Not My Party

If you ever need the perfect personification or symbol for anxiety, I'm your girl. Saralyn: a worry wart; a person who cannot enjoy life to the fullest due to consistent fear that overcomes her joy; someone who is untrusting, paranoid, and incapable on her own, yet unwilling to relinquish control. That's me.


As the Anxiety Queen (or maybe slave is a better word), one of my biggest fears in life has always been of letting go or leaving. I make too much of myself and feel that everything depends on me - that if I don't take care of something, it will never get done; that if I don't come through for someone, they will be devastated and ruined; that if I don't exemplify the perfect caring woman, people will lose hope. I'm terrified of ever letting someone down. I have easily made the error of magnifying myself and my role in this life. I cannot comprehend that if I fail, things can still come together for good. I don't really believe that life goes on regardless of what I do. I forget that this is not my party. 


I find myself often praying and begging God to show up in my life: when I'm nervous about a speech, when my family seems to be falling apart, when I don't know what to do with a friend, when a project or goal I have appears like it will never work out. But today, like the simplest idea, it hit me - God was here first. He cares more about my family and my friends and the projects I'm working on than I do. In fact, when it comes down to it, they're more his family and friends and projects than they are mine. I have merely been privileged to share in this grand adventure and wonderful work He is doing. Regardless of what I do, the party goes on because I am not the host but His guest. 


Like King Nebuchadnezzar, who thought the entire kingdom of Babylon depended upon and was the result of himself, I have been humbled. God made Nebuchadnezzar a beast of the field for seven years to prove to the prideful king who really had authority, and lately He has made me a broken and disheveled woman to show me that only He can control this life. If we're being honest, I'm relieved and thankful. It's so good to know that I don't always have to make the right decision, because God can use both my "yes" and my "no" for good. I don't have to be there every second for someone who is hurting, because in the moments I'm not there, God is. I don't need to succeed in everything I do, because when I don't, God can still work things out for good. Life does not depend on me!


I'm relieved and overwhelmed with peace today knowing that I don't have to invite and beg God to show up in everything I do. Instead, it's just the opposite of what I've always thought to be true. God is and always has been everywhere before me, leading the way and inviting me to the places where He will use me for a time until He summons me onward. It's His party, not mine, and boy am I glad.


I never knew relinquishing control could feel so wonderful. 

A Womb for God

      I'm home for Christmas, and I never cease to be blessed and encouraged by good conversations with my mother. That woman always has a word of wisdom from God or a nugget of truth for me to take away and chew on. 

     Today, being Christmas, we were talking about the birth of God into our humble little dirty old world. Even more specifically, we were talking about the process of this miracle; of Mary's pregnancy and labor and final delivery of the Savior of our souls. Mary's task was certainly unique, as she was the only person ever asked to carry Christ in human form inside her body, bearing the weight of his skin-enwrapped deity with every step she took. She was stretched, quite literally, and endured terrible pain to fulfill such a task. Amidst the hurt, though, God grew inside her, becoming more and more apparent as her belly daily expanded. There was something great living inside that young sweet girl. It was something smaller than her physically, but bigger than her in every other way imaginable. It was something that affected the way she walked and breathed and ate and looked and all-together lived. It was something that could and would change the world. 

     My wise mom spoke of being a womb for God - of being a place for Christ to live and grow - and I began to feel more closely related to that girl Mary than I ever have before. I saw in a beautifully figurative yet also quite literal way that I, like her, am carrying something inside of me that can change the world. The Savior of mankind lives in my very being, and my prayer is that just as Jesus grew in Mary's belly two thousand years ago, he will grow in my heart, becoming more and more apparent each day. It will stretch me, no doubt, and stretching is painful, but it is necessary in order for there to be room for my King. 

     Emmanuel - God with us and God within us. Carrying Christ inside ourselves is a task each of us has been asked and privileged to do since that first beautiful Christmas. It's not easy. Far from it. But what a joy it is to see the growth of God in our lives, and what a delight it will be to see the day He brings to completion all that He has labored to create within us. I am so grateful for Mary's courage to be the first to trod this dangerous but glorious path, and I press on in her footsteps knowing with gladness: it is Christ in me, my hope of glory. 

Merry Christmas, dear friends. Carry Him well. 

The Days I Can't

        Today is one of those days. It’s been one of those months actually, if I’m being honest with myself, where every aspect of life seems harder to live. My chores are more daunting, my work is more time-consuming, my relationships are more draining, my jeans are harder to button, and my dreams seem less probable of achieving. It’s even harder to get out of bed each morning, as if gravity is somehow stronger and heavier than it’s been in months past. Perhaps it’s the rotation of the earth or the position of the stars. Or maybe this layer of Los Angeles smog that daily obscures my view has finally grown so powerful and thick that it’s sucking up the oxygen from right in front of me, making every movement of my body and soul more energy-demanding. 
        I like to reason these ideas are true and valid excuses for my sluggish and sorrowful behavior. But then I catch a glimpse of the other people around me moving just as fast and cheerfully as ever. It’s as if the rest of the world didn’t get my memo that today was a bad day. And even more than that, it’s as if they got a memo that today was supposed to be one of the happiest days of their lives. It shames me to say this, but a weird jealousy and bitter feeling takes over my heart when I see the rest of the world having fun despite my sorrow. I can sympathize with the Grinch at Christmas time when the rest of the world is celebrating despite his reservations and problems. 

I know this is no way to live. I cannot continue to let my sorrow keep me from living and pushing forward. This journey I’m on is painful and is wearing me down, but I know that Christ has promised to bring to completion everything He has begun in me. So despite feeling the effects of gravity more intensely than I normally would, I will choose to rejoice today in who my Savior is and what He is doing in my heart, though I cannot see it yet. Because the beautiful thing about the gift of the cross is that even on the days that I can’t, my Savior can.

