This is Not a Blog

I received many requests to make this blog into a typographic poster. I didn't have time to give it some real artistic flair, but if you're interested, these are free to download. Just click on them and the pdf will open print-ready. If you print them, they are sized at 24/36" and I would recommend getting them printed on 100# text weight or 80# cover weight paper (your printer will know what that means). These are free, please don't alter or sell them in any way. Spread the love!

What Love Is This?

Love is patient: it waits, it stills, it quiets before speaking.

With patience a ruler may be persuaded, and a soft tongue will break a bone. Proverbs 25:15

Love is kind: it coats its words in gentleness, extending the hand of graciousness to every person, deservedly or not.

Gracious words are like a honeycomb, sweetness to the soul and health to the body. Proverbs 16:24

Love does not envy: it finds contentment in today, rejoices with others who have what it wants for itself.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. I Timothy 6:6

Love does not boast: it brings nothing but the cross, it is built of humility and the knowledge that it is only a steward.

As it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” I Corinthians 1:31

Love is not arrogant: it assumes the best of everyone, deserved or not, never stops learning & is patient while others learn too.

I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. Romans 12:3

Love is not rude: love holds its tongue when there is an opportunity to best or beat another with words.

When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent. Proverbs 10:19

Love doesn't insist on its own way: it shows the best way is the way to the cross through the cross.

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

Love is not irritable: it doesn't get annoyed, pissed, frustrated, or angry. It is not "owed" anything.

Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools. Ecclesiastes 7:9

Love is not resentful: it keeps no record of wrongs, when disappointed by someone, it forgives quickly, generously.

If one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Colossians 3:13

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing: it weeps at the sight of brokenness, dissension, disunity, and gossip.

You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am the Lord. Leviticus 19:16

Love rejoices with the truth: it drops everything and sells everything to find truth instead of relying on what meets the eye.

The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Matthew 13:45-46

Love bears all things: it upholds the weight others can't hold, defending the defenseless and turning the other cheek.

But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. Matthew 5:39

Love believes all things: it errs on the side of trust, not in man, but in God.

And those who know your name put their trust in you. Psalm 9:10

Love hopes all things: it never stops hoping for the resolution and reconciliation of all things under heaven.

All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. II Corinthians 5:18

Love endures all things: it holds up for the sake of the gospel, enduring persecution, gossip, slander, & injustice.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus. Romans 15:5

Love never ends: it wakes up every day determined to do it all over again.

Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Psalm 143:8

This is a series of tweets I wrote today based from I Corinthians 13. Mostly I was preaching to myself, but thought they might encourage some others. 

OIL, WATER, and the LIES we tell ourselves

I’ve got layers of lies that I don’t even know about yet. Sara Groves

Here’s what happened:

A friend told me something and I believed her. I do that. I’m a believing, trusting sort of person. The thing is, what she told me was only half true. Not half true to her—she told me the truth as best as she could, but it was only half of the whole truth. I didn’t know the other parties involved, so what could I do? I believed her. This is what friends do.

But the water has sunk to the bottom and the oil has risen to the top and with it all the floating particles that are still coated with enough water that I can’t look into that cup without seeing more of the whole story.

And my heart is sick.

Because her true-to-her story was only half of the story and now I know the other half, and the other half is my friend too, and when you love oil and water, even if they hate each other, what can you do? You believe them both with as much grace as you can muster. This is what good friends do.

But at some point the whole thing gets shaken up again and it takes a while for things to settle and while it’s still shaken you feel sicker and sicker still because there are always three sides to every story, hers, his, and the horrible, awful, honest truth. With a choice so divided, what can you do? You choose truth. This is what the truest friend does.

To choose truth, though, means to lose other things, namely trust.

Today trust was lost and I mourn that. I mourn it so hard and so deeply because I have been lied to, though neither of them did the lying.

I was the one lying all along. And that is the most heartbreaking of it all.

Paul admonishes the Thessalonians to “aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you.”

