I’m taking a turn, friends.

It may seem that my life is a consistent relay of these but if someone disagrees I hope they feel free to stay on the straight and constant and leave my spastic path alone. Now then. I’m looking for a gym, trying to be disciplined in my writing, and hoping to commit myself more and more fully to God.

I get distracted. Who am I kidding? I am distracted. But thank God that he is faithful in waking me up when I fall asleep. I’m like those three who supposed to keep watch but couldn’t even  keep their eyes open, when there was the greatest work of the ages to be done. And Jesus asked, “So, you could not keep watch with Me for one hour?” and I say, “I guess not.” And he says, “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And I protest, saying, “But there’s an ANTM marathon on!”

Sigh.

I have gotten to the point where I trust implicitly that whenever things seem too heavy and awful to go on, I believe and even expect God to intervene. And the wonder is that he always does. I am reminded and blessed of God by the boldness of Jenny, by the uncompromise of Stephanie and the service of Ron. I sleep fitfully and my dreams are full of sadness and then I wake and walk out into sunshine. Not that every problem is trite. Not that every solution is simple. But God is faithful, regardless, and always gives grace sufficient. And I am taking a turn to more fully understand, appreciate, and report it.

God, thank you for being my remedial teacher and illuminating lessons I’ve already learned. Thank you for allowing me to twist my ankle when I take steps away from you and begin thrashing through the underbrush that leads away from the narrow road. Thank you for the time to contemplate as I sit, unable to go on with my injury, to look around and see that I have gone off the way, and for being my crutch to help me walk on until I am strong again.

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I have a confession of my own: I heart St. Augustine.

We’re like soulmates seperated by hundreds of years, and by class, gender, education, and age. We’ve both been foolish, we’ve both been degenerate. And yet God in his infinite wisdom and grace was kind enough to show us fully what kind of jerks we really were and grow us into something better, more in keeping with who he is. And it is encouragement to me now to read the words of someone who has sought, as I myself need to continually seek, the absolute truth.

<—–see the resemblence?—–>

” Entrust to truth whatever truth has given you, and you will lose nothing. What is withered in you will flower again, and your illness will be made well, and all that was flowing and wasting from you will regain shape and substance and will form part of you again, and they will not lay you down in the place where they themselves descend, but will stand fast with you and abide with you forever before God who stands and abides forever.”

May I say it? HOT.

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I think I need to go on a European tour. And I’m pretty sure I’m going to use this guy as my travel agent.

There’s really no need to go. The only reason that I’m even contemplating it is because I’m disappointed. How, you may ask? And I answer, In myself.

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So I spent some time today looking up some other blogs and came across a goldmine of those of Christian women. Eureka! Most of the writers are wives and/or mothers who seem to take the task very seriously, blogging about the need for more patience with thier children or the way they’ve been treating thier husband, neither of which I have current personal experience with. I appreciate their consistent focus on trying to follow the model set out for them in the Bible, and I admit some self-disdain when I realize that I will probably never be like that. I think to myself, that’s probably the sort of woman Simon wants (which, yes, does beg the question of, Well then why did he ever date you?).

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I ask myself, When did you begin to grow? Was it when everything fell apart or did it start before?

There seems to me to be a piece of everything that’s happened in everything that came before. Nothing simply appeared. If I hadn’t gone to a sleepover in seventh grade at the house of a girl I didn’t know very well. If I hadn’t been at a certain Bible study my first week of college. If that other boy hadn’t been bitter, if she hadn’t thrown me that surprise 20th birthday party. It was all so tenuous. It could have all turned out differently. But it didn’t. And this evidence reminds me that God’s plan is sometimes interwoven so by little things that it may seem at times as though nothing at all is happening. But then something will happen, like a couple offering to raise your child and give her the home that you would have wanted for her, and looking back, all the steps will come together.

And this is what I need to keep sight of.

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This morning feels like early spring. Windows opened, curtains fluttering slightly, and in the breeze there’s a smell like a fresh shower and the afterbirth of rain. I’ve been too long held down. And now even the weather seems to make my heart light.

I’ve been demanding, I can see that now. I’ve demanded that my demands were met and I decided for myself what I should have. I told God that if he wanted something different, I would submit. But I didn’t. I stored it all up, my disappointment, balled it up into a knot of self-pity. Because look at all I’ve had to put up with and now this too? Don’t I deserve what I want? Haven’t I suffered enough?

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I confess.

Confessions are so intimidating. As was said in a Charade (a totally class movie with Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn), “People usually lie because they want something, and they’re afraid the truth won’t get it for them.” How apt. And, quite frankly, how surprising that Hollywood at one time came up with something true. And it really does seem to be the case. In confession, we are (or should I say “I am”?) afraid that we will be seen differently than we want to be, that no one will give us the benefit of the doubt, that no one else will understand the things that we were dealing with that caused us to make such a blunder. And usually, they don’t. But I’ve got a secret weapon.

When it comes right down to it, it doesn’t matter what other people’s perceptions are of me. As a Christian, I am not so much even myself, but rather a conglomeration of the work that God is doing in me. And so I confess, not to show how great I am in overcoming the person that I once was, but to give a record of all that Christ’s blood has bought and saturated and made his. I confess to bring to light all that God can redeem and has redeemed and continues to.

And here are my confessions:

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I know what I am.

But I’m still learning what I’m going to be. God knows. And in attempting to allow him to bring me into further alignment with him, and trying to pursue him as relentlessly as he has pursued me, it’s a joyful adventure, and so full of surprises. Not that I could pursue him as beautifully and doggedly as he has me. I cannot believe the places he has come to to find me and take me back with him.

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