The Great Gatsby: Have you seen the movie or read the book?
The Great Gatsby is the story of a man known for throwing decadent parties shrowed in mystery, parties he hosts but never attends. The Great Gatsby strikes at the fear that we will walk through life without living it, going to the party without experiencing it.
Like all great writing, the story is enchanting and haunting with undertones of our greatest fears: unfulfilled dreams, unrequited love, hope deferred, and a life unlived.
Gatsby doesn't pursue the love of his life because he isn't wealthy enough. When he's ready to pursue Daisy and feels like "enough," she's married to someone else and it's five years too late. It's tragic, but there's clarity.
It's tempting to waste our lives waiting to be good enough, or waiting for the waiting to be over. It's tempting to believe that we're not enough for our future, or that we're not enough to receive grace, love, and healing.
{Proverbs 13:12. NIV}
The story of the Bible is God loving people into their futures. It's not a story of anyone being good enough. It's a story of flawed people who don't feel like enough, life gets hard and there are countless reasons why God isn't who He says He is...and then God comes through.
When things are going my way, according to my timing, life doesn't take much resolve, faith, or perseverance. It's easy to motivate myself when I think I know what's next, when I have plan and vision for the future. But when the page is blank, and the storyline is confusing, and we're lost and emptiness sets in, that's when our faith becomes real. That's when we learn to say even if, to choose faith, and choose to say today is magic.
"Celebration when your plan is working? Anyone can do that. But when you realize that the story of your life could be told a thousand different ways, that you could tell it over and over as a tragedy, but you choose to call it epic, that's when you start to learn what celebration is. When what you see in front of you is so far outside of what you dreamed, but you have the belief, the boldness, the courage to call it beautiful because the force of your belief and your hope and your desperate love for life as it is actually unfolding, has brought a blessing from a curse, like water from a stone, like life from a tomb, like the actual story of God over and over.
Nothing good comes easily. You have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought you needed. You have to get over yourself, beyond your past, out from under the weight of your future...We become who are in these moments."
{Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines}
The story of the Great Gatsby reminds us not to leave life unlived until we are enough. Often we become who we are while we are waiting for life to begin again.
If you're weary today, remember we're called to love our lives as they are actually unfolding. The Great Gatsby reminds us that "we can't recreate the past," but we can be loved into our futures by a God who comes through, making us new with summer and grace.
Love wins,
Lisamarie