I’m stuck on that today because I didn’t live quietly and I listened to the lies. But the lies were of my own making and they said something like this: You are big enough to handle the heartbreaking details of someone’s life all by yourself. You are big enough to have an opinion on lives that aren’t your own. You are big enough to discern truth from lies and from opinions and cries.

The truth is that I am not a part of the problem or the solution here; I am only a particle that floated to the top of his story, coated in the residue of her story. Just one small particle.

And if God did not give me the grace to handle this (at least without some amount of bellyaching), then it is probably best for me to simply bow out.

BROKEN HEARTS and 17 HOURS

Did I ever tell you about the time I listened to the same ten songs on repeat for 17 hours?

You either have to be crazy to do this or completely indifferent, and I might have been both at the same time.

Here's what I know though: it takes 17 hours to get over a broken heart if the soundtrack is right.

The drive was a familiar one, I'd done it countless times during my years living in Tennessee. I would say I could do it in my sleep, but in fact I probably did do it near sleep sometimes.

I had it timed to perfection, stopping at all the same gas stations, breathing more easily when I crossed under Halfway Blvd (because it meant it was my halfway point too), knowing how many cups of coffee it took (four grande Starbucks espresso-blend) and at which point I would feel nearest to tears of exhaustion there and back.

This drive and I, we were tight. After the second time I did it, I began to look forward to it. It meant 17 hours of uninterrupted quiet. 17 hours alone. 17 hours of audio books or not. It meant 17 hours to reflect over the past few weeks and the few weeks to come. I began to treasure the drive.

But never was it as healing as it was that trip in January. I left the cold north, crossing borders and mountains, passing giant roadside crosses that signify Bible-Belt territory, back down south where my heart felt its brokenness more tenderly. Back to where everything reminded me that something hadn't worked. Back to where I felt the sting of failure more than I'd ever felt it before. How little I knew about failure at 25 though. (How little I still know.)

I put that cd in and one after another those 10 tracks worked out the kinks in my heart. They massaged the knots and tightened loose screws, they identified fears and roots of fears, they told me to pick up my head, that the end of something good didn't mean the end of everything good.

It was the first time that I took Exit 25 off I75 south that there weren't tears of angst and exhaustion, but tears of healing and finishing.

17 hours is what it takes to heal my broken heart if the soundtrack is right.

(aerography)

DAY JOB

This is my day job.

This is also my dream job. As in, if you had asked me what I was hoping to do when I was sloughing my way through a double major and four minors in college, I would have neatly packaged a non-existing job description and it would have looked nearly identical to what I spend my days doing now. 

I love doing what I do so much that I keep tacking on more and more of it through freelancing, until, like I wrote in an email this week, "My right brain gets kicked into a shriveled wad."

So that's where I am right now.

The creative part of me, the part that dreams up designs and implements them, the part of me that loves paper and tactile art, the part of me that words fall out of more quickly than I can piece them together—that very big part of me—it's weary.

Especially because as much as I'd like to only work out of my right brain, there are left brained tasks to be done, taxes, administrative work, my email inbox (gah), printing orders, etc.

I've been thinking about Augustine's disordered loves the past few weeks, partly because I know my love is disordered and a mess, but mostly because I cannot solve or resolve anything.

It's not my job. Not even my day job.

SLEEPING ALONE

I wake slowly, face-down, stretching my legs, cupping my toes over the end of the bed, feeling my calf muscles pull and retract. My head is lying flat, on 400 thread count white sheets. I am facing left, the breeze from my open window setting across my face, the window's linen blind pulsing steadily in the same breeze.

I spread my right arm out feeling the empty space in my bed. My heart sinks.

There has never been anyone in this space, but I still feel the void all the same. My bed has never been shared, I have never been cuddled too tightly, or felt the aching space of an evening argument which keeps two hearts and bodies apart. I have never had to fight anyone for the covers and when I am cold, I am cold alone.

I stretch my left arm out, toward the window, rest my hand on the screen. My heart breaks a little more every day. It breaks itself and heals itself, and it does it all under the watchful, loving eye of God, so I am not alone, though I feel alone.

