Boxful of Memories

I met them in 1998. It was a rough start. I was broken, hurting, distrustful, and angry.

They were kind.

And courageous.

They'd hooked a fighter. They could have cut bait and run. Instead, they fished. I'm pretty sure they weren't even planning on fishing, didn't even know they had a hook in the water. God, in his almighty providence, knew better.

That was 17 years ago. A lifetime ago. A world away. Letters, emails, cards, Facebook messages ago. Much coffee and many tears have flowed in those years. Much laughter has rung out. I have healed and grown and learned to trust and love. They have prayed faithfully and faithfully fished to land this fighter.

Last year, suddenly, shockingly, appallingly, she died. Suddenly, without any surprise, with greatest joy on her part, she went to be with the Lord she loved more than anything on this earth.

I miss her prayers. I knew, always, no matter what, that she prayed for me. I knew her prayers were gritty, real, no-nonsense conversations with the Almighty. I felt her prayers. And I miss them daily. I miss her.

This past week, her husband emailed me. The man with the searching blue eyes that saw right through my facades and pretenses and refused to be intimidated when I blustered. He baptised me in a lake in God's country. He remained steady when my world fell apart. He showed me I had value and was worth fighting for. He encouraged me to drink my coffee black. I never did get that far.

He emailed me to tell me he was moving. He was packing up, and found a box of letters - all the letters I had written over 17 years. Every one of them saved.

So we met at the Tim's where the three of us had so often met. How many memories those tables hold.... How many cups of coffee we drank there.... We shared one last cup of coffee. We chatted. It was good to catch up. He gave me the box. He gave me a hug. He told me he loved me. And we got into our cars and drove away. He had to finish packing. I had to go visit my nephew for his birthday.

I may never see him again.
I might, but I may not.

All that was left was a boxful of memories and the faint smell of his cologne on my sweatshirt where he hugged me.

And I thought, That's it? Just like that, 17 years is over? Just one small box to encapsulate 17 years of some of my biggest memories, my most overwhelming moments, my deepest changes? It's not even a big box.

It was hard to imagine. I felt like there should be tears, but my eyes were dry. My throat was tight. My heart ached. I didn't know what I was feeling. All the memories in a box.

I was driving down Guelph Line from the 401 toward Burlington. There is a place where you come out of the trees at the top of the escarpment and a panorama lies before you. On a clear day, you can see the CN Tower, a distance of at least 30 km as the crow flies. It is a massive view. (I screengrabbed this from Google Maps.) 

I haven't seen that view for a long time, because I don't come that way much anymore, and it caught my breath.  Oh, Lord, what a view, what a beauty, what a joy! In the midst of all those conflicted feelings of sadness, missing loved ones, wrestling with how it could be that what felt like such a significant relationship to me could somehow be distilled to a box of letters and a lingering scent which was quickly fading away, in the midst of all that, the world lay before me, majestic and beautiful and so very much in God's hands. I drove past the cemetery where my father is buried, and there was no pain, only a soft sadness for what had been, what never was.

And driving into that view, past those memories was when I knew that 17 years can never be distilled into the contents of a box. We are not simply getting into our cars and driving away in opposite directions never to see each other again. Even the grave cannot change what was, what is. Because knowing them has changed me.  And time, distance, and the grave cannot undo that.

That view used to terrify me. It was so big, with city stretching from lakeshore to horizon in every direction. All those people. All those millions of people. I was lost in that swarm, insignificant, invisible, unseen by even God himself. I always felt, standing at the top of that view, utterly exposed with no place to hide, and utterly unseen. I could not drive by the cemetary without feeling soul-crushing pain. Regret. Loss. Emptiness. I saw no beauty in that view, in that drive, only despair and hurt.

But not anymore. Now I saw breathtaking beauty and immense love. Now I felt seen by a Faithful Father who will never lose me in the crowd. Because knowing them has changed me. It's a change that can never be encapsulated in a box. It is a change that will last long after the smell of cologne fades from my sweatshirt. It is a change that will remain across time and distance and even the grave. It is the good work that my Saviour began in me, using them, and He will carry it on to completion.

I miss them. I think I will always miss them. I think that's normal and good.

But our relationship is far more significant than a boxful of memories.

God used them to change my heart.

But God

With a singe bite, with a single swallow, they destroyed it all. Their tattered innocence dropped from them, leaving them naked and afraid, trembling under the inadequate covering of leaves and branches, hiding from their all-seeing, all-knowing Maker.

But God called them. And clothed them. And rekindled hope.

He was a crazy old man, living alone as a God-fearer in a world of wickedness. Beam by beam, he built a boat in a land that had never seen more than a mist, prophesying death and destruction with each hammer-blow. In that boat, he alone, and his family of eight and a whole bunch of beasts floated, feeling forgotten, on a sea without end.

But God called him. And carried him to dry land. And rekindled hope.

They were old. Ancient. Long past the days of youthful passion, monthly anticipation, monthly disappointment. The lack of a monthly flow was a testiment to nothing but the relentless passage of years. The monthly crushing disappointment had long settled to an ache of regret for what never was, never would be.

But God called them. And caused them to conceive. And rekindled hope.

They lay crushed under their burdens, ground to the dust under the boots of their oppressors, building bricks in the baking sun. For generations, they had been born and died as slaves, until they scarcely remembered the concept of freedom. The promises of long ago seemed but fanciful dreams, and survival depended on resigning themselves to another day under the whip.

But God called them. And conquered the king. And rekindled hope.

