Emotions & Reality part 2

Once, when I was raving to God about how unfair and stupid it was that I had to deal with this ‘evil’ emotional part of myself, He kindly reminded me that He was the first one with emotions. After that, all sorts of my ideas about emotions had to change. First to go was the idea that emotions were stupid, embarrassing, or weak. They’re not. In fact, they are godly.

“Okay, okay,” I reasoned, “They aren’t all stupid, embarrassing or weak, just most of them.” God momentarily complied with me for the sake of argument, but then He brought up this question, “Who decides which ones are good and which ones are bad?” You may think it’s obvious, as I did. Joy, excitement, happiness . . . these are good. Anger, sadness, anxiety . . . these are bad.

The problem is that God and/or Jesus have been described as having all of those, the ones I called good and the ones I called bad. If you think Jesus never felt anxious, read about the night in Gethsemane. I think it’s safe to define “sweating drops of blood” as ‘anxious.’ God reserves the title as “Judge of Emotions” for Himself. Anytime I try it, I have to stop and choose to trust Him instead. I will not be fooled into letting another person judge my emotions, either.

I have also learned that no matter how silly I feel my emotions to be, they are all valid. (Do you ever notice that you feel all sorts of things about your feelings? So confusing.) This means I am not allowed to pretend that any of them don’t exist. The sooner I am honest with myself and God about what I’m feeling, the better. My emotions cannot and will never change the Truth. This is very relieving for me to realize. Just because I feel unlovable doesn’t mean that I am unlovable. Sometimes I must trust the Truth in spite of what I feel. However, even when I don’t trust the Truth, it still doesn’t change.

As I practice trusting God with my emotions instead of controlling them myself, He is actually convincing me that they are more useful than I ever believed possible. He uses them to show His own feelings to me. Have you ever had a certain feeling, perhaps joy or protection while watching a child, and heard God whisper to you, “That’s exactly how I feel about watching you.” Nothing compares to feeling the emotions of God.

Other times He has used them to delicately and gently bring up places in me that He wants to heal. Many times these were places that I was so used to being broken, I didn’t know they could or should be healed. Trusting Him always brings healing.

Sometimes my emotions are simply a sign pointing to a physical need. When I don’t get enough sleep I may feel like everyone around me is a selfish jerk. They probably feel the same thing about me. When I need to eat, I sometimes feel depressed and that life is just too much to handle. When I have a cold and I feel weak, I am much more likely to cry. These are the emotions that really annoy me. I don’t want my body to have that much control over my soul, but it’s better to grudgingly admit it than to ignore the truth. These too, I can trust God with. Also, because I’m able to be honest about it with my family, they don’t take my moods so personally, but can remind me that maybe I just need something to eat. I don’t know about you but it’s always a relief to me to remember that I’m not a jerk; I just have low blood sugar.

There are only a few emotions that God has tagged with “These are not from Me” signs for me. Also, these are three emotions that you will never catch God having. They are guilt, shame, and fear. Don’t get me wrong, there is a healthy fear. If a gun is pointed at you and you don’t feel the flight or fight fear response, something is probably very wrong. (Since Jesus had as human a body as I do, I’m assuming he felt the flight or fight sort of fear a few times.) However, most of the fear in my life is not this sort of fear. Most of the fear in my life is the kind that perfect Love wants to cast out. This kind of fear can be defined as “A lack of trust towards God.”

He wants me to understand that I am totally safe in my relationship with Him. He wants to smooth away all my fears because He is big enough and kind enough to handle whatever it is I’m afraid of. He loves my fear away. When fear of this sort comes up it is a chance for me to understand His love in a new way. It’s a chance to ask, “Who are You that I shouldn’t be afraid of this?” I promise His answers are worth it.

Guilt can also be a good thing, if I had never felt my guilt I might never have felt my need for God. But now that Jesus work is completed my guilt is eternally removed and to return to it is to disbelieve that Jesus work is final. Since I acknowledged my need for God, He has never used guilt again. This is not to say that I have never technically been guilty again. With Jesus’ completed work, guilt is no longer an issue because I am eternally forgiven. At this point the memory of my guilt only serves to make me think that I am somehow cut off from God which will never be true again.

