Monthly Archives: October 2011

Dealing With Regret

Posted on by

“It could have all turned out differently, I suppose. But it didn’t.” Jane Austen in Mansfield Park

Jane Austen was a master at studying and communicating human nature through the written word. This one sentence speaks volumes to me, simply, because it quiets so many of the “would have, could have, should have been” thoughts that haunt us about past mistakes and missed opportunities. It is true, the smallest change in circumstances could have changed everything–but it didn’t and nothing is accomplished by wishing it had.

My grandma told me a story about my great-grandparents flipping a coin to decide whether they would move from Kansas to Colorado or Missouri. The coin landed on the Missouri side and so every generation following them also lived in Missouri. At the flip of a coin I could have been a Colorado girl, or perhaps, not been at all–but I am and I am a Missouri girl–nothing can change that, for better or worse.

The same is true when my husband and I were deciding where to live after we got married. I didn’t want to stay in Missouri and he didn’t want to stay in Maine so, on a whim, we chose Massachusetts. We could have chosen any place any where and everything could have turned out differently–but it didn’t. The whole of our married lives hinged on the not-very-well thought out whims of two 20 something year olds who knew nothing about the impact that decision would make–but it was made and it cannot now be unmade (and fortunately, it was not a mistake!).

Quite simply, we must not live our lives in the past, ever dwelling on how things could have turned out differently–if only. There is no “if only”; there is only today.

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I–

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.”

-Robert Frost

Running in Circles

Posted on by

Do you ever wonder what the point of  life is? You get up every day and go to work, come home and eat dinner, hang out for a few minutes before bed, and then do it all over again the next day. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. There are many things that I would like to accomplish, things that I feel might matter in the long-run, but then there’s the pesky problem of working 8 to 5, buying groceries and cooking dinners, doing laundry, paying bills, and on and on the list goes of the things we must do to survive but find no real satisfaction or meaning in. I am struck by how both busy and how empty life can be.

Sometimes I think the emptier we are, the more we do. We try to feel inner voids with outer activity. If you keep your hands busy, you won’t give your mind time to figure out how unhappy you are. So we work, and play, and run and run in vast circles of nothingness.

The other night my husband and I sat up late talking and I asked him if he was happy with life. His answer, bitingly honest, was yes sort of, but what’s the point? Yes, we’re happy in our marriage and we’re thankful for many things but what are we actually accomplishing? Our lives our filled with necessary obligations–work and church and a million other things–but when we get to the end of it all, if our lives were over tomorrow, what would we have accomplished? What would have mattered?

Apart from necessities, I can think of only two things that I would carry to the grave with meaning–love and relationships. My love for Darren matters–if I lost him tomorrow, every minute up until that moment would have mattered and always will matter to me. Love is my most meaningful “accomplishment.”  My relationships with God and other people–friends and family–matter too. All the rest is just necessity–we work to eat and eat to live–and live to love.

I think in order to fill our lives with meaning, we must first stop filling them with mindless activities. Ever since our conversation that night, my husband and I have been asking ourselves what we can eliminate in order to slow life down and to spend more time together. This is not an easy task because it means saying no to many people and many things and this sometimes gives people the impression that you’re not interested in being a part of what’s going on. Whatever people may think though, my goal is simple–build relationships, be quiet enough to hear the people in my life speaking their hearts and minds to me, sit still and take in the world around me–nature and all God has given us to enjoy and better know him. Slow down, sit and eat dinner and sip a cup of coffee and stop always hurrying mindlessly from pointless point A to pointless point B. If I am too busy to know God, know people, and know love, them I’m too busy. Whatever else I may accomplish, in the end I accomplish nothing if not love for God and people.

When God Has Said Enough

Posted on by

I tend to test God. I ask endless questions and always look for proof. If I hear something in church or someone tells me I’m supposed to be or do something, I want proof–give me a verse or leave me alone. This can be a good thing because we don’t want to be blind followers of everything we’re told–that’s how religion ends of being abused for people’s misguided purposes. But I’ve also been realizing lately that sometimes I test God too much. I insist on proof when God asks for faith. I demand answers when God says to be still and know (Psalm 46:10). I want God to explain himself. I guess I want him to be scientific in a way–I want to put him under a microscope and dissect him until everything makes sense and fits nicely into my worldview and lifestyle. I don’t want God to say anything crazy or hard to believe and I don’t want to seem strange to the society around me when I obey him.  I even worry when I write about my faith that my friends who don’t share my faith will think I’m crazy so I better tone it down a little bit and make sure they know how smart and modern I am. Well I’ve been reading my Bible and I’ve got some bad news for me–God doesn’t have to follow my rules.

The story of Mary and Joseph and the beginning of God as man is one of the most beautiful and frightening stories to me. It is beautiful because it is God becoming man to save me from myself and it is beautiful because he uses normal people full of faith to accomplish his plan. It is also terrifying because he uses normal people full of faith to accomplish his plan. Not going to lie, I wouldn’t want to be Mary. Here you are about to be married and you turn up pregnant in a society that will stone you for such a thing. Yes, Mary, tell them an angel came to you and told you it would be a virgin birth, tell them the angel turned into a dove, tell them it’s the Son of God–tell them whatever you want, nothing could sound crazier than that story and no one will ever believe you anyway. I wouldn’t have believed her. I would have thought she was either a sociopathic liar or a lunatic and of course, immoral. But this was God’s plan and Mary somehow believed and obeyed even though she probably spent the rest of her life being talked about and looked down on for doing so. Mary’s response was quick and simple:

“And Mary said, ‘My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.'” Luke 1:46-55

In all my questioning God and expecting him to please make sense, I have to stop and ask myself, do I take God at  his word or question his every word? Am I willing to embrace the seemingly ridiculous with faith and humility? Where will I draw the line between healthy inquisition and rebellious or fearful questioning and doubt? God’s word is not easy, it doesn’t always make sense, there isn’t scientific proof or reason for every word, but I am asked to obey–now, today, in faith and humility knowing that God knows even when I can not.