This is my prayer today:
Father, please give me Your peace and Your rest.
Jesus, please teach me to desire You more than I desire anything or anyone else.
Holy Spirit, please fill this hole in me, and keep filling so that Your grace may overflow from me to others.
Amen.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Sign Beauty
1. Go to John 6 and the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand. What was the purpose of the miracle? What happened after? What mistake were the people making?
Wait, I know this one! Although I don't think Tripp is making quite the same point that Larry was on Sunday. Sunday's message said the miracle was about two questions: me asking,"What do I have that I can give?," and Jesus asking, "Will you give it to me?"
I think what Tripp is trying to get at is that the purpose of the miracle was not to feed the crowd (although Jesus was always interested in concrete physical needs as well as the spiritual), but to point them to what comes next in the chapter, the whole I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE thing. That the sign will never fulfill us; only Jesus himself can.
What happened after? I couldn't remember, so I just looked it up. "When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, 'This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!'" Doesn't that mean that they understood that he was the Messiah God had promised them, that they had been so desperately waiting for? But then apparently they went the wrong direction with that moment of insight and tried to take him by force to make him their king. I'm guessing that's wherein the mistake lies. But it seems like they almost got it. They did understand that the sign was pointing them to something bigger. They just didn't grasp what that "bigger" was supposed to look like.
2. What "sign" do you have a tendency to look to for your identity, meaning, and purpose rather than the Lord, to whom that thing points?
I guess if I had to pick one, it would be the family thing. Belonging. Actually belonging and participating and contributing to a family for the first time ever. I know that's supposed to point me to the bigger family, that whole "kingdom of God breaking in" thing. I just don't know where I fit. I feel directionless, purposeless, lost so much of the time. This is one of those questions that would be really useful to try to "unpack" in a counseling session, because I can't see it clearly.
Just for the record, I do not think I am done needing counsel on a regular basis. In fact, the idea scares the hell out of me. I'm waiting and praying for God to show me what I'm here for now. Where I'm supposed to fit in the body of Christ, and where I can contribute. But I just can't seem to see it. I still need people to point me to The Sign, because I keep getting lost in the wilderness. Thanks for walking through this with me.
Wait, I know this one! Although I don't think Tripp is making quite the same point that Larry was on Sunday. Sunday's message said the miracle was about two questions: me asking,"What do I have that I can give?," and Jesus asking, "Will you give it to me?"
I think what Tripp is trying to get at is that the purpose of the miracle was not to feed the crowd (although Jesus was always interested in concrete physical needs as well as the spiritual), but to point them to what comes next in the chapter, the whole I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE thing. That the sign will never fulfill us; only Jesus himself can.
What happened after? I couldn't remember, so I just looked it up. "When the people saw the sign that he had done, they said, 'This is indeed the Prophet who is to come into the world!'" Doesn't that mean that they understood that he was the Messiah God had promised them, that they had been so desperately waiting for? But then apparently they went the wrong direction with that moment of insight and tried to take him by force to make him their king. I'm guessing that's wherein the mistake lies. But it seems like they almost got it. They did understand that the sign was pointing them to something bigger. They just didn't grasp what that "bigger" was supposed to look like.
2. What "sign" do you have a tendency to look to for your identity, meaning, and purpose rather than the Lord, to whom that thing points?
I guess if I had to pick one, it would be the family thing. Belonging. Actually belonging and participating and contributing to a family for the first time ever. I know that's supposed to point me to the bigger family, that whole "kingdom of God breaking in" thing. I just don't know where I fit. I feel directionless, purposeless, lost so much of the time. This is one of those questions that would be really useful to try to "unpack" in a counseling session, because I can't see it clearly.
Just for the record, I do not think I am done needing counsel on a regular basis. In fact, the idea scares the hell out of me. I'm waiting and praying for God to show me what I'm here for now. Where I'm supposed to fit in the body of Christ, and where I can contribute. But I just can't seem to see it. I still need people to point me to The Sign, because I keep getting lost in the wilderness. Thanks for walking through this with me.
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Two Words You Never Want to Hear
1. Do you live with the fear that you will do or say something that would cause God to say to you, "Go away"?
Sure. The only frame of reference I have, the lens I have through which to view God, is the example of the people who have been most important in my life. And I have spent most of that life experiencing just that kind of rejection. A lifetime of disownment and disapproval doesn't magically get erased by one year of unconditional acceptance... and even that feels an awful lot like being pushed away right now. (Not saying that to be hurtful; I know you still love me.) And I often dislike myself so much (sin, I know) that I can't imagine how God would want to have me around. So, in a word, yes. I live with that fear. I shouldn't, but I do.
