Assured Waiting

I hate to be repetitive, but this post will be similar to the one I wrote last month, Anticipation. I'm going to use a lot of the same examples to discuss the topic of waiting from a different angle. I'm sort of answering my own question, which I will probably ask again later anyway.

This morning in church we sang "All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name;" a new song with old words. Between the "spreading trophies at his feet" and "joining in the everlasting song," I became a little overwhelmed with joy at my hope of entering the most joyful place in existence, and staying there for good. For clarity, I do not mean "hope" (n.) to mean "wish;" I mean hope to mean "knowledge" or "assurance."

I thought about how I will one day "arrive." This world teaches us about all the ways to "arrive" in life. If we become happily married, we've arrived, or if we have a few beautiful and obedient children, or if our salary hits six digits, or if we reach nirvana, or if we secure our dream job... we've arrived. Happiness is ours and our life is complete. We can now sit and rest in our arrival.

But we will never arrive in this life. There is very little good here that can be sustained. As one of my clients put it, we have to keep striving just to maintain. We can't just do nothing and expect to stay where we're at. We have to work out to stay in shape. We have to clean and do construction on our city, or it will crumble in fewer years than you'd expect.

Our true arrival will come, if we've accepted Christ, when we die here.

Something must die before we can move on to a better life. New life begins at birth, right? No, first a baby must serve 9 months' time in the enclosed world of its mother. It will soon move onto a bigger, better, freer world, but at the cost of the life of, well, the placenta. (Hopefully that's not too graphic for my gentlemen readers. Please understand I'm trying to be more than theoretical.)

In "Tortured for Christ," Richard Wurmbrand describes an analogy for convincing someone that there is a life beyond this one, saying that if an infant in the womb had understanding and you could have a conversation with it, you could tell it that there was a life beyond the womb of its mother, and it may not believe you. But if it questioned the growth of its muscles, lungs, etc., which it does not need in the womb, it would realize that they grow in preparation for the next life. Similarly, we grow in wisdom and understanding for the duration of our lives on earth, but for what? We will need them in our next life. We do not grow them only to die with little chance to use them once they are mature.

But that is not my point. My point is that there is real assurance in salvation, in arriving, in a joyful existence after graduating from this laborious one. What it will look like, I wish I knew. Your presents under the Christmas tree hold unknown treasures, but treasures nonetheless, and they have your name on them. You cannot have them yet, but they are already yours. My client who will soon be able to move into a low-income apartment has one with her name on it, but she can't move in until the t's are crossed and the i's are dotted. But it's hers. A virgin who is engaged to be married does not yet know the treasures of intimacy with her husband, but she must only wait before enjoying them. He has already sealed his devotion; the treasures, yet unopened, are hers.

I ate lunch while writing this. I started this post pretty hungry, wrote the second and third paragraphs while cooking lunch, and spent the rest of this post eating and finishing my food. But I noticed that my hunger slowly started to disappear while I was cooking and even when I had the warm and savory meal sitting in front of me, before I took my first bite. The knowledge itself that fullness that was coming for me helped that fullness to happen. I began to be satisfied simply by knowing that I would soon be satisfied.

And that is what I must remember during the pain and trials of life on Planet Earth.


God bless.

Pooping Catzzzz

Lexi suggested I write about "catzzzz."

I have a problem with this for two reasons:
1) I don't like cats. In fact, I rather detest them.
2) "catzzzz" is not a logical way to pronounce "cats" because the word "cat" ends with the unvoiced letter, meaning that, because of the way English works, the "s" at the end will actually sound like an "s," because "s" is also unvoiced. This is in contrast to "dogs," which, when spoken, really sounds like "dogz" because the "g" at the end of the word "dog" is voiced, and therefore so is the "s," which actually turns into the "z" sound rather than the "s" sound. I reiterate: "catzzzz" does not make pronunciational sense.

Yesterday I overheard my roommate Skyping with her friend. I wasn't meaning to eavesdrop but it accidentally happened a little. She was telling her friend about how her old, decrepit cat who lives with her parents got into the habit of pooping all over the house, apparently because she didn't feel like climbing down the stairs to her litter box.

I wish I knew how to thank my landlord for not allowing pets in our house. He is a saint for making my roommate's cat stay at her parents'. (This policy also wisely prevents me from getting a dog, which I want, but am just not ready to take care of.)

Then today, when I was talking to Lexi on the phone, I heard her shriek as she watched her roommate's cat poop on the floor. It just...pooped on the floor. And that, my friends, is not okay.

Conclusion: catzzzz are bad and I should not have written about them.

But Lexi is still my friend for some reason.


God bless.

Crappy Job

Lately I have been feeling like I am doing a pretty crappy job at just about everything I do. I feel guilty and ashamed about it.

For example, at my work, I feel that I have failed several of my clients lately. I got angry and lost my patience with one of my clients who is extremely mentally unstable. I failed to pick up on the fact that one of my clients is much more depressed than normal. (In fact, while I am otherwise very well designed, even created, for the field of mental health, I lack one important piece: the ability to pick up on subtle social cues.) I have not visited my clients that are in the hospital. I have not gotten my paperwork done and am far behind in productivity. I have been unable to help a client who is homeless and hungry.

The other night I was babysitting a one-year-old and he fell and hit his head. I wasn't able to grab him in time. I left the parents with a baby with a bump on his head, and with a very messy house.

I regularly fail my roommates when it comes to patience for their shortcomings and even their innocent quirks. I also fail to do my chores a lot of the time.

I haven't had a decent workout in months and I am gaining weight slowly but surely.

I haven't been writing much.

I committed to go a year without dating but I still struggle to keep this covenant in my mind, i.e. thinking about who I would like to date, longing for past relationships (even the ones that I know I should never have been in in the first place), daydreaming about my future husband, putting marriage on a pedestal. When my eyes are opened to these recurring thoughts, I remember how bad I am at fixing this part of my life on my own and how far I still have to go.

I have skipped my Bible-reading for a number of days now.

I have not practiced my instrument despite the pressure of being in a college orchestra.

It seems like the only area of my life I have been excelling in lately is cooking. For some reason I have been a kitchen magician for the last week or so, resulting in lots of yummy leftovers to save time and money later. But even then, I wonder about the fact that I am probably just making my weight gain worse, and doing a disservice to my roommates by crowding the refrigerator.


I suppose it's good to be reminded that I am a crappy human being who does a crappy job at just about everything.
Thank God for amazing grace.


God bless.

A Man More

I thought about writing this as a sonnet, but decided against it. What do you think? Should I rewrite it as one?
~~~


If I saw a man more handsome than you,
My eyes would crust over and blindness
Would afflict me forever.

If I heard a man sing more sweetly than you,
I could never pull myself away,
And would beg for him to continue eternally.

If I spoke with a man more intelligent than you,
My brain would combust, or maybe melt,
And trickle out my ears onto my toes.

If I danced with a man more swift than you,
The air beneath my feet would lift me up
And away into the clouds, or ceiling, depending.

If I beheld the strength of a man more strong than you,
My feminist empowerment would shrivel
And I would faint, cheeks flushed.

If I observed a man more upright than you,
I would constantly follow at his heels
As his puppy-dog and disciple.

If indeed a man exists more wonderful than you,
More wonderful in any or every way,
He would surely be entirely uninterested in me.


~~~
God bless.