More Common than a Comet

Things shake, lose strength, and my hands have forgotten how to hold on. I don't mean that metaphorically--lately there's something wrong with my peripheral nervous system, and it's rather annoying.
Such are the unsung effects of who I am.
But enough. I must keep my brain moving with happier things.
I realize that almost nothing is in my control, but it feels like they should be, so my body is aching and groaning with frustration. My heart won't sit still. I can't make more money appear. I can't bring Andrew home sooner. I can't make my hands work or my feelings balance, simply out of sheer will. Believe me, I fight as hard as I can.
I get angry sometimes, because Andrew can't pour himself out for me. No, that's not accurate--I get angry that I get so drained that I can't take care of him, and he can't take care of me because he's also drained beyond measure, and so I'm angry at the whole situation, not him. I told Dad that it feels like my bones have been scraped out.
I don't blame Andrew. I don't blame the war, or the Army. That's just where we are right now, and I don't mind it. I don't know what I blame. I blame myself, I suppose. I hate that I can't be strong. I hate that I can breathe and calm myself and psyche myself up and muster every ounce of courage I have, but then someone looks me in the eye, and I fall to pieces.
I've ended up crying in front of two different people at work today. I feel terrible. I feel like I'm letting them down, because these are people I love, and this is a place that I love, yet--my insides are abandoning them, and I hate it.
I hate being so weak. I hate that everyone sees me weak. I hate that everyone else has to pick me up. I hate that people suffer because I'm weak. They worry for me, they fear for me, they stand around feeling helpless as they watch me wasting away. They blame themselves because they can't help me (a feeling I understand, as its one I often carry when I see Andrew suffering).
This is the second time I've responded in anger to this. The first time was last semester, when I needed to be at my best. It was my last semester, for god's sake! I was excited, confident, brave--and then I was eaten away from the inside out. But I wasn't sad, or scared, or nervous like before. I was freaking pissed. Furious. Why the hell do I have to do this yet AGAIN? That angry energy did not bode well for my nerves, but at least it kept my eyes clear, for the most part.
Now I'm angry again. Anger, and anguished. My hands refuse to grasp. I drop things, misjudge distances and hit my arms and hips and feet on everything as I try to walk and move. I've honestly been screaming at God a fair bit. Not blaming Him, but pleading with Him. I hate the animal sound of my own cries.
I can't show Andrew what I'm going through. How could I? We talked Saturday night, and just before he got online, I prayed, as fiercely as I could, "God, please, please, let things be okay with him. I can't help him today. I need him to help me. Please, PLEASE."
But last week, it turns out, was one of the worst weeks his unit has had in a long time. Horror, death, destruction, they finally walk back onto their base, dirty, torn to shreds, and hello, emails from wives--I can't do this anymore. I want a divorce. And full custody of your children. So, yeah... you get to come home from war in a few months... come home to nothing and no one.
Andrew was a wreck. He was watching the men he loved suffer, watching their hearts break at a time when they needed their hearts to be strongest. It was almost no comfort for him to be reassured that I would not leave him. The pain wasn't his, and it couldn't be healed by me.
I did what I could. Luckily, we were only chatting. It's easy to type, "Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry" over and over as he spilled his burdens. It would not have been easy to look him in the face or hear his voice. With the chat at least, I could weep and weep and weep on my end and he would never know.
Of course, majestically, he recovers so quickly, and because of the amazing man he is, he can turn around with a day or two and cheer me up and, if nothing else, give me certainty. Of everything in the world, of everything in me, of all that is in turmoil (whether in truth or in my perception)--I know he loves me. Even if he can't be here to hug me, or put a bandaid on my pain, he shows me that he loves me. He can be in the worst of moods, suffering through the worst of memories, angry and bitter and railling against all the evil, but he'll manage to drag himself through the thickets and say, "I know you probably don't feel it, and I kinda don't feel anything right now, but you know I love you, right?"
That's something. That's a huge something. It sounds pretty sacrilegious, but I don't feel even as certain of God's love right now (I know He loves me, but I don't FEEL it, ya know?), because part of me thinks He just wants to piss me off right now.
But Andrew's love IS a part of God's love. Andrew belongs to God, I belong to God, God gave us each other. Our love is a reflection of Him. So maybe, when I feel loved by Andrew, that's God's way of showing me His love, reaffirming that there is good to be had, and He is the one who brought it.
My favorite verse for a long time has been James 1:17---every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
There's so much promise in those short words. Every good thing is from God. God is the originator of all light, of all good. He does not change from His good ways.
But the problem right now is, I don't feel any ways. I don't feel good ways. I don't feel bad ways. I feel like nothing has a way to it.
But I'm loved. That's a start. I guess the paths and ways will be found later.

