Stepping Out

I used to be quite addicted to a certain online role-playing computer game.  Judge all you want, but it was social, interactive, goal-oriented and a whole lot of fun.  I still miss it sometimes, really bad.  But I gave it up over a year ago after I came back from Africa because I realized it was unhealthy …it simply took too much of my time away from friends, family and life.  It just kept me in a holding pattern, not growing, not being productive, and certainly not God-glorifying.

But in that game, there were many things to do that took a certain amount of moxie for the unadventurous, even though it was “virtual”.  The first time I ever had to take my character underwater for an extended amount of time, for instance, I was literally sitting there gasping and hyperventilating in my unnatural fear of drowning. 

While sitting at my desk.

I remember once there was this bridge over a wide chasm.  A swinging bridge would have been bad enough (Think Donkey…I’m looking DOWN!) but this was even worse.  It was an invisible bridge.  It made me shake in my character’s plate steel boots just looking at it.  Or looking at where I imagined it to be.

Yes, sitting at my desk.

But for me, it was terrifying.  To get across required following someone else that had crossed it successfully before…someone that knew the way.  It also required a great deal of courage to step out onto nothing.  But it was sure rewarding to make it all the way across without plummeting to the ground below and look back and realize what I had been brave enough to do.

Even sitting at my desk.

The past little bit in real life I have been stepping out.

It’s scary.

When you face that first frightening step, there is always a choice.  You can stay where you are, and watch everyone else cross over without you.  You can decide to blast your way across alone and fall off.  You can crawl out a bit and get petrified halfway over and cling to dear life, refusing to go any further.  Or you can follow the One that you trust.  The One who has successfully crossed it before.  The One who shows us the way.

Isaiah 43:19 says “See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”

Stepping out often means doing a new thing.  It is scary, and sometimes we have to look down.  But if we believe and trust and follow, God makes a way for us, even when the path looks barren. 

Or invisible.

Random Acts of Doggie Kindness

I was in the drive thru line this morning at Chick-fil-a.  I had just dropped the kids off at school, and had taken Penny, our Boston Terrier, along with me for the ride.   It was raining and Wes was home in bed with a major headache (hence the reason I was out taking the kids to school when I normally get to stay at home in my pajamas.  Well, at least I was still in my pajamas.  With bed head.)

The drive thru lady confirmed my price and took my debit card.  I declined salsa for the burrito.  Then she handed me a small, folded French-fry wrapper and said in my general direction “Are you looking for this?”

What?

She then tossed her head toward Penny and said “For her”.

I stammered around and took the package, obviously confused.  We don’t feed Penny people-food (sorry, apologies to all the people out there that treat their dogs like children) and I couldn’t think anything past chicken nuggets or waffle fries (or the previously declined salsa) in a small Chick-fil-a package.

I opened it to find a doggie bone.

The lady had been addressing Penny, not me.  And Penny had not been looking for anything other than a free ride in the van, but she sure was happy to get a treat from the little folded sack.

Everyone knows that Chick-fil-a has awesome food and great customer service.  But today they went over and above the bounds of drive thru service and made me smile on a rainy day.

Random acts of doggie kindness.  Now that’s service.

Hungry, Homeless and Looking for Work

We’ve all seen them.  Those who stand along the sides of busy intersections, wearing ratty clothes and holding cardboard signs.

Oh please stay green please stay green please stay green NOOO it’s red and I’m going to be right next to him what do I do, what do I do, do I look at him or look the other way, do I help or not, do I even have any money maybe the light will turn again really fast oh man he’s looking right at me it’s cold outside and it’s starting to drizzle what if he’s scamming but what if he’s not…

I don’t remember the first time I encountered a needy sign, but I remember the first time that I ever really noticed.  I was a young teenager, out with my dad in a nearby town where we lived.  We passed such a man, and then parked in a nearby parking lot.  My dad went inside to do his shopping, while I waited in the car.  The dilemma tore me apart that day.  I had $20 in my pocket that I would never miss, even though we were not that well off at the time.  But I lacked the nerve to make a move.  There was something in me that wanted to help so badly, but something stronger that was afraid and unsure.

 Afraid of the man.  Afraid of my dad finding out.  Afraid of it being the wrong thing to do.

And so I sat in the car feeling guilty, and have never forgotten.

As I grew up, things didn’t change much.  Nobody that I knew was a “homeless giver”, and there seemed to be plenty of opinions on the matter. 

