Dear Stability,
Where have you gone? Were you ever really here? I’d like some part of you, not even necessarily all of you (though that would be fabulous). I’d like a place of my own to call home, not some place to rent, but some place to own. I’d like a husband, a few cute little kids (and of course the money to pay for them all). I’d like a job that not only pays all my bills but leaves me with a little extra ‘fun’ money to take an occasional vacation. I’d like to not make payments on a nice car, I want it to be all paid off. Any one of those things would be nice, just a little stability in my life. Stability, why can’t you share yourself just a little bit with me? Have I done something to offend you? Is that why we aren’t friends? I miss you, if, in fact, you were ever here, and I’d love to be friends (again).
Love,
Amanda
Wouldn’t that be nice? I’ve been thinking about this whole concept a lot lately. I can remember having a conversation with one of my bosses a few years ago about how my whole life is unstable (and this conversation is just as true today as it was 3 years ago): you have a boyfriend, not a husband, an apartment, not a house of your own, a part-time, not a full-time job. In short, nothing is really stable. Even when we find some stability we only want more of it. I can remember not all that long ago when I didn’t even have a job, now I have a part-time one and all I can do is dream about a full-time job, or at least another steady part-time job. Then I began to wonder, have I ever really been stable? Sure, maybe as a child I thought everything was stable and that I was completely taken care of…though I’d bet if you asked my parents nothing was ever truly stable.
So then I began to reflect…when have I at least felt stable? In an odd way I felt stable last summer. Sure, I had no job, but I had God and I had (yes, I do mean past tense) complete faith that He was going to take care of me. Ah, the ebbing and flowing of faith. When I have nothing left, it is easier somehow to trust God. But the second I get a little illusion of control over my life, trusting Him becomes infinitely harder. Why did I feel stable? Because I had Stability. God, I’ve come to realize, is the only stable thing in this world. We get an apartment and we want a house, we get a house and we want a bigger one. We get a car that runs and we want one with power windows, we get a car with power windows and we want one with four wheel drive. We find an amazing boyfriend and we want a fiancé, we find a fiancé and we want a husband, we find a husband and we want kids. If you give a mouse a cookie called the illusion of stability, the mouse is only going to want to eat all of the cookies in that imaginary jar of stability cookies. God, in His infinite wisdom, only ever gives us the illusion of stability, the illusion of control over our own lives for only in Him can we find true stability. If He actually gave us true, unwavering stability and/or control over our own lives we would be…Him. I’d like a little more control over my life, but I certainly don’t want to be God. I’ll stick with things the way they are if my only other option is being God, thank you very much.
Then, it hit me: we are made for Heaven. Simple, sure, and yet so easy to forget. We are created in the image of God, and therefore in the image of stability. God is perfect; He neither needs nor wants for anything. We are a reflectionof stability, but we aren’t the true image, we aren’t stability, nor can we create it. Reflections can’t create something solid – that’s like saying that your reflection in the water can lift a stone. Reflections can only create more reflections, more watered down versions of themselves. When we try to bring about stability in our own lives (and apart from God) we only create and even more diluted illusion or reflection of stability. We need Him to create and sustain stability for us. We are made to long for the fullness that we lack. We are made to hunger for the stability we can only ever find in Heaven, in God Himself. The more I reflect on all the things I want the more convinced I am that everything I want can be found in God. He might not build me a nice house, complete with a husband and kids and buckets of money, but He will rest my heart. He will hold my heart and fill it with His peace until the time comes when He calls me Home and we can all rest in eternal stability. Until that day comes in all of its glory, I’ll do my best to rest my heart in the only stability I’ve ever found in this world: the Eucharistic heart of Jesus.
