Cicadas, Part II

I was first greeted with the gentle ROARS of summer cicadas soon after I arrived in China last year.  As a native of the American Pacific Northwest, I had no exposure to the purr of these giant insects that sounded like they could chew your fingers off.  This post describes my first impressions of them, and some lessons I learned from them.  During my second week in China, I was grocery shopping with a student in a huge store.  As we passed the jade-jewelry counter I saw a carved bug, a cicada, the crunchy creature responsible for the inescapable cacophony outside.  I asked her, "Why this...?" and she laughed.  She said it was because of the proverb: 'You will sing again.'  Cicadas die off when the weather gets cold, but they always return in full voice when their time comes.

In this past year, I've experienced a lifetime worth of adventures.  I've climbed mountains, gotten lost in foreign cities (at night), sang for rich and powerful men and women, and counted stars with strangers from distant lands.  I've watched clouds pour into a volcanic crater and released paper lanterns into the crisp, winter night.  All of these wonders contrast sharply with the struggle of the past few months.

In my last post, I mentioned I had a significant loss at the end of August.  I was overwhelmed, lost, and feeling the pressure of preparing to move to another country.  Nothing could distract my feelings, but I had to find a way to function.  I filled my days with stories – TV and movies played while I packed, and I read before going to sleep.  I went to bed early, and I got up late, whispering to myself, “Don’t think about it, it didn’t happen, don’t think, don’t think, don’t think…”

One night I woke up groggy, which is pretty unusual for me.*  I’m not a perky, early-riser, but I always wake up with a clear mind.  I know where I am, what day it is, and how many times I’ve hit ‘snooze.’  That night, I woke up fuzzy, and I didn’t like it.  I turned over once or twice, and couldn’t go back to sleep.  (Which is also really unusual for me.)  It was 2am, and everyone was asleep.  It was too late to get up and do late night chores, and too early to call and early morning.  I kept remembering verses about studying scripture by night, but that book is awfully big.  ‘Where would I even start?’ I wondered.  Jeremiah 29.  BAM.  There it was, out of nowhere.  Jeremiah 29.  The reference carried no special meaning to me, I didn’t associate it with any particular passage.  Jeremiah 29.  “It doesn’t work that way,” I thought.  “Jeremiah is in my mind because my friend mentioned it the other day, and 29 is an arbitrary number that I saw on TV, or written on a box somewhere.”  I’m stubborn, and I don't think the open-the-Bible-and-find-your-future approach is a very effective form of Bible study.  So there I lay.  Resisting.  Stubbornly.  For two hours.  Two hours of tears, and dark silence, as the pain in my heart tried to claw its way out of my chest.

"FINE."  I said finally as I whipped back my covers and thumped my Bible down angrily on the bed beside me.  Jeremiah 29 is a message from God to the Israelites as they are being led off into exile.  As they go, He told them this:

"Build houses, settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce; marry and have sons and daughters...you must increase there and not decrease.  Work for the good of the city to which I have exiled you; pray to Yahweh on its behalf, since on its welfare yours depends.  For Yahweh Sabaoth, the God of Israel, says this: Do not be deceived by the prophets who are with your or by your diviners; do not listen to the dreams you have, since they prophesy lies to you in my name.  I have not sent them, Yahweh declares.  For Yahweh says this: When the seventy years granted to Babylon are over, I shall intervene on your behalf and fulfill my favorable promise to you by bringing you back to this place."

[And then everyone's favorite verse, featured on Thomas Kinkade paintings

and thousands of cross-stich pillows:]

"For I know what plans I have in mind for you, Yahweh declares, plans for peace, not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."

[End cross-stitch quote, add some flowers.] 

When you call to me and come and pray to me, I shall listen to you.  When you search for me, you will find me; when you search wholeheartedly for me, I shall let you find me...I will gather you in from all the nations and wherever I have driven you. Yahweh declares.  I shall bring you back to the place from which I exiled you."

 I was surprised to have landed on the familiar passage, but what moved me to tears were the verses preceding it: "When the seventy years granted to Babylon are over, I shall intervene on your behalf and fulfill my favorable promise to you by bringing you back to this place."  Restoration, coming back to the place I love, all my ragged edges soothed.

I'm fully aware that this passage was NOT written for me.  I don't think God has exiled me to China, and I don't think He's telling me to marry someone here, or that I'll be here for seventy years.  Like the Israelites, I've been taken from something I loved, and all my hopes, dreams, and wishes can't bring it back to me.  I exiled from that place, and I need to love the stage I'm in.  When the time is full and ripe (a symbolic 70 years) God will restore me to my place.

This promise has been encouraging, confusing, uplifting, and frustrating.  I want to DO something to get out of this stage I'm in, not LOVE IT.  I'm glad God will restore me, but sometimes I still want an explanation about why it was necessary in the first place.  As I've mulled over this passage for the past few months, a few things have become clear:

• I have to work for the betterment of the world I'm in.  That includes my community, my school, and the life-space I'm in.
• Romance is not waiting just around the corner...
• ...but that will change someday.
• When the time is right, God will orchestrate my restoration, not me.

When I first learned the proverb about the cicada, I had a feeling it would be significant to me, but I wasn't sure how.  Now I know: this is a season of quiet for my heart.  I don't want it to be this way, but having it clarified helps me put that topic on the back burner.  Someday I'll be restored.  To that person?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  What I know for certain is that there is a defined plan for this need.

This fall, every roaring wave of insect sounds landed with a splash of promise.  There's a plan; it's going to happen; God is on it.  After months of focused hunting and deliberation, I found my most personal memento of my time here in China: a carved jade cicada.  When the summer cicadas sang, I said, 'God, I hear that promise, and I'll remember it.'  Now winter is approaching.  Every day I wear my cicada and think, 'God, it's a quiet season, but I still remember what You said.'  For now, I throw myself into my work and my community, trying to learn how to live a full, honorable life in this place.

*I can count on both hands how many times I’ve felt confused upon waking.