cards

My twentieth birthday is coming up. While that may seem like very few years to many of you (and it is), it feels different for me. Leaving the teenage years, the braces, the bad haircuts, the acne (hopefully) behind and moving forward. I am lucky because my birthday happens to fall in a month that is focused on that idea: moving forward. This is an idea that many rally behind but few execute. It is intimidating. It is scary. It is comfortable. It is crucial. My family and I love to play cards. When I lived at home, we always enjoyed a good game of King in the Corner or the classic Go Fish- my favorite as a kid. When you play cards, it is purely based on chance and the luck of the drawer. Life will deal us good and bad cards always, and we never know what we will get. How many times have we seen that on a sympathy card? A lot. However, the concept is important. Whatever we get, we must view it with the optimism that we have the opportunity to move past whatever may cause a bad hand. Moreover, life is not based on chance. Life is securely in the grasp of God. I have sifted through several deep hurts in year 19, and I have learned a lesson that I want to share: keep the optimism that comes from a knowledge of the benevolence of God. When I drew a bad card, my mind wanted to tell me all sorts of lies, but the most prevalent was always: “God must not want me to be happy.” When I think back on the Go Fish days, I think to the many times I lied and asked for a card that was not in my hand from my family. They almost always gave it to me, even knowing I was not being honest. Granted, I was little. Although, they did this because they valued my happiness more than their winning- something that always made my teenage sister furious! God is no different. In fact, the love of a parent is merely a pinpoint in the love that God has for us as his children, as his beloved, as his bride. When we are happy, the Lord celebrates with us. When we are sad, the Lord cries with us. When we hurt others, the Lord hurts for us and whatever pain caused us to hurt. When we dance, I’m sure the Lord laughs at us. He walks through every single moment with us because he wants to. He does not relish in the bad hands, he winks and deals you a new card. I have shifted my thinking on what hurts are and their purpose. Yes, hurts are meant to grow us, but I believe it is much deeper than that. Hurts are meant to stretch our faith in the Lord’s grace and plan, to challenge us. Twenty (in 5 days) is bringing so many blessings already, and almost every single one of them has stemmed from some pain that I thought would crush me last year. So, year twenty I will:

“Fix your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. He never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—despite cross, shame, whatever… When you find yourselves in times of pain, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!”

Hebrews 12:2-3 MSG