Expertise:Chocolate, namely the eating of it; cheesy Stephen Baldwin movies; reading multiple novels at once; redesigning this xanga several times a week; and daydreaming while driving
Do you know that God loves you? In the deepest recesses of your being, in the places most broken within you, do you know that God loves you?
What does it feel like to be so certain of the love of God? What does it mean to live in the knowledge that God loves you? How do you find the hope and the faith and the trust to believe that God loves you, and how is it reflected in the every moment of your life?
Somehow, the saints knew. Maybe they were the elected few, and the rest of us wander blindly on this faith walk always searching for the certainty that we are loved by God. Always asking for a measure of proof, a million little Gideons every day putting out the fleece and not trusting when it is wet or dry, our battles not against armies and chariots but against the whispered fear of the enemy who convinces us we are not loved, will never be loved.
If I knew, if I really knew, that God loves me, I would not live this way. But I don't know, so I continue to wander blindly, begging for favors and seeking signs and praying that someday I will know enough to know that God loves me.
You can tell me to look at the cross and know, but the great tragedy of the cross is that he died for love of me, and I still cannot accept his love of me. And maybe I'm alone in this doubt, but somehow I think that if the whole church knew that He loves us our world would be a better place to live in...
...since I last posted a blog. I'm getting really bad at this. I remember a time when I blogged daily, or at least several times a week. Now I post something once every few months. Sad, I know.
Sometimes, I suppose, life just takes that turn. Sometimes we have a lot to say and it's just spilling out of us, begging to be shared. Other times we have a lot to say, but no way to say it. And yet there are those times where everything is buried so deep within that there's no way to begin to express it - not even to yourself (much less others).
I've been sitting in a place of the latter for many months now. Life charges on like a runaway train and I sit trying to hold on, trying to make some sense of the images and emotions and experiences that flash by so fast, too fast. And sometimes that train collides with something on the track and I have to pick up the pieces, dust myself off, and hang on for the ride to begin again.
The last several months have been a journey of trusting in God when it seems like He's little more than a phantom deity - there one minute but inexplicably gone the next. If I based my faith on feelings I'd be at best a schitzophrenic Christian, sometimes I wonder if I'm not. It's a cycle of sin and repentance, pride and falling into humility, hiding behind a mask when all is broken and desperately wishing that someone could see the truth of what is there.
If I knew how to live this life I would. If I wasn't choked by fear, haunted by anxiety, desperate to love and be loved, to know and be known, perhaps then I could be the woman I want to be. If I wasn't perpetually disappointed by the face in the mirror, caught up in the futile race to be something, someone, out of a book or a movie - perfect and beautiful and always put together - maybe I could make something of myself. If I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God's plan for my life was good, full of hope and beauty and peace and passion, maybe this trusting, this daily walking, this journey would actually lead somewhere.
And maybe that's why I haven't written in so long, because the thoughts and feelings churning deep within are frightening, because I'm afraid to trust that anyone else has ever felt this way, or that my thoughts are even worth sharing with the world in general, much less the friends I feel the need to inspire and impress. The weight of writing can sometimes be too much to bear, so it's easier to avoid it, to lose myself in someone else's work, than to invest myself in my own.
And if you're still reading by now you will see why it's been 4 months since I last wrote. All of the excuses about work and ministry and family and obligations aside, I don't write because I'm afraid I have nothing to say, or I have too much to say, and either way it's a risk to share.
No profound proverbs or neatly wrapped bows on this one. Just thoughts, thoughts that have gone unshared for a long time.
Wow... it's been almost 4 months since I've updated. That's almost scary. I could blame a lot of things, but honestly I've just been busy and uninspired. So I thought a redesign phase might inspire me. This is just stage one, and as you all know, it usually takes me several stages to find a design that feels like a second skin - warm and comfy and inspiring.
Feel free to chime in and offer suggestions. I'll try to write a real blog soon, but now it's bedtime, because 5:15 in the morning comes a lot faster than I ever thought possible.
Throughout this day of quiet desperation I heard a voice whispering in that place within my heart where all truth is tucked away.
It simply said, "I Love you. I Love you. I am making you into the woman I made you to be."
I Love you. I Love you. I Love you. All day long, undeniably, I Love you. And the ache of this being loved is almost unbearable. But all day long, I Love you.
So many questions that I have no answers to keep me awake, keep me afraid, keep me unsure. But that voice in the place of truth is whispering, always whispering.
The pain of being overlooked, ignored, ridiculed, has taught you compassion. Your tears have mingled with the outcasts of the world who have never been told I Love you. The average, ordinary, unattractive you that you see in the mirror every day (who is beautiful in my sight) is echoed in mirrors and hearts around the world where no beauty queen can offer a sense of self worth.
Who can understand the asker of these impossible questions that seem to have no answer who has never questioned themselves? When no answer is good enough for a life broken by the journey, how can you know that all the answers are wrong unless you've been broken too? How can you be my I Love you if you don't know that in your brokenness, lost and uncertain, I Love you too?
Someone told me tonight that things will be better, that I will find happiness someday. And I asked, "When? When I'm dead?" And I realized that, yes, maybe when I'm dead. Maybe not until I'm dead.
Because when God whispers I Love you, and when He Loves through you, the earth trembles, the mountains tumble, the enemy fights back, and you have to be stripped away, and you have to be stripped bare. And only in that desperate ache of I Love you, in that lonely longing of I Love you, can you embrace a broken, suffering world and speak I Love You.
