the lost things.

This past week I pored over the book Resilient: Restoring Your Weary Soul in These Turbulent Times by John Eldredge. I journaled pages of notes and have been savoring his words of encouragement in the days following turning the very last page. The truth he writes about what Comfort Culture and the pandemic have done to us, the written prayers, the permission to process every emotion before God, and the prompting to ultimately turn all of who I am and what I long for over to him has put some wind back into my tired sails.

In Eldredge’s honesty and humble confession he shares how during the last few years he has been eager to fix things and that he longs for things to be good again. Me too. He shares that part of the road to resilience requires that we process what we’ve been through in order to build our reserves back up. In order to recover before replenishing our reserves, he encourages us to reflect on what we’ve both experienced and are currently experiencing. We must name those things.

I’ve been all too fixated on what I’m currently experiencing, which can be easily summarized as a desperate need to control. To fix things. To make things whole again. One thing I noticed today was that I’m in a tug-of-war with what I think and what I fear people will think. It’s not fair to generalize, but in a few instances here is what I haven’t been able to wrap my head around: when I withhold my frustrations about situations from people, my internal world suffers. I all but collapse in on myself. When I express my frustrations to people, when I externally process an unfinished thought, or when I say what I mean exactly how I mean: I regret it. Because I can see how I frustrate people, how I confuse them, how much I’m misunderstood. I’m at a loss for how much I can’t control what people think. Or what I assume they think.

Days like these feel like my trust erodes because the longing to not feel so nonsensical or too complex is so high. It’s probably not fair, but maybe I’ve wrongly associated being understood with feeling like I can trust someone. I’m working at understanding that better because I sense on a spiritual level, Jesus wants to help me operate out of a healthier mindset.

And still I fixate on what I can control. I ruminate on what I cannot. Last week, my son lost an outfit at school during the chaos of drying off from the splash pad. An easy thing to misplace, a high likelihood of happening when there’s countless preschoolers. I couldn’t get past it. I woke up multiple times in the night thinking about that red Nike shirt and black shorts. I was just shy of making “Lost! $ Reward if Found!” flyers. My brain fought to have control over a situation that wasn’t within my power to fix, while my body paid the price. It’s embarrassing to admit this and I’ve played it cooler than I’ve felt. But something so small took over my thoughts for the past week. This unbearable feeling that I lost something.

I felt the Lord prompt me to pay attention to why the missing shirt and shorts (M.I.A. 6 days now) has weighed so disproportionately on me. Days have gone by with nothing other than my absurd need to find control in every corner and crevice of my daily life. But as I was driving in silence between errands, I heard Him whisper to my heart,

“You haven’t let me hold what you’ve lost. You haven’t grieved who you’ve lost.”

While I am good at processing what I presently experience, I haven’t been good at surrendering what I’ve previously experienced, as Eldredge urges. I can externalize what’s currently happening in my world, but I have a lot of growing to do in releasing what has been. What I can’t go back and fix. What I can’t rewrite. Somewhere along the way I stop surrendering it to Jesus and started forming a grudge.

It’s been hard to see the kind of grief I’ve subconsciously been carrying because the people I’ve lost are still living. And the loss among them looks different. I’ve lost both someone I never pictured my life without and someone I never even really had a chance to know. I’ve lost dreams and I’ve lost plans. Friends have gotten lost to both distance and lack of reciprocity. I’ve lost hope at times. I’ve had to grieve drawing boundaries in relationships that need them. I’ve lost trust this year and I’ve lost proximity to people I love. And in all of my searching, not even Amazon Prime can sell me a manual on how to cope with this kind of loss.

John Eldredge writes that the way into mental and emotional resilience is to practice benevolent detachment. I understand that to mean the gentle, yet urgent need to release control of both the things I’ve been entrusted to and the things that were never mine in the first place. In the second year of the pandemic, I was out walking with my dad and yearning for his wisdom. I had asked him how he was able to cope with a particular loss. While he was still in process, my dad pointed me to the story of Abraham and Isaac. You see, Isaac, though Abraham’s son, was never truly in the eternal sense, his. Isaac was the Lord’s. Abraham only physically lay his son on the altar once, but I suspect after that day, the spiritual surrender became daily.

It’s becoming evident as I reflect that in order to grow into a person of resilience, I must take on the same daily practice. It’s a rhythmic abidance, to give all of who I am to gain all of what Jesus has to offer. Rest from striving. Recovery from what I’ve walked through. Restoration of what’s been lost. Resilience to be able to face the hard things again. Reconciliation of my heart, my soul, my longing, to Him.

Jesus, you are the Keeper of the Lost Things. You are the Ultimate Reconciler. You have the power to redeem and restore all things. You know when my soul gets lost. And still, I’m never lost to You. Help me to relinquish what I’ve held too tight of a grip on. Help me to lay all of my relationships on the altar before You. Any favor or time I have with people comes from You. You are the Source I draw from for my needs.
Relieve me of my need to control what I’m not in charge of and show me how to trust you in all of the small things, even what my child loses at school. You care about the details, so I can have confidence that you care about the complexities within me. Teach me how to keep believing the best in people because you created them to reflect You. And when I can’t find what I’m looking for, remind me that in You all my joy is found. Amen.

Take care & take heart,