New Foliage

This'll be my last post from my night job here at the hospital: it's my last night here (praise the Lord). And it's been an interesting one. Found a li'l micro-fellowship with one of the guys here. i was listening to a Christian radio station when he came in. About that time it switched from music to, apparently, a preacher. i generally find it mean to inflict a random radio sermon on the uninitiated, and i had no idea who it was (it usually gives me heartburn to hear some cat with a gratuitous drawl letting fly pedantic demigogery about the easily discernible nature of God in King Jamesian), so i offered that he was welcome to change the station if he wanted. To my wonderment, he said it'd be fine. So we listened on. Turns out it was Ravi Zacharias, whom i'd never heard before. Couldn't decide if he was Indian or Irish, or Indian with an Irish accent. At any rate, i was duly impressed with what he had to say. He said, in fact, some things i'd desperately been needing to hear. i think i'll read a book of his. Maybe i'll find a way to become a Christian--- a real one. i'd like that very much. i could surely use your prayers.

Wistful

As per my norm, i've been channel surfing the radio stations at work all night looking for something that doesn't hurl me into suicidal depression. This morning i landed on a Christian station. Although i sometimes listen to such stations in my car, i generally tend to eschew them at work-- mainly because they send me into suicidal depression; or at least a deep, dark despondency. Today, however, i don't fear the pit. i was just struck by the all-around positive encouragingness of it, and was glad there are still some people out there who believe in Christ Jesus, even if they're a li'l odd. i'm struck by how very terribly far i've come from that fearless, loud belief. Once i would go across the world looking for a reason to mention Jesus. Now i let me talk about stupid, meaningless things just to get to talk to someone. This has unquestionably been one of the darkest, most faith-rattling, exhausting, muted years of my life. i've been shown--seemingly with purpose-- in a thousand different ways the inconstancy and fragility of life and friendship. my hateful frustration boils in me always just beneath my soap-bubble surface; and it seems to take nearly nothing for me to explode.



Recently, i've thought a lot about the story of Job. Just at the moment i deplore the story of Job. Even while i hear and try to appreciate the Voice that asks, "Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?" it still makes me mad that the servant-- a legitimate, sincere servant, it turns out-- is handed over for such a thrashing. What difference does it make that things work out for him in the end? He lost all his children in a moment because he was a servant. No angel with a ram showing up at the last second. No glorifying resurrection or demonstration of power. Just pain. He gets his wealth and health back in the end. He gets more children. Fine and good. And those previous children? They were chopped liver; collateral damage. There's no redemption in the story for them. They didn't really matter.

i know i can't see the end of the story really; i know i don't have any idea what God did with them. i just know the story lops off there. And it seems like there're correlates to that almost everywhere in my own little life. i miss so many people-- some of them i love better than i love myself. In some cases it seems like the friendships themselves have had a life of their own even beyond us involved in 'em; and it seems they've died, those friendships. And there's no redemption here for them except to hope and wish that things'll be better and clearer on the other side of this life. i resent that more than i'm capable of expressing. Seems senseless: like letting another person die of a heart attack because they're sometimes kinda tiresome and you know you'll just see 'em again at the resurrection anyway. i'm certainly guilty of that, myself, but i doubt that it's excusable.

Sortof a rambling post here, i know; but i'm outta practice, and i'm truly writing the Void now.