I woke up this morning to my blackberry beeping. I work for lawyers so e-mails at odd hours are not rare, but there was something rare about these e-mails, and I couldn’t help but laugh. The e-mails weren’t funny in and of themselves. They were about a shower that a few of us are throwing for two friends that are getting married. It wasn’t the content that made me laugh, it was the names of the senders and the recipients.
This particular branch of the chain consisted of one of my good girlfriends (let's call her PINK), one of my ex-boyfriends (who let's call PhiGam - and is also one of PINK's ex-boyfriends), and our co-ex-boyfriend’s mom. To make this even more juicy, PINK is now married to a man who dated another one of our friends, who before that dated another one of my friends. This man, PINK's husband, has a best friend who is also an ex-boyfriend of mine and who is the reason I moved to the city that I live in. And that, ladies, is just the first layer. I know. I know. I know what you’re thinking… I need a diagram and… you can’t make this stuff up.
And that’s when it hit me… we can’t make this stuff up. If you had told me, two years ago, that I would have dated the same guy that one of my now best friends has dated and that overtime we would all become good friends not only with him but also his mother… and if you had told me that I would now be living in the city where I now live due to another guy that I had dated and that it would have ended the way that it ended… if you would have told me any of that, I would have told you that you had lost your ever-loving mind. And yet, here we are… one big, happy, incestuously dysfunctional family and… here I am, e-mailing from my home in Dallas, Texas (the place, not 6 months earlier, I had sworn I would NEVER live).
You could say these are ridiculously twisted stories that belong on a Christian version of Melrose Place - and they are. You could say that these are amazing stories of empathy and forgiveness - and they are. But they are more… they are all a part of a story - a story that none of us could write.
Billy Graham has a quote that says, “We do not understand the intricate pattern of the stars in their courses, but we know that He who created them does, and that just as surely as He guides them, He is charting a safe course for us.”
This morning’s e-mails got me thinking about this quote and this quote got thinking about a lot - about the stars… about how tiny we are in relation to them… about the fact that they are constantly moving… about the fact that we’re constantly moving. My thoughts made me pause in awe… at the intentionality of it all… at the orchestration that must be involved… at how quickly I, in my ego-centric view, forget the sovereignty of God… and at how I, in my humanity, doubt His ability to make our wrongs, right. We think of God's orchestration and our free will as two separate components - an either/or, but it's a both/and. He set us in motion, but He isn’t observing from a distance - He is orchestrating up close… He is moving… He is…. "working out everything in accordance to His will." {Ephesians 1:11}
The reminder of God as the great orchestrator always gets me thinking about Joseph around the time of his notorious coat of many colors. Remember the story? His brothers were jealous... he talked crazy talk about how, in his dreams, he was ruling over them and then he gets this cool, albeit too colorful for my taste, coat. Well, that's the last straw - those boys had had enough of their little brother and they take him out to kill him. They throw him into a pit, but, at the last minute, a caravan shows up and the brothers decide to instead sell him into slavery in Egypt thus beginning... well, everything...
THEN, Joseph, after several years of suffering through an unjustified jail sentence, is remembered by a man at just the moment that he could help Pharaoh. Joseph’s assistance to Pharaoh earned him the title of second in command right before a drought hit Israel. THEN, the drought, that hit Israel, sent Joseph’s back-stabbing brothers to Egypt and, due to his new position, Joseph is able to save not only them, but also the entire nation. THEN that nation, Israel, stayed and was ultimately enslaved in Egypt until a baby in a basket heard from a burning bush that he was supposed to save them. THEN, ten plagues, a parted sea and lots of manna from the sky and water from rocks later, this nation made it back to their promise land. THEN, in trying to take over this promised land, Joshua sent in a spy, who had to hide at the home of a prostitute named Rahab THEN this unlikely pair marry and have a son named Boaz. THEN, Boaz ends up marrying Ruth, who was also an unlikely candidate - THEN Boaz and Ruth end up having a son whose grandson is David. THEN David has an affair and because of the affair has a son named Solomon. THEN a few generations later, from Solomon, comes another son named… you ready for this, Jesus. All because of a caravan... a caravan that, if you look into it (which I couldn't resist) had to leave its starting location over two years before Joseph was placed into that pit.
I love so much in this. I love that the Lord knew Joseph would be in a pit. I love that He got a caravan moving years before so that it would be at just the right place at just the right time. I love that He can do that - I love that He can do that and still keep our free will intact. I love that the lineage of Christ includes a prostitute, a widowed foreigner, an adulteress, a murderer, an arrogant dreamer, and a doubting man... all of whom imperfect, but all of whom had a moment where they chose to bow to a perfect God with a perfect plan.
I love that I don't get it. I love that every time I use a superlative... God makes me do just the opposite. I love that He has taken me crazy places. I love that He throws curveballs. I love that He yanks things out of my hand. I love that He makes this planner daily throw away her plan.
I love that He allowed the lineage of His son to be a complicated tale of crazy souls so that we would know that He can use anyone and that nothing is too big for Him.
He has a plan. He has always had a plan. He is the God who can do all things and His plan CANNOT be thwarted. {Job 42:2}
The stories, from my personal life and the lives of my friends seem funny now, but none of them were funny then… they involve broken hearts and betrayals of trust. They are stories of wounded people wounding others, but they are also a reflection of a frighteningly sovereign and supremely faithful God. I love what Joseph told his brothers when he, years after they had tried to take his life, found himself saving their lives. As they stood shaking before him, he said to them in Genesis 50:20, “You intended it to harm me, but God intended it for good.”
If you are over the age of six and have had a relationship that went deeper than check yes or no, I am willing to bet that you have had your heart broken or been the breaker of hearts or both. Even at our best, we are wounded wretches who hurt others and get hurt ourselves. Thank God, we have a God that is bigger than the messes that we create… thank God, there is a God that turns our trash into His treasure… thank God, there is a God who is not thrown for a loop by the decisions we make, but who instead is graciously weaving a story of redemption.
Thank God, He has a plan.
If you’re dating life is complicated… take Him your stories, take Him your hurts and then trust Him. Twisted tales are His specialty… they’re the best backdrop for His glory.
-B.B.
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