It's interesting how a seemingly menial task can invoke a flood of memories one would much rather forget. I mean really? I am just steaming cabbage. Next thing I know hot tears fall from my eyes and evaporate, becoming lost in the vapor rising to the ceiling.
It's not that cabbage makes me cry. It is more like what that cabbage could have meant. Perhaps a cool evening spent cooking and eating steamed cabbage, laughing in the fortunes of love and family - that seemingly menial cabbage serving as a bridge between two worlds and two lives that fate brought together.
I know you're thinking it's crazy that I become so metaphoric and emotional while steaming cabbage. Maybe what I am trying to say is that for one moment, loss ached inside of me like a empty void. It reminded me that I would never eat cabbage with that person again. It reminded me that sometimes people leave. Sometimes dreams and hopes don't come to pass. Sometimes there isn't a happy ending. Sometimes we must suffer.
When I am alone, I sometimes gaze out into apparent nothingness and I wonder. What if things went differently? What if I tried harder? What if I said something... anything? 'What if' are some of the two most dangerous words I know. Those six letters can wreak so much havoc... damage so much... As someone wise once said, "It does not do well to dwell on dreams and forget to live."
I now wonder if maybe that is my problem. I am past the 70% mark in my funding. I mean eight months of fear and faith and difficulty brought me to a point I never believed I could reach - I am on campus. I am not able to spend all my time there yet, but I have made it to a milestone that seemed inconceivable. God has provided so much, he has carried me through so much, he has opened my heart to receive all the joy and celebration and adventure that following him promises, but I have felt so... well, I guess I have been crying over steamed cabbage.
You see, the world has opened up before me. Freedom awaits. It calls my name. It beckons me forth - tantalizing my senses with shivers of hope. Yet my feet refuse to move. I picture myself running full force, hair whipping in the wind and eyes wide as I step into this land that God himself has promised me, but I stand still. The dreams... the hopes... the memories of the past grip onto me.
Then 'what if' finds me again.
What if God invites us to follow him out of places we didn't want to leave?
Out of relationships?
Out of jobs?
Out of our hometowns?
Out of our comfort zones?
Will we stand still... clinging onto what we lost, what we loved, what we wanted? Will we put our hand to the plow, yet look back longingly over our shoulder to what we used to have or be? I think I have been mourning the lost promises of the past a little too long.
But this time... this time I am wiping away the tears. I am pulling myself off the ground. I am looking ahead at that horizon - gold, orange, pink all fading into one spectacular moment of light - and I am going to go. With everything I have... with all my fervor and passion and skill. I will replace the empty void of lost dreams with promises of hope. I will strap on crowns of beauty for ashes. I will come and see all that Jesus has to offer, and I will take on his dream for my life. I will leave this place, Lord. I will follow you where ever you lead. And I will rejoice.
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