Tag: delay

It Will Not Delay

It Will Not Delay

The wallpaper of my phone is a picture of a quote which says, “It will surely come, it will not delay.” Next to the plastic, rose-bespeckled skull on my desk at school is another quote which says, “The Lord is not slow about his promise.” I think I feel compelled to post these passages of Scripture around my life because I feel like I’m inclined to not believe them and I know that I must.

I find myself doing similar things in other situations, too. There is a massive paper I need to write (yet which I have done essentially nothing on) and I have a desire to write about the role of hope in suffering as a Christian. This is not because I feel particularly hopeful or because I view myself as a very good suffer-er. And yet there is an attraction to this tension between suffering and hope. Or, as another example, recently, I read the description of a fictional story and it repelled and annoyed me, sounding far too similar in some ways to my own life, and so I bought it.

I’m not sure I love the tension that life offers to me and yet there is something intriguing about it. At times I run from it, not wanting to parse the particular stresses and contradictions in life. Other times, I sprint towards it, wanting one strain of my heart to engage in a head-on collision with another. Or for the misconceptions or untruths I believe to smash brilliantly into the truth or clarity which they don’t want to encounter.

Perhaps it is simply reflected in how I feel about Advent. I love the time of anticipation, the preparations, the slow moving from darkness to light, the delayed gratification. However, I also feel the tension in the season and am quick to see how I also greatly dislike that same tension in my own life, when the end of the journey is not quite so clear-cut and the conclusion unknown. The season of Advent continually calls this tension to mind as we prepare both for Christmas (clearly marked out for December 25th) and the end of our lives (very unclear and uncertain for most of us). It is a delight and a sorrow, a thing of great pleasure and one of profound suffering. Yet it is a tension in which we all must live.

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To See Reality

To See Reality

Reality is not always at it seems.

For the past few months, I have continued to return to the image of Mary Magdalene waiting outside the tomb on Easter morning. The most awful thing has happened but so has the most wonderful thing. Christ has been crucified, but He has also gloriously resurrected, conquering sin and death. The world has been radically changed, altered from simply a fallen state into a place where redemption and abundant graces can be received.

Yet Mary Magdalene doesn’t know about this profound change.

She weeps outside the tomb, longing for her Lord to be present to her. Faithfully she followed the Lord throughout His ministry and to the very foot of the cross. He will choose her to be the first witness of His Resurrection and become the apostle to the Apostles.

Yet in this particular moment, outside a tomb where the God-man was laid to rest, she does not see the joy or the glory for she is cloaked entirely in sorrow. She aches, she mourns, she pines, she weeps. Reality is completely different than she thinks and yet, for her, this wonderful reality is not her present experience.

This collision of joy and sorrow has captured my attention for the last few months. The sorrow gives way to exuberant joy, but the sorrow is still intensely felt in its moment. Pondering the way this unfolded made me wonder why the Lord allowed Mary Magdalene to experience this delayed joy. He speaks to her, blinded from being truly seen, as the gardener while asking why she weeps and for what does she seek. As God, He certainly already knew what she desired and understood what she thought was reality. In a quick moment, He could have rushed in, changed her perception, and reassured her of the good news of His Resurrection.

Why doesn’t He? Why is there this delay? Why is any part of her suffering prolonged at all when such marvelous joy could be had in that moment?

Unable to solidly answer any of these questions, I have found instead a companion for when it seems suffering is prolonged, joy is delayed, and the truth of reality impossible to be fully known. Without clear answers, I experience solace in trusting that current circumstances and experiences do not necessarily dictate reality. When St. Paul says, “We know that in everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose,” (Romans 8:28) I can believe that God is working a good I cannot see. When it seems that God cannot fulfill His promises or that deep-seated desires will be left wanting, I can remember that there is more to the picture than meets the eye. Like Mary Magdalene at the empty tomb, I can be in a place which feels incredibly painful and yet also be in a place which is truly filled with boundless joy. Both can be true at the same time, even if I do not have the perspective to see each.

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