I've attempted to write this post now on a couple of different occasions. Sometimes my posts are just like that. They roll around in my head and sit as drafts in my blog until they come out right. There's been a lot going on lately. For one thing, I moved two days ago. Yes, again. This time, to Forest Park. The move is a good thing and it went amazingly well, thanks to some really great friends, who I'm super thankful for. Somehow people are always willing to help, which I can't fathom, but I'm utterly grateful for. Last Saturday, I finished up at Lutheran, playing for my third and final graduation ceremony there. It was a bittersweet moment. I will miss those Lutherans, but am super pumped for the time I'll have to pursue my audition process and focus on my students this next year. In the end, most of the Lutheran kids found out I was leaving and they were sad, but I assured them they would find someone else equally competent. I may be the only Katie Beth like me in the world, but I'm not the only one able to accompany a choir. Freedom, indeed. And now I find myself in the midst of facing two and a half months of a long-distance dating relationship. Yes. You read that right. We've been seeing each other since mid-April and he left this past week to be a camp counselor for the summer at a camp on the shores of Lake Superior. 11 hours away. Til mid-August.
[... right now my grandma is reading this and about to fall out of her chair because I'm nearly certain this is the first she's heard of it... hang in there, Grandma. I'm rooting for you ;) ...]
And I would be lying to you if I said that this were easy. Because it's not. Long-distance blows. I told my friend Kirk this the other day and she straight up looked at me and said, "It's been what, two days, Katie Beth? You can do this." What further complicates things is that when I'm honest about him with my closest friends, I get a number of mixed reactions. Each conversation mostly follows a pattern of voiced misgivings/concerns, questions, and then silence (or some type of warning to be careful with my heart). Because Jacob is Jewish. And I love that about him. I can't tell you how much I've learned about life in the past six weeks of dating him, nor how well he treats me, nor how much he has redeemed of my previous dating experiences, which have been harmful and destructive to say the least (which is powerful when you consider that most of the guys I've dated have been Christians). And there are a lot of things about our dating relationship that aren't crystal clear just yet. To be truthful, I don't really know how to do this at all. We're both figuring it out as we go and I'm learning a ton and I don't really know what's going to happen exactly. But I'm trusting that the Lord knows what's going on and he will guide and direct us both accordingly. He will make things clear in his time, because he is good and faithful like that. Because it isn't always black and white, like you think it should be. In the meantime, I'm getting to know a truly wonderful person, who I'm super sad isn't here this summer. And I'm sad that the reactions I get to all this are mixed, at best. On the one hand, I understand. If I weren't me, I would probably be concerned as well. On the other hand, it makes me want to stop telling people about it, which is equally sad considering I'm happier than I've been in a long time. I made the mistake of telling him about some of the mixed reactions I've encountered over text the other night and it made me feel just awful. I should've known better than to bring it up in a text conversation and I don't know what I was expecting, but of course it bothers him that people in my life have misgivings about him. It bothers both of us. "Dating a Jew is a really safe investment," he says. "It's like buying a Ford Taurus. Jewish guys treat their mothers well, they treat their girlfriends well, they're good with money... it's so sensible, some would say it's boring. But your people think I'm like the motorcycle with flames coming out the back."
He was joking. And it's funny. But only because it's so true.
When I mentioned all this to a very wise friend of mine the other night, her comment was, "Wow, that's really sad. He should feel welcomed into our community..." My thoughts exactly.
About a month ago when I had just started seeing him, my mom mentioned on the phone that, "Maybe God is just giving you something really good right now to help you get through the end of a hard semester." And while that is a nice thought, it also made me think of my experiences as a child when I would go to the dentist and my mom would take me out for a milkshake afterward to soothe the pain. A milkshake probably wasn't always the best choice, considering the cavity that had just been filled, but it always made me feel better.
But I don't think God is like that. He doesn't give us milkshakes just to make us feel better. Everything, even things that are ridiculously wonderful, are hard in their own way. I think it would be more accurate to say that Jesus is there for us, just like when we're going through something hard, we have family and friends who are there for us. They can't necessarily change things in our situation, but they offer us their presence. And inevitably they will fail at times, because they're human. But Jesus doesn't fail. He may or may not intervene in our current situation. But more importantly, he offers us himself in the midst of hard things. He is our milkshake, except when you compare him like that, the metaphor gets totally lost because his presence is so much more than just a milkshake. He's a sweet balm -- the cure, really -- for our weary, anxiety-filled souls. I think Don Miller says it best in his book "Searching for God Knows What":
"It seems that Christ's parables, Christ's words about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, were designed to bypass the memorization of ideas and cause us to wrestle with a certain need to cling to him."
And I think this is true in life as well. He doesn't just give us a milkshake in certain situations or for certain situations. He gives us his grace in every situation (which we may or may not see) and most importantly, he gives us himself to cling to.
I miss that Jewish boy. I wish he were coming home soon. It's gonna be a long summer...
