The Economy of the Sea

Life is constantly changing.

When I visualize that statement, life is a shoreline with the waves coming in and out in a constant cadence, the crash of change every few seconds. The waves bring with it life; seaweed, mussels, crabs and other sea life are always getting deposited on the shore. Children and adults alike scavenge this stuff, joyfully picking through the sand in search of treasure in the form of seashells that the ocean has brought empty for them to be found. In turn, the shoreline gives the ocean life. When the waves crash upon the beach, the motion mixes oxygen with the water which gets taken out to sea for the various life forms to breathe.

But the ocean also brings death. These waves can come too high, become too violent, and create fatality under the name of natural disaster. It is natural to have disaster; it is natural to have death.

We experienced that in our family this week. Though death is natural, it feels so wrong, like such a violation of life. Death, when it comes near, reaches its cold, bony fingers out and gives your shoulders a shake, forcing you to decide what is really important. Death shatters the norms you have created for yourself, and crumbles the ones that have been built up around you. Like the norm that grandma has nine children, like the norm that dad would stay out late having coffee with his brother, like the norm that Arlin would come home for Christmas and Easter. Those norms are no longer; they have passed into memory.

When I was sitting in the service yesterday (a few seats over from where I sat at Grandpa's funeral not too long ago) I didn't hear too much of what the preacher was saying. I was staring at the big pine box in front of me that contained my uncle, cold and lifeless. And then I thought of all the people around me, friends, family, and got an enormous sense of love.

Death, besides being death, can be an enormous blessing too. There are few circumstances that that many people gather in the same place, that family has the chance to come together and just be, to share a common feeling, to gain stronger bonds. Relationships are formed with time together, and when a growing family is continuing to spread over Western Canada, those chances for time together come very limited.

I'm by no means saying I'm thankful for the death that happened this week. I'm saying that funerals, without the death part, can be like impromptu family reunions; this is what I'm thankful for, the chance to again be with people I love.

Family is something that you can never take away. Those same people will always be the ones gathering with you at special occasions, eating beside you at Christmas and weddings, telling stories about you, sharing memories with you; those faces will be the same in your photo albums year after year after year, just a little older. And though you can freely give that up, nothing in life will be able to take that away.

Family is a joy of life, a blessing of God; family is like the foam on a latte. Without foam you essentially just have a glass of hot milk with a shot of espresso. But add foam and you have an experience; foam puts joy into the drink. Family is like the foam on a latte; drinking life is so much more satisfying when you have family around to share it with.

The sea brings life and the sea brings death. Tsunamis claim many lives, invoking fear in the ones who have scraped through.
When death takes someone you know, it leaves the rest of us to grapple with our feelings, to cope with loss, to cling to each other through the heartache.

But it also lets us see that we are not invincible, that God holds the hands of time, that he's the one that has our days marked, not us. Death tears back the veil of pretense and empty striving and lets us see what is really important, like being a family to the family we've been given.

Death took from us here on earth, sure, but it also gave to those in heaven, like the give and take economy of the sea. We lost an uncle, a brother, a friend by any other name, but not for forever; our family is simply being relocated, one by one, until we are all swept from the seashore and taken into the depths of the glory of God. And there we will be a family forever, a continuation of the blessing and joy we have learned and shared here on earth.

