Heartache that won't stop hurting

Everywhere I look, I see pain.

Breakups. Heartaches. Miscarriage. Cancer. I hear about people killing other people, people hating other people. Disease and misery swallowing up lives and livelihood in short order.

The world is a painful place.

It seems that I can't log on to Facebook, read the news, look at my text messages, or talk to my friends without hearing about something else that happened to another human being that makes my heart scream out in pain. Pain for the changed futures, the broken hearts, the hurting people. Pain for the lost and the broken and the dying.

Everywhere I look, I see pain.

I've never lost a child, never lost a close friend to the jaws of death. But I have watched friends grapple with the reality that a loved one has slipped into eternity. And it hurts. Because life is short. Everybody knows that everybody dies. That no one lives forever. That all hearts are broken.

So what do you do when that reality hits home? When it's your heart on the line, your child that passes into eternity, your grandfather that is inching along to the next life? It's one of those things you don't know your response to until it smacks you in the face, leaving the coppery taste of blood in your mouth. What do you do when your world stops around you?

This world affords a lot of options. Drugs, alcohol, sex, to name a few. Things that lessen the pain. But that's all it is. When you come down from that high, you're left where you were before: broken, beaten, and defeated.

But there's something that does help. Someone who can change everything, can make that pain bearable.

His name is Jesus Christ.

So when I look around at the pain around me, the death and defeat that stains the air, I am held tight and secure in the arms of One who will not let me go. Who died so that I might live. And in those arms, I find peace and love and hope. Life doesn't cease to hurt. Bad things still happen. But they cannot destroy me, because the Creator of the universe is holding me.He gives life and hope and a promise His children will be reunited with each other in glory.

Everywhere I look, I see pain.

But in that pain, I see His promise and an opportunity for Him to work. The pain doesn't go away, but I know that as His child, someday, that pain will be a distant memory, completely outshone by His glory. I cannot wait.

But until then, I will lean on Him. I will trust in Him. I will spread His love to the lost, because the only difference between me and them, is Him.

Hold me

Sometimes I think about what my life would be like if my lunch plans had showed up that first Thursday of classes my freshman year. If I had eaten with that girl who got my Star Trek references and loved the Beatles and Bob Dylan almost as much as me. If I had just left the Dining Common to return to my room to study. If I hadn't walked up to a girl with fire truck red hair and her quiet friend with the pretty face and curly hair.

Probably in a ditch somewhere.

That's a joke, guys.

But in all seriousness, if that Thursday lunch hadn't gone the way it did, I would be a very different person than I am today. It was these two girls who made my freshman year what it was. Particularly that red head with the four piercings and the weird clothes and the funny hats. The art major, the oddball. If it wasn't for that unnaturally red hair, I would be a very different person.

Because she's always been there. When my very best friend transferred to another school, she was there to pick up the pieces of my broken heart and mend them with her tears. I don't think she realized it at the time, but one of the biggest reasons I healed was because she was just as broken as me. Different ways, definitely, but the world had taken its toll on her as well. And while I would never wish our respective struggles to return, I am so thankful for them, because it was in these struggles that made us who we are today.

I didn't intend for this to get all sappy. Originally, I wanted to talk about consequences of little actions and mindless reactions how one tiny thing can lead to something huge and monumental and insane. How her dying her hair bright red the summer before I met her changed and shaped who I am today. And maybe I will talk about that sometime. But this post has morphed into something different, at least in my mind.

Some people are always there when you need them to be.

But what happens when that friend, even the one from literal day one has crap blow up in their life and they can't be there? When struggles bring them down, too?

You turn to Christ. He's doesn't change. Doesn't get bogged down by the cares of this life. He doesn't have projects that pop out of nowhere and demand His total attention. He's there when you have to leave the comfort of a loved one's arms to go back to your own dorm. His phone doesn't die, He doesn't lose His card. He is always accessible and always, always 100% there.

I've known that crazy red head and her not so quiet friend for three years now. And they have always been there when I have needed them. But there may come a day when I can't reach them. And when that day comes, and my life is crashing down and I need someone to hold me together as my world falls apart, Christ will hold me up. He's been doing it all this time anyway.

I don't do endings

Sometimes I wonder why I even started a blog.

I’m notorious for not finishing things. From projects to sentences to cups of coffee, I leave behind a trail of things that I began with great gusto and somehow lost interest in about four steps, words, or sips in. The last time I did my laundry, I got as far as pulling out the underwear on the top of the pile before I gave up and just lived out of my hamper until all of my clothing was dirty again. This happens so frequently that I just gave up and bought a second hamper. It’s easier this way.

And maybe I should be working on finishing things. Maybe I should be learning discipline. But I have bigger fish to fry than folding my t-shirts before they become perpetually creased. I can’t think of anything, but I’ll let you know if I do.

Fat chance that will happen. That involves finishing a thought process.

Sometimes I wonder why I even started a blog.

There was almost a yearlong gap between my last two posts. I got four posts in and lost interest. Or realized I had no time. Or maybe I forgot I even started. Regardless, I stopped. But I came back to the typed word last night. I’m not sure why I started writing again. Well, writing for other people to see. I have pages upon pages filled with thoughts and stories and speeches and letters that will never see the light of day. Because I don’t finish things. I don’t like maintaining and sustaining things that can’t take care of themselves. There is many an unfinished sentence marring the top of a new page in my journal. I always tell myself I’ll come back to it, that I’ll finish this time, that it’ll be different somehow.

