Summer Ponderings - July/August 2012
The skies were beginning to grow dark despite the fact that
dusk was still a few hours away. And the
winds were picking up...with just a little drizzle in their sharp breezes. A
single rumble of thunder was just close enough to recognize and just far enough
away to question. After weeks of near
drought, a storm was brewing.
I closed my eyes and allowed a contented smile to find its
way across my tired face and reach a small piece of my weary soul. A storm.
Something about a good storm seems to put my world to right...
The new, young friend sitting beside openly expressed the
antithesis of my moment of internal pleasure.
She was eager to escape the deep, dark skies, powerful winds and
crashing rain of an approaching storm.
To escape the terror. I, I myself
was still caught in the impending wonder.
Such a realization is never truly lost on me. Not even on the worst of days in the hardest
of weeks. A storm will forever and
always catch my sense of both terror and wonder. For years now, I’ve been gripped by the
wonder. The wonder of a storm.
It was during an incredible January thunderstorm with rain
cascading down and flooding the streets and thunder rattling the building and
lightening crashing through the dark sky in vibrant hues...which I watched from
a third floor hospital room...that I first became conscious of this
gripping. Of the way it captured not
only my attention and imagination but also my heart. From the hospital room without a voice,
several new scars – including a painful one across my throat – and a fresh and
raw cancer diagnosis, I found myself in my own storm. One where I was scared to admit even my
fear...and I was desperate to see the beloved beauty and wonder of the storm I
loved and saw outside my window...inside of my own. Inside of my own storm. I found it in me. The me I was in Christ. The unique way I was
designed wasn’t at the hands of cancer or the life surrounding. I was still there somewhere. Who I was and
who I was created to be was locked in something both terrifying and
wonderful.
I clung to that identity.
With the ferociousness of one who watched the rest of life cascading
between her grasp and spiraling out of control.
And spiral out of control it did.
For another four years. And after
four years I opened my clasped fists and looked at the shell of who I once
thought myself to be. For everything I
thought I was clinging to, there was nothing left. Little by little the things of life had
stolen the life out of me. Some pieces I
know I conceded willingly – though for some I traded riches for rags. Other pieces life snatched out from
underneath of me when I least expected it and far without my permission.
I woke up some mornings ago and realized I had no idea who I
was anymore. It was a terrifying
realization. Jesus was still in the
midst of things but I could only see where my relationship with Him gave
purpose and not definition. Nothing made
me excited or got my blood flowing. Things
that used to make my eyes light up or my pulse quicken seemed silly in some
cases, juvenile in others, not applicable would be saying a lot, and all of
them a million miles away.
But that didn’t and doesn’t make me a shell. Just like making my way to the middle of a
cinnamon roll (the best part)...there has to be more to what I’m seeing. The best and truest pieces are yet
uncovered. If I can just get to the
core... Because I’m not who I want to
be... And not who I could be.... And
there are glaring pieces missing from my definition... And I find it hard to
dream a dream or place myself inside a reality where life will truly play
out. There are some wires that need to
be connected and adjusted in order to really plug into the power. But I am still wired. Uniquely
wired...designed, formed, and created.
With all I struggle with in the midst of identity, I have to trust that
the God who knit me together in my mother’s womb, wasn’t a novice...but knit me
together with a plan and purpose, intricately and expertly. And in the midst of recognizing a new
definition, I have been clinging to the promise of Philippians which tells me
that He who began a good work in me, will also be faithful to complete it. For all I am and all I’m not, I am not
finished yet...
“My name is Anika. I
have a dozen pet names and nicknames and mispronunciations...almost all of
which will make me smile or at least smirk in a reluctant acknowledgment that
you are trying. But a piece of me melts when you use my name correctly and
intentionally. Anika. Anika Joy.
No one really uses or knows my middle name but those who do challenge me
to live out of it. And one of my
greatest joys is to see and experience the joy in others. I love watching people smile; seeing the
things that fill them and their faces with pieces of real joy. Perhaps, ironically, because it is the
hardest thing to find in myself. Past
their smiles, I simply love people.
Though I try to deny it, I very much love those in the world around
me. I love loving on people for no
reason at all and finding ways to remind them of their worth and value. I love rich conversation with friend and
friend to be...talking and listening and solving the world one word at a
time. And I ache and I break but I am
filled with such a compassion and desire to hold and so love when I am trusted
with others’ worlds. I love being sought
out for wisdom and advice and a listening ear and the confirmation that who they
are and what they’re feeling, that
they’re feeling, isn’t stupid. I love
helping them live out of the identity...the one as the Beloved...the one I
myself often struggle to claim...