The Shining

God is good. Maybe you haven't noticed lately, but I certainly have. That statement seems to fit into the triteness catagory along with "prayer is powerful," and "God's angels are surrounding you," and other such--but darn it, when it comes down to it, every one of those statements (that we all hear all to often from well meaning relations) is completely true.

Short history: for the last week or two, I've been having night terrors. To call them nightmares is far too tame. Night terrors, in which I spend a few hours when I first sleep; unsure of my consciousness and in terrible, wrenching fear; unsure of whether I'm dreaming or if there are spirits of evil physically manifesting around me; afraid to close my eyes yet afraid to keep them open--night terrors that have left anxiety and fear seeping into my waking hours. I've been too afraid to even sleep alone, they've been so horrific. But I've had my sister and my two roommates available for me to run to, and the trustest folk around me have started praying. My dear Josiah called me on Sunday night, a few moments after he left my house, and talked to me for 15 straight minutes, telling me that I belong to a God who is far greater than any evil, and that I am NOT alone by any means.

Last night, after a scrumptious dinner with Laura C. (that cheesecake...the blackberries...zomg...) and then a stop by the Jer/Cait/Cael house, I decided that even though I was fighting the fear, I was still admitting that it had some power, because I wouldn't sleep alone in my own room. I was feeling pretty solid yesterday, because I had an hour-long chat with Andrew on Facebook (and he sounded... like himself. Just like himself. Not Andrew in a warzone, or Andrew in the stages of grief, or Andrew who has lost so many friends. We laughed and teased and flirted and I flatly fell in love with him all over again).

When I went to my room, before I even put my purse down, I prayed for blessing for the house, claiming it in Christ's name. Before I went to bed (before I even wrote my nightly letter), I read the boldest verses I could find, and when I found Psalm 4:8, I wrote it down in big preschooler letters and taped it above where I would rest my head to sleep--

"I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety."

And I slept well. More than well--I spent all night feeling awake (just as I do during the night terrors)-- but instead of darkness and evil swarming around me, I opened my eyes and saw light, and people; faces of creatures I knew were angels. For some reason, each angel was leaning over me, and offering me a shining platter.

So, God is good. Prayer is powerful. His angels are surrounding me.

And I'm not afraid.

Here's a long one, guys. Make sure you've got a coffee.

All my senior classes are kinda driving me crazy these last 2 days... the classes themselves are tolerable, even kinda nifty, but it's the uncannily unlucky assortment of classmates I've ended up with that are the real problem. Now, it must be said that the majority of people at my college I truly like, and consider them friends. But almost all of those people I was close to graduated in May, and now I'm left with this mixture of half-smile acquiantances and squint-at-you strangers. Not that I can't make new friends and still find good conversation and healthy discussion with this other students--but it somehow happened that in two of my most "discussion-heavy, super-introspective" classes, Philosophy of Faith and Learning, and Worldviews, frankly--I'm surrounded by dumbasses. There's no other way to really put it. In Faith and Learning on Monday, the topic of the day was "Your Mind Matters," that is, that no one can get away with riding through life on emotions and instincts and feelings or even the excuse of "I was always taught that..." We've got to use our reason to make sure we know what we think. Why we believe what we believe. Why we have to be prepared and be smart and not just touchy-feeling Christians.

