Chasing After Permanence (or Why is Life in Your Twenties Constantly Shifting?)

          We are well into that time of year where most Americans living in the Northeast have developed a steady habit of complaining about this freezing weather and counting down the days to summer. It’s an annual tradition passed down through the generations and as everyone knows, it begins just after New Year’s Day because for some reason, if it isn’t the holiday season, most people do not see the point in it being cold outside. As with many other cultural traditions in this American life, I do not quite understand all this misery over the cold. I actually rather love these specific few weeks that come to New Jersey almost every year where the weather descends into a “deep freeze” and the air, sky and trees all take on a very arctic look and feel. It’s absolutely wonderful, refreshing and invigorating…at least in my opinion (which has not usually been shared in most conversations I’ve had recently).

       Last evening, I went out for walk through town for some much needed weekend fresh air and exploration. Admittedly, it was freezing, but is it not magical when something so extreme and so uncontrollable lifts your thoughts outside of your own introspection and into a totally different field of reality? Maybe I am sounding a bit too weird, but for a constantly over-analyzing introvert who is often trapped in the cyclical thoughts inside my head, these moments where the sub-freezing air arrests the attention of all my senses are so very refreshing and renewing for my spirit. It’s something else. It’s something more. It’s something beautiful and sacred.

     It's been about two weeks now since I have moved to this town and while I have been attempting to settle in, life (or maybe God’s plan)has been attempting to unsettle me one eventful day after another. I cannot even count the amount of times circumstances have changed in the past two weeks and frankly, I don’t want to try because I have worn quite thin from it all. During my time in Warsaw this year, I learnt to become so incredibly trusting of God and His provision. It would seem now that He is using those lessons to send me even deeper into faith in Him at the same time that this winter freeze has been going deeper and deeper. I’ve had some very dark days, but I have been clinging onto a couple truths and my faith in the Savior to see me through this, even though it can be hard to hear His voice amidst all the noise of life. One of the truths I have anchored into is that God has brought me to this place for this time. I have such a strong peace and excitement for this chapter and I am so thankful to be in a place where I am falling in love with both town and community. In this, I am feeling settled, even as some externals remain unsettled.

     The second truth I have been holding onto with all my (very weary) might is the promises and sure hope I have grown to love this past year in the Biblical book of Ephesians. God, through Paul’s writing to the Gentile believers in Ephesus, tells of how His children are chosen in Him to be lavished on with His great and eternal grace and love. We are born again in Christ for a purpose: to glorify God and be ever poured into with the wonder of His love. When life’s immediate goals and needs are a constant shifting target and physical security and accomplishments feel ever just an inch out of reach, the children of God can anchor their hearts right into this never changing, never ceasing, always dependable and unfathomably strong love God has chosen to lavish on us.

Ephesians 1:3-23 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” (ESV)-You can read more from Ephesians  here.