To Be Surprised
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard
and no mind has imagined
what God has prepared
for those who love him.”
—1 Corinthians 2:9
Last week, I smuggled my grandma across Montana state lines to surprise my mom for her 60th birthday. It brought my family and I such joy to carefully plot and plan in the weeks leading up to her birthday, texting one another updates without using the word “Grammy” or “surprise” lest my mom accidentally see the text. My biggest fear was that she would find out and the surprise would be ruined. The day my mom and dad were supposed to arrive back at their house where my sister, Drew, and grandma were waiting to surprise her, she sent a vague text that made it sound as if she knew about the whole plan. My heart absolutely dropped into my stomach when I read that text as my sister and I hovered around our phones looking for context clues in the preceding texts. At that point I despondently declared, “I’m done. I can’t.” I’d already blown up a dozen balloons but I was ready to pop them all.
But a deeper desire within me for this family celebration to truly bless my mom through the element of surprise prevailed. “We must go on as if she doesn’t know about the surprise,” I told my sister with a determined resolution that can only be described as True Grit. So we did. Additional balloons were inflated and festive garlands were hung as we clung to the thinnest thread of hope that this still might work. Ten minutes before my parents were set to arrive, we wrapped my grandmother in pink wrapping paper from her shoulders down and (loosely) tied a big blue bow around her neck. Seeing her face simply beam with excitement made me more determined than ever to act like it was a surprise—even if it wasn’t—just for my Grammy’s sake. My brave 88-year-old grandmother had risked much discomfort to fly with me to Seattle, then drive the nearly four-hour trip to Chelan with me and Drew while entrusting me to accurately keep up with her medication schedule across time zones—all for the sake of the potential joy my mother would feel when she saw her mother’s face smiling in her living room. All for the sake of living a better story than “I’m sorry I couldn’t be with you on your birthday.” And it was worth it—the planning, the secrets, the flying and driving and anxious waiting. All of it. The look on my mom’s face when she saw my grandmother beaming up at her from the be-ribboned confines of her wrapping paper cocoon was pure joy—joy, then shock and disbelief, then infectious joy beyond what I ever could have anticipated.
But this isn’t about how we surprised my mom for her birthday last week; not really. It’s about what God showed me about his heart for us: God likes surprises, too.
An hour before my mom was set to arrive, I was meeting with some dear friends online in a writing group. After sharing that I sensed God was at work in my writing life but I could not yet discern the shape God’s activity would take, my friend said, “You never know. God has surprises in store for us that are in the works even now, although we can’t see them. Perhaps God is saying to you, ‘You just keep doing your thing, and at the right time I’ll show you what I’ve been up to.’” I hoped she was right. Sometimes the anxiety of not knowing what God is crafting with the raw materials of my life feels too much to bear.
Later that night, I went to sleep full of my own joy from successfully pulling off the birthday surprise. “If I am experiencing this much joy over surprising my mom,” I wondered, “How much more joy must God have in planning surprises for us?” Maybe one reason we don’t receive the answers we think we need in the timeline we expect is because God likes surprises. God knows that our knowing everything ahead of time would cheapen our joy when something unexpected is revealed at just the right time.
The next morning, I reached for the small blue devotional book I keep by my bed. God Calling, written by two anonymous female “listeners” in the 1930’s, was the inspiration for Sarah Young’s popular book Jesus Calling, and its contents are written from the perspective of God in conversation with us. Imagine my amusement when I opened to that day’s entry and read its one-word title: Surprises. Slowly, I read these words over and over: As you love to plan surprises for those who understand and take joy in them, so with Me. I love to plan them for those who see My love and tender joy in them. I shared the joy of this discovery with my mom and grandmother at breakfast that morning—yet another surprise lovingly planned by the God Who Sees.
Is it not love that keeps God from showing us the joy ahead? God, giddy with the goodness stored up for us, holds back total revelation so that we might experience the joy of surprise at the exact right time. In this sense, the most loving part is our not knowing. Knowing is actually a hindrance to joy when the surprise is revealed too soon—to know ahead of time would only decrease the fullness of joy intended for us.
It is also God’s love that keeps us from seeing the pain of our future—heavy crosses and little deaths that must be endured if we are to grow in the image and likeness of Jesus. If I knew the pain and devastation that would occur in my first marriage, I never would have entered into it. Today, I cannot imagine who I would be without that experience.
I used to question God’s love in not telling me up front how horrible that marriage would be, but now I am beginning to perceive God’s love and protection in keeping me from that knowledge.
Long I have lived with predicting the future as my highest aim, believing that knowing the future is the greatest act of love God could give me. Lately I suspect that not knowing the future is saving my life—both in expanding my capacity for joy and by giving me the blind-faith courage needed walk through future valleys of sorrow.
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Early in my relationship with Drew, I shared Mary Oliver’s poem Heavy, both in an attempt to introduce him to a poet I love but also because the poem articulates Oliver’s grief over the loss of her partner—a grief both Drew and I shared. Drew grumpily credits reading this poem as his much-needed reintroduction to Hope, awakening in him the possibility that monkdom was not the only future available to him post-divorce. The poem begins with the poet’s sense of being surprised and burdened by grief, but ends with her being surprised by the burgeoning blossom of Hope within her:
Have you noticed?
Have you heard
the laughter
that comes, now and again,
out of my startled mouth?
In our lives, we will be surprised by both joy and grief—startled by our laughter and tears. And it is the love of God that underpins it all, holding us up in our weeping and our weak-kneed elation. With a mixture of trepidation and hope, I thank God for the element of surprise that bring us to our knees both in woundedness and in worship.
When I was a counselor at a women’s shelter, I posted the following quote by Henri Nouwen on my office bulletin board. I read it often between sessions, being overwhelmingly surprised both by the extent to which humans could wound each other and the lengths God goes to heal us and transform even death into life. May Nouwen’s words serve as a benediction for all of us who commit to receiving and blessing every surprise that comes from the hand of God.
Learn the discipline of being surprised not by suffering but by joy.
As we grow old, there is suffering ahead of us, immense suffering, a suffering that will continue to tempt us to think that we have chosen the wrong road.
But don’t be surprised by pain.
Be surprised by joy, be surprised by the little flower
that shows its beauty in the midst of a barren desert,
and be surprised by the immense healing power that keeps bursting forth like springs of fresh water from the depth of our pain.
Amen.
Going Deeper: Listen to Sondre Lerche’s song To Be Surprised. Though not an overtly Christian song, it captures both the levity and reality of life being one long string of surprises. Ultimately, the song concludes that this is a gift to prepare for and not a punishment to avoid.