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.