“To think that this is my twentieth birthday and that I’ve left my teens behind me for ever […] Yes, I’m sorry, and a little dissatisfied as well. Miss Stacy told me long ago that by the time I was twenty my character would be formed, for good or evil. I don’t think that it’s what it should be. It’s full of flaws.”
“So’s everybody’s. Mine’s cracked in a hundred places. Your Miss Stacy likely meant that when you were twenty your character would have got its permanent bent in one direction or t’other, and would go on developing in that line. Don’t worry over it, Anne. Do your duty by God and your neighbour and yourself, and have a good time.” – Anne of Avonlea
It’s often difficult for me to begin writing on any
topic, let alone the rather intimidating one of a year-end wrap-up. Nevertheless,
I have found the results of this annual masochism meaningful and, at times,
enlightening; and thus I continue. This year, let me begin with some basic
definitions:
Hope is the quiet confidence in God’s promise. Mercy
is love to the undeserving.
Just a short while ago, as the world entered Advent, I
was entering a time of great anxiety, fear, caffeine, and generally unpleasant things:
law school examinations. When I wrote my year-end wrap-up this time last year,
I mentioned hoping that I would survive my first-ever law school examinations,
which took place around end April this year. Well, I did survive—but not
exactly. I was hurled off my metaphorical horse and thrown across the
figurative paddock and generally got quite bruised and battered by a mix of the
bell curve, sheer laziness, and despicable complacency. But then I survived. As
Robert Frost once said, “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned
about life: it goes on.”
In law school (or any school), life goes on, only to
bring you to the next round of examinations. This time I was full of fear. I
didn’t know for sure if I’d done so badly the previous time round because of
bad luck, insufficient preparation, or sheer stupidity. I began my preparations
later than I probably should’ve, but worked harder than I ever had before,
driven by the fear of failure, by the fear of being proven too stupid for law
school, by the fear of comparisons, and by the fear of letting people down. It
was all rather negative, and I started joking with my friends about also ‘preparing
for a back-up career’ around this time.
Jump back to the timeline as the world sees it: the
Church was entering Advent, a time of preparation for the arrival of our Lord
Jesus at Christmas. After the dreadful dreaded law school examinations ended, I
couldn’t help but compare the two periods of preparation which I had just
simultaneously gone through. Why was
one so different from the other? How I
could reconcile the two, bring the peace and joy of one into the fear and
self-loathing of the other?
I realized that when one is making ready the way of
the Lord, one cannot prepare for a ‘back-up Saviour’ the way one thinks about
perhaps trying out PR or journalism if law doesn’t work out. The path to God is
a one-track road; our one God waits in His heavenly home to welcome us at the
end. As for how we are to wait and prepare without fear of it not working out,
without fear of failure, without fear of losing out, we return to the basics:
Hope is the quiet confidence in God’s promise. And
mercy is love to the undeserving.
We have the audacity to hope in the light of forever,
to set our sinner’s hearts on this path to God, because we have confidence in
God’s promise. And we derive joy from this confidence. There is no “what if I
don’t get what I want”, because what I want is God, and I know it to be truer
than true that God’s promise will come
true. When we cling to this certainty of hope and we know what it is we wait for, we shake off the shackles of anxiety that
come from our lack of focus, and our lack of faith. And then, finally, we can
wait and prepare with hope and, yes, joy!
Sometimes, we are asked to wait and prepare without
knowing the ways in which God’s hand may show in our lives. I have written
several times about the frustration of not understanding where God wants to
lead me. For someone who is a frenetic planner by nature, I always want to know
what’s happening now, and what’s happening next. I always want key performance
indicators, to let me know my plan’s on track. I always want a back-up plan in
the back of my mind, in case Plan A doesn’t work out. I guess it’s always been
hard for me to accept that God’s plan is the
only plan, and that if His plan isn’t showing itself in the ways I expected it
to, or isn’t bearing the right fruit in time, I can’t say, “Hey, God, this
doesn’t seem to be working so I’m going to plant a different type of fruit and
maybe that will better succeed!”
