Hope

Yesterday I made a resolution to hope in my dreams even though they are impossible. It's taken me a long time to get to this point and I'm not sure if I'll stay here, but I hope I will. What do I mean by all of this? Well, some corners of my soul need to remain my own, so I'll explain generally as best I can.

I feel like I have been suffering and it feels pointless and hopeless. What makes it even worse is that with my studies and everything, I'm also learning about how badly other people are suffering in ways that are much much worse than me. And looking at this and the problems of the world, it seems doubly hopeless. It should minimize my own small problems, right? But instead it makes me think that if there is no hope for little old me, of course there is no hope for the world. None of it is the way it should be and there is very little I can do to change it. Suffering, I get--I mean, it happens, right? Bad things happen, but they happen for a reason. The trouble is that I can't find a reason and God refuses to answer me when I ask him for anything--for help, for answers, for comfort, really just for some kind of acknowledgment.

I've been reading Job. I hate to my compare myself to Job. Job was righteous and he suffered inexplicably--I don't claim to be as righteous as Job. Maybe my suffering is a result of sin. I'm not really sure. I think if it was, it would probably be more obvious than it is. But anyway, I like reading Job and I think some of the concepts apply. Job's friends told him that he must have sinned and he should repent, but Job knew that he hadn't. However, Job did basically despair to the point of death because he didn't understand why so many awful things were happening to him. I realize (and my study Bible confirmed) that reason Job's situation was so hard was because he didn't understand why. If all of those things had happened and God had explained what was going on, Job's suffering would not have been nearly so intense. But that is the point. When we know why things are happening, we can weather it. Lack of understanding is probably the greatest challenge. God wants us to trust him even when he appears to be destroying us for no good reason. As my Bible put it, he wants us to trust in him for himself, not for what he has done for us. Ack. Ugh. That is impossibly hard. It might be impossible. I'm not sure.

I'm actually not sure where I was going with all that, but I'll come back to my original point. I choose to hope in the impossible. I know what my heart wants and no amount of convincing myself can make it budge. No amount of crying, feeling defeated, and just being wailed on by life has made any difference or changed my dreams in any way. And it hurts like hell, it really does. But at the same time, God can do the impossible. So I choose hope, because the alternative is despair and despair leads to death. Even if what I hope for does not come about, it doesn't make that hope in vain because God has better plans. That's the point. The hope is in God, not in circumstances and not in myself. I am absolutely powerless.

I've questioned my decision to hope ever since I made it, mostly because looking around it just seems pointless. Trusting God like that can't really happen, I don't think. I mean, it would take a minor miracle to trust God through all this. Which means that I will fail, but hopefully he will be there at every point of failure to pick me up and dust me off and put me back on my way again. I don't really know what else to say about this. I feel like a fool, but this is the only way.

How Long?

How long does it take to get over someone? It's been almost a year and my feelings haven't changed. The circumstances have--drastically. But my heart has stubbornly refused to budge. I don't know what it means. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. Is getting over someone just a matter of time, or is there some magic thing I'm supposed to do? I've tried everything I can think of. I told myself it's over. I told myself to move on. I've tried being friends with him and it hurts like hell. I've tried cutting him out of my life, but even when I never see or talk to him, nothing changes. I've tried dating other people but I feel nothing. I've prayed over this constantly, and God hasn't given me any answers either. I never had the moment I was supposed to have--the one where you realize why that person is all wrong for you and even though it hurts, you understand why it had to end. I never got that. It's still a big unanswered question. I don't mind being single and I'm not afraid of being alone--even forever. But I'm terrified of forever loving someone who doesn't love me back.

The Walruses are Dying

Once upon a long long time...

I stood in a rainforest on top of a mountain in Costa Rica. It was damp and a little cloudy. During the climb up, the terrain had changed from grassy to rocky to a lush jungle with birds and trees, vines to swing on and a sleepy sloth hanging from a tree near the path, looking at us reproachfully. Before this moment, I hated hiking. Occasionally, my parents would drag me out on one trail or another and I would begrudgingly follow them for miles hardly looking at the scenery. But after Costa Rica, I couldn't get enough of the outdoors. On that mountain, I experienced pure joy and contentment--the kind that comes from time spent with friends, physical accomplishment, and marveling at nature and the God who created it. Since that time, God has used nature as a gentle and ever-present reminder to me of his power and his love. I have had days of driving around Seattle in tears and despair, when suddenly I'll come to the top of a hill and catch a glimpse of the mountains, the water, a sunset, and come face to face with the inescapable beauty of the world and presence of God.

I am not a tree-hugger. I grew up in a town with an economy centered around paper mills. I appreciate the fact that you have to cut down some trees for that. Progress means that you're going to dam some rivers, pollute some atmosphere, and step on a few paws for the sake of advancing humanity. I wouldn't put the environment over human security. However, there must be a balance. What a tragedy it would be to live in such a beautiful corner of the world and not appreciate it! The earth is here for us--not for us to exploit and destroy, but to use and treasure. There are ways to both use and conserve--to be a just a little more mindful and a little more careful about the things we do that are slowly and consistently destroying the planet. I think that we will destroy the planet eventually, but I hope we can make it last just a litte longer. A few more years of unspoiled forests, a few less species to marvel at before they disappear, a few more clean rivers to swim in.

Call me sentimental if you want. I'm becoming more so. Some time ago, I read a news blurb about the melting polar ice and the walruses who live on the ice flows. As the earth is getting warmer, the ice is getting smaller and the walruses are living in increasingly tight quarters. When something scares them--like a plane flying overhead--they all rush to the water and in their stampede, trample on and kill each other. If you had found me shortly after reading that article, there would have been tears in my eyes because the walruses are dying. It's hard to even explain why something like that moves me to tears and stories about war and human tragedy often leave me numb. Maybe it's because God has spoken to me so often through nature that it seems a little like taking a gift from him, throwing it down in the mud and stomping on it. Oh, and I'm guilty too. As guilty as anyone. Plenty of walrus blood on my hands.

This is really not a call to anything in particular other than awareness, and appreciation. There are always tradeoffs and we do the best we can. But once the walruses are gone, we will miss them.