All I asked for the new year was a little less of everyone's drama and a little more of my own.
And I meant it.
This week I realized that it's been a drama free year for me. Not even
relatively. I mean, it's been completely drama free. My car has never
once broken down. My heart has not once been broken. I have never been
short on finances. I have always know what I was doing and where I was
going and how I was getting there. I have had the answers at my
fingertips and whenever I have not, it has been fairly easy to find
answers. I land consistently on the same theologies and haven't once
thought seriously about running away from anything.
I'm accustomed to a rocky ride, this life of mine has not been without
its waves and storms. Once a friend said to me, "Lore, for someone who
loathes drama as much as you do, you're always in the middle of some
epic drama!"
A few years ago a man put his hand on my head and said, "The Lord has
good things planned for you, not disaster. I see a book, and the title
is not a Greek Tragedy. Your life is not a Greek Tragedy. Your life is a
love story that ends happily ever after. I feel like your life is a love
story. Your love for God and your love for people and people's love for
you. And what that love accomplishes and how it triumphs..."
And I'll be honest, my heart scoffed when he said those words. I'll tell
you why: because the story of my life has been a laughable Greek
Tragedy and my love for God at that point was nil, my love for people
was waning, and people's love for me felt like the only thing holding my
feet to the ground.
But here I am, looking back over the past year and a half, and all I can
see is good things. Love stories. Happily after after. Love for God.
Love for people. And people's love for me. And what that love
accomplishes.
And how it triumphs.
How it triumphs.
Yesterday's early morning drive sans traffic gave me time and space to
think about the -ingness of the gospel—that ongoing work of the gospel.
How it's already finished and not yet finished and so we stay the
course, walking, running, living ongoingly. I thought about how
drama in our lives is God's way of moving heaven and earth into our
path, insurmountable obstacles without Him. And just because we spend a
year standing arms outstretched on a mountaintop does not mean there is
less of heaven to be known and less of earth to be lived.
This morning, though, I sat on our couch, wrapped in a blanket while my
two wise roommates spoke truth to me, challenged and loved me, because
here's the truth: a drama-free life doesn't mean a sin-free life and oh,
how I dearly wrestle with the sinfulness and selfishness of my heart. A
drama free life means that the dim glass is a little clearer, but we still don't see Him face to face. And I long for that. I long so deeply for that.
I am grateful for a year of joy, a year where the bigness of God has
been evident, a year where the love has been abundant, but I mean it too
when I say that if 2012 is wrought with drama of my own heart's making
or my own circumstance's bringing, I am ready for it. Bring it on, I
say.