Sometimes, I think God is trying to tell me, “Girl,
you have all the right ideas and all the wrong ways of achieving them. Just
have patience, keep your calm, and trust in ME.”
I think 2015 has, above all, been a humbling year.
2014 was good in that it showed me how to get myself together after Plan A
falls apart and how to ‘kick the shit out of Option B’ (Sheryl Sandberg). 2015
has taught me that sometimes the only Option
B available is to wait it out. Sometimes, the only thing you can do when you
have been winded and hurt and positively ground to dirt is to breathe, and to
remind yourself that if nothing else, you have God, and what does God do but
love the undeserving? I have been proud and impetuous; I have been complacent;
I have let other things dictate my happiness than the one thing which warrants
it most: God’s unconditional love.
We don’t always understand what has been said or done,
but what we can do is receive it in faith, and wait until it is made clear.
Just like our Mother Mary when her son Jesus was lost at the temple, and she
accepted how God’s marvelous plan was unfolding in the most bizarre way she had
never expected, nor could she understand. “But Mary kept all these things, and
pondered them in her heart.” (Luke 2:19)
Sometimes, there is no human plan that could make
sense of what you have been given. But we have to find joy in the blessings and
the little (and big) good things that happen to and around us; and in the bad
things, in the things we never wanted to happen, we have to find joy in the
quiet confidence that God knows what He’s doing, and He doesn’t chance His arm.
“Rejoice in the Lord always. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near. Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” Phil 4:4-7
In 2015, I was given terrible grades in my first-ever
law school examinations. I was called up to my scholarship office, asked to
explain myself to my scholarship officer, asked to make contingency plans in
the face of many tears, disappointed hopes, and confusion. I was given
heartbreak. I was called upon to question what I wanted in life, to question
who was there when all seemed lost, to question who I was when no one else was
around.
In 2015, I met new people. I made friends with those I
never thought I would be friends with. I stayed in hostel one last semester,
and made little shy inroads where I didn’t dare to before. I tried to be brave,
I plodded on, putting one foot in front of the other when I couldn’t see the
whole road ahead; I did it with friends and family holding one hand, and God
holding the other. I could not have done it without Him. And I realized—how strangely—it
all links in the end.
Every moment you have experienced since you were born,
every memory you have stored, every decision you have made, has come together
to bring you to where you are at this present moment. I am an amalgamation of
every heartbreak, every disappointment, every forced reconfiguration, every
reconciliation, every epiphany, every teardrop, and every song I have ever
sung. I am a mix of those late nights staring at the lights of hostel opposite,
unable to sleep; of those days when I stumbled to my bed unable to see through
the tears; also of the days I could not stop smiling for little to no reason
whatsoever; of the days when I laughed until I cried; of the days when I sat
quietly with a good book or a good thought and smiled to myself and prayed, ‘God,
it’s a wonderful world You have made for me.’
This is the gift He gave us at Christmas, and this is
the gift that allows us to move on, year after year, making ready the way of
the Lord. For it is when we know who loves us, who waits for us at the end of
the road, that we are able to face all the pit stops and car wrecks we may face
along the way.
“A thrill of hope
The weary world rejoices
For yonder breaks
A new and glorious morn!” – O Holy Night
“Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true,
whatever is honourable and worthy of respect, whatever is pure and wholesome,
whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute;
if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think
continually of these things – centre your mind on them, and implant them in
your heart.” Phil 4:8
For 2016, I pray that I will not lose faith in the One
who matters most. I pray to continue believing with all my heart that it is
truer than true that God made a most beautiful and wonderful world. I pray to
take pride in this and this only, that I am loved by God, and not to let any
other trophy this world may hand me make me proud; and conversely, not to let
any hurt this world may throw me bring me down for long, for He is my God and
my Saviour, and He loves me, the
undeserving, and what more could I ask for?
Have a blessed Christmas and a wonderful year of hope
and joy ahead.
