House of Cards

Matters of the heart are always more convoluted than they appear to be from the outside. There’s never a black and white, just shades of gray. We tend to think in rights and wrongs, rather than in layers, which is a shame. I mean, it’s easier to think that way, because the choices are more clear cut, but that’s just not how the world works. And when we begin to realize there are layers, we can start to feel bogged down. In my life, I try my hardest to see those layers, to see every possible angle and outcome, and while I’m more informed that way, I sometimes feel like I’m in limbo. And in limbo, minutes feel like hours, and hours feel like days.

I’ve noticed lately that when it comes to relationships (and I’m talking person-to-person relationships here, not necessarily romantic relationships), the ground never feels even. My footing is never sure. There are times when I feel secure and solid, but when it comes to dealing with people, things are always shifting and changing. Which is why, for EVERY relationship, I know to get through it without harm your foundation has to be God, and not that other person.

I say all of this because I tend to let my joy and my stability and my mood depend on the people around me, or the person I’m with. Whether it be a friend, a boyfriend, a family member, or a group of people, I base my emotions, my feelings, my mood, my thoughts, on other people. And I’m realizing slowly, oh so slowly, that the reason I always feel like my footing isn’t sure is because my base, my foundation, isn’t God, it’s people. The reason I maneuver myself into limbo, and get stuck there where everything feels like it’s dragging by through wet cement, is because my foundation isn’t what it should be.

I’m fairly certain that no matter what is going on in my life, no matter how happy I am, I can look over and see storm clouds brewing on the horizon. Even in my happiest moments, that threat has always and will always loom. Not that I’m saying I should be scared of that, or worried about it, but that that’s just what life is. Storms can be lethal, can be deadly, but if my foundation is God, then why would I worry about a storm? Or about people shifting and changing? If all of my trust, all of my hope, all of my faith is in God, then why should I fret?

Living on a foundation based on the people in my life is like living in a house of cards. Don’t get me wrong, the people in my life are beautiful, wonderful, amazing people that I can’t imagine living without, but they’re still real, flawed, people, like me. But if I depend on them for my stability, it’s possible that the slightest breeze can knock everything over. Now, if GOD is that base, then not only can I trust that my house, my foundation, my support, is secure, but I can trust that with a secure foundation, everything else will hold up just fine.

With God, all of those shades of gray, all of those moments where limbo is every looming, all of these things are suddenly manageable. They’re okay, because no matter what, my feet are steady, my heart is steady, and I know without a doubt that everything will be good, because God is there.

He Loves Us

• God moves all around us. He moves and shifts and changes things in ways we can't always see or notice. But sometimes, we do see. We do notice. I am amazed by how much he loves.
• He loves us. Oh how he loves us. Oh how he loves us. Oh how he loves.
• Our Lord is jealous for us. He wants our hearts to focus on him. He wants our eyes on him. Our ears trained toward him. He wants us to seek him above all else. And when we do, he blesses us beyond what we deserve.
• When I say bless, I don't mean with money or things we want, necessarily. He blesses us with little things, with heart things, with soul things. He causes us to grow. He causes us to be who we are meant to be. He increases our capacity to love. He works in us. And aren't all of these things things that we don't deserve? Aren't they all things that are better than any thing we could ask for? He blesses us with heart things, and with soul things, because of his never-ending, uncompromising, unconditional love.
• He is jealous for us. He wants us to let go of the things of this world. To let go of the things that we hold above him, and just trust in him. He wants us to turn our faces toward him and never look away because we are too in love with him. He is our Father and the lover of our hearts. He wants us to try to love him the way he loves us. He is love.

Change. Letting Go. Growth.

It's funny how life works. How things can be convoluted and crazy and perfect all at once. Maybe that's just a part of the human condition. The thing is, in any situation that people are involved in, the conditions, the results, the way things work out will always have confusing qualities. They will always be flawed. That's where faith comes in, I guess.

Because I know that I'm flawed, and make mistakes, and because I know that the people around me are flawed and make mistakes, I can look and see that even when things don't go the way I want them to, there is always hope. No matter what, there is hope.

