Choosing to be Fearless

I need a....

I would love to have a...

If I could just pin it down and bend it to my will...

Sorry, I've never not had an opening line as I write. Usually I have my first sentence fully formed before I ever get to my blog page and then it just free flows from there (no, I do not write these ahead of time, edit them to death and then post them--surprised? Don't be...God knows I am a recovering perfectionist and if I didn't just get out all I was thinking and feeling--with no looking back--it would never appear on this page. Hence the sometimes too much information/slightly strange posts. Hey, you're the one reading it! I didn't twist your arm!) Back to real life...blog life...whatever! (throws her hands up in the air) 

The point is, I want to understand love. I want to have it figured out to the "T" so I no longer have to obsess about it the way our freakin' modern culture does constantly. I want to pin it down, strangle it if I have to and understand it completely. I don't want it to be messy or unpredictable or not go my way--I want it mine and I want it now.

And that's why I have so many issues! I am being slightly ironic in this post, but the way I feel about love and how I wish it would behave just goes to show how far I must go in order to learn its secrets. I hate that I can't control--but that is loves very definition. No one has it pinned down or gets it right--we all stumble and mumble through it and a few of us (maybe they really are the lucky ones--or maybe they're just normal people with the same insane amount of issues who choose to be fearless) make it to the marriage altar and vow to stay together FOREVER!

Oh, man...I'm like one of those guys with commitment issues--except I'M NOT A GUY!! Haha, you just have to laugh.

But seriously, forever freaks me out. Maybe just because I overthink EVERYTHING constantly and can't help but analyze my life to death (I also pray, which keeps me from being a witless ninny--God helps me face life :)) but the idea of marriage is a LONG idea...it doesn't end (in my book) until one or the other of you keels over and dies.

See, that would be the end of my thought process--expect I started to fall in love once. The madness of that infatuation stage goes beyond what they show you in movies with the staring into your eyes deeply and never wanting to look away and the taking a walk by yourself for an hour and a half, just talking it out with God to try to get him out of your head only to having it destroyed by seeing him for fifteen minutes. Listening to his stories of his childhood (really, only got to hear one--wish there were more) and hearing his heart as he talked about the world and just wanting to be around him. I couldn't get enough. 

But I was too afraid--and stuck on my own idea about what my world would look like--and I wasn't fair and I sent mixed signals all the time and never, ever did I want to keep him from his dreams--and I didn't think those dreams could hold me. (Cause I'm my own God, right, and I know.) I didn't choose to be fearless, to risk it all and see what could be--I let it go...

And I just want to know what love is...because I think I botched my chance at learning to love fearlessly and I need God in the middle of all of that. 

I was reading Thomas Merton today and I just got stuck on one paragraph and then it made me cry:

"Let us, therefore, learn to pass from one imperfect activity to another without worrying too much about what we are missing. It is true that we make many mistakes. But the biggest of them all is to be surprised at them: as if we had some hope of never making any."

My theme for the year is both "Letting Go" and "Consecration". I don't know how those two could possibly exist in the same--universe? mind? sentence? They're diametrically opposed to one another--they'll never come into rhythm together. But maybe that's how God works--in all the ways we'd never expect Him to, except that we gave Him a chance. Maybe that's exactly what love is--facing the impossible with hope, knowing that you are not alone as you take this journey. Maybe the only way to love is to let go of all your thoughts and intentions and place them in the hands of another, trusting that they care enough for you to take the best care of you that they are possibly able to. I never understood that--my mistake...

I have to get used to my mistakes--forgive myself and move on and quit being so surprised at what they are and what they teach me. My small life matters--and He will keep loving me past my own insecurities and failures for the rest of my life--I never have to question that. Can you imagine the goodness of God?

Oh I needed to get that off my chest.

So...this year I will--choose life, mistakes and all, and learn to enjoy it for what it is. I will allow my heart to heal and continue to hope. I will stop trying to control all my outcomes and lean into love, His good, never-changing love. Whatever is around my corners is good.

I just want you (dear reader) to know that my feelings for that boy--ah, man!--have changed. God taught me forgiveness (for the poor dear had no idea what he was doing, his affect on me) and not to be ashamed of how I had felt ("How could you let someone you knew so little of get so far into your heart?" was the lie from the enemy that used to shame me).  My heart goes on...(cue Titanic music)

Love will make its way to me, steadily, softly--in the meantime, God has shown me more love in my lifetime than many know in any marriage. I am not ashamed to say that He is all I need. My life is in His hands--horrendous mistakes and all--and there is always hope! 

