"Your desire for more of God than you have right now, your longing for love, your need for deeper levels of spiritual transformation than you have experienced so far is the truest thing about you. You might think that your woundedness or your sinfulness is the truest thing about you or that your giftedness or your personality type or your job title or your identity as a husband or wife, mother or father, somehow defines you. But in reality, it is your desire for God and your capacity to reach for more of God than you have right now that is the deepest essence of who you are. There is a place within each one of us that is spiritual in nature, the place where God’s Spirit witnesses with our spirit about our truest identity. Here God’s Spirit dwells with our spirit, and here our truest desires make themselves known. From this place we cry out to God for deeper union with him and with others."
— Ruth Haley Barton
Today’s snapshot is tomorrow’s story
Like a sweet echo from a soul caressing song
No matter how long they wait in dusty boxes
They patiently preserve vivid warmth
So I gained better coping mechanisms for a messy situation or two but my sensitive little heart still breaks. Pain that God brought me through (and is still bringing me through) is still pain even if I have tougher skin. That’s okay. I believe all emotions, pleasurable or not, were intended to be tasted, chewed, swallowed, and digested in full. I’m learning how embracing all facets of who God shaped me to be has a way of deepening my understanding of the reconciliation I already rest in. God reconciles all things to himself through Jesus-so I know peace. My healing wounds find themselves turning into glowing scars to reflect the good news of a Savior who gives the redemption and justice we all long for. A lot of details important to upcoming plot developments are being sketched in now and that means my nuances aren’t by accident. Nothing about the current specifics are a mistake to the development of the piece. My perspective is finally going in the direction it ought to be in; at least the tension brought me here. Here, I feel encouraged to celebrate my testimony where God’s love drowns all shards of broken pieces. The cracks and deficiencies mean next to nothing in light of His love’s perfect healing. Only immersion in God’s love makes me whole.
A lot changed since January. As far as I’m concerned, I’m still in the middle of a big transition with unknown outcomes ahead of me…
I think about who I was two years ago, one year ago, and even six months ago and strangely, I don’t recognize who I used to be. The difference is that now I’m stronger, somehow.
I learned more about friendship. Not just sentimental feel-good attachment, but about what it is to really let people into my broken life-for them to build me up in places where I’m falling apart and for me to reciprocate the support. Not everyone will be able to speak life into the areas where I’m failing miserably. I love a lot of people dearly, but not everyone will truly love me in a way that counts. I learned about boundaries between school life and personal life and how important it is to give room for actually living. My desire for things to connect holistically will only be fulfilled, I think, if I give each facet its deserved platform. I’m more in touch with goals and desires.
I learned more about how deep my identity struggles go and how the person of Jesus speaks clarity and the sweetest of love and affirmation to that area. I’ve endured a lot of pain. Some pretty deep ways in which I don’t trust God were brought to light. But in that pain I’ve continued to encounter Jesus and my disposition is currently undergoing some tedious maintenance. He’s used every coffee/tear stained page of flustered journaling, every confusing situation, and every agonizing breakdown to show me His character and how it’s realer than the life I know. He’s realer than anything that I could put my identity in and more sacred than any abstract delights. It’s painful for these faith issues to be uprooted. False peace is usually more (deceivingly) blissful.
It’s more than preoccupation. It’s my life being as I might think I know it being jacked up for the sake of reconciliation and practically experiencing redemption. Brokenness doesn’t have the final say.
Moving on is weird
I’m here, but I was there too
It just gets better
For future reference-
You are not directionless
He’s working in you *
* See Philippians 2:13
Sometimes my heart hurts. Sometimes all of it hurts. Sometimes I don’t understand. Sometimes I feel lost and I worry a whole lot. I’m usually pretty decent at enduring disappointment, pain, and emotional stress until a good friend will objectively and knowingly remark on how much pressure I face. Current circumstances have brought an important challenge to my faith: How do I seek Gospel truth in the midst of all these different voices and expectations? How much am I trying to please people and how little am I actually seeking God’s heart? How do I stay strong in my pursuit of Jesus and the decisions that flow out of my identity in Him? How do I strive to rest in the One who has already secured for me all that I need? Swallowing a bigger serving of poignance than I would normally like isn’t so bad. It leaves that much more opportunity for learning a thing or two about my jacked up disposition in some areas of life and how God’s grace is ready to lead me into His intentional goodness that I’m missing out on. Good news means that salvation has a say for every part of my broken life. Jesus isn’t an isolated part of my life for a sense of comfortable obligation to empty morality, Jesus is central to my life in order that I might live according to His worldview and redemptive reality. And good news means that in Jesus I am whole. “For your steadfast love is before my eyes, and I walk in your faithfulness.”