I used to worry I would not be married by 24. Then I worried I would not be married by 29. Now I worry I will never come to terms with always being alone. It is a hard thing to share one's bed with no one and it is a hard thing to wake every morning feeling more undesirable than the night before.

Friends think they are consoling when they say marriage is hard work (who among us thinks it is not?) or when they complain that she steals all the covers or he snores or she likes to cuddle and he only like sex. They think this is consoling.

But it is not.

Because the night comes slowly, every blessed day, like the poet, Richard Wilbur, said, a punctual rape, same in, same out; but morning comes quickly and I spread my arm across this empty space feeling aloneness more than ever before.

Fabs Harford wrote about Fasting from Intimacy and this resonates in me because there is no monster inside of me more ravenous than the one who craves intimacy. I lean across the table in loud restaurants and ask hard questions. I hug tightly without discretion or discrimination. I touch the hands and shoulders of people I love, and sometimes barely know. I lean in. I do this because I am starving for intimacy and I am unafraid of that monster. I know he can kill me. But I know I will starve without his hunger.

Singleness is a beautiful thing and when I take account of the past decade I see a faithfulness to its beauty in my life in a way that only comes from grace, but I also see a succession of tiny funerals every step of the way. A cemetery full of them. Adventures I have had alone. Mornings I have woken alone. Moments I have reveled in alone. Each one bringing joy in its experience and mourning in its completion.

Life is meant to be shared and marriage is not the only way to share life, I know this, but the mystery of two flesh becoming one is a mingling that cannot be known by me, with my bed all to myself, 400 thread count sheets, open window, and quiet morning. And I mourn this.

Tim Keller preached a sermon called Jesus, Lord of the Wine, and he teaches how Christ is the Lord of the wedding feast, how His first miracle was in a wedding, turning water into wine and how this is a sign to us that He is for our joy. And not just our eventual joy, as the old Calvinists would have us believe, but for our present joy, our joy here on earth, in empty beds, empty hearts, and single flesh.

I meditate on this morning before I break my night's fast.

The hunger in my belly a reminder that there is a feast before me, whether it is the feast I envision for my life or not, it is a feast that brings joy somehow and in some way. And there are mornings when it will be hard, like this one. There will be nights when my fast from intimacy is painful and I shake my fist at God, or ignore Him altogether.

But He is for my joy and joy is there too, in the song of birds outside my window, the Roman blind shivering in the breeze, and the 400 thread count sheets, covers all to myself. There is joy there—a small, but ebbing joy.

pinterest

THE ORIGINAL LOVE

You might have noticed a curious absence from my story last week. Or you might not have noticed at all (Narcissism is one of my greatest qualities, so I'm always concerned with you being concerned with me.). The absence was this: the Love of God for me.

And it was no mistake that kept it out. That was intentional.

Perhaps it was because I was so intolerable as a child and teen, or perhaps it was because being tolerable wasn't even enough, but I spent much of my time sent to my room or grounded or put away from people and things I loved. I grew to equate me being a disappointment with distance from those from whom I wanted love most.

If you are grown now, you know that feeling like a disappointment is a nagging itch that won't be scratched (or perhaps your greatest quality is ego, in which case I will pray for us both). I think that failure, or even fear of failure, is the mercenary messenger sent to grind us into harder work or hope for heaven. Either one will do. If I fail you, it is only a short reminder to you that I am still human, but it is a long reminder in a slew of reminders to me that I have been sent to my room with no dinner.

This morning I worked from home, finishing a project that's been good for me in the work-with-your-hands sort of way. From original sketches to scanned images to vector files to letterpress machinery to my kitchen table this morning for the final brushes of watercolor before mounting on mats—it has been a labor of love, but labor nonetheless. Piles of prints with Psalm 18:19 on them, "He rescued me because He delights in me."

Half are being hung on the walls of girls we've rescued from the red-light district in India and the other half are our gift to donors who helped rescue them.

It is very easy for me to believe that those girls have been rescued because God delights in them.

It is also very easy for me to believe that our donors who have sacrificed blood, sweat, and tears to rescue, are delighted in by God.