After doing the reading for class, I was thinking, "Cool. I've gotten away with vague gut feelings and 'I just know' stuff for too long. It's about time I get some solid reason-based opinions." Oh, now I despair for my generation. It seemed everyone in the class missed the entire point--all of these people were just talking last week about the importance of one's own experience with God (rather like I was talking). And now... it seemed as though all of them (save one or two people) have completely switched over to the "brain" camp. They went on and on about how "ohhh if you don't say the right thing to people when you're talking about Jesus, you're screwed even if the Holy Spirit would have liked to work in their hearts" and all this stuff. Ummm what happened to all the "God's sovereignty" and stuff from all these so-called uhhh presbyterians? Now they're all about this brain thing and the utter responsibility of people to "save" people. Doesn't this sudden change defeat the entire purpose of using your mind and judgment to weigh evidence and truth to arrive at a sound decision? It seems they let a 60-page book alter all their thinking, because they were still stuck in this undergraduate thinking of "you're here to learn and you can worry about opinions once you've learned." But that's completely not what this class was about! It is trying to get us to take all that learning we've absorbed for 4 years and prove that we can use it to make our own decisions!

Blerg.

In terms of the Worldviews class, I was so upset at the end, I was almost crying. But I was so excited about yesterday's class, so excited about the whole course in general after all the pulse-raising praise from so many of my friends. Yesterday was the day we discussed Christian Theism, the worldview that is the college's official platform and the personal tradition and beliefs of most of our students. Our professor warned us it would probably be the most frustrating discussion of all, because instead of weighing the merits or problems with an alien worldview, like that of Taoism or Existentialism, we would be forcing ourselves to the roots of the beliefs we claimed to hold. He promised that he would be asking all these questions out of love, even though it would seem like he was baiting us and playing too-savvy and too-cynical of a devil's advocate. It was pretty amazing yet nervewracking at first--he'd ask us "tell me something Christians believe." Someone would answer to the effect of "we believe Jesus is the Son of God, and that He is also fully God." Okay, tentatively good start, sound recitation of basic doctrine. But then the professor would look perplexed and ask "wait, who is God? Does he have a wife? How is his son also God if he's God?" And then the original speaker would look generally distressed and try to explain that "well.... God created the world and uhhh we believe he sent his son to die for our sins." Still technically correct. Then comes the question: "How do you know that's true?" "I read it in the Bible." "Why do you believe the Bible?" "Because it's God's word." Then our lovely brilliant professor would look even more perplexed and muse "so... you believe what God says because you believe that God said to believe what God says?"

Then we'd all laugh nervously and he'd smile cheerily and we'd start all over again with another round of "what do Christians believe." So far, so good. He's demonstrating that we've got to get better, more solid reasons for our faith besides "well, my parents taught me to believe the Bible," I thought, while anxiously awaiting the moment he would turn to me and start the vicious quiz at me. So I was cautious to answer when he asked me "why do you believe the Bible, Chelsea?" Feeling just as foolish as my classmates surely had felt, I ventured "Well, in the last few years, I've read alot of scientific and historical research that cross-referenced the texts of the Bible with other ancient texts, putting them in relation with real events and real places and real people, and I've been convinced that on that front, the Bible is accurate. So when I start reading what it says about God and Jesus, I'm more prone to believe its accuracy in that respect. It's not all of my faith, but it's a earthly foundation, right?" Well, I felt pretty impressed with myself and my answer until my professor got a wicked glint in his eye and asked "well, why do you also believe the accuracy of those other ancient texts?" and then "what if some ancient versions of the Bible disagree on some details? For example, in the book of Mark, there are 2 ancient sources (the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint or something) that don't include the last ten verses. Would you still call it true if you saw inconsistencies?" I was rather sheepish after that, but then one of my classmates jumped in with a "well, maybe God wanted those differences to test people's faith" and then I didn't feel so stupid anymore.