2. Name some ways that the fear of God's anger and rejection shapes the way that you respond to him, to others, and to circumstances.
These are the kinds of questions I suck at. Specifically?
It shapes the way I respond to God by making me want to avoid Him when I screw up. Again. Because I struggle so hard to trust that He can really forgive me as I continue to make the same mistakes and commit the same sins. Again. What the question doesn't ask is how I should respond, but I'm answering the unspoken – it should make me want to run toward him rather than away from him when I fail, because I should know that he will always take me back.
How does this fear shape how I respond to others? Well, I suppose that if I find it nearly incomprehensible that the God who loves perfectly and forgives perfectly would never reject me, that's certainly going to spill over into my relationships with fellow humans. I'm not sure how to be more specific than that.
How does it affect my response to my circumstances? If I'm not trusting rightly about this core belief, that fundamental lack of faith in God's goodness is going to throw me off course in believing that His plan is always the right one. Even when it feels so intrinsically wrong to me. It all comes back to the very same thing that it always does: Believing that (a) God is good and (b) God is in control.
Lord, I believe – that you always love me, always forgive me, will never reject me. Help my unbelief. Amen.
Sure. The only frame of reference I have, the lens I have through which to view God, is the example of the people who have been most important in my life. And I have spent most of that life experiencing just that kind of rejection. A lifetime of disownment and disapproval doesn't magically get erased by one year of unconditional acceptance... and even that feels an awful lot like being pushed away right now. (Not saying that to be hurtful; I know you still love me.) And I often dislike myself so much (sin, I know) that I can't imagine how God would want to have me around. So, in a word, yes. I live with that fear. I shouldn't, but I do.
2. Name some ways that the fear of God's anger and rejection shapes the way that you respond to him, to others, and to circumstances.
These are the kinds of questions I suck at. Specifically?
It shapes the way I respond to God by making me want to avoid Him when I screw up. Again. Because I struggle so hard to trust that He can really forgive me as I continue to make the same mistakes and commit the same sins. Again. What the question doesn't ask is how I should respond, but I'm answering the unspoken – it should make me want to run toward him rather than away from him when I fail, because I should know that he will always take me back.
How does this fear shape how I respond to others? Well, I suppose that if I find it nearly incomprehensible that the God who loves perfectly and forgives perfectly would never reject me, that's certainly going to spill over into my relationships with fellow humans. I'm not sure how to be more specific than that.
How does it affect my response to my circumstances? If I'm not trusting rightly about this core belief, that fundamental lack of faith in God's goodness is going to throw me off course in believing that His plan is always the right one. Even when it feels so intrinsically wrong to me. It all comes back to the very same thing that it always does: Believing that (a) God is good and (b) God is in control.
Lord, I believe – that you always love me, always forgive me, will never reject me. Help my unbelief. Amen.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
What Is Your One Thing?
1. Look at the "one thing" catalog. Which of these has tended to hook you? How has that shaped what you do and say? (Sorry, I'm not retyping that whole page. If you wish to peruse the whole list, it's on p. 39.)
There are a couple on the list that tend to trip me up on a regular basis.
1. Approval: If I am loved and respected by certain others.
2. Control: If I am able to have mastery over a particular area of my life.
3. Suffering (this one surprised me a little, but if we're going for honesty here, it does seem to fit): If I am hurting or having a problem, only then do I feel worthy of love or free of guilt.
Yes, we've clearly established my need of approval. But I truly am getting better at looking to God as my center rather than basing my self-worth on what the Cryders or my community group think of me. In all honesty, that's one of the things that upset me yesterday when I asked Christian to pray a psalm with me. My perspective has come a long way in the short time that the Cryder's were out of town, but the assumption from the outside is still that I am in exactly the same place, so my motivations are immediately held suspect. Honestly, I just wanted to pray. Out loud. With a friend. There was no ulterior motive.
That control thing is harder to overcome. It seems hard-wired into me, part of the very fiber of my personality. It's REALLY HARD to believe that I don't have to be the one to figure out what happens in three months, where I'm supposed to go from here. I feel my heart climbing into my throat just thinking about it, which is most decidedly not a sign of trusting God to have my back. That most definitely shapes my words and actions on a daily basis. I lay in bed at night (every night, of late), trying desperately to give all these indeterminate circumstances over to God and let him be in charge of them, but as the day progresses, I find my grip tightening once again. If insomnia is good for nothing else, it has definitely been improving my prayer life, and helping me get back on track after failing to trust during the day.
