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Now He's Laughing At Me

So it's been a weird week for me, as a writer.

When I call myself a writer, I mean that in a professionally amateur sense. I have never made a dime from the thousands of pages I've written, nor have I tried to. I simply mean "writer" in the sense that it is a need, a building tension and pressure that requires daily outlet of some sort. It is my way of organizing myself, of knowing myself. If it's not written down, it's forgotten and I cannot learn from it. So I'm always writing.

As a writer, it has been a weird week. I am in that awkward transition between journals, which to me is like moving to a new house. I don't know where anything is in this new journal, I left some stuff behind in the move and have to keep going back and forth, and it's not really home yet. It's going from the buzz of being mere pages from the completion to the barrier of a lot of bare pages to fill all over again. That, and my other important journal was left behind in Toledo over Thanksgiving and is now floating somewhere, possibly lost, in the United States Postal System, supposedly on its way back to me. I don't think I've ever been so paranoid about any other package; monetarily it carries little value, but I am in those pages and I feel like a piece of me has been detached.

The timing is interesting. Mostly because of the way life has been lately. But if nothing else, I know that God has a sense of humor - there's no other way to explain how He puts up with me and my idiosyncrasies. How can he not laugh at the face I make when I worry about money and then realize my bank account contains an amount inexplicably more than enough? How can he not laugh when I stress out about the minutes of my schedule only to later realize that he holds all my decades in his hand and that he knows how my time would best be used - sometimes meeting a new person rather than being on time. How can he not laugh as I whine about lost journals and fret over thoughts of marriage as He works right in front of my eyes "things too wonderful for me to know" (Job 42:2-3)? How can he not laugh at me?

It is good for my humility that God laughs at me. And not condescending laughter, I think, but the way a father laughs at his daughter getting more frustrated trying to unscrew the peanut butter jar. He laughs gently, because he loves me, because he has wisdom. Give that to me - I can do it - I love that you try - I love that you turn to me and want my help.

I think I've had a lot of "peanut butter jars" lately. Stuff I can't do for the life of me but desperately wish I could. And it's hard for me. I like being capable. I like control. But these stupid peanut butter jars are a good reminder about the illusion that control can be. I think there's a difference between free will and control, and I think it's a difference I need to keep learning. Hence the peanut butter jars.

However, I am also learning about the hard and good things of life. I always thought that difficult meant bad in the past, but now I'm beginning to see the glint of gems beneath the stone I have had to chip through. Friendships are worth fighting for. Truth is worth the battle against the easy beautiful lies. And Love is so much better than the sex-love the world teaches us about - it is a gritty, in-your-face, invasive, enthralling experience that I will never fully know, but that I will always want to know better. I'm learning all these things from the relationships I'm in, not from any book or any testimonial. I am learning this from my roommates. I am learning this from my family and coworkers in Christ. I am learning this from my love, my Dave.

And all these hard good things? They are so real they hurt sometimes. But I have been imbued with a joy, such a grateful joy, for Life that I've never understood before and its exhilarating, living in this Truth and this Love with these Friends.

I think God laughs when I am reminded of just how real He is.

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