As the class went on, I was feeling more and more uneasy, but not for the reason I had been warned about. I didn't feel like my own foundations were being tested yet--it seemed like because of the refusal of my classmates to stray outside the response of "Christian-y answers," I was getting vexed and uncomfortable. The prime example came when one girl was talking about how Jesus came to save us and die for us. "Back up now," said the professor, "Why do I need to be saved? I don't think I do." "Because Jesus takes away your sin." replied the girl. "Well, what do you mean by sin? What is sin?" asked the professor. We all looked towards her, and in my head I was trying to figure out what my own answer would be, if I had to explain sin to someone who knew nothing of typical church-jargon. Would I compare it to commiting a crime and needing to be punished, and Jesus came along and said that he'd serve out the prison sentence for me? Would I talk about disappointing a loved one, a parent maybe, and the need to take the punishment for that disobedience? To go more theologically analogous, imagine a clean room in a hospital, and you want to go in to see your beloved grandmother who is sick, but you can't approach her without first removing all the dirt and bacteria and germs from your body.

But the girl broke my heart when she answered, because it seemed like no one in the class understood that our professor was trying to make us think differently. "You see," she began, "there was this man and this woman, and they ate an apple, and then God made them leave..." and I honestly don't remember the rest of what she said, I was so astounded by how far she had missed the point. Luckily, my professor continued his devil's advocate theme and said something like "This just sounds as real as the epic of Gilgamesh, or Beowulf. You expect me to think your Jesus story is any different?" And everyone looked frustrated and he told us we'd talk more next time and we all padded silently out of the class with furrowed brows.

I left class thinking about my morning Biology 101. I thought of how I had high school biology seven years ago, and because I put off this last science credit so long, I had found myself surrounded by freshmen who were 5 years younger and yet knew way more than me. I thought about how I had asked a simple (probably a stupid) question, like "what exactly is a cell?" and then I was more confused than ever when I got the answer, because I was met with even more technical terms that I didn't know. To someone who knows nothing of Christianity, you just cannot explain the concept of, say, predestination, by rattling off some familiar definition filled with "sovereignty"s, "redemptions," "total depravity"s, and a million other words that even alot of Christians can't firmly define. And yet, that's what so many of us still do. Maybe that's why I never try... which leads me to my next point:

Even those those classmates were blindly dumbasses in my view, my own stance is probably just as lamentable. I'm very very guilty of being one of those people that Dante would consign to the vestibule of Hell--those who refuse to have an opinion, for whatever reason. My defense has always been that "I'm not gonna argue with you about issue X, Y, or Z, because I'm not sure which side I agree with." For years, I've considered myself to be pretty great, because I thought I was so wise in not jumping to emotional conclusions. But instead I've ended up never resolving any issues in my own mind. Good for me---I don't know what should have been done with Terry Shiavo. Good for me---I don't know if I think abortion should be legal. Good for me---I'm still pondering if gay marriage should be constitutionally protected. The one (political) thing I'm definitely supportive of is the U.S. military, because I believe absolutely that the soldiers should be supported and respected and honored. The existence they lead, and the sacrifices they make, and the philosophies they adhere to and represent are something I am so proud of (just read Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein and you'll know what I mean). But do I think the war in Afghanistan should be taking place? I really don't know.


Am I so fine and great because I refuse to state an opinion? No. I need to say, definitely, no. Okay, sure, you've got that famous adage of "it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." But I'm not remaining silent for the sake of being all wise and patient and whatever--I'm silent because I have nothing to say. I want something to say. I've always rambled to my friends that "oh, I never argue about anything unless it's unimportant." Good for me--I'm quaint and precocious. But I'm an adult now. I'm about to graduate, and I need to know. I need to know what is, and what isn't. I need to know what I believe, and why I believe it. I need to know what the bloody hell I think.

