February 2020 | Mercy Me! I've Got Work to Do

Too Small Coffee Table; Too Little Faith

February 25, 2020lpatangan

I am trying to center myself so I can do what I need to do and be who I need to be. This never seems to have anything to do with my daily tasks that are so time-consuming. Regardless of how centered I am, I still have to scoop kitty litter and make supper. I have to do life. Yet often, life feels more adrift than this anchoring I seek.

The need for centering pulls at me reminds me that my busyness isn’t my primary business. I sit with it sometimes and try to make sense of what is so urgent. It’s uncomfortable and I have to fight the urge not to get in my car and drive to the store to look for a new coffee table. I’ve decided my coffee table is too small for my living room and even though that involved a small measure of math, it makes sense to me. This centering that I crave – not so much. I know it’s God by its persistence and truth be told, it makes the distraction of the coffee table seem like a welcome muse.

Then, of course, I question why I can’t sit with this God I adore and listen to what I need to do and who I need to be. Why do I resist? Why do I let myself succumb to distraction? God probably doesn’t think the six-inch difference in a coffee table is paramount to his plans for me.

So, I still myself. It chafes this stillness that God commands. I listen to the emptiness of this space and try to discern what is so relentlessly nagging at me. Is God in the quietness? The busyness? The mundane? The despair? The spiral? The spaces between it all? “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.” (Proverbs 15:3).

The Search is Over: Finding Love in Him

February 18, 2020lpatangan

I was in my car when the 1985 song, “The Search is Over,” by Surrender came on the radio. I had not heard it in years and for a moment it reminded me of being a 13-year old girl pining over some boy or another who refused to acknowledge my existence in a reasonable way like a bouquet of flowers, box of chocolates, or a boom box blaring a romantic song outside my bedroom window. (Then I remembered it was my Whitney Houston album I played at such somber times of adolescent angst – not Surrender.)

Lost in thought about those days when I would cocoon myself within my four lavender bedroom walls and lament my imperfect body, wardrobe, and life’s entirety, I had a most random thought of a certain guy. He was never my crush, or who I fixated on when I drowned myself in pity, or whom I even had a fleeting thought when I sat idly and listened to sad songs about people who once knew love. I heard the lyrics “The search is over. You were with me all the while,” and I thought of God. I was surprised at how my brain went from unrequited teenage infatuation to the essence of total and complete love that is God.

Yet it made sense to me because in the time since record albums were replaced with cassette tapes, and cassette tapes were replaced with CD’s, and CD’s were replaced with music subscriptions, and music itself degraded into some sort of homage to one’s booty — I’ve searched for many things. I have searched for the perfect man, house, job, couch, school, church, outfit, plant, publisher, vacation, vocation, doctor, and dog. I have spent so very much time on a search of some sort. What I found is that none of it compares to my relationship with God. In all of the searching that so often felt paramount to my satisfaction, to any chance of happiness, all I really needed was what I already had. An abiding God, who faithfully stood at my side, humoring my distractions, patiently awaiting my many detours, and holding me upright despite wayward falls. “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain,” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Read more →

Smiling Hearts, Frozen Iguanas, and Viral Monkeys

February 11, 2020lpatangan

Reality can be absurd.

During an unusual cold snap in South Florida, there were news stories cautioning people to watch out for frozen iguanas falling from trees. Days later those stories were replaced by articles about people selling iguana meat – to eat. I live in North Florida so when the temperature dipped, I only had to worry about covering my plants and wearing closed-toe shoes. Still, I followed the stories about the non-native iguanas and the people who eat them.

More recently, I have been reading about sightings of non-native wild monkeys in the area and other parts of the state. Apparently, some of these monkeys are infected with a deadly strain of Herpes B. These herpes positive primates have been known to attack when their territory feels threatened. So, now not only do Floridians have to worry about being bonked in the head by a comatose iguana, or whether it’s actually chicken in our Brunswick stew or reptile meat, we also have to worry about diseased monkeys charging us.

And people think life here is just sandy beaches and lulling surf.

I often contemplate the absurdity of life. There is so much truth that reads like fiction. So many realities that seem fantastical. One of the biggest of which is that there exists a God who so madly loves us that he died for us. Of all the ways he could have mesmerized, awed, and astonished us to show his love, he chose death. I can’t say that would have been my pick. On the surface, it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense that he willingly gave his life out of love for us. When you contemplate the suffering that preceded his death, it feels as absurd as free-falling iguanas. “But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us,” (Romans 5:8). Much to the hindrance of my relationship with God, I have struggled with the reality of this truth. How could he possibly know me so completely and still love me unconditionally? How could he identify all my weaknesses and still want me? How could he acknowledge all my failings and forgive me? And my favorite wondering of all, how could he allow me to suffer when in a breath he could remove the entirety of the world’s suffering?