This past week was also our anniversary, which Peter did a knockout job planning and carrying out. I loved it. He made me a dinner of king crab with this incredible butter,lemon,garlic,dill dip that I would dip cardboard in, happily. There was asparagus and a beautiful salad with figs and pine nuts and fresh baby mozzarella, and a dressing he made himself. This is the first time Peter has cooked me dinner before, and I loved it. He got me a book I've been wanting for a long time, some flowers, and candles and bath stuff. What a guy. On Valentine's day, which we normally don't make a big deal of, I got some Chinese delivered, and we watched Roman Holiday, which I decidedly love. Another great thing Peter has brought to my life: the appreciation of old classic films. This Christmas Eve, I also watched It's a Wonderful Life for the first time and cried the whole time and will watch it every year at that time henceforth.
Things seem to slowly be falling into place, and though these last months have been pretty hard on us, I'm glad to begin seeing the end of the tunnel, and still be walking through it leaning on God and each other more than ever. It's felt to me like something epic is going on in the midst of the mundane disappointment that we've been dealing with lately. I don't know why, but over breakfast with Peter one day I told him that something in how we deal with this time in our lives feels integral to me. Urgent. This isn't just a hard time, it's a turning point, and I've been feeling the gravity of our every response to it. To badly quote John Eldredge, "There's more to this...something bigger is going on here and I'm a part of it even though I don't understand." I actually wrote a journal entry months back where I said that I felt like God was telling us that things were about to get pretty rough, that we'd get to the very edge of what we thought we could take, He'd take it a little further, and then relief. We've been praying for that dependency in our life together, and I'm startled that our asking for it didn't make it easier to take when it came. I know it's not all going to be okay from here on out. I know that my parameters of "okay" are being stretched, and still I feel this weight. This sobering heaviness in knowing that this is so important. That we have to do this right, learn it right. I'm reminded of something Peter and I just read to each other from The Silver Chair. Jill and Eustace have just landed in Narnia, and Eustace has fallen off the cliff and Jill is left alone and meets the Lion for the first time while searching for something to drink:
"Are you not thirsty?" said the Lion.
"I'm dying of thirst," said Jill.
"Then drink," said the Lion.
"May I - could I - would you mind going away while I do?" said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience. The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
"Will you promise not to - do anything to me, if I do come?" said Jill.
"I make no promise," said the Lion.
Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.
"Do you eat girls?" she said.
"I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms," said the Lion. It didn't say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.
"I daren't come and drink," said Jill.
"Then you will die of thirst," said the Lion.
"Oh dear!" said Jill, coming another step nearer. "I suppose I must go and look for another stream then."
"There is no other stream," said the Lion.
It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion - no one who had seen his stern face could do that - and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn't need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once. Before she tasted it she had been intending to make a dash away from the Lion the moment she had finished. Now, she realized that this would be on the whole the most dangerous thing of all...
I wish I saw myself in Lewis' Lucy, but if I were honest, I don't really. I see myself in Jill most of all. She's exactly like me, and she messes things up so badly and so often that you almost want to scream. The only saving grace to Jill is that she takes correction pretty well. Aslan reminds her of what's important, and she pulls through alright, though at the conclusion of the story, feeling sad, relieved, and sheepish at victory instead of triumphant, knowing herself how close she had come to doing it all wrong, and holding very little stock in herself and much in the Lion. My favorite characters in these stories are the ones that are so terribly flawed. It gives me hope for myself.
"I wish I was at home," said Jill.
Eustace nodded, saying nothing, and bit his lip.
"I have come," said a deep voice behind them. They turned and saw the Lion himself, so bright and real and strong that everything else began at once to look pale and shadowy compared with him. And in less time than it takes to breathe Jill forgot about the dead King of Narnia and remembered only how she had made Eustace fall over the cliff, and how she had helped to muff nearly all the signs, and about all the snappings and quarrelings. And she wanted to say "I'm sorry" but she could not speak. Then the Lion drew them toward him with his eyes, and bent down and touched their pale faces with his tongue, and said:
"Think of that no more. I will not always be scolding. You have done the work for which I sent you into Narnia."
"Please Aslan," said Jill, "may we go home now?"