My roommate drinks her tea this morning while I am bent over the cards with my paintbrush. "Don't forget that that's about you too" she says and taps the prints. And I look up at her because it never occurs to me that God delights in me.

He saved me, yes.
He chose me, yes.
He sanctifies me, yes.
He teaches me, yes.
He pursues me, yes.

But delights in me?

Draws me near to him?

Loves being around me?

Surely not.

I'm still very good at lining up my disappointing behavior and coming up with reasons why I ought to be grounded for life, yet all the while He's saying, "Come close, come near, be near."

I write to a friend the other day that the beauty of progressive sanctification is that "there isn't a part of yesterday's me that doesn't contribute to today's me. My hordes of sin, my mistakes aplenty and the proof of them only show that there's work to be done."

It seems to me that the best place for that work to be done is close to my Maker, the artist who crafted me from the original sketches and who will finish me to completion.

Note: If you are a parent, draw your kids close to you in times of disappointment. You will fight it. They may fight it. But I know of no other way to show them the length of God's love from a young age than to draw them close. Love them nearer to you and so nearer to Christ's love.

touched

It is hard to explain to someone in English how to make coffee if they only speak Portuguese. I suppose the irony of that is that the Portuguese probably know how to make their coffee blacker, bolder, and better than we ever will. But you understand the point. We, all of us, go through life trying desperately to help speakers of other languages understand what we are so certain of in our own. It is a climb that weakens even the most resolved.

I speak in the language of touch and I hear best when words, any words, are accompanied by a hand on my shoulder, arm against arm, or heads close together. I do not know why this is the language I speak best and I understand less why this is the language I receive best. It is not the language of the suburbs and I feel that acutely here. I take my hugs whenever I can. I give them, hard and long, because I want you to know that I love you, but I also want to feel that you could love me too.

Cards, gifts, time spent talking or a surprise task finished, these bless me, but I quickly forget. Like all the times I've tried to learn Spanish. Whole semesters of conjugations and tutors and rote memorization and my grasp is still medial, at best. It is not my language and it does not come naturally to me. It does not even come unnaturally to me. It dances circles around me, taunting me with the secrecy of its word-speak.

A hand on the top of my head, a thumb rubbed into my weary shoulders, feet touching beneath the table, and my ache for love subsides. This may seem hyperbolic to you, and perhaps it is, but we are speaking different languages, that's all.

I want to love well. I do. But I also want to be loved well.

There is a part of me that would like to believe that the creator of the universe, the one who designed love and is love, that he would be beyond the need for our earth-encrusted affection and dirt-laden offerings, but it was he who pled before his father "take this cup from me" and then found his brothers asleep on their watch. "Could you not wait with me? Keep with me?"

I wonder if that perfect Christ, the sinless man, the creator in flesh, if he felt in that moment of abandonment, his utter humanness.

I wonder if it is in our need for love that we are most human. Here, with our knotted muscles, tired from the work of life, we know our need.

(le love)

Love

So you're gently rebuking me? I asked.

"Yes," he said. "It's your personality to be extreme about stuff like this (retirement funds), and you've got to understand that not everyone sees it that way and there's wisdom in their planning too."

It's the same old story: I am incensed about some moral, ethical, or theological principle, determined to be as radical as possible in my adoption of another way, and absolutely unmoving in my principle. A conversation from yesterday: "So, Lore, you bought the iphone 4, even though you could have spent $30 more and gotten the 4S, just because you're determined to not have the newest model of anything?"

You see the insanity?

In the idiomatic I believe it's called cutting off your nose to spite your face.

This year has taught me a lot of grace, but it's mostly resulted in grace toward others and less grace toward myself. Because I feel the freedom of grace so much more, I feel free to be as selfless, boundary-less, guardless as possible. I'm baring myself to the world and all it's furling at me, taking it like a man. Or something.

And no matter how many people point out the idiocy of my fervor, I dig my heels in, more determined than ever to love wildly, freely, deeply.

Last night I sat in the car of someone who loves me and I dumped it all--my confusion, my heart, my determination to love as Christ loves and not as the world loves and how that is so counter-cultural that sometimes I even wonder if I've got it wrong. Shouldn't we do our best to cover, maintain, and nurture ourselves first?

