Lent: Joey Feek

Time has been tight these days -- trying to finish up graduate school strong, preparing my recital (March 21st at 6:00 PM!), and working on putting up an opera in mid-April.  Stillness and rest are hard to come by, and so words haven't been coming freely.

But I just found out about the death of singer Joey Feek.  My brain won't quiet down about her story or her remarkable bravery to live even as she was dying.  So I thought it might be time to write again.

No matter how you slice it, life is disappointing.

I feel a little guilty writing that.  I'll quote Larry Crabb all day, but owning that truth myself feels a bit wrong, like I should qualify it with, "But there's so much to be thankful for!" or "But it could always be worse!"  Yes, those qualifications are true and there's certainly a time and place for them.  Wisdom seems to involve a playful balance of perspective, humor, and gratitude.  Always gratitude.

But I think we all know, way deep in our gut, that we aren't made for death.  And not just death in the physical sense, but also the death of relationships or dreams. And yet, here we are -- caught in the tension of God's "already-not-yet Kingdom," expected to live abundantly in the face of death and disappointment.

Scripture and nature suggest God loves to work in patterns of resurrection.  Over and over again, life emerges from death. God's pursuit of us is Redemptive:  We were once dead, and now we are alive.

Whether we see it or not, we are alive now. He has redeemed us and continues to redeem us now. Maybe all we are aware of in this life are glimpses of His redemptive work: His fingerprints here, a melody there.  Perhaps He asks that these glimpses be enough for us, and that we trust Him even when life doesn't quite make sense.

"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  For this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."  1 Corinthians 4:16-18