The Will of God as a Way of Life

"How wonderful it is, then, when faith gives way to sight and we catch glimpses of God’s wonderful plan . . . All will be well. Not because life will turn out that way naturally, as if there were some kind of universal law that ensures it. Life is not good because that is simply the way life is. If anything, life is often hard, mean, and brutal. But in the end life will turn out well because God is good and kind and gracious. He is working mysteriously to redeem us and restore the world to what he intended it to be. All will be well because God is God. "


I subscribe to this publishing-industry e-newsletter, Shelf Awareness. One of my favorite parts is down at the end when they’re interviewing an author and they ask a bunch of questions, like “What book have you faked reading?” (War and Peace is a big one) and “What book have you bought just for the cover?” One of the last questions is “What book are you an evangelist for?”

Well, this is my answer. The Will of God as a Way of Life, by Gerry Sittser. My friend Michele first made us buy it because we both LOVED the title (subtitle: How to Make Every Decision with Peace and Confidence). If you don’t want to run out and buy it after that, well, I don’t think I’ll be able to convince you. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. After my first time reading it through, I stalked the author on his college’s website and sent him a totally effusive e-mail about how his writing had revolutionized my way of thinking about God’s will, and he very kindly wrote me back.

Sittser’s personal story is deeply compelling, filled with the kind of tragic loss that is literally hard to believe. You can read about it in another one of his books, A Grace Disguised, but suffice it to say that his understanding of the will of God is deeply rooted in the life-shaking, earth-shattering events that have served as markers in his life, as well as in the mundane and quiet moments that make up the vast majority of our time. And that’s the beauty of his writing – Sittser ‘gets’ it; he lives out of the center of God’s will and understands that God cares most about who we are becoming, not what we do or where we go or where we work or who we marry, even. It’s a delicious kind of freedom.

can a girl get 125 mercury bud vases?

apparently not. wedding stuff is starting to remind me a lot of spring sing . . . lots of balls up in the air, and no where for all of them to land. not yet, at least.

but this isn't going to be a wedding planning blog. i promise. it is just a quick hello. lately, i have been loving the tv show 'gene simmons family jewels,' and have set it to be perma-TIVOed. my evening routine usually goes something like this:

6:25 - get home from work
6:27 - eat a piece of string cheese, a brownie, and a few pieces of the roast chicken in the fridge for dinner
6:30 - eat another brownie
6:50 - eating that brownie took my 20 minutes, so now i lace up my tennis shoes and go for a run on my preestablished route that really never varies
7:40 - get home after being lapped by a 14 year-old highschool kid running for track
7:45 - pray that no one else is using the television, grab the exercise ball from the back room, and turn on gene simmons.
8:45 - take a shower, after loving my life for the last hour because of the zany hi jinks of this former rock god and his family
9:30 - think about going to sleep, but the gene simmons theme song is playing so loud in my head that i have to stay up at least two more hours
10:00 - look online for mercury bud vases, fail miserably, keep singing

it's not a bad life.

if you were ever on dawson's creek, chances are that there is not much wrong you could do in my eyes. i love all, equally (shout out to meredith monroe!!). i love it when former creekers thrive, and mourned along with the rest of the world when katie holmes did whatever she did that made her suri cruise sr. there are all kinds of success stories, though. did you know that dc has its own "official" website? i mean, still? and that james van der beek was on 'how i met your mother?' and pacey is doing something else vaguely famous.

anyways, all that is to say that, given the chance, i will root for one of these people any day. and i am so happy about michelle williams. since i feel like i know her, and we should be friends, i just would like to publicly applaud her for this excellent choice of dress. i don't even know what she wore it to or for, but it's totes adorable. so, well done michelle. well done my dawson's creek friends.

