Running on Empty? Good. And Other Thoughts on Vacuuming...

So...I am my mother’s daughter.  I assume for many reasons but among the most recently obvious is my love to vacuum.  Perhaps more than I love to vacuum, I love the look of a vacuumed floor.  In my life, a vacuum is among the most essential of household items and not having one for more than a week or two is a near travesty. 

Imagine my delight then when, upon mentioning the need to find a reasonable or perhaps rejected vacuum cleaner last fall my sister and brother-in-law came to my rescue.   As newlyweds they had been gifted some great piece of dirt-sucking machinery and would gladly give me possession of their previous device. 

Granted this previous vacuuming device appears to be 30 years old and was Steve’s grandmother’s before it came to be theirs and certainly before it became mine. 

But it was free.

And it worked.

And it would be mine.

Stoked!

I brought it back and vacuumed my whole apartment.  

Glee. 

It wasn’t the world’s most impressive piece of equipment but it was leaving the floors looking swept and it was far better than nothing.  Not to mention, what was I going to expect out of a stone age piece of equipment? 

Needless to say, the health of this prized possession seemed to be declining.  It’s sucking power was just not remaining adequate and I was beginning to consider breaking down to make a legitimate vacuum cleaner purchase.  But not today.  The puttering but faithful would just have to do for a while longer.  Which meant I was going to have to change the bag. 

Change the bag I did.  I hadn’t touched the bag since it was gifted to me several months ago.  And it was fuller than I had thought and probably well past over-due.  In fact the bag I removed didn’t match at all the bag I replaced it with.  Ah well.  Here was to praying the thing would last a couple more months.

And then I flipped on the switch.

Two words: 

Power. House.

The vacuum cleaner took off almost on its own and gripped the carpet like a champion while hoovering fragments of floor dirt from seemingly a foot away.

This mind?  Blown!

Here I was ready to replace the vacuum cleaner.  Believing it had served long and well but would need to be retired.  Instead, all it needed was to be emptied.

In a life of irony, almost every other thing in the world runs better when full.  A full tank of gas.  A full battery.  A full stomach.  A full night’s sleep.  We draw analogies and tell people not to run on empty. Ever.

Unless of course...you’re a vacuum.  A vacuum needs to be empty to run at its prime.

Not always, but sometimes, I not only am but want to be and need to be a vacuum.  I need to be empty.

They seem like strange words to write. 

No one wishes to be empty.  The feeling of emptiness is often accompanied by a hopelessness and mourning for what isn’t.

But a vacuum...a vacuum can only be filled if it is first empty (evident by my own champion Hoover).

Emptiness proceeds fullness.  I love the imagery of Isaiah 58:11 where it reads “The LORD will guide you always, He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land [in a place of emptiness] and will strengthen your frame.  You will be a like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” 

I am reminded of the contemporary worship song with the chorus “Hungry I come for I know you satisfy...  Thirsty I come for I know your well does not run dry...” 

Even the beatitudes include a note about being blessed for hungering – for those will be satisfied (Luke 6:21).  And Psalm 107:9 promise that God satisfies the thirsty and gives the hungry good things. 

If we come full – chances are we’re only full of junk and garbage.  And if I come full, I can almost guarantee that junk and garbage is me.  I am full of me as much as anything the world seeks to destroy me with.  The combination gets in the way.  Get’s in the way of an opportunity to be filled – to be satisfied.

Like a vacuum, I do my best “work” when I’m void of the garbage.  And I do even better “work” when the empty void created at the loss of the things which don’t matter and hinder is replaced by the filling God wishes to do and to be in my life.  [Would I turn into a champion?  A power house?] 

Lent is about to begin.  Cliché misunderstandings aside, Lent includes a time of reflection.  A time to reflect on the junk that fills a life and keeps it from doing the work it was created and designed to do.  To go into the next 40 days empty.  That I might be satisfied and filled... 

Wearing Your Pants Backwards: Why You Don’t Have to Wait for Hindsight to See 20-20, Some Rambling Lessons on Trust.

"Wearing Your Pants Backwards:

Why You Don’t Have to Wait for Hindsight to See 20-20, 

Some Rambling Lessons on Trust."

  

That’s what I’ll name my next book.  [If in fact I ever finish the latter of them all.  If in fact I start any of the later for that matter.]  And I think the whole book will be about changing perspective.  Being proactive instead of reactive when it comes to investing in people, in relationships, in ministry.  It’ll be about trust. 

Last week I wore my pants backwards for the entirety of a day.  I don’t know what compelled me to do this exactly (although my pants stayed on for the first time in many days with the changed angles) other than the fact it came up at cabin leader training and I had a group of kids who it was extra fun to be goofy and silly with.  I only actually intended to wear them backwards through breakfast but when their amused befuddlement became the utmost for my own amusement, I had to keep going.  The fact every time my students saw me it confused them more, somehow made the whole ordeal that much funnier and that much better. 

