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.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

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:

(more…)

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.

(more…)