Suffering. You've all asked me if I think depression is part of my identity. I have said, and continue to believe, that the answer is no. But honestly, suffering does make me feel more... visible. And I feel so invisible so much of the time. I also have come to believe that this suffering that I feel is a part of God's plan, his way of breaking me down so he can build me back up again, so this seems to fall into a slightly different category than the first two – because my journey through the wilderness may be the plan, my path to actually finding the ONE THING I'm supposed to be latching on to.
2. Where do you see a daily war taking place for the control of your heart?
This question plays into Sunday's sermon. How does real change take place? I know what I want: Christ in me. Me in Christ. Abiding in, dwelling with, crawling inside. But "daily war" is a good way to put it – how to take the practical, mundane details of my life, all that crap I can't control, all the self-destructive things I know I shouldn't do and yet keep getting urged by some perverse corner of my being to give in to, and let Jesus have them. To hand him my desperately imperfect self and let him start to change me from the inside out. I know it's already happening. I know I am more stable, more focused, more pointed in the right direction, than I was even just two weeks ago. I know this, but it's hard to see, both because it's so slow and unimpressive on the outside, and because there are so many inevitable detours as I continue to screw it up.
I guess we all experience the daily war. The past few days I find myself in need of folks to talk to about some of the things swirling around inside my head, to make sense of some of this progress that I've seen of late. You're all so busy, but I hope to find time to touch base with each of you, at least briefly, and tell you what's been going on. There's been much less crying – not that that's a goal in and of itself, but I think it's a good sign. I just want to get to a place where I can call any of you up "to connect over coffee, lunch, or a beer" without it being spurred on by, or resulting in, a major meltdown. I have enjoyed feeling like a person again lately. And I thank God for it, hour by hour. I want Him to be my ONE THING!
There are a couple on the list that tend to trip me up on a regular basis.
1. Approval: If I am loved and respected by certain others.
2. Control: If I am able to have mastery over a particular area of my life.
3. Suffering (this one surprised me a little, but if we're going for honesty here, it does seem to fit): If I am hurting or having a problem, only then do I feel worthy of love or free of guilt.
Yes, we've clearly established my need of approval. But I truly am getting better at looking to God as my center rather than basing my self-worth on what the Cryders or my community group think of me. In all honesty, that's one of the things that upset me yesterday when I asked Christian to pray a psalm with me. My perspective has come a long way in the short time that the Cryder's were out of town, but the assumption from the outside is still that I am in exactly the same place, so my motivations are immediately held suspect. Honestly, I just wanted to pray. Out loud. With a friend. There was no ulterior motive.
That control thing is harder to overcome. It seems hard-wired into me, part of the very fiber of my personality. It's REALLY HARD to believe that I don't have to be the one to figure out what happens in three months, where I'm supposed to go from here. I feel my heart climbing into my throat just thinking about it, which is most decidedly not a sign of trusting God to have my back. That most definitely shapes my words and actions on a daily basis. I lay in bed at night (every night, of late), trying desperately to give all these indeterminate circumstances over to God and let him be in charge of them, but as the day progresses, I find my grip tightening once again. If insomnia is good for nothing else, it has definitely been improving my prayer life, and helping me get back on track after failing to trust during the day.
Suffering. You've all asked me if I think depression is part of my identity. I have said, and continue to believe, that the answer is no. But honestly, suffering does make me feel more... visible. And I feel so invisible so much of the time. I also have come to believe that this suffering that I feel is a part of God's plan, his way of breaking me down so he can build me back up again, so this seems to fall into a slightly different category than the first two – because my journey through the wilderness may be the plan, my path to actually finding the ONE THING I'm supposed to be latching on to.
2. Where do you see a daily war taking place for the control of your heart?
This question plays into Sunday's sermon. How does real change take place? I know what I want: Christ in me. Me in Christ. Abiding in, dwelling with, crawling inside. But "daily war" is a good way to put it – how to take the practical, mundane details of my life, all that crap I can't control, all the self-destructive things I know I shouldn't do and yet keep getting urged by some perverse corner of my being to give in to, and let Jesus have them. To hand him my desperately imperfect self and let him start to change me from the inside out. I know it's already happening. I know I am more stable, more focused, more pointed in the right direction, than I was even just two weeks ago. I know this, but it's hard to see, both because it's so slow and unimpressive on the outside, and because there are so many inevitable detours as I continue to screw it up.
