Comforting Challenge

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus." ~Phil. 4:4-7

Most of the time, when I reference that passage, I focus on the latter two verses - don't worry, tell God, you'll receive peace. Quite frankly, doing that is difficult enough. But tonight I had a sense that I should check out the preceding verses. And I was blown away by how much a heart can forget.

Rejoice in the Lord always.

Always? God, seriously now, I know what You mean when You say "always" and . . . no offense, but I think maybe there's been something lost in translation here. You can't seriously mean always. I know, "blessed be Your name, on the road marked with suffering . . . You give and take away . . ." all that. Sure. I sing it, I even believe I mean it most of the time. But . . . rejoice? With an exclamation point?! That really, really doesn't make much sense. Or come very easily, I'll have You know.

Psh. And THEN there's verse five. "Let your gentleness be evident to all." HAHAHAHA! WhatEVER, Lord.

*cough* somehow, "whatever" and "Lord" don't seem to fit well together in sentence form. At least not with that inflection. Sorry about that.

But . . .God?? What do You seriously mean by that? Gentleness implies some sort of . . .sweet innocent caring spirit. You do realize that living a "gentle" life in this world is akin to crossing an interstate, blindfolded, on foot, in the dark, wearing black, right? Gentle people don't survive, Lord. They don't stand a chance. And quite frankly, I am sick of being shredded at every crossroad. I'm sick of trying to be gentle. I'm sick of having to retrain myself to be gentle. I'm sick of giving You everything, only to end up hurting, realize I tried to do it on my own and then have to go through the entire thing all over again.

I don't want to feel beautiful, Abba. I want to be beautiful. I don't want to fight against myself and try to quiet my own heart. There are enough externals trying to mess up everything, I don't need to add to the fury.

Why is it that I can know so incredibly clearly what I DON'T want and simultaneously have practically NO IDEA what it is that I DO what?

And, Abba, why do I want You . . . only to find that I am terrified to live what that truly means?

Randomness and the thoughts that go with it

Yesterday, I flew home. The flight was fairly uneventful...I was in the middle seat between a sweet old asian lady going to Mississippi and a deaf girl meeting her family here in the north.

Of course, I was flying on about 2 hours of sleep, so I slept on the plane. Thank You, God, for iPods and sound proof headphones. Eesh. Upon arriving at MSP, I was reminded with painful clarity why checking luggage is a bad idea. It adds significant time to your departure from the world of harried travelers. Especially in Minneapolis. Minneapolis is the only airport I know of where luggage gets delayed because the little tram things "take a wrong turn" between the plane and the terminal . . . I checked my bag for the convenience of not having to worry about "gels, liquids or aerosols" Heh. The hassle at security may be worth it. I'm not sure what I'll do for the trip back in two weeks.

Thus far, my journeys have already opened windows of opportunity for good conversations with my family and friends. Warren, Abe and I talked last night (yeah, I was so tired that I couldn't sleep. Hate that . . .) And then Annie and I were able to talk a bit on the way into town and back after retrieving pizza this afternoon :-) There is definitely something to be said for being home. Even if I am still sleeping on the couch. Oh well. It's a comfy couch.

I want to learn to play guitar in the worst way. But I feel completely inept. Argh. If I do end up moving home, music is something I will be dedicating significant effort to, that's for sure. Family, music and saving money. Sounds like a plan to me.

There were thoughts of actual sort of consequence that I was going to write about, but for some reason, writing isn't coming to me yet. I think I'm still too soul-weary. Maybe later...

Awesome.

Tonight, I was paid one of the highest compliments of my life.

A guy I respect as a brother thanked me almost profusely and said I was awesome.

Let it be known heretoforthwith that sometimes. . . sometimes it really does pay off.

Thanks, God. :-)

How many kings stepped down from their thrones?
How many lords have abandoned their homes?
How many greats have become the least for me?
How many gods have poured out their hearts to romance a world that is torn all apart?
How many fathers gave up their sons for me?


Only one.
~How Many Kings, downhere

Amazing, how I've been struggling against cynical scroogey thoughts recently. . . it just takes a little perspective. I'm not going to all of a sudden decide to send out scads of Christmas cards to everyone who's said more than "hi" in my life. And I'm not about to go spend money I don't have on awesome presents for my friends and family. I'm not even going to say that I'm feeling miraculously happy when, quite honestly, I'm fighting depression awfully hard right now.