There is always hope.

Some more Merton, from No Man is an Island:

"It is, therefore, a very great thing to be little, which is to say: to be ourselves."

"A multitude of badly performed actions and of experiences only half-lived exhausts and depletes our being."

"It may happen that a man who is able to accomplish very little is much more of a person than another who seems to accomplish very much."

"A man who fails well is greater than one who succeeds badly."

"For we cannot make the best of what we are, if our hearts are always divided between what we are and what we are not."

"But, above all, we must learn our own weakness in order to awaken to a new order of action and being--and experience God Himself accomplishing in us the things we find impossible."

That's love for me. 

Love...what?!

I think I write most of the time so I can learn about myself. Maybe that's wrong. Maybe it helps someone else. Maybe it doesn't matter--in any case, I have to do it.

I have a really weird life right now--in Jim Elliot's autobiography Shadow of the Almighty, his wife calls it the "test of free time". Jim had one year where he spent most of his time at his parent's house, helping out there in any way he could, jobless. I totally understand that, and felt totally reassured when I read about it in their book the summer after I moved home. It was a little hope, you know? (which is sometimes all you need) in a season where I wasn't very sure of anything. Jim Eliott's life didn't stop, in fact, he got married and made it to the mission field--and so, my life could get somewhere too.

Sometimes I fail my test--a whole day goes by with nothing much to show for it...in my judgment.  But sometimes...the movie or TV show I watch is the one I needed to see...

I watched a movie recently, loved the plot, etc. and so I looked up the screenwriter. She is brilliant at what she does and one of her TV shows is called "My So-Called Life". It's so good for me, you know? I have someone in my life who I keep loving on and just never understanding--our stories are so different! And the way she reacts to an environment that I also went through (high school) seems psychotic to me! Then I watch this TV show--it just helps, you know? This person I love is not crazy--just making some strange choices which we will help see her through. She's going to be okay.

Then, the last scene between father and daughter in the show really struck me. He and she were talking about boys, the father trying to find out if she had been on a date, etc. This is their conversation:
Angela: ...people just hang out. They're not dates just...people in a bunch.
Graham: So is their someone else then that you like? It's okay to like someone, but I mean, boys your age, can sometimes...
Angela: Dad, I know... Can sometimes what?
Graham: Can sometimes not know how to be what you want them to be. My point is that, it's really hard to figure out how to be a man. Practically every man I know is still working on it.

Well put. I didn't expect that--but it's the truest thing. I have been that person, that girl, who wants so much but doesn't allow the man in her life to learn--just writes him off. I hope I'm changing.

Love is a strange and often misunderstood thing.

This is as Much for Me, as it is for You

This is as much for me, as it is for you...

I think I'm learning the interrelated-ness of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in a new way these past few weeks. And I'm learning it through the things I am being obedient in. I find that as I am obedient and choose to, as well as I can, serve the One who has called me to these things, I find that I am blessed in the middle of it. I may be doing it for the sake of the One who calls me to the task, but ias I am accomplishing the task, it brings me health and life that fills me up...and then I can go and do it all again, and would gladly do it, because it brings me pleasure.

And I think that in a small way, what I am experiencing reflects how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit serve each other all the time and in the process get filled up and have such joy and pleasure in serving one another. To be frank, this is a picture of all the best marriages: the task is done for the other person, because of your care for them (such as caring for them when they are sick), but then in the middle of bringing life and health back to that other person, you find life and health yourself, because God dwells in the middle of that life giving, other serving action. It's a wild thing to begin to grasp, but I'm really loving just even beginning to understand this journey of self giving.

I have always been self preserving. Even today as I read the verse which speaks about the fact that "if you want to save your life, you will lose it and those who give their lives save them" (Matthew 16:25) I was struck by how self preserving my life has always been. I have read that verse numerous times, and have known that that self preservation was something I have recently unveiled and started to fight in myself but connecting the two today was incredible. When we are on the lookout to stay safe and control things and keep it all the way we want in our lives, we lose it. It wears us out, number one, to live that way and secondly, it brings life to no one, not even to ourselves. And this new way--seeking out the Father and asking how to pour out my life--even if He asks something very crazy of me (such as giving up my job and moving to the land of Haiti) I would do it, because whenever I give up my life for Him, it is life for me. I would rather be serving my God anywhere--and being continually filled up by Him who is the life giver Himself--than live out my life for myself on the nicest place on the planet. It just becomes that easy for His followers. I mean, you can read about them in the Bible--they would do anything, go anywhere "because they had found the life that was truly life!" 