I don’t remember any time that shame was from God. In my experience it has only had one terrible function, to keep me hiding from the One who could heal my guilt.

My emotions are still annoyingly messy. I still usually feel that I would be better off without them. I regularly tell God that if I’m not allowed to control them then I should at least be allowed to give Him pointers about how He should be controlling them. But I’ve been without emotion, and I don’t ever want to go back. The trust being built out the mess of my emotions is more than worth it.

Emotions & Reality part 1

I believe that humans are made of three parts: spirit (the breath of God), soul (mind, will, emotions) and body. These three things are both united and separate much like the organs of a body are united and separate simultaneously. If you study human anatomy for any reason you will find that teachers and text books immediately start breaking it down into systems and organs and pieces that they will identify and separate and then separate what they separated. At the same time, people usually study human anatomy to learn how to keep it going, working, functioning, and surviving, as a human. They don’t study it to dissect it; they dissect it to understand the whole.

So I, too, am going to do a bit of dissecting, but only so I can understand the whole. These things can be mentally separated for ease of understanding, but they will never actually be separate in experience.

I’ll start with the most basic one, the body. I think you should know what this is, your physical existence, the one that gets colds, and headaches, and the thing everyone looks at in pictures and recognizes as you.

Then there’s your soul. Your soul is the part of you that comprises your likes and dislikes. This is the part of you that you get to share with other people as you choose to. This is the part of you that makes you really, really, uniquely only you and no one else. Your body and soul combine somewhere between your brain and your hormones. Your soul is the part of you that has thoughts, emotions, and makes choices. Your mind, will, and emotions comprise your soul.

Then spirit. This is the part of you that has life like God does. This is what separates you from the animals, what makes you particularly ‘in the image of God’. This is the life in you that doesn’t end when your body does. Your spirit makes your soul eternal.

I think the easiest and most honest way to explain better what I’m thinking will be to stick with what I’ve learned and know about myself.

I know that as far back as I can remember my spirit was broken. There was a time when as far down as I could look into myself there was only darkness. I don’t mean depression, I don’t mean evil, I mean emptiness. Like an empty room, but worse. More like when you see something dead and it makes you remember that there could be, and should be, life in that body, but there simply isn’t.

I believe that this emptiness is a human condition passed down all the way from Adam as a result of his and Eve’s choice that they, too, should have the right to judge what is good and evil. That’s when their spirits went empty, died. Because it is spirit, it doesn’t pass away like a body does; it continues sitting there, empty. It’s like a lung without air. I believe that every person is born with their spirit in this condition -- empty existence.

In me, this emptiness produced all sorts of conflict in my soul. I wanted to choose what was right, I wanted to be selfless, I wanted to give love, but my emptiness always dragged me down. I wanted to make other people’s needs more important than mine, but I simply couldn’t. I needed perfect love so bad that I would find myself trying to take it from others. I needed respect so bad that I would find myself demanding it of others. I needed to survive so bad that sooner or later I would take what I needed which caused me to hurt those around me who were also trying to survive. I hated myself for this.

My soul was full of confusion and conflict because my mind knew what was right. I knew I shouldn’t be selfish. My emotions would fluctuate wildly between guilt because I should be doing better, pride because I was doing better than others, depression because I’d never get better, and elation because I finally got something right. My will would sometimes follow my mind, and sometimes follow my emotions. I had nothing stable within myself.

My body was full of stress. I was regularly tired and after 11 years of living like this, I was chronically exhausted even though I was only 19 years old. Of course, body, soul, and spirit work in many directions, much like the old question, which came first the chicken or the egg? I believe that my body was unhealthy anyway, but the stress of my soul in turmoil certainly didn’t help. I believe that both were involved in the depression I’ve been through, and I can’t point to either as the cause or either as the relief. My body needed relief from my soul and my soul needed relief from my body. My empty spirit had no relief to offer to either.

This was all before I understood the completed work of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Jesus came to deal with broken humans from the inside out. He came to fill our empty spirits, which frees our conflicted souls, which gives our broken and dying bodies relief from the inside until He gives us new ones in the future.

In accepting Jesus’ completed work, my spirit for the first time was filled with life. I had a consistent and flowing source of life in my deepest place. I had an eternal source of love, acceptance, and respect. I no longer had to grab for these things or suck them out of other people. For the first time I was copiously full. I was satisfied. I also knew who I was. I was Loved.