But somewhere, somewhere in that identity is me. Simply me.
And I love simple pleasures. I
love eating around the outside of a cinnamon roll and savoring the middle...I
love the middle. I love a good cup of
coffee and smooth dark chocolate. I love
hot baths where I can soak until the water cools and instrumental piano music
and homemade bread...making homemade bread.
I love heavy blankets when the weather is cool (and when the bedroom is
just cool enough to justify turning on my electric blanket to sleep snug under
the covers even when it is sweltering outside).
I love being genuinely hugged – long and tight – by family and
friends...the people that mean the most.
I love long letters to and from those friends and I love time simply
spent doing life with them. I love
seeing the world through their eyes and the way they make normal moments an
adventure.
I love adventures – big and small. I love pausing and
drinking in the fullness and richness of life wherever it is to be found. I love the excitement and fear in my stomach
as a plane arrives in a land I’ve never been.
But I also love basic road trips with the radio up and my sunglasses
on. And I love long walks and the
feeling after a run – though the experience itself is often painful and
slow. I love swing sets and flying
through the sky and living in the moments where I feel completely free. I love being free to experience the world
around me...especially barefoot and from between my toes. I love sunsets and lying out on damp grass to
stare into a black night with stars that shine with a light breaking through
the darkness in a way which can’t be understood. And I love sitting on the beach and listening
as waves crash against the shore. I love
driving down a road where the trees cover as a canopy...with the branches cloaked
in ice during the winter and the colors of the fall and the flowers and buds of
blooming spring and the rich green shade of summer. But most of all, I love spring. I love the newness. I love opening a window with soft breezes and
warm sun just as the world is becoming alive again.
I love when the world, my world, feels the most alive. I
love teenagers and the way they are their own but not yet...and still need
someone to help show them the way, still want to be someone worth investing
in. I love camp and watching young
people of all ages and kinds come out of their shells to experience life. I love when camp includes Jesus and suddenly
the kids encounter a God who loves them in the midst of a place they love with
people who love them and things like faith begin to become real. I love doing life with my family and the time
spent with my siblings...Caleb’s shoulder rubs or goofy way he’ll insist on
calling his sisters beautiful in pajamas and a pony. Or Gabe’s gentle giant approach to life and
the way he’ll sneak in for a hug before telling me he misses me. Or Amelia’s compassion for the world and our
conversations where we’re out to solve its problems over a gas station
donut. Or Faith’s quirky humor but
intentional nature...all in the midst of the fact she will always be my big
sister and the one I still rely on for advice and a perspective shift.
But part of me, admittedly loves when my perspective – or at
least my mindset – can’t be shifted. I
love doing things that people tell me I can’t...and then blaming it on my
stubborn Dutch heritage and pride when I’ve proved them wrong. I love doing things out of the ordinary... things
that surprise people. Pretending to live
fearlessly. I love random facts and
strange information and the look of amusement on faces when I share it
precariously. I love getting lost in a
good book and captured by someone else’s story.
I love stories. I love hearing
stories. I love telling stories, sharing
stories, writing stories. I love the
sound my fingers make as they fly against a key board barely able to keep up
with the thoughts I haven’t paused to consider.
I love the way that Jesus has a way of showing up in the
words which are left when I do stop to consider. And I love the way that Jesus is in the habit
of showing up when I least expect it. I
am overwhelmed by God’s faithfulness in light of my infidelity. The way in which He is always there, waiting,
on the other end of my protest...reminding me He has never left. That praise is a choice. That joy and trust and obedience and
repentance and love are all choices.
Choices I am called to make in the midst of all I don’t understand and
all life sends...and in so doing never removing myself from His presence. I can’t comprehend or fathom the how and the
why of the fact He loves me but God’s love never fails. He is the middle to my
cinnamon roll, the best part at the core of who I am. And He continues to reveal Himself in ways He
knows I’ll understand...in pictures and analogies...the reminders of that
faithfulness in those ways are never lacking.
And because of it, I will always love thunderstorms with strong winds
and crashing thunder and magic lightening and watching it from my window until
sleep claims me again. Or and most
definitely way the sun breaks through the clouds on a dreary day...creating
just a glimpse of the light behind the darkness but showering everything it
touches with golden rays. Proof that
there is more behind what I now see. I
still choose to see beauty in every scar...
Because scars are the reminder of pain but the appearance of
healing. Every scar tells a story. May all of my scars eventually go back to
tell not my story...but how my story fits into the Greater Story. The Greatest Story. May my identity first and foremost be found
in Christ. Found in that story. And may that be enough...”
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