What's Here in the Waiting?

Aahhh...the name of my blog is so perfect right now...Here in the Waiting...

Tonight is a blog night...I just need to get all of it out there and see what happens...

Everything is at a crossroads tonight...I see (again) that my friends all know where they're headed, how they're going to get there...of course, none of it is perfect and there's planning left to do...but they're lucky and they don't see it.

I am Here in the Waiting...

But it's not a bad place. My Jesus, my Friend and Lover, He waits with me. Every mountain could crumble and He'd still be there. He loves me no matter what size I am, what my clothes look like or what I'm doing...and isn't that the most beautiful thing, the thing I need the most?

I have all I need Here in the Waiting...

A lot of people are going to leave me--and I them--in a lot of different ways in the next few months. I have to say some tough good byes, starting next week. I don't want to face it, this new loneliness. But I also won't disobey my Father King when He asks me to step into the dark with Him. I want this to be a time when I am putting all I have learned this year into practice: being content in His love, seeking Him and being faithful to what He's put in front of me, no matter what the outcome might be...you know, it's not about what special programs/things you become a part of, it's about the way you treat the people around you. I can do a million things "in Jesus name" but if His love is not in the middle of it, I have been filling their mouths--and mine--with sawdust...

I want truth to come spilling out of me, beauty...I want God's Word to be put on display and people to know Jesus because He lives in me...I want light to come where there has only been darkness and hope to be a daily part of life: not that we hope in ourselves and what we think we can do, but that we hope in a Creator who had a plan--for me and you--before the beginning of time. And He will see us through to the end, we can count on that...I want THAT to be changing me--and the people around me--every day.

O Jesus, lead me on. All my idealistic high hopes come from You--and You know it! And You move, I see it everyday. Help me be more faithful, more loving, more like You. I have a lot to learn and big shoes to fill; but You said You were willing to teach me and so I said, "Yes." Yes to whatever comes, be it glorious success or breathtaking despair, pain, loss, ache, grief, joy, peace, wondering...I follow You through it all.

Jesus, thank You for being Here in the Waiting.

Don't Run...Stay

Just had to write...its one of those days.

Not that its a bad day--its more like turmoil coming to peace and I need to sort through all that is going on in my life.

Lyrcis of the J.J. Heller song I'm listening to right now: "hope means holding onto you/ grace means you hold onto me too". So true in my life...all of the things that will happen--are going to happen next year--will be because of grace. God holding onto me in the midst of loneliness, pain, hope, my feebleness...He will hold.

Child of weakness
Watch and pray
Find in me
Thine all in all

This is my life.

I started going to the gym in the morning to get my exercise on before I face any part of my day. So far, I love it. No one tries to talk to you, you don't have to think deeply right when you wake up (which is sometimes the pressure when I wake up and try to do my Bible study right away--turns into Bible bleary eyes, what did I just read?) In any case, I go straight from working out to Bible study...find a quiet spot and see what God says.

This morning was interesting. He made me be quiet with Him, talk out all the mess in my head and let go of some things. I had had a good day yesterday, but the day ended in tears. It was from little things and pressures that I sometimes put on myself. I have a friend getting married and I am estatic for her, but it changes the relationship. She wants to see him and be with him (normal and healthy) and I have to adjust.

Then there's Haiti...I guess I feel really alone in this undertaking. It won't be that way forever (I'll meet my fellow volunteers eventually and the others who are working at that little school) but right now I don't have anyone to process it through with the way I wish I could. No one can really know the little fears sprouting up in my head or the insecurities or what-if's. Just thinking right now, I was about to write: 'If I had a husband, it would be different.' But that's not even true. Even if I was married, we would not be the same person with the same capabilities and thus even we would have different fears and wonderings...being married wouldn't fix this :)

It's a time where God is latching onto me and getting in my face and yelling (okay, He's not doing any of these things, but the overall effect would be the same if He was. He is definitely using a lot of other means to get my attention, but when they're all coupled together...yeah). He's making it infinitely clear that I need to press into Him now more than I ever have before. Like, this year will not be possible if I am not running to His arms...whoops, no, not even that! This year will not be possible unless I have found my safe place only and always in His arms.

I must have Jesus. I must have all of Him, and I must not leave Him.

Okay, I think I'm getting this.

This year is going to be lonely, exhausting, and breaking...I will give my all, again and again, in ways I never thought were possible and at the end of the day it won't be enough. It will never be enough. That's why I need Him. I need His words, I need His strength, I need His hope, I need His light, I need His consistency, His faithfulness, His grace, His love, His compassion, His kindness...and I need it now.

Thank you Jesus, for making me need you--and being kind enough to point out that need. Now fill me.