Returning to the "Pink"

Another day that I so badly want to return to this space to pen my thoughts and feelings. I'm so grateful for this discreet platform to process the hard, the good, and the beautiful "pink", the in-between that can be so difficult for me. The sunsets and sunrises that show light hitting millions of particles of dust that create such beautiful skies.

Lord, how should I react to this certain situation? I have very little confidence in my ability to love and live a life marked by faith and kindness. I know who I am. I am a cruel, power-hungry, manipulative person apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. I am a scared, busy, frustrated wife who feels like pausing is the equivalent of cutting off her right arm. The entire arm. Blood spurting everywhere as I fight the internal voice yelling at me that I'm a failure because it shouldn't be this difficult and painful if I truly loved Jesus and Michael. I can feel  my heart push to my throat because this medium consistently brings up things that I can't articulate with all the noise in my head.

The noise doesn't stop, ever.

Pumping Water

I chose to ask the question that I knew better to ask. What do you think about her? If I paused, I could have guessed but my longings got the best of me and I feel so alone. The world is under God's control. I cannot know what he is doing nor can I fathom what he thinks when he sees the current state of things. But I feel void of hope and solace. I allow my feelings to override my thoughts but I try so hard to change that.

BIG BREATH. Another big breath. I know what Michael would think if he knew what I did. This is my fault and I need to calm myself down and surrender the fear that I lost intimacy and connection with her until I talk with her in a few months.

Thank goodness God's mercy and grace goes further than my own mistakes, my pride and selfishness. I don't want to push on politics or religion but I want to engage because maybe my words would make a difference. Maybe my passion would translate to powerful rhetoric because that's what successful people can do. If I were truly successful, valuable, and meaningful, I could convince them that there is another way to approach God and the environment. But it's not up to me. It's not my life that will make a difference if I'm not walking in obedience. Success is not demanded of me. There is nowhere in the Bible that calls me to be the most successful daughter, wife, sister, and friend that ever lived. I want to have courage by speaking up about things that are important to me but I want to do so because it's loving and helpful, not because it will make me feel successful and proud.

Waiting

I feel like this post pretty much will write itself. The title was on my mind the second the page opened. I am struggling with having patience, with being patient for God to give me the things I desire. I want to list them out apart from the fact that I also don't want to sound like a demanding ten year old writing a letter to Santa. I have these list of demands, things I am putting my hope in, and if these demands are not met I will continue to hold my joy and gratitude ransom. It's pretty crazy to be able to process this and really see before my eyes the depths of my ungratefulness. I really want this promotion and I really want to have the honeymoon at Hamanasi in Belize and I am holding my worship hostage unless God grants me these things! Wow. The Holy Spirit really spoke to me the other day about my issue with patience! I feel like I'm impatient, not only in waiting for the specific things I want, but also in His power to change my heart about these things. I get resentful at God for not changing my heart when I've been praying for patience for the last week or so! I just want to FEEL patient! I want to be content with where God has me and be so incredibly grateful that I have a job and that I am getting married and that I have an incredible family and future in-laws who are incredibly loving and supportive! I can mentally comprehend the good things around me but they just don't feel like they are enough! These good gifts are not enough to satisfy my longings for intimacy, to FEEL fully known and fully loved and to FEEL great about it! When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within UPWARD I LOOK and see HIM there, who made an end of all my sin. Because the sinless Savior died, my sinful soul is counted FREE; for GOD the just is satisfied to look on HIM and pardon me! If I could bold every word in that last line I would just so I can ensure it's truth impresses upon my soul for long enough to feel that it's true. It is God who is the answer to my sin, my impatience, my longings. There is no other fountain to drink from that will truly satisfy my soul. I am drinking toilet water like it's meant to nourish me. The function of toilet water is important and I can be grateful for it, but to drink from it like it will heal and/or save me is entirely wrong. I love running through sprinklers in the hot summer sun and allowing the water to evaporate off my skin in the heat as I enjoy lemonade, but sticking my face in the sprinkler to find nourishment is a terrible idea.

