No Ordinary Love

Tonight is a blogging night!!! It's past eleven, no one will interrupt me and I don't want to go to bed ;) Perfect circumstances...

I've had a good month/bad month...I was unpacking, moving furniture around, FINALLY took my driving test, have my first day of training at work tomorrow...everything timed out perfectly...isn't it funny how it does? There were a few points when I was not trusting and just felt so worried and overwhelmed...here I was, with a college degree and I couldn't find a job! Life is not easy, have you heard?

But then things worked out and I'll be a hostess soon!!! Working five days a week eight hours a day...and getting paid for it! Every day walking out that door with a smile on my face. It's going to be great...hard, but great.

I'm lucky I look sixteen...I'll be doing a sixteen year olds job! haha

I just want to reflect on the goodness of God...I don't do that enough. I keep reading this one excerpt from a C.S. Lewis book on this topic. He talks about how He used to think that God was selfish, always asking us to praise Him. Then he realized how beneficial it is to priase anything, period, let alone praise God. If something is worthy of adoration, please adore it, don't be shy! (just a second, I'll find the book...) We delight in praising, all the happiest people do it! C. S. Lewis speaks of praise as the something which not only expresses but completes your enjoyment of something, it is the "appointed consummation".

A quote from the passage: "...if one could really and fully praise even such things to perfection--utterly 'get out' in poetry, or music, or paint the upsurge of appreciation which almost burst you? Then indeed the object would be fully appreciated and our delight would have attained perfect development. The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be. If it were possible for a created soul fully (I mean, up to the full measure conceivable in a finite being) to 'appreciate,' that is to love and delight in, the worthiest object of all, and simultaneously at every moment to give this delight perfect expression, then that soul would be in supreme beatitude. It is along these lines that I find it easiest to understand the Christian doctrine that 'Heaven' is a state in which angels now, and men hereafter, are perpetually employed in praising God....To see what the doctrine means, we must suppose ourselves to be in perfect love with God--drunk with, drowned in, dissolved by, that delight which, far from remaining pent up within ourselves as incommunicable, hence hardly tolerable, bliss, flows out from us incessantly again in effortless and perfect expression, our joy no more separable from the praise in which it liberates and utters itself than the brightness a mirror receives is separable from the brightness it sheds. The Scotch catechism says that man's chief is 'to glorify God and enjoy Him forever'. But we shall then know that these are the same thing. Fully to enjoy is to glorify. In commanding us to glorify Him, God is inviting us to enjoy Him."

Really good stuff....Hmmm....

There's a beauty in me put there by God. I get to share it with everyone I meet. Sometimes I'm too stingy with it. Oh Lord, let your beauty be a part of me as I work. Let me not be afraid of what it might cost me. Yours cost You everything. I walk in Your footsteps.

I'm not enough. Do you every have those moments of realization? Especially in this job search, I realized that I really had nothing to offer...people could pick and chose me as it suited their fancy. That's a strange, hard thing to know. My parents are going through it right now. Both of them are out of work (mom: nurse, dad: contractor). We're not really sure what we're going to do right now. Cry and praise. Pray. My parents are praising God together in the mornings. May they be blessed in that, and hear from Him. He comforts those who seek Him out.

Sometimes I feel to needy to seek Him out. That's usually when I need to go to Him the most. My heart...still feels a little shredded. I had no idea you could like someone like that (the way I liked him...) I can't imagine love--it must be so strong...when kept pure. I prayed that God would just block me off in that area...I can't be so in like with someone anymore--not if its not returned. I have to have God guard my heart completely in that area and ask Him everyday to watch my mind and where it goes...because this is precious, and though I have no idea whether I'll get married or not, I'm not going to mess around with anything or anyone in that arena of my life until its the right time. I can't handle casual dating, my heart cannot handle it, and so until...whatever!!! haha, i'm clueless...I will be on guard...

...but still let me love and be sweet and not harbor bitterness and rejoice in my friends relationships when they are going well. They deserve the best and my support--teach me how to be there for them.

It's funny, the hurt. I kind of dealt with it right at the outset, when I just let it all go...all that I'd been feeling and hoping and wishing...but there's still parts of me wounded from it. I feel so petty, because hardly anything happened, so I should just move on quickly...but it lingers...makes me cry...so silly.

It's funny that Jesus deals with each of us so individually. This hurt would be nothing in some people's lives--they've gone through so much--but He's not comparing my circumstances with anyone else's. He sees what hurt me--and part of it was me allowing it to--and He deals with me. He wants to know how I'm doing and speak words of peace and comfort and love--like any daddy. I look at it and say, it's such a petty thing! Let's leave it alone and keep going, it'll drift away. But He says, You need to face this, look it square in the eye before we move forward. Don't be ashamed, just be in it with me and see what its done and deal with it. This is not to be brushed aside. It's important to you and to your life, so its important to me.

Why would He care so much?

I kept listening to a song called "No Ordinary Love" by the Civil Wars tonight. Now I know why. Here are the lyrics...I gave you all the love I got
Gave you more than I could give
Gave you love

I gave you all that I had inside and you took my love
Took my love

Keep crying
(Keep crying)
Keep trying for you
I keep trying
(I keep trying)
I keep crying for you

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love

Oh
When you came around you'd brighten
Oh
You'd brighten every day with your sweet smile

Oh
And didn't I tell you all I've got to give baby
Oh

I keep crying
Keep trying for you
I keep crying
Keep trying for you

'Cause this is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
Oh

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
Oh

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
Whoa
Oh

This is no ordinary love
No ordinary love
Oh

I gave you all the love I got
Gave you more than I could give
Gave you love

Both Jesus and I have sang this song this year...I'm so glad His love can endure and shine bright where mine has tarnished and failed. He is at work restoring me...a precious work that began at the cross. And He won't give up, no matter how I may push away. That's the beauty of knowing Jesus. I am so thankful to Him.

This is no ordinary love...no ordinary love...ooh-ooohh...