If they would just get a job, they wouldn’t be that situation.

There are better ways to go about it than begging.

They probably just spend all the money on booze and cigarettes anyway.

By giving them money, we are creating dependency and making the problem worse.

We need to address the problem, not treat the symptoms.

Valid arguments, some.  But the guilt still has its way, and for good reason.  Like the time on the way home from a Florida vacation we drove right past a family sitting in front of their car holding a sign for gas or repairs or whatever it was and proceeded to enter a nearby restaurant and drop over $100 in food none of us needed.  Dear God bless that poor family I just ignored as I take mine to stuff themselves silly.  Amen.

I thought I was going to throw up.

So what to do?

I’m staring at him and he’s staring back at me.  It’s like I’m trying to channel some sort of mind-reading and figure out the story behind the sign.  And then I wonder, does it matter?  If he’s lying, it’s between him and God.  But if he’s telling the truth, then I’m the one that’s going to have to answer for the reason I drove on by to my nice comfortable home and nice warm dinner and nice fat bank account.  Before I can change my mind, I grab for my purse, searching for a five, finding a ten, and feeling guilty about the twenty sitting in there.  I pass the money to my son, and ask him to roll down the window.  He questions me, and I hope that I am doing the right thing as I try to explain why this is important to me.  He nods in agreement and seems to have no problem with my words.  The man looks grateful for the assistance and murmurs his thanks.  I heave a big sigh as the light turns green.

For now, it is enough.

Figuring Out Job, Part 3: Accepting the Good and the Bad

Musings of Job from the eyes of a normal, admittedly struggling stay-at-home Christian mom.

The scene:

Job sits in utter despair in the ashes.  The sores on his body ooze and itch even as his body throbs in feverish pain.  He scrapes himself relentlessly with a piece of broken pottery in an attempt to gain even a moment of relief.  Images of his children burn against his tear-filled eyes.  People who once respected him avert their eyes and gather their children close as they hurry in the other direction, unwilling to even place themselves in the same vicinity as the man who has lost everything.  Job’s wife walks up, her face haggard, her demeanor broken in anger.  “Do you still hold fast your integrity?  Curse God and die!” she hisses bitterly.  Job steels himself against her words even as he renounces them.  He holds fast to the one thing he knows to be true, because he must.  “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?”

My thoughts:

If this scene is not capable of moving a person, then I’m not sure what is.  I can see myself, broken and sobbing in the floor, for reasons much less than Job’s.  Job was not screaming and ranting.  He was not blaming.  Somehow, at that moment, he acknowledged that for whatever reason, this was what God had for him and he accepted it as easily as he had earlier accepted the gifts of fame, fortune and family.

I am in awe.  But I can still relate more to the wife.

Commentary on Chapter 2, Verse 9 states: Job’s wife concluded that he was suffering because God was unfair—a popular explanation for suffering but totally contrary to the character of God.  Many people arrive at her conclusion when they consider only evidence gained by observation.  Unless we also consider evidence which comes from God, we are likely to reason as Job’s wife did.

If we only judge by what we see…through our human glasses of justice…then we will always come to the wrong conclusion: God isn’t fair.  He is arbitrary, capricious, mean, and serving him devotedly gains us nothing.   Only by learning God and his ways will we have a chance to understand with the clarity that Job did in that moment in the ashes.

Not only good but also adversity comes from God to test and discipline us, and not necessarily as punishment for sin.

The world is broken.  Sin is rampant.  Satan is real.  And we are human.  God loves us like parents love their children…except way more, if that can be imagined.  And sometimes, in the same way we must let our children experience disappointment, hurt and even heartbreak, God must put us through the same.  Not because he is unfair or hates us.  But because he loves us and wants His ultimate best for us.

I will never be able to fully understand that on this side of Heaven.  But I can believe it anyway.  Because I must.

Walls

When I was in school, we had to memorize lines of poetry for a grade.  You could pick whatever poems from the list you wanted to learn, and how many ever lines you wanted to say depending on the grade you were satisfied with.  (Almost everyone chose “The Duck” by Ogden Nash for eight of their lines.  Because I was forced to listen to my classmates repeat it over and over, I still have that silly poem memorized all these years later.)