To move from an understanding of truth, to understand that I am worshiping God's good gifts and demanding that they operate according to my rules, instead of being grateful for the opportunity to enjoy work, enjoy Michael, enjoy my friends, enjoy my family, enjoy wedding planning, all things that are good gifts from a good Father, to move from idolatry to praise will take grace and the power of the Holy Spirit to move in me to confess my idolatry and repent of my demand for control. I may not get the job I want and I may not honeymoon in the exact spot I want, but if not He is still good. What an incredible gift on a Sunday to be drawn to confession and repentance!

Cannot Control

I want to remember all the things God can control and is wholly sovereign over. He is sovereign over traffic. He is sovereign over reception venues. He is sovereign when I feel alone. He is sovereign when I feel insecure. He can control the weather, the beautiful sunset, the cellular processes currently going on inside me. There is a sense of wonder I want to learn with regards to my physical body. I can't remember a time in my life when I spent consecutive moments living in grateful wonder of my body. All that it can do, all that it does, most of which I can't even see or explain. Every breathe, emotion, thought, sight, all are incredible gifts! This body God gave me can hug, hold, run, bike, eat, laugh, mourn, hurt, learn, grow, swim, all things that require energy and life! What an incredible gift to be grateful for tonight. Oh and SLEEP :) and enjoy a beautiful day off to remember the lives of men and women who gave their lives for the freedom I have to worship and sleep in safety. Thank you, Lord for this day, for your new mercies that have existed since the earliest moment on earth.

Can You Help Me?

Ask. Just ask. What question? Where do I even start? Can you help me? please? Can you restore to me the joy of my salvation and renew a right spirit within me? can you help me see today as a gift? can you grant him a deeper sense of Your love?
I can feel my soul thirst. The longing is clear but the solution is hazy. I want to immediately seek another. I am restless, irritable, discontent, and have a perceived solution holding me, a soul that I care deeply for, but who is not the answer to this restlessness, irritability, and discontentment.
I know there is a solution outside myself and outside of any gift You have given me. I want to appreciate the gift without being consumed by it, overwhelmed by it, placing my hope, purpose, and past all in a single thing, something not meant to carry the weight of my worship. But I cannot without You.

Can you help me seek to be satisfied in You before I turn to enjoy these wonderful gifts you have placed in my life for today?

Lunch Break

To get to sit in the midst of a work day and rest. I am so grateful for today. I'm thankful for the opportunity to ask for grace, for the opportunity to see the evidence of grace in conversations that weren't forced. I love him. So much. Yet there is a surer love that must remain our focus, a deeper well we must continue to draw from for our love will fail. It already has for goodness sakes. And yet I know it will fail again, soon. Yet as we know this, I want our hope to be in Your return, Jesus! I want to love well in light of eternity. Your eternal promise that our Father will not let a single tear fall without His knowing. That regardless of my love for You, the love you have given to us in your life, death, and resurrection will remain the foundation of my identity. 

Growing UP

There is something about making a new decision on your own for the first time that is exhilarating. There is power in this perceived freedom and a sense in which your actions are now your own, your future is in your control. oops. Yeah this is already not going well. :) I didn't want to be an adult today, I didn't want to leave napping to make lunch for this week. First off, thank you Lord for the time to make lunch. Thank you for the gift of food and to take time in silence to use my hands to create. I miss certain things about home, childhood, and Seattle, but the theme of these is the perceived freedom I had from worry and duty. It seems as though I traded one freedom for another, yet this definition of freedom is a lie. Freedom is not the ability to do whatever I want, when I want, and never having to deal with the consequences of choosing to act immaturely or irresponsibly. Freedom is found in Jesus Christ's sacrifice on the cross, when He took upon Himself my sin, including the selfishness behind the desire to be autonomous and have freedom from responsibility. There is freedom in knowing that God's design for me is to live in utter dependence and reliance on Him, knowing that in Him there is rest, duty, responsibility, and the freedom to be broken and in need of His love.