February 25, 2014
Good morning Father -
Looks like it's going to be a grey and chilly day today. Had a couple of days of Spring - back to winter again >.<
February and March are normally like that here though...
I don't really mind it - matches my mood for today - a little quieter and more contemplative. Not in the mood to rush... which is good since I have the day off. The hardest thing is staying diligent on days like today when I have many nebulous goals.
...
The topic of Christianity and/vs. homosexuality has been popping up on my newsfeed again. Every time the discussion comes up You provide me with a lot of great places online where great conversations are going on - which is funny because I feel like there's such a lack of that in a lot of my "immediate" space (vs. virtual space, that is.) I don't feel called specifically to do anything with the information - but I feel like You keep it in front of me and keep challenging me to have an open heart and an open perspective... to listen respectfully to both sides (where they are being respectful anyways) and reserve judgment.
Yesterday evening I was specifically reading a lot of articles in context of the LBGTQ Christian community - a minority within a minority really - and about their hearts and wrestling with Scripture and with You on what that means for their lives.
I feel like there's sound Biblical teaching on both sides (i.e., those that see it as being straight forward "wrong" in the Bible, and those that see that there is little in the Bible that directly states anything about a dedicated and committed relationship between two people of the same-sex) and it makes me sad that some of my (even many of my) Christian counterparts would be really freaked out and concerned about me saying that much... so, I can't imagine what it would be like to actually struggle with homosexuality or have a kid who is struggling with it in that context.
I know that if I had a kid who was LBGTQ - I'd want to encourage him/her to wrestle with that question the same I would want them to wrestle with any identity-defining struggle they go through: one on one with You. That's not to say I'd want them to do it alone. I'd want to provide them with good resources - take them to meet other people who struggle with the same issue - talk to them honestly and openly about my thoughts and beliefs - But I would encourage them that ultimately it boils down to an issue they must wrestle with You through - and it may be a long, hard, and frustrating wrestle - but I wouldn't want them to give it up.
I know for me there hasn't been any definitive answer. I don't feel convicted to either affirm/confirm other people's relationships or reject them. Most of my close friends who are homosexual aren't Christians and I'm a lot more concerned about encouraging their relationship with You than I am about passing judgment on their relationship with their partner... And because I can't imagine someone loving me but constantly badgering me about my committed relationship to Jason - I just don't see how that would be helpful at all for me to do that to them either.
My friends who are Christian and are also gay - are really more acquaintances - and even then, I care more about encouraging them to walk with You and in relation to You (especially being aware of the constant pressure they probably feel to walk away from the Church and from You) - than I do about constantly asking them to reaffirm to prove to me the validity of their beliefs - simply because I still have questions of my own.
And that's the crux of it for me - I do still have questions of my own. I have no problem with accepting God's sovereignty in saying that something is wrong and "off-limits" simply because He says so - even if I don't understand it (although I admit - even that took me a long, long time to get to that point) - but I am painfully aware of two things when I say that:
1) This isn't an issue I personally struggle with... so when I say that I am okay with that - I realize that this is far from easy for others. In fact, it is probably the hardest and most painful question my gay Christian brothers and sisters are faced with all their lives. And there's no way that just because I could accept that statement easily I should expect it to be easy for them.
and
2) I am also very aware of the question as to whether or not You are in Scripture honestly saying that homosexuality in the context of a dedicated and committed loving relationship is wrong.
I've been over and over the Scriptures - and I honestly believe those who have wrestled with the Scriptures and their contexts have real points that I have yet to hear addressed from those who say "It says it's wrong - therefore, it is wrong."
At the same time, I realize that there isn't any support for same-sex intimate relationships in the Bible - and it's always in a negative context when it is talked about.
In my mind, however, the same is true about slavery in the Bible - but I don't think the Abolitionists did anything wrong in fighting for the end of slavery as accepted practice (in most of the Westernized world anyways) - and in fact, I am grateful thy did and that I grew up in the knowledge and cultural acceptance that slavery is wrong and something we should combat... and DEFINITELY not something we should support.
Yet there isn't any strong Scriptural evidence that ending human to human slavery was an agenda that You had... not as an overarching theme. In fact, Paul instructs on proper ownership mentality - proper management practice - proper treatment for Christians who were slave owners.
And though people say that the cultural context for slavery was more like an employer relationship nowadays - to me that also makes it relevant for Christian gays to say that the type of same-sex relationship that was rampant in those days in Roman and Grecian cultures (which is what Paul often addresses) was also a very different context than a committed, loving same-sex relationship today.
There are statements that "there is neither slave nor free" - but there are also statements that there is neither male nor female - which to me is what much of the debate hinges upon.
Take out gender/sex - and the issue is a non-issue.
I could spend hours recounting what You and and I have discussed over and over in our own conversations together. I have asked over and over that if I am wrong in any way that You would convict me of it in my spirit and help me to overcome whatever barriers I may have up - whether I recognize them or not - whether I am willing or not: "Get me there Father, and I will do my best to be willing along the way - but I realize I may be fighting you even if it isn't my intent."
It is hard for us to remove ourselves out of our cultural presuppositions - and I believe that goes both ways on the debate.
And this wrestling back and forth and constantly re-addressing the question - that's with me not even struggling WITH homosexuality - just trying to ensure that I am being truthful and honest to those I love! How much more intense and severe would the struggle be if I did actually struggle with wanting to be intimately linked with a woman rather than Jason -- all while understanding that the majority of those who share my faith - both historically and currently - reject that as wrong - and even finding in Your Word (upon which I depend) nothing that seems absolutely clear but at least evidences itself as a condemnation on this most basic fact that I can't seem to simply "erase" from my daily life and my daily struggle. I can't even begin to imagine... and for those who ARE in that boat, I simply can't shove the Scripture in their face and say "JUST READ WHAT IT SAYS AND AGREE" and walk away.
Even in my time with You - trying to be honest and open and asking You to help me - I feel You have left it open - and encourage me to listen. To be concerned about the individual and their heart for You - than obsessed about what I believe is right or wrong about their lives... and that goes for people on both sides of the argument. I haven't gotten a definitive sense from You - though I have asked - on knowing where I ought to "side" in the argument...
Rather, I sense you saying to me that I'm not to enter into backing one side of the other - but to do my best to hear the hearts of the individual person... and that even more so for those who are wrestling to figure out whether they are or aren't homosexual and what that means as a part of their lives - to encourage them to go to You and find in You the answers they seek - the comfort they hope for - the love they need - the confirmation in their identity that we all desperately want... it isn't in or out of their sexuality... but in You.
And what saddens me is just being honest with that much is cause for concern for a lot of the people I love.
I feel like for a lot of my fellow Christians that excludes me from being considered an 'equal' sister of Christ. It demotes me to needing to have greater faith and conviction in God's Word (which in and of itself is an odd ranking system within the church.)
And I feel like for many of my friends who are homosexual - me saying that would make them question whether I really love them for who they are, or whether I only love "parts" of them. I wonder whether because I can't answer to them that yes, I believe God sanctions you being homosexual - but have to say "I'm not sure, you have to go to God for that - and I'd love to be a part of encouraging you to do that and providing to you the same resources I have had that have made me think and wonder, though to be honest... I still have no answer except to love each person for their heart - and that sexuality is only a very small part of that equation" - would make them think that I somehow love them less... or support them less... or care less about them and the person that they love and are committed to (whom I also love and am committed to in friendship and family)...
Enough... this issue goes upon itself in circles and circles. I feel like I write this more for others than for You - though it is honest that it has been on my heart and mind all night and all morning - and for many years longer than that - and so... to be honest right now Lord in my time with You - I lay it before You.
Rather than me trying to sort it all out in words - in my heart and mind - I want to entrust You with it in my soul.
I know I want an easy fix and You promise none. I know I want instant peace on the issue - a definite "Yes" or a definite "No" - but You have let me know it is good that I wrestle with it - and You will simply keep making me wrestle with it - because it helps me stay aware that I have gay brothers and sisters in Christ whom You love - who are wrestling with this in a soul-wrenching way - and as their sister in Christ - I also share in their burden and cannot just lightly dismiss the entire debate. In a way, my wrestling with it is my way of praying and lifting them up in common struggle and love. Because I confess that if you gave me an easy answer, my tendency would be to just deliver that answer and then walk away from the conversation... and that is not what You have called me to... that much I know for sure.
Help me Father - where I am able - where You give me opportunity - to speak with both grace and truth... To be responsive to Your Spirit - Your Word - to Your leading - not to reconstruct who You are and what You say to match my desires and beliefs.
I do not want a god created in my image - I want to be created in Yours.
I feel like it is harder than we think to avoid making gods in our own images... so help me Spirit because I'm pretty bad at being my own guard.
Psalm 98
"Let the sea roar - and all that fills it;
the world and all who dwell in it!
Let the rivers clap their hands;
let the hills sing for joy together
before the Lord, for he comes to judge the earth.
He will judge the world with righteousness,
and the peoples with equity."
What an amazing statement.
If I had to pick two words to encapsulate the most visible and vocal sides of the political debate - the one side would be "righteousness/holiness" and the other "equality" - and here, You promise to come to judge the world and its peoples with both. I feel that should be sobering for all...
But I look forward to it... which is odd for me to say because usually I feel like Your judgment is a hard thing for me to understand - and definitely not something I am usually comfortable considering.
And I'm still not comfortable - but I am aware right now in the midst of all of this what a muddle we humans make of judgment... How impossible it is for us to judge together with righteousness and equality.
Where in Your Kingdom the two go hand in hand... here we pit them against each other and thus, stalemate - because they were never meant to countermand one another - but instead to work in perfect harmonic tension and balance.
It will be lovely one day for all of this to be made clear... what right now feels like me trying to do my best in the midst of a lot of human error and blindspots and misgivings - to one day breathe a sigh of relief because it will all be sorted out - and finally make sense.
The whole world will rejoice: we are not the only ones who suffer at the hands of our confusion...
Father, I look forward to the day when we can stand before you and actually know and experience - not just say - that all of us are standing on equal/level AND holy ground.
Amen Lord - and help me to live my life in better reflection of You today... with courage, love, and truth...
