In my early 20's I was engaged with a group of hurting and fairly pessimistic Christians. At the time, I thought they were progressive and truthful, and didn't pick up on the underlying negativity. One of the girls noted that she was done “recommitting” her life to Christ. “I mean, how many times can you stand up and say 'I'm committing to follow Jesus?' I'm already committed, and it seems redundant.” It made sense to me at the time, and I decided that the whole recommitment thing was, well, silly.

I've been thinking a lot about arrested development over the last few days. While in certain areas of my life I'm growing, I feel like other areas have been in a holding pattern for years. I think a main reason why is because, in the back of my mind, recommitment was unnecessary.

“Look, I am making all things new,” God says. But they don't stay that way, do they? Newness is inherently temporary. This morning in community group we were talking about life cycles. It's everywhere—plants die in the winter and are reborn in the spring. Business leaders come into dying businesses and bring new lifeblood until they, too, need replacing. Friendships ebb and flow with life circumstances. Storms and floods wash away centuries of civilization that then need to start over. It's all around us, the cycle of renewal. And we don't just say “Well, I already planted that flower, and it grew, so it's silly for it to die and then regrow in spring.”

Spiritually, we go through times of distance from God. Even Mother Theresa had about 20 years where she said she didn't feel God. I can feel it when it's coming on, and I guess since my early 20's I've fought it. Maybe that's not the right word. I know it's coming, and I sigh, and I trudge through, and I don't celebrate reconnecting with God when it finally happens. I fight learning and settling into my new revelations—which are oftentimes just reminders of and expansions on basic principles I've known since I was young. My logic was something like: It's silly, to focus on a lesson you already knew and were reminded of, because that lesson was already learned. I couldn't see the new facets in what had already been a part of me. And that led to arrested development. Nothing was really worthwhile because it was all the same, and would always be the same, and when you've seen it all and done it all... as Solomon put it in Ecclesiastes:

Meaningless! Meaningless!
Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.

What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

And, I can relate to Solomon when he came to the conclusion: “So I hated life...”

Now, after only about a decade, I'm finally arriving at his conclusion in that book: that with God the meaningless has meaning. The cycles are there for a reason. We may not know why, but that's the design. And new life is to be celebrated, in whatever form it takes. This makes me ok with all of the re-learning I have to do. Rather than fighting it, or feeling silly for the close-then-distant dance of my spirituality, I can embrace it as part and parcel of being a living being on this earth.

The eucalyptus trees in Australia grow in harsh conditions. In the outback, there's little rain and barely any nutrients in the soil. The trees cluster together in groups, their bark shiny and soft, and grow where they shouldn't be able to survive. Their bark sheds regularly, peeling off and landing at their base. Over time, that bark decays and turns into nutrients that then feed the tree, helping it grow stronger. Layer after layer, the outer skin of the tree dies and is reborn, so that the tree can grow stronger and taller and flourish. Through its own death, the tree generates more life within itself.

While I remain the same person, things grow and die and are re-born in a different way inside of me. Benjamin Franklin said, “When you're finished changing, you're finished.” Life is change. And for some reason I've embraced this in most realms of my life except for my spirituality. This changes today. I'm embracing the cycle.

Images from: top , middle (Copyright Wilbert Saint), and bottom

sleep apnea. Justin died of sleep apnea.

Dad, use your CPAP machine!!!

Providence

this is more for me than anyone else.

I was looking through my blog and realized I hadn't posted this, and that I need to be reminded of God's providence from time to time, so I want to document it:

I got off of the Max in Oregon City, determined to find my way home via bus but also had an urgent need to go to the mall I was dropped off at. I don't like malls, generally. Shopping is my least favorite activity (seriously. I'd rather milk a cow.), but for some reason I NEEDED to go to the mall. I went into the ladies room and heard someone crying outside the stall. I went to wash my hands, and I met Avery, a young girl, crying and washing her face in the sink. She asked if I was from Oregon and I said no.

Turns out, she'd been stranded in the mall by her boyfriend. They both lived about an hour away. Through talking to her, I found she'd been on meth for 6 years, had decided she was over it, and her and her boyfriend went to rehab in Portland. When they were done detoxing and released from the hospital, he went to find more meth. She told him that she was done with it, he said he wasn't, called her a b*tch, and drove away. Leaving her stranded, with no money, no way to get home, no clue of how to get home, and in a really vulnerable state.

I sat with her for about an hour, looked up bus/train routes to her home, called my brother to get a better handle on public transport, and just listened. She kept telling me she'd never had anyone be so nice to her--which was disheartening. To me, this is what people should just Do. So, we found her a bus and a train to her home town. I gave her my bus pass and $10 (it was a 6 hour trip, I figured she'd be hungry at some point). When I heard from her, she was home and happy. We've kept in touch, and she's ditched the crappy boyfriend and is in long-term rehab and seems happy.

Ten bucks was a lot for me, at the time. As was the bus pass. But what a great thing to contribute to! While I was waiting for my ride home, I wandered over to a local Mexican food joint. I was super hungry. I sat at the bar, not wanting to sit by myself in a restaurant about dinner time. Immediately, the guy next to me started chatting me up. Ended up that he shared his dinner with me, offered me a job that I didn't take, and generally we had a nice friendly time. And? I got steak. Yummy. I tried to refuse, but he insisted. Hard.

Then, I told him I'd just moved here and had no job, etc. He pulled out a huge wad of bills, took out $20, and set it in front of me. I thanked him but declined. He made such a scene that I realized it was better to just take the money. Humbling, for sure. I tried to hand it back to him several times but he got to the point that he was angry, so I took it. With much thanks. He made so money, he told me, that he would rather I have it.

So, God doubled my investment. I've given money before that never came back to me, which is fine. It's nice to have a reminder that God repays us for what we invest, though.

I wanted to remind myself of that.