No, I’m pretty sure I don’t want to go back and re-live my youth, even though I achingly miss so many things about it. I think what I’d rather do is to go back and take up where I left off in the many good things that seemed to be cut off too soon. I wonder if this is why my aches are manifesting now that I am further away from my youth; I grieve as I face the seeming reality that to somehow reconstruct or revive it is not going to happen.
So, I can either decide to live in a depressive psychosis, or I can ask, once again, “What is that I’m really wanting here? Is what I want what I really can’t have? Or, is it something else?” William Hazlitt, an old English writer and philosopher, called youth “A feeling of eternity.” This hits a nerve. Isn’t it true that what you most loved about your early days is not necessarily what was happening at the time, but that you had your whole life in front of you to experience things you yet wanted to experience and to make right things that didn’t happen the way you wanted them to. I think the ache for my youth is a disguise – what I really long for is to have everything the way it should be, as I see it, and to make right everything that didn’t end up the way I think it should have. And going a step further, most likely what I really want, and don’t realize, is to have all things right; the way they should be, even if my perception of “right” is slightly (but perhaps not far) off. The good news is: it’s coming…
He will make it all right. Everything. There is a word for this: redemption. God will set us free from everything that’s wrong, and restore everything to the way it was supposed to be; He’ll make it all right. We don’t need to worry that He will skip over the seemingly small things that are important to us; things that happened to us that we’d even be too embarrassed to admit are important to us. He knows about those things. They will be made as they should be. And don’t worry about those things that for one reason or another you think cannot be redeemed. Don’t put Him in a box. He can. Dallas Willard once wrote, “Nothing irredeemable has happened or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God’s full world.” Philip Yancey further writes, “God has promised that even the scars we accumulate on this fallen planet will be redeemed, as Jesus bodily demonstrated to Thomas.”1
You know what’s strange? I don’t think God divides my relationships or my experiences into youth and non-youth. To Him, the God beyond time, they are all now. When He redeems them, we won’t miss them, because they will be happening and enjoyed now! The past, future, and present will be made the way they should be, and we’ll get to enjoy it all at the same time. Youth – the feeling of eternity; of having one’s whole life yet to live, will finally be recaptured and lived forever.
So how do we make the leap from “Don’t cry that it’s over” to “Smile that it happened?” I don’t know about you; I don’t know if I ever will – completely -in this lifetime. God may choose to give us partial redemption here on earth, or we may need to wait until God’s full redemption. Either way, we must grieve what we grieve. In this, He will give us healing even here on earth – healing while we wait for full restoration. I will cry, and on good days I may smile. But one day, the leap we’ll make will be even better – from “Don’t cry that it’s over” to “Smile that it’s happening”.—-alg
1 Both excerpts taken from “What Good is God”, Philip Yancey, 2010
As always, I cherish your thoughts – even brief ones. – amy
So, I can either decide to live in a depressive psychosis, or I can ask, once again, “What is that I’m really wanting here? Is what I want what I really can’t have? Or, is it something else?” William Hazlitt, an old English writer and philosopher, called youth “A feeling of eternity.” This hits a nerve. Isn’t it true that what you most loved about your early days is not necessarily what was happening at the time, but that you had your whole life in front of you to experience things you yet wanted to experience and to make right things that didn’t happen the way you wanted them to. I think the ache for my youth is a disguise – what I really long for is to have everything the way it should be, as I see it, and to make right everything that didn’t end up the way I think it should have. And going a step further, most likely what I really want, and don’t realize, is to have all things right; the way they should be, even if my perception of “right” is slightly (but perhaps not far) off. The good news is: it’s coming…
He will make it all right. Everything. There is a word for this: redemption. God will set us free from everything that’s wrong, and restore everything to the way it was supposed to be; He’ll make it all right. We don’t need to worry that He will skip over the seemingly small things that are important to us; things that happened to us that we’d even be too embarrassed to admit are important to us. He knows about those things. They will be made as they should be. And don’t worry about those things that for one reason or another you think cannot be redeemed. Don’t put Him in a box. He can. Dallas Willard once wrote, “Nothing irredeemable has happened or can happen to us on our way to our destiny in God’s full world.” Philip Yancey further writes, “God has promised that even the scars we accumulate on this fallen planet will be redeemed, as Jesus bodily demonstrated to Thomas.”1
You know what’s strange? I don’t think God divides my relationships or my experiences into youth and non-youth. To Him, the God beyond time, they are all now. When He redeems them, we won’t miss them, because they will be happening and enjoyed now! The past, future, and present will be made the way they should be, and we’ll get to enjoy it all at the same time. Youth – the feeling of eternity; of having one’s whole life yet to live, will finally be recaptured and lived forever.
So how do we make the leap from “Don’t cry that it’s over” to “Smile that it happened?” I don’t know about you; I don’t know if I ever will – completely -in this lifetime. God may choose to give us partial redemption here on earth, or we may need to wait until God’s full redemption. Either way, we must grieve what we grieve. In this, He will give us healing even here on earth – healing while we wait for full restoration. I will cry, and on good days I may smile. But one day, the leap we’ll make will be even better – from “Don’t cry that it’s over” to “Smile that it’s happening”.—-alg
1 Both excerpts taken from “What Good is God”, Philip Yancey, 2010
As always, I cherish your thoughts – even brief ones. – amy
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