But, snob that I was, I preferred poems with a little more intended meaning to them, like those of Robert Frost.  I memorized the ever-popular "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" and "The Road Not Taken".  But then for some masochistic reason, I decided I simply must memorize "Mending Wall".  (I can promise you none of my classmates went near Mending Wall.)  It was long.  It didn’t rhyme.  And what the heck did it mean, anyway?

I’m not sure I really had any idea then, but it was compelling to me anyway.  It still draws me today, although now that I’m grown up I think I understand it a bit better.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall...

And then Frost goes on to describe a scene in which he and his neighbor proceed to counter that sentiment by rebuilding the broken wall on their property line.  Time, the weather and other people had all contributed to huge gaps in the rock wall between the two neighbors; so each spring they walked along the wall, each on their own side, to fill in the holes.

We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Apparently it wasn't easy to rebuild and maintain the wall.

Frost comments there is a huge section of land that doesn’t even really need a wall, for there is a natural boundary there already...two different types of trees that will never intermingle. His neighbor is uncomfortable with even the hint of not needing a wall and hence the famous line:

He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors'.

Frost isn’t so sure.

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
'Why do they make good neighbors?’

Frost points out they have no livestock they are trying to contain.  What are they working so hard to wall in or wall out, anyway? The neighbor seems stuck in a darkness from something other than the tree shadows as he insists, as his father did before him, that the good fences are what makes the neighbors able to get along.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down.

And there is something in many of us that is terrified of the cracks.

For the Love of Making Phone Calls

I’ve been told I have a way with words.  But only on paper.

When on the phone, I find it necessary to first write out what I am going to say.  And then try to say it in such a way that it sounds like I really care about what I’m trying to say and not just reading it from a script.  And then fumbling around because I’m trying to vamp from the script and sounding like I’m incompetent in explaining what I’m trying to say that I care about.

Hello, Mr. I-Have-Your-Name-Written-On-This-Spreadsheet-Of-Information.  My name is…(hurry, switch to the Script…why didn’t I already have this pulled up?  Oh yeah, because I would have forgotten Mr. What’s-His-Name)…ah…Beth Tollett…(oh whew, there is it, now where am I…oh yeah right there past my name…I sure hope nobody is listening outside the hall because this is SUCH a train wreck…I hope Mr. I-Already-Forgot-His-Name doesn’t hang up on me…GET A GRIP!)…and I am the Director of Mobilization for Pure Mission, a non-profit agency based in Rogers, AR…

Yeah, sure you are.

See, while I can organize my thoughts with striking clarity on paper and manage to sound sane the majority of the time and even strangely witty on occasion, I am an utter disaster on the telephone.  I’m not much better in person.  Ask anyone who has noticed my difficulty in making eye contact or my awkward stuttering pauses or my derailment in thought and my annoying way of saying something five different ways to make my point using synonyms of synonyms.  No, this is not me showing off my vocabulary, which would be rather limited in practice if not for the reality of Google searches. This is me sharing my verbal vomit.  You’re welcome.

But back to the phone calls.  I hated making them, but I loved making them.  You see, I am working to help establish a program to recruit college students to go serve for a term in Malawi, Africa at Esther’s House.  The Malawi ministry is growing, but desperately needs more workers in order to thrive and expand.  My phone calls to professors at various colleges in surrounding states will play a small part in this initial recruitment process.  And surprisingly enough, nobody hung up on me, so I’m guessing God was busy working a small miracle over the phone lines in which the voice they heard through their receiver was competent, silky-smooth and definitely NOT containing the horrible southern twang, pauses and stutters that I heard on my end.

I am blessed to be able to have a job I love.  Even one that sometimes takes me out of my mostly writing and organizational-type comfort zone by occasionally making phone calls or talking in front of other people.  Because I’m not doing it for me, an overbearing boss or a paycheck.  I’m doing it for the people and ministry I love in Malawi.  I’m doing it because for now, unless I’m someday forced to leave missions kicking and screaming for all I’m worth, God has placed me here.

And a passion like that is worth getting over myself and dialing in for.

Figuring Out Job, Part 2: This One Needs Some Testing…

Musings of Job from the eyes of a normal, admittedly struggling stay-at-home Christian mom.

I’ll jump right in with the part that has always bothered me the most about the entire book.  The part where God seemingly goads Satan into taking a stab at Job.

The scene:

God: So, Satan, what’s up?  Have you put your eyes on my man Job lately?  I outdid myself.  He is the best of the best!

