This is an important post for me.
I want to go somewhere with my thoughts—a “place” I’ve been dwelling at in recent days. I don’t think I’m alone in my dwelling, for I believe that there are many of us who’ve pitched our tents a time or two or ten at this address, especially following a season of trauma. It doesn’t mean I want to live here forever, and I suppose there are a few of you who quietly wish that I’d just get on with it—”it” being the rest of my life. But I can’t; nor should I. Nor should any of you because in doing so—in prematurely getting on with it—we run the risk of short-changing the trajectory that will safely and most healthily land us at the threshold of our “next.”
Let me explain.
A couple of nights ago, my husband and I finished watching the HBO miniseries The Pacific. It was grizzly and gruesome and full of a grittiness that exacted a toll on my senses… my thoughts as well. Still and yet, the story was compelling enough to keep me engaged (and fast-forwarding on several occasions). In addition, I wanted to spend some couch time with my husband. He’s a history buff who holds a special interest in wartime eras. Accordingly, he was all about his Christmas gift (thanks boys for thinking of it), and because I’m all about him we spent several evenings bonding together with the men of the 1st Marine Division at Guadalcanal, Peleliu, and Iwo Jima.
There’s so much I could tell you about the movie, so many moments when I felt as if I were there, tasting the torment and feeling the pulse of the Marines who bravely manned their stations and, even more so, bravely pushed forward when the orders were given. You’d expect that… that I would write about their bravery and about their pushing through, but those are neither the scenes nor the sentiment that captured me most fully. Certainly they are noteworthy. Those kinds of victories are the makings of good headlines, best-selling books, ticker-tape parades, and made-for-television movies. Without the bravery of countless armed forces, which undoubtedly served as a pre-cursor to certain triumph, we’d have far less of these moments to chronicle with our token remembrance. Victories are important, but not all of them are won on the battlefield. Some of them are won in lesser places—the silent fields that surround a heart and life once the swords have found their scabbards and the guns their holstered display.
Some victories arrive after the obvious. Some emerge on the heels of a battle quietly fought on the front lines of a return home—a safe landing at a crossroads in a cornfield where the only ammunition in sight is the manure-laden fields begging a healthy harvest in due season. That is the sentiment from The Pacific that captured my heart on the final evening of our watching… the “coming home” sentiment and all that must have meant for the Marines who made it home and who were willing to do the hard thing of living… beyond the Pacific.
Scene after scene, I witnessed the “dropping off” of these men and women, back into the normalcy of what used to be. Some returning to fanfare. Some returning to anonymity. All returning with renewed perspective about their lives and the questions that came alongside to challenge their former safe parameters and sterile thinking. All of them wanting life as usual. Most of them realizing that life as usual could never be again. Instead, life as usual was infiltrated by scalded memories and harsh woundings that refused amputation from their thinking. Thus, a new battle for home turf began within the Marine’s soul with little or no support from a country that proudly displayed its flag, bought its war bonds, and wrote its memoirs.
We left them alone to fight those unseen battles, to deal with their silent pains, while bravely and arrogantly shouting our get on with it. Suck it up. Deal with it. Man up. That’s life. Move on or get left behind.
Easy words to speak; harder words to receive. All quick fixes to the problem of pain. A boorish and rude interruption into the process of healing. Still and yet, words that were often spoken when silence gripped a conversation… when answers weren’t so obvious and when the one offering up solutions wasn’t comfortable with suffering’s significance. Instead of lending grace and time and community to a returning Marine, many were quick to wrap up their comforting with cards and calls and casseroles and deem it enough for the healing.
It wasn’t enough back then; it isn’t enough right now.
And lest you think I’m talking solely about the honorable men and women that serve in our Armed Forces, you’ve missed the bigger picture. For all of us, every last one of us, have stood on the battlefield at one time or another in our lives. We’ve all fought hard for victories that bloodied and bruised us along the way. We all boast the wounding and scars of the sacred ground we’ve fought to preserve… the hallowed hill we’ve climbed to take. And when the battle is through, when the victory seemingly won, we, like the Marines of The Pacific get dropped on in our cornfields… left at our train stations and commissioned with the responsibility of getting on with it.
And somewhere in between the dropping off and getting on with it, there resides a gap. A huge gap. Rows and rows of planted seed that requires time and tending before moving forward with harvest. To quickly step over it is to short change the trajectory that will safely and most healthily land us at the threshold of our “next.” I clearly saw that in the hearts and minds of those returning soldiers in The Pacific. I clearly see this in the heart and mind of me. Even in some of you.
And so, today, I speak to it, and I tell you that I’m not willing to short change my trajectory into my “next.” Today, having just jumped off the train, I willingly stand on the edge of my cornfield and wait. I see the tender shoots before me and will pause long enough to watch them grow in season, not according to my almanac. I will not let others rush me to the other side. They mean well with their cards and calls and casseroles, and the best part of these offerings is nourishment for my walk-thru. I am grateful for them, but they are not enough to heal me. A suffering season that has required a pound or two of flesh as well as a pound or two of struggling faith requires more than human memorial.
It requires eternal mending—sacred renovation and restoration from the only One who knows what it means to suffer perfectly through to victory. God is the trajectory that will safely land me at the threshold of my “next.” Accordingly, he meets me in train station, and he tells me not to rush the journey home. He says that he has time enough to linger with me in my thinking—my talking and my pain. He reminds me that I am the reason for the battle he waged—for the sacred ground he fought to preserve, the hallowed hill he climbed to take. And that according to him, all that is required with my getting on with it is a willingness to place my wearied hand in his nail-scarred one and to rest my wounded flesh next to his. Together, we will unhurriedly watch the harvest come in.
Victories are important, friends, but not all of them are won on the battlefield. Some of them are won next to Jesus, in the silent fields that surround a heart and life upon the return home. This is where I’m standing today. Others may see the battle as over, but I see it is ongoing. Not because I have some martyring need to linger in the pain, but rather because I know that band-aids are poor company when wounds fester with lingering infection. Thus, I give myself permission to tenderly and carefully walk through the mine-field in front of me. I give you permission as well.
Don’t rush you’re getting on with it. Simply live the grace that is given you today, and drink in the view from our Father’s side. He is the trajectory who will safely and wholly… holy lead you home. As always…
Peace for the journey,
PS: I just asked Amelia to pick a number between 1 and 34. She picked 20. So, Cheryl is the winner of Mariel’s new study, Knowing God Through His Names. I’ll have this in the mail to you tomorrow!
