As I write this, I am standing at the kitchen counter surrounded by boxes containing what was our home.  We are packing up the only home we knew with Henry and moving to another continent and a different life.  It feels like I have been drinking from a fire hose for the past month.   I am ecstatic and crushed at the same time.  Mostly, I just feel tired – tired of packing, tired of paperwork, tired of juggling details, tired of losing things – tired.  As I reflect back on the last month, I still can’t believe that God sent us Mary on the anniversary of the death of Henry.  At times I have been overwhelmed with the move details and whether or not it will all get done.  I’m still not sure it will.  At those times, when I hold Mary, I have a tangible squirming reminder that God’s timing is perfect and that he always keeps his promises.  He promises throughout the Bible that he will bless us richly.  It’s just that his blessings are often unrecognizable to us.  In John 18:36 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world . . . But now my kingdom is from another place.”  If the kingdom of God is not of this world, then God’s blessings will necessarily look different than the “blessings” that the world tells us we need.

Since Henry died I have thought a lot about Job and Jonah.  Both men were blessed and those blessings came through pain.  Job lost everything and his pain and loss brought him closer to God and led to a deeper understanding of God’s majesty and mystery.  In the story of Jonah, Jonah preached to the city of Nineveh and the city miraculously repented and turned to God.  However, rather than rejoicing in the city’s redemption, Jonah pouted and complained.  As Jonah sat and watched the city from afar, God sent a vine to grow up over Jonah’s head to give him comfort from the brutal sun.  Then the next day God sent a worm to chew the vine and kill it and sent a scorching wind along with the sun that made Jonah uncomfortable.  God provided both the vine and the worm.  One thing comforted Jonah and one thing made him uncomfortable so that he could not stay where he was.

Sometimes God provides worms in our lives that eat the vines we have so carefully cultivated.  My life this past year has been one big worm feast.  God has taken everything and has broken me.  And I am thankful.  I am thankful for the bitter pain that brought me to me knees in search of something deeper than the costume jewels of money and career.  I am thankful for his peace that has surrounded me even as my world has come crashing down.  I am thankful for his guidance to realize that the only “secure” place is in God’s unfailing love.  Most of all, I am thankful to better grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.  Ephesians 3:18.  Mary’s birth is a reminder to me of God’s blessing, but He has been blessing me all year through suffering.  True joy always involves suffering.  We live in a culture that tells us that we should only have sunny days and happy times.  We convince ourselves that death is wrong and should never visit us or those we love.  But sorrow is a part of joy and death is a part of life.

Recently, I visited the Khalil Gibran museum in Lebanon where Gibran is buried.  The visit prompted me to reexamine his famous work The Prophet.  One passage especially spoke to me:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater thar sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.
Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.
When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his silver, needs must your joy or your sorrow rise or fall.

Thank you God for your rich blessings even though I am undeserving.  Thank you for your faithfulness even though I am unfaithful.  Thank you for blessing me with things I never asked for and never knew I needed.