Susan

We weren't supposed to even know each other. When the university had started assigning roommates, we were not paired together. We weren't even in the same building. 

I was assigned to the freshman girls' dorm, but as I looked into what would be my new home, it became clear that it wouldn't work. It was a dorm without climate control and due to some health issues that we had not quite pinned down for certain, it was recommended that I have a residence with air conditioning. And with a doctor's note, they couldn't deny me. 

So a few months before my freshman year of college, they made a switch, moved me out of the freshman dorm and into the girls' hall across campus, and sent me a letter introducing me to...Susan. 

We started talking on the phone sometime around April. Our chats were friendly and full of nervous laughter, the kind of laughter you have when you're not really friends and you're not really sure of each other, but you're trying. We were always trying. 

Susan moved in a week before I did; her academic program required her to come early. So when I got to campus on the official move-in day, I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a tumultuous time for me and of course, like any freshman, I was full of nerves. By the time I got to campus, my anxiety had the best of me and I was, shall we say, a little grumpy. A little unsure. A little ready to quit before I even got started and just go home. 

Then, I passed this girl on the sidewalk on my way up to the dorm. She was at least 8 feet tall, towering over everything, and very sober-faced. Not smiling. Not really engaging. 

"That's her," I thought. "That's my freakin' roommate. I just know it." 

I was not thrilled. 

I was nervous about living with someone bigger than me. It's something I had already thought about. I am small and fairly quiet by nature, not taking up a lot of space. I was never one to take up my space. And I had nightmares about what it would be like to live with someone who took up a lot of space. Dorm rooms aren't big; they already give a little space. And from talking on the phone, I already knew that Susan was more extroverted than me. More outgoing. More socially skilled. And now, I saw this giant of a young woman on the sidewalk and all my fears about being overwhelmed in a space were coming true. (And for the record, I didn't know if that was her or not. But if it was, I was ready to go home. Seriously.) 

Susan wasn't in our room when I got there. Her side was all decked out, all dressed up, as it should have been. She'd already been there a week. My side was starkly naked in contrast. 

Except for a Care Bear, new in box, and a handwritten note on the little flimsy whiteboard they gave everyone at orientation. Basically, "Welcome" and "I thought you could use a friend." 

It's more than 20 years later, and I still have both. The Care Bear and the note. 

It turned out that the 8-foot giant I'd seen on the sidewalk was, in fact, Susan. And the crying mess of a grumpy, mopey, somewhat unnerving freshman she'd passed, and been just as uncertain of, was me. And we became good friends, friends who have talked almost every day for 22 years...and counting. 

But I think a lot about that little gift, that little thing in the nakedness of my new season, and how the smallest things can make the biggest differences.

I am someone who is blessed to be somewhat established in this season in my life. I've been at my job, for example, for longer than most of the persons on my unit. I'm someone that others go to for help, for advice, for guidance. And I think about what it means to be the person who has moved in first. The one who is already settled. The one who knows what the empty space looks like and has the opportunity to prepare it for the person who is about to walk into it. 

It may just be the gift they need. 

On Being Thankful

Today is a day on which many Americans will pause to be thankful. 

We will look around our tables, look around our lives, look into our mirrors and push aside all of the negative things, if only for just a breath, that have taken our breath away this year and use one strong exhale to embrace what is good. 

We will sit around with one another and ask each other, "What are you thankful for?" And we will receive answers that look very common, no matter what table you're at. For family. For friends. For jobs. For healing. For food. For pets. For victories. 

But for many of us, as we speak those words, they will feel a little empty. A little forced. A little fake. 

Because some of us aren't in a good season. Some of us have been fighting battles that others can't even fathom. We've been stuck in a pit of darkness, swirling down into greater and greater troubles and griefs like we're stuck in some kind of horrible whirlpool. We cannot escape. 

The season we're in has maybe taken so much from us. We've lost someone we love. We've lost multiple someones we love. We burned through our savings. We got a new diagnosis. We were laid off at work. Worse, we were fired altogether. We are looking at an empty chair across from us at the table - a parent who died, a partner who is separating, a child who has grown up. 

For all kinds of reasons, the heaviest thing at the table this year might not be our plate; it might be our heart. 

And yet, there is still this pressure to push it all aside, plaster on a smile, and claim one good thing we're thankful for. 

Like Jesus. Maybe Jesus. That's always a good answer, right? 