Amen - and Thank You.
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
February 23: Psalm 97
February 23, 2014
Having one of those mornings where anything I can bang, bump, or run into - I will =P
Luckily, even with it taking me so much longer today I got up with Jason so there is a sweet luxury of time. Think we will have to continue to keep this up... we'll see.
Feeling a little tired today - I don't think I've been sleeping well. Been having trouble breathing lately. Might be because of Apple - but also the shift of seasons. My reactions are getting back to being manageable, but there are some times when I scare both Jason and myself - fighting for breath. It's amazing how for-granted we take breathing and oxygen. Hardly ever think about it until suddenly we aren't getting enough and it feels like the most important thing in the world.
...
Apple is collecting all her toys in the sunbeam - She has been such a joy in Jason's and my life. This morning she kept stealing my socks out of our closet - She'd run in and grab a pair then run out to the living room and come back and get another pair. Pretty soon we had a trail of socks going out. It made me laugh... and anyone who can make me laugh in the mornings is doing pretty good!!
It's amazing how much we love having her in our lives.
...
I feel so contented with life it's hard sometimes to remember to keep looking forward. I've been saying and saying that I need to do grad school research and still keep avoiding it. Part of me wonders if a large impetus for me in looking into grad school is because I am afraid to become one of those "dead beat" people who do nothing but retail jobs their whole life - dependent on someone else - never growing their own lives.
The arrogance in that is evident - and I'm not proud of it. I'd never say that out-loud or to anyone else, but I feel like there's a part of me that reacts that way and reflects a lot of the internalized societal pressure and thought. I was always such an A+ student that I wonder a lot of times how disappointed all my teachers may be in me if I do nothing else with my life.
... How disappointed I may be in myself.
Yet I AM happy... contented and settled in - comfortable - which are also things I've always (at least in that same corner of my head where I don't like to admit those uncomfortable truths) also thought was bad - and still have spasms of panic that I'm stuck in a rut - that I'm going no where in life - that I'm a failure - a bore - that I was meant for so much more than this and settled for so much less.
There's arrogance in THAT too. Somehow I think that I (oh so gifted in life as I am =P) was meant for more than the "bores" who keep up part-time jobs and live off their spouses' income.
It's sickening really - those little quiet nasty thoughts that sneak in - and though I know I'm casting things right now in the ultimate negative light... it's mainly because I want to expose them - and burn them out.
There are GOOD things about seeking out adventure and wanting my life to be bigger than Roanoke, VA... but those ways come more naturally to me - and being honest about how truly happy I am in the way of life I have typically scorned (whether I want to admit that I've scorned it to myself or not) has been humbling... and one I still struggle with balancing against the good desires of also wanting life to be about more than comfort and personal stability.
I am hoping I can get rid of all the nasty wormy thoughts and the arrogance I so easily adopt in reaction to people who do work retail and are proud of their work and dedicated to their job. (I am one of those people right now!) And appreciate how wonderful a choice of life that really is.
I am trying to let myself bask in the joys of working part time - to allow myself to really appreciate them: having time and space to breathe - to be - to keep house - to play - to read - to visit - to be free... to go to work and leave work at work - to come home and be unburdened... it has been a glorious gift.
Maybe I was meant to just revel in life? I still can't shake the feeling that I need to at least explore what You may have out there for me because I honestly love school too much not to be in one in some capacity or another I think... but perhaps what I can take with me is a new understanding - truly a different perspective - on what a "successful" life looks like - and try to share that with students who grew up believing that they must be doctors, lawyers, teachers, managers, leaders, or something better than a part-time worker - in order for their lives to "mean something."
Help me to measure my life - and help others to measure theirs - in view of eternity - where the greatest currency is love and with as short as our time is - that it matters most how we spend our lives sharing in - abiding in - learning and growing in - love above all else.
It isn't easy to keep that in focus - and I'm still trying to learn balance between staying ready to move forward and being okay with contentment at the same time.
Psalm 97
So many psalms of praise and thanksgiving! I love these psalms Lord - it is a sweet place to be in Scripture. Reading them I often feel my heart leap inside me and an excitement and joy at the proclamations of how wondrous You are and how good Your works.
It is hard also not to instinctually smother that with intellect and "academic objectivity" - when really - all you care about is that the joy and fierce exuberance take hold of my life and help it burn fresh and new in a blaze of joy and thanksgiving and life.
"The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad!
Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne."
Just thinking about the wonder and beauty of Your Creation - and how it leaps for joy - that wild, fierce joy - in praise of You - its Maker - takes my breath away.
However boring I may think my life is - however insignificant - or ridiculous - we truly serve such an amazing - as-far-from-boring-as-you-can-get God. And in rejoicing in You it suddenly doesn't matter what I do in the rest of my life in fact - it seems sad and insignificant that I should do anything BUT rejoice and bask in Your presence - BE with that same fierce joyful wild existence that nature gets - that savage beauty that crows with the untamed and intense rush that is survival and life and death - right up against those moments of stillness and rest and beauty and just being.
Father - help my life to be one of fierce joyful existence. We so easily get caught up in believing that we are mundane and insignificant and must do some career in order for our lives to matter and be succesful. But in Your Kingdom - the fact that we ARE means we have the same purpose of all Creation - to joyfully exist in praise and worship of You - and BEYOND all Creation - to be Your Beloved.
"Dawn is sown for the righteous
and joy for the upright in heart."
Plant sunrises in my heart Father -
that I might be a city of light on a hill - a beacon of hope and life that welcomes all who are willing to come and see how gloriously bright their lives are - no matter WHO they are - or WHAT they do. Because they ARE - because they EXIST - their purpose is to wondrously and fiercely live in the joy of knowing You.
I thank You Father for the fierce beauty of this world - for the savage beauty of existence - and pray that one day - when all things are set right - our eyes would be fully opened to the perfect balance of how You meant this world to be.
Amen.
Thank you - and Amen.
Having one of those mornings where anything I can bang, bump, or run into - I will =P
Luckily, even with it taking me so much longer today I got up with Jason so there is a sweet luxury of time. Think we will have to continue to keep this up... we'll see.
Feeling a little tired today - I don't think I've been sleeping well. Been having trouble breathing lately. Might be because of Apple - but also the shift of seasons. My reactions are getting back to being manageable, but there are some times when I scare both Jason and myself - fighting for breath. It's amazing how for-granted we take breathing and oxygen. Hardly ever think about it until suddenly we aren't getting enough and it feels like the most important thing in the world.
...
Apple is collecting all her toys in the sunbeam - She has been such a joy in Jason's and my life. This morning she kept stealing my socks out of our closet - She'd run in and grab a pair then run out to the living room and come back and get another pair. Pretty soon we had a trail of socks going out. It made me laugh... and anyone who can make me laugh in the mornings is doing pretty good!!
It's amazing how much we love having her in our lives.
...
I feel so contented with life it's hard sometimes to remember to keep looking forward. I've been saying and saying that I need to do grad school research and still keep avoiding it. Part of me wonders if a large impetus for me in looking into grad school is because I am afraid to become one of those "dead beat" people who do nothing but retail jobs their whole life - dependent on someone else - never growing their own lives.
The arrogance in that is evident - and I'm not proud of it. I'd never say that out-loud or to anyone else, but I feel like there's a part of me that reacts that way and reflects a lot of the internalized societal pressure and thought. I was always such an A+ student that I wonder a lot of times how disappointed all my teachers may be in me if I do nothing else with my life.
... How disappointed I may be in myself.
Yet I AM happy... contented and settled in - comfortable - which are also things I've always (at least in that same corner of my head where I don't like to admit those uncomfortable truths) also thought was bad - and still have spasms of panic that I'm stuck in a rut - that I'm going no where in life - that I'm a failure - a bore - that I was meant for so much more than this and settled for so much less.
There's arrogance in THAT too. Somehow I think that I (oh so gifted in life as I am =P) was meant for more than the "bores" who keep up part-time jobs and live off their spouses' income.
It's sickening really - those little quiet nasty thoughts that sneak in - and though I know I'm casting things right now in the ultimate negative light... it's mainly because I want to expose them - and burn them out.
There are GOOD things about seeking out adventure and wanting my life to be bigger than Roanoke, VA... but those ways come more naturally to me - and being honest about how truly happy I am in the way of life I have typically scorned (whether I want to admit that I've scorned it to myself or not) has been humbling... and one I still struggle with balancing against the good desires of also wanting life to be about more than comfort and personal stability.
I am hoping I can get rid of all the nasty wormy thoughts and the arrogance I so easily adopt in reaction to people who do work retail and are proud of their work and dedicated to their job. (I am one of those people right now!) And appreciate how wonderful a choice of life that really is.
I am trying to let myself bask in the joys of working part time - to allow myself to really appreciate them: having time and space to breathe - to be - to keep house - to play - to read - to visit - to be free... to go to work and leave work at work - to come home and be unburdened... it has been a glorious gift.
Maybe I was meant to just revel in life? I still can't shake the feeling that I need to at least explore what You may have out there for me because I honestly love school too much not to be in one in some capacity or another I think... but perhaps what I can take with me is a new understanding - truly a different perspective - on what a "successful" life looks like - and try to share that with students who grew up believing that they must be doctors, lawyers, teachers, managers, leaders, or something better than a part-time worker - in order for their lives to "mean something."
Help me to measure my life - and help others to measure theirs - in view of eternity - where the greatest currency is love and with as short as our time is - that it matters most how we spend our lives sharing in - abiding in - learning and growing in - love above all else.
It isn't easy to keep that in focus - and I'm still trying to learn balance between staying ready to move forward and being okay with contentment at the same time.
Psalm 97
So many psalms of praise and thanksgiving! I love these psalms Lord - it is a sweet place to be in Scripture. Reading them I often feel my heart leap inside me and an excitement and joy at the proclamations of how wondrous You are and how good Your works.
It is hard also not to instinctually smother that with intellect and "academic objectivity" - when really - all you care about is that the joy and fierce exuberance take hold of my life and help it burn fresh and new in a blaze of joy and thanksgiving and life.
"The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice;
let the many coastlands be glad!
Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne."
Just thinking about the wonder and beauty of Your Creation - and how it leaps for joy - that wild, fierce joy - in praise of You - its Maker - takes my breath away.
However boring I may think my life is - however insignificant - or ridiculous - we truly serve such an amazing - as-far-from-boring-as-you-can-get God. And in rejoicing in You it suddenly doesn't matter what I do in the rest of my life in fact - it seems sad and insignificant that I should do anything BUT rejoice and bask in Your presence - BE with that same fierce joyful wild existence that nature gets - that savage beauty that crows with the untamed and intense rush that is survival and life and death - right up against those moments of stillness and rest and beauty and just being.
Father - help my life to be one of fierce joyful existence. We so easily get caught up in believing that we are mundane and insignificant and must do some career in order for our lives to matter and be succesful. But in Your Kingdom - the fact that we ARE means we have the same purpose of all Creation - to joyfully exist in praise and worship of You - and BEYOND all Creation - to be Your Beloved.
"Dawn is sown for the righteous
and joy for the upright in heart."
Plant sunrises in my heart Father -
that I might be a city of light on a hill - a beacon of hope and life that welcomes all who are willing to come and see how gloriously bright their lives are - no matter WHO they are - or WHAT they do. Because they ARE - because they EXIST - their purpose is to wondrously and fiercely live in the joy of knowing You.
I thank You Father for the fierce beauty of this world - for the savage beauty of existence - and pray that one day - when all things are set right - our eyes would be fully opened to the perfect balance of how You meant this world to be.
Amen.
Thank you - and Amen.
February 21: Psalm 96
February 21, 2014
Having a kind-of quiet morning. Got up with Jason today because I have to be at work a little earlier and it's actually nice to feel like I've got time. We might start doing this on the mornings I have to work.
Psalm 96
I have loved this section of the Psalms. Feels like we were kind-of slugging it out with David in the throes of desperation and need in the first part of Psalms - and now we are in a place of rejoicing and thanksgiving.
(Yah - Rain!!!)
My heart feels lifted up this morning Lord. Thank you for the joy in my heart. For the rain that makes me feel buzzing-alive. For friends and family and love and for says like today when I am truly thankful to be alive and to be your child.
"Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary."
Strength and beauty are in Your sanctuary...
Amazing that places of strength and beauty are sanctuaries for our souls - here on earth - as a picture of eternity.
It's so good Lord to sit and soak in Your goodness - to let it wash over me and cleanse me.
I just want to be still and meditate on that - just let it rest upon me and bathe me.
Father - may I be like a sponge dipped in the perfume of Your presence... that as I soak in Your goodness and glory and light I would bless others today with that fragrance.
May I be more like Christ to others today that they may know how much You love them and how incredibly good You are.
Amen.
Amen. Amen.
And thank you Lord for You.
Love,
Woo
Having a kind-of quiet morning. Got up with Jason today because I have to be at work a little earlier and it's actually nice to feel like I've got time. We might start doing this on the mornings I have to work.
Psalm 96
I have loved this section of the Psalms. Feels like we were kind-of slugging it out with David in the throes of desperation and need in the first part of Psalms - and now we are in a place of rejoicing and thanksgiving.
(Yah - Rain!!!)
My heart feels lifted up this morning Lord. Thank you for the joy in my heart. For the rain that makes me feel buzzing-alive. For friends and family and love and for says like today when I am truly thankful to be alive and to be your child.
"Oh sing to the Lord a new song;
sing to the Lord all the earth!
Sing to the Lord, bless his name;
tell of his salvation from day to day.
Declare his glory among the nations,
his marvelous works among all the peoples!
For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised;
he is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols,
but the Lord made the heavens.
Splendor and majesty are before him;
strength and beauty are in his sanctuary."
Strength and beauty are in Your sanctuary...
Amazing that places of strength and beauty are sanctuaries for our souls - here on earth - as a picture of eternity.
It's so good Lord to sit and soak in Your goodness - to let it wash over me and cleanse me.
I just want to be still and meditate on that - just let it rest upon me and bathe me.
Father - may I be like a sponge dipped in the perfume of Your presence... that as I soak in Your goodness and glory and light I would bless others today with that fragrance.
May I be more like Christ to others today that they may know how much You love them and how incredibly good You are.
Amen.
Amen. Amen.
And thank you Lord for You.
Love,
Woo
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
February 19: Psalm 95
February 19, 2014
All back to normal again today... I never know what's going to trigger those low lows (or the more rare high highs) or what eventually helps me out of it.
Sometimes - like today - I pop out on the other side suddenly like coming out of water for air... And other times I feel like I'm just pushing and pushing through mud when one day I look around and I'm on solid ground again and I wonder - "Huh, when did that happen?"
It feels good to be back... Just in time to wonder in regret if I freaked some people out with my last posting - but then realizing that all of this is an exercise in being honest... and that is an honest part of who I am that most people would never see or know about me... a part I tend to hide.
Just hoping it did some good... but I know my time yesterday with You going through that fire did me good... So in both cases - thankful in the end.
Psalm 95
"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving,
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods .
In His hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also."
So spot-on and ironic =P that line: in Your hands are the depths... and the heights...
Today I am full of songs without words - gratitude for life and breath and freedom and renewal and yes - even those hard times - for what they force me to see. So strange that in Your Kingdom we can even be thankful for depression - or manic-depression - or just plain crazy - whatever the case is for me - I am glad that You put me through and bring me through those times. Though I don't like them... though I'm not grateful for them at the time - I am glad that you stretch me - increase my awareness - refuse to let me walk away from suffering and brokenness so that maybe I can understand and have greater compassion and love for a broken and suffering world.
"Today, if you hear His voice;
do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah
and on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work."
I put you to the test yesterday Lord - I put you to the proof - and You answered in love and deliverance - not in condemnation and judgment - so what does this mean?
I think of many who came and questioned Christ - and there were those who asked because they wanted to trap Him - and those who asked because they wanted to understand. He answered both - but often in rebuke to the former and in love to the latter.
Today Father I pray that in seeing Your work in my life my heart would not be hardened or dismissive of the affliction - "It wasn't as bad as you thought it was, Whitney, you were just being a big melodramatic baby and you made it through on your own just fine."
... Instead - I want to view it honestly - even in hindsight - acknowledge that the ridiculous crippling pain in living is something I wrestle with and that some people wrestle with all the time - not just some times - and that demeaning or demoting the suffering in my own life pushes me into less loving and more judgmental ways of being with others.
Instead Father - soften my heart... Help me to embrace even that hurting, painful part of my life and use it to increase in me compassion, love, and understanding for others in this world.
And if anyone was touched - either by the reading of my blog or in some way of Your touch in their lives as You touched and healed mine yesterday - Father - I pray against hardened hearts that keep us from coming easily to You. Lord, I pray for hearts of belief - that we would fall easily in love with You.
Amen.
All back to normal again today... I never know what's going to trigger those low lows (or the more rare high highs) or what eventually helps me out of it.
Sometimes - like today - I pop out on the other side suddenly like coming out of water for air... And other times I feel like I'm just pushing and pushing through mud when one day I look around and I'm on solid ground again and I wonder - "Huh, when did that happen?"
It feels good to be back... Just in time to wonder in regret if I freaked some people out with my last posting - but then realizing that all of this is an exercise in being honest... and that is an honest part of who I am that most people would never see or know about me... a part I tend to hide.
Just hoping it did some good... but I know my time yesterday with You going through that fire did me good... So in both cases - thankful in the end.
Psalm 95
"Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving,
let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods .
In His hand are the depths of the earth;
the heights of the mountains are his also."
So spot-on and ironic =P that line: in Your hands are the depths... and the heights...
Today I am full of songs without words - gratitude for life and breath and freedom and renewal and yes - even those hard times - for what they force me to see. So strange that in Your Kingdom we can even be thankful for depression - or manic-depression - or just plain crazy - whatever the case is for me - I am glad that You put me through and bring me through those times. Though I don't like them... though I'm not grateful for them at the time - I am glad that you stretch me - increase my awareness - refuse to let me walk away from suffering and brokenness so that maybe I can understand and have greater compassion and love for a broken and suffering world.
"Today, if you hear His voice;
do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah
and on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work."
I put you to the test yesterday Lord - I put you to the proof - and You answered in love and deliverance - not in condemnation and judgment - so what does this mean?
I think of many who came and questioned Christ - and there were those who asked because they wanted to trap Him - and those who asked because they wanted to understand. He answered both - but often in rebuke to the former and in love to the latter.
Today Father I pray that in seeing Your work in my life my heart would not be hardened or dismissive of the affliction - "It wasn't as bad as you thought it was, Whitney, you were just being a big melodramatic baby and you made it through on your own just fine."
... Instead - I want to view it honestly - even in hindsight - acknowledge that the ridiculous crippling pain in living is something I wrestle with and that some people wrestle with all the time - not just some times - and that demeaning or demoting the suffering in my own life pushes me into less loving and more judgmental ways of being with others.
Instead Father - soften my heart... Help me to embrace even that hurting, painful part of my life and use it to increase in me compassion, love, and understanding for others in this world.
And if anyone was touched - either by the reading of my blog or in some way of Your touch in their lives as You touched and healed mine yesterday - Father - I pray against hardened hearts that keep us from coming easily to You. Lord, I pray for hearts of belief - that we would fall easily in love with You.
Amen.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
February 18: Psalm 94
February 18, 2014
10AM and I finally get up in some semblance of being awake. I feel like the scales have tipped and I'm no longer "kind-of" in one of my funks - but just in one full blown. I feel like most people think Christians are supposed to be immune to certain diseases and mental illnesses like depression - OCD - anxiety attacks... like we're supposed to have some kind-of Holy Spirit guard that keeps us from falling prey to them... or maybe that's just my impression.
I don't even know if it's depression I struggle with - maybe I do a disservice to people who actually struggle with that by saying that I do... Maybe I just suffer from overthinking and giving up on life. Just being lazy or weak.
All I know is that there are some mornings I wish I didn't have to wake up. When getting out of bed feels like a monumental task - let alone doing anything productive. When being alive seems pointless and death sounds so much more appealing.
