The World is Thy Ship and Not Thy Home
After college, I moved to a new city with a new job and a new car. I didn’t know too many people, but I made good friends and found new roommates. The trouble was each time I found a new roommate, they would inevitably get engaged soon after and usually after about a year of living together, they’d move out and get married. Thus forcing me to repeat the process of finding a new roommate and/or a new place to live. I wasn’t in a financial position to afford rent without someone to split it with. I longed deeply for stability and permanence, and, quite frankly, to find my vocation. Eventually I had six roommates who all moved out to get married. On roommate seven, we both met good guys and ended up getting married two weeks apart. It worked out quite nicely for both of us.
Longing for Stability
I longed for stability and permanence and I have found it in many ways. I don’t worry about my roommates moving out and getting married or being forced to find a new place to live. But instead, in my four years of parenthood, I have continued to learn not to get too comfortable. Life is still constantly changing.
For example, when you struggle to get a little baby to sleep well, you can expect some sort of disruption or change in the process. “Lucy is sleeping through the night at three months old? Wow! I must be really great at this parenting thing, I should give myself a pat on the back.” Of course, until the teeth start coming through, and now I don’t have a baby who is sleeping through the night anymore. Maybe I wasn’t that great after all. And now Nathanael is sleeping through the night, only for a week. Or we’ve finally settled into a nice rhythm as a family, we have a great morning routine. Except now school has let out for summer and everything is thrown into chaos again. You can always count on something to change as soon as you feel comfortable.
The constant changes of life are not unique to parents of young children or even the sometimes unpredictable life after college before settling into something more permanent. Life is constantly in flux. Children grow up and move off to college, they get married and have children. Loved ones pass away, grandchildren are born, retirement becomes a reality. Heck, we are living in a world now that didn’t seem possible two or three years ago, violence and inflation and illness – so many unexpected struggles that don’t come with any guarantees for a quick solution.
A Gradual Stripping Away
As I reflect on these realities of life, I can’t help but thinking about the St. Therese quote, “The world is thy ship and not thy home.” This life is full of constant reminders that we shouldn’t get too comfortable here, it’s not our final home, after all. Life seems to be a gradual (and sometimes not-so-gradual) stripping away of self and returning to our true home in God. Often times these changes are calls to leave some part of ourselves behind, to rely more fully on God, to lean into him when we feel inadequate,empty, angry, or sad, whatever the feeling may be.
I can see this process playing out as I watch my dad close his bookstore after 23 years. It’s a decision that was made through prayer. And the timing was right, but that doesn’t make the process any easier. Because, after all, it’s a stripping down. It’s a chance to turn toward God who is “the one who fills all things in every way” (Eph. 1:23).
Of course, this stripping down, whether it be dealing with the exhaustion of life with little ones, the emptiness of infertility, the launching of grown children into a new life, struggling to make ends meet at home, the difficult realities of letting go of a job or loss, whatever they may be, are difficult. They are constant reminders that we are not made for this life. They are constant reminders that these ashes we give the Lord will be exchanged for beauty that far surpasses our imagination.
In the end, we have the example of the ultimate stripping down – Jesus upon the cross. He gave his whole life, holding absolutely nothing back, that we could live with him for all eternity.
The Cross
I just finished the classic “Kristin Lavransdatter.” It’s a book that follows a woman’s life from her birth all the way to her death. I do highly recommend if you have some time to tackle an 1100 pager! At the end of her life, she is left to grapple with it, especially her sin and resentment and pride. Yet ultimately she realizes that it is all a returning to God, even in death. So today, I leave you with a beautiful quote that reminds us of these realities of life.
She had finally come so far that she seemed to be seeing her own life from the uppermost summit of a mountain pass. Now her path led down into the darkening valley, but first she had been allowed to see that in the solitude of the cloister and in the doorway of death someone was waiting for her who had always seen the lives of people the way villages look from a mountain crest. He had seen sin and sorrow, love and hatred in their hearts, the way the wealthy estates and poor hovels, the bountiful acres and the abandoned wastelands are all borne by the same earth. And he had come down among them, his feet had wandered among the lands, stood in the castles and in huts, gathering the sorrows and sins of the rich and the poor, and lifting them high up with him on the cross. Not my happiness or pride, but my sin and my sorrow, oh sweet Lord of mine. She looked up at the crucifix, where it hung high overhead…
Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, 1081.
For prayer and reflection:
- Where are the areas of struggle in your life right now? How are you being stripped down through this?
- Bring this to Jesus. Imagine yourself giving this difficulty or struggle to him. Sit with him. Let him speak to you. What is he saying to you?
- Try to offer gratitude to God for these opportunities to draw closer to him. Continue to sit with him in the silence.
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