Sure, I guess. Unless in your dark season, you're struggling to be thankful for Him right now. Unless you're struggling to believe. Unless you have questions that haven't been answered yet. 

Listen, I'm not saying we shouldn't look for the good in our lives. Of course, we should. But what I am saying is that we have to be honest about the bad, too. We have to be honest about what's real for us in this season. 

Remember, we didn't ask for this season to be this season, and we didn't plan for it to come at Thanksgiving. But it is what it is and we are where we are and we're dealing with what we're dealing with. 

And I don't think we have to be thankful only for the good things. 

I think one of the measures of our faith is how we can be thankful for the bad ones, too. How we can hold onto thankfulness in a season when we don't really feel it. How we can choose to embrace what is unknown and unwelcome and not push it aside, but embrace it with thankfulness. Like Paul's thorn in the flesh. He was thankful because of the way that it changed his perspective. He didn't pretend it didn't exist.

He reframed it, if only for a moment, as a gift. 

So if today, you're in a season, and someone asks you what you're thankful for, think long and hard before answering. Let your season settle in your heart for a moment and ask yourself what kind of gift it might still be giving - even if it's a gift you didn't ask for or one you don't particularly want or one you haven't unwrapped yet. Ask yourself if you're thankful for your hard days and, if you can be thankful for them, share that. 

And if you can't be, then share that, too. 

There are no bonus points in heaven for plastering a fake smile on your hard days and pretending this life has to be good all the time. Only God is good all the time; the rest of us live in seasons. 

And some of those seasons are hard. 

And that's okay, too.  

God's Plumb Line

You've probably heard of a level. It's a tool you use to make sure things are perfectly straight across. Things like a shelf, which you would need to hold things and not have things roll off of it. And these days, most good levels come with multiple bubbles that will help you get things just right horizontally, vertically, and even on an angle. Just flip that level around whichever way you need it, and there you go. 

But there's another tool that craftsmen have used much longer than our modern levels, and that's the plumb line. Some folks call it a plumb bob. Not really sure how bob ended up with a plumb named after him, but here we are. 

A plumb (for short) is basically a line with a weight on one end and you can hold the loose end at the top of your space, and the weight pulls it down into a straight line with gravity. Then, you can make sure whatever you're working on is perfectly up and down. 

That it's straight. 

The prophet Amos says this is how God makes measure of the world. He holds a plumb line from up on high (7:7-9). And when He does, the weight of His glory holds it straight down to the earth so that He can see just how straight His creation is. 

Spoiler alert: we're not that straight. 

But because of His glory, because of His standard, because of the way He patiently holds the line until it comes to settle just the way that it needs to, we have a guide that can help us be straighter. 

I live in an old house. A really old house. As I write, it is approaching the century-old mark. So needless to say, plumb lines don't do me a whole lot of good. Or so you would think. I'm not sure that there's a single stud or beam left in this house that would pass a plumb test. 

Kind of like my life. I'm not sure if there's anything straight enough sometimes to stand up next to God's plumb line. 

And yet, one of the tricks when making repairs in an old house is figuring out how to get something straight to fit in a crooked hole. How to put a new door in plumb in a jamb that's leaning slightly left. How to use saws and shims to reshape what's a little wonky. Because as tempting as it may be to just throw the door in at the same angle the rest of the house has settled, it doesn't work. The new door was built plumb, and it will take all kinds of time to make it crooked. You just can't get those angles right. 

So you have to bring the off-angles into line with the new plumb. You have to do your best (and sometimes, it takes a bit...or a bit more) to get that old space plumb enough to take a new door. Otherwise, you're going to end up with big gaps where the door is square but the hole is not and now, you've got a draft and a great place for insects to come find refuge in your climate-controlled environment. 

The same is true about God's plumb line. It can be frustrating at times. Discouraging, even, to see how far off our lives have gotten. But the purpose of the plumb line is to help us build up our crooked spaces to take something new that's already plumb. To hold something that's straight. To put one new thing in one old place and know that, no matter how the rest of our lives have settled, this is the way it ought to be.

To the glory of God. 

Thanks, bob. 

God of Light

One of my favorite times to be outside is the time of astronomical twilight. This period of time happens twice every day - once in the morning, between the first hint of light and the actual sunrise, and once in the evening, between the sunset and the last hint of light. In other words, it is the time in which it is both dark and light at the same time. 

Both and, somehow, neither. 