I gave up on suicide a long time ago. For starters - I don't think I have the guts for it under normal circumstances - it's only when I'm distraught and going out of my mind in the pain of living that those thoughts even become possibilities... but it seems like a futile gesture anyways, and one that only leaves pain and distress for everyone else - almost the ultimately pointless and cruel action to take against others in your last action in life...
But there's a way of life that is living death... and even though I'm pretty high functioning and will do what needs to be done to keep face and go to work and carry on as usual - inside there's a deathly silence... a complete lack of interest - an awareness that everything is an act - a ridiculous parody that we keep playing.
I feel like many of us are only pretending at life - going through motions because "we're supposed to" but never stopping to ask who said we "were supposed to" or ask why we are going through these motions. Follow the reasoning back far enough in any action in life and I feel like there are more blank voids left behind the question of WHY than any substantial answers.
All these melodramatic and deep thoughts that bubble to the surface when I sit here - brooding - typically lay with one eye open - sleeping (kind-of) while watching me as I go through my day - and mostly there is just cavernous space and silence and that echoing futility.
Why bother?
Why am I here?
Why am I doing this?
What does it matter?
Mostly angry and frustrated: Why am I alive? It feels like a waste of breath.
Why do humans exist at all?
It feels like a waste of existence.
It's strange that I never think that of the world or any other creature in it. They exist because they exist - and their existence alone is good... But for some reason I think and believe that humans are supposed to have some purpose. Our existence is not purpose alone - reason alone - to exist. Maybe it's because You created everything and saw that it was good - but when you created man - you saw that it was not good that he was alone.
Of everything you created - the only thing that was not good was man alone... created in Your image.
Pointless outside of relationship...
And that's what rankles...
Since having Apple there are times that both Jason and I will stop and marvel over her. Just that she exists - just at how pretty she is - how soft her fur - how she is ours - and she's just a PUPPY for crying out loud.
... And I'm jealous.
Because I want someone to do that to me.
Touch my hair when I'm sleeping - splay out my fingers - marvel over my existence and the wonder of life...
We lose that sense of others when they're no longer babies... we lose that kind of love when we're no longer babies.
Infancy love - I feel like - is the only time we get close to even understanding how you love us - how we want to love others...
Marveling over mere existence... marveling over the life that makes us alive.
Who loves like that outside of mothers with their children? And is there a point at which we outgrow that even with our moms?
When they stop creaking open the door to peek at us sleeping and marvel over our creation? As though they can't believe we really exist?
I'm not even a mom - but I've held babies and felt that wonder.
But I've rarely, if ever, loved or looked at another human (older human) that way. Occasionally - at times - I might look at Jason and marvel that he's with me. That I was lucky enough not just to find a man who would treat me well - but beyond that - honestly try to love me.
Because to be honest, we all suck at that kind-of love.
I don't look at other adults - even most snotty nosed kids - and marvel over their existence.
I'm not captivated by the fact that they are alive -
I don't hang suspended out of time - caught up in the wonder that they are alive - reach out and touch their cheek in disbelief that they are really there - that they really exist - that they are almost so wondrous as to make me question their very being.
Most of the time I am resigned to others' existence... and just trying hard not to wish they DIDN'T exist at all.
But I want to be loved like that - at least sometimes - at least once in awhile. I want MY existence to captivate... I want just the fact that it's me and I'm alive - I want a human to marvel over that.
You are loved like that - You told me last night when we had this conversation and I was in tears in anger and frustration with you - I love you like that.
But I want a human to love me like that.
But one does...
Why isn't that enough? I want more than Your Son to love me like that - I want someone I can see - I want someone to bear up that love as evidence to me that my existence and being has meaning and purpose - when I begin to lose sight and faith that it does.
I want someone to touch me with wondering trembling fingers at the mere fact of my life - when I feel like I wish it would just blink itself out of its miserable existence already.
Maybe that sounds narcissistic - maybe really creepy and needy... maybe I've just deluded myself into thinking that's how we all want to be loved so I can feel better about my own need... But really.. who wouldn't want to be loved like that?! Really - honestly - not just melodrama or play-acting-at-life kind-of love... But truly - really - what if we experienced that kind of wondering - enraptured - "you-do-nothing-but-exist-and-I-marvel-over-you" kind-of love... not just as babies - but throughout our life.
Everything sounds so tinny to me - so over the top - and over done... It's such a melodramatic thing to chew on... why can't I just go on with life and do something - it would be better spent than wasting my time brooding over this one thought - why would it be better? Who knows!
Because this is futile... this is weak... this is pathetic... This is an excuse to staying hold up and static and stationary and never making my life amount to anything.
And anyways - I fail at loving like that - and yet wish and long for someone else to love me that way.
How backwards is that?
That's how you tell us to love.
That's how we're supposed to love one another -
love people outside the church
love people inside the church
love the world.
With that trembling, marveling over their existence -
And I cannot love even one person -
I cannot love even myself -
with that love.
I feel like I have to fulfill some purpose - some reason - some meaning for my existence...
My existence is not enough.
It's not enough to garner that wondering love.
But I am faced with the futility of that because that love isn't predicated on anything BUT existence.
You exist... therefore I love you.
... therefore I wonder over your being.
... therefore I marvel over you.
What do babies do honestly to make us love them?
It makes no sense... it's a completely irrational - completely instinctual love.
We can't make it happen - though we can play act at it -
... which I feel like is so much of our lives -
But that kind-of wondering love - I recognize the difference of it in myself. It rises up unbidden... that awe just catches me off guard sometimes - when I want to hold the baby (or the puppy) whose existence has recalled that feeling in me so close as to almost wish I could take that love in as a part of me and carry that wonder around.
.... And I want to be loved like that...
I feel like I'm obsessing over this one issue and saying the same thing over and over - but it's like I'm hoping if I keep hitting this over and over - maybe it'll reveal some secret to me... How I can believe in that love for myself... how I can learn to love other people in that love... how I can somehow teach or maybe garner in some way - that love for myself...
But it's all futile because I don't know how that love happens - where it comes from - why or how certain existences trigger it - why I can't hold onto it forever - why it fades away.
But I know that in times like right now... today when I want my existence to stop - it's the kind-of love that I want... maybe even desperately need.
So that... what?
So that I guess I can go back to playacting with some semblance of normality?
In the belief that the actions matter - that my life matters - that what I do matters - because I exist... because I exist - it matters - because just my existence is a thing of wonder and beauty - without anything else having to be added... it changes everything else that is added.
... On one hand - I know this (that my existence matters) as an item of belief. On the other I feel like I am doubting it at the very core today - and everything just seems to be reinforcing that doubt... even the truth that there is nothing I do to deserve that love...
So either you believe you are loved or you don't. And today I don't... or at least - today I want proof to believe it which I know means that I don't honestly believe it - and I don't know how to honestly make myself believe.
Stuck in upon circles and circles of futility and I am sure people are wishing I would just shut up.
I know I am...
Psalm 94
Am I resisting Your Spirit Lord? Maybe a little.
I sometimes feel like I open Your Word as a last resort when I have exhausted my brain with my own thoughts and there is this kind-of cryptic message with a theme that is right there if only I am willing to work for it a little... and I am not.
There are obvious conclusions my mind jumps to - that my foes and enemies are these thoughts that ambush me and besiege me inside myself - You rise up in defense and anger against Satan and the lies he keeps bombarding me with - without let up - without breath...
That You hear
That You see
That Your steadfast love holds me when all I can see is how I am slipping further and further into this living death.
That though the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.
That you are my stronghold - the rock of refuge -
And that You will wipe out this darkness that threatens to swallow me whole and leave me empty and soulless - an automaton shell...
That You will conquer and redeem and set me free... And maybe a part of me wants to believe it - and maybe a part of me does believe it - and maybe I'm TRYING to believe - but mostly right now my questions is: Then why don't I see Lord?!
Why isn't it happening?
An you say - it IS - it is happening - right now - and I don't believe you.
I don't believe Your Word can set me free because what I want is for a human to.
What I want is for someone to come in and love me... to understand what I need without me having to tell them or show them or explain to them - or do anything but be.
To do anything but be. loved.
What I want is for someone to confirm to me that IS my identity. Whitney, you are beloved - you are beloved because I love you - I love you - just for being - I love you - and I couldn't love you, as a human, I couldn't love you like that - you KNOW I couldn't - because you know YOU can't - you know I couldn't love you if I didn't believe that I also am beloved... Beloved for no other reason than that I am.
That's what I want... for someone to come show me that...
Maybe that's what your church is all about. That's why we're all still here on Earth... because it was not good that man was alone. Man's purpose was not just existence - but beloved existence - and we needed divine human love - we needed the divine to invade the human - to have our identities: beloved - to be "good." To be complete. You made us so... or maybe that was simply the nature of being created in the image of God-Who-Is-Love...
It wasn't enough for divine love ALONE - we needed divine love invading our own flesh.
We needed each other --> Your Son --> Each other again in the Church.
That's what the Gospel is all about...
... but it still doesn't help Father - that what I want right now is help to believe.
Pick up your mat and walk - I hear you say -
Touch me first Father - please...
I want to believe... but I am really struggling -
I just want something to hold onto...
Something to to soak in...
I don't want to go back out - I don't want to go back to play-acting-life - going through the motions I'm supposed to (like showering and eating and caring for others). I want proof Father - I want proof... and then I want to stay here for awhile...
Get up and walk in faith my child.
I know it isn't easy -
I hear - I see - your private grief...
I know...
and even now you are finding in yourself the strength to get up - and wash your face - and go have lunch with your husband in the faith that the money will work out - But it hasn't been Father - it HASN'T been working out - I know. I know. But baby... today I need you to keep walking in faith... I need you to keep walking in the faith that it will work out. And that you will be okay. Because you are Beloved.... and you need to go see Jason so I can show you that right now. Because I am giving you strength to do this - even this much - right now.
Can you do it? Just this much? Can you do it for right now?
... Ok... I will try. I feel bad that I need so much just to get up and wash my face and leave the house - and buy fast food for lunch with my husband...
It's a pathetic existence Lord - that I need so much help just to do this much...
