I’ve been studying a message on being wholehearted and it has me thinking about my own core values and how wholeheartedly I live them. Here’s my problem, though:
- I long to see the world; and I long for the comforts of home.
- I long for greater levels of organization and planning in my life; and I long for spontaneity and creative chaos.
- I long to write books; and I long for life with no deadlines.
- I long for a spotless house; and I long to binge watch The Good Wife.
- I long for credibility and I long for anonymity.
- I long to slim down and I long to carb up.
- I long to work hard and spend my last breath telling the story of those affected by ALS and I long to never say those three dumb letters again.
I am a murky stew of dueling desires. And the older I get, the more I suspect that in the end, the way we feed or deny the longings in our lives will make all the difference in the mark we leave on our world and the happiness we enjoying while leaving it.
But it’s hard. It’s hard to know what deserves my focus at any given time. I have a grid I like to run things through and it’s this: Am I doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason? It tends to weed out a lot of silliness for me, but it’s only a grid – a tool for helping decide how to invest the minutes in my day. It’s still up to me to choose and choosing requires muscle and discipline and a level of grownupness I don’t think I’ve yet attained. Maybe I never will. Because this idea about being wholehearted is big and it defies common logic or dispassionate maturity. I’m discovering that sometimes, believe it or not, a little time in the world of The Good Wife is the very thing that fuels me to go back to my life as an ALS wife. Traveling the world is sweet because it reminds me home is sweeter. A well-placed carb helps fuel a River Trail run and the River Trail run inspires creative thinking that leads to more-organized systems.
The thing is, this minute-by-minute decision-making about right things and right reasons? It’s not a science. And it’s not even theology. It’s a messy, mixed-up art. It’s finger-painting for grownups. It’s starts with the question, “At the end of my life, how do I want my picture to look?” Then we go about the business of sticking chubby fingers into puddles of color, letting a design take shape that may or may not, but probably, definitely won’t look exactly like our beginning vision. Sometimes it turns out differently because our fingers can only do what fingers can do, sometimes life dumps a color onto the page we weren’t expecting and we have to choose whether we crumple the picture or ask the Great Artist of Romans 8:28 to incorporate that spill into the grand design. It’s hard. It’s work. It’s fun. It’s life.
The conclusion of the matter is this: if there’s one area in which I want to be truly, deeply wholehearted, it’s in trusting God with the minutes and months and miracles that fill the page and staying closely connected to His voice as He lets me pretend to be an artist too. He makes everything beautiful.
Bo,
Thank you, thank you for these words this morning. I’m right in there with the whole giant messer-upper feeling these days. Yesterday I ranted. I vented. I cried. To my husband…to my Mom. And then to the Lord. Wow did I ever get that order of venting wrong. Tired of treatments…not knowing if it is going to work…feeling stuck in a sink hole and so far away from Romans 8:28. You are so right that it is a minute by minute choosing of the right things…choosing of having the right heart on matters…choosing to live and breathe Romans 8:28. And remembering the unfathomable love of the “Great Artist” as He lovingly sweeps His brush over the ranting and venting days to include those in the picture. He truly does make ALL things beautiful, doesn’t He?
I am a child some days, wanting to break free of the things that keep me moving through adult life: my work, my routines, my organized thoughts, the patterns that allow me to function. “They are holding me back!” I say, like a petulant 3-year-old. If God could see it from my point of view it would be different. But He has. And he has said, “Not my will, but Yours.” I will take time to finger paint! I will take moments to dream, or to record in a photograph something that leaves me breathless. Trusting, believing, seeing that He is in charge no matter what color of mud I have made on the page makes all the difference… Thank you for sharing your heart…
Oh Bo!! This so very deeply speaks to me! It seems I’m at constant odds with many of the things you mentioned. Even watching “the Good Wife” 🙂 And I also, find myself content to settle most wholeheartedly into the arms of the Lord. There I see more clearly the beauty of the dance between the rest and the run, being home and away, the carbs and the fast and the perfect plan and the chaos! He does make all of it work together, doesn’t He? I love Him for that!! God bless you and your family today! Thank you for sharing your heart with us!
I like you Bo. 🙂
Dear Bo,
I love reading your blog and the comfort it brings. Thank you for your candidness and passion. I write to you because for the past nine months I have been co-teaching an eighth grade math class with Steve a man also afflicted with ALS. I started with him in October and have watched him go from a limp, to cane, to walker, to mobile scooter where he can barely pick up his feet all in a span of nine months. What’s crazy is last year this time he was doing trail work in the mountains of Colorado. What baffles my mind even further is that he found out about this illness less than a year ago, coincidentally by a fall he had up in the mountains. He often tells me of other teachers that ask to pray for him and he scoffs and laughs while I remain silent. The truth is it’s been difficult to sit there quietly holding my tongue (something I don’t do well) knowing God wants my restraint. To see his cynicism toward people who think they can heal him through prayer is difficult. This is something I have struggled for the past nine months can God really heal anyone from any illness? We read scriptures that tells us we have the same power in us that raised Christ from the dead, but it doesn’t feel like it most of the time. Can I really pray for him and his ALS go away? This has really stirred my faith and pushed it into a box of what God can and can’t do. I know I can’t rationalize God but every fiber in me needs to, in order to make sense why some cancer patients are miraculously healed why can’t someone with ALS be miraculously healed. It is so difficult Bo, to say that God my all powerful God has a will for everything, regardless of how horrible.We have spoken about life and he often tells me how he is agnostic and doesn’t believe in religion. My fear is that as we wind up to the last four weeks of school I won’t be able to pray with him the most important prayer not of physical healing but of life.
With a troubled heart
Daniela Martin
I’ve probably read this post 8 times since it’s original post date. Everytime it sinks a little deeper and really resonates with my internal struggle of what I want my life to look like. You’ve worded this so well and with so much truth! I actually simultaniously feel more at peace with the way my life looks, and driven to make it look better.
Thanks for the life giving wisdom!
Stay class,
Jess