life is {often} beautiful

{{mom's glorious roses!!}}

Today was my fourth day without feeling anxious or fretful, and it has been glorious.

I woke up on Monday after another fretful night of restless dreams, and my first thought, as always, was of the guy friend and what lies ahead for us - followed shortly afterward with weary thoughts about work and nervous thoughts about the research projects that are coming up quickly. I thought of my friend who had just lost her baby, another whose son just left the NICU, a friend who is very ill and could die. The elections are weird, the news is depressing, life is heavy and exhausting. For weeks, my mind has been closed down with a dark fog of fear, worry, obsessive thinking, and dragging depression - as has, sadly, been quite evident in my blogging.

But Monday afternoon, I picked up a biography of J.R.R. Tolkien, and lost myself in his rich descriptions of war, Christianity, mythology, and the great spiritual battle of the universe; and when I emerged, the fog had cleared and my pounding heart had calmed.

I am a dreamer, a wielder of imagination; and I want to use my power for brightness and holiness, not darkness and fear. I want to be like Tolkien - clear-sighted and realistic, but remembering that ultimate victory is assured and Light will finally win out over darkness; and for that reason, I should always have hope.

***

Work is going beautifully. They think I hung the moon, and I'm not arguing.

The research project may not even happen, if all goes as I hope.

The guy friend and I are still talking occasionally. Audacious, stupid hope still blooms alongside the deep-rooted certainty that all will be well no matter what happens.

The precious baby whom my friend thought she had lost? He LIVES by God's grace and his life-journey is just beginning.

The little guy who just left the NICU is hearty and growing and nursing.

The friend who could die walked from the hospital to his own car this afternoon.

***

Things can and do go badly and our wishes can be crushed, certainly. People and dreams do die. And the fog and weight of anxiety and depression can cloud and pull down the best of us no matter how hopeful we may be inside.

But sometimes it's easy to feel like God's will is this inexorable, iron machine that is going to march forward and crush our wishes and hopes underneath it unless we make sure we're marching in its direction. And that's not a truthful picture of how our God works. His will is ultimately inexorable, but He is no heartless tank driver; He is our loving Father who leads, carries, or lovingly drags us along the path toward being changed into the image of His Son. He knows that we are fragile, frightened, and terribly limited in what we can understand; but He doesn't roll His eyes in frustration and shove us forward along the rocks, He puts His arms underneath us and helps us walk, and soothes our fears with the promise that He will get us home safely.

Father, I'm sorry for helping to dig myself into a pit of fear and not turning my eyes upward to You - thank You for freeing me from the darkness, and thank You that You will do so when I fall in again, and again, and again. Thank you for the sunshine and hope that You have set before each of us, and thank You for winning the victory over darkness and sin!

and forgive us our trespasses

***

To forgive.

Who would know that it would take me until I was almost 30 to learn what it means to forgive?

For more than a month, I have tried to pretend that I didn't need to forgive. I have tried to pretend that I was only hurt, wounded, vulnerable, and sad - not angry. After all, I'm the nice one. The sweet-tempered one who never, ever gets angry.

Well ... I've been angry.

I have felt wronged, betrayed, and abandoned; and I have wanted to hurt them in return. I have cloaked a desire for revenge in a pretentious desire for justice. And I have stored up bitter words and actions that I have desperately longed to spew out in an acid rain shower for all to see.

Yes, certainly I have been hurt and vulnerable. But I have also been angry.

I have been holding onto this anger even past the point when I knew I shouldn't, because I convinced myself I was going to fight for some kind of justice. I told myself I was going to channel my anger to make change, to stand up for the poor defenseless students coming after me who were going to be subjected to the deception, unfairness, and harshness that I endured. Well, I still would like to do that; but - was it really for the students that I wanted to stand up and make a ruckus? Or was it really for myself, to stand up and shout to the world that I had been cheated and wronged?

***

It's time to let go.

"Forgive" is defined by the Webster-Merriam Online Dictionary as "to give up resentment of, or claim to requital for". Easton's Bible Dictionary defines "forgiveness", in reference to God's forgiveness of a sinner, as being absolved from condemnation and removed from guilt and liability.

So forgiving my professors means not being angry anymore, and it means ceasing to believe I should be repaid for the wrong they did me.

I am not going to look back at those painful days and sleepless nights and let my blood boil anymore. I am going to say: I am a fallen sinner just like the people who hurt me, and I need forgiveness just as much as they do, for offenses just as bad against others. I am not better than they are. This was God's will for me, and He never allows me to pass through pain for no reason - He will bring blessings and good fruit out of the dug-up places in my heart, as long as I raise my hands to the rain and say "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word".

I'm not going to look for ways to "make them pay". I'm not going to keep expecting someone to admit they were wrong and apologize. I am going to "accept the apology that was never offered". And I'm going to allow the Lord to gently close that chapter of my life as He sees fit, and stop dragging my heels and looking back over my shoulder, like Lot's wife.

***

I want to be mighty. 

I want to be strong and active and courageous, full of righteous power. I want to be the Christian equivalent of Luke Skywalker - I want to do hard things, deny myself, and actively fight against darkness and sin in myself and the world.

Luke Skywalker forgave. Luke Skywalker didn't go after Darth Vader to seek revenge for all of the horrible things that he had done to him; he went after Darth Vader to rescue him from the spiral of destruction that had trapped him for so many years.

And I look higher and even more importantly: Jesus forgave. Jesus Christ could have righteously punished the earth and destroyed us with the death we all deserved, but He didn't. He forgave us long before we asked. He loved us when we were completely vile and hideously deformed with sin. And He allowed Himself to be punished as though He were vile and deformed with sin, instead of us.

Who am I to hold a grudge, when I have been forgiven so much? And how do I think I can grow and get stronger if I'm letting anger and bitterness shrivel me up?

***

Well, I'm done shriveling now.

I'm done being angry. All of the professors, all of the administrators: I forgive you. I love you. I truly want the best for you. And I truly believe that God wants the best for you and me and all of us.

I forgive. Therefore, I am free.