Satan,
I am writing this blog post to inform you that your rebellion against God and His people isn't going so well. Granted, it may look like you're winning today. I just got off the phone with yet.another.person telling me about their crappy day. So I admit, there are casualties in our camp.
However, I'd just like to let you know something. God is granted final victory. He's already won.
Until He returns, I suppose you will continue to take joy in causing misery and pain your earthly kingdom.
Therefore, since you will continue on with this disgusting rampage against God's warriors, I'd like to give you a little insight into how this all works.
First of all. You can maim, torture, denounce, martyr, and rip apart my earthly body. You can play your role in cancer and in rape and in murder. Go right ahead. You will never touch my soul, though it may experience the darkest of nights.
There are moments when I ache and I doubt, but hear me clearly: my allegiance is with Christ. It is steadfast and firm. It cannot be swayed. My King comes through as victor. When I am at my weakest, God is strong. The testing makes me stronger, mightier, and more powerful.
Second, though I have been given a mission here on earth and I am living in your place of reign, I will not live here forever. My loyalty belongs to a passionate Father God with a heavenly kingdom that will not pass away. The more I learn about my kingdom of eternal residence, the less satisfied I am with earth. Oh, don't twist my words. There is so much beauty that God has created. Pink sunset skies, sticky kid kisses, and moments that take my breath away. But these things? They only prove that there is a Creator. My soul was made for eternity, and I cannot wait to see creation in its glorified, original state. You see, spring is upon us. You will not stop it. Nor will you hinder the fact that this season reminds me of the new life that awaits me.
Third, the Bible clearly states that you masquerade as an angel of light. You were once the most beautiful. You choose to rebel against God, took a portion of angels with you, and were given the title "prince of the earth." Then Eve came, the signature of the divine, and you deceived her. Tragically, the earth and all that is in it, became cursed. I don't need to tell you the story. After all, you were there. Some are still deceived by your "beauty", but I want you to know I see you. I see that you are ugly, twisted, and dark.
While some tragic events that we encounter during our time here are merely the unfortunate consequences of living in a fallen world (aka your temporary kingdom), others are a result of your evil. War, broken families, corruption, violence, confusion, abuse, and so on. I will say it again: God has my allegiance, and I will turn to Him with my heartache. While you hurt, injure, ruin, and deceive, you will not fool me. You WILL NOT fool me. You will not fool me into your dark chaos and faux loveliness.
Fourth, to the very end of my days, no matter how long I have left, I will never stop giving God the glory. I know this means going to battle. While I am not thrilled with the prospect of dealing with you and your kind, I am fully equipped for this war. You will no doubt trip me up occasionally. I may even be a POW in your camp from time to time. I'm not blind to this. Just know this, the shackles you attempt to place on me will be miraculously, perfectly broken off and you will be left powerless once again. He will never leave me nor forsake me.
In summary, it's been a shitty day. You may be winning a few small battles here and there. You may even get a trophy from time to time. But. You WILL lose the war.
You will lose the war you've been fighting for years to burn bridges between my sister and I. I love my sister, and I love her dearly. YOU WILL LOSE.
You will lose the war you've been fighting for years to make me believe that I am crazy and unworthy. I am intelligent, marked, and worthy. YOU WILL LOSE.
You will the lose the war you've waged against my security. I am secure and I am free. YOU WILL LOSE.
You will lose the war you've waged against belonging. I belong, and I will always belong. YOU WILL LOSE.
You will lose the war.
I pinky heart promise you.
God's people will always rise up. We will always be made strong in our weakness. We will be ruthlessly defended by the ultimate Warrior, who rejoices over us with singing.
I will sing, dance, and praise Jesus in my suffering. In my failing body, in my broken relationships, in my searching. I will take every bit of this, and turn it into gratitude. These ashes will be traded for crowns of beauty.
At the end of the day, it's not about what I will do, but what God has already done.
and He has won.
So I win, too.
I spend my mornings handing out meds and smiling real big and hearing stories.
Six hours of mingling with the people our culture have conveniently labeled "bottom-dwellers". The whole experience is messy and undignified and inappropriate. People spill coffee and shout expletives and clog toilets. It's a space stereo-typed by craziness. It's sometimes loud, and sometimes eerily silent. There have been moments where I'm positive things are going to get physically aggressive.
Even though I have been practically spit on out of frustration, every morning I come and I have this inexplicable joy bubbling up from deep inside my belly. There truly is nowhere else in the whole wide world that I'd rather be on these mornings then with this squirrel-y group of ragtag people.
They remind me of myself. Their exteriors are as poor and dirty as my sin, as all the things that have me real tangled up inside.
And while my well is overflowing with joy, there is hopelessness spilling out their eyes and shame whirling off their skin. I'm standing close enough to inhale it right out of the air between us like second-hand narcotics. And breathe it deeply I must have... because there are slivers of time where I feel the hopelessness and shame too, and those aren't some of my more frequent emotions. I feel the shame of having too much, of being nicely dressed, of being healthy and loved. I feel the hopelessness of not having concrete solutions or answers or the ability to "fix it."
As each man and woman shares their story and I hear their words, see the strain on their metaphorical spines... I know that I would do anything to cusp my clean palm to the backside of each stench-y neck and pull their foreheads up to mine. And with the pressing of our foreheads and a fist against my chest, my eyes searching theirs, I would whisper so fiercely,
"You are loved. You are necessary. You are enough."
With the shame and hopelessness swirling in the halls like cloud tendrils riding the wind, I watch even the yoke of the most weary and heavy laden ease just a bit as someone takes the time to listen, to be present.
______
A couple blocks away, and happening at the same time, is the grocery store and the mall and the coffee shops. All the hippies and hipsters and eco-conscience and wealthy people gather with their re-usable bags and bank-bucks to purchase the sweetest earth-foods the soil has to offer. They stroll the mall, children in tow, with bags upon bags. They sit with friends at the round table, carry on normal conversation about school, about work, about family. There's an abundance of happiness, of friendliness, of "normal".
No one is spitting in anyone's faces or getting all knotted in anger. Civilized is the word and even the air seems to agree with it's hazy dark filter of beauty. You can't help but feel that the world must be a magical place, must be mostly good.
I love it. I value it.
I leave my mornings, and my afternoons are spent here. In coffee shops, in grocery stores, in my home.
These people certainly don't eat canned goods on the edge of expiration or plan out ways to kill themselves. Or maybe they do.
We all have our own brand of needs, and the contrast in our world has left me reflecting on my own brokenness.
I'm home now. Home now from another day of learning, another day of fresh food and healthy relationships. Home now from another beautiful day, and my mind and my heart are having a meeting together and confirming what I've known for some time now:
I am going to be a psychiatric nurse.
Never in a million years would I have told you this a couple of years ago, but every day I feel the passion and the necessity growing a little bit more.
Why?
It's simple really.
Because I'm dying for us all to be together.
The dirty and the clean. The doctor-needing and the healthy. The depressed and the happy. The white and the color-full. The full of life and the barely surviving. The bed-less and the king-size mattress sleepers. I am dying for us to not feel lower or higher, more valuable or less valuable depending on where one sits in society's arena. I wish there were no cheap seats.
I want to be a psychiatric nurse.
Because my only solution for this incongruent world is to keep showing up to both segregated tables and hope that with Jesus inside me I can reach these cross-stretched arms wide enough to pull a few more of us around the same table.
You are loved. You are necessary. You are enough.
Will you believe it?
Excited for the future,