They stood by the sea, trapped. Before them, the sea waves lapped softly on the shore, taunting them with sounds of peace in the face of terror.  Behind them, the cloud of dust under the hooves of their enemies' horses rose to join the pillar of cloud and fire, obliterating the horizon, obliterating any hope of escape. There was nowhere to go. There was nowhere to run.

But God called them. And cleaved the sea. And rekindled hope.

And so it goes, over and over. We are at the end of our rope. We are beyond our own abilities. We are in despair. There is no way out. There is no way forward. There is no hope. It's over. It's done. The end.

But God

But God steps in and changes it all.

The last one left. The kid nobody wanted. Too short, too stupid, too awkward, too slow to be anything but a liabilty.

But God. But God called her and chose her and loved her!

Broken and battered by life, with a heart so scarred it could hardly feel, and so scared it didn't dare try again.

But God. But God called her and healed her and restored her to life!

Left without a father, defenseless and alone, trying to be brave, trying to be tough, but always crying for her father's love.

But God. Oh, but God called her and wrapped her in his Father arms until she could rest there and hear his heart beat his Father love for her. Abba. Abba. Abba.

Cold in the grave he lay, three days cold and stiff. Battered, beaten, bruised, wrapped, and left in the tomb. Crucified. Dead. Buried. The end.

But God. Oh, shout it from the rooftops: But God!!

But God defeated death! He is not dead! He is alive! And he comes again!

But God. And my world, as I know it, shifts. And will never again be the same.

Because God.

Thank God.

Cliches

I hate cliches.

"God is good all the time. All the time, God is good."
"When God closes a door, he opens a window."
"Don't worry, God's got something better for you."
"It's all right, he (or she) is in a better place now."
"At least he (or she) isn't suffering anymore."
"God is going to turn this for good."
"It's a God thing."
"God's going to show up."

Oh, and "God will never give you more than you can handle."

The list could go on. You get the point. I hate cliches.

But why? Why do I hate them so? Why, especially, considering that some of them are rock-solid scriptural truths?  Sure, it's debatable that if God closes a door he opens a window. I'm not sure that Sound of Music is a terribly reliable source of sound theology. And it's an outright lie that God never gives us more than we can handle. He does so all the time; that's why we need him. But let's face it; many of the cliches we Christians love to throw out are straight from Scripture. They're true. After all, God is good all the time. He will turn all things in my life for good. All of life is a God thing, and he doesn't just show up, he is always there. So why do they grate so?

I think partly it is because cliches lack nuance. You aren't willing to wrestle with me the nuances of a life where what is better is not always nicer or more comfortable, where God is always there but sometimes feels hidden, where what I want is not always what I get, and I am called to trust most when my eyes see the least. When I ask God for ice cream, and he gives me Brussels sprouts, I get that he's giving me something better. Brussels sprouts have more nutrition. They are cruciferous (loosely translated to mean, packed full of good things, but tasting kinda bad). Brussels sprouts will make me healthy and strong. Ice cream will just make me fat. I get it. God is giving me something "better". But the fact is, I don't want Brussels sprouts. They taste bad. They smell bad when they're cooking. I have to choke them down, one painful green ball at a time. Ice cream would slip down so smoothly. But when you slam me with the cliche, you fail to acknowledge all that nuance. You say, "God's got something better for you," and I hear, "You asked God for ice cream, and he's going to give you cheesecake instead. Or an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top." And I am left to choke down the Brussels sprouts alone.

But I mostly hate cliches because they lack empathy and compassion. It's not the words themselves that sting so fiercely, but the timing and the manner in which they are spoken. They may well be truth, but they are truth that I am not ready to hear in this moment that my heart is broken. You have not taken the time to hear my heart. You have not sat in silence with me in the pain. You have not cried with me. You just spout to me a cliche that feels like a slap across the cheek to snap me out of what you think is hysteria. What you say is, "God is going to turn this for good," but because you have not taken any time to hear me cry, what I hear is, "Your tears are not legitimate. You shouldn't feel that way." Closer to the truth, I think you are saying, "Your tears make me uncomfortable, so I'm going to say something to make you stop crying so I don't have to feel so awkward." You cannot stand to face my pain with me, so you give me cold comfort and walk away, and I am left to cry my tears alone.

That's mostly, I think, why I hate cliches.

I will never forget one of the worst days of my life. I ended up talking with someone with whom I had no intention to do so. I had been so beaten up with cliches that I had learned that it was best to keep my mouth shut and walk alone. But that day, for some reason which remains elusive still, I talked. For the first time in my life, I experienced something different. He listened. He cared. He had tears in his eyes. He sat in the darkness with me. He sat there in the misery and did not try to change it. And then he said, "Marianne, I don't know what to say. I don't have any words to make you feel better. I don't know why things like this happen. But what I do know is this: somehow, in some way, in ways we don't understand, God is still good, and all that comes from his hand is goodness."

And it wasn't a cliche.  It wasn't a cliche because he had sat in the pain with me. It was stated after the silence, after the tears, after the acknowledgement that the circumstances were terrible and heart-shattering and worthy of lament. What he gave me that day was a rock-solid truth I could anchor my life on. It helped me see that, as dark as my life looked, there was still light and goodness that I could count on. There was nuance, and empathy, and care, and because of that, what might have been just another cliche became a hope to which I have clung with white knuckles through dark, dark days and nights.

I hate cliches. I hate them, not because they are not true (because many of them are) but because they are a brush-off so you don't have to deal with my messiness and hurt. I know the truth. I know the answers. I even know that I'm messy and mixed-up and miserable. What I need is someone who is willing to walk through the mire and messiness with  me.

And when you do that, your words stop being cliche and become for me life. And truth.