And friends, if that is not the story of my life. 

This life I live is somehow both darkness and light and in the same breath, it is neither. Because I understand how it is that God works all things together for good, how my own knowledge and perspective is finite, and how things turn at the most unexpected places in any story.

I have lived my life for long enough to never believe this scene will go unedited. To never think that today has the final word on how this season will be written in the final book. To understand that tomorrow really can put a new spin on today that I never saw coming, one that I can't explain, one that I can't even fathom right now. 

What feels like a letdown might be a setup. What feels like a failure might be a victory. What feels like a closed door and a disappointment might be keeping me from something worse...or leading me to something better. 

See, what I know about my God is that He is always working. And because He is always working, things are always subject to change. 

As Amos says, God makes light into darkness and darkness into light (5:8), and my life has been such a living testimony of that that there's not a day that goes by that I don't believe it. 

It's a tremendous gift, or so I've been told, to have the kind of faith that can hold onto something like this. To have a faith that can keep believing in the hard times. To be able to believe in the things I have not seen, as surely as I believe in the things that I have, based on nothing more than knowing that this is the very character and heart of God. He is always doing this. 

For me, this life we live - this life of faith - is just the long version of my favorite time of day. It's astronomical twilight all the time, that beautiful time when it is both dark and light and at the same time, neither. It's that cool time when all the amazing colors are plastered across the sky and the reds, oranges, and purples overtake the blue that we can sometimes feel so confident in. And at any moment, God can flip the whole thing and it will totally take our breath away. 

It's a truly beautiful space to live in. With the grace and glory of our God who tips the scales and turns things on their heads and edits this scene over and over and over again until the darkness and the light are so intermingled, so intertwined, that all these beautiful colors have overtaken everything. 

And it is both daybreak and it is not. And it is both sunset and it is not. And it is both darkness and light and it is neither. Until God speaks it. 

And then, it is glorious. 

God is Safe

In a world in which we are all just walking each other Home, we're also all looking for safe spaces along the way. Shelters in the storm. Refuges from the weary brokenness of this world. And, quite honestly, someone who is just walking us home. 

And we have all been wounded by folks who have turned out not to be safe at all. 

Folks who couldn't keep our secrets. Who used our story as fodder for gossip. Folks who don't actually have an interest in us but have a great interest in knowing things and who build their reputation on always being in the know. Actually, that's why we gravitate toward them; they always seem to know what's going on, so we think that makes them a reliable source of confidence when, in fact, some of the persons who are always in the know are quite toxic. Knowing, not loving, is their thing. 

Folks who thrive on drama. They love inserting themselves into everything because it fuels them. And they have this unique ability to blow everything up in their mind and make mountains out of molehills...and then instantly be willing to die on them. They create their big stories out of your little one and there's not an ounce of anything you can tell them that will change their mind. They take your life and they run away with it and all of a sudden, you're completely out of control of your own being. Forget being safe; you just want your story back. 

Folks who are so distracted by their own story that they can't invest in yours. We live in a world that listens to respond more than it listens to love, and this is true in the ways that we relate to one another. Sometimes, we think we've found a kindred spirit and a safe person, but if we look at it a little closer, we realize that we're just trading war stories; neither one of us is doing anything about the foxhole we're in. 

Yes, sadly, safe persons are hard to find. We're all so laden with our own baggage that it's hard to find someone who is able to push it all aside and truly be the kind of refuge we need (unless you're willing to pay a professional for the privilege, but even then, it's not a guarantee). 

But on this journey we're all making Home, we do have one good Friend along the way. One truly Safe Space. One set of arms into which to fall, one heart to hear beating, one embrace that makes all things well. 

God, the prophet Joel says, is a safe place for His people (3:15-16). 

In the darkest of days, in the hardest of times, when the sun and moon go dark and the stars no longer shine and thunder roars and the whole earth trembles, God will be a safe place. 

A shelter in the storm. A refuge from the weary brokenness of this world. A strong fortress on a shaking ground. The whole earth may tremble, but God's hold on us is strong. He takes us in His hands and covers us. 

Loving is His thing. 

He doesn't share our secrets; He whispers love into our ears. He doesn't thrive on our drama; He restores our soul. He's not so distracted by being God that He can't invest in us; we are His treasure. In all the ways that we fail each other and are failed by each other in this world just looking for one safe place, God never fails. Not once. 

And that's how, the prophet continues, we know He is the Lord.