The day ended when an energetic camper came up to me stating “Anika!  I have a joke!” “Go for it!” I replied enthusiastically.  “What’s blue and backwards and unzipped?”  Without hesitating I chuckled and responded “My pants!” *brief pause* *gasp* “My pants!!!!”  As I reached for my bum where my zipper had been located all day my young charge laughed contagiously and responded “just kidding!  But we got you!”  Admittedly after the color returned to my face (it had drained), her contagious laughter was joined by my own and I find the entire situation and joke hysterical.  Even if I probably won’t make wearing my pants backwards a life decision. 

The next day, Thursday, realizing just how attached I had become to these students (both cabin leaders and campers alike) – I nearly had a meltdown.  The realization that is true of every week became somehow unbearable this time around: I get these kids for three or four or five days at best and I have to send them home.  I found myself roller-coastering through what my dear friend and co-work called “proud mom” and “anxious mom” moments. 

Proud mom times where I would merely watch and begin to smile and almost laugh.  Their joy and dedication, their love for life and friendship with each other was infectious.  They were my kids.  I loved them. And I was indeed proud of who they were and who I saw them becoming. 

And other times, other times, anxious mom broke in.  It was like watching with my pants on backwards.  The perspective was all off.  I was looking forward and looking beyond as if I were looking behind.  This is where the meltdown happened.  Because as I watched out and looked at a room full of kids, MY kids, I suddenly had this vision of who they would be as high schoolers, as adults.  I had a notion about what they would look like, be like.  I was seeing who they would become.  And it scared the snot out of me.  First because my room was full of 6^th graders not teenagers or college kids...I shouldn’t be “seeing” anything.  And second and mostly because I could see the picture but I couldn’t control it.  I couldn’t control who they would become.  I couldn’t walk along side them for the next 10 years of their life.  I couldn’t dictate which of these kids would end up an alcoholic or in an abusive relationship.  I couldn’t stop the girl who would statistically get pregnant before she graduated or the boy who’d drop out addicted to drugs.  I didn’t get a say. 

I was seeing 20-20, or so it felt.  The truth is such clarity it started to destroy me. Seeing how each little piece of their day, their life was being currently impacted.  Something I only should have been able to see in reverse I was suddenly hopeless in preventing from the front.  With my zipper to the back I felt most unable to guard and protect the most vulnerable pieces.  And like my camper who laughed that it was already down, I was convinced I had somehow left exposed all of the lives I so desired to protect.   

But life is about, among many other greater things which find home inside this one, perspective.  And on Friday morning as my computer crashed with the messages for the youth retreat I was speaking at unable to be retrieved and my kids going home and my high schoolers making this girl so proud of their leadership and love and investment, I just stared.  I should have panicked.  It’s what I do best.  My anxiety level should have skyrocketed...I am an expert in the field of acting out of situational anxiety.  But I didn’t; it didn’t.  I simply stared.  Tired and defeated I realized I held no control.  Over anything.  And so I simply stared and began to talk out loud.

[I feel it necessary to note that I don’t think I’ve ever audibly heard the voice of God, but I often have conversations where I realize I’m answering out loud to things no one has said.  Things God is speaking gently into the chaos of my spirit.  Our conversation on Friday morning went a little and a lot like this...]

“God, I don’t even know what to do or where to start.”

“With what?”

“I have to send them home...”

“Yes...”

“But I can’t!  They’re mine!”

“Yours?”

“Yes, mine!  I claim them.  I always claim them!  But this week is was different.  It’s harder.  Who they’ll become. I just, I can’t...”

“Were you faithful?”

“With what?”

“With them.  Were you faithful?  Did you show them truth and love them as much as able in the time you were given?”

“Yes.  I mean, I don’t know.  I think so...”

“Then send them off.”

“But they’re my kids...”

“They were never your kids.  Not to begin with.  They will first and always be mine.”

“So what do I do?”

“What are you going to do?”

“What choice do I have but to give them back to you?”

“Be faithful with the time you’ve been given, but choose to trust me...”

Choose to trust.  Because trust is a choice. 

I don’t have to wait for hindsight to see in 20-20 if I can wear my pants backwards from time to time.  If I can see in advance what typically I should only see in reverse.  If I am faithful in the moments then I won’t have to look back to see where I was the missing link in the future I can’t control.  Perhaps I’ll be able to look back and see where maybe one faithful moment was enough to change the whole trajectory.  To be faithful in the now and to trust that they’ve always been God’s...if they were never mine to begin with.

Start where you are.

Use what you have [and the grace you have been given]

Do what you can.

It will be enough...