So my life is ever changing, looking stranger from the outside every day I am sure. For I am learning to let go of my agenda and all the ways I think I can find hope and I'm just leaning into Him. And when I lead that Bible study or pray for that person in church or write that bit more in the book--life comes. I am learning and giving and people are benefitting through a closer walk with the Lord--but it also does beautiful things in me...wonderful works are being wrought, the ones long planned before time began. Thank you for life Father. Thank you that this is as much for me, as it is for You. Thank You for letting me learn the dance of dependence and joy, others serving and life that You, Your Son and the Holy Spirit are always in. My life will always be indebted to You, all my love is for You--and finds its source in You. Hallelujah! this my song...

This is as much for me, as it is for you...

Stripped Away

What do you do when it all gets torn away from you? When you lose the one thing which you thought would bring you happiness...when you have to move away from all you've known...when life can't seem to give you anything but hard knocks?

I ask it because I'm living it. There's a place deep in my soul that's unsettled and striving, that keeps crying out for more when less is all I see around me.

I've read a lot of books on "desire" and "choosing to know your own heart"--books that remind us that the single most painful thing we can do is acknowledge the mess our lives are in--how far we are from where we intentionally tried to be--and to go from that place and keep hoping. Every book...they say that this is the hardest thing you will ever do, but you will only get your heart and your life back if you do choose to keep hoping, keep trusting and keep pursuing God even when all seems lost.

Because all will be lost--especially if we are in a pursuit with Him.

There are easier ways--we can slip in the back door, take the smooth road and end up where we always wanted to be by our own merit--but there's no pride or glory to God in that methodology. If you are in a pursuit of all (ALL!) that God has for you--prepare for the worst.

Prepare to leave all that is familiar behind--you're paving a new trail...

Prepare to be misunderstood--your circumstances will make sense to no one, usually not even to you...

Prepare to lose it all--He needs to have His hands on your life, so you must relinquish control...

Prepare to die to what you want--the vision goes way beyond what you can see...

Prepare to leave silly arguments about calling behind--it all becomes worthless in the light of knowing Him...

Prepare to dance and sing and praise Him even in the middle of your deserts--these are the sweetest moments, the sacrifice of praise...

Prepare to meet Him in a new, life giving way--and prepare for Him to fill you with Himself on a level you could never have imagined when you first started out...

I have lost it all--love, independence, career, hopes for my "future"...it wasn't His best and so He stole me away to a new life--comfort, hope, joy found only in Him. I read in a letter yesterday (the first letter to my husband--haven't meet him yet :)) that I have been praying that I would truly know deep love--we never know what we're praying for, do we? Never realize how deep and wide and crazy those prayers can be and the journeys they will take us on. I prayed that prayer unaware of the pain that would come out of knowing deep love. My Lord asked me to sacrifice all--took things I depended on away, one by one--so that I might truly love and hope in Him. He's a wild God--but so good in the end. I wouldn't trade sun filled days for the dark nights where I have known Him.

And now the journey continues--chooisng to live out of my heart, though I can see less than far and have much to ask...still I will choose to dream. When I moved home I put this Post-It note up on the wall to remind me to keep pressing forward:

Give yourself room to DREAM! 

It may seem crazy and messy, but it's the only way to hope...

I choose hope today, will you...? In the middle of all you can't see, in the middle of desperate pain and broken relationships, will you choose to believe and trust that there is a good God who knows you and wants to show love to you? Give yourself room to dream, remember the words He has spoken to you and move forward in hope...

Even on a rainy day, there's still light and color behind the clouds.

Inspired by Psalm 137   

By the waters of Babylon,
    there we sat down and wept,
    when we remembered Zion.
² On the willows there
    we hung up our lyres.
³ For there our captors
    required of us songs,
and our tormentors, mirth, saying,
    “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”

⁴ How shall we sing the Lord's song
    in a foreign land?
⁵ If I forget you, O Jerusalem,
    let my right hand forget its skill!
⁶ Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth,
    if I do not remember you,
if I do not set Jerusalem
    above my highest joy!

⁷ Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites
    the day of Jerusalem,
how they said, “Lay it bare, lay it bare,
    down to its foundations!”
⁸ O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed,
    blessed shall he be who repays you
    with what you have done to us!
⁹ Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones
    and dashes them against the rock!