And it never, ever is.

But this time, I came back to it. This time, I’m sticking with my blog.

Sometimes I wonder why I even started a blog. But I figured it out.

Writing is soothing. It’s the balm for a wound that I never knew I carried until I’ve finally finished crossing my i’s an dotting my t’s. It’s a way for me to be transparent with the world while still hiding part of myself away behind the keystrokes and the scribbles. Writing lets me be vulnerable and open in a way that I seldom let myself be. I’m not saying that every post is going to hard and heavy and terrible. I’m not looking for pity or for sympathy or for attention. I’m showing a part of myself that doesn’t typically manifest in my day to day.

I’m a pretty passionate person, I’ve been told. Intense about things that don’t really matter, like how people wrap headphones when they’re finished. In contrast, I’ve been told that I don’t care about the weirdest things. Like my phone or my computer or deadlines or grades. But there is a part of me that’s good at hiding that I’m bothered. That I’m stretched to my breaking point and moments away from adding college to the list of things I didn’t finish.

That’s why I started this blog. To get this itchiness to quit out of my chest and onto paper, because for all my ability to talk and speech, writing works best.

Granted, writing doesn’t fix everything. I’m still taking 18 credits and working three jobs. I’m still doing more than I should for an extracurricular. Still the chaplain of a society of seriously amazing girls who should not be looking at me for any sense of direction, because I am the worst example I can think of. Still passionate about the weird little things, still apathetic about some of the important things.  I’m still, for all the accolades I’ve received and know-how people seem to think I possess, just a scared little girl who can’t be bothered to fold her laundry.

I usually don’t have trouble with conclusions, ironically enough. I always know what I want the end product to be. Clothes folded and neatly tucked away in a too-small dresser. Coffee cup empty and in the dishwasher. Blog full of posts and maybe even readers. I guess I just get lost along the way. But this time, I’m having trouble with how I want this post to end. So I’m going to do something I don’t usually do and just end it, no tying in how I see God in this, because I’m still trying to put that into words. So I’ll let someone else finish it for me:

And when before His throne

I stand in Him complete

“Jesus died, my soul to save,”

My lips shall still repeat.

                                -Elvina Mable Hall, “Jesus Paid it All”

He’s good at finishing things, from Creation of His world to the sanctification of His children to the coming of His kingdom, God leaves nothing unfinished.

Okay, so maybe I was able to tie this up. But that’s not me. That’s God, for reasons I can’t even begin to comprehend, using me to talk of His goodness. Because He is good. And that goodness never finishes.

Soothe my soul?

It's a Friday night, and I am at a desk, in my dorm room, doing homework.

Okay, writing a blog post, but you know what I mean.

I have a long standing tradition of going out with my friend Emily on Friday nights. Sometimes we go to nice restaurants with cloth napkins and wine glasses on the tables that we ask our server to remove because we don't drink. Other times we go to Whole Foods and just sit at the burger bar and talk for hours while we eat our organic pizza. Sometimes we walk around downtown and take elevators to the tops of tall buildings because we get bored of life as short people. We've been to Paneras and Embassy pavilions and planetariums and thrift shops, and sometimes, when we're too tired to do any of those things, we just sit quietly together on the Mezz or on her couch. Sometimes the only way to soothe our heavy souls is the mutual healing sitting alone can provide.

But there are some nights that even these dates don't provide the necessary respite I so desperately need. Sometimes the only thing that can soothe my weary mind and body is solitude. Tonight is one of those nights.

I used to hide on the Mezz on nights like this. When laughter and speech were more painful than calming to my psyche. But for some reason, I can't bring myself to linger in those rooms full of technology and swivel chairs. Because you're never alone on the Mezz, the ghosts of good memories and bad memories and friends and classmates too loud and present for you to find any true sense of calm. The ever changing mood of that hallway always gnawing at your mind and heart.

That's why I'm in my dorm room. There's something about the horrible wood bunks and dressers that calm the fiery inability to sit still that is always threatening to drive me crazy. It's familiar. Yes, it's a different room, on a different hall, with different people in it than I've ever had before. A different smell, different feel, different layout. But when I really think about it, when I really look around, it's not so different than years past. My books are slanted to the left, body butter and pens and glasses cases and tissue boxes sitting on top, tucked in between each other. The soft humming of a battered pink laptop ringing in my ears. Everything about my room, even the differences, is so freaking familiar.

Because it's the differences that make it bearable.

There's something soothing about listening to my roommate type at her desk behind me. About both of us idly wondering where our favorite Korean has gone off to. About knowing that I am safe and loved by two people I just met a month ago. I have an extensive adopted family, but there is something about these two that brings out a different part of me. Something transparent. Somehow, these two new people in my life provide a calming, quiet influence that make it almost easy to be in the dorm on a Friday night.

It's been a while since I've posted. I usually only do so when my heart is under a great burden. And this time is no exception. But it's nights like these that I remember that while the ghosts of my past are indicative of all the change that has marred my life and the lives of others, God is unchanging. God is powerful. God is all encompassing and sustaining, and He never, ever leaves. He is familiar and predictable in a way that nothing on this earth can ever be. While my life may have surprises, God is not one of them.