I'm not so naive as to think that just because I pray about something it will happen the way I want. I'm also aware of the fact that just because things don't go the way I want them to, doesn't mean that things are hopeless or wrong. It's a fine line, really, to walk on hope and faith, and trust that even when things are at their darkest, things can turn around. It's scary to believe that things can change, be different, and still be good. It's scary to let things go, and to not have our hand in things anymore, and to have faith that no matter what the outcome is, God can use it for his glory.

Sometimes, change is good. And sometimes, those scary thoughts, where you let go of things that you can't or shouldn't control, are the ones that let us break through walls we didn't know we'd built. To experience those things is to grow. And growth is vital to survival. Those walls we build, the invisible ones that we don't know we've built, can keep us from reaching our true potential. Sometimes it takes a change that shakes us and breaks us to give us that burst of energy for that growth spurt. Sometimes, the things that seem the worst end up being the best.

Maybe I'm just tired, and none of this makes sense. But I KNOW that God has his hand in our lives. And I KNOW that he has pulled me from situations where I saw no hope in, situations where I was sitting in the dark with only the sound of my own heart for company. God will never let us down. He will always be there to take a situation and show us the good in it. All we have to do is look. And even when we don't get what we think we want, ESPECIALLY when we don't get what we think we want, if we open our eyes and our hearts, he can show us exactly what we NEED to make us whole.

Sometimes, I try my hand at poetry.

It isn't finished. It's actually just a bunch of random stanzas that I wrote and decided to lump together. I don't know if I'm capable of writing a praise and worship song, but I'm not too scared to try and write a little poem or two.

Every day I wonder

Why do I have to fall?

Sometimes it seems like

I have no hope at all.

God give me strength,

show me the way.

Help me take my days

and turn them back from gray.

When no matter what I do

the hurt breaks through.

I'm broken, through and through

so I turn my face to You.

I wander through each day

with no map to guide my way.

I wander through each day

looking for your light, not knowing what to say.

I live for you.

I love from you.

You are my heart.

You are my God.

You are my hope.

You are my love.

Man Shall Not Live on Bread Alone

⁴But He answered and said, "It is written: `Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.'" - Matthew 4:4

We need milk, meat, protein. We need something that will sustain us after the carbs wear off. Something substantial.

In our short lives, people will come and go. Things will come and go. Ideas will come and go. We can't live on only these things. They aren't bad. On the contrary, many of these things are beautiful. But, to LIVE we need more. We need the long lasting protein. We need something that will sustain us. We need God, because while people, things, and ideas are fleeting, God is permanent. He is constant. He is perfect.

Now, here's the tricky part... Sometimes, in the search for God, for that sustenance that will last, we find someone else. Sometimes that person will work, unwittingly, to pull you for your search, and sometimes that person will be on a search of their own. Those two paths may converge, and when that happens you have someone to travel with. Someone who will seek God with you. And this is beautiful. The tricky part comes when you begin looking for that person MORE than you are looking for God.

It seems odd to me how easily I fall into that very pattern. On the one hand, I am aware of how much easier it is to go to, and rely on, someone who is tangibly there. It's comforting to be able to talk and have audible words spoken back. To reach out and grab onto someone and to feel them beneath your fingers. But I'm also aware that, no matter how wonderful that person is, if you're only looking to that person, if your eyes turn from God, then that glue that is holding you together will begin to crumble.

On the flip-side, God is ever faithful. Ever loving. Ever forgiving. He will never crumble or fall away. He is, in every sense of the word, perfect. And yet, despite the fact that He will NEVER fail us--despite the fact that He will ALWAYS love us--we don't always turn to Him first. More often than not, I turn away from that perfect, true, love when something more fast acting, something more immediately and sensorily available, is offered. Because God isn't tangible, and people are. Things are. We can feel him in our hearts. We can see him affecting our lives, and our world. We can even hear him, if we listen, in the words of the people around us. But we can't touch Him. We can't reach out with our hands, grab onto God, and feel Him hold us back.

That being said, God is beginning to teach me about this. If we make the conscious choice to turn to Him first, to rely on Him fully, to trust in Him, then suddenly life is that much better. When I give God the things I normally reserve for a person, something inside me shifts. It clicks and falls into place. It's a subtle thing. A small thing. Nothing huge and dramatic. Nothing that elicits that craved instantly gratifying feeling of "better." But it is infinitely more gratifying in the long run.

