resting places

Any words to describe my swelled thoughts are simple cliche, and even that thought is cliche. I cannot come to understand anything that has not already been understood, or love anything that hasn't been loved, or experience a feeling or grief or longing that hasn't been felt, grieved, or longed after. The most of what I cannot explain is why, in one decade, I have held the cold, still hand of my 14-year-old cousin Shane in his casket, or why I am on a train to Indiana where I will meet my dear 9-year-old cousin Evin.

But I know that God is merciful and most just. I don't know how to incorporate God as the Hero in this life of bitterness and sweetness, cold and hot, few and plenty. But it is there, somewhere, though I can read a mere couple pages in. I can only experience this bittersweet catastrophic life that is mine, a tiny story in the grandest epic of all time-which is, time itself.

So, I will not try to explain. I will listen to the words blasting in my ear by Hillsong, singing "You are All Glorious". I will silently hold Stevie as she cries on my shoulder asking "Why?", while inside the only answer I can think of is "Because." And on my way home I will sing "Let Us Adore Him" and nothing else. I will suck it up and move on with my meaningless studies to receive a meaningless piece of white paper. Maybe I can take this as a reminder of the only aspect of life that isn't meaningless...family, friends, acquaintances, customers, coworkers, and strangers. Nothing else matters when you stand before a casket, taking in the sight of his body and holding his hand, weeping.

Rest in Peace

Evin James Jarman

March 3, 1999-August 29, 2008

Shane Ryan Ellis

June 5, 1987-August 24, 2001

finally, done.

I am a thirteen-year-old Christian. I was born again on July 13, 1995, if a date is truly necessary, kneeled beside my bed at nighttime. Understanding this, I should have been through my 'Jesus' toddler years, jumping off a coffee table with child-like faith that He indeed will catch me. I should be well on my way through grammer school, having passed 3rd grade when I memorized my Christian multiplication tables and learned to write in Christian cursive. I should be going through Christian puberty about now, falling for my Savior more and more with each day that passes. I should be forming into the Christian woman God asks of me.

Is this what I am?

Why do I feel like a Christian 3rd grader sitting in time-out because she just won't cooperate?

I don't want my faith to become a phase I went through, oh, you know, that one time, when it all made sense. Faith is not about believing God when it is easy or self-beneficial or even when it all makes sense. Frankly, sometimes it doesn't.

I have no idea how to pray, because everytime I do, I barely speak a sentence before I see the words hit the ceiling, one by one, and bounce back to me and choke me. For the type of person I am, prayer will always be difficult, because I am a practical person who likes to talk to people as they are, and of course God is how He is, but how He is, is not where I am. I don't like talking to people on the phone, let alone telling God about my day when He not only knows more about it than I do, but He doesn't magically send me air-texts back. I don't 'feel' Him 'speaking'. So I write. But, of course, He doesn't write back. I don't hold it against Him, and I don't expect anything more. Prayer is simply the most awkward part of life on earth as a thirteen-year-old Christian.

So I am a Christian who never keeps her promises to God. I have read my Bible perhaps a handful of times in the past year, because reading the Bible is like going to the gym. Before I go, I feel a familiar sense of dread...the kind that doesn't fade with time, the kind that will remain after I die, even when Jesus wants to rock out to some Tim McGraw and run the treadmill with me. But when I actually hop on the treadmill and start running, it is exhilerating and makes me feel more alive. So all I have to do is open the Bible a crack every day, and know it is exhilerating. Know it will make me more alive. But, I don't.

I am a Christian who feels her prayers are worthless. And I am a thirteen-year-old Christian, held back so many years because I refuse to learn, I refuse to love like He has loved, I refuse to jump off the coffee table and watch Him catch me. I refuse to do anything except to grunt every now and then on my uncomfortable time-out chair, that I convince myself is actually quite comfortable because I have warmed up the seat for all this time.

And I know I will turn from this white screen with black letters and repeat my same patterns, all over again, and I will be a broken thirteen-year-old Christian turned cold and apathetic. And I will hurt God again and again, and be a stubborn child He has to continually discipline and calm and woo. But He knows this too, and He knows that I know.

And the funny thing is, I think, with this realization, I am finally done with my time-out.

the past and the answers thereafter

Prologue: [the past]

My face is clean,

my complexion revoked

All I know is you

and you're all I see

my thoughts are cleared

I lost myself when I lost you.

You were there

You hung me up

The sunshine seeped

I dried in the wind.

Here I am now

hung on rainy days

when all I feel is stormy nights

they creep on me

they drown me out

All I see is you

and all that I know

you reeled me in

and you let me go

You keep me raging.

You keep me peering out.

Looking for a cause,

Looking for an answer.

I'm looking for a way to bring you back.

Epilogue: [he came back]

-Sasha Naomi