16
Cheer for the Chargers

Dwell in possibility.

—Emily Dickinson

I grew up watching the San Diego Chargers and have become really attached to them. Unfortunately for me, they are streaky and hard to watch and will break your heart season after ever-loving season. AND YET, I keep coming back for more.

Sure, I could adopt Steve’s childhood team, the 49ers. I could root for my mom’s beloved Saints. But it doesn’t feel right. I love my Chargers. And if there were ever a sign that I love an underdog more than any other human in this world, it is the fact that I will always get excited for football season because THIS YEAR my Chargers are going to do it. They’re going to win it all. I just know it.

This thing in me that loves the Chargers is the same thing in me that loves the Seattle Seahawks’ Super Bowl–winning quarterback, Russell Wilson. Or at least I love his story. He’s shorter than the prototypical NFL quarterback, and everyone overlooked him because of it. Scouts, pundits, and coaches all bet against him in the draft. And he’s proven every one of them wrong. Like, embarrassingly wrong.

I love a comeback story more than anyone else in the world. I love a Cinderella team in March Madness. I’ll watch televised fencing just to witness an upset. I absolutely love it when something happens that everyone said couldn’t. I love it when what’s on paper doesn’t dictate reality. I love it when we sit and stare at the TV because we just beheld something that everyone assured us was against all odds.

Every time I start to feel cynical about this world, just plop me down in front of an athletic competition and I will immediately be reminded of how much I love to hope, especially when that hope is ill-advised.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about our wounds and our wonder, our humanity and our divinity. I’ve been thinking about this, likely because I’ve been through an extended season of in-your-face humanity, when I needed to welcome and make peace with my utter humanness. And then honor it. The wounded, flawed, limited, skulking, limping part of me.

Good grief.

I’ve had to turn toward the Hard and get help. I’ve had to turn toward my need for rest and sit the heck down. I’ve had to bring in the borders of my life, which is painful and very inconvenient to many others. I’ve likely disappointed people and have needed to accept that if disappointing others was the cost for my own recovery, then I would have to learn to be OK with letting others down. I’ve had to focus, for a season, on getting better in many, many ways. This is the kind of work we wonder if we’ll ever emerge from. Will life ever feel light again? Will there ever be ease? Will I ever have energy again?

I would have never, ever thought I’d say what I’m about to say next, BUT . . . as difficult as this past season has been, the hard lesson of learning to walk with myself like a companion instead of a critic has been a season of grace. God has revealed to me in large and small ways the parts of my life that were not working, the ways in which I was not living congruent with my own soul, and my subsequent hiding.

You plunge into these seasons of recovery because of trauma or a rock-bottom experience, and then you have to crawl. The whole journey is so slow. Then one day you realize you’ve reemerged into the light.

I believe God wants us to make peace with our woundedness, and that is exactly the journey I’ve been on. What’s more, I believe God also wants us to make peace with our wonder, which is the journey I’m starting into. We need to welcome our brokenness, but also our belovedness. This is the brazen path.

Someone recently told me that one of her definitions of maturity is the ability to hold seeming opposites in tension. She called it a “kingdom value.” God holds the tension of humanity and divinity through the incarnation, and he invites us to do that same holding: fully embracing the wounds and fully embracing the wonder.

The word wonder is both a verb—“to wonder”—and a noun, originating from words meaning “marvelous thing, miracle, object of astonishment.”

Because that, my friends, is who we really are, before the world got to us. Before our parents broke our hearts. Before we were violated. Before we were screamed at. Before we were told we were stupid. Before we started relying on substances to deal with our pain. Before a partner stole something from us we didn’t intend to give. Before the church told us to quietly make the coffee. Before all that . . . before the anger and the sadness and the chaos and the fear and the shame and the regret . . . before all that, beneath all that, there is a Created Center, a miracle, a marvelous thing. Creation!

And we don’t believe it’s enough because it’s not of this world.

So we cover it up and deny it and quiet it because it’s scary, it’s untamed, it’s brazen. We let other people—people who fear that part of us—convince us we should stay small. And we settle for a cheap substitute: image. When God has gifted us with something that is so much bigger and wider and deeper than image ever could be: identity.

I spent a bit of time listening to myself and to God on the subject of wonder the other day. I went outside and here is what I heard:

God: Leeana, it is time to shift from wounds to wonder. Life has an ebb and flow, seasons. And the season that you’re entering is a season of focusing on your wonder. It is time to lay down what has been heavy and pick up what is light. It is time to get to know your Created Center. It is time to welcome the wonder in yourself.

What about you needs to be celebrated, honored? What are you unnecessarily editing?

Leeana: God, what wonder do you see in me?

And you’ll never guess what I heard.

God: Hope. Hope is a part of your wonder. You are not a cynic. You are a believer. You believe people can heal. You believe beauty matters. You believe creating matters. You believe things could change. You believe the Chargers can win the Super Bowl, for crying out loud. This is all hope.

Leeana: God, how do I cultivate hope?

God: You use your hopeful voice. Don’t edit it. Don’t apologize for it. Don’t downplay it. Don’t silence it.

I’m a hoper. And, apparently, according to God, hope is a part of my wonder. Who knew? So if I’m understanding all this correctly, I think I’m supposed to honor my hope-ness, celebrate it, let it out, put my strong voice toward hope. The world is full of cynics and critics and naysayers and not-gonna-happeners. Negativity is tired, if you ask me. It’s way too easy to stand back and poke holes in anything and everything. There are gifts for the participant in life, while the only gift the critic holds is his own opinions and his own well-crafted image.

Sure, hope opens you up to disappointment. But I think I’m fairly convinced I’d rather be hopeful than hidden.

I think everyone’s wonder is somewhat similar and somewhat different. It’s the thing the world needs from you. It’s the thing you long to give but have perhaps shut down or shut up for some reason. It’s precious to you and might make you tear up if you think about it too long. It’s the part of you the world didn’t get its hands on. It’s your Created Center, and it’s worth rescuing, reclaiming, returning to.

Reflection & Expression

Ask:

God, what wonder do you see in me?

God, how do I cultivate my wonder?

God, how do I honor my wonder?

God, what wonder in me do I need to voice?

What is something about YOU that you appreciate?

For Your Brazen Board

Find an image, color, texture, item that represents your wonder. Write the word WONDER somewhere on your board.