Cold Tangerines

“I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift.”

― Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life

When I first happened upon this glorious quote, neither the author nor the book accompanied it. I didn’t know where the quote resided or who said it, but it captivated me immediately. Moments of significance. Moments of importance. Moments of sacred. I desired these moments, craved them, really, and I didn’t feel like myself when I went too long without one. Special. Magical. Significant. I started defining these as “cold tangerines” moments. I plucked those two words out of the section and made them my mantra. 

Later I would find out that the phrase “cold tangerines”  must have stuck out to the author, too, because that’s what she titled the book where this phrase is found. I fell in love with this book. I read it several times and tried to convince as many people I could to read it, too. Let’s live cold tangerines! I’d say. I watched closely for these sacred moments and pointed them out to anyone who would listen. 

Pitching a tent in the backyard with friends. Watching fireworks from the top of a parking garage. Going around the campfire on New Years Eve, each sharing their biggest hope for the coming year. Trying on my wedding gown for my roommate, twirling barefoot on the hardwood floor. Standing around the piano singing popular songs with friends, each person in a different key. Decorating a Christmas tree. Cold tangerines. A symbol for significant, powerful feelings on insignificant, average days. A signal that something sacred was happening, even when it wasn’t really supposed to. This is cold tangerines! I’d say proudly. Right now is special! Right now is significant! We’re doing it! We’re living significant lives! 

But the significance sort of drifts away sometimes. And right when you really need the cold tangerines, you can’t see them anymore. 

I had been married for about a year. I sat on the couch, in tears, trying to assign words to the aching in chest. Everything about my life felt so hopelessly ordinary. I went to school. I went to work. I went to church. All the days ran together in a blur of mediocrity that no longer satisfied me. I wanted to be enchanted by life. And nothing felt enchanting right now. 

I wanted my life to be something special. I wanted it to feel magical. I was obsessed with achieving a life that feels significant because if life doesn’t feel significant, then I don’t feel significant.  

I want cold tangerines, I cried. I want things to feel special. I want to be special. What do I do, God? How do I get the cold tangerines?

He spoke then. Not loudly, but not in a whisper either. A firm and gentle word. I am the cold tangerines, he said. 

I wish I could say that in a moment, it was all very clear to me. But that isn’t usually how it goes with me when God speaks. Usually I have to let it swirl around in my mind for a while before I can actually catch onto any understanding. But in time, I have begun to understand. 

He is the cold tangerines. Because cold tangerines is beauty. And he is responsible for every ounce of beauty we see. Cold tangerines is connection. All hope for connection is in him. Cold tangerines is comfort. Comfort is his. It’s all his. 

Cold tangerines isn’t really something that lucky people find, but rather an awareness of what is already there. It is an awareness of him. We can find significance in moments that seem ordinary because we are aware of the one from where all beauty and all significance arises. 

Earlier this year, my husband and I were driving to a nearby town to celebrate my dad’s birthday with friends and family. Along the way, we passed a field of yellow wild flowers. I started crying. Not like misty-eyed and elegant kind of crying. I had full-on, fat tears streaming down my face, as well as some snot.  The marvel of it captivated me so. I thought it was so glorious, this field. Can you believe that? I said, searching desperately for a napkin in the glovebox to mop my face. That vast, shining, field of glory was for my delight. And maybe a field of flowers is not something worth crying over to most people, but when I see things that I find that glorious, I am reminded that there is a God who loves me enough to reveal his glory to me. 

I try to watch for the cold tangerines. I recently got a tattoo of a small tangerine, to remind me to be aware of them. Of him. The more awareness I cultivate for his love, the more significant everything seems. And as I root my own significance in my belonging to him, the cold tangerines seem to follow me wherever I go. 

-em

Here's my expanded translation of Jesus' famous words in Matthew 11:28-30.

²⁸Come and be face to face with Me. Come, all who keep toiling exhaustively and are over-loaded to the point of being weighted down, and I Myself will give to you a restful intermission from your labor when you have done only the things that are needed. ²⁹Decisively lift up and take My yoke onto yourself and decide to be a disciple who learns directly from Me because I Myself have My full power under control and I have lowered My heart before God. You will discover after careful searching how to have restful refreshment for your souls. ³⁰For My yoke is well-fitted, useful, good, and kind, and My burden is of little weight and therefore easily carried.

"Expanded translation" means that instead of trying to use a word-for-word approach to translating the original languages of the Bible into English, I will use several words or phrases, or even complete sentences to give the fullest expression of the original language. Much meaning is lost in ordinary translations due to their efforts to be efficient, using as few English words as possible to get the basic idea across. Hope you enjoy the fuller version above.

Giving and Receiving

Recently I had an opportunity to serve someone that has given a lot to me. This person made themselves available for the Lord, for me, many times and I prayed that God would use any of the abilities, skills, or gifts that I possess to serve them in return. He gave me the job quickly and it came through a little side business I have. I was so thankful for the gift! When asked how much I charge, I replied that there would be no charge. For a week, I served my friend "humbly in love". (Gal 5:13) I got up early everyday and went about my work smiling. I took great care in all that I did and looked for ways to go the "extra mile". I experienced genuine, selfless giving in a way I never had before. And that my Father had answered a prayer and given me this job was icing on the cake! I was soaking up the joy of sacrificial giving. Then, as the work came to an end, something happened that I wasn't expecting. My friend paid me anyway and I didn't know they had in time to say or do anything. At first, I laughed. But by the next day, the lies of the enemy started to creep in.

I have to give the benefit of the doubt--my friend has a very kind heart and I do not think the purpose was to rob me of my blessing. But I started to feel the pain of my gift being rejected. Was there a reason? Did they not trust me to be unconditional with "no strings attached"? The enemy threw lie after lie at me. Finally, my comforter, my helper, and teacher, broke through the obsession and the Holy Spirit caused me to think about a couple of things.

First, I had lived out Colossians 3:23 better than I ever had before. I had worked at it with all my heart, as working for the Lord. But to be honest, I do have a tendency to elevate people and He encouraged me to consider my old ways of thinking and operating. Was I trying to please human masters? So the money and consequent reflection and teaching from the Holy Spirit led me to see and understand that I was given the gift of this job BY the Lord and was working FOR the Lord and therefore I should not be feeling hurt because a PERSON paid me and didn't accept the work as a gift. In my new understanding, I gave 100% of the money back to the Lord and my motivations stayed true and everything was right. 

Secondly, it occurred to me that if I felt the pain of rejection, how much more might the Lord feel the same way? James tells us that every good thing comes from Him, but how many times do the Lord's gifts go unnoticed? Or how often are His gifts of salvation, forgiveness, or love rejected or not believed? I am guilty of all of these things from time to time and so I have a new commitment to stay conscious and grateful, always acknowledging Him. I would also like to add that as Christians we are to serve ONE ANOTHER. Sometimes it is important to accept a gift that comes from the true and kind motivations of another's heart.

As Christians, our love and service to each other is how the world knows us. Sure, it's a heck of a lot easier to love and serve those that we already love, but I've found that in doing that, and doing it well, it strengthens me for the more difficult tasks God calls me to do. I want all of my acts of love and service to point back to Jesus, and I've learned that it isn't always going to happen exactly the way I desire. But I do desire to offer all of my words and actions as Gifts for Him!

Laura