(via beargin)
today.
(Source: inspiredbyfear, via princessofpeace)
this is my favorite song. not lying. thanks to austin watkins. love you, best friend.
(Source: where-the-heart-is, via princessofpeace)
I can feel it. It’s fall. Can you feel it???
Mmmmm….
random kind words and hugs from the people i work with.
a good table of guests.
quiet time.
remembering all that god has for me.
words from a really good book.
something quite funny.
playing a game.
a beautiful day to feel and breathe and see.
today, it was the first one. i’m thankful for peter, oscar, david, travis, ed, sarah, seth, joseph, corn, ava, david, aaron, beth, jamie, adam, marcus, ellen, pam, mark, alex, josh, june, tammy, haley, and a few others. i’m thankful for their encouragement and their love. i couldn’t make it through without them.
“She has a lively faith-appreciation of this great gift. SHe has opened up to the truth that everything she has is from God, that she is completely dependent on Christ, that “Jesus saves.” Of course, on a given day she may come to worship more depressed than anything else. In this vale of tears no Christian life is an unbroken, upward spiral to the mountaintop. Yet the Christian’s basic orientation is one of joy and gratitude.”
It’s finally settling in. So I read the book by Rob Bell. It was whatever, EXCEPT for chapter SEVEN. Read chapter SEVEN.
He talks about the prodigal son. Each son has a choice as to which life he is going to accept. The son who left and returns gets to choose to live a life of guilt and servanthood or a life where he accepts his father’s full forgiveness. The son who stays gets to choose to live a life of frustration and resentment of making the “right choices” or a life where he can celebrate and enjoy having everything that his father has.
I am LOVED. I am LOVED. I can choose to live in my own little hell. I can guilt myself or I can be resentful. OR I can choose to live the life of love that God has given me. Everything that is His is mine. I choose that. I choose it!
I hope you choose it too! You are loved!
But in my heart it does. I agree that in black and white and even in my head it doesn’t. But just hear me out.
I feel like I’ve dug myself into some kind of mess. I don’t know what the mess is. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. But everything feels really really different, but not in a good way. I feel like everyone is secretly mad at me or annoyed with me. And no one will tell me to my face. I feel out of reality. Like my soul is a second delayed from my body in the song of my life that is playing. When you feel it, it’s bearable, but it just doesn’t sound right. In fact, it sounds a little ugly. And you can’t quite put your finger on what it is until after a while.
So what do I do? My heart aches at all this, particularly within the confines of a long, rough week at work. I want someone to look at me and tell me everything is going to be better than just bearable. I want to look in their eyes and feel like they care that I might feel better. I want to look in their eyes when they say it’s going to be okay, and I want to believe them. And most of all, I want to open myself to feel the love of God, because I don’t feel particularly good enough for it. I am humbled by this day. And this feeling in my heart. And this feeling in my body. And by my inability to cope with life. Lord come quickly. Amen.
