Someone is on your side.....

Lately, nostalgia has been hanging out on my couch, which I don't really mind, I guess. I kind of like when she comes to visit. Every memory, even the not so lovely ones, seem a little sun-kissed. Light and laughter and the memory of struggle and success flood my mind like old Polaroids collaged on a bulletin boards. Each date carefully written in black sharpie. Some corners are bent, and worn from use, others are have only recently been taken out and put on display.

Lately, I've been thinking about last summer and how things have morphed and changed and blossomed since then. I think about Africa, and feeling how present Jesus was. How completely i let people into my life and heart. How so many small things snowballed into life now, as we know it. that summer, when my heart broke all the way open. That summer when the person (people) on the other side of the table believed in me. That summer when i felt the most loved and protected i ever have by people who i do not share chromosomes with. 

We'll talk about that summer as the summer of Africa. We'll remember it so sweetly, and with such care. When we remember it, we'll hold it with two hands because it's extra fragile because when we look at it now, as if looking at an x-ray, that our hearts, all of them, were just out in the open, beating, unprotected. And they all broke. And, i think, that in picking up the pieces, i grabbed some of theirs, so they are now part of me, and i would venture to say the same is true of them....but you'd have to ask them.  i tend to get too attached and i tend to think about things in super poetic ways, so them might not think like that at all. 

As I hang out on memory lane with my old pals, one thing keeps coming to mind: a Bible verse. If you know me at all, you know that i don't think in Bible verses. never have. But for whatever reason, John 13:7 will not go away: Jesus replied, "You don't understand now what I am doing, but someday you will."

As much as I would like to pretend I don't understand this slash sometimes I would rather say "i don't know what's going on in my life" this all makes sense. All of it, which is both annoying and beautiful. Mostly, it's beautiful. What's beginning to make sense is that things happen, and you can choose to see Jesus in them or not. You can choose to feel like a charity case, or you can choose to see how beautiful authentic relationships are. We said "yes's" instead of no's. that matters.

While some things may have run their course, their significance is maintained. Roots need to be established before anything can grow and produce fruit that can sustain people. I think that in being who i need to be for the people in my life, I am learning to be more me. Does that even make sense? i will look back on this and understand what's happening in the here and now so much better, and i'll marvel at how intricately intertwined our lives and stories are, and how none of it is by mistake and none of it is for our glory.

We are all being shaped, and changed, challenged and supported and we are figuring it out together, which is scary and frustrating. sometimes we all need separate corners. room to breathe. time to think. some of it makes sense, and some of it doesn't. someday, though, it will.

And in another year or two when nostalgia comes for a visit. I'll pull out my memories, blow off the dust, and I'll probably be all weepy through my smiles because what I'll see is not myself. Not an exceptional group of people or circumstances, but, instead, I'll see Jesus.