It's not... It's good... I know you can't see it - but I can. And it's good. Your life is good.
Ok... I'm sorry.
Don't be. You are my Beloved.
All I want you to do is be. loved.
Are you ready?
I think so... Give me a second.
Ok.
Okay. Let's go.
10AM and I finally get up in some semblance of being awake. I feel like the scales have tipped and I'm no longer "kind-of" in one of my funks - but just in one full blown. I feel like most people think Christians are supposed to be immune to certain diseases and mental illnesses like depression - OCD - anxiety attacks... like we're supposed to have some kind-of Holy Spirit guard that keeps us from falling prey to them... or maybe that's just my impression.
I don't even know if it's depression I struggle with - maybe I do a disservice to people who actually struggle with that by saying that I do... Maybe I just suffer from overthinking and giving up on life. Just being lazy or weak.
All I know is that there are some mornings I wish I didn't have to wake up. When getting out of bed feels like a monumental task - let alone doing anything productive. When being alive seems pointless and death sounds so much more appealing.
I gave up on suicide a long time ago. For starters - I don't think I have the guts for it under normal circumstances - it's only when I'm distraught and going out of my mind in the pain of living that those thoughts even become possibilities... but it seems like a futile gesture anyways, and one that only leaves pain and distress for everyone else - almost the ultimately pointless and cruel action to take against others in your last action in life...
But there's a way of life that is living death... and even though I'm pretty high functioning and will do what needs to be done to keep face and go to work and carry on as usual - inside there's a deathly silence... a complete lack of interest - an awareness that everything is an act - a ridiculous parody that we keep playing.
I feel like many of us are only pretending at life - going through motions because "we're supposed to" but never stopping to ask who said we "were supposed to" or ask why we are going through these motions. Follow the reasoning back far enough in any action in life and I feel like there are more blank voids left behind the question of WHY than any substantial answers.
All these melodramatic and deep thoughts that bubble to the surface when I sit here - brooding - typically lay with one eye open - sleeping (kind-of) while watching me as I go through my day - and mostly there is just cavernous space and silence and that echoing futility.
Why bother?
Why am I here?
Why am I doing this?
What does it matter?
Mostly angry and frustrated: Why am I alive? It feels like a waste of breath.
Why do humans exist at all?
It feels like a waste of existence.
It's strange that I never think that of the world or any other creature in it. They exist because they exist - and their existence alone is good... But for some reason I think and believe that humans are supposed to have some purpose. Our existence is not purpose alone - reason alone - to exist. Maybe it's because You created everything and saw that it was good - but when you created man - you saw that it was not good that he was alone.
Of everything you created - the only thing that was not good was man alone... created in Your image.
Pointless outside of relationship...
And that's what rankles...
Since having Apple there are times that both Jason and I will stop and marvel over her. Just that she exists - just at how pretty she is - how soft her fur - how she is ours - and she's just a PUPPY for crying out loud.
... And I'm jealous.
Because I want someone to do that to me.
Touch my hair when I'm sleeping - splay out my fingers - marvel over my existence and the wonder of life...
We lose that sense of others when they're no longer babies... we lose that kind of love when we're no longer babies.
Infancy love - I feel like - is the only time we get close to even understanding how you love us - how we want to love others...
Marveling over mere existence... marveling over the life that makes us alive.
Who loves like that outside of mothers with their children? And is there a point at which we outgrow that even with our moms?
When they stop creaking open the door to peek at us sleeping and marvel over our creation? As though they can't believe we really exist?
I'm not even a mom - but I've held babies and felt that wonder.
But I've rarely, if ever, loved or looked at another human (older human) that way. Occasionally - at times - I might look at Jason and marvel that he's with me. That I was lucky enough not just to find a man who would treat me well - but beyond that - honestly try to love me.
Because to be honest, we all suck at that kind-of love.
I don't look at other adults - even most snotty nosed kids - and marvel over their existence.
I'm not captivated by the fact that they are alive -
I don't hang suspended out of time - caught up in the wonder that they are alive - reach out and touch their cheek in disbelief that they are really there - that they really exist - that they are almost so wondrous as to make me question their very being.
Most of the time I am resigned to others' existence... and just trying hard not to wish they DIDN'T exist at all.
But I want to be loved like that - at least sometimes - at least once in awhile. I want MY existence to captivate... I want just the fact that it's me and I'm alive - I want a human to marvel over that.
You are loved like that - You told me last night when we had this conversation and I was in tears in anger and frustration with you - I love you like that.
But I want a human to love me like that.
But one does...
Why isn't that enough? I want more than Your Son to love me like that - I want someone I can see - I want someone to bear up that love as evidence to me that my existence and being has meaning and purpose - when I begin to lose sight and faith that it does.
I want someone to touch me with wondering trembling fingers at the mere fact of my life - when I feel like I wish it would just blink itself out of its miserable existence already.
Maybe that sounds narcissistic - maybe really creepy and needy... maybe I've just deluded myself into thinking that's how we all want to be loved so I can feel better about my own need... But really.. who wouldn't want to be loved like that?! Really - honestly - not just melodrama or play-acting-at-life kind-of love... But truly - really - what if we experienced that kind of wondering - enraptured - "you-do-nothing-but-exist-and-I-marvel-over-you" kind-of love... not just as babies - but throughout our life.
Everything sounds so tinny to me - so over the top - and over done... It's such a melodramatic thing to chew on... why can't I just go on with life and do something - it would be better spent than wasting my time brooding over this one thought - why would it be better? Who knows!
Because this is futile... this is weak... this is pathetic... This is an excuse to staying hold up and static and stationary and never making my life amount to anything.
And anyways - I fail at loving like that - and yet wish and long for someone else to love me that way.
How backwards is that?
That's how you tell us to love.
That's how we're supposed to love one another -
love people outside the church
love people inside the church
love the world.
With that trembling, marveling over their existence -
And I cannot love even one person -
I cannot love even myself -
with that love.
I feel like I have to fulfill some purpose - some reason - some meaning for my existence...
My existence is not enough.
It's not enough to garner that wondering love.
But I am faced with the futility of that because that love isn't predicated on anything BUT existence.
You exist... therefore I love you.
... therefore I wonder over your being.
... therefore I marvel over you.
What do babies do honestly to make us love them?
It makes no sense... it's a completely irrational - completely instinctual love.
We can't make it happen - though we can play act at it -
... which I feel like is so much of our lives -
But that kind-of wondering love - I recognize the difference of it in myself. It rises up unbidden... that awe just catches me off guard sometimes - when I want to hold the baby (or the puppy) whose existence has recalled that feeling in me so close as to almost wish I could take that love in as a part of me and carry that wonder around.
.... And I want to be loved like that...
I feel like I'm obsessing over this one issue and saying the same thing over and over - but it's like I'm hoping if I keep hitting this over and over - maybe it'll reveal some secret to me... How I can believe in that love for myself... how I can learn to love other people in that love... how I can somehow teach or maybe garner in some way - that love for myself...
But it's all futile because I don't know how that love happens - where it comes from - why or how certain existences trigger it - why I can't hold onto it forever - why it fades away.
But I know that in times like right now... today when I want my existence to stop - it's the kind-of love that I want... maybe even desperately need.
So that... what?
So that I guess I can go back to playacting with some semblance of normality?
In the belief that the actions matter - that my life matters - that what I do matters - because I exist... because I exist - it matters - because just my existence is a thing of wonder and beauty - without anything else having to be added... it changes everything else that is added.
... On one hand - I know this (that my existence matters) as an item of belief. On the other I feel like I am doubting it at the very core today - and everything just seems to be reinforcing that doubt... even the truth that there is nothing I do to deserve that love...
So either you believe you are loved or you don't. And today I don't... or at least - today I want proof to believe it which I know means that I don't honestly believe it - and I don't know how to honestly make myself believe.
Stuck in upon circles and circles of futility and I am sure people are wishing I would just shut up.
I know I am...
Psalm 94
Am I resisting Your Spirit Lord? Maybe a little.
I sometimes feel like I open Your Word as a last resort when I have exhausted my brain with my own thoughts and there is this kind-of cryptic message with a theme that is right there if only I am willing to work for it a little... and I am not.
There are obvious conclusions my mind jumps to - that my foes and enemies are these thoughts that ambush me and besiege me inside myself - You rise up in defense and anger against Satan and the lies he keeps bombarding me with - without let up - without breath...
That You hear
That You see
That Your steadfast love holds me when all I can see is how I am slipping further and further into this living death.
That though the cares of my heart are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.
That you are my stronghold - the rock of refuge -
And that You will wipe out this darkness that threatens to swallow me whole and leave me empty and soulless - an automaton shell...
That You will conquer and redeem and set me free... And maybe a part of me wants to believe it - and maybe a part of me does believe it - and maybe I'm TRYING to believe - but mostly right now my questions is: Then why don't I see Lord?!
Why isn't it happening?
An you say - it IS - it is happening - right now - and I don't believe you.
I don't believe Your Word can set me free because what I want is for a human to.
What I want is for someone to come in and love me... to understand what I need without me having to tell them or show them or explain to them - or do anything but be.
To do anything but be. loved.
What I want is for someone to confirm to me that IS my identity. Whitney, you are beloved - you are beloved because I love you - I love you - just for being - I love you - and I couldn't love you, as a human, I couldn't love you like that - you KNOW I couldn't - because you know YOU can't - you know I couldn't love you if I didn't believe that I also am beloved... Beloved for no other reason than that I am.
That's what I want... for someone to come show me that...
Maybe that's what your church is all about. That's why we're all still here on Earth... because it was not good that man was alone. Man's purpose was not just existence - but beloved existence - and we needed divine human love - we needed the divine to invade the human - to have our identities: beloved - to be "good." To be complete. You made us so... or maybe that was simply the nature of being created in the image of God-Who-Is-Love...
It wasn't enough for divine love ALONE - we needed divine love invading our own flesh.
We needed each other --> Your Son --> Each other again in the Church.
That's what the Gospel is all about...
... but it still doesn't help Father - that what I want right now is help to believe.
Pick up your mat and walk - I hear you say -
Touch me first Father - please...
