30 so it's not too late when I get back. I think most of what a principal/head teacher does is phone calls and e-mails. And paperwork. And putting out "fires."

If I'm lucky, I'll get to River's "house" by 5:15 or so, and spend a while with him before leaving around 6:30 for the drive home (in the dark, trying desperately to stay awake). I'll get home around 7 or a little later--wash dishes, take a shower, eat an apple and some peanuts (my superfoods), make tea, and crash on the couch to call my parents, drink my tea, spin, and try to recharge my batteries. Music practice until sometime after 9, and then bed.

And that is a day in the life. :)

What It Means

"Still Path"

"What does following in God's steps mean to you? And what happens when you do follow in His steps?"

Good questions, dear friend. I've been pondering them all week.

And as I sit here at the near-end of a week of rain, listening to music to fill the silence in my empty house, worn from a week of late nights and early mornings, trying not to think about how I miss my friends, overwhelmed with a hundred responsibilities, it's a little hard to see the light as I usually do. But I can say one thing with confidence.

For me, following God's steps means two words. Or actually, four:

Caring more. For healing.

More than is comfortable. More than is convenient. More than is necessary. More than others have. More than others will, or could, or should.

And yet, just caring isn't enough. You can care, and break. You can care, and wound. Horribly. And then it is better not to care at all.

So true caring must be always focused on healing. And that means receiving everything--every heartthrob, every touch on the shoulder, every smile, every tear, every note on the to-do list, every e-mail, every meeting, everything--from the ultimate Healer. Because as people, we are the Wounded. And without Him, we wound.

But praise God, with Him, we can heal.

What happens when I follow? Loneliness. Exhaustion. Emptiness. Sure. You read my third paragraph. But so much more. So much more. When they don't fill (because they never do), He does. Sunsets and stars. Full moons and foggy mornings. Flowers in the fields. Cool breezes. Storms sweeping down across the lake. Thunder and rain. So much beauty it literally hurts. Richness.

And, ultimately, a dream of the certain Victory to come. That's what it means.

IRL: Triumphs

There are days when I just love being a teacher.

Days when I go to church and get hugs from my kids and words of affirmation and encouragement from families.

Days when our Bible class is filled with questions and searching and going back to the Word for answers.

Days when my six kiddos are sprawled in the window seats reading their Bibles (for some of them, it's probably their first time having personal worship every day), and the sun streams in, and piano music floats in the background, and for a moment all is quiet.

Days when they get ridiculously excited about our lesson on a strong literary character.

Days when I bring a problem to them for class discussion and they solve it themselves (with a little help).

Days when I watch them get involved at church and my heart swells with joy as if I were their parent, not "just" their teacher.

Discouragement is one of my biggest setbacks--and it's something the devil throws at me almost daily. And so I hoard up these moments and days and look back on them.

"But I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High." (Ps. 77:10)

Day Breaks

The sky is pink and orange over the eastern horizon.

I lean against the window seat and watch it. There's a moment of stillness in the hectic pace of life. The color shifts and fades and grows again, almost alive.

A thousand heart-stirrings surge inside. Someday I will have to leave this place. And though I love it here, I hope I leave soon.

Not for another school. Not for a marriage or for another job. Someday soon, I hope to leave because I'm not allowed to be here longer. Because only a short time after that, I'll stand and watch another sun rise. Watch a day break in which I know there'll be no end.

Soon, He will come. And the sunrise won't compare.

Oh, may the Day break soon.

But in the meantime, may it break in my heart every morning, as I watch the sun rise.

First Night

It was night when I became a guardian.

To you that might seem inconsequential--a little puzzling, perhaps. But we have only experienced night three times in six thousand years.

That was the second time.

It was also the reason I became a guardian.

You see, in the beginning, I thought about guardianship and decided not to. It seemed a very difficult job--and not only difficult, but wearing.

Then that night came.

It fell suddenly, like a shadow from some gigantic monster, a darkness almost smothering in its heaviness. From one side of the city to the other, we pressed into the Father's throne. The air vibrated with emotion. Only once before had this happened--and we could not imagine what might make it happen again. We did not know what fear was, then, but I daresay that fear was what we felt.

The Father was weeping. There had been tears of joy when the stars were made. There had been shouts of welcome when humanity was placed. But only once before had we seen sorrow. We glanced at each other, and pressed closer. He looked up.

"My children." The sound was flat, and almost dull, shot through with a pain I could almost touch. "My children--" and His voice failed. He only motioned. And we looked, and we saw.

The darkness. Oh, the darkness. If we had thought it was bad here, it was a hundred times deeper there. And as the days passed it grew worse. The planet itself seemed to groan. The ground, to shriek. And they were deaf. Deaf to the pain. Deaf to--to everything. They thought they saw, they thought they heard--but they saw only a flicker, heard only a whisper. When the light is gone, you do not know how deep the darkness is.

The light returned to the city. But not to Earth. Not to most of it, at least. I watched and the pain tore into me like so many knives (those, too--I had not known them before that night), till I could no longer stand it and I rushed into the Father's presence.

"Is there not something I can do?"

His eyes were full of pain, but gentle. "Yes. Yes, there is. But it is hard now."

"I do not care. Whatever it is. Anything to ease that pain."

"Anything?" He whispered, as if to Himself, and I thought He blinked away a tear. "Yes, my star, there is something for you. Look." He pointed. "See that one?"

"Of course. She is only a child. How can a child live in such a dark place? She will die. Oh, my Father, she will die!"

"She would," He said, with a smile, "if not for you. Will you go?"

I only bowed my head in response. He laid His hands upon me, and gave me blessing enough to last the years. And so I went into the night, and I became a guardian. And a star.

Little Things

Memories. Memories make a lifetime.

"Do you remember that Sabbath when we were all so tired--and we came to your house--and we made spaghetti and random tortilla things--and sat and talked--and played in the hammock?!"

"Do you remember that evening when we had that snow day and we all came over and had popcorn and hot chocolate and tea and talked?"

"Do you remember when we sat on the lawn and looked at the sunset?"

"Do you remember..."

Yes, I remember. How could I forget? Last semester I had the great privilege of becoming "mom"/"big sister"/"twin sister"/general-carer-for-of-people to a rather large group of college students. Many of whom I'm still in touch with, still their sister, still even called mommy on occasion. (All this, by the way, makes me ridiculously happy).

And I've noticed something. As we re-connect over the summer, and as I hear and recite with them the times most precious to us, we remember the big things--but it's the little things we really remember. The times when we felt heard and loved and we felt safe and cared for. The times when we looked another in the eye and said or just felt: "You too?!'

Those are the times we remember. And usually they were tiny times. Spur-of-the-moment thoughts. Words said that seemed to take no root at all. A quick invitation to a few friends. Popcorn and tea. But they are what sank in deep. 

I'm increasingly convicted that we are not called to great things. We are called to a hundred tiny little things. God alone does great things. But He does them through our tiny actions.

May I do little things in His love. 

"Don't look for big things; just do small things with great love. ...The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love." (Mother Teresa)