Anchor Me

image from standfordnews.com

 

Who are your people? The ones to whom you go? The ones who talk you down, who build you up, that you can say anything to, and probably have… The ones that are there regardless of if you’re having a good day or a bad day or a day where you just need to act like a bitch while also desperately hoping that the people you are stabbing will reach out and give you a freaking hand, or a hug. Do you have those people? If you do, you are lucky.

I have a few…not as many as I’d like, sadly enough, and not as many as I once thought I had, if I am completely honest, but I do have a handful, and for that, I am grateful. Some are family members. Some are friends that might as well be family members except for the whole last name and genetic code thing. But those are the people that, regardless of how much alike or unlike they are with me, get me, and remind me that I add value, that I’m worth it. Or to turn it around, these are the people that remind YOU that in this big giant messy roller-coaster of life, YOU matter, and have some solid ground, a place to plant your feet upon when you get back from hanging upside down. That point you back to what YOU have told them YOU believe even if they do not even believe those things themselves!!

(I’ll never forget the story of one of my wonderful friends, who was not a Christian, comforting another one of my friends, who was a Christian, and encouraging her to go back to church and fellowship because she once found such comfort in her faith….that’s friendship! Reminding a person who they are, even if you don’t agree with all the details of their life all the time….that’s love….and in all freaking honesty, it’s more Christian than many Christians I know. Reminding a person who they are in God’s image?? I don’t care if you’re Jewish or Buddhist….that’s pretty on core with the Gospel that Jesus teaches….a Gospel of mercy, grace, love, the chance for repentance….reminding a person to rest there? That’s godly…That’s evangelical. That’s Christian).

I digress. My point is, the older I get, the more I realize that these are the anchors- the tangible anchors holding us together when we are wanting to fly off. We will have our local churches and our communities that come and go through various seasons of life, but there will be solid anchors through the years that stretch through time, if we are so lucky, and can connect us with the memory of who we once were and who we are becoming. But these very anchors, while being so richly important, cannot actually be our ultimate anchor, the ultimate sticking point, in the end. In the end, I am afraid, we shall all realize, they are but grasping at the ocean floor yet unable to keep us from drifting away entirely… no matter how much they’d like. They can’t love us as much as we need to be loved. They can’t be for us everything we need them to be or want them to be….they were never intended to be that….never intended to make us. They didn’t make us….they were just made with us.

I’m reminded of the song Say Something by Great Big World. I often listened to it on repeat during the time my brother was away. It helped carry me through. I sang it, through tears, the melody, the harmony, with Christina Aguilera, belting it. Choking through it. We try our best in life, but we can’t save people, and people can’t save us. There will always be the moment when we misunderstand their words, take something they said the wrong way, or they misunderstand us, where we disagree about something that is so at the core of us that then we feel truly alone and utterly like no one understands, and in that moment, what will hold us? What will keep us together? Or at bay? It has got to be deeper. And it cannot be changeable. It can’t be something that will shift in the sands and turn with the tides. It has got to WITHSTAND it all, with me. Withhold nothing, just hold me. Is there anything? Something? In me? With me…for me…somewhere that can completely complete me? God, is there something….

…..God….is there any thing OUT there more than this in me and me….God is there something more….God is there something…. I’m giving up on me. God is there something, I….

THAT’S IT! That’s the “thing.” The one. Ontologically. I’m there. Even when I can’t feel it- that’s it, that’s IT. THIS IS FEELING IT. THIS IS FAITH. Even when I think surely God must be ashamed of the wreck I am or have made… or given up because “is she really down AGAIN?” but inevitably, as I cry on the floor, curled in a ball, drifting in and out of sleep, eventually I come back to it…. And take a breath. And blink through the tears, to remember, AND to know…. that I matter because God made me. That I exist because God made me. That I have worth because God made me. Because God made me. Because God made me. I don’t have to contribute anything to this world other than the air coming out of my lungs as I breathe to have purpose and meaning. THAT is the truth. Nothing else there. Just me, for all of God, all of me, all…just GLORIOUS out of nothingness, me, I am in the IMAGE.  And anything other than that is definitely a lie from the pit of hell- straight from Satan’s mouth to my ears, regardless of the channel through which it travels….

Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear:
    forget your people and your father's house,
¹¹     and the king will desire your beauty.
Since he is your lord, bow to him.

Psalm 45:10-11

Who are your people? I hope you have them. I certainly love mine. Treasure them, and keep them near. But at the end of the day, make sure whoever they are, they are just that, your people, and not your god. Make sure your heart is with one who NEVER says the wrong thing, never slumbers or misses the mark, is never late, though may tarry. Find that One. Hold that One, or recognize, that One holding you, all along, even now, from before and until. It just is. God just is. Thus you are, as am I. Amen.