A couple nights ago, my best friend and I went to a mediocre movie and then went to Sonic for dinner (their limeade, y'all...on FLEEK). We drove from Sonic to a beach to eat and the sky was gray and the water was stormy and it was really strangely beautiful.
While we were there, we started talking about our futures, our hopes and dreams and fears. We talked about boys. We talked about how much we want God to use us to bring Him glory with our lives. I started telling her how scared I am to get close to people lately.
"My life is like a circle," I told her, munching on a fry. "I get close to someone or I get involved in something and I'm like, this is it. This is my nich. This is where I fit. This is what I've finally been waiting for. And then...it goes away or I lose interest or I don't have a choice but to move forward and try to forget or shove it off to the side because I can't get it back. And I'm angry about it and I keep telling myself I won't trust people again and then I meet someone, and it's like, this is it. It's a circle."
We talked about grief. About how grieving things and people brings healing. About how we're tired of grieving.
It was a rather depressing conversation and I was finding myself close to tears, when across the beach from us, I heard a rather odd sound. Well, not odd in itself, but not a sound you would normally hear at a beach. It was an accordion. There was a boy sitting at a table by himself, playing an accordion, oblivious to the rest of the world.
Throughout our conversation, he played Vance Joy. Then, right when I was telling my friend how hopeless I had been feeling, how I have no idea what I want to do with my life and how I wish everything would just slow down and how confused and afraid and overwhelmed I was, he began to play a familiar song.
"Build Your kingdom here, let the darkness fear
Show Your mighty hand, heal our streets and land
Set Your church on fire, win this nation back
Change the atmosphere, build Your kingdom here, we pray..."
And we both just stopped and I heard Him whisper soft, "My will will be done in you whether or not you are certain of Me. I will have My way in you regardless of whether or not you choose to believe I have you."
I was shivering and she knew I was cold, so we got in her car and drove back to my house. There were a couple songs that she had asked me to listen to that I had forgotten about, so she played them in the car where I couldn't forget and couldn't get away. :P We pulled into my driveway and the music was loud and my heart was unsteady and aching and yearning and I felt 13 again and my eyes kept shifting around, trying to figure out where to land. That was when I felt Him again, whisper soft, "Look at the trees."
The trees? Why the trees?
So I looked at the branches of the trees, towering above my house, dancing and dipping and flying loose in the wind. "Look at the trees," it came again. So I looked and I didn't understand their significance, until I heard Him again, a little louder and stronger and more sure, "Look, look at the trees."
"Even the trees move for Me."
"Hey, love, breathe in and out. I hold all things together. All creation testifies to My hold on them and they live and move and exist because I will it so. "Child, what purpose does a tree serve but for you to behold or to be used as firewood or a shelter or a cross? The trees have no fear of what is to come; they move at will; they move when I will them to move. They crash down when I will them to crash down. They burn when I will them to burn. They serve the purpose I will for them and they resist Me not.
"And they're beautiful.
"Child, if even the trees are used by Me for a good and perfect purpose, how much more do you think I will use you?
"Oh, but Child, could you surrender like a tree and could you move when I will and could you open your scared, clenched hands enough to let Me hold and direct them?"
And then the music stopped and I shook myself out of my trance and we went inside and I sobbed and I told her all about what He had said to me and we prayed. I spoke to Him shortly. I was so shaken up by this sudden communication, like, how dare God tell me to surrender? Again?
But I went to church the next morning and I sat with another dear, dear friend in the grass and we talked about how insane it is that the Lord uses things that are sources of pain and fear to calm us, how sovereign He is over the details in our lives and how we are always, always loved and seen and taken care of.
And I heard Him say, again, "I will build My kingdom here. I will have My way. I will make something of you and all these things that make you up, and I will have my way regardless of whether or not you will have Me."
God doesn't give up. God knows my humanness. God knows my fear. And God is good. These are the things I have to remind myself of daily, except that now, I can feel my hope returning. I can feel my joy coming back like rain to the dry ground. He'll make something of me. I don't have to strive. I can unclench my hands. His will is good and perfect and He will do something beautiful with me and I don't have to know what I'm going to do with my life because it's not about me.
Father God, help me to remember the trees. Help me to bend when You want me to bend.
Thank You that You never stop creating me. Build Your kingdom here, in me, I pray. <3
