When it rains, it pours.
This post was supposed to be titled “Rain.” It was also supposed to fall during the first month of the Fall 2018 semester. Instead, it lazily dripped off of my priority list. A few months later, the rains have gone (no comment). Sophomore year has begun (some comments). And life has poured in abundance (many comments).
Happy 2019.
I've been encouraged to circle back, so here are some of my public comments. Ironically enough, I wouldn’t be writing this post in this moment if I hadn’t been snowed-in to Chicago and snowed-out of a weekend Boston trip. In due time.
A comment out of context tends to sound a little crazy. To be fair, these 468 words comment in the context of a mostly unwritten, unspoken record that is the narrative of my life.
The on-paper record says that, during his past semester, I spent significant time in the following: a number of airplanes traveling from adventure to adventure, a (finally) decorated dorm room, an essential but somewhat bland cafeteria, a very average load of four classes, a never-ending stream of meetings, a marathon of a to-do’s, a home filled with generational wisdom, a toddler Sunday School room, a downtown boutique fighting to empower the least of these, a green-tinted train car, a number of beautiful, but trendily similar caffeine hubs, a hustling student center, an idyllic Chicagoland suburb, a concrete jungle, and a place evolving into a semblance of a home. Ask me about any of the above, and I will share experiences inseparable from space and place.
Perhaps the more honest comments ought to be made in response not to the “where?” or “what?”, but the “why” and “so what?”. Blessings and undeserved favor have been poured out in overfilling measure. Out of that abundance, I have attempted to pursue a posture of pouring into others. But flashing alarms should start to whirl when the schedule begins filling, and it’s not just the blog that drips off the list. When the superhuman load masquerades as average and becomes all-consuming. When the little joys of life become the only source of life. Rather than burning out, the flame of life that should have been sustained by The Light of God alone was inundated with the mundane without any texture of worship. The wrong sort of substance caused my flame to flicker on-off-on-off, more unprotected in the pouring rain than it should ever have been. Thankfully, the passionate outpour of the One who is ultimately in control never ceases. He does not often grant relief from the rain, but promises through growing pains an all-sufficient presence.
This is my new year’s goal: to live not in place alone, or moments alone, or memories alone — all of which I have treasured and called good — but rather live in the fertile, sustainable promise of an abundant life.
Spring semester 2019, we’re getting to the growth. No rain, no flowers.