Twenty years ago, I was a five-and-a-half year old little girl who called the former Yugoslavia (now Slovenia) home. I remember November 9, 1989 well. I was visiting Germany that day, and I like to think I fully understood the significance of what was happening. (I did, after all, celebrate in an age-appropriate way — with a bowl of Sugar Smacks.)
Image via MS State Univ Library
Today, I celebrate freedom.
Where were YOU twenty years ago today?
once again, shanley jo inspires me to write. she keeps writing, even when times aren’t exactly the best. times weren’t the best this weekend. i worked and cried and cried and worked some more. i felt further away from my dreams than i ever thought possible. i felt my life was so many leagues away from everything i ever thought it would be. i nursed my disappointments and choked back tears i didn’t even know i had inside of me. i even started crying myself to sleep, but my dear husband bundled me up in blankets and brought me back out to the living room and encouraged me to watch something funny with him, instead of crying alone in the dark.
also, he holds me and tells me its gonna be okay. this is so much better than logical persuasion, so much better than a list of facts of why i shouldn’t be sad.
he writes down verses like romans 5:3 and folds them up and puts them in my lunch, and he reminds of these verses even when, like this weekend, i didn’t feel close to the hope in romans 5:3. i felt like i was still on the perseverance and nowhere near the hope.
“We also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
God really wants me to “get” the hope thing. i’m a slow learner who doesn’t like to be disappointed. and to me, it just seems like expectations and hope can be dangerous. yet the Lord says that hope doesn’t disappoint. reminders of hope were everywhere this weekend, even though I felt like the darkness would not lift. on Friday night we listened to The Music Room at Bloom Coffee and Tea. the lyrics touched me. i fought back the tears, because the words were piercing my heart and stirring up too much emotion, and i couldn’t stop seeing HOPE literally written on the walls in between the soft babble of tiny children’s voices and laughter.
“I gotta believe that it’s still worth fighting, I need to be told that it works out fine in the end. Loneliness shakes up the pain inside me, within the span of a midnight drive.” -The Music Room
“The road is narrow and I’ve sure it’s not paved, but don’t give up when it gets tough, no you’ve got to stay, ‘cause I know the Giver and He’ll take you away” -The Music Room
i’ll fight on. i know that i know that i know hope does not disappoint. and i know it’s gonna be okay. and hope is written on the walls.
i don’t do this thing called writing, anymore. i wake up more tired than the night before, curl my hair into corporate correctness, and box myself in underneath a sickly white glow of flickering fluorescence. i click and add and think and click and everyone once in a while, my chair creaks. i stare at textured tan cubicle lining and my feet inside pointy-toed heels don’t even have room to stretch.
then, i return home and burst into tears at the laundry and the dusty floor, too tired to even eat properly, and turn around and do it all again.
“If she had wings she would fly away and another day God will give her some,” sings James Blunt.
I sigh.
Then Rich Mullins’ voice soars and I can feel the hope inside me returning, the Hope of my Solid Assurance in my Papa God, and Rich sings, “I know that Your Spirit is leading me somewhere beyond all this.”
And I collapse into the arms of my husband and feel the Heavenly Father’s embrace, and know I can do it all again tomorrow for the JOY that is set before me.
you’d think by now, the california-ness of the autumn-kissed air would have caused my words to sway and stumble, to stoop and swing across the wide open sky, to sing and land finally, across the white page of new and october thoughts.
by now the full moon of the western night, the silent peaches and salmon-orange of the morning dawn, would have pulled the words from my lips and from my soul and into my pen and onto this, the beginning of something new.
two years ago, he&i were walking hand-in-hand down a long stretch of midnight-lit sand and sea, hearts aflame with the wonderful realization that love was here to stay. one year ago, we put our hands together and bound them to one with rings, and forever he and i become he&i.
and now, we are again in the left coast world, many tears later, and grown together like the gnarled and twisted branches of the california oak outside my window as i write. we have walked europe and america, we have seen barcelona and paris and montpelier and we have traveled fourteen states and laughed and we have cried and we have soared and we have sunk but we have always gotten up again, anchored to the Rock of all the Ages, the Foundation of our Life.
e.e. cummings wrote this best, when from his pen flowed the words —
2 little whos
(he and she)
under are this
wonderful tree
smiling stand
(all realms of where
and when beyond)
now and here
(far from a grown
-up i&you-
ful world of known)
who and who
(2 little ams
and over them this
aflame with dreams
incredible is)
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