I am sitting outside. I thought about writing additional descriptive words to that sentence, but it needs to stand alone because of the date and my location. It’s June and I am in Austin. I’m sitting in the shade of an extra large live oak tree just outside of a sandwich shop and the gentle, summery breeze is making it “feel like” 84 degrees in the middle of the day. Sometimes the miraculous lingers right around us- if we only have eyes to see it- or skin to feel it.
As I started to type these words I heard the sirens of an ambulance, two fire trucks, and half a dozen police cars as they whizzed by across the street. In the distance I can see two first responders unloading a stretcher. And here it lies: the truth on this tenth of the month. In the middle of an unexpectedly lovely afternoon in Austin where my day’s greatest worries consisted of packing three backpacks full for a summer camp, remembering to take a shower and getting to a haircut appointment on time, there are people in visible distance fighting for the lives of another and/or perhaps someone fighting for his/her own life. I ask for God’s mercy for those helping and those hurting and then ask for God’s mercy to help me live in this tension (somehow) as long as I live. The good of this life, forever stained with the horrible. The sad and wince-worthy chased down by the pure and the beautiful. It’s both. It’s all.
Rhodes turned six this past Saturday and close to everything about this boy right now falls into the good/pure/beautiful category. Raising him feels like the first bite of a favorite popsicle. The great taste will not last and the more time passes, the higher the likelihood that you have a mess on your hands, but man, Rhodes being six has been more of a gift to us than anything he unwrapped this past weekend. He has a wit about him that is new. He is quick to call us out, but he does it with such an eye-dancing, joyful face that we don’t care. (He’s right most of the time anyway.) I haven’t had a six year old boy yet and it causes equal amounts of gratitude and grief that this will likely be the only time I do. I am fighting to cherish the summer smell of his hair, the shrug of his little shoulders, and how much we smile when he’s in our presence. I watched him fall easily asleep his birthday night after a wild day of friends, waterslides and sweets, and I started to cry as I looked at him. I came downstairs and asked Austin, what if we didn’t have Rhodes? What would we have missed? How good is God to have made Rhodes and put him in this family?
There is good, pure and beautiful all around us.
Then, though, right in the midst of this, I have entered into some conversations and heard some hard-fought stories that have just leveled me. I never knew how badly I needed our church to go verse by verse through the Old Testament book of Habakkuk, until there was a season where it seemed as though I had an endless amount of laments to bring before God. People can be horrible to people- mostly, I think, because other people were horrible to them. But I have seen the sorrowful and appalling things human beings are capable of lately and it makes me want to start to hate the people causing this pain.
Sometime in the middle of May, though, God grabbed my attention and realigned me in the middle of a heartfelt lament. I had a level of anger in my soul that both scared me and felt right somehow. The only problem was, the hatred within me was misdirected. I started to name some of the people whom I felt hatred towards and in His great grace and guidance God led me instead to what is truly worth hating. Sin. These image-bearers around me- other people- no matter how messed up, unlike me, or infuriating- are not the deepest problem. Sin is. And sin works its destructive way through human beings to do the opposite of what God wants. That day in May God extended an invitation to me to hate sin the way He does and to love people the way He does. And it turns out both are only accomplishable through His Spirit.
There is such good. There is such bad. But within the tension of both there is a God who is so good that He took all the bad that has ever been and will ever be, put it undeservingly upon Himself so we (the causers of all this bad) could taste, see, know and even BE good. Anything good in this life is directly from this God and anything bad in this life is something Christ died for and promises to one day redeem. This is the best news I’ve ever heard on a Tuesday.
See you in July. xoxo
Learning:
We are never too old, too removed, or too inexperienced to dive into something completely new or foreign. I simply don’t do many new things because I’m unnecessarily afraid.
Which press-on nails are actually worth buying and which are a crock.
(Or relearning) how settling and needed quiet is for my soul.
Not all kid birthday parties have to be agonizing. ;)
Reading
One with my Lord by Sam Allberry- I will listen to bits too because I will forever feel smarter when a witty Brit reads big theological words to me.
Anne of Green Gables - Ry is reading it and so I’ve listened along while washing dishes so we can talk about it. I am wowed yet again by the breathtaking imagery and how each time Anne feels a little less annoying and a little more the girl I want to be.
Theo of Golden by Allen Levi- the self-published, cannot be stopped, beauty of a book.
Habakkuk (as previously mentioned.) What an unexpected and needed book for me in this season.
Praying
For help
For healing
For hope
For honor of all people
Up to:
Forgetting what day it is (summer).
Squeezing any time I can with my sweet nephew (Trey) and his pretty awesome parents :)
Counting down days until the most epic nap of the year- upon arrival at the lake.
Staying up a little too late, having fun and not caring, until the next morning.
Here’s some end of May/beginning of June love for ya:
