It's been a few weeks since the first question, and the answer stays the same.
"God, I don't understand. Why have you put so many incredible people in my life?"
Anything to draw you to Myself.
(Jawdrop)
"Why" is the beginning to many - maybe most - of my questions. Why is she sick? Why is that really so wrong? Why can't I serve two masters? Why are You allowing this hurricane? Why should any one person go through that much? WHY CAN'T I UNDERSTAND THIS MATH HOMEWORK?!?!?!?
And the answer to all of these (except maybe the last one...although on some occasions...) has stayed the same, breathed through the tatters of my tantrum-tired spirit: Anything to draw you to Myself.
In his book Blue Like Jazz, Don Miller writes, "We dream of Christ's love for His bride reading like Romeo and Juliet; two equals inflamed in liberal love. I think it is more like Lucentio's pursuit of Bianca in The Taming of the Shrew. That is, the groom endearing the belligerent bride with kindness, patience, and love."
It's life-changing, really, when you look at your life as one big love letter. When I'm punished for sin (and sin = anything that stacks a brick on the wall between God and me) or just going through a hard time, it isn't because God is a divine bully and wants to ruin my life. It's because God is crazier in love than Beyonce or anyone else can ever understand. He loves relentlessly, wooing His creation back into communion with Him. Why? Because love desires what is best for the other person, and is anything better than embracing the story for which we were created, a love story that makes Shakespeare and Taylor Swift and Stephanie Meyers (but especially Stephanie Meyers) seem about as knowledgeable on love as a preschooler is on astrophysiology?
And not all of the story is wrought in hardship, either. There are moments of awestruck, grateful giddiness at the unexpected delights hidden like pirate treasure around my life - days of laughter, dandelions peeking through the deep green of the lawn, songs that remind me who I am, quiet mornings alone with ancient King David poetry, and especially the friends who fall like lemonade on my hot-and-tired-and-thirsty spirit. These, too, pull me in closer.
So the point of everything - everything, from the pink-blossomed trees I walk past every morning, to the heartache of losing a friend, to the daily routine that so quickly becomes monotonous - everything is another word in the love letter God is writing to me, laboring repeatedly, relentlessly, redemptively, to draw me to Himself.
This song sums it up pretty well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0urB9mnCx-A
