I've landed on my knees
This is the cup you have for me
And even when it don't make sense
I'm gonna let your Spirit lead
-Spirit Lead Me;Influence Music
There are times when a thought comes to mind, fully formed, processed, and sensible so that it can be written out and explained. Other times it will appear and float around for days or even weeks before something sensible can be written from it. The following is one of the latter thoughts. One that has been wrestled with for a span of time-two weeks to be specific. It is as thoroughly parsed as it is going to be. With that in mind, we begin.
I’m not a stranger to having song lyrics or words spoken spark something in my brain that becomes blogs or even book ideas. That was the case with this. We sang this song two weeks ago on a Wednesday night. It was the first time I’d heard it and that particular line of the bridge stuck hard in my head. Fittingly enough the sermon that followed was on James 1 and being joyful in times of suffering and trials.
If you’ve been hanging around awhile this won’t be news to you. If you haven’t and have somehow stumbled onto this blog my apologies for the confusion that this might elicit. I was diagnosed with Kahlman’s Syndrome just over 18 years ago. In fact, the night we sang this that anniversary was fresh on my mind because it had happened a week earlier. I wrestled with the weight of those words as they fell from my lips. 18 years is a long time. 18 years is older than most of the students I get the chance to talk about life and Jesus with on Wednesday and Sunday’s. It’s also almost older than all of my nieces and nephews. Only two of my nieces were alive when I was diagnosed.
Time is a funny thing. It doesn’t, as they say, heal all wounds. It ebbs and flows and marches and simply is. Perhaps if given a proper length it allows memories to grow faint or disappear altogether, with or without permission. But it doesn’t fix things. It doesn’t hold such power. I can still, all these years later, break down that moment like I’m watching a movie. They say memory like that isn’t altogether reliable. I say they have no idea how hard my brain holds onto details. I was wired to remember things. Big things. Small things. Inconsequential things. If it isn’t a number but is a detail it tends to stick, even if there is no reason for me to remember it. I can tell you details that I shouldn’t be able to remember, but I do. There are moments etched into my memory that I can recount with detail that is likely not normal. But I’m not normal. That day is one of them.
So why did those lyrics stick out? Because even after all these years I’m in a continual state of waiting, trust, and letting go. There are some who would say you can’t be continually letting the same thing go once you let it go it is gone or you haven’t truly relinquished your hold. Yes and no. This is not a tight hold on the what if, what could be, or what I wanted in life. It is instead a reminder that my life is unfolding exactly how it was planned. It just wasn’t my plan. And that is okay. It is continual because I don’t want to hold on to a life that wasn’t planned for me. I’ve got to trust in the one that has a plan already in place and is working as it unfolds.
A few months ago one of my best friends asked me a question that made me laugh out loud while I was walking in my driveway. For context my conversations with him are often done over voice messages because we live in different time zones and seeing as how we are both adults and he’s married and a father we don’t regularly have time to sit down and talk on the phone for hours. So we use voice messages to carry out a phone call over time. It works even if it sounds weird. Plus, I can tell you it’s a cool thing hearing a voice of a reason that has been in my life for going on almost two decades interspersed with the sounds of his daughter laughing and talking as he walks with her or pushes her on a swing in the park. Now, back to the question, I laughed, not so much because it was a funny question, it wasn’t. I laughed because at that point in 17 years, no one had ever asked me what he did. He asked me what my gut reaction to pregnancy news was.
No one has ever asked me that before. Again, if you are new here and have no idea what Kahlman’s syndrome is it’s a hormone disorder that basically means my brain is broken and doesn’t tell my body to produce the hormones required to have kids among other things. I might have even laughed as I replied to that message because it caught me off guard. There have been a lot of new kids in my life in all these years and I’ve never actually thought about that question until he asked it. If you’re wondering, the answer is envy. Do I wish I could for this news and only be happy, more than you can imagine. It makes me feel like a horrible person because marriage and babies are fantastic news that should be celebrated. I absolutely love kids, always have, they don’t have to even be related to me for me to want to feed, play, or if given the chance spoil them with gifts that will likely drive their parents crazy. Actually, the latter might be my favorite thing to do, not necessarily the driving parents crazy part, but the gifts, I love buying gifts. Buying gifts might be my love language if that is a thing.
Like I said, it is a continual state of waiting, trust, and letting go. Kalhman’s Syndrome is my cup. It has over the years found me physically on my knees more times than I can count. And that isn’t a bad thing. I have no control and in that position I am reminded of the God who is in control. Who has planned all of this out, not as punishment, but as a plan for His glory. It might not make sense to me, but I’m not God. My job isn’t to understand. My job is to trust.
You want to see surprise on the faces of five teenage boys when you read James 1? Tell them that it is actually natural not to automatically feel joyful in trials. There is a reason Paul says to count it all joy. Because to do so actually takes work and reliance on God. We can’t do that ourselves. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. We become joyful when we understand what trials produce in us as God works in us through them. If we did it naturally, we wouldn’t need to be told to do it. There is a reason the Bible never tells us how to sin. We do that without needing any instruction. But being joyful when trials come isn’t how we see problems. The only way to do that is to trust in God and rely on Him.
This song and that sermon were a timely reminder that God is good in the trial. My understanding of the trial doesn’t change God’s goodness or his sovereignty.