The Mercy of Scars

I was sitting in church last Sunday, and again, God met me there.
During offering or something a song was sung that made me understand the last four years of my life. The chorus went something like, "heal the wound but leave the scar... it reminds me of how merciful you are." I sat there with tears in my eyes because I realized how true it was. I reached over both knees with my hands, feeling my two prominent scars, and I realized with force how merciful God had been to me when he allowed my ACL to be torn.
When I was seventeen the whole focus of my life was not God; it was nothing but succeeding in soccer and being good in other people's eyes. I didn't know where I fit in, spending the majority of my time with soccer friends who were swaying me to be and think one way, while all the while I had this inner sense that God shouldn't keep getting pushed aside. It was a civil war within my soul, and I waged it the entire time I played soccer.
I thought my life ended when I tore my ACL the first time. For the first time I failed to have the milestone of all my soccer achievements to define me; I had to find out who I actually was despite of any physical talent... God-given talent that was separating me from Him.
God was merciful enough to give me scars to save me from all my false and empty life and aspirations when I was seventeen. I had never thought of it that way before, and it hit me like a Mac Truck when I was sitting in the sanctuary on Sunday.
I used to pray with desparation and anger for God to heal me, to tie the tendons back in place and make the scars disappear. But now I'm thankful that I still have those gouges in my knees because they are drawn on with God's deep pen of mercy. What I didn't realize was that the real wounds were inside; the broken tendons were in my heart. And God took me around the world to heal them and to regain strength. I have scars to show that Jesus loves me. He has scars and I have scars, just to prove the mercy of his Father to me.
I just got home from a soccer game thirty minutes ago. I am astounded that after my long, four year journey of living life not based around being an athlete, I still have soccer talent. It is pure joy to run around on the pitch again, and probably even more so because it's something that has been taken away and given back again.
But this time around I will play for God's glory, not mine. He was the one who healed the insides of both my knee and my heart. He is the one who, in wisdom, healed the wounds but left the scars, just so I would have a reminder of how merciful my God really is.

Struck By Mortality

I have been struck again tonight by the mortality of man. We are short, and if we aren't careful we can live for nothing.
One of the things I accomplished this past weekend was obtaining a library card for the Calgary public library system; I wasted no time and checked out several books right away, the one I finished tonight being among them. I was under the impression it was about five old college friends getting stranded on a tropical island on their way to do humanitarian work in some remote corner of the world - a nice, light story good for summer reading. But now I can't sleep.
In short, the book was metaphorical prose simulating hell. Now that I can imagine a little bit how horrible it would be to be stuck on that desert island, to be stuck eternally in hell, I cannot imagine. I don't want to.
I want my life to mean something.
In the book, all the characters had real-life visions or mirages of all their sinful moments and evil attributes; they stepped into various cave caverns and it played before them like a horribly real movie. The visions they had weren't even just of sins they had actually committed, it showed their motives, their spite, their jealousy, their greed, how it would look if you could see those crimes physically. Spiteful words spoken were like bloody slashes across the chest of the one they were speaking against, attitudes towards people and situations were played out in actuallity and became murderous scenarios.
We all have that in us. We do not have to hold a knife against someone physically in order to kill them; we can do that in our hearts, in our minds, in our attitudes, in our eyes. We all have malice, a sinful nature, and if we're not careful that can overtake us.
Life can be so empty if you can't see the real purpose of living. We can parade around in our plastic smiles and painted-on fame, but it can be useless if not for the glory of our Heavenly Father. Life can be so empty if you are living for yourself, for your own goals and your own achievements. I would trade all of that for the simple joy of living in step with my Father; I do not want to be stuck on that desert island.
After finishing the book tonight I opened my bible quickly before turning off my light with the intention of falling asleep. My eyes fell to the words 'you have been marked with a seal' or something to the effect of God, in Jesus Christ, marking me and setting me aside, sparing me from judgment. I am forever grateful for that promise.
But some are not so lucky. Some have not been marked; they are on the boat that will be shipwrecked on that tropical island where it is impossible to escape, the days never change, relief from constant thirst never comes and you can never die. Those are the people we, as a family of believers in Christ, need to worry about.
We are mortal. It is easy to forget that in our lives because we are surrounded by things that comfort us and situations that breed confidence in ourselves. It is only when these things melt away that we feel destructable, mortal...small.
When they are ripped away, we feel with such raw horror how little and meaningless the lives we have built for ourselves actually are.
Struck by mortality...
I need that every once in a while to re-evaluate my life and see how noble my goals actually are. But I welcome every opportunity that God sends a message in a bottle out to me here on earth, reminding me of what I am really here to accomplish, reminding me of Him.