I want to believe... but I am really struggling -
I just want something to hold onto...
Something to to soak in...
I don't want to go back out - I don't want to go back to play-acting-life - going through the motions I'm supposed to (like showering and eating and caring for others). I want proof Father - I want proof... and then I want to stay here for awhile...
Get up and walk in faith my child.
I know it isn't easy -
I hear - I see - your private grief...
I know...
and even now you are finding in yourself the strength to get up - and wash your face - and go have lunch with your husband in the faith that the money will work out - But it hasn't been Father - it HASN'T been working out - I know. I know. But baby... today I need you to keep walking in faith... I need you to keep walking in the faith that it will work out. And that you will be okay. Because you are Beloved.... and you need to go see Jason so I can show you that right now. Because I am giving you strength to do this - even this much - right now.
Can you do it? Just this much? Can you do it for right now?
... Ok... I will try. I feel bad that I need so much just to get up and wash my face and leave the house - and buy fast food for lunch with my husband...
It's a pathetic existence Lord - that I need so much help just to do this much...
It's not... It's good... I know you can't see it - but I can. And it's good. Your life is good.
Ok... I'm sorry.
Don't be. You are my Beloved.
All I want you to do is be. loved.
Are you ready?
I think so... Give me a second.
Ok.
Okay. Let's go.
February 17: Psalm 93
February 17, 2014
I keep waking up these mornings feeling defeated before I've begun. I hate when I get into these slumps where all my motivation for life feels limp and I don't really feel like doing anything at all.
Just like a shell waiting to be filled.
It ends up being a vicious cycle - who really wants to be around, hear about, have to engage with a defeated life? But then - what's the purpose at all of even trying if I already feel defeated? And around... and around...
I care about a defeated life - I hear you whisper to me. I care about taking a defeated soul and filling it with life and hope and dreams again. I care about it.
Why doesn't even that stir and move me?
Lord - help me today where I cannot help myself.
You are the breather of Life itself - breathe new life in me I pray Lord - that I might truly live in thanksgiving to You.
Psalm 93
The Lord reigns over all - Whitney,
He is robed in majesty - full of might and splendor.
The Lord is robed and He has put on strength as his belt -
power to conquer - ready for battle.
Yes, the world is established,
it shall never be moved.
His throne was established from of old
before time itself began: He was King.
He has lasted from eternity and will last into eternity.
The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
the floods have lifted up their voice in my life -
the floods lift up their roaring and it is deafening and numbing and I am silent before them.
Mightier than the thunders of many waters - Whitney
mightier than the waves of the seas,
the Lord on high is mighty!
Your decrees are very trustworthy, Lord -
I can build my life upon them.
Holiness - being set apart - benefits your house -
to which I belong
holiness befits you - Whitney -
O Lord - forever more - be established. Be I AM.
I was thinking earlier that I feel a little bit like when I was a little girl trying to wade out into the ocean - and there's a certain point where the waves are breaking that you have to make past in order to be beyond the smacking of the waves. The "surf point" I think it's called...
Anyways, it has always been my least favorite and most terrifying part of getting in the ocean (other than imagining every other awful swimming/floating real and imaginary thing in the water).
Especially as a little girl - and even now - I hated it because often these waves would smack into me and rip me off my feet - tumble me head over heels into sand and saltwater - and spit me out - coughing and choking and crying from the burn of salty water in every pore of my body - on shore.
And I was thinking - that's what I'm feeling like is happening spiritually right now... Like I'm getting smacked back - over and over and over again - and like I can't quite make it past the surf to the place of deeper waters and gently bobbing water-hills... that lift me up and off my feet but then wash through me and set me down before the next. Spiritually beaten by choppy waters Lord - and I don't want to try anymore.
Mightier than the thunders of many waters,
mightier than the waves of the sea,
the Lord on high is mighty.
I am mightier than the crushing waves, Whitney.
I am mightier than them in Your life.
Trust Me.
Help carry me through them - Father - or at least a greater courage and perseverance to continue meetin them head on.
Amen.
I keep waking up these mornings feeling defeated before I've begun. I hate when I get into these slumps where all my motivation for life feels limp and I don't really feel like doing anything at all.
Just like a shell waiting to be filled.
It ends up being a vicious cycle - who really wants to be around, hear about, have to engage with a defeated life? But then - what's the purpose at all of even trying if I already feel defeated? And around... and around...
I care about a defeated life - I hear you whisper to me. I care about taking a defeated soul and filling it with life and hope and dreams again. I care about it.
Why doesn't even that stir and move me?
Lord - help me today where I cannot help myself.
You are the breather of Life itself - breathe new life in me I pray Lord - that I might truly live in thanksgiving to You.
Psalm 93
The Lord reigns over all - Whitney,
He is robed in majesty - full of might and splendor.
The Lord is robed and He has put on strength as his belt -
power to conquer - ready for battle.
Yes, the world is established,
it shall never be moved.
His throne was established from of old
before time itself began: He was King.
He has lasted from eternity and will last into eternity.
The floods have lifted up, O Lord,
the floods have lifted up their voice in my life -
the floods lift up their roaring and it is deafening and numbing and I am silent before them.
Mightier than the thunders of many waters - Whitney
mightier than the waves of the seas,
the Lord on high is mighty!
Your decrees are very trustworthy, Lord -
I can build my life upon them.
Holiness - being set apart - benefits your house -
to which I belong
holiness befits you - Whitney -
O Lord - forever more - be established. Be I AM.
I was thinking earlier that I feel a little bit like when I was a little girl trying to wade out into the ocean - and there's a certain point where the waves are breaking that you have to make past in order to be beyond the smacking of the waves. The "surf point" I think it's called...
Anyways, it has always been my least favorite and most terrifying part of getting in the ocean (other than imagining every other awful swimming/floating real and imaginary thing in the water).
Especially as a little girl - and even now - I hated it because often these waves would smack into me and rip me off my feet - tumble me head over heels into sand and saltwater - and spit me out - coughing and choking and crying from the burn of salty water in every pore of my body - on shore.
And I was thinking - that's what I'm feeling like is happening spiritually right now... Like I'm getting smacked back - over and over and over again - and like I can't quite make it past the surf to the place of deeper waters and gently bobbing water-hills... that lift me up and off my feet but then wash through me and set me down before the next. Spiritually beaten by choppy waters Lord - and I don't want to try anymore.
Mightier than the thunders of many waters,
mightier than the waves of the sea,
the Lord on high is mighty.
I am mightier than the crushing waves, Whitney.
I am mightier than them in Your life.
Trust Me.
Help carry me through them - Father - or at least a greater courage and perseverance to continue meetin them head on.
Amen.
February 12: Psalm 92
February 12, 2014
Good morning Father -
Supposed to be a massive snow day tonight... Everyone is waiting in kind-of eager expectation. Even though I'm actually hoping to get my hours in at work I feel caught up in it too... There are many things more magical and important than money!
Still... hoping to have it timed just right so Jason can have tomorrow off with me (maybe!)
Psalm 92
Finally feel like I am ready for this Psalm. I've been reading it for three days now and I feel like You keep asking me: Do you get it yet? Do you get it yet?
Not in understanding - but in belief?
Do I believe it is good to give you thanks?
To sing your praises?
To declare your steadfast love in the mornings,
and your faithfulness at night?
It's funny because I feel like in posting my blog at night - my journal in the morning is often about remembering Your steadfast love and that night in reposting, marveling at Your faithfulness. As I re-write a lot of my morning musings I think - there's so much I missed in that Psalm! So much beauty and detail that I missed because I was too concerned about crying out to You or struggling to stay awake - or struggling to understand.
I feel like that's a beautiful picture of what clinging/learning about Your steadfast love - your covenantal love is - and then looking back and recalling Your faithfulness. Often times in the midst of clinging to Your love I can't see how You are actually working. I am clinging to it by faith unseen... But when I look back I see so many beautiful things I missed at the moment - so much detail that was lost on me as I was confronting the problem.
"For You, O Lord, have made me glad by Your work;
At the works of your hand I sing for joy."
Thank You Father - for all that You are accomplishing in my life - and all that You promise to complete. Help me to be a willing vessel - a ready follow - eager and responsive to your slightest lead.
Thank You for Your great love for us that never fails and never gives up - no matter how many times we do.
Thank you for the blessings of my life - Help me to note them and count them - instead of wasting my life away in discontent and dissatisfaction -
Help me to believe - not just say - that truly You are a great God worthy of all our praise -
Teach me to share that with others with courage and strength and love.
"The righteous flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
They still bear fruit in old age;
they are ever full of sap and green,
to declare that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him."
Father - may I dwell and abide in you - flourishing in such a way that those who see me would know and see Your faithfulness - your righteousness - your goodness.
Amen.
Good morning Father -
Supposed to be a massive snow day tonight... Everyone is waiting in kind-of eager expectation. Even though I'm actually hoping to get my hours in at work I feel caught up in it too... There are many things more magical and important than money!
Still... hoping to have it timed just right so Jason can have tomorrow off with me (maybe!)
Psalm 92
Finally feel like I am ready for this Psalm. I've been reading it for three days now and I feel like You keep asking me: Do you get it yet? Do you get it yet?
Not in understanding - but in belief?
Do I believe it is good to give you thanks?
To sing your praises?
To declare your steadfast love in the mornings,
and your faithfulness at night?
It's funny because I feel like in posting my blog at night - my journal in the morning is often about remembering Your steadfast love and that night in reposting, marveling at Your faithfulness. As I re-write a lot of my morning musings I think - there's so much I missed in that Psalm! So much beauty and detail that I missed because I was too concerned about crying out to You or struggling to stay awake - or struggling to understand.
I feel like that's a beautiful picture of what clinging/learning about Your steadfast love - your covenantal love is - and then looking back and recalling Your faithfulness. Often times in the midst of clinging to Your love I can't see how You are actually working. I am clinging to it by faith unseen... But when I look back I see so many beautiful things I missed at the moment - so much detail that was lost on me as I was confronting the problem.
"For You, O Lord, have made me glad by Your work;
At the works of your hand I sing for joy."
