That Was Fun

The other night, I stood outside under a star-studded sky with several hundred children and their families. We surveyed a field ablaze with 20,000 plastic Easter eggs, each one equipped with a blinking LED light. I have never seen anything quite like it-and whether or not you agree with the idea of plastic eggs stuffed with corn-syrup and dye-filled candy, the beauty of the scene was truly undeniable.

As one of the people who helped install 2,000 of those blinking lights, I felt a certain sense of reward, of course. The 15 hours I spent with my hot glue gun became immensely worth it. But then, a voice sounded in the back of my mind, one that I am not very used to hearing. The shock of it caught me off guard.

“This is so fun.”

Somewhere about the time I experienced the loss of a dear friend and I woke up to the reality of hurt, confusion, and pain, I gave up on the idea of fun.

I was eleven years old.

Which is to say that for the better part of the last twenty plus years, I have struggled to have fun. My life hasn’t been miserable, and I can certainly recall fun times (some of the ridiculous games we used to play in youth group or the time I ran through the rain with friends in Romania or one of the many trips I have taken with my husband or the time we sat around the campfire with his family and I laughed until I cried over a story his aunt told). But, overall, I have tucked that part of life into a dark corner of my existence because fun is frivolous and completely unnecessary. And most definitely not safe.

Who has time for fun when you have to spend all of your time protecting yourself from further potential loss? Who has time for fun when you have to spend all of your time proving your worth to yourself, to God, and to everyone around you?

Besides, when a better portion of everything you do is clouded by anxiety and confusing dark thoughts that you don’t know what to do with, even fun things stop being fun.

Maybe what I am realizing is that I have built up a form of emotional armor—it felt easier, and definitely safer, to avoid fun, and to surround myself with discipline and responsibility, a cold edge of never being too invested or too excited about anything. I think having fun feels unsafe because opening myself up to fun and enjoyment means risking disappointment. If I open myself up the possibility that something could be fun, that I could actually enjoy something, I risk the possibility of being disappointed. It is far easier to go into everything preparing for a letdown (preparing for the worst, actually?) because then with disappointment happens, I won’t be surprised—or hurt.

So when something is fun, or I find myself blinking back tears because of how beautiful a field of glowing eggs is, I am genuinely shocked.

Shocked that God is so good to me that He makes it possible for me to have fun here on earth.

Recently, I have been praying and asking God to show me what He means by “life more abundantly.” I think I’ve got the “life” part down at least a little, but the “more abundantly?” I don’t understand that. That sounds really really too good to be true. Does He mean that it’s possible to live a life that isn’t just survival mode? That isn’t just “get through this and die”?

One of my goals for this month is to ask God for more – which before has felt so selfish and wrong, and honestly, very very dangerous.

But if we can’t ask Him for more, what else do we have? (And no, I’m not talking about being rich or asking for a bigger house or a fancier car because I know we all like to talk about how we shouldn’t ask God for material blessings and that following Jesus isn’t about health and wealth. I get that, but we’re off on a tangent now.)

I’m talking a much bigger picture . . . more knowing of Him, more knowing of His presence, more knowing of His voice, more knowing of His care, more knowing of the ways He hears me, more knowing of His goodness, more knowing of His love. More joy. And yes, even more fun.

Life more abundantly. I think the other night, I caught a small glimpse of what this could mean. Maybe that seems utterly frivolous, but somehow, that field glowing with 20,000 eggs felt fun . . . and so so abundant. Like HE IS SO GOOD, and I have a reason to celebrate being alive abundant.

I want more of THAT in my life.

Feature Photo by Min An: https://www.pexels.com/photo/full-moon-illustration-713664/