Finishing 46, Turning 47

 I like the thought of 'turning' - in this case, turning the number of my age, the years I've completed of life I didn't volunteer for, of life that was handed to me, that I now know has been a gift - an unasked for gift, a surprising gift, but a gift nonetheless. On birthdays we typically receive gifts (unless you are Chinese - then on your birthday it is a chance to give gifts to all your friends). And I wonder if this is to try and remind us that our lives are gifts. Even the dark days. The lonely days. The 'Well,-that-didn't-go-like-I-thought-it-would' days. 

In Spanish you don't 'turn' a number - you complete a year. It is a more accurate rendering I suppose - the "cumpleanos". Turning 47 doesn't mean I'm beginning my 47th year. It means I finished it. I feel a year older already!! But in this turning is a chance for reflecting. Today was another day in my life. A completed day. A special day, to be sure - I only get a birthday once a year, as do you, unless you also celebrate a spiritual birthday, in which case you have a chance to celebrate twice. This year I reckon I am 33 years old in the Lord. 

In the past couple of years I've begun to claim a certain Psalm for each year that represents my age. So for the past year I have often read, listened to, quoted to myself, or wondered upon Psalm 46. I mulled it over and over in my head. I soaked in the words. Over time, these words became intimate to me, woven into the fabric of my heart. The words have framed my year, even when I wasn't thinking directly upon them. 

Last night we had some friends over and we were talking about birthdays and I was trying to avoid the subject, knowing my birthday was just around the corner. When they discovered this they joked that I was trying to dodge the subject and we discussed what I feel about my birthday. I said I struggle with low self-esteem and sometimes wish the whole day would pass quickly. That I sometimes feel not worth celebrating. That I'm often embarrassed by how poorly I've used the life God has given me. That sometimes for me, a birthday means a chance to drift into shame. I said I don't mind the idea of getting older; in fact, I welcome it. I have not embraced nor understood the Western ideals of perpetual youthfulness. There's still a strong Asian component in me that regards age as worth something, as years holding experience, hopefully wisdom, even if only to respect those who've endured all that life has thrown at them. No, I don't resist aging. I resist the passage of time that I had hoped would have yielded more fruit, more growth, more...I don't know... Grown-up-ness perhaps? I mean, I still bite my nails. I still struggle to get out of bed in the morning. I still fly by the seat of my pants, fail to organize my kitchen, get all the laundry done, and consistently, if even, be on time to anything. I thought by my late 40s or so I would be a functioning, responsible, adulty-type, complete with doing hair and makeup every day (who does that?! I wonder). I really was hoping that aging might make me a better person somehow.

So I look back at my life of 47 years and see they've contained a whole lot of interesting stuff (that's the nice way to put it). I see ways I've failed, but am growing in not getting caught up in all that (it's a dead end, I tell you). Instead of looking at things that might bring despair, I ask my soul, 'What might bring hope in reflecting? What might bring joy? What might help me set my gaze on awe-inspiring beauty? What might be worthy of my ponderings since looking at myself doesn't generally yield these things?' And I pull out the trusty Sunday School answers: Jesus, God, the Trinity, and The Bible (these almost always answer just about everything somehow). Ah, yes, Jesus might bring joy. God might give hope in framing how I reflect on my life. The Bible might point me in a direction of awe-inspiring beauty. And I remember, 'Oh yeah, I had a Psalm for the year. A Psalm I came back to over and over. Maybe that would be a better way to reflect on my year, on my life.' And I am relieved that I don't need to be dragged into a self-loathing-spiral.

This past year has hurled at me perhaps the most terrifying experience of my mere 47 years. For me to say that is significant, as I'm sure you can imagine, since in my first couple decades I had plenty of very frightful things thrown my way. I had no idea that the day after Timo's 17th birthday - a day where we celebrated him and his completed 17 years - a day where we reflected on his life, and uttered prayers of gratitude for him - that that day would be followed by a most devastating day where his life was almost ended. 

                                                        (Pic edited to respect his wishes)

"God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

That was a day I needed and relied on a very present God, a God to be my refuge, my strength, and very present to me in my troubled world. 

The moment I climbed up into the ambulance front seat, buckled my seat belt, and began the fast ride blazing through every light at top speed, I knew I could not even begin to pray. I heard the men in the back. I heard Timo's voice. I knew he was strapped to a stretcher immobilized. I had no idea what all this meant. I couldn't even think to pray for any outcome, any healing, anything hopeful at all. The only prayer that came to me was, "You need to be here with me, God. Right here. Right now." I had no other things to pray in that moment. It was a calm in the eye of a storm that came over me. I seemed to hover outside myself and even in that I noticed a safety, a steady gaze of trust in God. Some of this is psychologically protective. But for the soul that determines to trust, the protective is also part of the yielding. This emotional distance was a gift in that moment. A trauma response, a pathology per se, was what I needed. My traumatic past was a way God was giving me strength. He was present in that ambulance. He seemed to be sitting as close as my slow, steady breathing. 

"Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea."