I guess we all experience the daily war. The past few days I find myself in need of folks to talk to about some of the things swirling around inside my head, to make sense of some of this progress that I've seen of late. You're all so busy, but I hope to find time to touch base with each of you, at least briefly, and tell you what's been going on. There's been much less crying – not that that's a goal in and of itself, but I think it's a good sign. I just want to get to a place where I can call any of you up "to connect over coffee, lunch, or a beer" without it being spurred on by, or resulting in, a major meltdown. I have enjoyed feeling like a person again lately. And I thank God for it, hour by hour. I want Him to be my ONE THING!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Sight Problems
1. Which of the four insights from George's life are particularly needful for you?
A little background: this is a meditation about George, who is blind, and the things his blindness has taught him about how to live a better story. Here are the 4 insights:
1. There is no more important set of eyes than the eyes of the heart.
2. How important it is to humbly accept your blindness.
3. You always deal with your blindness in community with others.
4. Long for 20/20 vision.
For me, it's most decidedly the community thing. I am unaware of (blind to) so much of my sin, and I need others to (a) point it out to me and (b) help me live with more awareness and insight.
2. How could you make greater use of the community of insight that God has placed around you in the body of Christ?
I hate the phraseology of this question. I fear that I have done too much "using"of my community as it is. My needs and questions seem to have become repetitive. I think the better question would be, How can we as a community help one another live more fully? I know I have been greatly helped by friends pointing out my flaws to me in love... but when I have attempted to do the same for others, it hasn't gone over so well. It seems that what many people want is not deeper community, but just more fun people to hang with. Now that I have proven myself repeatedly to not always be entertaining company (for lack of a better gross understatement), there are those who now avoid me. I'm learning to live with that. But it doesn't make me eager to reach out again, that's for certain.
So I guess my answer to this question is, I just don't know. I continue to attempt to reach out and find ways to get more involved in our community, but without much forward progress. I'm afraid this one has me stumped. I know I need community; I don't know how to get it in a way where it's not just me being needy. I long for a community where we can help each other, where one person's strengths can help bolster another person's weaknesses. At this point it seems unattainable. But I refuse to give up hope.
A little background: this is a meditation about George, who is blind, and the things his blindness has taught him about how to live a better story. Here are the 4 insights:
1. There is no more important set of eyes than the eyes of the heart.
2. How important it is to humbly accept your blindness.
3. You always deal with your blindness in community with others.
4. Long for 20/20 vision.
For me, it's most decidedly the community thing. I am unaware of (blind to) so much of my sin, and I need others to (a) point it out to me and (b) help me live with more awareness and insight.
2. How could you make greater use of the community of insight that God has placed around you in the body of Christ?
I hate the phraseology of this question. I fear that I have done too much "using"of my community as it is. My needs and questions seem to have become repetitive. I think the better question would be, How can we as a community help one another live more fully? I know I have been greatly helped by friends pointing out my flaws to me in love... but when I have attempted to do the same for others, it hasn't gone over so well. It seems that what many people want is not deeper community, but just more fun people to hang with. Now that I have proven myself repeatedly to not always be entertaining company (for lack of a better gross understatement), there are those who now avoid me. I'm learning to live with that. But it doesn't make me eager to reach out again, that's for certain.
So I guess my answer to this question is, I just don't know. I continue to attempt to reach out and find ways to get more involved in our community, but without much forward progress. I'm afraid this one has me stumped. I know I need community; I don't know how to get it in a way where it's not just me being needy. I long for a community where we can help each other, where one person's strengths can help bolster another person's weaknesses. At this point it seems unattainable. But I refuse to give up hope.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Repentance
(Draft #1, until I get Marilyn's list and can work from that as well. Final draft to be worked on with Kelly and then shared with my community group.)
What is repentance? It is being broken and sorry for the ways in which i have hurt God and others. It is turning from my self-destructive ways and turning toward Jesus. It is believing that God has forgiven and will continue to forgive my failings and my faithfulness because of Jesus. This is the part that I continue to struggle with. I can't forgive myself, can't live up to my own standards, can't believe that other imperfect humans could possibly be able to not hold my sins against me, and not understanding how a perfect God could love someone as blatantly imperfect, as consistently sinful as me.
