“Often
when he was teaching me to write in Greek the Fox would say, ‘Child, to say the
very thing you really mean, the whole of it, nothing more or less or other than
what you really mean; that’s the whole art and joy of words.’
A
glib saying. When the time comes to you at which you will be forced to at last
utter the speech which has lain at the center of your soul for years, which you
have, all that time, idiot-like, been saying over and over, you’ll not talk of
the joy of words. I saw well why the gods do not speak to us openly, nor let us
answer. Till that word can be dug out of us, why should they hear the babble
that we think we mean? How can they meet us face to face till we have faces?”
-Orual's discussion of the gods.
Till
We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis
It’s been a while since I’ve last written. I could
tell you that I have been busy (which is very true, I recently moved, I have
two new, different jobs and I have been attending a new church somewhat
regularly – though I still have commitment issues.)
But honestly, that’s not it at all. I’ve been
afraid to write. I started to realize the responsibility of this blog and worst
of all, I began to feel doubt.
Why would God use me? I’m a mess. I’m childish. I
make so many mistakes. I’m selfish. And this is all a terrible thing to
believe. Well yes, my failures are true, but to doubt the statement:
Why
would God use me?
That doubt followed by the confusion of “Who am I,
really?” that I was dealing with, would unravel me.
Suddenly I was 21, and all the rules changed. And
everything else changed too. The places I worked. The people I knew. The places
I worshipped. The house I lived in.
But I am no stranger to change. I’ve dealt with
worse. What was it this time?
I have a rather strange talent. I may forget your
name or where I put my phone or what I may have done yesterday, but I can
remember the exact date of certain things. Usually it’s the date of when I
first meet someone. And sometimes, I’ll even remember what you wore.
Now August will always remind me of someone,
someone who I considered to be one of my closest friends. We became friends in
August and then we ‘unbecame’ friends in August, almost on the same exact day,
just five years apart.
Six years ago, next week, I hung out with a family
that I had known most of my life, but it was that day that I met my dearest
friend. It’s funny how you could know someone all your life and yet never be
friends with them and suddenly be friends. How often can you genuinely say to
someone, “You too? I thought I was the only one!”
We would grow closer, but due to distance and time,
we would grow apart.
One year ago, next week, we hung out for the first
time in a really long time. And it felt like how it used to be.
But the great time we were having would soon end… and
turn into an argument that would last two weeks.
One of the last things he would ever say to me was,
“I don’t think I could be friends with a girl like you.”
It doesn’t matter whom I was arguing with or what
we were arguing about or even who was right or wrong. I’m pretty sure neither
of us were right or wrong. But it was a simple phrase that changed my entire
view of who I was. It would echo in everything I would do and every decision I
would make.
What kind of girl am I? Am I a girl who drinks? Am
I a girl who will finish her college degree? Am I a girl who still believes in
the Church? Am I girl who writes? Am I a girl who could trust people? Am I girl
that God could use, that God would want to use?
All these questions, I became a shadow of the girl
I could be. I was so afraid that I simply stopped asking, not doing anything. I
just gave up. I gave up on writing. I gave up on art. I gave up on people. And
in giving up in all those things, I gave up on God.
See, I’ve been quite lost these last few months and
that is why I haven’t really been writing.
But God, He never left me. I found myself in Him
again in the last few weeks. And in the last few weeks, the Devil has been
throwing so many distractions and doubts my way to keep me lost.
I still don’t know what kind of girl I am. I know I’m a girl who has made
mistakes. I know I am a girl who is selfish. I know I’m a girl who has hurt
people and has been hurt by people. I know I’m a girl who is terribly afraid of
not being enough.
But God found me, and He loves me so much that He
gave up His son to die for me.
And really, isn’t that all that truly matters in
the end? That is when we have found our face, our true face, His.
