Tranquility but God

Words: Patricia Tse

Looking back at the past often evokes many emotions for me.

Sometimes, I feel guilt and regret and most other times, I feel nostalgia. What follows from nostalgia is a desire to re-experience moments as I remember specific memories, sensory experiences, or interactions with people from the past. While the initial desire to return to the past is involuntary, I remind myself that redoing what I had done in the past would never be the same as the past itself.

Even if I could put myself into the same situation I was in years ago, I, have changed. I no longer see the world the same way I did when I was in high school or in middle school. Likewise, the people who were part of that experience are probably not the same either. There’s been a few occasions where I’ve had to interact with that incongruence of realizing that my memory of something no longer matches the present situation. For example, I always remembered a specific middle school friend as being hilarious and in-their-own-world. When I finally met with them to reconnect, I realized that the person standing in front of me was a completely different person from the person I remembered. Strangely, I found it difficult to interact with them in the light-hearted, immature way we used to. What used to be a relationship that I was comfortable in now felt awkward and forced.

With everything else in the world, we can be confident that change is inevitable. That’s just the nature of our world. Entropy exists, seasons change, friends come in and out of our lives, things live and die (GPAs change). Yet, there is one thing that is constant—God. The One who was there before all things and will be there even when everything else goes.

“But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not.”2

Because of His ever constant nature, we are able to experience true comfort by trusting in Him. I’m not saying that life will be comfortable. Rather, we are able to experience freedom and peace even as our life seems to be at its lowest. The reason is that we know that God is there with us, loving on us, and looking out for us, such that even as we struggle with the difficult times in life, we are confident in our God and His steadfastness.

Without a doubt, the uncertainty and incongruence between past and present has affected the way I perceive my life. As I live my life in the present, I worry about the future, wondering if maybe in the future, it will be completely different from the present. What if my friend won’t be part of my life later on? What if my partner and I break up? What if the industry I’m currently trying to go into falls apart? What if my body breaks down? At any moment, I might be comfortable in a certain situation, but in the future, that will change since I, the experience, or people could change. Yet, in my lowest moments when I am most lost and confused, I am able to find true comfort and peace because I am able to fully relinquish and surrender my desire for control; when everything seems to be falling apart and I am completely helpless, all I can do is to turn to God since He is the only thing that will never fail.

My natural tendency is to fixate on the unknown so I can best prepare for the future. With my faith’s assurance, I can move beyond my natural tendency and stifle my pessimism because God reminds me it’s not as dire as I first believed.

Everything I have grown up with or experienced since my childhood has taught me nearly the opposite of what this line from CityAlight’s “The Goodness of Jesus” conveys.

There is comfort in the small smile that blooms across my face when the morning sunlight tickles my face as I walk outside. There is comfort in the hug my mom wraps me in every time I visit, squeezing me just tight enough to say welcome home. There is familiarity in the ridiculous jokes my brother and I share, falling into a simple rhythm of banter only the two of us can recognize. There is peace in the laughter that escapes from my lips as I catch up with old friends, reminiscing about memories and retelling stories that will never grow old. There is complete rest in the honest talks with my closest friends as I stop to process emotions and thoughts I had not even been consciously aware of before. If comfort is rooted in all these intimate human interactions and made tangible through warm physical responses, from smiles to hugs to laughter, how exactly, then, would this same comfort be found in our tears?

Speaking from personal experience, comfort does not flow out in tears. Isolated in my room and surrounded by the quiet stillness, tears stream down my cheeks in terrible bit-

Words: Christine Song

terness, overwhelming loneliness, and incessant anxiety. Yes, my tears are warm, but they are not the same warmth felt in holding hands, tight hugs, and full smiles. My tears are hot from burning anger, bottled-up emotions bursting out uncontrollably. In all manners, my tears are uncomfortable: to manage, to come to terms with, to make sense of. They are unwanted and unknown, unfolding a chaos too difficult to tame and unlocking parts of myself too confusing to name.

I could drown in my tears in self-pity, which was a pattern I often found myself cycling through during my high school years. As I have been maturing in my faith, however, God has been graciously showing me ways to meditate on His Word instead, where it reminds me that my tears are a symbol of God’s strength in my weakness. In the tearful, vulnerable moments, I am humbly brought back to the sobering truth that only the LORD is “my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge.” Tears seem to be so far from the physical representation of comfort, especially in my self-centered nature to put my desires first. But when I begin to shift my gaze unto God by acknowledging His presence in my life, tears turn into a recognition of surrender and acceptance.

I learn that God takes full control in the chaos, and His perfect peace surpasses all my other fears and uncertainties. I find tranquility in the tears when I am reminded of my identity as a child of God—the name He so graciously gave me.

Christine is a first-year intended English major who likes Snoopy stickers and poké bowls.

1 Revelation 22:13

2 Lewis, Mere Christianity (1952)