My spirit was immediately and forever totally altered. My soul took much longer. My mind is still getting used to new thinking habits; my will is still learning to live out of my spirit’s fullness. My emotions . . . well, they are still emotional but they are learning not to despair.

The fact is that my emotions seem to be the most unstable part of my soul, and maddeningly, my mind and will follow my emotions more often than not. Thankfully, this is not a problem for God. My mind can be convinced with reason, my will can follow the reason my mind produces but the only control I have over my emotions is an on or off switch. When I have tried to protect myself from my negative emotions, I stop feeling any emotion.

What do I do with emotions then? If I deny them, I lose a part of myself. If I follow them, I will go everywhere and end up nowhere. Is there another option? Yes, there is another option; it is simple, but not easy. I can trust God with them. As I have done this, God has taught me a few things about my emotions and a few things about Himself.

Thoughts on Sin & Righteousness

I believe that it wasn’t my acts of sin that I needed redemption from because they were only a symptom of a spiritual brokenness that was passed down all the way from Adam to me. I needed redemption from the inside out, from my spirit to my actions.

The law is good for two things, for making the symptom, sin, all the more evident and secondly for revealing the life we were meant to live before Adam’s rebellion. We were created for perfection but none of us since Adam have any idea of what that might look like. The law helps fill in this gap by showing us what perfection looks like (obviously Jesus revealed this even further in His person). The law was never given the power to free us from sin. It was only given the power to reveal sin to us.

So then, Christ arrives born of a virgin, the first man since Adam to have a spirit unmarred by the sin of his father, he meets all the temptations known to man and falls for none of them. (When I considered what this meant, 33 years of being constantly bombarded with temptations and never giving in, it gave me a whole new appreciation for the suffering of Christ.) I now have two options, to live in Adam or in Christ. In Adam I am aware that I was created for holiness but I can never attain it because I can never overcome the heritage of brokenness/law of sin that I was born into. (The fact that I was born into sin through Adam does not by any means lessen my own personal guilt.)

In Adam I was a proud, idol worshiping, blasphemous, covetous, lying, murderous, thief, whose heart was deceitful and wicked. Even if by the Law of Moses I missed becoming a few of these, Jesus says to break one part of the law is to break the whole law and thinking impurely is just as bad as the action. In short, I was doomed and I was gross in spite of the fact that the whole world would have said that I was an exceptionally good person.

However, in Christ I am a totally new creation. My former history literally is no longer attached to me because that person died and a totally new one without sin was born. It’s not just that I have a new identity for the future; I also have a new past. Eternity does not stretch only into the future it stretches to the past as well and I now have eternal life in Christ. In Christ, I am pure, holy, beloved, and righteous, my heart is pure, my spirit and the Holy Spirit are one, I have the mind of Christ, I have the wisdom of God, I lack nothing that Christ currently has sitting at the right hand of the Father.

I am no longer a slave to sin, I am a slave to righteousness. I know longer have the desire or the bent towards sin that I previously had. On the contrary I desire to act in accordance with my new holy nature. It is still possible for me to commit an act of sin but it is no longer probable or normal for me.

The confusion comes when my present life/actions don’t seem to add up to what God says that I have in Christ. It doesn’t feel like I’m any holier, and God knows it may or may not look like it at any given moment. This is where the process of becoming what I already am comes into play. My spirit is totally free, totally new, totally one with Christ as I already mentioned, but my body and my brain (this includes mind, will, and emotions) are used to my old habits. My spirit has been born new but I am stuck with the same brain I had before. It is a lot like being born into a new culture, the culture suits me, I was made for it, it is my culture, but I haven’t grown up in it, I don’t understand and haven’t even experienced those things that I like best. Thus, the renewal of my mind to think in accordance with my new nature takes time and will never be completed until my body dies and I get a new one.

This is how sanctification can be both completed and in process at the same time. I am very truly in a very concrete sense, totally perfect. But I will also be more perfect tomorrow. I like to think of the way a baby grows. Everyone loves to say that a new born baby is perfect, and so it is, but at the same time, if it stopped changing and growing, if the baby never became a child, and in turn an adult, something would be terribly wrong.

