I'm back from India and a brief hiatus from the writing world. Northern Ireland is home again--beloved home. But while I was gone, India was home and I was reminded of my other home, Haiti. It seems that I am destined to fall in love and lose myself to all the places I travel, as well as the people I travel with.
I am proud to have this heart, this heart that feels so deeply and wants so much. At times it has frightened me in its intensity and overwhelmed me in its depth: it seemed strange, no one else seemed to react the way I did to certain situations. But the Lord has been showing me the beauty in this depth, the privilege of being His and reflecting Him even in how I react to the world around me. I walk into places and see and hear with Him, the beauty and the pain reflected in my tears and my laughter.
It doesn't come without cost, this choosing to be all His. You have to learn to leave certain things behind, steward it in ways you didn't know were needed--I'm on the journey of figuring out how I operate--the beauty of it--and how to live out this silly, spontaneous, overwhelming life alongside Him. I feel so deeply--and I often don't know what to do with that. Is there a purpose in all of these tears?
God has been speaking to me about the depths in my heart and how He will use my wide awake heart (it's been so healed in these last few months, so much more able to show concern and reach out to those who are different from me and in need--and we are all in need, whether physically, spiritually or emotionally) to awaken the Western world to a heart in them that's grown tired and dead. Not that they don't want to be found full alive in Him, but they didn't even know it was possible and without being shown, wouldn't be able to come fully alive in all the ways He made for them.
There's a brokenness in love not fully expressed--I am becoming more and more aware of this and moving away from the dead way I used to operate. The gorgeous contrast of love fully expressed against what lives only in your heart was broken open to me when we spent time in New Delhi. My friends joined some other friends who had spent all their time in India working with the same group of street kids. We went out to a fancy restaurant that night and the kids were in the marketplace, they lived not far from there. They sat outside in the dar, staring at us through the plate glass windows of the restaurant. I felt horrified--these street kids were staring at us as we gorged ourselves...for me, a nightmare. I had to go to the bathroom to cry and try to understand what the heck was going on...all of my insecurities and striving and judgment and how wrong the world was rose up in me in this overwhelming torrent. I was no better than them but everything about the situation showed just how different we were, how far apart we were. It felt so broken.
I dreaded leaving that restaurant...tell you how it went in a moment...
I have started to realize and be able to put words to the fear in me that keeps me from love. A part of me so dreads the exposing and tearing and utter desperation of putting all of yourself out there to be seen that I have often rejected being loved before it could ever happen. I had no words, no conscious understanding of this part of my self and the lies I was living out of...but there it was. So much has been uncovered in this DTS--a fear of acceptance in me that literally kept me believing no one would ever fully want to know me, lies that told me I was all alone and had to take care of myself, so many vulnerabilities that I would never disclose until recently, when heartache showed me how far I had come.
I was told something recently that tore at the heart of me: I had been in this situation before and found myself in the same pain again...but the outcome was different, as the Lord had been promising me it would be. He had even anticipated, giving me a picture of my heart all shattered to pieces--which it became the next day--and how though it was in pieces, an electrical force held it all together, kept it suspended and connected. The idea and thought, the truth that I have found out as I have gone through this is that my heart is now so intimately connected with Him--I am His Bride--that no piece is held back and so even if the worst thing (considering my history) happened to me, I was actually okay. I fought against being in the situation I was put into, asking God to keep me from that pain, but he didn't answer. And yet He did: I saw the depth we have come to in our relationship now. I see the trust, the way our hearts are interlocked. When we went through this before, parts of my heart died or were harden, parts that only came into being recently, these last few months as I let Him massage out the wounds and come back to life. It was wild to realize how much of me had been cut off because of past wounds. Then, the same situation, almost exactly, came around and I was so afraid--but then he met me so completely. I realized His love that much deeper and the situation is setting me free to love in ways I never could have imagined.
Because perfect love really does cast out fear...and to be fully loved is worth every risk...and no matter what happens to me, my heart really is held. I can truly do anything in His strength, in His arms--and He will never let me fall.
It's not easy right now--I have to remind myself constantly of these truths as my heart continues to heal and attempt to move forward--but I am not afraid of this process and I know He will see me all the way through and He has good big plans for me--far more than I could ever ask or imagine. And I am not alone, I have all of you! I give you permission to speak life, to show off love to me, to remind me of truth--and I pray I can do the same for all of you.
When we left that restaurant, the kids came running to us. I've never seen anything like the smiles on their faces: they were well loved and they knew it. I didn't even know these 7, 8 and 9 year olds but they swooped me up into their embrace as well. If I was with their friends, I was one of them and worthy of love. The grace they showed, the joy in just being with those they loved and knew loved them back was beyond my small judgmental mind. I was floored and delighted to be embraced fully into the Kingdom, with no thought of who I was and what I was about: I was just worthy to be loved, because that was what they knew.
I want to know and express love like that. He is changing, shaping and forming me. I am well loved and as part of His Kingdom, you are as well. Let's express that deep embrace of love, that pulling into intimacy, today.
be loved. Beloved. That's just who you are as His kid.
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