In Retrospect

Right now, I am looking at six years spread across my bed. As journal pages flutter, and ink soaked pages speak again, I begin to get it. I am beginning to know my God and what He has done. That phrase seems inadequate. It's more like a jewel you've searched and searched for, and for a moment the sun caught an edge and it gleamed before you. Just as quickly, the gleam is gone behind the clouds of busyness, doubt, and an Isrealite-in-the-desert-like forgetfulness. But you get up anyway and rush after it because that gleam gave you something, it gave you the knowledge that the gem exists. 

That has been my pursuit of God lately. But as I look back on these pasts years recorded in my journals, I begin to see more gleaming gems and moments of clarity until it fills my vision with splendor, God's splendor. Here is my life in review;

2007 Pursuing faith

On this New Year's day six years ago, I was struggling with reentry and doubts as I found my feet again after a two month whirlwind trip overseas. After seeing the weathered joy of Africa, the thawing heart of Romania, the blinded struggle of Amsterdam, and the misty hills of England, I returned home to figure out the obvious question after such an experience; what's next? Part of the answer to that question was in learning how to struggle well. In Africa, I had such a filling of the Holy Spirit that reading God's Word for hours was not enough. My passion had been ignited. When I returned home, I could feel some of the sputtering flames, but not the torrent of fire I had experienced before. So I sought out theologians like A.W. Tozer to help me see what this pursuit of the Holy Spirit would look like. What I found was anything but comforting. As I read about Tozer's 2 year struggle in receiving the Holy Spirit, I began to wonder what I was getting myself into, yet excited to find out. "I am excited to be struggling with this. As horrible as I feel after a time of prayer where I talk too much, listen too little, and get frustrated over losing focus of Who I am talking to, I am glad to be pursuing this."

2009 Experiencing faithfulness

Senioritis had taken hold by this time, both academically and spiritually. Yet in all that, I had seen a year of faithfulness as I sought to stretch my college budget like the oil in the widow's lamp. I described my astonishment at the time of God's care for this wayward and forgetful lily which He promised to cloth and provide for. I asked God for verses to help me ward off my forgetfulness in the face of adversity in the New Year. He gave me Deut. 1:29-31 to show me how He carries me, Is. 43:1-4 to help me see how precious I am to Him, and Rom. 4:20-21 to show me what unwavering faith looks like. 

2010 The beginning of faith

This New Year's day was met with revelations; revelations about my own sin and darkness, as well as God's act of love in turning my darkness to light. It wasn't that I was in darkness, but I was darkness. My world split apart when I realized that God's rescuing me had to involve a holy and unsullied God reaching down to darkness to turn it into light through His Son's sacrifice. 

2012 Choices of faith 

Jump ahead two years and over an ocean. This year saw me in Japan and in dire strates. After weeks of sore throats that felt like I had swallowed concrete balls, coughing fits that pulled muscles out of place, and fevers that left me too weak to even care if I ever got up again, I was struggling to believe God would not give me more than I could handle. I remember feeling so desperate and alone as I lay in my apartment, wishing someone would check in on me, that I didn't have to go through this alone. It was in this mindset that I had propped myself up on my floor mat to write out my doubts of God as healer. "Yet my choice is trust; trust in my God who has promised friendship and strength and that the waters will never be too much. And I pray for the strength to make that choice again and again."

2013 Steps of faith

This past year, I recording a quote that I hoped would characterize the year ahead. In this quote from Aleksander Solzhenitsyn he talks about the fulfillment of ultimate purpose.

"I felt as though I was about to fill a space in the world that was meant for me and had long awaited me, a mold, as it were, made for me alone, but discerned by me only this very moment. I was a molten substance, impatient, unendurable impatient, to pour into my mold, to fill it full, without air bubbles or cracks, before I cooled and stiffen."

That was how I felt as I contemplated a looming Master's program and it's associated mound of books across from me. I could feel my sweet spot coming, that feeling of being in the right spot, your spot, created by God which He lovingly led you to. But those books, high enough to waiver at the slightest wind, was making my heart beat faster than I would have liked. That's when God gave me a gift, a gift of comfort, a gift of words. "I know the hairs on your head" He said. "I know your future struggles; how many you will hurt and how many you will help. I know your defeats and your victories. Now, look at your books." As I looked at my mound of school books and the years if academic struggles they represented, I heard Him say, "That is not too much for you and I." With Him, I can do all things.

2014

Who knows what this next year will bring? I joke that I hope to never again repeat the struggles of 2013. In truth, each year will have struggles I would not wish to revisit, but without them, I would not have noticed the rare but precious gleaming of God's glory. I would not have tasted and seen. I would not be me. I hope 2014 is full of the ups and downs that show God for who He truly is. I pray for the eyes to see it, and the courage to struggle well. This is not a New Year's resolution, this is a lifestyle.

If you get anything from this post, and sometimes it's a miracle you read this far, I hope you would be encouraged to look around you for those momentary glimpses in your life. They may be more faint than you would like, or too quickly hidden, but they can rekindle you more than any resolution or self-promise made and then forgotten. They are beautiful and they are yours, part of your story and God's working in your life. If nothing else, I hope my sharing helps to encourage you, and I hope you share your glimpses too.