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How to have a truly happy new year.

For the first time in years, I don’t remember my New Year’s resolution from January. Usually, I write it down in my journal or on a note I stick to my mirror. There’s been many of those dog-eared sticky notes from years past. The year of contentment. Speaking life. We passed pancakes across the breakfast table on January 1st this year. “What do you want from 2018?” I can’t remember my answer. I know what I didn’t want though. I didn’t want to walk into her office and share the parts of my life I’m inclined to hide. I didn’t want to Facetime her the day after she delivered her baby that never breathed. I didn’t want to spend four months wondering how I’d walk into her house on Christmas day and see her empty chair. I didn’t want to go on another first date that led nowhere. We sit across from each other in a little coffee shop in Colorado, picking at a charcuterie board. “When I think about all of the things I have left to go through,” her voice cracks....

Not in My Textbooks

We sit in the middle of the university cafeteria, discussing battle wounds.

Battle wounds from the philosophy class where the professor tells students, “There are absolutely no absolutes.”

Battle wounds from the literature class where the professor tells students, “The question this novel suggests is: how can God still be considered good?”

Battle wounds from the writing class where the professor suggests that we write only what is not noble, not right, not lovely in order to captivate our readers. “Don’t be too good,” he advises.

The two of us sit in the cafeteria, discussing our last two months before we begin new battles.

Discussing how we have watched the Bible prove itself.

Four years. Some innocence lost, some doubts planted.

But…

The light at the end of the tunnel, at the end of the school year, exposes the wounds for what they are.

Healed.

Because our hearts have this new song in them, bubbling up from doubt.

Because our hearts are strangely warmed by a burning-bush-fire inside.

Because our hearts are clean.

No One else can give us that.

No education, religious titles, or wealth can offer us what Jesus has already completed.

“And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Ezekiel 36:26



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