This also takes away all opportunity for either pride or shame because God is not judging my actions. He judges only the fact that I was born into the family of Christ and I can take no credit for that. This is what it means to be free. I am free to act sinfully or to act righteously but most of all I am free from the fear that any of my actions will either save me or ruin me.

So then my actions, whether sin or not are reduced to their true importance. What suits me? The law again comes into play here. Because I have the life of Christ, obeying the law suits me. Literally it is pleasurable for me to obey the law. The law is now written in my spirit and I rejoice to act in accordance with it. It is also profitable, for me and for those around me.

The only power Satan (or sin) still has over me are his words and they only have power if I believe them. If I sin with this new nature it is because my mind, will, or emotions (usually a combo of the three) still believes his lie that this sin will please me better than the law of God. God has freed me from a number of habitual sins simply by feeding them to me until I woke up one day and realized they weren't giving me pleasure.

I believe it is a common ploy of Satan to keep us trying to act better. If I focus on my actions I will never be freed of them. If you tell someone not to think of purple elephants you have just insured that they will be thinking of purple elephants and Satan loves using this trick on us. In fact it is often preached from pulpits. “Do not sin! You know what sin you fall for, plan carefully not to fall for it again!” Translated, focus on your sin, think about your sin, consume yourself with your sin but do not act out the very thing you have been meditating on. This method will insure the continuance of habitual sin.

The cure for sin is Jesus. First we need His life in us and second our minds must be trained to think on His righteousness. This is the only way the Church collectively or a person individually will ever be free from the actions of sin they are fighting and planning so hard to change.

Warriors and Lovers

A warrior lives deeply. He knows that life is short, that nothing is worth fighting over but some things are worth fighting for. You could accurately interchange the names Warrior and Lover because it is impossible to be one without the other. You can be a fighter, a killer, or a soldier without love but it is impossible to be a Warrior without love.

It is also impossible to love without being a warrior. You can have sex, you can like people, you can enjoy all sorts of things, but you cannot Love without being a warrior.

If you love, you are willing to sacrifice yourself in whatever way necessary and only a warrior’s heart is strong enough to be able to sacrifice itself. But if you are a fighter without a love to fight for than you are an uncontrolled and aimless weapon.

A warrior lays down his life either living or dying for those weaker. This is a great mystery, why do the strong die for those who are too weak to keep themselves alive?

Warriors see the world as it really is and so have hearts full of deep pain, this is what makes their eyes sad and grim. Pain is everywhere. They have the choice to close their eyes to it, but they can’t stand to be willfully blind. They must see clearly. They believe the worst can and should always be faced because the worst is only the inverse of the best.

They would go crazy with despair if this were all they see, but it isn’t. Remember, warriors are lovers and lovers see beauty when no one else can. Warriors don’t fight so much against the pain but rather for the beauty. Warriors know that pain is a fungus, living off of the beauty; it has no life of its own. Where some see only despair, they see hope. If the pain is so great, the beauty it is living off of must be even greater. This is what gives their eyes a smile, in spite of the horrors within and without that they continually live through.

If you don’t understand warriors, or are not one yourself, then you will think that they have buried all emotion. In fact denying their emotions is a common fault among them. The truth is that they are more emotional than everyone else combined but their emotions run deep, fathomless as the ocean. This is their one fear, that their own feelings will sweep them away and toss them about uncontrollably.

The wise overcome this fear with humility. If God would sweep them away on their own emotions then so be it. They are not foolish and hate to be taken as such, but if God would make fools of them with their own emotions then they would gladly face that fate too. They find instead that God does not make fools of them but gives them the very keys to become the warriors and lovers they live to be.

Far from their emotions tossing them about, they find that they propel them very precisely, that they give them greater strength and greater insight. To be unafraid of weakness is to find fearless strength. Do not think that this means you will ever see the depth of their emotions. It is just as likely that you will see the bottom of the ocean. In fact, they will still seem to be particularly unemotional, because they despair of ever truly communicating their emotions at all. You must see them by faith or not at all.

