Resume

Well, I certainly didn't see that one coming! Who would have thought that a mere week ago I would have been bringing Hamp home from a hospital stay necessitated by a heart attack? As you can imagine, life has pretty much been on hold until this morning. He headed back to work for hopefully shorter days this week until he sees the doctor on Friday.

The only restriction he's really had was to take it easy so the incision in the groin area where they did the heart cath can heal. He was able to work from home some and we all caught up on the rest that was missed in the last week.

A lot of things have gone through my mind in the last nine days and it will probably take me some time to process before I'll be able to share them with you. But there was something I had already been pondering and everything that happened has magnified the significance of it. I'm not sure I'll be able to rein in my popcorn thoughts, but I'll give it a try.

For background, you need to know that I love the book/movie series "Anne of Green Gables".

Anne unexpectedly finds herself in a loving home after being orphaned, where she speaks often and usually without thinking as she lives life to the fullest. The bane of her existence is her red hair and those unfortunate enough to comment on it in teasing find that out quickly. Yet, the very characteristics one thinks of when seeing a redhead are the ones that make her uniquely Anne...with an "e".

When Marilla decides she can stay at Green Gables, she informs Anne that she must say her prayers that night before she goes to bed. Anne promptly replies that she doesn't say any prayers and give the following explanation:

"People who haven't red hair don't know what trouble is. Mrs. Thomas told me that God made my hair red on purpose and I've never cared about Him since."

Whether I see it in print or in the movie, I always laugh at the immature reasoning of this precocious child. But then I was reading some more in "To Be Told" by Dan Allender, and I realized I'm just like Anne. Consider these words:

"Do you ever feel that you're stuck, just going through the motions, not hearing from God, and not feeling any passion about your life? It's easy to land there if you're not listening to your story...Your story has power in your own life, and it has power and meaning to bring to others. I want your story to stir me, draw me to tears, compel me to ask hard questions. I want to enter your heartache and join you in the hope of redemption. But your story can't do these things if you can't tell it. You can't tell your story until you know it. And you can't truly know it without owning your part in writing it. And you won't write a really glorious story until you've wrestled with the Author who has already written long chapters of your life, many of them not to your liking."

Did you catch the last few words? What does he mean that the Author has already written long chapters of my life, many of them not to my liking at all? You mean, God has written my story like this on purpose???

It was like a spotlight fell on those few words for me. I could concede that God knows everything and allows certain things to come my way with a greater plan in mind, but to believe full authorship didn't set well with me. Yet the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if God really is God, then He has to be fully Author...or He's not God at all.

And then Hamp had a heart attack. So, I'm still wrestling a bit with this one...and yet I'm not sure that I am so much any more. For a control prone person such as myself (freak is a little harsh, in my humble opinion) to accept that Someone else has everything calmly in hand makes me feel free. But I don't think I would be OK with this if I wasn't convinced the motive was out of love and care for me. So maybe the age-old question really isn't "why?" after all. Maybe it's as simple as elementary angst - do you love me? Check one, "yes" or "no"...knowing that "yes" will always be checked.

I'm pretty sure this tension is something that is going to be continued...