The Game God Doesn't Play With Me

I sat at the long wooden table the youth Sunday School class gathered around. Aside from me, our Sunday School class consisted of my brother, one of our cousins, and another girl who was a distant cousin. On occasion, another pair of brothers showed up, but the class was mainly comprised of myself and those three relations.

As I look back, I sympathize with the different adults who took on the role of teaching that class. I’m sure we appeared bored and disinterested as the teacher painstakingly asked for a volunteer to read the verses or waited in the awkward silence for someone to answer a question. Most of us were quiet, my brother was usually not happy to be the only boy in the class, and I grew frustrated with how Sunday School books asked questions with answers so blatantly obvious to the text we just read, it wasn’t worth the effort of speaking up to answer what was already printed right in front of us.

One Sunday School class specifically stands out in my mind. The subject centered around the vague topic of prayer and, perhaps feeling desperate to fill the silence with something—anything---the teacher gave an example to hopefully contribute to the lesson.

The Land Of In-Between

Do you really heal the broken hearts,
bind wounds, and comfort pain,

though I don't feel you near my
shattered soul or deepest strain?

When I can't see in front of me,
are you still making plans for me?

Or is my every effort just in vain?


Remember when I once believed
you had a better plan,

and though I lived in darkness,
I knew you'd come sweeping in?

Although I wept, I still believed
that you'd rush in to rescue me,

but here I wait in silence once again.


I hope to see, on down the road,
some good come from this wrong,

if not here, then maybe when
I weep at Jesus' throne.


Surely, somehow, won't some joy
flow from my misery?

My finite sight can't see beyond
this Land Of In-Between.

Dying Dreams And Resurrection

Resurrect my hopes and dreams
that died so deep within.
Stir my heart, stilled be grief,
to beat with joy again.

Like you arose, please raise in me
the hope life stripped away.
Call to life those dormant dreams
in my soul's silent grave.

In each dark corner of my soul,
lifeless, empty, worn,
Breath new life, revive my heart,
where hope seemed lost and gone.

More Than Just "Close To The Brokenhearted"

Psalm 147:3 

"He heals the brokenhearted 
and binds up their wounds."

"Close to the brokenhearted, close to the brokenhearted," I would whisper that phrase over and over to myself when I was younger and facing some sort of crisis. I found comfort in the image of a tender Jesus cradling His wounded children, slowly pouring comfort and healing into their brokenness.

Not so long ago in life, I whispered those words to myself again: "close to the brokenhearted, close to the brokenhearted."

But the words immersed themselves more deeply within me this time. For most of my life, I had known He is close to the brokenhearted. For much of my life, I had known that we are not alone in our suffering, because Jesus lived life on this earth too. Jesus experienced sorrow, anger, rejection, betrayal...Jesus experienced the people He served not valuing the person He was.
 

Tears In The Bathtub, Peace In The Chapel

I love this small, simple chapel.

It beckoned to me when I first saw it. My students had just finished performing music at a retirement home near their school. After their performance, a friendly resident took me by the hand to show me around the building.

"This is where we have chapel every Thursday afternoon at 1:30," she commented, as she flipped on the light switch in the upstairs room.

"Ohhh," I breathed. "It's beautiful."

It was beautiful. Small, but quaint and inviting, with a communion table and beautiful stained glass window of a cross that still appeared triumphant.

The Tears Of Change

Change.

My heart aches tonight, and I'm not sure why.
Probably because of that word: change.

I'm not opposed to change. I can often adapt easily and with flexibility. Sometimes I don't even feel the pangs of change until after it has happened---running purely on adrenaline in survival mode when I am in the midst of it. And I have many things in my life changing for the better. I am about to relocate my piano teaching studio---positive change. But the reasons behind it---hurtful, disappointed change.

Watching friends go through situations that I keep hoping and praying will improve for them, but don't seem to be---sorrowful change.

My boyfriend is possibly in the middle of a career transition, and I'm trying to assist him with some of the steps I've navigated before in that process---hope-filled, turning-point change. But seeing the pain on his face as he still deals with being in the middle of the process---heart-breaking change.

Why Being Invisible Sometimes Feels Comfortable

Even when I was really young, I was very thought-conscious for a child. My elementary school teachers often told my mom, "She's a great student and always makes Distinguished Honor Roll. But she's bored. She's a really deep thinker and likes to be creative. She gets bored with some of the worksheets and assignments we have to do."

In second grade I wrote what I remember as my first "poem." I wrote it in December, as I eagerly anticipated the upcoming holiday. Shyly one morning, I walked up to my teacher's desk with a copy of my poem behind my back and quietly handed it to her when she looked up at me. She was a tough teacher, large and intimidating, not the nurturing or welcoming type, and she quickly began reading my piece of paper without much expression. Then her eyes flickered at me, and she looked back up suddenly. "Did you write this?" she asked abruptly, inflection in her voice. Without making a sound, I just nodded, my hands behind my back and my feet shifting awkwardly, then watched as she walked past me up to the blackboard, my poem still in her hand.