Satan:  Yeah, right.  All kids love their daddys when they play ball with them, let them have cookies and coke for supper and stay up way past their bedtime.  Crack down and let’s see how the attitude gets.

God:  You play bad cop.  But only time-outs and grounding.

Satan: Whatever.  Everybody knows kids need a good whipping to really make a point.

God: Oh, all right.  But no blood.

My thoughts:

I mean no disrespect to The Word.  But that’s what I have struggled with as I have read this book in the past.  What was God playing at?  Does he play that way with me?  Is He really good?  Can He be trusted to have my back or is it all just a power game?

The Bible I am using has commentary which I enjoy because I get a lot out of reading other people’s thoughts and stacking them up against the truth of what I understood myself (or didn’t understand) from the text.  Chapter 1, verse 8 states the following: “The Lord said to Satan, ‘Have you considered My servant Job?  For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil.’”  The commentary on verse 8 reads: The omniscient Lord initiates the conversation that leads to Job’s being tested and pays the highest tribute to the character of Job.

In meditating over this, I get three very comforting thoughts:

1. The Lord refers to Job as “My” servant.  Job is HIS child.  That will NEVER change no matter what bad things happen, no matter what attitude Job develops, or no matter what is said or thought along the way…and God knows this.
2. The Lord pays ‘the highest tribute to Job’s character’ as he talks about him to Satan.  GOD personally affirms (not just other people) that Job is blameless, upright, fearing God and turning from evil.  That is quite the testimony from your employer.  I would like to be able to list that on my resume one day.
3. The Lord is omniscient.   Dictionary.com defines this as “having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things.”  For all of the boasting of the previous point, God still knows Job’s inner heart…the good and the bad.  God already knows the outcome of this seemingly twisted experiment.  God knows that Job is great in many ways, but not perfect.  God wants to make Job even better.  God knows what it will take to not only shut Satan up but to make Job even stronger personally and offer him as a timeless testimony. 

The one comfort as I work through the book of Job?  God knows all this about me and my life too.

Figuring Out Job, Part 1: And the Bad News Just Keeps on Coming…

So, after not really reading anything out of my Bible for a number of months (no excuse for this, just being transparent), I felt a great need to open to the book of Job.  I have read this book before a time or two, and it is not one I particularly enjoyed or pretended to understand.  But the need was strong so I decided not to go into it either with harsh judgments or make anything foreboding out of it and just see what I could learn from the text.

So…Musings of Job from the eyes of a normal, admittedly struggling stay-at-home Christian mom.

The scene:

Beth, I’m so sorry to tell you but while you were away at the store, there was a fire at your house and your entire collection of scrapbooks containing every picture of your family and representing hours upon days upon months upon years of hard work and memories have been burned up.

Beth, I’m so sorry to tell you but there was a lightning strike too and it fried your computer with every shred of work you have ever done for missions in regards to Malawi.  Every email lost.  Plus every blog you wrote gone.  Every digital picture you have ever taken of your family destroyed forever.  Everything that you have defined yourself by for a lifetime is entirely gone.

Beth, I’m so sorry to tell you but when walking into school together, the roof caved in over the entryway and your four children were crushed beneath it.  You are no longer a mom.  You will never see their little faces or hear their sweet little voices again.  So very sorry.

Oh, and Beth?  You have cancer.  A really nasty kind that actually won’t kill you, but you’ll wish it did a million times over before it is miraculously cured.

My thoughts:

Just shoot me now, please and thanks.  A preposterous succession of events, surely.  But not for Job.  How in the world did he deal?  And blamelessly?  With hurt and anger, sure, but never denouncing God?

 

It’s easy to assume he must have been a tick away from Christ in character but I’m not sure this is necessarily accurate.  Chapter 1, verse 1 describes Job as “blameless, upright, fearing God and turning away from evil.”  Upright, fearing God and turning away from evil?  For me, for the most part, check.  It’s that blameless thing that gets me all confused.  So here is the commentary I found interesting.  Blameless: Job was not perfect in the in the sense of being sinless…The writer is asserting here that Job could not be justly charged with any moral failure by his fellow men.  From the human point of view he was without blame.