I'm amazed at what you learn about yourself as you "grow up". In my life, in my relationships, and in my walk with God, I've been frustrated to find that I've viewed what I know of God, myself, and my role as a Christian, or even as a responsible human being, as a little Jenga tower. Start with the basics, you know? Jesus is Lord - good job, lay one block down. The bible is true - one more block for me. Live out the Great Commission a little - nice work, two blocks, you did go to ywam, after all. Pretty soon I have a little tower of the meagre revelations God has been gracious enough to give me. One builds upon the other. I couldn't study Song of Soloman, and feel like God revealed himself to me through it, if I hadn't believed the bible to be his spoken word to begin with. So it builds itself up and up, and occastionally one of the top blocks doesn't fit, or I'm wrong, but it's okay, those bottom ones are still there. My foundation lies secure. Good for me.
And then something happens that takes one of the bottom blocks out. Apparently I don't have the foundation all figured out. Though the little tower is standing, and nothing God has shown me is less true than it was before, maybe even more so, there is a gaping hole in my foundation. A weakness where a block should have been if I was any kind of a Christian at all. Crap.
Here's the thing: (Peter constantly laughs at me when I use that phrase...it means that I'm going to work something out in my head by bouncing it vocally off him.) I'm missing a block. One that I've seen little children with. One that I've seen non-Christians with. I've missed it somewhere, and have been building my tower above an insecure foundation, and worse, believed that I had the block all along. Now I feel both ignorant and prideful, which has to be the worst combination of all.
Ever met someone like that? Talking stupidly and arrogantly about something they know nothing about? I once was being quizzed in a restaurant about a certain wine we were serving for dinner. A girl who had been there much longer than I, told me with the utmost superiority that the Mondavi Cabernet-Sauvignon was a lovely semi-sweet Italian white wine. I told her that I didn't think that was true, I was certain it was a dry red, from Napa Valley no less and she looked at me in this sad little way that you'd look at a very slow child. The manager quizzed us both, and was very upset with how wrong she was. Then he quizzed me, right in front of her. I knew the answer but I didn't want to tell him, and further humiliate her. Poor thing.
I digress...now I'm a wine snob, and I'm ignorant. Brilliant. You see, I believed that I was flexible. That I easily adapted to change, that I was okay with things changing at a moments notice and not only that, but that I rather enjoyed the spontaneity that such change brings to life. Lately life has been rough. I am out of work, Peter's job is unstable, and we have more expenses than we've ever had. Not only have I been out of work, but no matter how much I "pound the pavement" I'm getting precious few offers, from places that as far as a resume is concerned, I'm over-qualified to work at. Currently, I'm sitting at home with three cell phones (don't ask) waiting for the phone to ring with an offer from a job I desperately want, and more desperately need. They're supposed to call and let me know either way, anytime now. So much for loving spontaneity. I can't even take a shower, because I'm afraid they'll call while I'm in there, and then give the Perfect Job to someone who is easier to get in contact with. Someone who doesn't take frivolous showers. The problem with me is not that this kind of situation frustrates me, I think it could do that to anyone. The issue is that I think that by worrying about it, scheming, plotting, trying to figure things out, hedge my bets, plan, organize and think hard enough, I can actually change things. Geez.
I'm commanded in God's word, not to worry, which to me, should have been one of the ten commandments. It's way harder to follow than not cheating on my spouse, or stealing or killing someone. Obvious sins with obvious consequences. This is a sneaky little sin that I commit everyday, and one with sneaky little consequences that I don't notice until they're larger issues that need resolving. I feel duped. And stupid for not having understood this better and saved myself some trouble. I worry constantly about things I have no control over. Will Peter get in a car crash on the way to work, will someone else get that job, will that person like me regardless of my best efforts to make them feel a certain way about me? It doesn't matter. Out of my hands. In a practical sense, you do what you can and you let God worry about the rest. If I've handed out 25 resumes and don't have a good job, or even a bad job, there's nothing I can do. Keep checking the help wanted section, keep trying, but don't kill yourself over why it's not happening. It's not going to change anything but my attitude, and for the worse, I might add. And then poor Peter comes home from a day of work to a crying, blubbering, or worse, angry wife.
I've got to figure this one out. I have to be able to deal with this, because simply put, life is not going to go the way I think it will. That's probably for the best. I don't know how to get where I want to be right now, and because that's true, I don't know that what I'm going through now, isn't the best way to get there. I'm not in control here. Luckily, a loving God is. Maybe the bottom of what you thought was security falls through, and you land exactly where you wanted to be all along.
That's my little Jenga block of the day. I'm nervous about stuffing it into the foundation, it may change a lot of the way I view this meager little tower. The worst part, I find, about God gently rebuking you in an area of your life, is that once you start to see what he's been meaning all along, you start to see every area where you've been living out of an incorrect view of reality. Then you have to work on changing your response to situations you didn't even know were connected to the issue at hand. Yipes. I guess I've got all the time in the world. I'm unemployed after all.
