It's a slightly indescribable awkward rhythm that weighs you down as you venture. You find that once you're on solid ground there is a freedom of movement you didn't recognize was gone while you were in the snow - such was the concentration of getting through the snow.
I love tracks in fresh snow. Tracks of couples. Tracks of groups. Solitary footsteps forging their own path, leaving the sidewalk behind. I like those best...Even more I appreciate bunny tracks. I imagine their hip hop hop, they pause, and their nose twitches as they test the crisp air. Bunnies are flighty little fellas and I still gasp in surprise and delight when I see them scampering through patches of grass (or snow) in the city.
Last night there was a man sleeping in a coffee shop. First I was surprised. Then I was thankful. This was a place of safety - warm enough for him to snore in peace for a while.
But they politely kicked him out while I was there. They weren't rude - they were closing up shop and began first by cleaning his place of rest. It made me mad; I could stay and he had to leave.
There was an odd extra clunk as he walked. I raised my eyes to the reflection in the window. Did he carry a cane? Was he wearing strange boots? Now outside, eyes roaming, betraying his sense of displacement, I saw his boots. The entire bottom of his shoe flapped, detached as he walked, exposing his feet to the cold and wet white fluff I had been admiring. My heart cried. I had no boots to give him. No socks to replace his tattered pair, no hat to cover his bare and balding head - his lengthy hair also betraying his homelessness - it was long and unkempt - the shape of a monk, the length of a rocker. I prayed he found a place of refuge for the night.
I felt guilty for my own groanings. Mine are very philosophical currently. I certainly have physical concerns as well...indeed some worries, but mine weren't so immediate or dire as his. I didn't need to ask, 'Where will I stay for the night? Will my feet survive?' I hate cold feet in my bed; he had no bed.
The longer I'm alive the less just the world seems. Suffering seems to be round every corner, staring back at me in the face of those in pain. Life seems harder than I remember it being as a child, even a child who thought deeply, a child who never felt she truly belonged. Many of my own generation are pondering these difficulties. Why so much struggle? Why is life so much more difficult than we anticipated? This isn't what I thought my life would be. Why is life so hard? Why are so many people hurting? How can it be that such breathtaking beauty and gut wrenching pain can exist in the same space? To the girl with the five year old Sorel boots, though falling apart internally and occasionally causing blisters on her heels, yet structurally sound on the outside and keeping her dry, the snow is a delight to walk through...even frolic in. To the man with the maimed boots the snow was a peril to his survival.
Why must one man have more and the other less?
I've found myself on both sides of this question.
Why must my life be more difficult than so and so? Why must everything they touch turn to gold? Why do they seem to have it so easy? Why must I work so hard for what I have? Why do I have no one?
Why on earth do I have more than they? Why do I have people who care? Why do I have food and they don't? Why am I not begging on the street? Why do I have a warm place to sleep? Why am I physically safe?
For a girl who wants to fix and take care of everyone these can be difficult questions.
I used to long for marriage. For a family. For delightful fulfillment in this world. I can tell you though that I have never longed for Heaven like I have this year. Sin must be a horrible terrible thing for it to have wrecked God's creation like it has. No one is exempt from its influence. Everybody fails. Often, it seems Christians are the worst offenders. And if so, then who in the world can I trust? I know all the right answers. But sometimes the 'right' answers can feel like empty promises.
When did we begin to so tightly grasp the notion that life would be easy/shouldn't be hard? The Bible never, ever promised such things. In fact it's full of suffering. If God is good, and He created us, out of nothing, and sin was the ultimate betrayal against Him, then we deserve absolutely nothing. He's withholding suffering that we deserve. If God is ultimate good, and the perfect expression of love, and is in fact love, then He deserves all good and had absolutely no business sacrificing Himself for the sake of His enemy. That's grace. Absolutely no one on this earth is ultimately good.
The world is a difficult place to be in. Has been since our first father and mother believed a lie and acted on it. Will we truly only praise God when life is easy?
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Do Not Grow Weary
Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
nor be weary when reproved by him.
For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?"
Hebrews 12:1-7 ESV (emphases mine)
Struggle is worth pondering. Questions are worth exploring. God is worthy of the pursuit of understanding. Justice is worth seeking. People are worth helping. The race is worth running - and races are never easy. The winning of the race at the end is made the more beautiful because of the training, work, struggle, tension, and fight exhibited through the strain of effort. I will never have to struggle so far as to give my own blood to ratify my innocence. And though I sometimes wish I could do this for others, I cannot, for sin is far more offensive and requires more perfect perfection than I could ever offer.
