Faces

Tonight I was able to catch up with a friend, as I described how I was waiting for Dad to pursue me and understanding His love for me, my friend had this smirk. Later I discovered my friend is so in love with Dad right now. Honestly, coming from some people I would view this as condescending or judgmental. In this case I saw it as being genuinely glad for me that I was in this process and truly in love with Dad at the same time. I've never been "in love" with a human before, but I have watched many couples in love.

I want to understand this with God- to know what it means to be in love with Him. I see from my friend, and my own life these days that an awareness of God's love can be a result of sharing this with others. What I can sometimes view as a duty really is God's way of reminding me what he thinks, and feels towards me. Tonight, not only was a blessed with this reality but also a picture, in my friends face, of what it is to experience God's love.

Show Me

lyrics by John Legend

"I realized as I lay down to sleep
We haven't spoke in weeks
So many things that I'd like to know
Come have a talk with me
I need a sign, something I can see
Why all the mystery?
I try not to fall for make believe
But what is reality?
Where do we go?
What do we know?
Life has to have a meaning
Show me the light
Show me the way
Show that you're listening

Show me that you love me
Show me that you walk with me
Hopefully, just above me
Heaven's watching over me

Guess it's funny how I say thanks to you
For all you've given me
Sometimes the price of what you gave to me
I can't stop questioning
O God of love, peace, and mercy
Why so much suffering?
I pray for the world, it gets worse to me
Wonder if you're listening
When people go
Why do they go?
Why don't you choose me?
But someday I know
I'm gonna go
I hope you're waiting for me

Show me that you love me
Show me that you walk with me
Hopefully, just above me
Heaven's watching over me

Maybe we'll talk
Some other night
Right now I'll take it easy
Won't spent my time
Waiting to die
Enjoy the life I'm living

Show me that you love me
Show me that you walk with me
Hopefully, just above me
Heaven's watching over me"


Even the mere fact that someone else wrote this song and the Lord allowed me to hear it, something that in so many ways meets me where I'm at shows me that He loves me. For this I am thankful.

Comfort from the Confessions of a Saint

"Who am I? I have been told that I suffer the days of misfortune with serenity, smiles and pride, as someone accustomed to victory. Am I really what others say about me? Or am I only what I know myself? ...Bedeviled by anxiety, awaiting great events that might never occur, fearfully powerless and worried for friends far away, weary and empty in prayer, in thinking, in doing, weak and ready to take leave of it all. Who am I? They mock me these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, you know me, Oh God, you know I am yours."
-Poem: Who Am I?, 1944
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I must borrow from a friend today...who somehow often seems to be considering similar things.
These words are much more well written than any I could write for the way I've felt recently. Well, minus the fact that I am not often in prayer as often as I should be.

Freedom

Today I was able to make a decision to help someone learn what it means to live in freedom. It definitely goes against the grain for me and those who are around me and much of culture today. It felt great. I question most decisions I make, but this time I rest easy.

Grief

Over the past few weeks I've been reading a couple of things that today I've begun to piece together in my head. First- we all have this space in our lives- we fill it with so many things. Singles, like me, have more space than others. I've never had to put another person fully above myself other than God. There are definitely people in my life for whom I care much about, and who care about me. But mostly, there is a lot of space. Being the relational being God has made me, much of that space still tends to be filled with people. Highlights and lowlights in my life can mostly be defined through interactions with others. This has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Grief comes when people leave that space- my lifestage and life choices have made it so that people come into and leave that space very often. This is really difficult at times, especially when there is lack of closure. Recently I experienced this pain, and while before I assumed there would this chance to redeem all of the hurt, it now looks as though that redemption will have to come through other means. In the meanwhile, I am left with these random days of feeling loss.

the beginnings

"Our cross is the point of our unlikeness to the image of Christ, where we must die to self in order to be raised by God into wholeness of life in the image of Christ taken place at the points of our unlikeness to Christ, and the first step is confrontation." M. Robert Mulholland, Jr.- Invitation to a Journey.

There are times I am sure an author is speaking directly to what is going on in my life at that time. This summer I was confronted by a growing reality that even though I confess Christ as Lord, my life can resemble that of a Buddhist. To explain: I often want to die to desires that are not met- thinking somehow this will honor Christ when really He is asking me to pick up my cross, and follow him- to leave it with him. Someone told me that as I purify these desires, give them my Savior, I will discover that what I desire more than these things is Christ Himself.

I make long term decisions that I hope will honor the Lord with my life, it's the simple things in my daily life that I will quickly sacrifice to lesser loves- but they add up over time. I want to record this process- of seeking Christ on a more daily basis- of making those seeming simple decisions to pick up my cross and follow Him. I want to choose what is unseen over what is seen. I want to create space in my life to know God more. I want to understand His economy of mercy.