Currently Craving…

… a sick day. A rainy, autumnal sick day. One where I wake up to nothing other than the sound of pouring rain on my balcony, my eyes opening not to sunshine but to grey. I am clad in long-sleeved, long-legged, not-quite-as-thick-as-flannel-but-close pajamas and wrapped round with 2 or 3 thick, wool blankets, a pillow or two on either side of my head. There are no plans. I’m recovering from illness, so I have a great excuse to do nothing. Nothing, that is, except watch I Love Lucy. Yes – episode after episode of I Love Lucy. Which I can watch uninhibited, thanks to last year’s tremendous Christmas gift of the entire DVD collection. So there I am, nice and warm in bed, melodic rain beyond nearby glass doors, the Ricardos and the Mertzes on TV. Oh! And perhaps I’d get up at some point to make pancakes. Add to the picture a plate of scrambled eggs and pancakes – pancakes that turn out PERFECTLY – and a glass - no - a gallon of Tropicana orange juice. Yum. What a day.

I was obviously cold, tired, and nostalgic when I wrote this.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes...

Change is difficult. And weird. It’s not like I haven’t ever gone through a change before. Why am I freaking out so much this time? Is it because a few changes have all hit simultaneously? Is it because I care more about the subject of this period’s change(s) than of all the changes during which I’ve been not a complete basket case? Or is this purely a teaching point?

I cry, but not as often as some women. What’s more, I loathe crying in front of other people. Any other people. What a surprise, when just a few days ago, I found myself just about weeping in front of a crowd of about 100. It was out of control. I was out of control. I’ve felt out of control all week...

God, is the current haywire state of my emotional self an illustration to make me finally get, once and for all, that I am not the one in control here? I’m superficially easygoing, but at deeper levels, I go nuts when things are out of my control – as if most things were ever even under my control anyway. I know my life is not about me and what I want from the people around me. It’s about surrender. It’s about me decreasing, while He increases. Maybe that’s the point of this perfect storm of change. Maybe the tears are a physical manifestation of a major breaking of will. I need to let go.

MLK

Today in the U.S., we celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (is he celebrated elsewhere in the world? I would love to know), the primary face of the American Civil Rights movement in the 1950s and '60s. I found myself drawn to and meditating on one of his quotes this morning:

"If a man has not found something worth dying for, he is not fit to live."

That is challenging. I've heard the quote before and thought it very inspiring and so on, but today, somehow it refused to stay in the "Nice Thought" box in my head, busting that wide open and forcing me to really think about it. If a person has not found something worth dying for, he or she is not fit to live. As I understand from things I've read and stories I've been told, the last 10 or so years of MLK's life were dedicated to a call he felt sure was given by the Creator Himself. He tried to quit his position, his appointment, as a leader of this movement and found that he couldn't. He didn't want the trouble that came with it, but at some point, he knew his life was about something bigger than that fact. In April of 1968, he would die for his obedience to the One who called him to follow.

And today, we Americans reap benefits of his sacrifice and that of many others (and by sacrifice, I mean both the dying for and the living for).

Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends." Jesus then proceeded to lay down His life for both his friends and His enemies. Jesus has also called me and everyone else to take up our crosses and follow Him.

Today, I'm thinking of MLK and other men and women who sacrificed that I may now have the chance to live the very fortunate life I've been able to live - even knowing that they themselves would not get to enter the "Promised Land", as it were. I'm thinking of men like Jim Elliot, who voluntarily went to live in hostile territory, and whose death eventually opened a door to reach a people group closed off to the world with good news that there is a way infinitely better than the violence to which they were accustomed. He didn't live to see the miraculous life transformations his death helped make possible. I'm thinking of countries like my beloved Nigeria, where I'm seeing more and more the possibility that many there would have to die in order for that country to see real change for the better, for future generations.

I'm thinking I cannot merely commend these sacrificial souls and implore others to sacrifice as well if I would not do the same.

Ha, I know it would probably scare my family to hear me say things like this, and by no means do I believe I should go seeking martyrdom - that isn't what MLK, Jim Elliot, or even Jesus did; they merely obeyed... to the very end. I'm just praying through all these thoughts and questioning, hoping that Jesus' love for me and my subsequent love for Him will always show up bigger than my fear of sacrificing for what I must.

Happy Martin Luther King, Jr. Day - Be thoughtful and thankful.