Need to.

The words that are inside often ask to be let out. The thoughts that have mustered up the courage to become paragraphs and speech transitions. Usually I ignore them.

Only when they’re raging with emotion do I usually let them crack the door, and leak onto the easiest to reach social networking site, where I indiscreetly hope the vague references will reach and pierce their intended victims. Sickening really.

Tonight, as I came up with spare time, and aimlessly googled so cal photographers, I realized I’m doing myself a huge disfavor. My words are meant to be typed or written, jotted down with horrible penmanship and grammar. Journals tell my past, my history, a story of mistakes and heartache and a few joys and triumphs here and there. The future is unknown. But I will know it even less if I do not know my past.

So on nights like tonight, where I’m not intrigued by the whirlwind of the internet and I can’t play fable II because my husband is, I should take advantage of my words.

It’s not a promise. It’s a try. Because of a need to.

We’ll see how this goes.

so it begins again….

first it was livejournal. then xanga. then blog. then myspace. then blog again.

and then blog screwed me over when I changed email address’ – or maybe I just wasn’t clever enough to figure out how to change it. Let’s scratch that from the record, not a good option.

 

Irregardless, I’m now here. Fresh starting all over again. Creating a new niche in the internet world to spread my words. I’ll try this again.

I started out wanting to write about you. And how I saw a way that I take you for granted last night. As we were sitting, laughing, watching our favorite television show (well one of the two that we watch). As you held me so gently, and then as I listened to you talk to your mom on the phone. The realization began to ceep in. The realization of what a great man you are.

Not great in the way that you use others to get to the top. That you leave behind people to reach a certain goal. That you have no consideration of other’s feelings. But rather great in the way that you are the most gentle person I know. Considerate of me to a fault maybe.

Thank you. Thank you for never letting me wonder if you love me. If you will protect me and care for me. Even through all the hard times, I always knew/know that you love me. In the sacrifices you make, in the way treat me, and well, because you tell me every day.

Not every man is like you.

Where is my hope?

Be strong and let your heart take courage,
All you who hope in the LORD.

Psalm 31:24

The caption of this Psalm according to Biblegatway.com is “A Psalm of Complaint and of Praise.”. I found that to be interesting. I thought about it for about two seconds as I sat in bed this morning, and then finished my reading (btw, I love reading the word online. I like turning the pages, but I also like reading it from the screen. I guess that makes me part of the generation that has a short attention span for things not electronic. don’t tell my husband, he’d be so dissapointed.)

then a few hours later, i thought about it in a different way. As I’m writing out a check, paying for something we have to pay for, with money we don’t have. And frustration and a kind of angst rose up in me. Then I read about a good friend and a simple thought they had about Starbucks, and I realized that it’s been a few months since I’ve been able to go into Starbucks and order something because I felt like it, not on a preplanned and budgeted visit.

life has changed. for the better! the financial crisis we find ourselves in is not because of bad choices made, but the price to be paid to find healing and normalcy. The responsiblities of being an adult. of being married. of living on our own.

even yesterday I was thinking of the simple things I am so grateful for, food, a roof over my head, the love of friends and family, and so content.

this is a season, and in this season, my psalm would go something like this:

God, You are so faithful,

since I was a child,

You have guided my steps,

heard my cries,

those spoken and unspoken.

Time and time again,

I’ve known Your faithfulness,

even in moments of desperation,

Your mercy and grace have offered provision.

I yearn for the simple pleasures of old,

days when each penny was not counted,

movies, lunches out and trips for coffee on breaks,

I know You have not forgotten.

This path of change,

leading toward growth and healing,

is not easy,

but is not desperate.

I see Your hand in everything,

and I wait for days of plenty,

where I can shop where I please,

but until that time,

I will be faithful as well.

A faithful steward of the gifts You have given,

a faithful steward of the relationships I am blessed with,

a faithful steward of the joy that must be earned.

Love

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

-1 John 4:7-12 (NRSV)

agape

Definition

brotherly love, affection, good will, love, benevolence love feasts

The love I am to have for my husband is multidimensional. It’s not just the feelings I have for him. It’s not just the butterflies he gives me. It’s not just because we’ve been together for more than five years. It’s not just what he does for me. It’s not even just the vows we made to each other of commitment and dedication.

It’s also the living out of God’s love in me. It’s the opportunity given to me to live sacrificially. To love with everything I am, no matter what the cost. Through my love for him, I know God more, I become more like Him.  As I love as love is meant to be, I discover even more how God intended for me to live.

It’s also the witness of God’s love to others. The witness of God’s love to my husband. As I am able to flesh out sacrificial love to him, he is able to see in a broken vessel, a glimpse of God’s love for him. That love, the love of God worked out through the Holy Spirit in me, helps transform him even more into the likeness of Christ.