"No!" she said, over and over again.

"If God has given the grace to love deeply and freely, to encourage fully and with abandon, do it! That's a gift from Him and not everyone has it."

Here is what I am learning about the Holy Spirit: if we are walking truly and closely to the Helper God gave us, we will be helped.

That's it, simply. That means that in times of confusion, I will be helped. In times where my love feels brittle, I will be helped. In times where my store of encouragement is low, I will be helped. In times where the world draws back, draws lines, draws the blinds, I move forward because I am helped.

And maybe that's not everyone's gift, but I think it is. I think if we're children of God, He said the Holy Spirit was there to teach us all things, to help us. I think it is our gift, but we're too busy scurrying around, sweeping up the messes, guarding hearts that aren't ours to guard, and setting up boundaries, that we forget that we have access to all things and a Helper to help us.

There are no exemptions or excuses when it comes to love in the Kingdom.

Maybe I'm foolish. I actually think I am.

I think the world looks at me, the church looks at me, maybe some of you look at me, and I certainly look at me and think "You're foolish and extreme." But I'm okay with that. Because my heart is surprisingly so okay. For all the lack of boundaries I have and lack of time I give to it, my heart is so okay.

    Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
    By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.   (1 John 4:7-21 ESV)

 (kappa alpha theta)

*********************
You still have until midnight tonight to win one of my favorite books (and right now the odds are in your favor). Go for it, I promise if you win, you won't regret it.

The Science Project

We cut the canvas into small, perfect squares
four equal sides

placing them beside one another
in a formulated mosaic (looking nothing like the original).


Changing the art of love into the science of love

with principles, periodics, a gross amount of pride.


I know now

what was wrong with us, wasn't us at all,

but our insistence on facts and percentages,

the need to be right.


an inebriated desire to prove a theory

instead of making art for love's sake.



(Penned in 2009)

Married to Gladness

I've worn my share of satin and strapless gowns, carried bouquets and endured updos. The old adage "three times a bridesmaid, never a bride" used to sting, but it's been about 12 times now, so I don't let it bother me anymore.

My best friend gets married in two weeks. A crazy, whirlwind, surprise relationship. We talk about how six months ago we couldn't imagine this happening. Now we can't imagine it not.

She's not the first best friend to get married, there have been plenty of those. But there is something uniquely different in my heart about our friendship and her marriage. And you might be surprised when I tell you it's gladness.

That's all, just gladness.

For every friend who has walked the aisle, there has been a stab in my heart. A knowledge that things were changing and I was not only powerless to keep them from changing, but I was also powerless in joining along in their adventure. Now, as friend after friend has gotten married, had one, two, three babies, bought homes, fought through finances, planted gardens, settled down, remodeled, I've felt that kinship drift down the way of life and growth.

I spend my weekend mornings alone, sipping coffee and writing. I work in an office 9-5 every day and spend my evenings doing whatever I want. The thought of having to wrestle over finances doesn't even occur to me, it's simple and easy when it's just me. The only discussions about birth-control are hypothetical and shrugged off. My life, I know, is easy, enviable, maybe, at times by my once white-dress wearing friends.

I've envied their lives too. Trust me. (Though I suppose that's not hard to believe.) There's something about stability, deep love and marrying your best friend, raising kids, planting gardens, even arguing about finances, that is just so beautiful to me. I want that. I do. 

But not at the expense of gladness. 

I've been surprised at how easy the gladness has been for me this time around. How every discussion with her boyfriend about rings, and what she liked and didn't like, every bit of talk about her beautiful new/old home, and every time I couldn't help but smile at her happiness, I've been surprised at how easy it's been to genuinely feel that.

I really mean that: surprised. I sometimes want to pinch myself, ask myself if I'm sure it'll stick, but let me assure you, it'll stick. Here's how I know:

Singleness doesn't scare me anymore. Oh, it's not a state I relish or dream about being my life-portion. It's not something that I think will be the most fun, most selfless, most adventurous way of life. It's not something I don't think about when I am alone and feeling it acutely. I just mean, it doesn't scare me anymore.