New thoughts

I got a letter from Afghanistan yesterday, which is about my favorite thing in the universe. As I was about to leave my parents house (I always stop by after work because I'm right there, and since my little brother is just moved out, my mum is rather lonely), when I got a text message from my older brother (to whom my mail is still being sent because of address changes and such), saying "You've got a Cook letter!"
Of course then, I shrieked most fetchingly and leapt into my car, all the while smiling and trying to listen to mum as she told me "don't speed! it'll be there! be careful! oh dear..." It seemed to take hours to get to my brother's apartment in Asheville (I still think of it as my apartment...sigh). My heart kept spinning as I reached each visual marker... the highway... the junction to 240...the expressway... Charlotte Street exit--oh my gosh--..finally the road to the development...I halted in front of the apartment and literally jumped out of the car and ran up the walk. When the door was locked, I hyperventilated and knocked about ten times. After a moment, Phil opened the door and he laughed at me as I slithered past him and ran towards the stack of mail I saw on the dining table.
Amazon, Amazon, something from Montreat that I've already gotten, junk mail and then---there it was. A letter. A nice, thick letter, full of pages. My pulse was tingling in my fingers. I looked up at Phil and squealed a bit, and he laughed at me again while I tried to be polite and make some conversation--"how are you? is Ben settled? kthnxbai."
I truly did consider the possibility of waiting until I got home to read the letter. For about 10 seconds, I thought I would give this occasion the import it deserved, and wait til I could sit down on my deck with some dinner and a cranberry Mike's---wait til I could be calm and devote all my attention to every word that he wrote to me.
Yeah, that didn't happen. Before I was back in my car, I had pulled open the envelope and snatched out the letter. By the time I was seated, but before I had closed the door, I had read his familiar greeting--"Hi babe!"--and by the time the door shut, I was crying.

Sometimes I wish he weren't such a good writer. I think it would be easier if I loved a soldier who was more like the Army-grunt stereotype, who just wrote things like "How are you? It was super hot today. I missed you alot." Instead I love the soldier who writes things like this:

"It's always a surprise when that moment comes... that moment you've been preparing for but never ever could really expect. Our base was attacked today. One minute I was walking down the dusty, scorching streets, looking at the dirty sun-soaked signs posted on the stone walls that turn the roads into tunnels, and the next---that moment. Those sounds, that energy and impact that happened so quickly it was like my body was metal and the sand was magnet, I hit the ground so fast. It was beyond sensing. The fire, the debris, the screaming, the death. When finally those automatic actions we take for granted restarted, when I was able to see and move and focus again, you were the only thing my mind could locate to keep me sane...to think that 30 seconds ago, I was standing where the bombs hit and it could have been me. But it wasn't, not yet. It may seem strange, but I suddenly understand that my life is not my own. If the time came that I had to give my life the way others did today, I would do it gladly. My life is not mine. My moments are not mine."

Then he closed the letter, 3 pages later, with two sentences that I had to read twice, because I thought I had misread them at first--"Every day I get more tired of being your boyfriend--I want to be your husband."

I don't have it in front of me, but I've almost got it memorized by now, so I think that's about 85% verbatim. I cried so hard after reading that letter. I'm not sure what I was feeling. Not sadness, exactly. Sorrow that he had to suffer through what he did. Agonizing joy and relief that he was alright. Terror, because it finally, truly, one hundred percent sunk in how far away he is, and how dangerous his world is. But more than anything--I think I felt gratitude. Gratitude that the Lord brought this man into my life. Gratitude that I've been afforded such an incomprehensibly stunning romance. Gratitude for His perfect design, His deep love for me and for Andrew. Gratitude that suddenly I have so much perspective on the stupid little dealings in my life--all this stuff about renters and money and "oh, I'm such a hardass?" Who cares? I'm full of love and softness now. I've been reminded what matters. It's not about power and control and making sure that everybody does what I need them to do. If I may be pardoned a line that I never thought I would say outside of jest or quoting, love is all you need.
Thank you, God.