Abundantly With
By Andrea Lingle
“I love all those whom you have given me to sustain and charm my life. ” (Chardin, The Mass on the World, “The Offering”)
Considerately cheer one another on.
(McQuiston, Always We Begin Again, 20)
I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. John 10:10b
Her snaggle teeth flashed in her grin as she rushed to the entrance of the school-turned-arts-center. She had her very own violin in it’s very own case. All of last year she watched as the big sister and brothers disappeared into the mysterious innards of the building, but now she has her own class. Her dancing toes echoed her smiling face. Suddenly, her head disappeared out of my peripheral vision. I heard a clatter and a thud. Her blue eyes were full of embarrassment and grief as she picked herself and her very own instrument up. With tears barely contained by her lower lids, she showed me her torn hand.
Tears dripped from his chin as his watery eyes pled for understanding. “I don’t want to talk to anyone anymore. I can’t bear to hear, 'It will be alright one more time.'” Severe illness can swallow you entirely until it seems that the memory of health is just as blurry as the hope of healing, and he had been sick for long enough that the corrective lens of hope had become cracked and useless. Illness can make the hours fall into the habit of stumbling to a stop. Frustration seems to clot up your throat, and tears come way too easily.
When Jesus said that he came to bring abundant life, he did not say happiness. He said abundance. When we make a vow to love one another, One by One, we commit to the abundance of life. The abundant joy of a new baby arriving screaming into loving hands. The abundant struggle of dealing with a mind broken by trauma. The abundant disappointment of failure. The abundant comfort of being well-received. The abundant anguish of life taking an inconceivable turn. Even when you did all the right things.
Living with one another means being willing to perch on the side of sick beds without resorting to filling the uncomfortable space with empty words. It means swallowing the urge to abolish silence in the face of a tear-streaked face. It means listening to the the pieces of a shattered plan without reaching for glue.
Cheering one another on can mean letting yourself become respectfully still in the face of another’s grief—even if it feels like the hardest thing you have ever done. Because when you don’t know what to say, being silently with might be your best response.
Mentioned in this essay:
Chardin, The Mass on the World, “The Offering”
McQuiston II, John, Always We Begin Again