Constant Like the Sky

Lately my life has been a hurricane of events and emotions. I thought I was growing and changing - becoming more of the person I am destined to be. I thought this journey I’m on toward completion was one of only forward motions and advancement. I planned for times when my steps would be smaller or more feeble, surely, but I never calculated in the backward lunges: the times that I would fall down, give up, and turn around to run away. I never imagined I could make years worth of progress only to have it be backtracked and forgotten in mere months.

My life these days looks something like a roller coaster filled with highs of delight and success immediately followed by plummeting drops of despair and discouragement. I’m growing tired of the ups and downs - the sudden shifts of altitude and emotion. I’m feeling nauseous from the circles and loops I’m making on this continuous track. I’m ready to be headed on a straightaway. Ready to have a destination. Ready to quit turning back.

I’ve been desperately fighting and striving for something that’s solid and constant and unwavering. I’m weary of this life always changing. I want to be the best version of me I can be and maintain that through thick and thin. That’s how life goes, right? You grow up into who you should be and live the rest of your days confident in the self you’ve become. But I thought I would be there by now. I thought I would be complete, steady, and defined within the lines. But a day goes by, a month goes by, a year goes by, and eventually a lifetime will go by without accomplishing this.

So maybe the self is a process. We grow and shrink and run and fall. People will never reach completion, at least not on this side of eternity. Like the sky, we each have a shade that’s typical of us but far from permanent. The sky is most often blue, but daily, as the sun shifts, it brightens and fades and conforms to a whole slew of various colors. The sky can change within moments from cool magenta to burning orange to piercing black. That’s the way people are. Circumstances, locations, moods, and even other people affect our hue and saturation. Try as we may, we cannot be constant. We cannot stop the sun, nor life’s circumstances, in their course.  

As discouraging as it has been to realize that I will never reach a state of consistency, a pure humility and reckless dependence has been born out of my fluctuating self. For God is constant. On Christ the Solid Rock I stand. He does not change with the time of day or the shifting sun, but His colors remain true to His character forevermore. This is a constant I can base my life on. I may stumble and backtrack and feel that nothing I do is laid in stone, but one thing remains. And I need that one thing now more than I ever have before. 

Jehovah: the unchanging, eternal, self-existent God. My Constant. 

Seasons Change and So Do We

You’d call me a fool, surely, if I admitted to what I was dreaming of tonight - if I told you I was falling pray to believing the soap operas and chick flicks and fairy tail stories that claim we all, at some point, if we don’t give up and just believe, will reach the point in this life’s journey where suddenly, everything else becomes simply “happily ever after”. Where the troubles and heartaches and loneliness and evil step sisters suddenly vanish and we find ourselves married to a perfect paper-doll sort of people who fit us like a glove. Where a pixie dust kind of magic exists that makes the bad in this world shutter in fear and fall back trembling into the deep, and where good always prevails. And while I have moments and epiphanies where I find myself lost in this fairy-tale dream, longing for my happily ever after to come true, I more often than not come back to reality and realize the lie I’ve been dreaming. 
       Life never will hit a point of perfection. We never can reach heaven on this side of eternity. Usually, rather than find remorse and woe over the fact that real life, that my life, is not like the movies and story books, I actually find myself rejoicing over what a blessing this nitty gritty messy life can be. I’m thankful that life is not full of perfect expectations and constant bird song and rainbows that lead the way. Because when I look back over my past 19 years of struggle and triumph and heartache and joy, I find that the beauty of it all comes from both the good and the bad mixed together - the light and the dark, the despair and the overwhelming hope, the bitter and the sweet. The conflicts have made relationships stronger, the sorrow has made joy deeper, and the loneliness has made God’s presence more tangible and apparent. Looking back, I always thank Yahweh for the hardship because he used them to shape me and grow me and make me into someone I’d rather be than the person I see in my past. 

       But tonight I cannot find that comfort. Because tonight I find myself in the middle of the fire - the molding and melding and bending process. I find myself weighed down and overwhelmed and tied up in the midst of this experience I wish I could run away from. I wish I could run away from myself. Tonight I curse the present and fear the future - fear that this is the future and that I’m not changing or growing into something more beautiful like I have in the past, but that rather I am being crushed and broken beyond repair by the pain I am undergoing. 
      I fear God has forgotten me. It seems possible, seeing as I’ve forgotten Him countless times over the past months. Oh forgetful me. In fact, it’s as though I’ve forgotten myself as well and all that I can be with Christ in me, like a tree forgets it has the capacity to bear fruit during the harsh winter months when all it feels is the bending of its boughs under the heavy snow and wind. Life is an endless winter these days. And sometimes, I’ll admit, I feel all hope for me is truly lost, buried forever beneath the snow.  

       But as I contemplate these things I look at my calendar hanging in my wardrobe closet, and I am reminded that with each turning page the seasons change. The winter never lasts longer than the Lord allots it to. The summer sun never burns so long that days don’t start getting shorter and colder. Seasons are not a permanent thing, and I think, by God’s grace, people are the same way. We’re not definite. We’re not fixed. We’re not steady or definable within all the lines. We’re a process and we’re fleeting like the dandelion dust. But right now that sounds like such a beautiful blessing - to be unfixed and changeable, to be impermanent, to be guarantee that life won’t always be this way - that I don’t have to always be this way.

       So if you’re discouraged and run down and stuck in a rut, remember that nothing lasts forever. Remember how the flower fades and the leaves blow away and the snow melts. Remember how the sun’s course grows shorter and longer and the rain never pours all that long at all. Remember that the clouds keep moving and the forecast is different every day. Remember that today’s weather is not how it will always be. Remember that the seasons change with time, and so do we.