It's something that begins small, like a seed planted that grows slowly and steadily. It is a foundation that is laid carefully so that it will stand the test of time. It will be sturdy and strong. It will sustain. The other, the instant gratification, no matter how beautiful and good it is, will eventually disappear without a firm foundation beneath it. But this growing thing, this seed that God can plant, IS strong. Its roots go deep, and as long as you keep watering it, it will sustain you. It is much more substantial than bread.

Now, the coolest part about ALL of this, is that you don't have to just choose one or the other. Man shall not live on bread ALONE. What you do have to choose is where your priorities lie. You have to choose which of these is the most important to you. And while I can't know anyone's life but my own, I can say that if you put God first, if you keep your eyes trained on him, through the wonderful times, and the horrible ones, then things will be okay. Let Him fill you up, let Him sustain you, and experience how beautiful His love is, and everything else will fall into place.

It's All Relative

It doesn't happen all at once. The solution, that is. The problem, if you'll call it that with me, the problem is what lingers. It's festers and sneaks up on you like a maelstrom right when you're floating along, still, in the current. That's the tough part. That's when it's the hardest to deal with. The hardest for you to cope. But a friend of mine gave me some good advice recently. Problems are relative. They are important to me because I let them be important to me, and only I can make them big or small. Important or unimportant. Life altering or not. His advice was simple, and direct, and good. To not focus on this stuff, to instead focus on the Kingdom. So that's my goal. To focus on the Kingdom. To take my problems, my issues, my insecurities, my worries, and really realize that they're all relative. To really understand that I can change my outlook. And to really truly turn my focus, my eyes, to God instead of all of this.

Now, that's not to say that these problems, these issues, these whatevers, will magically disappear. That I won't still think about them, that they won't still bother me, but it's a process, you see. A process in which I'll have to work. I'll have to try. I'll probably still get angry, and cry, and laugh, and write these little notes to myself that I end up sharing with other people. But the process is, in its own way, what drives me to keep going. It drives me because I know that I'll be moving. Be learning. Be growing. I won't be sitting in a pool of stagnant water, waiting to disintegrate in my own wasted time and efforts, waiting for another maelstrom to form right beneath my feet. I'll be working. I'll be achieving, even when I fall backwards a little.

I wouldn't be where I am without my friends. I wouldn't be able to start on these paths, I wouldn't be able to move forward, I wouldn't be able to communicate all of these things. My friends encourage. My friends love. My friends force me to laugh when I don't want to, but I need to. What I mean to say is, I'm thankful for my friends. I'm thankful for the tough lessons, for the jokes. For the talks and the music. For the ones I miss and the ones I see. For all of it. So, see? My problems can't be huge problems, not with people like that in my life. It's all relative. Sometimes you just have to take a few steps away from yourself to see it. And if you can't do that, have a friend do it for you.

The Greatest of These

People will break your heart. They may not mean to, but even if they do, you can't let it break you.

My heart has been broken so many times i my short life. Boys have broken it, friends have broken it, family has broken it. In half of these instances the people didn't even now they'd done it.

My heart is broken easily, but it isn't fragile. The Lord has encased it in armor. But it breaks easily. I love easily. I give my heart away easily. Almost to a fault. Up until fairly recently I've considered this a flaw. A character defect. I thought this until the last time it was broken, and a great friend of mine brought something into the light for me.

The last time my heart broke it was because of a boy. I kept telling myself that if I'd guarded my heart it never would have happened the way it did. if only I'd never let my heart out of it's box, kept it secure, kept it from following the course it wanted to be on. But I didn't do these things, and it broke, and because my friend loved me enough to be honest with me he said something that made everything different. He told me that my open heart was a beautiful thing, but that didn't mean it was an easy thing. Those few words cut through that foggy pain and pierced something inside me.

To love without fear is such a wonderful thing. Such a dangerous thing. To love for the sake of loving is to be free. To be uninhibited by pretenses. To be able to receive love freely. To risk being hurt badly.

I can handle all the hurts, all the broken pieces of my hurt, if only I can love. Because my God has called me, is calling me, will call me to always love. He created my heart to love. He created my heart to be loved. And when that heart breaks, because people will break it again and again, He has, He does, and He will pick up the pieces and put them back together again, only better than before.