We have settled into a comfortable routine, singleness and me. I hope that routine never turns me into the crazy cat lady, I hope it turns me into a happy, joy-filled, adventurous single person, one who is filled with gladness at every physical representation of the Christ and His bride. I hope that the comfort of my singleness pushes me to productivity and points to Jesus. I hope it shouts the gospel. That, like Paul said about the single woman, I would be concerned about the things of the Lord, how I can please Him.

This would make me the most glad. I think.

(green wedding shoes)

17 hours

Did I ever tell you about the time I listened to the same ten songs on repeat for 17 hours?

You either have to be crazy to do this or completely indifferent, and I might have been both at the same time.

Here's what I know though: it takes 17 hours to get over a broken heart if the soundtrack is right.

The drive was a familiar one, I'd done it countless times during my years living in Tennessee. I would say I could do it in my sleep, but in fact I probably did do it near sleep sometimes. I had it timed to perfection, stopping at all the same gas stations, breathing more easily when I crossed under Halfway Blvd (because it meant it was my halfway point too), knowing how many cups of coffee it took (four grande Starbucks espresso-blend) and at which point I would feel nearest to tears of exhaustion there and back.

This drive and I, we were tight. After the second time I did it, I began to look forward to it. It meant 17 hours of uninterrupted quiet. 17 hours alone. 17 hours of audio books or not. It meant 17 hours to reflect over the past few weeks and the few weeks to come. I began to treasure the drive.

But never was it as healing as it was that trip in January. I left the cold north, crossing borders and mountains, passing giant roadside crosses that signify Bible-Belt territory, back down south where my heart felt its brokenness more tenderly. Back to where everything reminded me that something hadn't worked. Back to where I felt the sting of failure more than I'd ever felt it before. How little I knew about failure at 25 though. (How little I still know.)

I put that cd in and one after another those 10 tracks worked out the kinks in my heart. They massaged the knots and tightened loose screws, they identified fears and roots of fears, they told me to pick up my head, that the end of something good didn't mean the end of everything good.

It was the first time that I took Exit 25 off I75 south that there weren't tears of angst and exhaustion, but tears of healing and finishing.

17 hours is what it takes to heal my broken heart if the soundtrack is right.

(aerography)

We got a gust of the northwind this afternoon. She brushed through the trees and stirred up the dust and was gone faster than any of us liked. A respite though. Brief and necessary. I had forgotten what it felt like.

I drove home tonight with my windows rolled down, the heat of the day subsided, and the evening air moist and heavy. It will not rain, I know this. I am learning Texas. But it is enough to feel like it might rain. It is enough to be content with a hope, even if I know it won't come true.

I confessed to Him on the way home. Said words out loud. Asked questions. How long? Why? What's your divine purpose and why me? Why this for me?

The other night I cried in front of my roommates, confessed the deepest hurt of my soul and they listened. They don't understand, how can they? I'd never wish that they would! But they listened.

And I think sometimes that is what I think about God. That He listens but doesn't understand. And when He finishes listening, He is gentle with me, loves me, tells me it won't always be like this, but then He goes on. Because being listened to should be enough sometimes. I think this about God and I think I'm wrong.

The deepest ache of my soul is that the Father doesn't care, not really. That He will listen, but when I am finished and my tears are spent, my heart raw before Him. He was thank me for my transparency and He will move on to His next appointment. The truth, though, is this is not a Father's heart at all.

He does not give half-gifts or half of his time. He does not give snakes instead of fish, or rocks in place of bread. He is not tapping His toe waiting for me to just hurry up and be content with the mere heaviness of air, while He holds back heavens full of rain. He doesn't withhold any good thing from us.

I pull into my driveway and ask Him, right out loud, "God, what is good for me?"

"What is the best thing for this day for me?"

(This is not a selfish prayer, I am learning. This is where we begin so that we can always end at His glory, because He knows. He knows.)

I walk into my living room, where my roommates and a friend are watching a movie, eating popcorn. I make an egg for dinner, with a peach and I ask Him, more quietly this time, "What is it God? What?"

