and so it goes...

I love when you'll be wrestling with something, trying to figure it all out... and then you get to read about someone else's journey down the very same road...

(Get ready for the longest quote ever... more of an excerpt)

“And then the sentiment occurred. I am certain it was the voices of God because it was accompanied by such a strong epiphany like a movement in a symphony or something. The sentiment was simple: Love your neighbor as yourself.

“And I though about that for a second and wondered why God would put that phrase so strongly in my mind. I thought about our neighbor Mark, who is tall and skinny and gay, and I wondered whether God was telling me that I was gay, which was odd because I had never felt gay, but then it hit me that God was not telling me I was gay. He was saying I would never talk to my neighbor the way I talked to myself, and that somehow I had come to believe it was wrong to kick other people around but it was okay to do it to myself. I was as if God put me in a plane and flown me over myself so I could see how I was connected, all the neighborhoods that were falling apart because I would not let myself receive love from myself, from others or from God. And I would receive love because I felt it was so wrong. It didn’t feel humble, and I knew I was supposed to be humble. But that was all crap, and it didn’t make any sense. If it is wrong for me to receive love, then it is also wrong for me to give it because by giving it I am causing somebody else to receive it, which I had presupposed was the wrong then to do. So I stopped. I mean that. I stopped hating myself. It no longer felt right. It wasn’t many or healthy, and I cut it out. That was about a year ago, and since then I have been relatively happy. I am not kidding. I don’t sit around and talk bad about myself anymore…

“And so I have come to understand that strength, inner strength, comes from receiving love as much as it comes from giving it. I think apart from the idea that I am a sinner and God forgives me, this is the greatest lesson I have ever learned. When you get it, it changes you. My friend Julie from Seattle told me that the main prayer she prayers for her husband is that he will be able to receive love. And this is the prayer I pray for all my friends because it is the key to happiness. God’s love will never change us if we don’t accept it.”

-Donald Miller
Blue Like Jazz

coffee shop conversations

I'm re-reading Donald Miller's "Blue Like Jazz" for the umpteenth time.

I just love the way he writes. I feel like I’m sitting across from him, and we’re just having a conversation about life, love and God… some how he manages to pause, and let me interject my own thoughts, my own journey into his words. To struggle a bit with what he’s saying, see how it plays out in my experiences; figure out ways to apply it all to me. It’s challenging to read, in the best of ways.

On a completely different note (well, not so different, because it encompasses everything): I love God.

For multiple reasons, of course. I love that He reaches through time and space into my life and speaks to me in ways I so need to hear. It’s been a rough few weeks, as all my doubts and fears about my yesterdays, todays and tomorrows keep bubbling back up to the surface. But, finally, on Sunday, I finally let a few of them go. Kevin talked at Flipside about grace and unconditional love (quoting Donald Miller, thus inspiring my reread) and the difficulty people can have with accepting it.

I do. Unconditional love is so unfathomable to me sometimes. The idea that without me doing anything, God loves. That I don’t have to change the world, change my neighborhood, even change myself, He loves me already, just where I’m at (that doesn’t mean He just wants me to stay here… there are even better places to be).

So, I’ve been thinking a lot this week about God’s love for me, and its many manifestations in my life. And it’s been pretty incredible and healing and very much needed. I feel stronger today than I did yesterday, more sure of God and His ability to take care of me, less worrisome, more peaceful.

I pray the same for all of you.

odds and ends...

I spent quite a bit of time this week with one of my favorite people... we went to hear one of my favorite authors speak, listened to an accordion player praise God, attended a open air symphony and ordered my first serving of green tea yogurt. She's one of the people in my life who make me feel less "crazy," mirroring some of my desires to travel the world, read as many good books as possible and learn how to love others well.

During one of our many conversations, we started talking about how our 6-monthiversary of being back stateside is coming up in August (me from Uganda, her from Thailand/Vietnam), and how difficult we imagine it will be. To see how some of the changes we made in ourselves slipped away, how easy some of our bad habit cropped up again…

I know that too many of mine have managed to sneak back in. Some of them are heartbreaking and will be difficult to remedy: my tendency to doubt people’s desire to have me around, my inclination towards low self-esteem, while others will require determination and accountability: how much time I spend with T.V. and book instead of people, my difficulty saying no, my propensity to become a bit antisocial…

It’s rather bummy, because I liked who I was when I came back from Uganda- a bit surer of myself, somehow stronger if a little idealistic.

I’m determined to get back, although unsure about how. I’ll let y’all know how it goes. :)

feeling shaken. and stirred.

Awhile ago, in a different place and at a different time, I posed this question to myself…

If the Person I was, and the Person I am, and the Person I’m becoming

met

would any of them say “pleased to meet you”?



I’m finding myself in that place again. And wondering once more…