Well, now.  Human point of view is certainly reliable, no?  Ahh, not so much.  So here is my take.  Job wasn’t super-human.  He was more like us than we might think. Don’t we tend to look at each other and see the things we admire on the outside and assume that person is “better” than us?  More moral?  More blameless?  A better mom?  A smarter businessman?   But inside we know better, don’t we?  Job was blessed with wealth, possessions, community respect and family...and also a strong belief in a loving and good God.  Can anyone relate?  But there had to be more to the man.  Things that were hidden.  Fears and uncertainties and anger and sin.  Because Job was a man, not divine.

So the burning question, and the reason for the book of Job is this: what was inside Job’s inner character?  Satan wanted to know was Job serving God because of God’s blessings…or in spite of them?  What would happen when the man was stripped of everything worthy but his strong belief in a loving and good God?

I wonder what would happen if it were me?

Sugar and Spice and Everything Posh

Since spring, I’ve had no real direction for my hair.  Just-grow-it-out-I-don’t-care hair, if you want to define my all-summer style.  I knew I would come out of that funk eventually, and be ready to do something with a flourish.  Sure enough I did.  And yesterday was that day.

I sat down in the cushy, spinny chair as the stylist was trying to describe what she had in mind.  Woh wohwoh woh wohhhh (think teacher on Charlie Brown) is what I heard.  I have no vision, and was just nodding along trying to act like I had a clue what she was talking about.  But then somewhere in the midst of the fog, I heard “Victoria Beckham”.  Well I’m no fashionista or movie star junkie but I had heard of her, and knew she was beautiful.  So I said sure, I’ll channel my inner Posh.  Do whatever you want if you think it will look good on me.

It’s just hair, right?

She hacked and chopped and hair began thunking and sifting all over the floor both in big chunks and fine mist.  I had a dual mirror view from the front and side.  Strangely enough I didn’t feel any panic, only curiosity and intrigue.  I tried on a grin and it made the emerging style cuter.  It was for sure going to make for some interesting bedhead in the mornings.

Once it was all done, I headed home trying to act all sophisticated and posh (yes, it's really a word…look it up, I just did) and after checking my own reflection again, I Googled to see how close I really was to my carbon.  Hrm.  I think there should have been a disclaimer on the hairstyle.  “Spice guaranteed.  Body and posh not necessarily included”.

But that’s ok.  Hollywood couldn’t handle me anyhow.

And I liked my own version of it.  So that’s all that mattered, right?

Except it’s always nice to get a good opinion from the family, at least.  Good thing my confidence level is at a seasonal high right now.  Following is what I got.

Lauren said "Mom, your hair!" and then giggled when I asked if she liked it.

Tyler said "Whatdidya do to your hair?" and then snickered when I asked if he liked it.

Hannah refused to look at me or speak to me when I picked her up from school.  She then informed the kids later that I had "silly hair".

Emily asked if I did something to my hair and then didn't understand why everybody else had laughed.

Wes gave a lot of "wows" last night and then bit his tongue trying not to laugh out loud this morning when he saw my new bedhead look.


Told you.


Incredibly posh.

Time Out Thoughts

I was approaching a red light yesterday afternoon, with the intent of making a right-hand turn.  As I neared the intersection, however, I saw the alarming flashing of lights and slowed as I tried to assess the situation.  The policeman came through the light across from me, as I stopped for the red light in the right hand lane and another fellow driver stopped in the left.  Behind the policeman was line of cars following him, with their hazards flashing.

A funeral procession.

My first thought was random: Can I still turn on red after I stop, or do I wait for all the cars to come by first?  What is protocol?  I think it is to wait.  So I will wait, because I don’t want to be rude.

My second thought was relief:  The light has turned green now and the guy in the left hand lane next to me is waiting, too.  I made the right choice.

My third thought was fleeting and quickly discarded:  This is going to make me late, but that’s ok.

(For once I wasn’t drumming my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel, making guttural noises and uttering general blasphemy at the world at large.)

My fourth thought was a bit more noble:  I should take a moment to pray for these people while they drive by and I wait.  Their lives have just been interrupted, if not shattered.  And this is a really long line of people who have just had a really bad day.  Dear God…

My final coherent thought was complete and utter outrage and disbelief.  What in the…are you serious?  You have GOT to be kidding me.  Of all the rude…are you serious?  SERIOUSLY???  Get out of the…I cannot believe the nerve of this guy!

