what HE OWNS

in , ,

There are strange and common fears that arrest and pull us like a horrible secret or the last page of a well-loved book—we want to know the end, yet we know when we know it it will change our lives. 
This is the calamity of living forward—there are no rewinds or do-overs, what is known cannot be unknown. But life, as Kierkegaard said, must be lived forwards, there is no other option. 
I am making spring rolls last night, cutting vegetables and rolling them inside wet rice paper. She is saying things about a decision: this choice or this choice?
If it were about shoes or a shade of lipstick, I would not have an opinion because the good Lord gifted me with only five pairs of shoes and the want of no more, and lipstick belongs on the mouths of grandmothers in Roman Catholic churches and Ukrainian family reunions. But the choice in discussion is more weighty than things like shoes or lipsticks anyway. 
When she has given me all the options I answer honestly, with as much wisdom as I can muster from my tired mind and spent soul: whichever you choose will not change the trajectory of your life and God is still good, holy, and loving. 
This is all the wisdom I can offer when my hands are messy with hoisin sauce and my heart is messy with fears of my own. 
Because here is what I know of the heart of God and the whole of our lives: we are loved and we are held and, in the end, we are finished and completed. 
It is a great and grand fear of ours to feel that this vapor we live in will make or break the backs of many, and I don’t mean to rob from you the sense of destiny on your life. But I know this and sometimes I think it is the only thing I know: He is more grand and great and glorious than the dominos I will leave falling behind me and the catastrophes in front of me. 
Your destiny will not be robbed as long as He owns the house. 
And He does, friends, He does.