"A Heart Like the Fourth of July"

This will be my first post in a little under a year, one that was academically and spiritually both very challenging and full of revelation. I wish I could sit right here and spin out every detail. Until tonight I wasn't sure I'd be returning to my blog, but a special thing happened to me that I think I need to type out for my own sake, and maybe it'll be encouraging to somebody else too.

The past year has been a hard one for me and Jesus, not that my faith has been compromised but that I'd been in a war between my heart and mind for a while. The enemy drew up a few convincing lies that I knew in my mind were lies, but I couldn't find it in my heart to believe the truth. If I tried to tell you every reason why, the story would get too long. But the problem was that I felt excluded from all the good stuff, the miracles and impossible things I have no trouble believing God can do. I'd come into college praying hard and had kept praying for the people I'd met, for the kingdom coming like wildfire, for healings and gifts of the Holy Spirit and my friends being saved, but none of that was happening, at least not with me.

The leaders of my college ministry like to use a metaphor about basketball: if you're getting close to the net, that's when the opposing team tries hardest to block you. That's what spiritual warfare is like. But I felt like I'm not even close to the net, like I've been on the bench because I'm just terrible at basketball. I usually can't tell if I'm doing anything wrong, or if I need to just keep being patient. It's not that I didn't believe God could use me, but that I wasn't sure He wanted to anymore, like I couldn't be counted on to get the job done or notice if I had the chance to tell somebody His story. The more I loved people who weren't getting any closer to this God who loves them, the harder it was to keep asking big. The outreach I started seemed pretty fruitless so far, and it was difficult to keep believing the promise in Ephesians 3:20-21, that He will do more than we can imagine.

I am obsessed with the impossible, and I think God is too. I want to dance loudly and sing gracefully, climb up raindrops, write what's inexpressible, and turn music into architecture. I want miracles and salvation, and things only God can do, but lately I've felt He wanted to give those things to everybody but me. When a pastor visited my church and talked about his experiences with His Fatherly love and how He would bring him to tears and shouting and dancing just by His presence, I wanted that so badly I cried too just listening to him. My belief in His love hadn't changed, but what was wrong with me that I couldn't feel it lately?

Tonight was the fourth of July, and after dinner my family found a spot by the river and watched the fireworks show come up over the bridge. Fireworks remind me of other fourths of July, and of my Granny who loves them, of a painting I made of Joy in high school, and of all the good things in my life. One of my favorite songs played in my head, "Carry On" by Fun. It's not a religious song, and I don't know what inspired it. But to me, it is an exuberant anthem of life, a celebration of the indomitable human spirit. To me, it's about the impossible: the desire to swallow as big a lung full of life and joy as possible in each moment, as much eternity as we can get before we die. It's an impossibility that becomes real in Christ. Belonging to Jesus, I also see that as meaning that life is a chance to blaze with the hope of eternity as witnesses, "like shining stars," as brightly and for as long as we have before we start breathing Heaven air instead and the real fun starts. It makes me want to fill this life with praise for the one who gives it. "Carry On" is a song to declare independence from death. It's for the end of a chapter, of a blessing, and of a life, proclaiming that what we have is something impossibly valuable and not truly finite.

We got back to the car, which was parked pretty far away. Just when everything was right, with my family around me and my head full of fireworks, I was wishing that I could hear that song. My heart whispered that wish so quietly that I didn't realize I'd wished it until I heard it start playing. We had time for one song between our parking space and home, and I heard it from beginning to end. It must have been chosen because it mentions the fourth of July, although I'd forgotten that line. But I knew it played for me. This told me that this God, whose actions and inactions so often confuse me maddeningly, is listening carefully to the idle wishes in the bottom of my heart. It told me He does want to do things that are special just for me, and once I realized that (now that my family's asleep) the presence of God did bring me to tears like I wanted so much. And it told me that my desperation for the impossible was from God, to guide me to great things and not to torment me, because He doesn't tease the people who love Him. He gives us our dreams to propel us to our destiny.

It was so sweet and romantic, like Jesus had swept me off my feet to dance with me and squeeze me. That was what I needed, a squeeze from Him. It was a little thing, and hundreds of people probably heard the song, but it gave me so much joy to be heard by Him and answered in a moment. I believe God can do anything. That gesture encouraged me to believe He will.

"But I like to think I could cheat it all,
To make up for the times I've been cheated on.
And it's nice to know, when I was left for dead
I was found and now I don't roam these streets,
I am not the ghost you want of me!" - "Carry On" by Fun.