(except for busy phillips. i never liked her)

ranunculus and friends

my friend, master emily, (that sounds like a dominatrix name) did a really awesome thing yesterday and brought me flowers to work. they are pictured here, on my cluttered desk, because they have been such a bright spot in a bumpy couple of weeks.

also, these are not just any flowers; they are ranunculus. she knew that i wanted them at my wedding. she also knew, as i learned from my florist, poppie (yes, that is her real, God-given name), that ranunculus are out of season in North America in October, and that flying flowers up from South American or Thailand for a wedding is a little more Jay-Z and Beyonce than we're going for.

so, thank you, emily. i love them and i'm really glad about our friendship.

t.s. eliot

i'm awake too late, because there are many things on my mind, and i have a hard time sleeping when that happens. one person who i love just told me recently that she hates the word 'hope.' hates what it represents, hates the idea that there might be a promise of something better that turns out not to be true, not to be reality. and i wish that i could say that everything will be okay, but i know enough to know that this is not my phrase to say, not my consolation to give. i am grateful for the Lord, even though my heart is heavy.

i said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith,
but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought;
so the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.

-ts eliot, east coker, four quartets

the shepherd who goes out to me

“It often seems that the more I try to disentangle myself from the darkness, the darker it becomes. I need light, but that light has to conquer my darkness, and that I cannot bring about myself. I cannot forgive myself, I cannot make myself feel loved. By myself I cannot leave the land of my own struggles, I cannot bring myself home, nor can I create communion on my own. I can desire it, hope for it, wait for it, yes, pray for it. But my true freedom I cannot make for myself. That must be given to me. I am lost. I must be found by the shepherd who goes out to me.”
—Henri Nouwen, The Prodigal Son

There are some days, more than others, when I need to remember these words for the sake of my heart. They are usually days like today, when I feel a bit anxious and am sure that God has put me in the back of his mind, like a chore that he’s meaning to do, but may not actually get around to for awhile. Days when I am so worried about finding God that I forget to remember to let him find me. And that’s what he does; God is in the business of finding lost people. Not halfheartedly, either – it is his passion. And that’s a good thing – such a good thing – because then it doesn’t matter if I forget or remember. The shepherd still goes out to me.

the hook.

i used to have this really close friend. we spent a lot of time together, and we got close with each other's families, took road trips, the things friends do. as an artist, she was always making cool things out of leftover fabric scraps and photos, and this one time she made me a small plaque, if you could call it that, out of cardboard with splotches of paint and a funny quote on it.

our friendship wavered, flagged out, reignited, and finally ended with something between a whimper and a bang. and that is okay. it is good, really, even though it's been hard for me and sad sometimes.

one of my friends wrote this book and in it, she talks about forgiveness. she uses the picture of taking someone off the hook -- and in my mind, it's always giant me picking up tiny her by the extra fabric of her sweater and removing her from a closet hook -- as a way of helping us remember what it looks like to forgive. this is what she says:

'When I'm trying to forgive someone, I picture myself physically lifting that person off a big hook, like in a cartoon. I never want to. I prefer to stew and focus my anger on them like a laser pointer, and wish them illnesses and bad skin. I hope that they will get fat and people will talk behind their backs and their toilets will overflow and their computers will crash. I work on my anger toward them like I'm working on a loose tooth with my tongue, back and forth. I work on it like I'm training for the Olympics, with tremendous dedication and force."

me too. oh my gosh, me too. i can sometimes notice myself, in the middle of a thought, wanting bad things for other people, and even picking those bad things out. this plaque that my friend made me, for instance. i still have it; it's above my computer in my bedroom where it's been for years. mostly i don't really notice it except as another decoration. but sometimes, when i look at it, there's this anger that bubbles up inside of me and i start to want justice (my version of it, at least) and people to tell me they're on my side and for her to call me and tell me that i was right and she was wrong and will i ever forgive her?

will i ever forgive her?

it is a lot of work to take someone off the hook time and time again. it is hard, and i don't much like doing it. plus, it's been going on for years now. i didn't sign up for that. i thought i'd take her down, take anyone down, one time and be done with it. how wrong i was. i have been given a good gift in my friends who listen to me and pray for me and read my page-long emails of new ideas i have that are really things they've been trying to tell me all along.

one time, awhile ago, i had the nice idea of praying for my friend every time i thought of her. and i never did it. i don't think i've prayed for her in years. but that seems like one small way to take her off the hook. it will feel weird, probably, at first, and i won't have the right words. but i can ask for those.