How could the Psalmist say that? Did he have his head screwed on correctly?! I mean, if the earth gives way, if the mountains fall into the sea...don't you think that is an appropriate time for fear? This Psalmist seems resolute. Firmly fixed. 'We will not fear.' Who can make a commitment like that? It's rather bold, don't you think? Look at the world we live in! It isn't possible to hardly open our eyes for a split second without considering a gazillion things to legitimately fear. The world can fall apart at any moment. For a mother whose child makes interesting and often unapproved-of decisions, the mountains are immense and the heart of my sea seems to risk being inundated with the mountains plunging into the nether-regions of my soul. That day on the way to the hospital, with my broken son in the back, I felt like the mountains were about to crash into me. But I could say with the Psalmist (in my better moments, I'll be honest): I will not fear. It was almost as if I was making a vow to myself, and to God. "I will not fear." It is much like making a wedding vow; absolutely impossible aside from the miraculous and powerful work of God in me. I think in praying this statement it is as much a hopeful wish, and longed for commitment, an intended vow, as much as a real one. Maybe if I say this in a prayer it will work its way in reverse into my soul. Maybe.

"...though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling. Selah."

The days and weeks following were much like a 'waters roaring and foaming' experience. The mountains weighing on me did indeed at times tremble. The swelling of the threatening waves seemed to menace me at times, and nightmares abounded. Oh the familiar dark, quivering nights where fear threatened to swallow me whole. I had to face a lifetime of fears and reckon with them - they were not imagined, they could indeed come true. The potential of losing my son was not an imagined one. It was all too real. At the end of this line of the Psalm there is this funny word, 'Selah'. It's the pause. It's the punctuation to take a soul-breath. A long gaze backward at where we journeyed so far in this poem. What a place to put a pause! Right after the mountains and waters tremble and leave me in a panicked freak-out-mess. Oh, now we stop and pause to take a breath?! What gives?! How well the Psalmist knew his own soul, and how well he seemed to know mine. That is exactly when a breath is needed. In the midst of the chaos. In the middle of the storm. I need a soul-break, Jesus. I will trust You.

"There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns."

The river reminds me of that old hymn,

 "Like a River Glorious is God's perfect peace, Over all victorious, in its bright increase! 

Perfect yet it floweth, fuller every day! Perfect yet it groweth deeper all the way!

Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blessed! Finding as He promised, perfect peace and rest!

Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand, never foe can follow, never traitor stand.

Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care! Not a blast of hurry, touch the spirit there!

Every joy or trial, falleth from above; Traced upon our dial, by the Son of Love;

We may trust Him fully, all for us to do - They who trust Him wholly, find Him wholly true!"

(thank you, Frances Ridley Havergal, for these wonderful words).

This river of peace certainly would make a city glad. But I'm reminded that I am the city - I am the holy habitation of the Most High. This river is for me. It makes me glad. Jesus, in the gospel of John, tells the woman at the well that He can give her streams of living water, a life-giving, thirst-quenching, always-on-the-move stream. This is the Holy Spirit, the Giver of life, the producer of streams of living water, of refreshing gladenning rivers that flow to delight and fill, and overflow my very soul with all that He is. This is the kind of river I need in the midst of mountains of crushing weight disturbing the sea of my soul. This is the River I depend on to make me glad.

You see, God did answer my prayer, and He told me so in this Psalm that I claimed for my 46th year. It says, "God is in the midst of her." Ok, let me step out of my hermeneutical rule-following comfort-zone here for a minute. The real Bible students and interpretive scholars would probably tell me I can't personalize this Psalm this way. That its referring to some other city of God, some other holy habitation, some other River that makes the city of God glad. And who am I to argue? They're right. Absolutely right. But something transformative happens when you soak in Scripture for a year. The words become my own. I pray them together with the Psalmist. He is teaching me to pray. And the Psalms are the prayers Jesus prayed, so I think I'm in good company. I believe, renegade Bible scholar that I am, that I am within reason to find myself in this Psalm. I asked God to be with me in that ambulance. I asked Him to be present with me throughout my fears. And you know what? He tells me plainly: "I am in the midst of her." (If you're male and reading this, don't worry, I'm sure He's in the midst of you, too. Because in this case, you are a her, if you are His people, His bride). As I went through those very dark nights - 2 all nighters back to back, which is almost as torturous as the wincing pain I was witnessing in my son at every few minute intervals, the dawn would begin and I would see I didn't sleep the whole night again, and I would say, 'I need Your help God for the day that is dawning that I have no strength to face.' And when the dawn of day came, I would see God was there for me for another day, there helping, there holding, there enabling me to endure and deal with the soul-ache before me.

I can look back with so much gratitude that God has healed my boy, that his body has been knit back together with so much skill and help from an incredible team of doctors and therapists. But in those bleak, dark, days, I didn't know what the outcome would be. At the beginning we didn't know from hour to hour if he was going to live. It is absolutely terrifying to look at a child you birthed, walked with, helped, fed, clothed, bathed, nurtured, fought-with, sought help for - to look into his eyes and not know if these were final moments with him. The imprinting of memory, of his face, of his sudden shock and brush with death - these can never be forgotten. Psalm 46 kept framing my moments. The words kept soaking deeper and deeper into me. 

"Be still and know that I am God...

I will be exalted in the earth! 

The Lord of hosts is with us!"

The word 'earth' catches my eye. I am earth. God made man out of the earth. I am an earthen vessel, a jar of clay, and yet a holy habitation of the Most High. "Oh Lord, be exalted in me, in this plain, ordinary, flesh that carries the imprint of your image." I utter this prayer as I find myself again in the final words of my Psalm. The Lord of hosts has been with me. 

Just as I asked Him to be.