golden clay

It’s what we’re sitting there, on the red couch, asking ourselves at 1 AM, lip stains on empty tea cups. We’ve just come back from Bible study, encouraged, but our burdens are still wrapped tight inside our hearts. And the one thing we know we could never do is tell them how to really pray for us.

I’m left wondering when I go to my room, pacing as I watch the sleeping city outside my window, how many of them have gone home to the same thoughts. Do we all return to our houses after Bible study, after church, and wonder if we’re the only one? Why are there some things that we just don’t talk about as Christians? Where do all the forgiven sinners go when they’re struggling with bitterness, rebellion, when they’re hearing voices? Who will lay the Scriptures before them and pray for their protection?

I remember reading his blog, the Christian guy who I supposed knew little about struggles with sin, and he wrote out the whole plot of his life, exposed his past struggle with homosexuality. What was it that brought him freedom? He found a trustworthy person to whisper what he had faced alone for years. Then, I read an interview where she, a picture perfect woman of God, a popular worship singer, confessed how she’d known the addiction to pornography and now knew freedom in Christ Jesus.

I remember: “No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.” (1 Cor. 10:13)

God is our Counselour. God also gave us the Church. Maybe it’s time to pray about with whom to share your current struggles. Or, maybe, you’ve been set free and it’s time to pray about whether God desires you to open your heart and humbly share about the victory He has given you. His Spirit is our Guide and, friend, maybe it really isn’t time for that yet. All I know is that there are those living side by side, facing the same struggle against darkness, and never realizing it.

Just pray. Be obedient. Know that you’re not alone.

I write her a thank you note, dial his number just to show I care, and do that big pile of dishes. Sometimes I wonder if God stripped away this outside layer, exposing my heart, would these deeds be filthy rags in the light of His righteousness? Do I only do good so that others will praise me, love me and give back to me?

A decade opens before me brightly. I hit the snooze button at 7:15AM and roll out of bed to birthday cards slipped under the door and flowers on my dresser. How do I want to look at this year ahead of me? I could continue to get dirty in the same grime that I’ve layered onto my soul for years. I could continue to be comfortable. Do we hate change because we hate to change? Or I could stand here, looking out the window at liquid glass dripping off branches. While the house is still asleep, I could pledge my heart afresh to the Living God, my Hope, my Life.

The snow makes crunching noises on the sidewalk as I walk home, cars whizzing past. The cold air cuts through my three-year-old plaid coat and my shoulders tense to stop the shivering. I breathe deep, nose tingling, because it is pure pleasure to feel something.

I remember her typing out words the night before, around midnight, and honestly telling me that it was hard. I knew what she meant. We pray and we get distracted, we get tired, we get complacent. Then, it gets to this point where we give up and our souls numb to the Spirit; we wonder why Christianity does not always bring smiles and warm emotions.

I know that the Truth is always the Truth. Jesus does ALWAYS bring joy. Even when we feel like our heart is dry and our soul is begging for water, He is still the same joy-giving Saviour. To know Someone, we have to want to know them. Do we really want to know Jesus? Stop, then, wherever you are, and whisper you’re heart to Him. Don’t fret about the words to say, just talk to Him. He’ll lead us beside still waters and give us water for our parched souls.

It’s Remembrance Day and the poppies stick into their hearts on the left side, blood red. I think about the soldiers’ bodies scattered across the beaches, the tide covering young, old, married, single, black and white faces, dark watercolours. I contrast that with the manicured faces on the sidewalk, walking peacefully to their next class. When we’ve never seen the coffin, never read the last letter or never kissed them for the last time, we don’t understand the price of freedom.

I am grateful for the soldiers who still give their lives for our freedom this very hour; there are men and women who bravely sacrifice today. But, for those of us who sit behind our screens only making bold statements if it’s on the face of cyber-space where no one can touch us, are we sure that we have true courage? If the turmoil of the world reaches Canada’s prairies, mountains and coasts again, will the men fold up their designer clothes and take a bullet for the weak? Will the women be willing to sit quietly at home, bravely facing the unknown and whispering prayers? So maybe I’m old-fashioned or maybe they had it right back then and we get it a little more wrong all the time.

This is the message: As the world turns crazy, will you stop hiding behind your big plastic sign with the peace symbol and do what needs to be done to bring back the peace? Will you spread your body over your wounded friend and catch the pieces of shrapnel? Will you lay down your life for your great-grandchildren’s freedom?

