It Seems I Will Have to Settle for Hope: An Advent Meditation

I am primarily a melancholy-tempered girl. And I always seem to feel a little more melancholy than usual during Christmastime. I don’t know if it’s the short, dark days or the sugary sweet effervescence of hollow “Christmas cheer” that makes me feel like I just drank a gallon of Kool-Aid and my body is shutting down. Call me a Scrooge if you’d like but it just leaves me feeling like there has got to be more than this. This year especially. 2016 has been quite the year (to be honest, since November 8^th everything is a blur…)  For me personally, and for the collective world community. The volatility of “life as we know it” is terrifying. The next day, the next moment, our health, prosperity, and peace—as we’ve narrowly defined them—can be altered in truly wonderful or incredibly tragic ways. These things are not promised. This year more than ever that reality has become all too clear. Instances of happiness are met just that quickly with awful moments. I find myself wrestling with this. I don’t like having a false sense of security and control that is so easily shattered. I'm uncomfortable (understatement) with a world where new life and pure goodness can coexist in the same moment as death and inconceivable evil---where one person can experience a great triumph on the same day that another experiences deep loss. It feels so unfair. So unjust. Almost unnatural. This unexpected juxtaposition of light and dark is unnerving.  The emotional whiplash. 

How does one's soul and spirit not get overtaken by the weight of it all? Sadly, for me I realize just how stubbornly I’ve taken up residence in the House of Fear and self-preservation.

 But Advent. My longing, the anguish of my seeming lack, my heartbreak over all that is broken and just not right in this world are channeled into the expectant hoping for a Savior. Because I believe we in fact were created for more. This is not all there is. There is much more. Beyond what we could ever hope for or imagine.

And isn't that just this life-- it's a dance and dirge. We somehow, someway find the strength to hold joy and sorrow together. In the midst of all the moments that make up this beautiful tragic life, the Lord just as He has promised is with us always. And will continue to be with us even to the end of the age when we will *finally* be joined with him face to face. We have been given the promise and reality of this Great Love. That came, that is come, and that will come. This is my joy. This is my peace. This is my hope. And this hope is not just for some future reality but it is for now. Right now. In this moment. In the darkness and despair. Or in the joy. In all of it.

How should this promise change our present reality? In light of this truth, I am being changed. I am freed to live fully in every moment—even as it takes me from my carefully erected safe houses, off the shore and out into risky territory. But it is so worth it. We are freed and empowered to weep with those who mourn. Dance and sing with those who rejoice. Advocate for those who are oppressed. Walk alongside those who have fallen by the wayside. To see our neighbors. To love them. Radically. We can confidently and whole-heartedly do this because we are fully secure in love and significance. There is no threat to us. 

My hope for you dear friends this holiday season is of course for peace and health and prosperity. But I know the reality of this life. So my hope is that you would know Peace in all that you face, for spiritual health and a true sense of your security and significance, and that you would prosper in ways that do not depend on the stability of your circumstances. 

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For your continued contemplation: Philippians 4:12-13 | John 1:14-18 | Isaiah 11:1-10 | Psalm 56:3-4 | Psalm 40: 1-3 | Psalm 94:19

Weakness and Failure

We make decisions based on the information that's in front of us at the time. Sometimes those decisions are inconsequential, sometimes they're big. We pray and seek wise counsel and talk it through. We try to anticipate all the potential difficulties and gear up for all the possible struggles. We can go in with the "best" intentions. Try to do everything "right." But even all of that is not enough. Never enough. Still, things don't turn out as we plan. 

I don't think we can ever really comprehend some challenges until we're face to face with them. We are finite beings, and our control over future, unfolding events is limited. To say the least. 

In the breakdown, it's easy to think to yourself or for others to say you made a mistake, you should've known, you should've seen. To be swallowed up in regret and bitterness. But hindsight is 20/20. Cliché but oh. so. true. Our perspective, our vision is not the same now as it was then. Oftentimes it's purged of some of the self-delusion, denial, and pride by fire. We can't really see the depth of our heart until we're plunged into it. For better or for worse, we can't always see everything we need or ought to and we don't always catch on to the flags and signs before us. No matter how hard we try things still go awry--we carry our brokenness and our wounds with us into every interaction. We don't have the strength to hold it all together. We don't have it all figured out. And that's okay. There's no shame in that. We are not God.

Feeling small as I stand beside the ocean

And in the aftermath of the aftermath, there are many questions and lots of grief. Did I hear God wrong? Did I hear Him at all? Where was He when I was making seemingly regrettable decisions?  I don't always understand why God does things or allows things to be the way He does. And that's okay too. My questions and my honesty don't threaten Him. My failures do not turn Him off. He welcomes my realness and comforts me in the midst of it. And in my weakness and brokenness, He gives me glimpses of how He's at work in my present "dark night." How He's using this anguish and heartache and emptying and remorse for deep healing and transformation.  And ripple effects beyond what I can see or imagine. And as my focus shifts, I see the dawn appearing. This God. He wastes nothing.

Anyway, all that to say: Grace. Grace with yourself. Grace with others. Our weakness and failure are not cause for shame or to be shamed. Life is not always so black and white, cause and effect. Trust the process.

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For your continued contemplation: 2 Corinthians 12:8-10 | John 16:33 | Psalm 103:10-14 | Romans 5:1-5 |  Isaiah 43:19 | Psalm 40:1-3

Quarter Life Crisis: Contemplating 23

Something feels so different about turning 23. It feels like I’m coming to the beginning of the end of my youth. And if I’m being honest, that gives me a profound sense of sadness and melancholy. Maybe a little regret. And the sting of loss too (hence the quarter life crisis). What do I have to say for my “young” years? Where was my fun, wild/crazy and carefree period? I feel like I spent most of them so serious, with my head down walking lacklusterly through life—just trying to survive and not get overtaken by the pain of the day to day. 