They feel sorrow so deep that it seems they could weep without stopping forever. But they cannot weep forever and any fewer tears seem so inadequate that they may seem to never weep at all. They also feel joy. Joy so encompassing, so true, so fulfilling that heaven itself will spend eternity celebrating it. But here, they have not the time or the means to celebrate it appropriately so in fact, you may only see a content smile and a twinkle in their eye. Joy and sorrow are not mutually exclusive to each other; they are usually full of both.

They feel hope, but this is no light hearted hope, neither is it a hope that wanes or waxes. It is the hope of those who die without obtaining the promises but are assured of what they hope for. They feel the strength of their own hearts. A deadly strength that only gets stronger as time continually assaults it. A strength that is capable of laughing in the midst of despair because it has learned that despair is a grim illusion that will vanish in a moment. They feel desperate but far from panicking, they become even calmer to compensate and so even more deadly.

They are full of compassion and will care for the wounded with a touch more gentle and tender than a Mother’s. Their hearts do not break for themselves, but for you. They are fierce protectors, fiercer than wild animals. Nothing is more dangerous than a lover at war.

Sometimes, they forget that they are not made to love or fight alone. Sometimes they forget that they too have weaknesses that need protection. Sometimes, they are so used to comforting that they don’t realize that they need comforting too. Sometimes they protect so fiercely that they begin fighting the very one they are trying to protect. Sometimes they forget that it is good for those who have healed to become warriors in their own right, that they should not be protected from becoming great.

Every weakness that appears in themselves they throw back to God and between His strength and the protection of those warriors around them, they are an invincible force. The faster they are slain, the quicker they will rise again and claim that God is victorious.

Truly, the spirit of a warrior-lover can only be found in one place and that is God himself. But he has made his bride to be worthy of a warrior as noble as he and so has given her no other spirit than his own.

My friend, I perceive that you are a warrior.

Adventure: It's a dangerous business, trusting God.

As I have grown, my desires have become more basic and my dreams more fantastic. All I’ve dreamt of is adventure and all I desire is Jesus. “I desire to know Jesus, the power of His resurrection, to share in the fellowship of His sufferings and to be like Him in His death . . .” (Philippians 3:10) That is all I want from either this life or the next.

But how can I know Him? Knowing is a slippery thing; hard to understand and hard to define. Even those we think we know regularly surprise us. Think about someone you know, when did the relationship change from knowing of them to just knowing them? How does an acquaintance become a friend? It is a mystery to me.

I think the verse itself gives some significant clues about knowing. First, that suffering together is one of the truest forms of fellowship. Second, you must share experiences, either by physically being there with the other person or through them by communication. Third, you become like those you know, in the oddest ways. It is impossible to know Jesus apart from the power that raised Him from the dead, or without sharing in His suffering, or without becoming like Him in His death. None of these things can be separated.

I want to live a life of Adventure and I am convinced that He is The Adventure. The dictionary defines it this way, “Adventure: a bold, usually risky undertaking; a hazardous action of uncertain outcome.” What I’ve dreamt of was a risk worth taking. What I’ve waken to is that Jesus is worth risking everything for.

I want to experience every moment of my life with Him. I want to see everything through His eyes. I want to see how He acts as He walks through my life. I want to rely on Him alone. When I suffer, I’ll do it with Him. I want to be the pitcher that His life giving power is poured from. I am convinced that He is already making me like Him in His death.

I’ve realized that my goal cannot be defeated by circumstances or time. Most circumstances are outside of my control and many are not what I would have chosen. Thankfully, all those things I cannot control Jesus is controlling.

This takes a lot of pressure off of what most people would call my ‘life choices’. Whether or not I have a job, a car, a lover, friends, health, or a college degree does not affect my goal. Whether or not I trust Jesus is all that will.

Sadly, I do still have to make basic choices for my life and I only wish that I could state that I don’t constantly agonize over them. If my only goal is to know Him then how do I choose what to do with today?

I will choose boldly, courageously, by faith, and by a different standard than the world uses. I will not choose practically, because God is rarely practical according to human judgment. Many things I thought were frivolous He has revealed to be necessary and many things I thought were practical, He has proven to be useless.

I am afraid when I think about the standard He is telling me to choose by. The Life inside me compels me to continue bravely. I will choose soberly, but I will not choose fearfully.