One day, earth will be the fairy tale. And everyone will look back at half-a-centimeter of their life sketched onto the timeline of eternity. Will you be the one who gave up joy, peace, love, your soul to throw into the pinpoint of your life? Or will you be the one who lived looking ahead, lived with the reality that every moment counted for the next life?

“We shall have all of eternity to celebrate the victories, but only a few hours before sunset in which to win them.” -Amy Carmichael

One phone call from a brother, two high-pitched voices telling me about their missing rabbit, ten new messages from three of my favourite roommates, two home-cooked meals.

Subtract.

One chapter in Biology unread, one skype date missed, two anxious conversations, one disappointing text, one theory assignment incomplete.

Equals.

Joy Overflowing.

It’s fall reading break. While the rest of my classmates take the train back to the city or carpool to their one-intersection country towns, I travel the familiar back-roads to the farm. It’s when I first step out of the car, the vacancy moves icily from the lump in my throat to below my ribs somewhere.

I trace the scattered clues. Tufts of black hair from her smooth coat scattered in the grass. The dirt scratched, scarring the grass, and leaving bald spots beside the veranda steps at every corner. The lily stalks flattened in the flowerbed, from where her warm body used to hide until mom scolded her out again. No dog, wagging her tail, to greet me.

Where’s the dog who was Waldo in the background of every outdoor childhood photo? Where’s the dog who followed me every time I ran away behind the pine trees and cried? Where’s the dog who kept me company on the first night I ever stayed at home alone?

I know. She’s at the edge of the bush underneath three feet of dirt. No grave marker yet. Another piece of my childhood faded into pictures only.

Mom wraps her arms around me and I hide red eyes in her hair while she says, “Death is such a horrible thing. I just keep thinking that this isn’t how God intended the world to be.” I nod. Why didn’t humans trust that God had the best plan in the beginning? No pain, no suffering, no graves. Beneath the ache of losing her, fourteen years of growing up together, I remember that God still has the best plan.

One day, on streets of gold, behind pearly gates, I’ll see it fully.

She looks at me like she always does, with the eyes that are filled with heart. She smiles big and says, “It’s my birthday tomorrow!” This is the girl who is turning nineteen and who gets excited about the colour pink. And I remember telling her the other day that it was ‘pretty cool’ that she had a favourite colour; I never did.

She smiled at me, “Yeah. I just think, why not get excited about stuff like that? Like, what’s not to love about pink?”

Why not? Pink still isn’t my favourite colour, but every time I see it, I get happy because I can picture her face crinkling in excitement. Why not be the girl who carries a pink umbrella in a sea of black ones. Why not be the one wearing a pink shirt in the theater when everyone else is a collage of grey, brown, and black?

Colourful clothing and accessories aren’t the only way to paint the world glad. When you wake up in the morning to freezing rain speckled against dark clouds, why not get excited about hot chocolate on the broken couch? When you wait at the bus stop shivering in the winter cold, why not get excited about watching your breath swirl its shadow into the frozen air? When you can’t concentrate on anything that you’re trying to do, why not get excited about taking a break to go jump in a leaf pile with your favourite people?

So this girl I know? The one with the slow smile, the big laugh? The one who brings her friends lattes to help them study, chocolate to make their bad day brighter, and writes kind notes to slip under people’s doors? It’s her birthday tomorrow. Isn’t that AMAZING?!

We ran out of dishwasher soap. All I could think to make for lunch was two pounds of squash. By the end of the day, my housemate had spread her papers, like the leaves outside, on the living room floor and buried her face in the cushions of the broken couch. Too much studying.

I just wanted to be anywhere else. Please. So, after supper, I grabbed a coat, my tangled headphones, and stepped out into the wet snow. I was the little girl who ran away from home with her handkerchief full of toys and raisins again. All I really wanted was someone to notice that I was having a miserable day. It took twenty five minutes of walking up and down the sidewalk, watching my shadow shiver, to go back to the house where no one had noticed.

I could blame it on being introverted. Don’t we all need a little me-time? But I know better. There was a man once, who lived a constantly poured-out life. Even when Jesus went away alone to pray, He prayed for the Church, He prayed for the Father’s will.

When I step back into the house, I hear the roommate’s laughter. Self-pity is the poison of joy. I could turn my music up and drown it out and count, over and over, the ways this day has failed me. Or, I could go up to her room and ask her about her day, and just leave the complaints outside where the puddles will cover them. If we would just get our focus off ourselves, we might actually get something done in this world.

I make a bee-line towards the laughter as the shadow of the cross cuts the burden from my shoulders.