Moses, Where Art Thou?

It is a hard thought to trust that God is working when we do not see Him working. I think of how bitter I would feel being an Israelite, working in Egypt day after day, trying to have faith that God is a God that fulfills His promises but "Ummmmmmm HI I am down here working and I think you forgot about me, God." I always have a tendency towards self-pitying, thinking maybe I am the one person that God missed when He was scanning the earth for the day. God, as the good God that He is, longs to teach us patience, long-suffering as the Bible so kindly names it. Ugh... what an awful word "long suffering". He desires to teach us while we are still in Egypt, doing what seems like the mundane. "BUT I DON'T WANT TO BE IN EGYPT ANYMORE!" Well, me not wanting it doesn't change it and if I give up on the hope of His eventual promises it doesn't change the outcome, it only changes my attitude in the meantime. And then there is God working on the details in the background of the story. I am so thankful that we have the benefit of looking back over the Bible and not being the humans originally living it out and having no one's stories to look back on for reference points. We see him working as he is calling Moses in a field through a burning bush while I (as said pretend Israelite) just want to pretend like I am slaving away in Egypt and He is doing nothing. God is working. God was working on behalf of His people- to bring them deliverance, to lead them to their Exodus, but it didn't come in a day. Sometimes God is unfolding bigger things for your life than you can imagine. The Exodus, His promises, might not seem within reach right now. Maybe they seem completely impossible but trust that God is greater than the possible. He might be "setting a bush on fire for you" in this moment, and you may never even know it until you are sitting around a campfire in the Promise Land one day and your Moses says, "It was the craziest thing the way God worked this all out..." So do your best to serve God in today and let tomorrow worry about itself. Tonight rest your head on your cozy pillow, take a deep breathe, and know He is still working in the unseen. He loves you. He has a plan just for you. Sometimes plans just take a little more coordination than a day. How ever would we learn long suffering if they didn't?

What if no one could accept me or love me as I am? What if even God himself has turned his back on me and is ashamed of who I have become? Broken... apathetic... unknown to anyone... what if my secrecy leaves me more alone than I know? 4/7/2019 I wrote the above a year and a half ago. I wrote it as I felt lost, alone, scared, and ashamed. Truth be told I am still all of those things. But I look at the first sentence I wrote and I just sit here and cry because people do now know me and they still found it in their heart to be able to accept me, to love me. It has been the greatest reflection of Christ I have ever known. Now I just have to find a way back to loving myself... I wept in the bathroom mirror before I took a shower this morning, viewing my naked abandoned body aware that I was not enough to keep or to hold. What else did I need to be? What more did I need to become? 7/4/2020

You Again

Somehow I see you in every decision I make. I see the endless girls you led on and though I strive with all my might to fight against that which I hated, my choices mirror those you once made. I wish that I could beg you to explain to me why. I wish I could ask you if the struggle was worthwhile. Would you have done anything differently? It is easy to dissociate from my decisions sometimes. I wake up in the morning and tell myself that it is a new day, but this only blinds me from the monster I have become. I wonder if maybe you did the same. The morning after you slept with another woman, did you tell yourself it was a new day? You see... I once was innocent. This journey used to be less rough, but once that innocence escaped me it is as if the very will to fight did as well. Existence now seems to be an uphill battle. It is a constant war raging within my soul for the side I will take. In some moments though, winning feels like losing and losing feels like winning. At least this is the lie my flesh speaks to me. I remember hearing you and thinking that you had all the right answers in your head but could never apply them to your heart. But I now realize that maybe this isn't true. Maybe your heart had the right answers as well, but it was simply your hormones that couldn't get it figured out. I think about how you left all of your life behind, and I wonder if maybe it would be wise for me to do the same. But I have come to the conclusion throughout the years that you are who you are no matter where you go. The Bible says, "Flee from temptation." But there is only so far you can flee when the temptation is consuming your heart. One day... Perhaps this will all make sense. Maybe I will look back on this moment, and I will know that it was all worthwhile. I just hope that the one day comes. I just pray that the struggle will one day cease. But then I hear my thoughts and think, "It's you again." 9/2/14

Chaos

I require things in my life to maintain a certain sense of order. Without this order, my life becomes unnecessarily stressful and accomplishing any task at hand is viewed as virtually impossible. I am able to place all of my things in neat little boxes exactly where they belong. I have a drawer for each clothing item and my closet is color coordinated. I am not OCD per say, but I do have a specific way of managing my life which is efficient and effective. And then there are these things. These things that do not fit into any of my boxes. They cannot be color coordinated, and I have yet to find a designated place for them to belong. They are not clean or able to be condensed. They are emotions. And they are the worst of all, for it is not something I have control over. I cannot choose to turn my emotions on or shut them off. And this disastrous mess of a thing creates chaos. It causes me to become distracted from everything around me. I try to do my homework, but instead my mind wanders in thousands of directions. I try to sleep and instead lay awake staring at the ceiling as if some magical answer will appear on the stark white above me. I take my emotions and try to shove them into different mind compartments, but they leak out and pollute all the boxes I have worked so hard to maintain as separate entities. I only wish that my world could be so simple. If only I could contain these beasts. If only... If only...

Breathing

Occasionally, it sucks to be a person. It feels like all of the breath is escaping from my body in vain. What do my individual moments even mean. There is so much I want to do- so much I want to be. But instead I am stuck living the day in/ day out "adventure" of breathing my moments away like the rest of humanity. This is not to say that there are not moments of joy. It is simply to say that amidst, there is always moments of void- of space. I want to help end hunger. I want to help bring joy and love. But there are duties that every human it seems is obligated to fulfill. Because when I want to comfort a hurting friend, I must go to classes. When my body is sick and needs sleep, I must go to work. While there are children in foster care without a home, I must build my future so that I can make a home. It seems like life is always a step ahead. I am always working for the future and rarely for the present. All the things that I want... Must wait. All of the injustice I see or hear about in the world, I have no leverage to change. I can live for Jesus in the little moments but what if I want my life to be worth more. What if I can't handle seeing the injustice and pain around me any longer? And so I breathe in... I breathe out... And that is one less breath I have forever. 8/29/14

Love- Feeling with Another

What does love really mean? God has lately been teaching me that love is feeling another's pain. Love is looking beyond where you are and mourning with someone else. It is about being so involved and interested in what someone else feels that when healthy joy is felt you rejoice with them! Beyond that- you cry when they cry because most of the time words are not enough. Your heart breaks when theirs does. That is the summation of what love really is! Because Christ never ceased to feel our pain or joy. "Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn." ~Romans 12:15

Open Ears

Good morning world, just a few thoughts for you to start off the day. Why do so many of us Christians believe that to listen and not correct is to condone sin? Where do we find proof for this? No where. The truth is that so many times in my life I have heard someone discussing sin and have felt the need to tell them off. Yes, there is a place for exhortation, but I have seen it go too far in the church body. One of my friends the other day was sitting, listening to another of our friend's stories about how she has been involved with some illegal drugs. And to my surprise- I did not hear her say "Well you know how bad that is?" or "You are going to ruin your life!". Instead she sat and listened. She asked questions. How radically different would the world be if we expected the Holy Spirit to change people rather than ourselves. Phillip Yancey's famous quote states: “No one ever converted to Christianity because they lost the argument.” What a beautiful truth that penetrates this statement! No one needs to hear how wrong they are- they need to come to a place where they desire change. Our only conduct should be to show them they are more valuable than what they now believe, to pray for them, and to show them the abundant life that Jesus has for them. Let's stop trying to prove ourselves with actions and start living with the peace and joy of the relationship we have with Christ!