Ernest Hemingway is quoted as saying, “Write hard and clear about what hurts.” Ironically, I’ve been absent in my writings the past few years because sometimes it hurts too much to write. Your words haunt you years later as you realize you are so different from who you used to be and what you wanted in life.
As I read through
past writings, that now sound like someone else’s thoughts and life, I cringe
at some life moments, decisions and even vision for my life. It can also be a healing process though as
even when I am in a different place in life, the foundational truths are the
same. Reflecting on the waves of losses
and gains in life and how they were wrestled through with God can be
devastating but also gives me hope for future versions of myself.
Everybody has at least one chapter in life they don’t read
out loud. The ones where we stood or were pushed too close to the fire and now
have singed edges. These are the
chapters that if I did write “hard and clear,” as Hemingway suggests, they
would just be angry and dark ink blotted pages.
Personally, as an overthinker, these chapters with failures,
doubts and insecurities play over and over and beg to not only be re-read but re-lived,
even when I know better. Even when there
are good chapters with success, confidence and pure joy to focus on instead.
As I transition to what is likely approaching the second
half of my life, I’ve thought of these chapters a lot. Mostly because I’ve been challenged over the
last few months of what my vision is for it.
See, when I meet people, they tend to put me in a box of whatever context
they meet me in and see my identity as such.
Either I’m really smart to them, super ditzy, religious, fun, a sheltered
home schooler, business oriented, people oriented, shy, experienced in life or
naïve. The lucky ones see all these
parts.
I don’t like being put in a box, but I’ve realized I do it
to others as well, in fact, in our current society it is almost impossible to
not make assumptions about others and their stories. We boldly declare social, political,
religious, medical and life beliefs, and then put each other in the appropriate
boxes based on our experiences and assumptions.
I was asked recently what motivates or inspires me. How do you answer this question when there are
so many things but also want to avoid the boxes? For me it probably comes down to God and
connecting with others or being involved in life in general. I love life and being a part others’ lives
and their successes. To me, there is
nothing better than time spent making memories with others.
I embrace meeting new people and sharing celebrations,
hardships, laughter and joys with them. I
love to sit down over coffee or just spend time with someone to see what makes
them who they are. It always fascinates
me. I used to feel like I could peg
someone and who they are quickly. If I’m
honest it is just because I would lump them in a box of who I thought they were,
not that I actually knew them or heard their stories.
As I contemplate my own vision for life and what inspires me,
I can’t help but think on what we all strive for and chase in our own lives. Is it family? God? Career? Wealth?
Experiences? Knowledge? Adventure? Travel? All of the above? Or maybe it changes based on where we are at
in life? They’re all things I love.
My history addict side wants to delve into what people have
advised over the years and what their experiences have been with what is worth
chasing in life, but ultimately, I come back to where my foundations lay, on
what the Bible says.
Ecclesiastes is one of the “wisdom books” of the Bible, and
while I love knowledge and wisdom, it is quite frankly downright depressing. It
is a narration of a man who has experienced and done everything. Why
not read the perspective of someone who has already achieved anything I would
ever strive for?
Ecclesiasties 2:9-11
9 So I became great and surpassed all who were before me
in Jerusalem. Also my wisdom remained with me. 10 And whatever my eyes desired I did not
keep from them. I kept my heart from no pleasure, for my heart found
pleasure in all my toil, and this was my reward for all my toil. 11 Then I considered all that my hands had
done and the toil I had expended in doing it, and behold, all was vanity
and a striving after wind, and there was nothing to be gained under the
sun.
At this point in life, I’ve done some of my own chasing of
winds. I’ve moved across the country
with a band, I’ve done the college student life, the big city life, the career
life, the church life, the move across the country on your own life, the small-town
apartment above shops life. I am
grateful for all of it but living 1,500 miles from where I was born was never
in the original plan and I never would have envisioned my current chapter even
just three years ago.
Perhaps it is all vanity and a chasing of the wind as Ecclesiastes
suggests. Maybe there is nothing to be
gained under the sun.
Or maybe, maybe the key is the “under the sun,” part and
that there is still a future hope far past the vanity and chasing of life, whatever
corners of our kingdom we currently live.
The more I have wrestled with God the more I see His
consistency and love of me in how He has mapped out my life. Not in a way I originally would have. Not the pain free, Better Homes and Garden picturesque
life, but full of discovery and sometimes hard, repeated life lessons. Where others have failed me, and even claimed
erroneous words from God, I can look back and see what He has done despite them,
or even despite myself.
I think of a future where we enjoy the fact that God has
redeemed our chasings; where we don’t flimsily attempt to hold on to Him with
our own efforts. One where we live in
peace within every chapter as it has everything to do with His efforts and
holding onto us instead.
As I contemplate where I am at in life, where I’ve been, and
what the future may hold I can take a deep breath. I rest in the fact that regardless of where
others may box me in or I may box others, God still loves us. As a God who created unique individuals with
different strengths, weaknesses, personalities in His world I can’t help but
smile at his creativity and desire for good things for us in each story and chapter in this fallen world
we live in.
He doesn’t turn away from my ink blotted pages, or scoff at
my chasings of wind or shy away from my wrestling and angry conversations with
Him. He never promised a certain type of
life and prosperity. Instead, He gathers the ever changing chapters, binds them
up together and turns it into a beautiful story of adventure, intrigue, danger,
self-sabotage, villains, heroes, mystery, love, pain and ultimately peace and
confidence in Him. He joins us and
understands the chase while whispering “I’m still here.”