But I will say that God is good. Because He is. And I will keep praying for a heart that is open to His leading and life that is lived for His purpose.

Disappointed

I am disappointed. Supposedly that means that I was hoping. Maybe I'm still hoping? I don't know, really. Mostly, I feel confused.

It's so weird to realize that you know someone so incredibly well as to know that they WOULD do something, but then think that they've grown and matured past a point where that becomes acceptable . . . . only to blink and see them do something nearly inexplicable.

Maybe I should market myself for my insane skillz. Got a position that needs filling? Hire me to be simply interested in it and it will no longer need filling. Guy looking for a girlfriend? Flirt with me a bit to get me interested and then she'll come along.

:-P I'm really not as cynical as this sounds. Abba's teaching me so many things. I just need to get my thoughts out.

Time to stop blogging and start journaling, I guess.

If it wasn't this. . .

Flat on the interstate.

In the dark.

With sleet.

And a wrench that doesn't fit because of funky after market rims.

Thank You, God, for AAA.

Thank You, God, that there was someone at the Wal-Mart tire counter after they closed.

Thank You, God, for protecting all people persons when I crashed into the pole.

Thank You, God, that my property was the only property damaged when I crashed.

Thank You, God, for a friend with friends in the area, a sister who could get online and get phone numbers for me and members of Your body willing to stay up late and open their home to me.

Thank You, Abba, for a man who doesn't know me, but was willing to work on my crunched car without charging a cent.

....Thank You for love.

Is this what healing looks like?

Faith, hope and love can’t be killed, but they sure can be paralyzed.

The question is . . .what to do with that realization? How does a cynic regain innocence and trust? It’s easy enough to dismiss the “romance is for sissies” mentality when you compartmentalize your heart and mind, but when you step back and see the big picture affected, you have to wonder. How did the undertone of distrust in your sarcastic humor become the foundation for an entire worldview? And WHY is it so hard to truly believe and feel the awesomeness of God and His love.

Yeah, love. That from-your-toes-to-your-head ecstatic-in-your-very-soul knowing that you are known. Not perceived. Not remembered. Known. Actively, eternally, truly, known. More than any man can know a woman, more than the people who are so familiar you can’t remember when you met them. It’s all well and good to say “Jesus loves you!” But it’s become so clichéd that we forget what that means. Jesus knows me.

….how I wish I knew Him more.

It’s amazing how that works. The truth of “We loved Him because He first loved us” becomes more and more understandable as I get older. When someone spends so much time and effort in getting to know you, you cannot help but want them back. It may start as a sort of obligation, but come on. He died, went through Hell and came back, JUST to love us. To know us. That’s worth a little more than five minutes of groggy “Hey God, please give me a good day, amen” every other day or so. It’s worth more than singing with arms outstretched in a group of other people singing with their arms outstretched. And it’s certainly worth more than a “pshh. Yeah, I get it” nonattitude.

I’ll never fully understand the insanity of His love, but I’m [re]learning that seeking Him is far more satisfying than trying to figure out what I keep calling my life.

Forget?

Does forgiveness mean having to go back to "normal"?

ICE

In Case of Emergency.

They tell people to save an entry in their cell phone's speed-dial with that name: ICE. I tried to do that once, but I was going to put in my family's phone number back in Minnesota and it wouldn't let me save the same number in two entries. I decided to leave the number saved - complete with special ringtone - under "Homies." If I was unconscious and they couldn't figure out who to call, my recent contacts should reveal a decent amount of action with that number, and if it didn't, there would be someone on the list who had the number.

That's different now.

I got a new phone in January, so my special ringtone is gone, and the entry with that number now just reads "Home" - without any sort of warmth that word used to inspire. It may as well read "blue house in central Minnesota" any conversation worth noting happens via cell phone with my siblings now. The house that I grew up in is a shell.

Sometimes I think that the world is just full of shells, and all the people are hermit crabs, trying to find one to fit in that they like. We like to ooh and ah at the pretty ones, the unique ones, the hardy ones, but in the end, it's just a bunch of funny looking, mostly naked crustacean bug-like critters running around trying to find a safe place to hide.

When a hermit crab's shell is shattered, what happens to it?

I think it sits still, blinking at the sun, wondering who to put down on all of the paperwork for that "should be obvious, but really isn't anymore" In Case of Emergency, Contact:... space.

