Naturalists are often encouraged to share their story with the students when we have a Christian school here at OSS. I’ve seen God do a lot of amazing things in the middle of a genuinely shitty time of my life (both parents got cancer, the guy I’m in love with moved 900 miles away, my car was totaled, I’ve been overwhelmed and all over the place emotinally and I somehow forgot how physically and emotionall draining my job is–not that I’m complaining).
On Wednesday we always take the kids for a hike at night and teach them interesting things about their senses, chemical night vision, etc. I also include spiritual components or simple affirmation, depending on the school, to my hikes. At the top of the mountain I asked my students to look at the stars and then look at the lights of the town below. Both are beautiful yes, but which are going to last longer? Who’s bigger, the guy who made those lights or the God who made those stars? I get the answers they know they should give, but to a little deeper into their heads I ask them if I can tell them a bit of my story . . .
I’m honest. I don’t shortcut much about how hard it has been the last few weeks. I tell them that I don’t know why God allows difficult things to happen. Awful things like war and genocide and rape (now at this point I will concede that this sentence may have been over the top, but I stand by the rest of what I said). I don’t know why I’m in this really rough season of my life. A guy I know asked me how I could possibly still believe in a God that would let things like cancer into the lives of people I loved dearly. Without thinking I responded, “How could I possibly turn my back on the ONLY thing/person that is going to get me through this?” And that’s it you guys. At the end of the day I still know that God is good. Have you looked at Job lately? God doesn’t have to answer to me, but he IS with me . . . He is still good. This got some of the students talking about how they’ve seen some really hard things, but they’ve also seen God’s grace amidst it. Grandparents and friends dying etc.
It was right about at this point of sharing that one of the teachers that was accompanying my group interrupted and asked, “Does anyone have a HAPPY STORY?”
WHAT THE?
I was getting to that. She stopped me before I could continue into my overflowing gratefulness for God’s mercy, grace, and love. I was going to tell them about how in the midst of his silence sometimes I’ve learned to trust in ways I thought I would never be able to. He is a good God. I have no doubt about that right now.
It turned out that she had stopped me because one of the boys in my class was in the process of losing his mother to cancer. It had originated in her breast, but by the time they found it the cancer had already metriculated into her brain. Now, it was only a matter of time before the end. CRAP.
At first I felt AWFUL. Then it hit me, maybe that was EXACTLY what that kid needed to hear. As someone who is also in a state of intense pain, granted my parents are likely to live it has been overwhelmingly challenging, it is absolutely infuriating when people want to paint over your suffering with rainbows and ponies. Someday those kids are going to grow up and be pissed when they find out that the world is hard, and bad things happen to good people . . . often. But that shouldn’t be a point of hopelessness. Hopelessness comes when when we refuse to admit the truth of life’s many difficulties and so we are then paralyzed in doing anything about it. I would much rather grow up aware of how hard it can be and empowered to do something with it than gow up in bliss until I someday got hit by the 2×4 of reality.
Am I still a bit bitter? Maybe a little. I got my first negative comments on the teacher evaluations that week. For being too detailed in my personal narratives and for being too sarcastic. I’m sorry, when we show up to a body of water that’s curving around branches and sand banks and is only about 6 feet across and maybe two feet deep and there’s a cliff face in front of us and nowhere else to go and the students ask, “IS THIS THE CREEK??????” How can I not respond with, “NOPE! IT’s the OCEAN!”








