Painting Pictures

There's been a funny little "theme" going on lately. When God wants me to think about something, or address something, it gets shouted out on a pretty deafening scale. Not long ago I had no choice but to starting thinking about forgiveness (even though I didn't want to, nor even could at that point) -- it was hurled at me in several different ways, by different people, with different methods. And just yesterday, when I finally wrote down those two thoughts I've been hesitant to address, that very afternoon #2 was thrown at me like a water balloon: our entire life, as we had known it, has been theoretically wiped out. So what exactly am I grieving? Why do I miss it? Do I really miss it?

We have a 6-CD changer in the car so I'm never quite sure what will come out of the speakers, but the disc on tap was thankfully not Van Halen or Kids-Sing-Along-Songs, but rather a newly-borrowed one, Sara Groves' Conversations. I had asked my friend Jacie to hook me up with some good Christian contemporary music (because, frankly, I wasn't sure much of that truly existed). I really like this one, and I'm glad it was the selected disc of the day, for the song that flew out at me resembled a cartoon, where a large arm suddenly pops out with an over-exaggerated boxing glove on the end of it. The song: "Painting Pictures of Egypt." I italicized the lines that really spoke to me --

I don't want to leave here, I don't want to stay,
it feels like pinching to me either way.
The places I long for the most are the places where I've been.
They are calling after me like a long lost friend.
It's not about losing faith, it's not about trust,
It's all about comfortable when you move so much.
The place I was wasn't perfect but I had found a way to live.
It wasn't milk or honey but then neither is this.

Chorus:
I've been painting pictures of Egypt leaving out what it lacked.
The future feels so hard and I want to go back.
But the places that used to fit me cannot hold the things I've learned,
and those roads were closed off to me while my back was turned.

The past is so tangible, I know it by heart,
familiar things are never easy to discard.
I was longing for some freedom, but now I hesitate to go,
I am caught between the promise and the things I know.

Chorus

If it comes too quick, I may not recognize it.
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand.
If it comes too quick, I may not appreciate it.
Is that the reason behind all this time and sand.

Sooooo ... what's going on here? Am I a modern-day Israelite, afraid to leave my Egypt because it's what I know, it's "comfortable?" I've done more than my fair share of grumbling with my "lot in life" -- leaving my family, my home, my friends, my church, attending a denomination with which I have some major disagreements, never feeling quite "at home" (dare I say, exile?) or never feeling like a "good enough" pastor's wife. I missed not being able to spend some holidays or important events because we were tied to the church. Don't get me wrong -- the has been a lot of good through it all too, and I certainly wouldn't be the person who I am today without those experiences. But it's been all I've known, in my post-college, married, adult life ... so is that why I miss it?

Am I afraid of what's in store, the unknown? Interestingly, many people whom I've talked to have called this period in my life my "desert experience," echoing the song's final words. Like the Israelites wandering around the desert, they felt some fear about what they were approaching -- the unknown, despite God's promises of the "Promised Land" -- and they frequently longed for what they left behind, seeming to forget that it was slavery ("painting pictures of Egypt, forgetting what it lacked") but wanting it all the same because it was comfortable, all they'd ever known.

Is this me? Do I really long for what I no longer have, just because it was familiar? The other night our church's intern and his wife came over to hang out (after the kids went to bed -- it was great!), and we spent a portion of the time talking about our experiences in "the church." As we talked I kept thinking to myself, "There's no way I could go back to that. There's no way I want to go back to beating my head against a brick wall. I have absolutely no energy for that." The irony is that they are now where we were about a decade ago, just starting out, full of excitement and energy, preparing to plant a church in Manhattan this summer (they are -- we weren't). I, on the other hand, felt like some kind of beat-up, bloody warrior retreating from the front lines, completely wiped out. Do I really want to go back to that, again, just because it's all we've really known? What in the world does that say about me? That I never fully embraced it in the first place? And if this is true -- that I have left my Egypt -- then where in the world am I going? I am in some serious manna-territory right now. At least the Israelites had a pillar of cloud/fire to guide them. I have absolutely no answers -- and maybe I never will. I'm not even sure why this "hit" me now, in such a strong way. It's definitely a lot to think about, chew, and digest, like an extremely stringy piece of celery. I wonder where it will all lead ...