I'm learning that I love for things to make sense. Anxiety tends to accelerate and exaggerate itself when things resist me and refuse to be made sense of, or when things that once were resolved and whole and neat start to unresolve without my permission. When what was once sense becomes non-sense.
On the one hand, my love for/ pursuit of an understanding of how things connect/relate makes me really good at what I do. I'm a detective of the human soul and story. What was it like to grow up as you? What is it like to be in your body, have your brain, and face your future? What is it like to be in relationship with you? What need does that behavior meet for you? What is threatened when you no longer are able to cope in those old ways? Some of my favorite therapeutic moments are when it seems that by the grace of God, for one moment, I get it. And that kid gets that I get it. I'm guessing that most of us have those moments- when you realize that you are understood- that your story makes sense to someone else- that maybe you have been existing out of the premise that nothing about you can be made sense of- that you are one big ball of unresolved questions/hopes/hurts/fears. To that I say, "Thank you Father. Thank you for equipping me to care about the whole story of a person, and the whole of their soul. Thank you for putting it in my DNA to be sensitive to the nuances, to be intuitive to complexity."
And then there's the part of that search for sense that is distorted. That is defiant. That works hard to force things into a resolution. That is more about my need for resolve than anything else. That makes it easy to give God the silent treatment for letting it stay non-sensical. How dare He.
I think I'm starting to pick up on cues that kids know when I'm more about making sense of their lives than about being with them in the midst of the chaos. When I'm more about my agenda for resolution than about listening...being with...empowering...understanding. How invalidating it must feel in those moments when all they want is for me to sit and acknowledge that their situation is a mess. That their parents suck, and yet don't suck at the same time. That they were victimized at one point, and need to be accountable for victimizing others. That they have committed a serious offense that has wounded the deepest deep of not just one, but many souls... and that they are not defined by their offense- that there is hope, healing, restoration, forgiveness waiting for them.
I feel one of the heaviest discrepancies I have ever experienced in my entire life sitting with these kids. The overwhelming clarity and magnitude of the darkness is devastating. It is my JOB to remember the victim at all times- to read their statements, to watch their forensic interviews, to advocate for their justice. It is just as much my job to sit with the offender and be all about their victory... to connect with them and enjoy them and aquatint them with their most enjoyable self, to draw out and capitalize on their resiliency. Some days I feel torn in two. I get to go home, to a world that makes a bit more sense. These kids and their families do not.
If I didn't know Jesus, if I wasn't ultimately surrendered at the foot of His cross, I'm not sure I could deal with all the non-sense. A few months ago I was talking with one of my favorite older ladies, and she said something that has been one of the most pivotal moments in my search for sense. She said something along the lines of, "Leigh Anne, you're trying to reconcile these realities... and it's not happening. You need to take them to the foot of the cross and say, 'Jesus... I can't make this fit. I surrender my efforts.'"
The message was this: in my flesh and humanity, my efforts and abilities to come up with a clear understanding of whats/whys/hows fall short. This side of heaven, I have to deal with the lack of sense. I have to sit with unresolve. But I don't have to hold it alone. In fact, I CAN'T hold it alone. It is one of those truths that sends me right back to Jesus. In him, in his depth-breadth-glory, there is space for allllllllllllllll the things that do not make sense. He has space for complete non-sense that a kid is both precious and sexually deviant. He has space for the unbelievable challenge of being the parent of the victim and the offender.
This side of heaven, we are limited in our ability to make sense of things. I know the enemy would love for this to be devastating, frightening, exhausting, deflating. I also know that God uses this to draw us to him, to remind us of his mystery, to keep us humbly bound to the promise of his faithfulness and omniscience.
Recently a new reality is beginning to impress itself upon my heart: the greatest truth about my God is non-sense. It does not make sense that he would forgive me, redeem me, call me his daughter. There is no way that I can make sense of his love, his patience, his grace, his justice, his pursuit, his promise, his availability to me. I have not earned his mercy. I have intimacy with him based on HIS pursuit, not my attractiveness or performance.
"God is thrust onward by his love, not attracted by our beauty. He comes even in moments when we have done everything wrong, when we have done nothing...when we have sinned." Carlo Carretto
When I am fixated on sense, (actually, let's call it what it is- when I SERVE sense... when I worship sense), I miss the mystery, I miss the soul- of myself and others, I miss surrender, and I miss the very essence of God's crazy pursuit of me... of my SALVATION.
I can sense God inviting me to enjoy a humble surrender to him in those moments when the resistance to sense is most uncomfortable- when healing hurts, when there is ending without closure, when once neatly woven life begins to unravel, when I am sitting with a wonderfully complicated kid.... when I am sitting with my wonderfully complicated self. I can sense God asking me to lean into the tension and discomfort. To see it as a reminder of just how ludicrous and amazing and rich His love is.
I believe in a blessing I don't understand
I've seen rain fall on the wicked and the just
rain is no measure of his faithfulness
he withholds no good thing from us
no good thing from us, no good thing from us
I believe in a peace that flows deeper than pain
that broken find healing in love
pain is no measure of his faithfulness
he withholds no good thing from us
no good thing from us, no good thing from us
I will open my hands, will open my heart
I will open my hands, will open my heart
I am nodding an emphatic yes to all that you have for me
I believe in a fountain that will never dry
though I've thirsted and didn't have enough
thirst is no measure of his faithfulness
he withholds no good thing from us
no good thing from us, no good thing from us
S. Groves
