Spring is Coming

I wrote this post on February 28, 2015. I was a little too self-conscious to share it at the time. But I found it again today and decided that I would put it out there. Praying that sometime small would be a glimpse of grace for one or two of you. 

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I think God has given us writing as a way to wrestle swirling thoughts. A small peace in the chaos, even though what ends up on the paper is still often chaos. For me at least, there are times when I know it's the only thing that will release and define some of those emotions I feel I cannot contain. Sometimes when I let the words out I feel a little lighter having released them, and other times I am sure I carry them even more completely.

Today is one of those days. I've been thinking a lot about the winter and the spring lately. I've read that Lent is the springtime of the church, and I feel inadequate to celebrate that because my soul has been in the depths of winter lately. This one, and the last, have been long. And not just because they've been the first ones I've experienced above the Mason-Dixon. But that's a story for another day. I've been struggling with how to long for spring when I can only see the snow and feel the biting wind. Today, I think I learned a little bit of that.

I got the phone call this morning and it left me without words. You know the kind. The kind where for the rest of your life you will be able to close your eyes and picture the exact place you were standing. I'm building a photo album of those, and I know many of you are on to your second or third volume.

Sweet Camille, she'll never enjoy another leisurely cup of coffee or crunch the leaves of fall or laugh over dinner with friends. Not here at least. I don't have any reason to believe we won't do those things in eternity. I walked around numb for a while, and then just lay in the bed for a few hours. My mind replayed a roll of memories, like the old fashioned film tapes. Giggling with anticipation and a little stage fright as we waited next to each other in caps and gowns, waiting for our turn to go get those diplomas. The point where we separated on the walk home from class and waved a see you tomorrow. Birthday parties, weddings… The end of the tape though, took me all over the country. I wanted to shut it off but I couldn't. I saw so many people who loved her, those with thousands more memories than me. I imagined flashes of friends curled up on couches and slumped on floors in Memphis, Chattanooga, Oxford, Birmingham, East Asia. I felt foggy.

Eventually I got out of bed and wandered around the house a little. I looked at the kitchen covered in almost every dish I own - remnants of cookie baking with a couple high school girls from my new church. The royal icing has cemented some of the spoons to the counter. I felt useless to comfort, to speak, to understand. So I put into practice what I've come to trust and did the next thing, the daily task. For God promises to meet us there.

I turned on the Auburn RUF CD, wanting to pray for all those faces that I came to know and love in Dudley B6. I didn't really have the words, and I filled up the sink with suds. I longed to just sit in the grief with one in particular who is so dear to me, and I can't even share a hug because of this damn distance. I grabbed the sponge and started to scrub.

Life with trials hard may press me, 

heaven will bring me sweeter rest.

Oh tis not in grief to harm me 

When Thy love is left to me; 

Oh twere not in joy to charm me, 

Were that joy unmixed with Thee.

One by one the familiar hymns washed over me. Each of us sang those week after week. Some weeks we felt the truth of it, others we didn't. I sang many through tears that I desperately hoped no one around me saw.

Heaven's eternal day before thee, 

God's own hand shall guide us there.

Soon shall close thy earthly mission,

Soon shall pass thy pilgrim days,

Hope shall change to glad fruition,

Faith to sight and prayer to praise.

It hit me, in a way that I'd never really paid attention to before, how well RUF prepared us for death. I doubt that's something you'll find in the mission statement of many campus ministries. And I don't even know if it was something Richard thought about trying to convey specifically. Knowing him, I'm sure he did. Don't get me wrong, I don't think any measure of preparation can lessen the sting. Something deep inside of us knows that this isn't the way it's supposed to be.

In the solemn hour of dying, 

In the awful judgment day,

May our souls on thee relying,

Find thee still our rock and stay.

By thy mercy, O deliver us, good Lord.

By thy mercy, O deliver us, good Lord.

I'm completely aware that I am speaking from my own experience and friendships here, and that there are probably many similar churches and communities. But I am grateful that I found in RUF a place where the hard questions and the hard struggles were not ignored. The sin that fills with shame was able to be brought into the light and the Gospel of forgiveness was proclaimed week after week. The struggles like this one, that blindside us, were able to be talked about, wondered about. I met broken people. I saw much of their sin, and they saw mine. But we found unity in the truth of the Gospel, in doing the journey together towards that wholeness that we won't yet know on Jordan's stormy banks.

We expect a bright tomorrow, all will be well.

Faith can sing through days of sorrow, all is well.

On our Father's love relying, 

Jesus every need supplying,

Yes in living or in dying, all must be well

It was in RUF that I first learned that I'm allowed to come to God with my anger, my confusion, my doubt, and my desperation. So many of these hymns that we sang first gave me words to be able to do that. I encountered a God I'd known for a long time, but one I was still often trying to impress. I began to give that up because he already knows. And more than that, he loves me. He loves me so much that he sent his son to suffer and die in my place. Even more than that, he gave me his righteousness, and I am perfect in his eyes.

Underneath me, all around me,

Is the current of thy love

Leading onward, leading homeward

To Thy glorious rest above!

RUF is also where I talked and learned of heaven more than ever before. My eyes were opened to this vision of an eternal city, and I began to see everything we do here on the earth as having an eternal impact. I understood with deeper intensity the meaning of the phrase "Behold, I am making all things new." (Rev. 21:5)

And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. 

Revelation 21:22-24

I paused there, with my hands in those yellow rubber gloves, and the drying rack slowly filling. I felt something begin to creep in on the nausea and the ache of my heart for that thing I can't comprehend. It was gratitude. I closed my eyes and imagined that contagious smile of Camille's, beaming without ceasing in the presence of the one whom she trusted with every ounce of her being. I think I understood in a fresh way today what Paul meant when he said we are "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." (2 Cor. 6:10)

Rock of ages, Cleft for me

Let me hide myself in thee

I don't know if this Lenten season will feel like spring to me. But my feelings don't change the truth of the Gospel. I know, and Camille knows, and so many of us that are reeling today know, that the first winter was shattered with the coming of Christ. The whole of history hinges on that point. The Israelites long years of hope, struggle and faithfulness all pointed to it. I've often thought in this season about that 500 years of silence, the darkness which would be pierced with the voice of one crying in the wilderness "Prepare ye the way for the Lord." Can you imagine living your entire life without one prophet, one word from God? Imagine that hope and that faith. How much more secure is our rejoicing because we know the whole story. We can know the one who came, who suffered, and who reigns.

There's a reason that the last verse of the great hymns are about heaven. The winter is long, but eternal spring will come.

I am bound for the promised land.