Monday, September 18, 2017

On Burning the Boats

In the Spring of 2007, Aaron and I had been dating for just a few months. He was so handsome and I was so smitten. One weekend before classes ended for the summer, he came up to my parents' house with me. He got a call letting him know he was being considered for an internship in Cincinnati. In the typical doe-eyed, college-romance way, that felt like 500 light years away (which is outright laughable now after having lived in Arizona.) When he got that call, I decided what I always decide in hard moments: I was going to Suck It Up and Face Reality and Be Strong and Do The Hard Thing. So I looked at him and said - dude, we should break up. Cincinnati is too far away.

What I remember most after that moment is that I went to the kitchen to get a drink of orange juice, and my Mom asked me something innocent like "what's up" and I said something innocent like "not much" but I felt like I couldn't fill up my lungs. It was like walking through sludge. What had just happened? This was terrible! I don't want to get a cup of juice while not dating Aaron. I don't want to make small talk with Mom while not dating Aaron. I don't want to do anything while not dating Aaron! Cincinnati is just a hop and a skip, right? Why did I think it was so far?

I ran back to Aaron and said "nevermind;" and while I assume he was a little alarmed at my neuroses, he said "ok." And we never really talked about it again. (He didn't end up taking that internship - but I got an internship that next fall in Colorado for five months. What star-crossed lovers! We survived. My journal from that period is virtually unreadable, guys.)

I thought about that story again recently because it is exactly what I've done, over this past year and a half, with Jesus.

I don't want to belabor the emotional and theological windstorm Naomi's birth sent me through. I've written about it and thought about it enough. But for the purposes of this story, the practical output of it was - especially in those early months after she came to meet me - that every night I prayed like this:

"God, please keep Naomi safe. Please let her sleep well. Please let her live through the night. Please help me help her."

And, this critical last part:

"God, if you take her from me, I will leave you."

I meant it, and it was important to me to tell Him. I wanted to be honest with Him. I wanted to prepare for the worst. I didn't want to be surprised at how I'd react if it happened. I didn't want to surprise Him, either.

And then, everything was different anyway - my news writing assignments became agonizing. Babies WERE taken from mothers. People hurt babies on purpose; people hurt babies on accident. Babies had cancer, sons and daughters joined the military; everything was agony. Every parent has felt this terrible emotional awakening, I'm pretty sure. (This is why moms can't watch Game of Thrones. That metal-bound torture victim underneath the castle walls is someone's SON, Mr. Martin. Tone it DOWN.) So my prayers, rather slowly, turned into this:

"God, you took those babies. I want to leave you."

And I did. For an afternoon here or an afternoon there, I would pretend I had. I would practice saying in my head "I used to be a Christian." I would guiltily study my hands during worship at church on Sunday, being careful not to sing words I wasn't sure I meant ("whatever my lot, You have taught me to say it is well with my soul.") Those moments never felt right, but I was trying them out. I was putting on the skin of a non-believer; poking my head out of my life to look around. What was it like?

Those moments felt freeing when I was pissed. When I read another terrible news story or heard another struggle from a friend, I felt liberated. Cocky, even. Ha! At least I don't have to explain this away on God's behalf, I thought. But I did notice something a little odd - I still wasn't looking at these situations from the lens of a person who doesn't believe in God. I was using the lens of a person who does; but who just thinks He's terrible. A God I wasn't going to waste my time defending or worshipping - because, frankly, in those moments, I couldn't figure out why I would.

There were some moments and friends that offered me alternatives, mostly in the form of a god that is powerless against bad things, cries when I cry and wouldn't ever really let anything terrible happen. (This perspective always left me sweating, worrying - wouldn't it be worse to have a god who's not in charge than to have one in charge who does inscrutable things sometimes?) Or there's the worldview that pretends everyone is basically good, and anything bad that happens is just, I don't know, a bump on the road to Harmony. (This also left me sweating, because if the people in these local news stories who hurt kids in the way I read about - if they don't burn in hell, constantly reminded of what they did, I don't want to live in that world, either.) But soon I came to a realization:

I would rather reject the real God than accept a fake simulation of Him.

Once I got there, I had a decision to make. Or, I thought I could make. But something else started happening.

As the hormonal haze that marked the beginning of my motherhood has mercifully receded, I've discovered something else about my faith: it's stubborn as hell.

Every time my heart grabs wildly for something to hold on to - whether it's comfort, or the assurance that someone who did something terrible WILL pay - I find Jesus there. When I'm reading with Naomi on my lap and I don't know where to put that joy that feels like it's going to break out of my body, Jesus is there. Every confusing question I find, every time I look hard in the mirror and wonder what kind of life I want to have, Jesus is there. And not just Jesus - I find people in the Scriptures who've asked all the questions I have, or felt the frustrations, or been pissed like I've been pissed, and who've still found a Just and Faithful and Good God. Just like Jesus knows what it is to be human, our forefathers (and mothers) know what it's like to serve an unbelievably frustrating and confusing God from the depths of tragedy and the height of joy. These fathers and mothers of my faith lost their families; they lost their heads and they spent years in prison. They cried and kicked and screamed, and they tried to count it all joy, because they had seen a man rise from the dead and tell them that they could, too.

I can't let Him go. I don't want to get a glass of orange juice without Him, I don't want to make small talk without Him; I sure as hell don't want to raise my daughter without him. I don't think I could if I tried. He is in my bones and blood; in my mind when I'm not quite awake but find myself praying for help, or when I'm frustrated beyond belief and grasping for empathy. He is real, and thank God I have spent years knowing that and growing in my knowledge of that. Because now, when I spend days realizing the cost of it (that I could lose everything - my baby - and still be called to worship the One in Charge) I come to find it's worth it. It has to be, because I don't have a choice.

Pastor Frank said in his sermon a couple weeks ago (goodness help me, I can't stop listening to Redemption podcasts. There is no substitute for a Frank sermon) that "mature faith has burned the boats." (He was quoting another author, so don't give him too much credit.) Mature faith has given up on all other options. It's on the island, with no escape, with enough confidence and holy recklessness to burn the only point of return. There's no going back.

I've burned the boats. Thank God.