the ache is His, too, letter twenty-nine, hilary to preston

On Tuesdays and Thursdays around these parts, Preston and I write letters back and forth. We share the wonder of mystery, grace and our encounters with mercy. We hope to hear from you in the comments and imagine with you about this walking out in faith. Read the letter I'm responding to here, and another beautiful piece by Preston you must read here.

Dear Preston,

Peace I leave with you, my own peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid. 


I read your letter and then your life, unmasked, before I had the chance to sit down at my own computer to type back to you a small piece of this week, of this bigger journey of grace, of hunger. And when I read your life, unmasked, and I thought about what I can possibly say, because what your words point to is delicate and unsayable (yes, Rilke's words sit next to me) - and I am insufficient.

Your heart hurts because you love your thesis in deep and unsayable ways. You gave yourself to the work, as we are commanded to do. You stretched farther, and challenged yourself, challenged others to envision something beyond the traditional thesis, beyond the traditional so-called scholarly way. You forged a new path. You cleared branches and stumbled over unseen rocks. You were captured by a vision of something good and beautiful, and you followed it.

And I tell you the truth, that this will indeed be honored in unexpected ways.

I wonder if we who study and wish for ourselves academic titles and honors and responsibilities, if we forget how God sees us. I know He delights in our very being, in our existence. I know He delights to see His children inch pieces of the puzzle together. I know He delights when we learn. But I don't think that delight is measured very well by academic honors. By grades or comments or critiques. I don't think God's pure delight in how you journeyed towards Him over the past year is measured by any of the measuring tools we love from our perches in this strange ivory tower.

He delights to watch us be. He has been delighting all along. And so I whisper to you, and slip this note through the URLs and the trackbacks to you: He who takes great delight in you will honor your work. 


For there is no waste in God's economy. Even our aches are His. Even our broken bones and disappointed hopes. Even our falling down. He gathers us up, our fractured and chaotic selves, and delights in us. Nothing has been wasted; nothing has been lost. I'm convinced of this. I'm convinced that even though everything I say is insufficient, He is not.

The ache of this is His, too. And He offered us peace in the midst of our fears. He offered us His own peace, not as the world gives but as He gives. The ivory tower cannot give peace. It can give the most tentative, fearful, hesitant, we-could-lose-it-at-any-second affirmation. But it cannot give to us the peace which passes understanding.

He holds our aches and offers us peace. And I pray that you hear Him in these next days, still with His offer to give not as the world gives, but to give you His own self.

He who delights in you will hold and transform your ache into something beautiful. He will honor your faithfulness. He will bring peace to your heart.

May He be ever near you now.

Love,
Hilary

Dear Hilary, Love, Hilary: Lean Closer

Dear Hilary,

I grew up as a Christian. I love it. I love the church I go to. I love the people, and the way they recognize me and show me grace. I love the winks from the moms who knew me in pink and white sundresses talking into a gourd as if it was a phone, and have watched me grow into the person I am now. But as I head out into the world, as college ends, I wonder how to stay with this. I guess from reading your blog that you are a Christian, and that you love the Lord. How do you stay with Jesus, Hilary?

Love,

A bit adrift

Dear “A bit adrift”,

I wrote on this here blog once about my quiet story. A story about grace, and obedience, and the long hard road of walking towards Christ. I wrote that story because I wanted to remind myself how I’m in love with God. I wrote it so that when I wanted to stray most, I would stay near to Him.

I write to stay near to God. I get on my knees in strange spontaneous moments in my room at 6:30 in the evening and clench my fists hard as I pray. I lie in bed, trying to fall asleep, and ask God all sorts of questions about my day, about the people who have touched my life, about the things I love most. I talk to the ceiling and then to the wall, and then to the inside of my pillow. I ramble. I listen to music.

And I think you must lean hard into the wind and the rain of your life, instead of away from it. When you sit through difficult conversations – the ones where people are hurting and angry and your words don’t really heal them – and say, “Where is God?” I think you are asking a good question. When you look around you at the pain of the people you love, the pain in your own heart, and ask God, "Why?" it's a good question. When you're tired and frustrated and angry, and you ask God, "Who are you?" you are asking a good question. But when you ask, love, lean towards an answer, not away from one. Ask, “Where are you, God?” and believe that He is going to answer you.

I don’t think there is anything really miraculous about staying with Jesus as you leave old places and enter new ones. It’s always and ever only a story about grace, in the end. How He gives you the privilege of knowing His people, and journeying with them. How He comes close to you in the agonizing moments of disappointment and the fullest moments of joy. How you know His name because He called yours first.

As we head out towards the world, sweetheart, I think we stay with Jesus by letting His grace keep us close. I think we stay with Jesus by falling a little in love. This is a story about wind, and rain, about strange new things and beautiful hard things. This life of yours is gorgeous and full of grace.

We stay with Jesus by leaning closer.

Love,

Hilary

Why I Kick Off My Shoes (for family)

His tears are hot and angry when I come home late that night. My day (and my woebegone overly-emotional self) evaporate when I see him curled in the big brown easy chair. Mom and younger brother #1 have briefed me on the situation - the beloved iPod snatched out of his locker, the headphones so carefully, carefully saved for and explained and prized gone. And so younger brother #2 sits in the chair staring at the Bruins and I gasp for words like a fish gasping for water.

"I'm so sorry." 

It's completely insufficient and we both know it, his eyes narrowing and his body twisting away from me as I try to hug him to no avail. And then my ends fray and I start trying to talk him down from justice in his own hands tomorrow and talk about confronting and how he wants to act before he thinks anymore and I yell, not loud but insistent, that this isn't safe, to talk this way, and it's dangerous to do this and he shouldn't...

And I realize as I spew the words out of my mouth that my youngest brother is braver than most adults I know. Because every day he wades through adolescents who are fearful and from their fear pours mean words and backtalk and gossip and anger and whispered rumors. And it wasn't so long ago that I was there too.

I remember how friends became enemies on the 4 minute bus ride home, because they "didn't want to talk to you anymore" and how easy it was to tell that secret but swear in the hushed slumber party hair braiding circles that no, you'd never tell. And the next day the secret was gone and I wondered too, like my brother, why God let it happen, and why He didn't stop it? Why? And I remember the wounds on tender teenage hearts, when so-and-so decided lunch was not a time to speak to you and I ate alone, or hid in the computer lab doing work. And I remember tearful diary entries when he or she chose someone else to be their girlfriend/friend/lab partner, or how I too often clung to the group instead of holding my hand to the shy ones in the corner the way I thought about, holding out love and curiosity and friendship.

So after he stalks to his room, angry and reeling, I do the only thing I feel like my heart tells me to do. I kick off my shoes. I peel back the covers. I crawl in. I put my arm protectively around him and I say, "I'm here, and I love you." We lie there for a while, the hum of the fan a gentle music. And I watch him, and am amazed that I have the privilege of being in his life - that the word sister can be what he calls me.

I kick off my shoes and I drop my purse and make my arms as wide and warm as possible, because my brother is brave. Because when words falter, the most I can do as his sister is kick off my shoes and snuggle into bed with him, and stop what I'm doing in my day and stop everything, just so that I can say "I love you" to the bravest among us.

In the world where everything logical falls apart at the first touch: the little child in the manger is the only giver of Life, the whole Kingdom of Heaven is a mustard seed, and the infinite is only ever found in the smallest moment - this is the world where kicking off your shoes and crawling into the sibling space and whispering I love you is the only thing to do.

May we love one another.

Love,

Hilary