Happy Endings

Some days are just hard. Days when its seems like the best thing that can be said about them is, "Thank God its over." Days full of shadows. Everything seems dark, and it seems like it will always be that way.

Sometimes I wish things could be a lot more like my favorite books. Things might be dark for a while, but in the end, things work out. A happy ending.

But in this broken world, happy endings are few and far between. Crime. Pain. Disease. Separation. All ultimately culminating in death. Over and over and over. All around. From the latest breaking news to the oldest pages of history- scrawled each pages is hopeless helpless agony caused by sin. The beautiful world God made is broken. No happy endings.

So God came. He had a dark and gloomy and disreputable beginning. A difficult beginning and homeless middle- followed by being chased out of town, threatened, rejected and ultimately, murdered. He came, and got to know all about sorrow and suffering- so that He could change the endings. He came and died to bring back happy endings. He suffered, He "bore our sins and carried our sorrows" so that the great big Final Ending could be a happy one. Even the little endings were changed. So that the days when my heart just screams "God- why in the world?!" the answer comes through "because I love you."
It's not necessarily a different ending- but it makes it happy, to know that God has picked this particular ending of this situation, this day,  because He loves me.

Looking Back....

Well, after more tapings than I can remember and gluing the cover cover back on more than once.... I have faced the inevitable- it is time to get a new Bible.  There's something sort of bittersweet about getting a new Bible. You know what I mean?

On the one hand, its not that big of a deal- after all, the book is merely a means to get know the Author better- He is the One we love. His Words- His amazing way of expressing Himself, speaking to us, to me, through paper and ink- letting us feel the breath of His Words from thousands of years ago. It's wonderful. Amazing. Miraculous. The Word, spoken, written, and preserved for me to read whenever I want.  And that is just as true of a new Bible as an old one. So from that perspective, its just a matter of getting used to where things are in the new Bible.

But on the other hand, its a bit like saying good-bye to a friend. I don't mean the truth in the book- that of course is staying, but I mean the book itself. The pink peeling fake leather cover and and all the bent, smudged, ink stained, pages of that particular book. Is that weird?  But I've had that old Bible seven years. Seven years. God's led through quite a long space of journey with that little pink compass.

I bought it at college because I'd had an accident at camp the previous summer and my Thomson Chain was simply too heavy to haul around to classes at BBC in addition to all my text books. So I reluctantly purchased a new one- slightly cheered by the pretty cover. What a journey God has brought me on since that day- and so often that little pink book has been His way of holding my hand.
College- happy hours in the sun by the pond or under a tree in the woods. Dark hours begging God for wisdom how to help, or for the strength to finish one more day.
Moving to Philly- beside a grave, in a lonely little room, at a new place, and with new friends as God opened my heart.
Off to Training- guiding, steadying, comforting.

Four countries, Three states, and having lived more places than it would possibly do any good to count- that little pink book was one of the primary ways God's been speaking on the crazy journey. And I'm a little sad to see it replaced.  And yet... its a little exciting too. Because seven years ago I would never have believed that God would have me where I am today- looking for people to partner with me to go to Missouri- train missionary kids for overseas and work in a prayer office. And I just can't help but wonder where I'll be the next time I buy a new Bible.

The Gift of Waiting

I hate waiting. Oh I hate it so much. Patience has never been (and many days I fear never will be) my virtue. I have seriously contemplated whether God got me involved in teaching preschoolers just to bring my patience level up to the minimum standard required for daily life. Since life involves a lot of waiting, God has been very persistent with this patience theme. Patiently waiting. Bah humbug.

Apparently the Israelites felt that way too in Exodus 32. You remember the story: God brings the people of Israel out of Egypt, through the Red Sea on dry land, and leads them to Mt. Sinai, where the whole mountain explodes with fire and He speaks to them out of a cloud and they end up with the ten commandments. Seems fairly memorable. But then God calls Moses up the mountain to meet with Him. And the people wait. And wait. And wait. For over a month. So they get sick of waiting. They come to Aaron and he ( for some incomprehensible reason) makes them a golden calf and they worship it.

What really struck me as I read this other day though, was the way people worded their request to Aaron in verses 1-2 of that chapter. They ask Aaron to make them gods because "as for this fellow Moses we don't know what  has become of him." Isn't that interesting?  They're tired of waiting (we are SO bad at it- we humans. It's a wonder God puts  up with any of us). But notice this- they're not tired of waiting for God. God is not even mentioned- they've forgotten completely about God. They're tired of waiting for Moses. A couple of weeks of waiting and God is now completely off their radar screen. What does that say about who they've really been trusting through this whole thing? They haven't been trusting God. They've been trusting Moses.

Sadly, I can relate to the Israelites here quite a bit. When I started looking for ministry partners at the beginning of the summer, I was sure God would finish it all up in one summer and get me back to ministry there ASAP. I was even fairly sure how he was going to do it- churches and individuals that I thoroughly expected to jump on board. But instead, there's been waiting. Months and months of never ending, tear-filled, gut wrenching waiting. Once an entire month went by without a single person showing a speck of interest. And I was crushed. Absolutely devastated. Because my trust was in the wrong thing. It was in churches and people, and not in God. Only God can get this crazy thing done. Now, after all these months, I think I have at last figured out why waiting is so hard.

Waiting forces me to see that I am not in charge. If I was in charge, I wouldn't be waiting. Waiting shows me how I am trying to control things. Like a stubborn kids pushing rickety, rotten furniture up against a door to try to reach a handle, rather than waiting for his dad to open the door. Waiting is an opportunity to get off my rickety rotten pile of pride and kneel before the Good King who will open the door in His perfect time. Waiting is an opportunity, an invitation, to be with  Him.