Just let God be God...

I have an industrial piercing in my ear.  Most of you probably haven't seen it.  Some of you have.  It's basically a bar that stretches across the top of my ear.

I had wanted one for a long time.  Years.  I was reading about ear piercings a long time ago and I read this verse in Exodus about how if a master sets his slave free and the slave loves his master and wants to stay, the master is to pierce his ear as a symbol that the slave has voluntarily decided to be his life-long servant.  No turning back.  No second chances.  Consecrated 100% to the service of one person, no matter what.  I loved it.  I wanted a piercing, but something drastic, that when people saw it and asked me why I got it, I could tell them that it was my piercing that symbolizes my commitment to serve my God for as long as I will live.  In essence, saying "I don't want to leave.  I love you.  I will be a slave forever, no matter what happens here on out."  A reminder to myself of my dedication to Christ.

When I got it done, I asked that if instead of a straight bar it could be bent to look like a heartbeat, which is why it's bent the way it is.  My roommate Beckie and my friend Andrea came with me when I got it done (to witness all the blood and gore - let me tell you, I have never been in so much pain in my life.  It's 2 holes and it HURTS!)  Only a few days after I got the piercing done, beautiful Andrea passed away in a terrible accident on the river.  Suddenly this heartbeat in my ear became a second reminder - of all the lessons I learned from this incredible young woman and the ways that God was moving in my heart as a result.

Andrea had come over to the Island and spent five days with myself and my roommate prior to her death and looking back, it amazes me of the magnitude of that gift from God.  We watched the stars and stayed up way too late and I got pierced and Andrea filled our house with music all day long.  There was drama and tears and laughter.  She left on a Tuesday and when we got the news the very next day of the accident that had taken her life, everyone was stunned.  This beautiful young girl, so full of life...

I remember thinking how I had been planning to go the river that Wednesday, but didn't.  And how easily it could have been me.  Or anyone.  Nothing reminds you of the brevity of life until someone so young and full of it loses theirs.

When I say that those five days were an incredible gift, I cannot even begin to describe it.  And I won't even try, because no words I could write could convey of the beauty and grace of God in those five days.  I will never forget the last words that she said to me when I dropped her off at the ferry.  I had had a pretty emotional morning and she gave me a hug and said so simply "Stop trying to figure it all out.  Just let God be God."

Those words rang in my ears constantly for the next few weeks as I attended not only hers, but another funeral as well.  After what had been an amazing summer, an amazing year, I found myself falling apart, struggling to make sense of everything that had happened, barely finding the courage to sit down and think about it, much less sort through it in my heart.  "Be still and know that I am God," the constant whisper over me.

I look back now and I am amazed by the grace of God in the midst of things that will never make sense to me.  I do not understand Him, but I do not have to.  He is in Heaven and I am on earth, so I will let my words be few.  And I will forever be His servant, because He is good and there is nowhere else I would rather be.  Even when people leave, die, or hurt me.  Even when nothing makes sense.  Even when He asks me to do something that I would rather not.  Even when I am confused, struggling, sick or frustrated.  My choice is made and you can see it on my face - I have chosen to carry His heartbeat forever in my ear.