With Love to Spare

Spare: adj. additional to what is required for ordinary use. 

This concept of “spare” is extremely rare in our culture today. Most families, individuals, and society at large seems to be just scraping by. The national debt is ridiculous, America is content to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the tragedy affecting our world, and somehow our culture so easily tricks us into believing that the solution is wanting more, having more, and craving more. Paris. ISIS. The Syrian Refugees. This world is hurting, it’s aching, it's ripping itself apart at the seams like a jacket that doesn't fit anymore. There's nothing to spare. 

On a more personal and individual level, I'd like to mention something I personally have a hard time with. In college, there is this culture where it is natural and even "healthy" to be stressed, busy, tired, anxious, worried, you name it, because that means you are working hard. So of course the natural response when someone asks "Hey! How are you?" is "Hey! I'm tired and stressed, but I'm making it. What about you?" And you know what, that answer barely scratches the surface most days. Let me be honest with you, let me dare to live with my heart wide open. While it is entirely true that I am very often tired, busy, stressed, anxious, and all of those things, the kind of tired I am goes far past something a 20 minute power nap can cure. I am bone-deep exhausted. I am weary. I am disgruntled. I am bitter. I am angry. I am hopeless. I am utterly and completely empty. I have nothing to spare. 

Why you may ask? I am these things not only because of school, and the pressure I place on myself to excel, but also because I am about to complete my 5th semester here at Clemson. I have 3 left. Then I enter the real world. The adult world. Where your problems can't be solved by a WoodWick candle, an email to a professor, a call to mom or dad, a 45 minute nap, a 30 minute run in the rain, or coffee in your favorite mug. The problems are real. In the past 3 months, and even a little this summer, so much of the world has become real to me. One of my best friends gets married exactly one month from today. I take the GRE for the first time in exactly one month. I am writing letters, emails, and making phone calls trying to get the most influential people I know to write me letters of recommendation for Physical Therapy School. When you ask me how I am, when I respond with "I'm making it," on any given day that is probably a bold-faced lie. Most days I feel as though I am teetering on the brink of giving up. There are a handful of friends who when they ask me how I am, the dam breaks, the tears flow, the insecurities surface, and the words I have been hiding spill out telling truthfully the state of my heart that day/week. (Thank you to those friends who allow me to unabashedly share my struggles.) 

The vulnerability is hard. I hate letting people see me cry, but it's something that I do far more often than you may think. I can't even sit through a serious conversation with my parents without crying. I broke down in a class a couple weeks ago, silently crying my eyes out while a dear friend next to me hugged me tightly and whispered "God's got you, Sarah. He has a plan. Don't doubt." I am reminded of the story of Jairus and his little girl in Mark 5, how in the face of adversity we are to not doubt, only believe. I think part of believing is being honest with yourself and with others about how you truly are doing. Being real on the days that you feel like you are one more step away from collapse. So I wonder, why do I keep hiding? How does my charade help me? Knowing I have nothing to spare, knowing that what I have isn't even enough for me, I started being real. Painfully so. Started telling more people how I really was doing. Started copying Paul and boasting in my weaknesses. To my friends, to acquaintances, to my small group, to my professors (that was scary), and to myself. I have found that by being open with others, they are challenged to be the same way with me. These moments of bearing one another's burdens, the quiet camaraderie of insufficiency, of preaching the gospel into each other's hearts, has done so much more for me than my silence ever did. 

When I started on this post, it was supposed to be about how rampant our culture has become with consumerism and talking about how even when we feel like we have nothing we have love. In a way, that has come up in this revised main point. When I see friends struggling, when I have the opportunity to share the one thing that I have plenty of, I take it. I email the professor or TA and say I hope their child feels better, I encourage a classmate who is stressed and worried, text the friend who had a test today, I pray for my neighbors, I make an extra cup of coffee, wash a couple extra dishes, love on the kids in the nursery at my church, and take joy out of their laughter. These things, these beautiful snapshots into reality, they make everything else worth it. Because while I don't have much, I have love in abundance, because I have been abundantly loved. 

I suppose to finish up today, a couple things: I want to continue to be open. To be transparent. I want to continually recognize the beauty of bearing one another's burdens. I want to challenge the people I walk and talk with to be real. I want us all to spare time, love, and compassion. Both locally, and on a grander scale. My heart aches for the condition of our world. I long for peace, for restoration. I am tired of seeing the news painted with violence, anger, and revenge. I wish there was something I could do to staunch this flow of anger that ravages our world. I know I can do nothing, nothing except pray earnestly and live openly, knowing that the Lord takes my feeble, stumbling steps and my selfish prayers; turning them into a song for His glory.