Resurrection in the Library

I spend the morning sorting through resources in the seminary library. As I comb through the stacks, I look intently on a section with one search keyword: resurrection. I landed on this topic by happenstance. Or, that’s what I thought. My professor said I had two options: a passage in Romans, or one in 1 Corinthians 15. I chose 1 Corinthians, since the passage seemed shorter. But little did I know that this would be a culmination of the anthem of my past four months.

Term papers are stressful. It takes everything within me to get away from procrastinating. Even now, I’m doing a glorious form of it while blogging. Though very cathartic for me, is in no way getting actual work done.

Back to the library, I find my sources and decide to scan them into a pdf so I can read them at my leisure the following few days at home. The scanner is the closest thing to a suntan that I’m going to experience today. While vexing over the complexity of this paper, and wondering about how well or poor I will do, I see a guy I went to undergraduate at North Central with for one semester. Looking at him I realize something. We are no longer the kids we once were. Resurrection is happening here and now.

I was talking with my counselor about how I think things will eventually get better. How contentment and joy, I believe, are right around the corner. And she asks me, “How do you know that?” And I fumble through my thoughts for a while. I don’t really know, but I do. Something within me knows that all things go through rebirth and become new once again. Then, after what seemed like an eternity in my mind in silence, I look at her, and she says to me, “You know about resurrection.”

The past four months have been a painful realization of what I really desire. For a while I thought it was my ex. I thought if I set everything right in my life, he would come back. But now I realize I did what I could, I loved with my heart, fully and really. And now that my heart is repaired, I have forgiven him and let him go.

What I really want now is resurrection. I pray for it eagerly, everyday. I feel it some days when the sun is shining on my face and I’m out zipping from place to place on my scooter. Or when I have a free hour and I’m sitting on the porch watching the chickens peck around while reading NT Wright. I find contentment and joy there. And resurrection is on its way.

A few weeks back, I wrestled with my life. Wanting everything to be BETTER. Hoping I could leave my job at Trader Joes, wishing I could be done with school and spend every day rock climbing and gallivanting around the city. This is what I thought it meant when God says, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

But now, in resurrection, I realize, God is making all things new. He’s holding me in my temper tantrums and changing the places in my heart to see that I am not stuck in death, but he has an amazing life for me everyday. Some days I don’t see it, feel it, or know it. Today, I think will be a day of resurrection because he hasn’t forgotten about me. He has made a grand adventure for me starting now.

And the anthem now plays, Today, I am making all things new for you, Joy. Keep your eyes wide open for resurrection is here and now.