Resilience

Been thinking a lot about this quality lately and what it really means. It's everywhere I look, hiding around every corner, breaking into my thoughts at unexpected times, even woven into the fabric of my manuscript.

Maybe, just maybe, that's what this year has been all about. As anyone that knows me knows, this year has been a train wreck for me, especially on paper. I never managed to find a job, I have less money than perhaps ever and more bills! I am 28, single, unmarried, and about as likely to do anything adult (buy a home, have good credit, date, marry, have sex, kids, etc) as your average 6th grader. Chances of that changing anytime soon? Slim to none. I've managed to finish out the year having re-gained the weight I lost, quit the job I got hired for after a month, attended 3 funerals in another month, traveled to Atlanta 4 times for my grammy, and unwillingly cut off all my hair.

But that's not how I actually feel. And that's the amazing part. Astoundingly there is happiness and joy in my life. Most importantly there is peace. God told me that I would lay aside every weight in 2008 sometime in December of 2007:

Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us...
Hebrews 12:1

I thought it was a joke, a word game, and I prayed that if it wasn't He was talking about weight loss. (Yeah, no.) I was short-sighted and simplistic. (Big surprise.) In lieu of pounds, I've lain aside huge portions of:
1) pride
2) false sense of control
3) dependence on anything but God to provide for me
4) apathy about the political process and my ability to affect change in the world
5) blocks and obstacles to my creativity and motivation for writing
6) materialism, consumer culture, and the technical imperative

Those are some pretty big weights! I still have more things to set down before I can run completely unfettered, but I am happy with this, because with each stone I set down, I get lighter and lighter, and can run faster and faster, fly higher and higher. This direction takes me so much closer to God.

The end of the year finds me still @ a crossroads in life-- that's the running with patience part-- and I am possessed of resilience, joy, peace, and a more unshakeable faith than 12 months ago. It occurs to me that these priceless lessons are taught by the experience of living. There is no class, no preparation for these tests. The test just goes on and on until you pass it. That's about as exciting as a lifelong pop bar exam, but it worketh resilience in me. Maybe this really has been the best year ever. And to God I say: "thank you.