Frühlingsglaube*

I was backing down my driveway today when I drifted left into a giant pile of snow. Throwing it into first, I spun my front tires in ice, lurching the vehicle back and forth. Rachel got the neighbor and came out to help push. I got out to check out the situation and landed my once dry foot into a slushy puddle.

My goal for the year has been to find full time employment. In my mind, that would be the marker of assimilation into a new
culture, maturity, sustainability, and success as a husband. It really is my goal. I've met with a "life coach", searched for jobs, applied for jobs, asked around, and networked with people. It seems like the more I apply myself toward my goal, the less traction I feel. Spinning tires on ice.

I grabbed a shovel and began digging the heavy mound of ice from behind my rear wheel. I put the car in reverse, spun the wheels, and with some grunts and pushes from Rachel and Matt, I was free. Of course, the whole road is covered in ice. The whole state is! Eventually the snow will melt, the air will warm and the trees will begin to bud again. But right now it's the dead of winter and there's not much I can do to change it.

Since moving to Michigan, I have been drawn by God into what I call a wilderness, a place of desolation where God has taken things away from me. He has removed me from my family, my job, my culture, my friends, and everything familiar and placed me with people and things I do not know.

It's during this time something has been growing inside of me. I feel a deep and almost incommunicable desire for the kingdom of God to come in my heart, in my relationships, in my community, and especially in the church. I am tired of reading about it, thinking about it, talking about it. I want to see it with my eyes and feel it with my hands, to tell a new story of God.

But every time I take a step forward, I slip in the ice. Despite my desires, I am powerless to bring them up out of the ground. What can I do? I learn to love the desert. May transition, low traction, slow momentum, high awareness, low applause, few sureties, many changes, raw feelings, untethered love, tired patience, growing pains, frontier resourcefulness, tough gratitude and deeper trust in God become the new markers of my life. After all, I am in the long season of winter where everything is covered in ice, except my heart, bursting with faith in spring.



*Frühlingsglaube is the title of a German art song by Schubert that I sang in my masters recital. It literally means "faith in spring". It's a beautiful song that describes the wonder of new life that never ends.