Meredith Shuppy's Blog
everything ends somewhere. / 04.23.10, 03:25 PM
Spring Break ended for our team with a jolting transition. Our team of four, which was whittled down to three at the beginning of February, had been whittled once again, down to a whopping two-person team. It was definitely a shock to come back expecting to continue on as a three-person unit and then to have to face some challenging circumstances surrounding the loss of another teammate, but I know that God is in control. I think that, ultimately, God is trying to tell me, “Trust in me. Not in what you can see or can touch because those things are temporary. Not only will they vanish when your life here ends, but they could vanish from you within this life here and now.” It’s easy to be shaken up about the temporariness, not only of our life here, but also of the stuff and the people we surround ourselves with. Things and people could literally vanish in one blink of an eye. I could see something in front of me one moment, turn around, and it’s gone when I turn back to it. Nothing is guaranteed to stay nor is anything guaranteed to stay away. So much about life is uncertain – I couldn’t guarantee that someone isn’t breaking into our house right now and taking all of my electronics, all of my clothes, all of my jewelry and leaving me and my roommate with nothing. I can’t guarantee that when I leave my house in the morning that I’ll come back. I can’t even guarantee that this breath I take as I type this won’t be my last. I cannot build my life upon things I can only experience with my 5 senses. I cannot because those things will eventually crumble and the only Thing that will never crumble, has never crumbled, is The Rock, Jesus Christ. If my feet aren’t on that, I’m sinking in sand that will slowly swallow me whole until one day, I’m all gobbled up, food for the belly of this world, food for the belly of emptiness and nothingness.
And as I think of the reality of this in regards to our team’s recent change, I also think of the lives that have been taken in our neighborhood by shootings and acts of violence. I haven’t really spent time processing this because, when I do, I begin to see the overwhelming sadness in my heart, and the brokenness of my Lover’s heart over these tragedies. And so I get scared and back away. I just can’t help but me overwhelmed but the unsteadiness of life. NOTHING is a guarantee. And there are people out there who know this. And I’ve heard that said to me 1,000,000,000 times over and over, but I guess I always thought I was invincible and that this life and all that it materially contains has to be the utmost truth because it’s all I can see. But Hebrews 11 basically says, “What you see isn’t what is true. Have faith in what you don’t see – it’s everlasting and REAL.” My Rabbi is teaching me that only He is real, only He can outlast anything, only He is going to be around in the end. I haven’t experienced, personally, terrible tragedy. But someday, I may and I think it’s a good thing to have a grasp on the temporariness of anything in this life and that God is the only One is always going to be there. I don’t want to be put my faith or my life or my identity in things that are inevitably going to change or could, at any moment, not exist any more.
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not grow faint or grow weary…
He gives power to the faint,
and to him who has no might he increases strength.
-Isaiah 40: 28-29
He is the only Thing I can put my life, trust, identity, and faith into. He is the only Person who is always going to be on my side, the only person who will never die or disappear in my life. He is the only steadfast Part of my life. I just pray that He can raise me up to be a woman of true faith in this.
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