"Where am I settling for a mere shadow of things to come, when you want to show me the richness of today, today?"

This is it, He says. Here. With these people. In this home. With that peach. With the wind today. And the words spoken tonight at church. The hug in the hallway. The encouragement from a friend. The provision for my car problems. The opportunity to sit and write. The quietness of my room. This is my good for you today.

And it is enough.

A friend asked the other day "Isn't it strange how everything we did pre-gospel understanding was motivated from fear? Even the brave risks we took--all deeply seeded in fear?"

I've been thinking about it for days now.

How even my dreams, at the root, are there because I'm afraid I'll never amount to anything, never do anything worthwhile with my life. Even the very best parts of me are still rooted in a fear of sorts.

The thing that's changing me (although slowly) is a right understanding of God's character, but I'll be honest: it's still so hard.

I say to a friend last night: I'm so good at being [this one thing], and I have such a slew of messups behind me in this opposite area. Wouldn't it be better to just go with the former, the things I'm good at doing, the thing at which I excel and impress?

But even in that I hear the fear quivering in my voice. The fear that I'll be what Paul talks about in Romans 1: given over to the deceitfulness of my mind. Left to indulge in the flesh, the places where I'm good, where I excel, where people are impressed with me. What if that is God's discipline to me?

See the fear?

It's palpable.

(frolic blog)

Perfect love casts out fear and, I'll be honest, my understanding of love has grown immeasurably this year, and is still so absent it hurts. It seems that the more I'm aware of the perfect love, the more I believe that I don't have it and it's not toward me. I want to say that this is normal in faith, that the closer we are drawn to the Father, the more aware we are of our blights and bruises.

But I don't know.

(Another fear.)

I don't know if someday, when this is finished, when heaven hits earth and redeems it in one full, swift motion, I don't know if that's when we feel done, finished. I don't know if that's the perfect love that John was talking about.

Or if, here, right now, in the middle of this beautiful, aching, living mess, we feel it too.

(Matt spoke about doubt this past weekend at my church.
It reached deeply in me. Give it a listen if you struggle with doubt too.
Or you know someone who does.)

You can stick a fork in me, but I know I'm not done. I know this because I pray a raw prayer (like the kind I prayed a few weeks ago cleaning my room and a Christmas song came on my playlist) and then spend the new few weeks listing the reasons that God should answer my prayer (clearly evidence that I haven't got the whole unmerited favor thing down yet), and then I spend the next few days beating up myself for not understanding God as Father better (who of you, if your son asked for fish, would give Him a snake?). (To be honest, I have nightmares almost weekly about snakes in Texas.)

See, I have this crazy, crazy thought that no matter what I do, it's not enough. I know none of you can relate. But stay with me here. I think that what I do really matters, like really, really matters. I think that what I do can change the world in one fell swoop, or at least change God's mind with enough cajoling. I think that.

But I don't believe that.

And I know I don't believe it, but it doesn't stop me from thinking it all the time.

I think that no matter what I do, a snake is going to find its way into my pantry or garage, even though I've asked (repeatedly) as a small favor from God: please don't ever let a snake get into my house.

And I think that no matter what I do, God doesn't want to answer my prayers.

So much so that I stopped praying. Well, I mostly just stopped asking. I prayed. I prayed a lot. But I stopped with the pleases and can-yous. I just stopped. This happened about a year and a half ago. I stopped asking and I stopped expecting. And then all of a sudden, he was answering my unasked prayers! Just like that, I didn't even ask for bread and bread showed up.

(Javier Bak)

So a few weeks ago, when I blurted out that unrehearsed prayer, when Christmas music made me think of what I want most in the world and I just asked, I felt embarrassed. I wanted to hide. I looked around to see if anyone noticed. Then I felt like a child.

Then I thought: no, I don't feel like a child.

A child would ask without embarrassment. Without hiding. Without fear.

A child asks for a fish and expects a fish.

And I'm still looking for a snake to appear.

The real fault, I'm finding, is not that I don't deserve what I want (and I don't), but that I still expect stones and snakes.