A LOVE STORY

All I asked for the new year was a little less of everyone's drama and a little more of my own.

And I meant it.

This week I realized that it's been a drama free year for me. Not even relatively. I mean, it's been completely drama free. My car has never once broken down. My heart has not once been broken. I have never been short on finances. I have always know what I was doing and where I was going and how I was getting there. I have had the answers at my fingertips and whenever I have not, it has been fairly easy to find answers. I land consistently on the same theologies and haven't once thought seriously about running away from anything.

I'm accustomed to a rocky ride, this life of mine has not been without its waves and storms. Once a friend said to me, "Lore, for someone who loathes drama as much as you do, you're always in the middle of some epic drama!"

A few years ago a man put his hand on my head and said, "The Lord has good things planned for you, not disaster. I see a book, and the title is not a Greek Tragedy. Your life is not a Greek Tragedy. Your life is a love story that ends happily ever after. I feel like your life is a love story. Your love for God and your love for people and people's love for you. And what that love accomplishes and how it triumphs..."

And I'll be honest, my heart scoffed when he said those words. I'll tell you why: because the story of my life has been a laughable Greek Tragedy and my love for God at that point was nil, my love for people was waning, and people's love for me felt like the only thing holding my feet to the ground.

But here I am, looking back over the past year and a half, and all I can see is good things. Love stories. Happily after after. Love for God. Love for people. And people's love for me. And what that love accomplishes.

And how it triumphs.

How it triumphs.

Yesterday's early morning drive sans traffic gave me time and space to think about the -ingness of the gospel—that ongoing work of the gospel. How it's already finished and not yet finished and so we stay the course, walking, running, living ongoingly. I thought about how drama in our lives is God's way of moving heaven and earth into our path, insurmountable obstacles without Him. And just because we spend a year standing arms outstretched on a mountaintop does not mean there is less of heaven to be known and less of earth to be lived.

This morning, though, I sat on our couch, wrapped in a blanket while my two wise roommates spoke truth to me, challenged and loved me, because here's the truth: a drama-free life doesn't mean a sin-free life and oh, how I dearly wrestle with the sinfulness and selfishness of my heart. A drama free life means that the dim glass is a little clearer, but we still don't see Him face to face. And I long for that. I long so deeply for that.

I am grateful for a year of joy, a year where the bigness of God has been evident, a year where the love has been abundant, but I mean it too when I say that if 2012 is wrought with drama of my own heart's making or my own circumstance's bringing, I am ready for it. Bring it on, I say.