Well, friends, with the dry air and spring temps, there’s a new game here at the Lighthouse. It requires two people, or at the very least, an ornery human and an unsuspecting cat.

Here’s how you play: Create a charge by running your hands back and forth on the couch (or just sit there long enough to accidentally create friction), then touch someone within reach. If you induce a loud zapping sound, some screaming, and cause the other player’s hair to stand on end, you win.

In the spirit of science and brotherly affection, one of our kids actually got a few siblings to hold hands together to see if the current would fly through the chain and nearly electrocute the person on the end. I’m happy to report that this has been unsuccessful so far, but we’re having people over soon and I suspect they may inadvertently participate in the troubleshooting process.

I’ve been going through an old journal as research for the next book – speaking of painful, healing, hilarious, and wretched experiments – and in retrospect I’ve noticed that particular season of our lives was not all that different from taking someone’s hand and getting electrocuted.

And really, I struggle with how to write about the hard situations when they involve others. It’s come up in conversation a few times recently with friends (and a husband) who are also writers – this quandary of sharing our story when it overlaps with the stories of others. I’ve prayed about it and here’s what God answered:

Write about your past as though you were now close to the people who caused the pain. Write about it as though the sins were atoned for – because they are – and as though the relationships were restored – which they can be, through surrender on both sides. You are only responsible for your own surrender, but you’re not off the hook for praying for theirs. Writing about your past in this way leads you to write the truth in love with compassion and maturity, as you should.

So there’s that, and we’ll see how it goes. Anne Lamott also gives hilarious and accurate advice in Bird By Bird, but I can’t quote it here because if I did your content filter would block my website.

But in the summer of 2013 there’s a journal entry where I wrote out Isaiah 55 in its entirety and what He was speaking to me through each verse. And one of the things He said was, You will tell people to spend time with Me, searching Me, being honest with Me in their day-to-day dilemmas and drudgery.

Several months later I started writing some of the earliest content for what became Oh My Soul, which wasn’t even birthed until a full five years after those earliest posts.

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven
and do not return there but water the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

– Isaiah 55:10-11, ESV

Fullness takes time. The waiting is hard and there’s no substitute for steadfastness, for the grit it takes to hang on to His Word when nothing seems to reflect it in the reality you see.

There’s no substitute for the time it takes to grow through the process of living. In any given half-decade, we all go through loss – and gain – that we never could have anticipated, touching hands with many people. Some of them let go too soon and leave us grieving. Sometimes we’re the ones who let go after getting burned too many times. And other times, we hold on for dear life through all the mayhem – because these ones, they are our people.

If He had told us ahead of time the loss and gain we would experience in the last five years, we never would have believed Him. Sometimes keeping us in the dark is a mercy that helps us toward obedience. We are not simply unsuspecting victims; this unknowing is actively doing a work in us for good.

…Getting old is our secret weapon. Readers come to books for many reasons, but ultimately they’re looking for wisdom. That’s something writers can offer only after we’ve accrued it, like scar tissue, usually by surviving things we didn’t want to deal with—a process otherwise known as aging.

– Barbara Kingsolver

And looking at it that way, I don’t really want to know what the next five years will hold. Just yesterday we lost someone we loved. And even though we knew it was coming, I’m not sure that grieving in advance makes it any easier, or if it just prolongs the process.

For you shall go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
shall break forth into singing,
and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

– Isaiah 55:12, ESV

Life requires troubleshooting and the unknowing is unnerving. But the fullness that rewards us at the end of waiting only comes from learning from life’s friction instead of just getting burned by it.

We get to choose if we want to be more mature at the end of our hard times or not. You can tell the difference if you hold yourself to the same standard you set for those who hurt you, or if you make excuses for yourself without offering grace to others.

You can go through it or you can grow through it – we can learn the hard way, or not all.

Weeks after this game started, I’m still getting zinged from the couch several times a day, and more often than not it’s completely unintentional.

At the end of the night, I’m sitting on the couch with Bingley, and neither of us have learned our lesson. I reach down and barely touch him before zap – he gives me a black look. The tip of his ear is practically smoking and my finger is numb.

Like I said, you can learn the hard way, or not at all.

And I could tell you what he was probably thinking, but I’m pretty sure that would activate your content filter, too.