Suddenly

the world is different

brighter

more desperate

more beautiful

the sunny moments longer

the dreary moments shorter

as i learn to see myself

as you see me

and i love you for that

Sometimes I hate the “what ifs” of relationships with guys.

He’s probably the best guy I’ve ever met.  Kind and sweet and disarmingly unaware.

And yet, I don’t think I like him “that way.”  

Some moments, he catches me off guard, though.

Stupid hormones.

WHEN THE FRO-YO PLACE HAS MY FAVORITE FLAVOR

howdoiputthisgently:

Tonight was awesome.

Assisted living as usual, and then we went out to dinner.  Of course the first part of the conversation centered around making fun of me for being a crazy liberal, and making fun of another friend for being an over-achiever Christian (I know I’ve changed when I no longer get that label).  

But then I decided to step out on a limb and show my friends a Mark Driscoll video that really pissed me off a few days ago.  It spawned this epic conversation about Mark Driscoll and ultimately about church discipline.  I found myself doing what I love to do.  Ask questions.  As they attempted to answer them, the room was alive with life and joy and  energy.

Of course, the guys all had something scheduled so the conversation got cut heartbreakingly short.  And of course the conclusion they came to was not the one I hoped to eventually lead them to.  (although the possibility of that was pretty slim as my journey to view the world/Bible as i do was not the result of one conversation but rather a journey of several years).  But our conversation was alive, it was real, and they were honestly struggling with deep issues.  And for that moment, I was doing what i love to do.  

I was teaching by asking questions.

Favorite thing ever.

the only sad part is we never got past the “The Bible says so” way of thinking that can have such disastrous consequences.  They could see the disastrous nature of those consequences, but never made the link back to the fact that those consequences came from a particular way of reading the Bible…a way that THEY READ the Bible.

That’s for another time, though.

Favorite night in a very long time. 

Tonight I felt like maybe, just maybe, I can continue living in community with these people, even if we are so polar opposite.

ugh

ugh. that’s really all.

ugh.

it’s hard to not belong.

I was free.

The energy pumping through my heart was far too much to contain, and I made no attempt at containing it.  As I walked out onto the sand of Fernandina beach, I hurriedly greeted my friends, dumped my backpack on the ground, threw off my shoes, and sprinted toward the water.  Without hesitating to even consider the temperature of the May ocean, I dove in.  The waves were high and greeted me incessantly.  With each wave I flung myself into the air and then into the mercy of the ocean.  My eyes filled with salt water and my heart started pumping, and I didn’t care.  I was alive.  I was free. 

Finally abandoning the water, I headed back to my backpack and dug through it frantically for my iPod.  Turning on the music as loud as it would go, I sprinted along the edge of the water barefoot, attempting to expel all of the joyous energy that filled my soul.  My joy was unquenchable.   I knew I looked a fool, sprinting back and forth along the beach like a toddler, and it mattered not.  I was free as a bird, alive as a newborn foal.

We drove to Chick-fil-A.  I was unstoppable.  The music pumping to the time of the blood pumping through my veins, I felt unstoppable.  We ate, and the food was somehow better than normal.  We talked, and the conversation was somehow more fulfilling than normal, although I’m confident we talked about nothing important.  We went out for ice cream.

And then they said it.

“Women should be silent.  Just kidding, sort of.”

And my heart stopped.

The joy vanished.

All of the peace, all of the clarity of the past days, it was gone.  All of it.  In that moment I was silent, not because the Bible says so, but because I felt entirely marginalized. 

In that moment, I was imprisoned again, I was dead.  I was entirely finite.

***

I’m not sure how to emotionally survive in this world.  I’m not sure how to follow Christ’s command to love.  I’m not sure I have the strength to love those who oppress me and my sisters, even when they believe they’re not oppressing us at all.  I’m not sure I have the strength to maintain my convictions and let them have theirs.  I’m not sure I am able to love selflessly.  To extend grace to those who extend only boundaries to me.

And yet, Christ’s call is never easy.

And so I love.  I love those who, in the final analysis, may be right anyway.  God knows how much I’m misguided.  God knows, and my value is not in my opinions or convictions.  My value is in Him.  He made me, and He loves me ferociously.  He’s not letting me go.

And I’m not letting go of him.

I sit here among the wreckage of what once was.  The time for tears has passed; the time for action is here.

So little is left about which I’m not deeply cynical.

This one thing remains.

Jesus.

I am drowning here. Absolutely drowning.

The trappings of religion fall away one by one.  I’m more and more left with nothing but a desperate faith in God.

God,

I can’t hold on forever.

I’m slipping. Day by day I’m slipping.

Catch me.

Please.