As I see it

No carefully crafted orator could adequately explain it nor artist perfectly capture it. It can only be examined by experience.

Somedays it seems as if your soul could gather it by the troughfuls and others only by a thimble. Maybe even at times you haven't a single thing to place it in but you watch it fall all around you, sprouting up joy and hope wherever it lands.

It's so powerful it causes you to sprint with legs moving so fast you are certain that if you were to jump even so slightly, that you'd be sure to take flight. And it's so stiffining, it leads you to dwell in the valley of despair, with memories thick like soupy air. You breathe them in hoping to one day exhale, light and free.

I know the joy and excitement of feeling worthy and useful. To be called and filled. To have a hope so secure. I also know the pain of moral failure. The embarrassment of stumbling head first. The vulnerability of exposure.

The deepest lessons arent learned by hearsay nor are they a contagion.  They are experiential, they are personal. Through it all I've learned without a single shred of doubt that He is here. He was always there. Smack dab in the middle of doubt and confusion and pain and sin, He was there. He was there.  Whether I was soaring or drowning, praising or cursing, embracing or fleeing, loving or hating, serving or disowning, He was there. 

I so needed to know that!

Straighten up!

This morning I woke up to the scene from Forrest Gump playing through my head. It was the part where Forrest and Jenny were being taunted by the bullies and if the brace wearing hero didn't run he was going to be beaten to a pulp.  There I was half asleep, cheering along with Jenny, "run Forrest, run!"  We rejoiced as we saw his braces break in slow motion wonder and he escapes his tormentors.

We all have a need for a "Jenny" from time to time. Someone to cling to, someone to cheer us on from the sidelines, and someone to hold our hands at dusk bringing comfort and peace.  But just like in the movie, there comes a time when we have to stand, even if it's alone. We have to take what we've learned along the way and actually apply it.  We have to lose the crutches because if we don't we will become dependent on them, never being healed, never moving forward.

I myself have created many crutches. I have a long list of go-tos.  When I hurt, I eat.  When I'm discontent, I pop onto Facebook or find some mind numbing show on the tube.  It's never ending, the things I use to medicate my hurting soul, but I'm learning again to not turn away from the One who can soothe it all, but to receive what I need so that I may not be dependent on any one or anything.

Life is hard.  Times are tough.  Crap happens and then more crap happens.  We make crap happen and then wonder why we are surrounded by crap!  It's scary and stupid and painful but we are instructed to:

So then, brace up and reinvigorate and set right your slackened and weakened and drooping hands and strengthen your feeble and palsied and tottering knees.  And cut through and make firm and plain and smooth, straight paths for your feet [yes, make them safe and upright and happy paths that go in the right direction], so that the lame and halting [limbs] may not be put out of joint, but rather may be cured. 
Heb. 12:12

In other words, put on your game face man.  You believe in the promises of God?  Well, believe them!  You had a setback?  Do it again! (Jer.36:27). Your body hurts?  But did you get out of bed?  Well then, praise God!  I could go on because I've said it all to myself.  My complainants exhaust my own ears. I wonder how God puts up with it.  I imagine it must be heartbreaking as a Father to watch His children struggle the way we do, not because we have to but because we choose to.  Think on that.  

"It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” C. S. Lewis

I'm tired of this round and round jazz. I never did like the merry go round as a kid and I'll be doggone if I'm gonna ride this thing as an adult.  Know what you want, plaster it on your forehead if you have to and don't settle for less.

So here's to diggin in, pressing on, and not settling!  

*drops mic, climbs of soapbox*