Thank You Father - for all that You are accomplishing in my life - and all that You promise to complete. Help me to be a willing vessel - a ready follow - eager and responsive to your slightest lead.
Thank You for Your great love for us that never fails and never gives up - no matter how many times we do.
Thank you for the blessings of my life - Help me to note them and count them - instead of wasting my life away in discontent and dissatisfaction -
Help me to believe - not just say - that truly You are a great God worthy of all our praise -
Teach me to share that with others with courage and strength and love.
"The righteous flourish like the palm tree
and grow like a cedar in Lebanon.
They are planted in the house of the Lord;
they flourish in the courts of our God.
They still bear fruit in old age;
they are ever full of sap and green,
to declare that the Lord is upright;
he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him."
Father - may I dwell and abide in you - flourishing in such a way that those who see me would know and see Your faithfulness - your righteousness - your goodness.
Amen.
Saturday, February 15, 2014
February 11: Psalm 92
February 11, 2014
Woke up this morning feeling like a bulldozer had hit me - and kinda looking like it had too! So thankful for a day off...
Jason and I made it up to church yesterday for the church's Christian Life conference. I'm glad we did. I was talking to Emily afterwards about how I can hear Steve asking me "What does this all mean for your life Whitney?"
Been thinking a little about the incongruence of my life between my Christian friends and non-Christian friends. I like to think that I keep a pretty consistent personality everywhere - I don't even like grouping people into those two categories in my life because I feel like it too easily lends itself to treating people not as people - but as "types of people." Still I think to myself that there are probably things that my Christian friends would (or might) be disappointed to find out about me - and things my non-Christian friends might be disappointed to find out about me.
As I write this though, I realize how silly it is - my main concern is that I don't want to be ashamed of the cross and I don't want to disappoint You - and none of the above has anything really to do with that.
When I ask "What disappoints You, Father?" I have to agree with JoAnn that it's less about what we believe or don't believe in theory (besides belief in Your Son and his work on the cross) and more about what we fail to do or show or tell people about Your grace - Your forgiveness - Your overwhelming and abiding love.
Maybe it's heretical for me to say - but I feel like You care less about us having our shit together theologically than You do about us giving You thanks and praise and rejoicing in the work of Your Son - not just once for us - but daily and ongoing into eternity.
I know there's a balance between you being a loving God and a righteous God - a King who is both so fully that there is no compromise on either side - that I am probably missing - at least in part... but when I ask myself, "What is it that I want for my life?" It is that I want what You want for it...
But right now when I ask, "What do You want from it?" It feels like there's a lot of static electricity over the line.
I get brief and splotchy glimpses - mostly generalities:
> Remain faithful in what I have entrusted to you.
> Continue to press forward and press on in diligently seeking me out and wanting to know me more - Build that as a way of life right now
> Keep talking to people and push yourself to be honest. Examine your heart - put it before me so that I can examine it and point out to you where you sugar coated - where you compromised - where you kept from them the whole truth for your glory (because you wanted them to like you) - or kept love from them for your gain. I will show you - because I love you - and true love is truth.
> Don't give up on any possibility for your future - I haven't shut any doors yet - so don't pretend that they are closed.
Press on... press on with what you have and trust me. I will tell you when things are going to change. You will know... Stay ready.
Do you know how hard it is to live consistently like that as a human? I feel like 99% of my time I am slipping around stumbling more than running - if this is a marathon then I look like I'm running on a slip-and-slide wet slide I think...
The 1% of the time I think I'm doing it right is probably because I'm simply not moving at all.
Sometimes I feel like this is all a joke - a total and complete satirical farce... There's just no way. No way that we can even begin to accomplish one iota of Your master plan in these frail and pathetic human wraps. It isn't that the plan is too grandiose or unreasonable or wrong - it's just that I feel like I'm a joke at trying to be a part of it... that's how poorly I feel like I succeed at even doing the smallest part right - let alone something larger.
I told Jason that the hardest thing for me to hold in my heart and head and soul and body is that in me I have defeat - in You I have victory.
Maybe that's the point... We're supposed to keep running on this wet-n-wild marathon with all diligence and determination - despite our constant face plants and bum wrecks - so that in the midst of feeling like we're screwing everything up - from big to small - when we finally see the final product - when You show us what You accomplished in our pathetic efforts - we really do have to take the crowns and the laurels and the accolades and throw them back at You because it's utter and complete insanity - a total joke - to even think that we actually accomplished the worthwhile end product... Some divine magic had to intervene and make something great and glorious and meaningful out of our slip-shod efforts and macguyvered solutions.
Am I bitter about this?
Maybe a little - if I'm honest Lord. Why are we so hugely crippled? And I know that it wasn't Your original will/desire that we be so heavily aware of the absolute joke it is for us to be tied to You... that is - You wanted us in perfect union with You without that sense of shame and failure. And to be honest, You STILL give us some pretty incredible names - some hints at the glory You intended for us to be and are not yet - not now - that even the angels would bow down in reverence and service to us - that You came in our likeness and that your Son will remain in human flesh all eternity - that You set us in dominion over all the earth - that Christ is called the Son of Man - not just the Son of God...
There are hints - and You promise restoration to that someday...
"You are like gods"
"Christ - who being in His very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped."
Paul and David had glimpses and hints of our potential. I see it sometimes and yet feel like we are so far away from accomplishing it - and we are... Throughout all of history - despite all of our advances in technology and intelligence and power - the conditions in our hearts remain the same.
We have - as the human race - the capacity to stop wars - to stop world hunger - to bring relief at least in part to diseases and crippling illnesses - to even make individual choices to be healthy - to love one another - that potential is there - and yet we have not achieved it.
Some of my atheistic friends believe we will get there someday - if we believe in it enough - if more people, enough people - believed in it and strived for it - that we would get there. In that we share a similar belief because I agree we have the potential - I believe we could - but I despair when I look within. With all my best intentions - even living as a fairly decent human being - I look at my life and see it as me running on a soapy wet slide -
For both of us - it doesn't change the fact that we feel called to press on living the best we can - each step in the right direction is one step forward - even if it feels like (and in some cases is) 10 steps back... perhaps that is why we get along so well - we are all (those of my atheistic friends who I am thinking about and Jason and me - anyways) thoroughly convicted that we must keep doing our best to live decent human lives because it is the only way to "rightly" live...
Just our hope is in different places - and I think that changes how we think about how we live, and consequently our actions.
I don't see us getting there - so I hope that something greater - I hope that You are taking my slipshod efforts and making something out of them.
Many of my friends hope that their overall efforts matter (and they do, I think) to the general progression of humanity to a better place.
I feel painfully aware of all the areas where we are failing (as humans) and I think they know them too - but they are more aware, I think, of where they see us (as humans) succeeding...
And what I mostly see is us perpetually trying hard and always falling short.
That, I feel like, sums up my life's endeavor. Even with all the "success" I feel like I could claim - in school smarts - in a great marriage - in a happy life - in a decent human existence - the undercurrent awareness is one of trying hard and yet making so little difference as to be laughable.
Maybe that's more a personality difference than necessarily a belief difference - but what changes it for me is my hope and belief that there is something greater than I can see - tying together all the efforts of humanity towards decency and restructure and balance and rightness (can't we all tell the world is off?) - covering over the ugly spots with grace and mercy and moving us towards redemption and righteousness and rightness and final completion - not because WE accomplished it - but simply because we wanted to be a part of it - it made a difference.
Maybe many of my friends who hope for the human race to be in a better place believe the same thing - but in a different mechanism...
And what does that all mean?
What does that all mean for you -
for your life Whitney...
What does it all mean?
I really don't know.
Maybe - keep going.
Let your heart rejoice.
Give thanks.
Be aware of me.
Let me flood you with my presence because I AM here
- and it does matter.
I am the Logos that ties all things together -
I am the force holding together even the atoms of this world.
I am the breath of life that gives movement and emotion and purpose - to make random conglomerations of non-living elements BE living things.
I am mystery and magic and beauty and things intangible - that you know without knowing how you know - or why you know it - or even what you know.
I am Beginning and End...
And I am determined to love you to the very beginnings and ends of existence.
It matters. It matters in a way you can't know - you can't see - your slipshod efforts - your stumbling - your race on this crazy earth and that crushing sense of futility in everything you do - even in everything you succeed - it matters. It matters to me.
We're going to get there - longer than you hope - but sooner than you think... We're going to get there...
Keep going. Don't give up - and don't forget - I'm running with you... you are not running alone. Be Aware of Me.
Maybe I am crazy... maybe it's all a help for me to continue living a decent human life - and maybe a crutch I fall back upon when I give up and fail (so often)...
But I wish I could share it - this conviction and this sense of Presence.
The sustenance and life line and hope that keeps me going... I hunger to know more about You - to understand You better. I want to be able to share you but feel like my words fail and that I truly sound crazy to anyone who hasn't experienced the same thing... But maybe that's the point. There are people out there hungry to talk about You - hungry - like I am to know what that means for our lives - and we need to talk about it... We need to put it out there - to advertise that we have water - so that any who feels like they are dying of thirst may come and drink and at least see if this water fulfills their thirst...
I won't lie... I won't say the price isn't high for the water I drink: It's everything you think you are - everything you hope you could be - everything you want -
Traded in to receive everything you never dreamed of - more than you could have asked for - a hope not yet fulfilled but driving you forward - and a desperate longing ... a chronic groaning pain - you sometimes learn to live with and sometimes stuff: for the long race to be over - for it all to be accomplished - for your attempts to be done... but then again, maybe that chronic pain is always there anyways and that's why we are thirsty in the first place.
How is this good? Yet it it is... and I'm happy - I'm so fiercely joyful Father to know that simply doing what what You have asked me to do - Simply wanting to love you more...
Simply being and living - and all my best (and worst) efforts - they matter.
Maybe they aren't enough to make a difference - at least much of a difference - in all the world's needs -
But they are enough for You to say - "Keep going. Don't give up."
Too many things. So many words and still not all the meanings I hope for.
So much time spent and yet I feel this is still so empty.
That is what faith is - Whitney.
Believing in the meaning - in the "mattering" you cannot see.
