no coincidence

i am fighting myself right now. i know the right answers, the right thing to do. but i am fighting myself--or, more accurately, fighting God, for a chance to have it my way.

i am not eloquent right now. i only know that it hurts, and i want the chance to make the hurt go away, if just for a little while, even if it ends up costing more than my life can afford.

i also know that i'm incredibly self-centered right now. until this one, every sentence has begun with 'i'. like a little child who expects her demands be met simply because she wants something, i've been refusing to acknowledge the existence of a bigger picture.

and there is a bigger picture, of that i have no doubt. i've seen the faces of the bigger picture, heard their voices, with questions so raw that mine are shamed into silence. i've witnessed the cost of the big picture, shedding a light on my demands that exposes them for the selfish trifles that they are.

they say that life imitates art, and the fact that this struggle so perfectly mirrors the monologue i am doing this sunday is, i'm sure, no coincidence. in a previous post i quoted a poem by Rilke in which he refers to 'the unspeaking center of her monologues'... as i lay down this struggle, i can only pray that the end of this poem be my story:

...with each disclosure you encompass more
and she stretches beyond what limits her,
to hold you.

gifted

sometimes i forget how blessed i am by all the amazing friendships that are mine. God has chosen to bring into my life some truly exceptional people. sometimes i forget this, especially during those inevitable and inopportune times of loneliness. but every once in a while, i get tossed a reminder-shaped lifesaver.

today i caught such a lifesaver. while working at a conference, i ran into an old friend from high school. it has to have been pretty much 20 years since i have seen ann, but i recognized her the moment i saw her, and for a short time today, the two decades evaporated, and we were once again two 18-year olds, laughing and talking.

later i realized that a long time ago, back when my teenage brain didn't have a chance to comprehend what a gift a friend truly is, i was blessed by ann's friendship. and then over the years by so many others. some are the rocks on which part of my life is built, some i've just met. those with lives in other cities and countries who, in spite of the miles between us remain as present in my heart today as they ever were. a few who have moved beyond this world, whom i will never stop missing while here.

so much laughter. so many memories. so much love.

i am blessed.

room to think

listening: les miserables soundtrack
reading: a suitable boy (vikram seth); velvet elvis (rob bell)

i'm on a mini-vacation right now. my brain needs some elbow room. i haven't written a lot lately, mostly because i feel like i don't have much of any value to say. and while i will occasionally squander verbally, i won't do it to the written word.

perhaps because there is a finality to putting something actually on paper. a commitment if you will. one must be intentional. lately i have been feeling anything but committal or intentional.

i am tired.

just another manic monday

why is it that when we are hurting, having a bad day, or are somewhat inconvenienced we give ourselves licence to do things we would normally never allow ourselves to wander near?

today is an excellent example. i could give you lots of excuses; the headache i've been fighting for five days, the ever-increasing workload, the inequity of the situation...but all of these would be just that. excuses. definitely not anything that would justify the frustratin level i felt and the shortness i had for those involved.

this poem by c.s. lewis so completely sums up how i feel tonight.

all this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
i never had a selfless thought since i was born.
i am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;
i want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

peace, reassurance, pleasure, are the goals i seek,
i cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin;
i talk of love--a scholar's parrot can talk greek--
but, self-imprisoned, always end where i begin.

happy birthday to my favorite hardy boy

today is shaun cassidy's 47th birthday. i was so in love with him for most of my childhood. the good old days. before the glorious inventions known as vcrs & dvds. i lived for sunday nights, when shaun and his semi-hot older brother parker stevenson saved the world as the hardy boys. having to go to church at night was a cruel, cruel sacrifice...and my parents didn't get warm, happy feelings about leaving their nine year old daughter home alone, so i went along. to get me by, until the next week (while i prayed daily that we would not go to church the next sunday night) i had every record shaun ever made, even one of his older half brother (in reality), david cassidy's.

sigh. and today he's celebrating his 47th birthday. i don't even want to know what he looks like today. i prefer to think him as he was. i wonder if he knows i'm still waiting for him. :-)

i cannot ask for more

to sing with a heavy heart...
to love undistracted by details...
to walk in the rain knowing the sun will shine...
to laugh with tear-filled eyes...
to stare down my deepest loneliness knowing i will never be alone...
to stand on my own knowing a greater hand holds me...
to not know the answers and still trust...
to know that while truly known, i am truly loved...
to see growth in the midst of failure...
to stand by another in their fire and not be consumed...
to ask the question knowing the answer may never come...
to have my discontent heart know that You are enough...
to sleep while all around me rages...

i cannot ask for more

overcoming unbelief

i love the statement in Mark 9:24, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!". i love how it helps me not feel like a complete loser about my own duplicity.

when i know i should trust, i worry. when i know i should wait, i need to make things happen. i always manage to say too much when i shouldn't say anything at all. even though i can read what God thinks about me, too often i give in to feelings of insignificance and forgotteness.

help me overcome my unbelief.

To me, one of the proofs that God's hand is behind and all throughout this marvelous Book we know as the Bible is the way it continually touches upon this very fear in us--the fear that we are so insignificant as to be forgotten. That we are nothing. Unconsciously, His Word meets this fear, and answers it. (Amy Carmichael)