Life is hard and I will trust in Jesus.
I’m not going to lie the first week of Cambodia has been hard. The heat is equivalent to Texas in the summer, and air conditioning is scarce. Travel and transition is never easy, saying goodbye to close friends and a community you’ve called home for 3 months is hard. Having to rewrite routines and adjust sleep schedules and find new rhythm aren’t activities that I love doing. I’m a fan of change when it means new perspective, but 12 hour time changes and 100 degree climate changes and community changes all together are not my favorite.
But I’m learning how to choose in when I don’t want to:
How to get out of bed when my body says don’t leave.
How to dance when I want to sit.
How to laugh when I want to complain about the heat I can’t control.
How to be Jesus when I’m legally restricted from talking about Jesus with our English students.
This is a season of AND.
I feel tired AND I will go to ministry.
I miss Guatemala AND I will invest in Cambodia.
I am hot and sweaty AND I will dance.
I want sleep AND I will make time to spend with the Lord.
I feel spiritual oppression in the atmosphere here AND I will intercede and I will take steps to bring kingdom wherever I go.
Life is hard AND I will trust in Jesus.
I wrote this in an instagram caption a couple of days ago.
And I meant it.
And this season of AND is a lot more to me than an Instagram post so I’m writing a blog about it.
Semantics:
The study of meanings in a language.
or in my own words,
The specifics of how we choose what words we say in order to convey our true intentions.
The semantics of the English language are very complicated but very important. I read that “semantics largely determine our comprehension, how we understand others, and even what decisions we make as a result of our interpretations”.
Just as this is true for all English majors, it is true for us as the body of Christ.
The words that we choose determine our comprehension, our understanding, and even what decisions we make as a result of our interpretations.
So with that in mind, the semantic that I have found most important recently is the difference between ‘and’ and ‘but’.
My thoughts, connotations and concerns on the word ‘but’:
It’s dismissive. It acknowledges what was communicated; it then immediately releases the listener from the responsibility of giving what was said before weight or importance. It rejects that anything prior will still be relevant. It sets up whatever comes next with the ability to negate what came before. It signifies a change of tone, a change of action, a change of heart posture. It holds the power to turn tables from joyful to distress, from sadness to happiness, from dullness to excitement and excitement to dullness.
‘BUT’ is used to introduce a phrase or clause contrasting with what has already been mentioned. ‘BUT’ is used to indicate the impossibility of anything other than what is being stated.
My thoughts, connotations and concerns on the word ‘and’:
It’s additive. It acknowledges what was communicated; it then sets up the listener to receive the next information IN LIGHT OF what has already been said. It gives importance to the second concept without rejecting the weight of the first. It signifies a moving forward, a continuation, a causation, a duration. It holds the power to amplify, to connect, to introduce.
‘AND’ is used to connect words of the same part of speech, clauses, or sentences, that are to be taken jointly. ‘AND’ is used to refer to something that happens after the first, to refer to something that results from the first, to emphasize a progressive change, to indicate a great duration or great extent, to connect two ideas and indicate that they are being added together.
There is a huge difference.
I have been learning A LOT about that difference and how it affects my every day life.
When things are hard, my instinct is to say:
Life sucks, but it’s ok because God still loves me.
Life sucks, but I have community.
Life sucks, but it will be okay because God is good.
Now I’m not saying that any of these are wrong, I’m saying that these are insensitive. That these do not communicate the revival and potential that truth has, these dismiss feelings and taste bitter to the tongue. I am much more reluctant to hold onto truth when it is communicated with a ‘but’ because when the conversation is over, I STILL FEEL THE SAME. By using the word ‘but’ I minimize my feelings, I reject the difficult realities of what’s in front of me to make room for truth that feels cheap.
Literally in my head when I say these sentences, I read the second half mockingly and I roll my eyes. The same way I respond to my mom when she tells me come get my laundry for the fourth time and I know that I need to get it but I really don’t want to and I haven’t done it the other three times she asked. I cannot help but not really care for the second half because what’s being said is my reality is IRRELEVANT to God and IRRELEVANT to truth.
But that’s not true.
I realized that by changing one word, I change the meaning of the whole sentence.
Life sucks, and it’s ok because God still loves me.
Life sucks, and I have community.
Life sucks, and it will be okay because God is good.
At first glance, the meaning seems as though it should be the same. But it isn’t. Now my pain is acknowledged. There is no shift or change in tone.
This word ‘and’ means that the truth in the second half is APPLICABLE and RELEVANT to the truth in the first half. This word means that neither is exclusive of the other.
This word means that I get both.
When I read these in my head, I don’t want to stop at the period. No, I want to list off more truth, remember more reality, acknowledge more goodness and pain and comfort and love and peace and hope. I want to remind myself why each one is true even though it feels very different from the way that I feel, I want to shout it from the rooftops that:
Life sucks, and it’s okay because God still loves me AND HE WILL NEVER STOP LOVING ME JUST BECAUSE LIFE SUCKS AND HE LOVES ME SO MUCH HE DIED FOR ME EVEN AFTER HE KNEW SO PERSONALLY THAT LIFE SUCKS.
Life sucks, and I have community AND I GET TO BE ENCOURAGED BY MY COMMUNITY AND I GET TO LOVE AND BE LOVED BY MY COMMUNITY SO THAT WHEN LIFE SUCKS I HAVE A SAFE PLACE TO NOT BE OKAY AND A SAFE PLACE TO LEARN HOW TO WALK WITH THE LORD.
Life sucks, and it will be okay because God is good AND HE WILL NEVER STOP BEING GOOD WHICH MEANS THAT however much life sucks is either Satan’s fault or the brokenness of the world AND GOD IS REDEEMING IT AND WILL NEVER STOP REDEEMING IT UNTIL IT IS TOTALLY REDEEMED WHICH HE CAN DO BECAUSE GOD IS GOOD AND WILL BE GOOD FOREVER.
And that is why I am in a season of AND.
I hope to stay in this season for a long time because it is teaching me about the fact that the reality of the world is not dismissed by nor does it change the reality of truth and who God is.
Thanks God that you are a God who sees us, knows us, walked in our pain, and still chose the cross. Thanks that you don’t change and that the way that I feel does not change who you are.