It’s the witness of God’s love to people who witness our relationship. Our love for one another is an example, not a perfect example, but an example of how God created man and woman to serve one another, compliment and work together. In a broken society where love and marriage are viewed as unnecessary and temporary, our love is meant to be a shining light of a holy covenant.

God, teach me how to love. May I always come back to your example. 

• My friends, if anyone is detected in a transgression, you who have received the Spirit should restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness. Take care that you yourselves are not tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. For if those who are nothing think they are something, they deceive themselves. All must test their own work; then that work, rather than their neighbor’s work, will become a cause for pride. For all must carry their own loads. Those who are taught the word must share in all good things with their teacher. Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. If you sow to your own flesh, you will reap corruption from the flesh; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will reap eternal life from the Spirit. So let us not grow weary in doing what is right, for we will reap at harvest time, if we do not give up. So then, whenever we have an opportunity, let us work for the good of all, and especially for those of the family of faith.-Galatians 6:1-10 (NRSV)

if anyone actually reads this, fyi: it’s not about my husband.

I don’t know why I let you fool me like you do. I keep thinking things will change, but the same record plays again. I haven’t the courage to flip to the other side. To hear something new. To end the song I thought was supposed to be. We never danced.

I tried, I really did. Maybe I held back, maybe I should have taken off my shoes. Because you sure didn’t. The way you held your coat around your body and avoided my eyes, my words, my calls. I guess our dance is over, I’ll try to find you a new partner. I really don’t want you to dance alone. You think you know the steps, but they’re just blind guesses and your motions are sloppy. I don’t know them perfectly, but I wanted to learn beside you, but I guess that will never happen.

I asked you to dance last night, instead you danced with someone else. Without even a shout of good bye. I can’t bear to blame myself anymore, to burdern my heart with your silence. So I’ll let go, I can’t control.

Good bye good night. Don’t dance so close to the edge.

it seems so simple.

Be still, and know that I am God. -Psalm 46:10 (NIV)

but it’s not. for me anyways. to TRUST HIM.

I was telling John last night how I used to lay in bed, and when the worries came, I’d think about what it’d be like to be married or in the last year, imagine the wedding day. And as I thought about those happier things, instead of the things I was worried about, I’d calm down and sleep. Now that the wedding has passed and I’m living the married life, I have no place of escape. When the worries come, I have him hold me and try and breath deep.

I realized last night it has to be even more than that. I have to start surrendering my concerns to God. To allow HIM to take them and burden them for me. Through prayer will I be free from my worry wortness. Silly it seems, but this is a big deal for me.

God, I surrender all.

confessions.

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death — even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.-Philippians 2:1-11 (NRSV)

a few notes of confession:

as I was laying in bed in his arms, just trying to breath, to make my head stop spinning around and the gavel stop pounding judgement on my soul, the HS spoke some kind of clarity into the madness.

1#. I feel so guilty for not stopping when I could have, not seeking you out when I should have. I know I’m only one person in the dominoe relationships you have, but as one person I might have some kind of influence. I realized the guilt somehow stemmed from knowing that 2# would have seized the moment, rearranged priorities to be with you at that moment. They wouldn’t have been afraid to step in your world, and that you would have let them. I realized that while I can’t be #2 to you, I can learn from #2. I need to be like #2. which led to…..

#2. Knowing you have (or had, I don’t know anymore) attributes that I ought to have and can emulate, helped me forgive you. I’ve been asking for help in forgiving you for more than a few months now. But I also recognized an ugly little piece of myself that didn’t want to forgive. That piece that wanted to harbor hurt. My realization last night, strangely enough, helped me to forgive you.

#3. I also realized, somewhat apart from my other enlightening thoughts, that the reason I wasn’t invited is because I probably wouldn’t have enjoyed myself. It wasn’t a power play of “who do you like better” or that someone else there didn’t want me there, but it most likely a foreshadowing of my interest level in the event. And that tastes so much better than the bitter things I was imagining previously.

I am so fallible. I am so broken. I almost gave it all up last night, for I am so selfish. I almost threw in the towel of servanthood as I saw the clearest reflection of who I truly am. Then the Redeemer brought me to a place of humility, and I saw a path of hope.

Hope for an obediant daughter who heeds the words of a loving Father, and is changed. Changed to humility, looking to the needs of other, having the mind of Christ.

reminder

• And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

the best path is not the easiest path.

You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act–they will be blessed in their doing.-James 1:19-25 (NRSV)

how many times have I heard a sermon, teaching or read a passage that spoke to my heart or challenged my way of life? And then how quickly did I forget?

The encouragement is to not have a passive faith. Is to not take for granted the law of liberty. To be a person of action.

My act for today is to be merciful, graceful and loving. I guess I’m looking for a good challenge.