So yeah.  Another car entered into play, completely squelching my pious notion of prayer and turning it into open-mouthed gibberish just short of cursing.  He came up from behind me, in the left-turn lane.  He went into the dead middle of the intersection, intending to play the “wait until the light turns red and because I’m in the middle of the intersection, I have to turn so hahaha to all the rest of you suckers waiting patiently for your turn” driving card.  Except it didn’t work.  The light turned red again, and the procession continued without a break.  Slowly and methodically.  I was seething.  I was also embarrassed.  I felt like that car somehow damaged the reputation of every one of us at that intersection.  Eventually he quit his slow creeping forward as he got the hint that he wasn’t turning any time soon.  He even had the grace to finally put his piece into reverse and get his rear back closer to where it belonged anyway.  Or maybe he just spotted the cop with flashers at the far end of the procession and didn’t want to get his hand slapped for being…insensitive and in the way (is there a ticket for that??)  But it didn’t matter why.  He cleared the intersection, and ultimately, the cars passed and the pause button was lifted as everyone resumed their normal flow of speed and direction.  But I couldn’t quit thinking about what I had just seen and the thoughts it caused me to think.

Is it really that impossible for us to take time out for those suffering or in need?  Or to take time out to just be plain polite and sensitive?  What happened to others first?  A genuine smile?  A squeeze on the shoulder?  What is WRONG with us?

I can be as outraged as I like, but the truth is, often that is me.  Oh, not in the intersection.  At least not THIS time.  But so absorbed in my own petty issues that I neglect to notice or care about the problems of others.  Or maybe I notice but I just don’t want to mess with it so I fake distraction.  Or busyness.

As Christians, as a culture, heck as humans, it’s time we decided to be willing to take time out.  And not sitting on a chair in the corner.  But in the thick of life and messy human emotion and need.  I don’t want to be the rude dude in the intersection trying to get somewhere a minute sooner at the expense of a whole line of brokenhearted people.

So this thought is for me.

Time.  Out.

Pulling Away

I won’t make any bones about it.  Hannah is a difficult child.  Beautiful.  So smart.  Hilarious. Precocious.  She gets away with many things she shouldn’t because I’m too busy stifling my laughter behind my hands over my face.  But difficult, headstrong.  She is able to push my buttons and bring out the worst in me in a heartbeat.  I lose parent points the moment she gets up each morning just because she’s awake.  For those of you with a child like this (and it seems like everybody has one) you know exactly what I mean.

But the thing that’s been killing me lately is her pulling away.

 

Hannah gets mad and upset, and she shuts down.  But I love her, even when I’m angry at her, and so my anger usually dissipates and I want to console her.  I go to her and touch her and she pulls away.  I persist, and she yells at me to stop touching her.  I try to ask her questions to draw her out and she averts her face and refuses to talk to me.  I am hurt.  I get angry.  I feel that I am the worst mom ever.  I despair for the years ahead of angry silence, when she is the only child left in the house.

Yes, I am being a bit dramatic.  She is only 3, and isn’t that behavior by default the very definition of a 3-year old?  Especially one that is trying to forge her own path.

But here’s the real deal.  Yesterday I finally got to the place where I was able to apply this to myself.  For little Hannah is not an island.  Her testy traits, her rebellious tendencies, her overwhelmingly strong feelings, her need to establish who she is and struggling as she goes…these things all come from somewhere.  And if I’m honest, I can admit they come a lot from me.

For I, too, struggle.  And shut down.  And pull away.  And can be incredibly difficult to deal with on a personal level.  Just ask a good friend who tried last year to find a way in to help me.  And gave up.

I’ve been pulling away ever since Africa.  Don’t ask me why that was the catalyst, except that it was an amazing time, when I felt God breathing on me in the most real way I have ever felt.  And now I can't anymore.  I came home and turned my life upside down after Africa (in a good way).  But inwardly ever since then, I’ve been fighting a serious battle, and in the process, I’ve been steadily pulling away from everything good.

i’m trying to figure out who I am.  i’m trying to figure out my purpose, the meaning for my life.  i’m trying to figure out who I am in God and how He loves me when i don’t love myself.  i want to live a life to the full.  not full of junk and noise but full of the best there is for me.  but what does that mean and how do i do it because how i’m existing now sure isn’t it…

I have a choice.  There is always a choice.  I can pull away to the point where I can’t stop anymore and don’t want to.  I’m close to there.  Or I can crawl to God and let him pull me to Him.  Let Him pull me away into what is good, what is honorable, what is right.

I want to be pulled away.  Pull me away, God.  Let me find the courage to let go.