I wrote this almost a year ago, while traveling with a team of people, the majority of whom were 8-10 years younger than me. Most of my friends prior to this experience were at least 10 years older than me, so having the roles reversed revealed for me the value of the via dolorosa (the way of suffering.)
My friends and I had been overseas for a month and a half. As the oldest person on the trip, I found myself responding differently to the same situations — differently from my friends, but also differently than I would have responded even three years earlier. My life — once marked by the virtues of impulse and originality — now had a different rhythm. This reality was exposed through my interactions with a new culture, and after seven weeks, I put my pen to paper to sort out what was stirring within.
There are things that my friend reminds me of which make me sad. I used to tell stories and put flowers behind my ear and run out in the rain. I still could do those things, there is nothing stopping me, but it would feel insincere, like I am drinking from a well not my own. The things that stir within me move slower, more deliberately. I cannot and will not pretend to be 20, but I need to know, I want to believe that the things I have to offer have value, deep intrinsic value, to the Kingdom of God and to my team.
We all walk different roads.
Last night we were discussing…well they were proclaiming the wonder that every day with God is better than the last. That is a lovely thought, and I’m sure very nice until you find the desert that never ends, until you begin to learn the lessons of suffering and the dark night of the soul.
I began, or tried, to offer to them from the lessons of my own suffering, but it was not received well. Their attitude actually reminded me of my own from years past. It is so strange to hear your own words and attitudes come out of other people’s mouths. There was a time I so desperately wanted respect and recognition that I failed to see the wisdom that was being offered to me.
As I realized the error of my attitude I began to see the folds of depth in other people’s eyes, and I began to long to know what they know. The insatiable desire to be known remained in me, but alongside it came the stillness of listening to other people’s silence. Their silences will tell you much, and still I longed to know what they knew. So I asked God to teach me.
You do not get to choose your own story. If I could, I would have learned these lessons a different way. I do not feel this is wrong or disrespectful to the God who made me. Jesus asked in the garden if there is any better way, any other way. I, too, would have liked a better road, but where I stand today I wouldn’t give up.
Every door we choose, every decision we make, leads us to a new place. Pleasant or not, God walks beside us.
“If I could trade in my yesterdays I wouldn’t trade them for beauty only”*…which means I would not and will not disrespect the road I have walked or the things I have learned from this road, because they brought me here.
Most of these things are difficult to express, or I would have read them in a book or heard them in a seminar. Most of these things are difficult to perceive until you begin to recognize them. That is why they require stillness and silence even to hear in other’s stories. Once you have begun to live them, you begin to recognize them, and you learn to hush your clamoring, you begin to know when you are on Holy Ground.
There are, however, a few things that can be put into words. Not every day is better than the last. Sometimes life sucks; sometimes you suck; sometimes God seems so far away. There are more questions than answers, and there aren’t always flowers in the desert.
It is possible to suffer without learning the lessons of suffering. Sometimes, in fact, things get worse before they get better. God restores what is lost, but what is lost is still lost. It is good that there are more questions than answers. Hiding from the pain only makes it worse. Denial is, usually, stupid.
Most people need to be heard, not comforted or argued with. Comparing one story to another is pointless and can be harmful. Some have more, some have less, we are all, all of us other. ”…at two you’re an abstraction.”** God is enough. Even when you are alone and all other lights have gone out, He Himself is enough. We must learn to honor the mystery in one another. Blame is pointless. Even the best of virtues is harmful in exclusion of the others, or if they are worshipped.
There are other things you learn as you grow older. Like sometimes it is good to conform for the sake of communication and order. Order is good and disorder is very difficult for some people. Playing in the rain is good, being wet all day is not always good, so sometimes it is better to listen to the rain.
It sucks to always be the one who goes against the flow, but it is worse to watch things fall apart when you saw it coming and kept your mouth shut. It is very tiring to be the oldest. It is much better to be the youngest, especially once you have learned about stillness and mystery.
Age is not the only thing which inspires sanctified impatience, and I revisit these words as I face similar challenges in a regional culture that believes maturity and effectiveness is equivalent to living by your day-planner, a church culture which embraces the same value, and where contending is considered so high a virtue, and waiting is so seldom seen, that the two are often confused. Even I am flurry of activity as God gently and firmly repeats in my heart, “Be still. Be still. Be still.” For me, all of the coming and going, even the thinking and processing, and going going going is an elaborate ruse to keep me from a deeper pain, so I need these words again, to remind me of the power of stillness, silence, and the lessons of suffering.
*from the song “Sunrise” by Nichole Nordeman
**Thank you Sara Groves for this confusing song lyric. “Who can know the pain, the joy, the regret, the satisfaction, at two you’re an abstraction.” Which means each life is so hard to know, each person so individual, once you begin to talk about to people or more even with the same or similar experiences, you must abstract their story…they become something not quite a person anymore…they become an abstraction.