I am supposed to make a list of the ways I have wronged people and sinned against Jesus. It's a comprehensive list, and the goal is not to rehash a bunch of ugly facts and make me feel even worse about myself than I already do (which is a difficult feat to imagine), but to get it all out on the table and see if, with the help of my friends who have promised to love me no matter what and walk through this with me, we can start to “unpack” the deeper motivations of why I have been doing these things, so I can move forward and not continue falling into the same traps over and over again.
1. I am a sinner. Yes, I know that's a given, that we all are, that that's the whole point of Christ's sacrifice and this crazy journey we're on, but if I don't start there and acknowledge the obvious, this is just a pointless exercise in self-flagellation. I have hurt Jesus, and I have hurt those around me.
2. I have been drinking too much. Not all the time, but enough to matter. Why? There are the surface answers: because it always seems to be around, because (at least at first) it helps get me out of my shell and actually able to talk to people... Then there are the much deeper reasons: it keeps the sadness (the depression, the barrage of feelings that often accompany it, the panic attacks) at bay, helps soften the edges of the disaster I see as my life.
How is this sin? Because I am trying to be the one in control. I see my life as being entirely out of control, and I do not trust or believe that God has me exactly where he wants me. I am afraid, all the time, but especially right now, as the Cryder's on whom I have relied too much are not going to be there to pick up the pieces in the coming weeks when I anticipate inevitably dissolving into a puddle on the floor. Probably more than once. I do not trust my community group to come through for me (a point that will come up again later in the list). And I don't trust that Jesus is enough to get me through the sadness and the panic. I feel like I have to do it myself.
3. I am a thief. More than once in the past weeks (seemingly as a direct result of drinking too much, losing my inhibitions, desperately needing the feelings to STOP), I have taken beer that did not belong to me out of Christian's fridge when I have left the house, and continued drinking at my place. It is an impulse I do not understand when I am sober, but it has not been a one time event. I have somehow managed to justify it in the moment, knowing that I have provided tons of beer and wine to these functions myself, but that is a crappy excuse and nothing more. It is stealing, and it is wrong. It has hurt Christian, it has hurt Marilyn, it has dragged Kelly into this mess (which may turn out to be a blessing when all is said and done), it has torn me up inside, and it has revealed, in yet another way, how much I desperately seek control of my situation and don't trust God to be enough for me. So I have taken what is not mine to take and tried to make the feelings stop under my own power, rather than trusting that this suffering that I feel is part of God's plan for me, and maybe he wants me to live through it, to bring me closer to Him.
4. I am a liar. Again, more than once, and again, in conjunction with drinking too much, I have lied – to Christian (saying I hadn't been drinking), to Kelly (saying I was too busy to get together when I was really just too drunk and sad), and almost certainly to others whom I can't even remember. I have been struggling to remember things. Obviously memory is clouded and distorted when too much alcohol is involved, but I have been forgetting things in many other contexts as well, which is one of the reasons they are having me write everything down. I believe that part of that is genuinely part of the chemical imbalance of depression; but even if you don't buy that, part of it is also that when I start to melt down, to focus on myself and all my problems that I can't seem to control, I spiral into despair, and I can't see beyond the mess. So I forget. It's a coping mechanism, but a very counter-productive one.
5. I am angry. I feel that promises were made in the past months, before and after I moved into my new place where I still struggle to believe that God wants me, and that my community has dropped the ball. Please don't hear this as an accusation: what I am saying is that I have had unrealistic expectations, I have felt like I was practically screaming for help, and I have felt like I have been abandoned by the people who were supposed to become my “larger family.” I have not reached out the way I should, I have been insanely needy and have allowed myself to become increasingly bitter about something most of my group has not even recognized as an issue. I have repented to God again and again, but the hurt is still there, and I need to (a) ask your forgiveness for holding accounts against you and (b) ask for help and accountability as I continue to struggle and feel so alone.
I have hurt Christian and Marilyn in this way as well. I have been selfish in my demands on their time (justifying it by trying to earn my way into their family by helping in any way I can think of, rationalizing that this is making their lives “easier,” when really I just suck their time to an unreasonable extent). I have found myself desperately desiring Christian's approval, rather than being content with the approval of the One I should be desiring, Jesus. Or even believing that I ever have Jesus' approval. I don't really believe that He can love me, so I reach desperately for the love I get from the people I can actually see. I see these flaws in me – hell, I read an entire book about it (Ed Welch's When People Are Big and God Is Small, all about fear of man over fear-of-the-Lord), but failed to find practical ways to turn what is clearly truth into reality in my life.