From the Ashen Archives

I’m not uncertain anymore.
I know just what I want
I want what I can't seem to see
I want the gift He bought

No, I am not uncertain anymore
I know there’s more than this
I just wish that I could make you see
And in doing that, convince myself

Sometimes it feels so selfish
This pleading of my heart
A long tormented gnashing
The rift reality starts

Make me beautiful again
You know I yearn to be

Make me beautiful again
Let my eyes wake up and see

Make me beautiful again
For life has lost its spark

Make me beautiful again
Put a song back in my heart

Make me beautiful again
I’m begging, crying, please

Make me beautiful again
Know my soul for me

Ball and Chain...

...Forever.

That's how my brother expressed his sentiments to my chatter about the incessantness of wedding plans.

While I've laughed off the "ball and chain" quote before, and still believe it's not the reality of marriage, I found myself agreeing with him to an extent. It's something I simply cannot comprehend. I can remember loving and all of the emotion that went with it, but I can't comprehend it, or imagine ever loving again. And I don't mean in the classic "I will never love again, for I have had my one true love" sense. I just . . . .don't think there's anything left in my heart to love.

Not that I feel dead inside, even though, to a degree, I do. It's like a forest fire ripped through my very core over this past year. The combination of everything has me wishing I could swear off trusting anyone ever again. If I don't want to deal with my own mother, what makes me think I could love anyone?

Haaaaa. *sigh* I should go to bed. I'm exhausted. What's it like to not be exhausted?

Freedom

An eagle, wounded after falling during her first attempt at flying, sat in cage. Perhaps “sat” is not the right word, but “perched” does not fit the situation either. For reasons too various to quantify, eagles do not belong in cages, and so it is really impossible to describe what the noble bird was doing. “Sat” seems to fit, though, because it indicates a sort of slump, when used in reference to eagles.

While the eagle sat, her heart was in tumult. At first from the pain of injury, but after that faded, the realization that she was caged. It bears repeating that eagles do not belong in cages. The eagle knew this in her heart of hearts, and so she was deeply troubled to find herself, well, caged.

The eagle sat in the cage for what felt like an eternity, and all the while, the storm within her raged. Her feathers molted, she matured and changed in appearance, but if you looked closely, you could see that she was not a true eagle. Eagles do not belong in cages. But this eagle was caged. In fact, she was caged for so long that she began to forget what it was to be free. No matter what she forgot, her heart always remembered: she was an eagle. And eagles do not belong in cages.

One day, the eagle’s heart nearly burst with the importance of what it knew.

“Get OUT!” it cried from within her. “Get out and FLY the way you’re meant to!”

Something within the eagle snapped, and though she could not have explained why (eagles rarely explain anything) she decided to fight. The talons which had never been used clawed at the bars surrounding her and the wings that barely knew what it was to stretch explored their reach by beating the enclosure until it broke. As the cage fell away, the eagle found herself slowly rising into the air. When she realized that she was flying and finally in her rightful home – the sky – a screeching cry erupted from her heart. The echo reply made her take notice of her new surroundings, and the immensity of sky overwhelmed her for a moment. Then a warm air current found its home beneath her wings and bore her even higher and she knew: she was made for this. She would never sit in a cage again.

I'll Know When I Get There

I'll know when I get there
I don't know if it's worth it
And I don't know if I'm good enough
All I know is I'm giving it all I've got
And I'll know when I get there

It's hard to tell just where you're at
When you're looking for somethin' that ain't on a map
I've just gotta believe it's down that road somewhere
And I'll know when I get there...

~Keith Anderson, I'll Know When I Get There

I am Tired. (yes, with a capital T)

Tonight, I am tired. I am tired of missing Dad and tired of fighting with Mom. I am tired of struggling to do the right thing; tired of wondering what the right thing is. Tired of seeing people's fear and pride rule them; even more tired of my own. Tired of not being truly happy for more than a few moments until I remember. Tired of getting mad at myself for remembering. Tired of trying to forget.

I would say that I'm tired of seeking God, but I don't think that's quite it. I'm tired of the fact that it's such a struggle to seek Him. I'm tired of trying. Tired of pleasing. Tired of politically correct. Tired of being slightly unconventional for unconventiality's sake. Tired of expectations and the lack of them. Tired of whining.

I'm tired of me. My selfishness and the rut I seem to exist in.

I'm tired of thinking. And I'm tired of trying to explain it.