Living in the Tension.

Jan 25

Last week we said goodbye to our home. Like with everything in life, moving brought together the tension of grieving over what is lost and excited anticipation over what is to come. I am pretty good at change because I love the promise of the future, yet the past 10 years have taught me about the importance of allowing for grief for what was to live alongside joy for what is to come. Life is never one or the other, whether we choose to acknowledge it or not, the happy and sad live together. Side by side, in every situation.

After the dust settled, the boxes moved and floors swept one last time, I shared about our move on social media and people wanted to know where we are going. The short answer is we are moving to the community where Storyteller Cafe will be built starting this Spring, but right now we are in the in-between. Our old house is sold and closed on with new residents, and, our new house won’t be ready until the end of February. We have found a temporary home with my parents.

Being in transition has me thinking about how often life has us with one foot in two places. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are often saying goodbye to something, or choosing contentment in a present circumstance, while planning for and looking to the future. Even if we are planners and have everything laid out in a ten year plan, life has a way of throwing a wrench in well laid plans. Circumstances arise we don’t anticipate, pushing us into a space of both/and. Grief and joy. Hard and good. Here and there. Doubt and belief. Hope and despair. Love and truth. Compassion and justice.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t love the feeling of being pulled in two different directions. I would guess you can relate, as human beings we like to be settled, comfortable, and maybe it’s just me, but I like to feel in control of myself. My four year old says it best when she walks around saying “ I am in charge of myself!”. We like to believe we are in charge of ourselves and living in the tension of old and new, past and future, joy and grief can give us a sense of loss of control.

We are halfway to a new home, while still driving past the old one because it is where we lived our lives for the past few years and I realize this describes much of the last year of my life. At the beginning of last year I put the reminder from the story of three men who were put in a fiery furnace on my wall. “Even if He Doesn’t”. When three friends refused to worship a narcissistic King they were thrown into a fire so hot the guards who threw them in died from the intensity of the heat. Right before they went in, they said to the King that their God would save them, but even if he doesn’t he is still God. Still powerful. Still good. Still in control. If you don’t know the story, the three men went in but when the King looked, not only were they not burning, there was a fourth man with them. Jesus not only protected them from the fire, he was with them in it.

I am sure those men didn’t plan for a trip to the fiery furnace, and even more than that I can guarantee they felt very out of control of the situation. They were most definitely not “in charge of themselves” even though in their humanity they probably would have liked to be. These three men demonstrated to us the valuable lesson of trust and surrender born out of faith in a powerful, compassionate and loving God. They lived in the tension of the both/and securely; speaking confidently of the power of their God but knowing he could choose for whatever reason not to use it, and if he allowed them to burn he would still be good, strong and faithful.

2020 was a year to lean into this both/and tension. Personally, the tension of loving the extra time with my family and feeling the walls of the house closing in on us. Professionally, living in the feeling we were meant to move forward towards a giveback cafe in a year when restaurants were closing and nonprofits put everything on hold. And in my faith walk with Jesus, recognizing his call to move forward in faith as we raised funds and packed a home not knowing whether there would be a place to move or the funds needed to break ground on Storyteller Cafe in the time frame we were hoping for. Even now as I sit in transition I know this move is a tension hold. We are changing communities with the belief we will raise the rest of what is needed for Storyteller Cafe and that we will break ground this Spring. And in a way less dramatic way I feel like I have stepped into my own furnace, knowing God can do what is needed to build Storyteller Cafe and also know that even if he doesn’t he brought us this far for a reason that is good.

To live by faith is to live in the tension of both/and, to live in our limited understanding and trust God for the rest. This calls us to be obedient people of surrender, trust, compassion, love, joy and grace when life doesn’t go how we thought it would and we feel ourselves floating in the in-between of what was and what hasn’t’ happened yet. Practically this might look like loving people who are politically different than us while being disappointed, or grieving past circumstances while having and acting on hope for a future. Living in faith’s tension may mean acknowledging hurt from church people while not completely writing off the body of Christ or being open to opinions as a leader, even though criticism has hurt you in the past.

The other day I was asked to reflect on something I learned in 2020 and the lesson from this past year that stands out to me above all the others is that the foundation of my life has to be my trust in God, because as much as I want to believe, like Ella, that I am in charge of myself the world can throw all kinds of things at me that I have no control over. But what I trust in? That I get to choose. Living in the tension of faith is an easier calling when my trust is in a faithful God. Not in people, government, a church institution, leadership or even myself. All of those things will fail me eventually in some way, but God, he can be trusted. And this is the tension of having our feet straddled in two places, of being homeless, living in the middle; we must engage the world as Jesus would while not putting our faith in it.