Bubbling up? Settling out the dregs? Clarifying?
For me one word: Lowly.
Do you ever tear up your journals? I do.
I tore out pages, one-by-one, as I read. Day-by-day, year-by-year, falling into the wicker trash basket. Another journal thinned by pruning. Disturbed and disturbing records of life one doesn’t want to leave as a legacy. Narrow reflections laced with gratitude and growing wisdom (I hope) remained.
I don’t write often. A sporadic journalist, pen and paper work me through troubled times, beginning with outpourings that segue into prayers. Disgruntled, distressed, grieving. Like the Psalmists, complaint drives me to the one who hears, who answers. But the answers are seldom recorded—only the disturbance that drove me to write.
The writing and pouring out of trouble does its work: I voice my sorrows and grief and discontent, God hears, equanimity restored, strength returns. I close the book. Until next time.
So in this season of what passes for maturity I ponder the editor’s trimmings: What would I rather not have others read, when I can no longer explain, put in context, resolve tidily? What me would I prefer to keep quiet? The one who is utterly dependent upon the rescue of a Savior? The one needing forgiveness, redemption? Am I still that young woman, passionately converted yet like a city without walls, easily overthrown? Do I still entertain fantasies of being omni-competent, self-sufficient, smart, creative, kind, somehow magical? My young heart was full of these ideals and hopes, so enthralled with doing everything right because, well, I’d become a Christian, I’d been changed. And I was changed.
And I’m being changed now. Here’s how the wine looks in the glass….
That Saturday evening in early December when I last picked up and thinned some stumbled-upon journals was followed by a Sunday morning message in which the lowliness of Christ’s coming stopped me. Not just the familiar “babe in the manger”—though that is a lowly moment indeed for the God who created all. But “lowly” kept slapping my face. Zechariah, an unimpressive priest, humbled into dumb silence for his unbelief. Elizabeth, an old woman afflicted with the barrenness that was shame in her culture and grief to her soul, becoming pregnant and hiding from view the weirdness of it all. And Mary, an unlikely young girl—14 maybe?—no status, bearing not only the child conceived by God himself, but the shame of that unbelievable story. And Joseph, engaged to that young Mary, believing the unbelievable from the angel, and bearing Mary’s disgrace. Sheltering in a stable with pervasive animal smells and no comforts or clean water to welcome blood and baby and birth mess. Then there were angels. Where did they go? To shepherds—such a disreputable crew their testimony wasn’t even accepted in court—and angels told them they were “witnesses.” The angel said, “Don’t be afraid. I bring YOU news of a great joy…” and “Unto YOU is born this day…a savior…” You lowly shepherds, you insignificant sheepherders. Then they head to the stable to see the wonder and tell its residents the news, what the angels said. How likely is that? In every scene, every character portrait, the word that jumps out at me is LOWLY.
Well, I confess, I didn’t see it on my own—the preacher told me that Sunday and the several that followed. Everyone in that story was lowly, unimpressive, unimportant, without status, prominence, success. God does what he wants his way: countercultural, counter intuitive. Wonderful.
What did it say about my journals? Well, I considered my prunings. So much torn out reflected my disappointment in me, my failed sense of being wonderful, capable, adequate for my own paltry standards. God has long been saving me from that longing for significance; this is not new. I have known for some time that the gospel of the Cross is not the path of being impressive, a mover-and-shaker, a leader, a winner. Jesus won through what appeared a colossal failure.
But I am beginning to own being lowly—I am in fact lowly, you know–and to delight to be identified with my Savior in his lowliness. What a privilege. Pride and self-sufficiency have never done me any real good; dependence is the real honor. I get to be with Christ, who became lowly. Simply amazing. I may just have to stop pruning my journals. Cheers!
Sharon Covington