At Home or Not

He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, 
who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage ... So whether 

we are at home or away, 

we make it our aim to please him. 

2 Corinthians 5

 Disillusioned?

Oh, sorrow: It tastes bitter.

Pours down like hail - some days.

"Vanity, all is vanity."

So said the wisest man ever.  An empty chasing after wind, this thing called life; so in despondency, on really bad days, it can feel like there's not a whole lot of living worth doing. 

(Oh, but maybe it's in the chasing after that things go awry.  After all, we construct our lives carefully, planning, choosing, building around a certain paradigm of importance - even paradigms of important goodness.)

You know the routine (or on groggy days, the grind).  Wake up, dress, toss the laundry into the machine, grab a coffee (toast if you're lucky), out the door with a cell-phone in one hand, and a toddler on a hip.  Buckle him into his car seat.  You look back in the rear-view mirror and the toddler's growing peach fuzz on his upper lip.  His voice has changed, too. Yep, he's morphing as you're driving down the road.

Soon, he's driving.  And you're in the rear-view mirror.  Waving.  Goodbye.  

I wonder how long it took Solomon to get there?  To realize it?  To make such a profound sorrowing statement?  More importantly, I wonder if he ever recovered from the shock? 

Surely, he had to have been intoxicated for a long time.  On women.  Fame.  Fortune.

Oh, wait.  That's not your life.

On diapers, soccer games, pizza, family vacations, root beer floats, chores, birthdays, good friends, love-making with a husband, long chats and meandering talks.  

I must be strange.

I love all those things.

But, they're not enough.

Inside

I

am the Sahara.

Looking for the oasis.

And it's nowhere in view.

At least not externally.

I do well to remember it.  

No, the oasis springs up from inside, from a secret, quiet place where One dwells with me, constantly, as His child.  So, if I am the Sahara inside at this point of my life, if everything is scorched and baked by the heat of day and chilled by the cool of night, I've not been dwelling there, in that secret place. 

Do you ever feel like that?  Do you ever take time to feel it?

The longer I live, the more respect I gain for the old - who have learned to live well. 

It takes courage.

To.

Live.

 Well.  Old.  A certain knowing, a confidence in grace and truth and beauty and love.  

To embrace bodies falling apart.  Or children who bear grandchildren who come when they can, if not at all.

Oh, what brings meaning to your life?

Significance.  Relevance.

For I know that I am given these things (in my head, yes, I know).

But some days are shifting underfoot like sand dunes caught in a hurricane. 

On those days, I can't see my hands.  Or feet.  (No, I'm not pregnant.)

I may feel irrelevant, yet I know that to stay engaged is eternally right.

To breathe is holy.

(Oh, my, yes - een when you're not sure why you're breathing - breathe!)

It brings the God who made you (much) glory.

To love.
To hope.
To cherish.

To embrace.

Maybe I am meant only to live this day in order to hold someone who needs holding.

Maybe I am meant only to live this day in order to smile for someone who needs cheering.

Maybe I am meant only to breathe one more breath in order to type this sentence ...

Yes, maybe.

Tomorrow will come.  And I will hold that someone, and I will smile, too, and I will breathe one more time.

Amen. 

(Here is the rest of the story in 2 Corinthians 5:1-10 ...)

For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.