Just keep going and trust me.
It matters more than you can see.
Bank your life on that hope.
Grasp onto it firmly.
Establish that in your heart.
Found your life upon it.
Yes - it is terrifying - but you have to trust me... it means more than you can see.
I know that to be true - but it doesn't make it any easier to do...
And yet, despite it all - I DO trust you ...
Break through the barriers of my heart - so that I can truly say that with joy and understanding Father. Amen.
Psalm 92, my Lord... write it on my heart in belief.
Woke up this morning feeling like a bulldozer had hit me - and kinda looking like it had too! So thankful for a day off...
Jason and I made it up to church yesterday for the church's Christian Life conference. I'm glad we did. I was talking to Emily afterwards about how I can hear Steve asking me "What does this all mean for your life Whitney?"
Been thinking a little about the incongruence of my life between my Christian friends and non-Christian friends. I like to think that I keep a pretty consistent personality everywhere - I don't even like grouping people into those two categories in my life because I feel like it too easily lends itself to treating people not as people - but as "types of people." Still I think to myself that there are probably things that my Christian friends would (or might) be disappointed to find out about me - and things my non-Christian friends might be disappointed to find out about me.
As I write this though, I realize how silly it is - my main concern is that I don't want to be ashamed of the cross and I don't want to disappoint You - and none of the above has anything really to do with that.
When I ask "What disappoints You, Father?" I have to agree with JoAnn that it's less about what we believe or don't believe in theory (besides belief in Your Son and his work on the cross) and more about what we fail to do or show or tell people about Your grace - Your forgiveness - Your overwhelming and abiding love.
Maybe it's heretical for me to say - but I feel like You care less about us having our shit together theologically than You do about us giving You thanks and praise and rejoicing in the work of Your Son - not just once for us - but daily and ongoing into eternity.
I know there's a balance between you being a loving God and a righteous God - a King who is both so fully that there is no compromise on either side - that I am probably missing - at least in part... but when I ask myself, "What is it that I want for my life?" It is that I want what You want for it...
But right now when I ask, "What do You want from it?" It feels like there's a lot of static electricity over the line.
I get brief and splotchy glimpses - mostly generalities:
> Remain faithful in what I have entrusted to you.
> Continue to press forward and press on in diligently seeking me out and wanting to know me more - Build that as a way of life right now
> Keep talking to people and push yourself to be honest. Examine your heart - put it before me so that I can examine it and point out to you where you sugar coated - where you compromised - where you kept from them the whole truth for your glory (because you wanted them to like you) - or kept love from them for your gain. I will show you - because I love you - and true love is truth.
> Don't give up on any possibility for your future - I haven't shut any doors yet - so don't pretend that they are closed.
Press on... press on with what you have and trust me. I will tell you when things are going to change. You will know... Stay ready.
Do you know how hard it is to live consistently like that as a human? I feel like 99% of my time I am slipping around stumbling more than running - if this is a marathon then I look like I'm running on a slip-and-slide wet slide I think...
The 1% of the time I think I'm doing it right is probably because I'm simply not moving at all.
Sometimes I feel like this is all a joke - a total and complete satirical farce... There's just no way. No way that we can even begin to accomplish one iota of Your master plan in these frail and pathetic human wraps. It isn't that the plan is too grandiose or unreasonable or wrong - it's just that I feel like I'm a joke at trying to be a part of it... that's how poorly I feel like I succeed at even doing the smallest part right - let alone something larger.
I told Jason that the hardest thing for me to hold in my heart and head and soul and body is that in me I have defeat - in You I have victory.
Maybe that's the point... We're supposed to keep running on this wet-n-wild marathon with all diligence and determination - despite our constant face plants and bum wrecks - so that in the midst of feeling like we're screwing everything up - from big to small - when we finally see the final product - when You show us what You accomplished in our pathetic efforts - we really do have to take the crowns and the laurels and the accolades and throw them back at You because it's utter and complete insanity - a total joke - to even think that we actually accomplished the worthwhile end product... Some divine magic had to intervene and make something great and glorious and meaningful out of our slip-shod efforts and macguyvered solutions.
Am I bitter about this?
Maybe a little - if I'm honest Lord. Why are we so hugely crippled? And I know that it wasn't Your original will/desire that we be so heavily aware of the absolute joke it is for us to be tied to You... that is - You wanted us in perfect union with You without that sense of shame and failure. And to be honest, You STILL give us some pretty incredible names - some hints at the glory You intended for us to be and are not yet - not now - that even the angels would bow down in reverence and service to us - that You came in our likeness and that your Son will remain in human flesh all eternity - that You set us in dominion over all the earth - that Christ is called the Son of Man - not just the Son of God...
There are hints - and You promise restoration to that someday...
"You are like gods"
"Christ - who being in His very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped."
Paul and David had glimpses and hints of our potential. I see it sometimes and yet feel like we are so far away from accomplishing it - and we are... Throughout all of history - despite all of our advances in technology and intelligence and power - the conditions in our hearts remain the same.
We have - as the human race - the capacity to stop wars - to stop world hunger - to bring relief at least in part to diseases and crippling illnesses - to even make individual choices to be healthy - to love one another - that potential is there - and yet we have not achieved it.
Some of my atheistic friends believe we will get there someday - if we believe in it enough - if more people, enough people - believed in it and strived for it - that we would get there. In that we share a similar belief because I agree we have the potential - I believe we could - but I despair when I look within. With all my best intentions - even living as a fairly decent human being - I look at my life and see it as me running on a soapy wet slide -
For both of us - it doesn't change the fact that we feel called to press on living the best we can - each step in the right direction is one step forward - even if it feels like (and in some cases is) 10 steps back... perhaps that is why we get along so well - we are all (those of my atheistic friends who I am thinking about and Jason and me - anyways) thoroughly convicted that we must keep doing our best to live decent human lives because it is the only way to "rightly" live...
Just our hope is in different places - and I think that changes how we think about how we live, and consequently our actions.
I don't see us getting there - so I hope that something greater - I hope that You are taking my slipshod efforts and making something out of them.
Many of my friends hope that their overall efforts matter (and they do, I think) to the general progression of humanity to a better place.
I feel painfully aware of all the areas where we are failing (as humans) and I think they know them too - but they are more aware, I think, of where they see us (as humans) succeeding...
And what I mostly see is us perpetually trying hard and always falling short.
That, I feel like, sums up my life's endeavor. Even with all the "success" I feel like I could claim - in school smarts - in a great marriage - in a happy life - in a decent human existence - the undercurrent awareness is one of trying hard and yet making so little difference as to be laughable.
Maybe that's more a personality difference than necessarily a belief difference - but what changes it for me is my hope and belief that there is something greater than I can see - tying together all the efforts of humanity towards decency and restructure and balance and rightness (can't we all tell the world is off?) - covering over the ugly spots with grace and mercy and moving us towards redemption and righteousness and rightness and final completion - not because WE accomplished it - but simply because we wanted to be a part of it - it made a difference.
Maybe many of my friends who hope for the human race to be in a better place believe the same thing - but in a different mechanism...
And what does that all mean?
What does that all mean for you -
for your life Whitney...
What does it all mean?
I really don't know.
Maybe - keep going.
Let your heart rejoice.
Give thanks.
Be aware of me.
Let me flood you with my presence because I AM here
- and it does matter.
I am the Logos that ties all things together -
I am the force holding together even the atoms of this world.
I am the breath of life that gives movement and emotion and purpose - to make random conglomerations of non-living elements BE living things.
I am mystery and magic and beauty and things intangible - that you know without knowing how you know - or why you know it - or even what you know.
I am Beginning and End...
And I am determined to love you to the very beginnings and ends of existence.
It matters. It matters in a way you can't know - you can't see - your slipshod efforts - your stumbling - your race on this crazy earth and that crushing sense of futility in everything you do - even in everything you succeed - it matters. It matters to me.
We're going to get there - longer than you hope - but sooner than you think... We're going to get there...
Keep going. Don't give up - and don't forget - I'm running with you... you are not running alone. Be Aware of Me.
Maybe I am crazy... maybe it's all a help for me to continue living a decent human life - and maybe a crutch I fall back upon when I give up and fail (so often)...
But I wish I could share it - this conviction and this sense of Presence.
The sustenance and life line and hope that keeps me going... I hunger to know more about You - to understand You better. I want to be able to share you but feel like my words fail and that I truly sound crazy to anyone who hasn't experienced the same thing... But maybe that's the point. There are people out there hungry to talk about You - hungry - like I am to know what that means for our lives - and we need to talk about it... We need to put it out there - to advertise that we have water - so that any who feels like they are dying of thirst may come and drink and at least see if this water fulfills their thirst...
I won't lie... I won't say the price isn't high for the water I drink: It's everything you think you are - everything you hope you could be - everything you want -
Traded in to receive everything you never dreamed of - more than you could have asked for - a hope not yet fulfilled but driving you forward - and a desperate longing ... a chronic groaning pain - you sometimes learn to live with and sometimes stuff: for the long race to be over - for it all to be accomplished - for your attempts to be done... but then again, maybe that chronic pain is always there anyways and that's why we are thirsty in the first place.
How is this good? Yet it it is... and I'm happy - I'm so fiercely joyful Father to know that simply doing what what You have asked me to do - Simply wanting to love you more...
Simply being and living - and all my best (and worst) efforts - they matter.
Maybe they aren't enough to make a difference - at least much of a difference - in all the world's needs -
But they are enough for You to say - "Keep going. Don't give up."
Too many things. So many words and still not all the meanings I hope for.
So much time spent and yet I feel this is still so empty.
That is what faith is - Whitney.
Believing in the meaning - in the "mattering" you cannot see.
Just keep going and trust me.
It matters more than you can see.
Bank your life on that hope.
Grasp onto it firmly.
Establish that in your heart.
Found your life upon it.
Yes - it is terrifying - but you have to trust me... it means more than you can see.
I know that to be true - but it doesn't make it any easier to do...
And yet, despite it all - I DO trust you ...
Break through the barriers of my heart - so that I can truly say that with joy and understanding Father. Amen.
Psalm 92, my Lord... write it on my heart in belief.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)