January 9, 2014
It's so bizarre to pick up this journal nearly exactly (i.e., Jan 25, 2010) four years (has it really been 5 years since I graduated?!) since I last laid it down. The abrupt ending of my last entry has me wondering -what happened? Did the journal get tucked away somewhere and forgotten - abandoned for another journal by accident?
I was writing a lot more sporadically then... This journal technically covers 6 years - starting in 2008 - when I was still in college and just finishing up.
Seems fitting that the rest of its pages be filled with the new start - which in some ways feels like it should've happened right after college - but for some reason took 5 years to really begin...
Four years later I am married to the guy I was agonizing about marrying four years earlier - and our marriage is more blessed than I could've imagined...
Four years later I'm still agonizing about writing and wondering what my life is supposed to be about - but at least this year I am determined to try grad school before I give up on it.
Four years later there are still new beginnings and change and uncertainty, but it feels less volatile... More like the answers are out there - I just have to keep looking for them and maybe give them time to come to fruition. Those doubts of whether the answers are really out there do come up - but mostly I am trying to figure them out.
(I will have to remember to leave one of these pages blank... as I first marveled over the delicacy and beauty of this journal in my first entry - I just noticed the light shining through its slightly translucent pages and it reminds me of the delicacy of the onion paper of the outer onion shells - which doesn't sound delicate... but is beautiful in its own way.)
Today is supposed to be a full and busy day - Already I think I'm technically running behind this morning - but I really want to take it slow and lazy. Could you grant me a little extra time?
Psalm 72
What an awesome "summary psalm" this is.
Kingly and immediate - yet so heavily prophetic about Your Son - the Eternal King - at the same time.
I never really noticed how in Psalm 72 there's a perfect transition verse at the end. It was meant to be the "end cap" on King David's psalms - and the heading says it was written by Solomon, his son. I just see Solomon compiling and collecting together the psalms of his father and then writing this psalm in inspiration of what his dad wrote - and it encapsulates so much of the feeling and heart of David as a King who looked ahead to the Messiah while trying to learn what it meant to rule his people justly and rightly.
In the third book of Psalms it looks like more of the Psalms were not written by David - or at least, explicitly labeled if they were written by him. So, if not labeled - I wonder if they are Solomon's.
Solomon is one of my favorite writers of the Bible - along with John and whoever wrote the book of Hebrews... I don't know why except for they feel like kindred spirits. My only wish for Solomon is that he wouldn't have gotten so distracted - which is often the complain I have for myself. He was so talented and I feel like his writings echo so many things I see and feel looking out at the world - a man of passion but also of analytical logic - who thought a lot, maybe too much, and felt a lot too. His rule was different from his father's - more full of internal strife than external - more peaceful and yet more distracted from focus and consistent dependance upon You as Lord.
It will be good to read, and I am looking forward to reading more of his psalms int he weeks to come.
For today Father - plant that vision of the Messiah in my heart - of our coming king who will reign in peace and joy and righteousness - when all things may be restored. Help me to keep my eyes fixed on Him because they so easily wander - focused on anything BUT Him. But today I want to cling to that eternal perspective and let it shape my life.
Help me Father not to be like Solomon - that though he had so much - he missed out on so much with YOU and relationship with You. I would rather be like John - who felt his very existence was defined as Your Beloved.
Amen.