I will not be concerned by my inadequacy because I no longer live but Christ lives in me. I will not be alarmed by what is bigger than me because I want to experience that nothing is bigger than Him. I will not be anxious about the unknown because I want to experience the wonder and joy of trusting the Knower.

I will not dread physical limitations because I want to experience Jesus' healing. I will not fear pain because I want to suffer everything that He suffered and to know the Comforter. I will not be concerned by death because I want to see His face.

I will not be uncertain about my influence on those around me because I want to experience that His influence is greater. I will not be alarmed by the judgment of others because I want to experience that God’s good opinion is enough. I will not hesitate to love because I want to experience His love for me and through me.

I will not be uneasy about a lack of resources because I want to experience that Jesus owns everything and watch Him treat gold like concrete. I will not fret over mediocrity because I want to experience what Jesus experienced of the Father in the 30 nondescript years. I will not despise the mundane because I want to see Him turn it into a miracle.

I will not be alarmed by my weakness because I want to experience His power. I will not worry over my flaws because He tells me they're redeemed. I will not scorn failure because I want to experience that He never fails. I will not be startled by temptation because I want to experience His freedom.

I will hope because the Hero promised. I will search for beauty because I've seen the Beautiful One. I will give myself to those around me because I watched Him give everything, freely, for me. I will fight for goodness because I'm betrothed to a Warrior. I will cry when it hurts because I know the Man of Sorrows. I will boast of my trust, not because it is reliable but because the object of my trust is.

I cannot explain or justify my choices up to this date by any other standard than this. To my physical eye they appear haphazard, irresponsible, unreliable, moody, flighty, foolish, and a host of other negative and undesirable adjectives. If you judge them this way as well, I don’t blame you.

However, as far as God has revealed to me, I have followed Him obediently every unpredictable and ludicrous step of the way. My only hope is that the foolishness of God is wiser than men. If you disagree with the standard I make my choices by or don’t see my actions lining up with my words, I would appreciate your honesty on the subject. I would like the opportunity to change my mind according to new information or to agree to respectfully disagree.

If, on the other hand, what I have written here resounds with what God is growing in your mind, then be encouraged. You aren’t the only one.

Power Perfected

“I need Your strength to feel this weak . . .”

Two things have always been strong and constant in me, weakness and pride. I’ve always been small but I’ve always believed that if my will power was strong enough I could do anything, ‘anything’ in this case only falling slightly short of flying by sheer will power.

My small size never was brought home to me by circumstances so I understood that I was ruling the world through awesomeness. I was fast, witty, I learned easily, I spoke easily, my health was good, I was really good at reading, people told me I was beautiful and I easily believed them, my family was happy (in my eyes) and well respected. My circumstances were perfect, I was perfect, and I gracefully accepted the accolade.

Only one thing crept in to rankle my pride. About the same time that I was responsible to get my own school completed for the day I realized that I was too lazy to keep myself on task. Far from making me humble, this realization was only a minor blot in my perfect record of self-willed accomplishments and I was sure I could conquer it.

I was really young, not much older than 10, and looking back two things astound me. First that such a young person could be so confident and second that I really thought that my own will shaped my life.

Between then and now, things have only gone downhill, honestly. It turns out that the laziness I noticed in myself was the first symptom of health problems that worsened for about 9 years before they were noticed. In the mean time I was consumed with guilt, while constantly promising myself and God that I would do better.

I didn’t do better. I was guilty through my school years, floundered through high school and still maintain that what I did do for high school was well below the minimum. Today, my family is broken and my health is bad. I can still learn easily but forget even more easily. To use the word ‘fast’ to describe anything about me will bring genuine laughter. I can seldom think quickly enough to be witty, and more often than not, I can’t remember the word I need just to finish the sentence I started. People still tell me I’m beautiful but they almost as often assume that I have an eating disorder. I can still read; I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.

These are the things I placed my pride in. When those things that I was proud of failed me you would think humility might have had a better chance but pride will easily change from gloating to self pity before it will leave room for humility. Not to say that I haven’t learned humility, because I have, and I have loved to learn it.

Humility is not realizing that I am nothing, but rather that I have nothing, nothing besides Jesus that is. I have learned to accept whatever He is pleased to give me whether I would call it weakness or strength. He was satisfied with this lesson of acceptance until yesterday. Yesterday, He upped the ante.