Oh that hurt, that excruciating hurt of wasted years, weak years, seemingly fruitless years.

I wish that in these past 23 years of life I’d allowed myself to live more. I wish I’d allowed myself more space to develop and discover and feel. I wish I hadn’t created so many boundaries and fences and walls for my soul. I wish I’d listened more to His Truth and let it drown out all of the lies. I wish I’d taken more time to love myself instead of drowning in self-hatred. That self-hatred has taken up far too much of my energy. And now I’m exhausted. What a prideful, selfish and short-sighted exhaustion. The pridefulness and selfishness in wallowing and ignoring the truth that I was created for more.  In being so consumed with myself and my image to the world that I miss the sacred in the everyday. What a narrow view of what life is supposed to be and what a narrow view of God and His greatness. I don’t believe He makes mistakes. (Not to invalidate those very real feelings that are such a struggle to overcome. I just feel like this is where I’m at in my journey). I just long to be whom I was created to be. All for God’s glory. 

And maybe, that was all part of the journey. Those seemingly wasted years were part of the shaping and molding process. But I think there comes a point when more intentionality is necessary.

Maya Angelou said:

“I am convinced that most people do not grow up...We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old. We carry accumulation of years in our bodies, and on our faces, but generally our real selves, the children inside, are innocent and shy as magnolias.”

Something feels so different about turning 23. Perhaps it’s time for the next step in the process. After a tumultuous youth, that little girl Lissah inside is ready to grow older in wisdom and truth. The invisible part of the journey is ready to manifest itself in perceptible change. It’s time to make the choice to move forward in healing and in maturing. I don’t want to get to the end of my life with only accumulated years and not a greater knowledge and vision and experience of who He is. I want more from this life and I have to make the choice to pursue it. It feels like the end of one era, but the beginning of another. It’s bittersweet.

So here’s to 23, would it be a year of living more purposefully. Of focusing more on Jesus and his glory and grace and less on my own brokenness and incompleteness. Would it be a year of looking upward and outward. Here’s to a year of loving more authentically and with the abandon and freedom that comes from being rooted in His Perfect Love. 

Here’s to a year lived in complete surrender. 

Marriage Rubs You Raw: First Year Reflections

So, I read a blog post a while back about how getting married young is (among many other “pansy-assed” things) really just a way to hide behind somebody from the craziness of life. And quite frankly I think that’s hilarious, because for me, this first year of marriage has been about anything but hiding...

I’m thankful that in the years and months leading up to getting engaged and getting married I had a close friend who let me in on the intimate (and sometimes ugly) details of married life. It prepared me for the nitty gritty reality of marriage that I hadn’t seen portrayed. I only knew of the fairy-tale endings, a life now made whole and complete by another person—and that just ain’t how it is! Marriage satisfies a longing and a void, but not completely and it isn’t a happy ending—from her life I learned it was really the beginning of a new (and by no means less complicated) journey. Even with that preparation, I don’t think you’re ever really prepared for marriage until you’re fully immersed in it. Everyone’s marriage is different, after all two unique broken hot mess people are combining lives! No telling how that’s going to go…

Reflecting back on my first year of marriage, I think the biggest overarching sentiment is that God is using this extremely invasive relationship to rub me raw!

That sort of conjures up a gross and graphic image of blaring red skin, exposed, vulnerable and sometimes bloodied. And to be honest, that’s what my first year of marriage felt like. (Don’t worry there was lots of beautiful, fun, joyous times as well. Discomfort isn’t a bad thing though!) What I brought into my marriage without really realizing the extent of it was, thick skin and tough walls built up over decades of heartache and broken trust. But the friction of another life rubbing up against my carefully guarded safe zones and infringing upon my life is exposing the deepest parts of me and making me vulnerable. 

This friction of living my life alongside another person has given me no place to hide my poorly applied bandages over my many wounds, all the walls and coverings I’ve erected are being worn and broken down.

This year God has shown me that a guarded and protected self is detrimental to a marriage. That might seem obvious to many of you, but not to me. I'd heard that marriage required self-sacrifice but I didn't realize to what extent. The two shall become one flesh is a demand. There is no room for me to be about my single self-preservation. I'm a part of something greater now. I'm being made into something new and it requires every inch of me. There is no room to hide behind my pride if I want my relationship with Alex to continue to grow and mature, if I want the more my heart so greatly longs for.

And so in the midst of this pain and discomfort, there’s a healing taking place. And I thought marriage was just about companionship. God uses it for so. much. more. 

I’m thankful for this rubbing away of my fake self, so that a more authentic self is being revealed.

God truly does more than we can ask or imagine with the small hopes and dreams we envision for ourselves (Ephesians 3:20) We're looking forward to see what God has in store for the next years of our lives together 

Johnson's 1st Sonnet

His faithless fault brings fury to the sea

Her rage gives way to waves upon the shore

These sands of trust that now can never be

A barren land, this storm has now left poor

Ceaseless tossing of the wretched waters

Serves only to perpetuate her wrath

Fixation on the pain that causes bothers

Will only lead her on a cynic’s path

It does one’s heart no good to hold contempt

Forgive him for the thing that proved to tempt

Written Jan. 2009

A Lissah Johnson Original ©