Anchored

It's 9:58pm. If I were to message my dad with a profound thought or worried question, he'd entertain it for a moment then send a second reply back saying "go to sleep." 

Dad, if you read this, sorry I didn't harken to your guidance. But your overarching guidance always trumps general guidance, and in this case, I think you'll come to learn that I made the right choice to stay up.

It's 9:58pm. I've just slid into a tightly tucked fresh set of sheets. They were owned by my mum. She used them years ago, when I was in my early teens, and as she settled on a new favourite set (which she would use from 2009-2019), these went to the bottom of the linen cupboard. They're crisp, thick cotton. Blue and white lines vertically striped down the bed. A couple of smatterings of rust marks have appeared on them (the Lord knows how) in their time stored away. But oh, to have well-cared-for sheets that remind me of how my mum cared well for everything and everyone - that's enough for me.

It's 9:58pm. I've just jumped out of direct messaging a friend on Instagram. A dear friend who I've come across in the last few months, who I spent a couple of months racing through summer laughing, swimming in the big blue, learning to skate and eating our combined weight in gelato. A dear friend who, like me, has lived a life full of twists and turns. We have much in common, and we discover that there is much that we also digress on. The meaning of life being one.

But as he shares with me the experience of a loved one losing a member of family, I sit with him in that moment. I relate - that to be a human and to love anything in this life, even if it is human, is to ultimately have to lose whatever we've loved. Everything in this life is ephemeral. Flowers fade, money is spent, lost. Cars seize up and buildings and art lost to fire. And so the next best thing (and truly a great thing) is to invest love in people. But ultimately, people leave or pass on, too. And we're left sitting there wondering in that moment "what, really, is my purpose of living?" 

I get this feeling. I remember losing my identity and momentarily asking this question when I ceased, one Saturday night in a little palliative care unit in rural NSW, to be a carer for my mother who was battling cancer. Reshuffling my purpose, clearing the dust from being so settled in that role - it was all a lot to process. I wondered "what now?" "Who am I?" I would later reframe that question - one that was much more answerable, and profoundly so.

I asked this dear friend of mine: 

Can I speak to my experience for a moment?

I asked him to put aside, for a moment, the potential validity or truth pertaining to reality of what I was about to share and then I said the following:

"Because I believe that an eternal, ever existing God created the universe, the earth, people and me - and that He loves all of the things He has created - I feel like if the place I put all of my reason for being in is His love (a love that never disappears because He cannot by virtue of His infinite presence in time), I cannot lose anything in this life that will lead me to believe I have no hope for a good life.

It also doesn't hurt that He describes a reunion with those people that I deeply love when time in earth's history comes to an end.

Now whether or not that is the reality of life, of our existence etc, I believe it to be a very stabilising, hopeful thing to cling to. To see my mum again, to meet incredible people of Earth's history that I admire so much."

I have not even gone back to check if he has read or responded to this thought of mine, because as I pressed send, it truly resonated with me. Not even minutes before we had been speaking, I had asked the Holy Spirit to guide me this night. I asked for a pouring of His goodness into me. For direction, a reminder of my purpose. In that moment I myself became very aware of an answered prayer. That the only thing amidst ALL of what is going on in this world: the pandemic of illness, the threat of loss of freedom, the crises that befall us all, the fear of losing income, the (potentially subjective and trauma-induced) feeling of abandonment, of division between loved ones - the only thing that is holding me together, as my good friend Kemy put to me later on tonight in a conversation we moments after began to have, was a "love that doesn't disappear." 

All of those things that I just listed: health, earthly freedom, crises, money, relationships and friendships - they can all, and often do all at some point - disappear. A feeling of abandonment and dispensability has been matched and challenged and conquered with the realisation that in my purpose of living in God's love, I am literally living this life for Jesus and none other. That all I need do is actually believe and walk in that truth, to respond in faith to that truth, and know that on the other side of this crippling life, all the good things that should remain will remain.

Kemy shared her experience of finding God leading her to the story of Hagar in Genesis 16. Hagar, an outsider, named God as "the God who sees me." If you've ever felt lost, pushed aside, lacking purpose - this is the God for you. 

"He's here, He never leaves, He doesn't change, or get disengaged or disinterested... He's here... that singular truth is perhaps the most profound, tangible anchor to me. It's all I have. It's all I know. It's my one good thing...He's the only one who's here before, during, and after everything and everyone else."

We sat, I'm sure, on the opposite sides of the land, with our devices in hand, feeling the carpenter whittle away at our exteriors and expose raw, engrained truths to our very beings: that we are malleable units of love designed for receiving and giving love. In a moment when I most needed to actually feel the assurance that all of my clamouring for God's goodness was not in vain, that my failings that disappointed and cut me off from other humans I had thought to be so good and forgiving were not ever enough to cut me off from Him, I was getting it in the words I exchanged to someone who did not even believe that this God of love existed. Thinking I was sharing encouragement with them, I was really letting His Spirit speak back to my heart. As I chatted with Kemy after, further comfirmations streamed out of us like a well that would never run dry. And it can't - for it is full of the Living Water.

I don't know who needed to read this, but what I do know is that as I type here in my tightly tucked bedsheets and listen to Everything by Kemy Ogendi (same Kemy, cheeky plug, go listen please), I'm welling up with the realisation that my purpose for living sees me as His purpose for dying on that cross 2000 years ago. That rather than lose the chance of having me reunited with Him and those I love for eternity on the other side of this seemingly crippling life, He would raise His hand every time I step foot in the wrong direction and take accountability for my actions, letting me off scot free. He will never leave nor forsake me, He promises to wipe every tear from my eye, to reason with me, to be the peace in my storm (even the ones I unknowingly create for myself), to walk with me and talk with me and tell me I am His own.

What better reason for living can possibly find than to live for the One who exists to love me?

"It's all I have. It's all I know. It's my one good thing." - Kemy Ogendi