"This is not what I signed up for."
Have you ever thought that? Life has this knack for throwing us curveballs constantly. You think we would get used to it, but we don't. You go down a road expecting a certain outcome and the destination you reach is not what you anticipated. Faith is like that all the time. This is horribly un-pastoral to say, but it can be a crapshoot sometimes.
If the terrorist is a monster--if they are something inhuman, something fundamentally broken--then it flattens a complicated narrative into a tale of pure good versus pure evil. And don't get me wrong, the act of terror is pure evil. But the actor? The story of the actor is not always so simple. At least that was the reality I confronted while reading Boxers.
Starting a new job, at least so far, has been like walking into the cafeteria on the first day at a new school. There are new people everywhere. And I'm not sure where exactly to sit, who to talk to, and how long to talk. I'm the new guy.
I remember the squeaking of the plastic folding chairs. The puddles of light cast from high above the backstage area where we sat. I don't remember his name, but I remember his voice: trying to remain composed but on the verge of breaking down. Like a dam was about to burst and all the pain was going to flood out of him.
In my mind, Luke 15 has always started with verse 11. The beautiful final chapter of Jesus' "Lost" trilogy challenges even as it paints a vivid picture of God's grace. A lost sheep and a lost coin? Neither can hold a candle to a parent abandoning all dignity as they sprint to welcome a wayward child. I've never given the sheep and coin their due.
I remember driving one night to say goodbye to some friends. Switchfoot's Learning to Breathe played on loop in my car. I was leaving for college and it felt like the end of the world and the beginning of a brand new one. That was fifteen years ago. And tonight I felt an overwhelming sense of deja vu.
Psalm 139 has always been a source of great comfort for me. I have written a few times before (maybe many times) about feeling out of place through during various seasons of life. To read that God knit me in my mother's womb, to affirm that I'm fearfully and wonderfully made presses a healing hand to the wounds that life inflicts on occasion.
