loving the questions

loving the questions

“…I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” –Rainer Maria Rilke, Letter From A Young Poet

Sometime in the midst of the grief of my mother’s cancer, my dear mentor Susan shared this quote with me. It has gone through my mind a plethora of times since then.

There was a moment last spring when my mother and I were talking, and we both agreed that we wouldn’t trade the previous six months for anything. She had just completed her radiation treatments which did have some painful side effects, she had not yet been declared “cancer-free,” and we were still waiting. And, yet, because of the way the Lord had redeemed so many of the difficult situations, because of the way He had moved in our family, because of the way He had grown each of us, we wouldn’t trade it. There was a new richness to life, a depth to the way we love, and a thankfulness for all He continued to do. And, in the midst of that, we knew that we were better-off no matter what the outcome.

At some point I did learn to love the questions… And, to be honest, I’m not exactly sure when that was. But, while learning to love the questions, something has changed in me. I find myself more in love with the Lord than ever before. I enjoy the unknown in a way that I was unable to before. I rest in Him with confidence knowing that He’s taking care of me. Perhaps I have lived my way into the answer, but I think more likely, I have come to find delight in the mystery.