He said, “You’ve been asking for My power all year. Do you even know what power is? Who taught you to distinguish between strength and weakness? My power and your weakness are inseparable. I’ve made you weak and you’ve accepted it but if I told you that your weakness is My power would you believe Me and thank me for it?”

Because I’m stuck being a human and a baby my first response is always, “Cruelty!” In fact, though I’m not calling Him cruel anymore I’m still considering . . . my option. This is too big for me to do. I must rely on His strength and power even in the simple choice to be thankful.

Which reminds me of something else He taught me this year. To admit weakness and ask for help is not a demand for attention but an action of humility. I don't understand this. But the truth persists being itself in spite of how I feel about it.

I feel like I'd like to lock myself in a room and cry for years instead of move forward in the face of these truths. I would in fact, except that Jesus carries me forward even when it feels more like He's dragging me on. You might think that I have a choice but I don't. The life inside me would be picking the lock from the inside even while I was trying to cry in the corner. The only thing more miserable and impossible than believing Him is trying not to.

Goodness: [That's what I asked for but not what I wanted.]

I love God. No really, I do. I have all sorts of love for God. I love Him like a very little girl loves her father because not only does He love her but He also knows what's best for her even when she doesn't. Not to mention all the monsters in reality or her imagination flee when He's around.

I love God like a dog loves its master. I may or may not pay rapt attention to Him in the moment but I think He's the best thing since my squeaky toy and no matter how many trash bins, skunks or rabbit trails I simply must go check out we both know it's Him I'm coming back to.

I love God like I love my sisters and brothers, I would do anything for Him and really enjoy hanging out even if we've spent almost equal amounts of time fighting and playing.

I love God like I love my friends, He gives me thoughts besides my own to think and encourages me to be myself even when it isn't pretty.

I love God like I love my Mom, because I know that no matter what I ever do He's gonna be there for me just because that's who He is. Not to mention He's already seen me through every triumph, failure, embarrassment, low spot, silly spot, and emotional outburst already. He keeps giving Himself, and still hasn't given up on me. In fact, He's proud of me.

Not only that, but I trust God. I am so confident that He is the hero of the story He could seem to be the villain for an indefinite amount of time and I would still believe in His goodness. In spite of the fact that I know He is ultimately in control of everything and my life still sucks a good portion of the time. I know that He is good.

One time, I realized that His goodness didn't match up with my life story the way I thought it should. So I told Him He was a fraud, a liar, and a villain. I won't tell the whole story here but let's say that He treated me with such kindness that I am convinced for a lifetime of His goodness.

There's just one rub. In spite of the love I have for Him, in spite of the trust I place in Him, in spite of the goodness I have seen in Him, He is still scary. The truth is, He plain freaks me out. Makes me feel panicky. Makes me want to close my eyes and pretend He's not really that big, or . . . other-than-me.

Sometimes, instead of inviting me to His level, I wish He would just settle for mine. Mine is so much nicer than His. I wish that He would let "goodness" mean "mildly adventurous", "nicely unpredictable" and "reasonably comfortable".

I know that He knows best but isn't there another way to know Him besides the one that leads straight through hell? I wish He would have set life up with lower stakes. You know, made it a poker game, instead of a war.

Goodness is much more beautiful than I had imagined and much more severe than I had hoped for. Goodness hurts. Excruciatingly. Don't get me wrong, its a healing hurt, but the pain to bring healing is sometimes worse than the pain of the original wound.

In fact, excruciatingly is oddly appropriate because the ultimate picture of God's goodness was His plan to crucify Himself for our healing. God's goodness not only invites me to be healed and whole as He is, He invites me to be wounded willingly, as He was, for the healing of others.

I cringe and sometimes sob when I think of what His goodness might do next, what He might ask for. I fear the very goodness I love and trust Him for. But then I think of Jesus, not just vaguely fearing what God might ask, but knowing what He had already asked and begging in desperation for another way. His desperation and fear did not make Him any less. If He asks me to join Him in His suffering, then at least I know He empathizes in my trepidation.

I have known Him, I do know Him and I will know Him, all through the fellowship of His suffering.