I am failing. I am hurting the people around me, I am engaging in self-destructive behaviors, and I'm losing heart. Each time I feel rejected by someone in our community (even when it's not true – when people are busy or hurting in their own lives or simply unaware), the shell around me gets a little thicker. It gets harder for me to reach out again. I am so easily wounded, because I don't have that foundation of faith to stand on that is supposed to be enough for me. I can't find that freedom that is supposed to come with trusting Jesus. Which means that I'm not trusting. I'm repenting, but repentance without real belief that can withstand the storms of life just leads to despair.
So I'm trying to move from that self-focus (that leads to despair) to self-awareness (that is supposed to lead to true repentance and hope in the God who gave His life for me). In spite of all my sins. In spite of the fact that even as I repent, I know that I will fail Him again.
I need your prayers. I need your forgiveness, for the ways I have failed you passively, for the ways I have held things against you, for the ways I have hurt some of you actively. Please pray for me. Please don't give up on me.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
On Christ the Solid Rock
1. Be honest as you examine the way you live. What do you look to as your "solid rock"?
This is a difficult question from where I sit right at this moment. I want the answer to be Jesus, I am striving daily for the answer to be Jesus, but let's face it – the foundations of my life are still pretty sandy. Perspectives shift around like slippery river rocks under my feet, and I find myself falling. I look at the waves instead of at Jesus, and I start to sink. It's a regular occurrence. I don't think that makes me unique in any way – it's the common lot of fallen humanity – but that doesn't make it any less frustrating. I still look to myself for control of my circumstances... but I am trying to look to Jesus when things feel like they are falling apart. And to thank Him when things go well. And to repent for my seemingly incurable need to rescue myself from my own mistakes (and sins) and to control my life when the world seems set against me.
2. How would your living be different if Christ really were your "solid rock"?
Here are two verses I've been meditating on lately:
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer."
~ Psalm 19:14
"For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble;
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock." ~ Psalm 27:5
he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock." ~ Psalm 27:5
Christ beneath me. Part of St. Patrick's Breastplate. Standing on the rock. David doesn't say, "I will find the rock and climb up onto it." He clearly says, "He will lift me high upon a rock." God will raise me up to stand firmly on the promises and reality of Jesus. He's dwelling in me, He's reaching out to me, He's around me, and He's beneath me. How can I sink if I'm standing on the Rock?
On a concrete level, how does this truth make my living different? Slowly, haltingly, stumblingly. How did I put it in the worship guide last week? I "keep calling out, persistently believing, faithfully listening, actively seeking" his presence in my life. It's a journey, with Jesus beside me, a trek through the wilderness, together. It's waiting for the Lord, listening for his voice and responding with prayer, even when I feel abandoned or cut off. It's asking the other people in my life to pray with me and for me (I'm pretty sparse on the "praying with me" part, but I want it; I just need to learn how to ask), so that we can encourage one another when the trek seems endless, when we're up to our knees in the mire of our circumstances, so we can run and not grow weary and catch each other when we start to fall. That's what I want. I'm remembering to start and end each day with prayer. That's a start. I'm intentionally examining the "words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart" and trying to keep my focus in the right direction. Because the journey is pointless if I'm just going around in circles. I have to be headed toward the destination God has designed for me.
Waiting is hard. I don't know what's supposed to come next. I don't know what I'm supposed to be when I grow up. I feel like He must have a plan – a big one, a major change, one that's going to make all this suffering and all this profound change in my life make sense. I feel like I'm in limbo, unsure whether to forge ahead, to "kick against the goads", to be proactive, or whether to wait patiently for God to open doors, to trust that He's got it all under control and will work things out in His timing.
I'm still trying to figure out how repentance works into every corner of my life. All of you have said, at one time or another (and not far in the distant past) that you don't hear enough repentance from me. Last week Christian preached on how the "way of repentance" can make you miss God. I admit confusion on just how the whole repentance thing plays out in the real world. If the gospel is "Repent and believe," I think I'm still missing it a little. I ask for forgiveness for my sins and stupidity, but still have trouble believing that God can forgive me when I know that I'm going to fail Him again. And again. I can't live up to my own standards. Which brings me back to the Rock. I have to learn to trust that my identity is in Jesus, and that He is with me – above me, around me, beneath me, within me – and that He loves me, Jeni Adams, world without end, Amen.
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