My desks have always been a place of piles, of constant working, but also of me. I've always kept pictures of people I love, books that mean a great deal to me, and for those of you who know me well- yes, every desk I have every occupied also held a dictionary.
My desk at home is no different: cards from loved ones, the picture of my family with the president in the Oval Office, a beautiful letter written to me by a great friend.
At my last job, I had a massive desk. Honestly, the top was as large as a double bed. Lots of space for stuff. I liked to keep things my staff had produced for the President that meant something to me. A copy of his address to the Knesset, his words at Tony Snow's funeral, remarks from the Pope's visit all graced the area in my eyesight.
When I left the White House and set up my office at home, I wanted all of those things near me; things that remind me what it is like to serve such a noble cause. Because that corner of my desk "needed something" to hold the pages down and bring the space together, I placed upon them a cross engraved with the words from Ecclesiastes: He has made everything beautiful in its time.
Everything.
Not just the stuff that was good already or the things that were easy to make beautiful.
There it is, sitting next me, overlooked all this time. He has promised to make all things beautiful in their time.
These past 24 hours have been ugly. I've been angry. Please don't mention the steps and stages of grief to me or I might just put you in one of those boxes they tell me I pass through on my way to being "normal" again. Anger is not an emotion I handle well. It is hard for me and it always leaves me full of grief for expending emotional capital on someone or something that isn't affected by my emotions.
Nonetheless, I have been angry. Angry that the truth isn't winning out quite yet, angry that I have felt like this whole thing was my fault, angry that the other half of this situation doesn't have to take any responsibility for this, angry that after almost two years, after being so close to saying "yes" to forever, that I can be this invisible and be this forgotten.
But it's still there. His word doesn't change because my circumstances do. Praise Him for that!
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
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On my desk I have a lovely note written to me by a beautiful young women who was my student. She had gone through some emotionally tough times and come through those times even more wonderful than before. I treasure that note since she was the first student whose life I had ever decided to intervene in. I called her on the phone and emailed her and told her she needed to get it together, I was not going to allow her to fail. Her successes, while in no part due to me, remind me that I have to, at all times, remember that my students have lives that are happening to them while they are with me and that, if the circumstances seem okay, it is a good thing to insert myself into their life to try to help.
ReplyDeleteI truly treasure that note and wish I could help that young woman again. All she has to do is ask and I will do what I can!