...I have been feeling really blessed lately.
Really, really blessed.
JCA had a prayer vigil recently, and for the first time I managed to stay awake throughout the entire service. Whether this is a testament to my maturity in Christ or the receiving of adequate rest the night before, I am not sure. I do know that P.Matt's message was so ridiculously applicable to my life at that point in time that I had trouble writing notes, out of my earnestness to not miss any convicting word. I entered into the time of prayer so moved that I had a hard time praying at first. There was so much pain, so much anger, so much frustration at God for the suffering that I have been going through, so much that I thought I'd aired out a long time ago. I found myself shouting at God, which was strange because after a while I felt like I began to shout at myself. The best way to describe it is that the words that I said bounced back to me in a different form. In this form I saw that God had been in the thick of these hard times, holding me through the fire, even while I tried to thrash and kick out of his grasp like a petulant child.
I really met with God that night.
Now I am back in my sphere, and it has been wonderful to know that God has followed me right into it. I find that He has been pervading my thoughts more and more, even when I'd rather that He did not. I feel so much peace walking to and from classes, to the point that I do not even have to play one of my favorite Christian songs on my Zune to remind me of God's grace and mercy--I feel like I'm swimming in it at every moment. God has been elucidating Scripture that was once too dull for me to mull over, causing me to just skim through to continue on my quest to finish the entire Bible. I truly do feel lost in Him.
Which honestly scares the crap out of me.
I remember in Uganda there was one night near the beginning of the trip where I woke up with the most gross, slimy, cold feeling ever. I tried my best to describe it in my journal that day:
I feel like God is going to leave me...I want to serve God, but I don't want Him to leave me...how can a God so big, the one who made this beautiful African sky....how can He want to stay with a sinner, a horrible person like me? I feel like I still have one foot one the ground here on Earth, like I am trying to fly with leaden wings. Right now I feel like....I am fading into and out of reality, like there is something I am supposed to be reaching, but I can't touch it because my mind is pegged to everything that I know, to everything that I think that I should know....I feel restless, yucky, nauseated, weak.
That morning proved to be one of the most vulnerable moments of my life. I had no happy thought, no cute quote or practical saying to rescue me. I was powerless. All I could do was reach out for the hand of my Father as I sunk deeper into the ocean. All I could pray was for Him to save me. And He did. Again and again he did. But still I struggle.
I feel that I have a decent handle on things in my life. I feel secure in where I am and where I am going. I feel in controlllll... And now I stress about whether God plans to inconvenience me enough to guide me towards His path for me. I'd rather He just follow my practical itinerary. I am afraid of how He plans on accomplishing His will in my life. When the other shoe drops, I am afraid of losing what I hold dear. I don't want to hate my mother, or my father, for that matter. I don't want to sell all of my possessions just for a field. I am still debating about whether to die truly is gain...
....and yet, even as I type this, I realize that I am only kidding myself. I know that this is the good life. I know that my ascribed worth is all that I could ever, ever live for. Even as I try and brace myself for hard times, I am realizing that God wants me to rest in Him even in the good times. God's beauty is slowly--so slowly--but surely becoming the only object in focus in my life. Instead of analyzing every emotion and motive, He wants me to seriously just let go. He has me firmly in His grasp, and though I kick and scream I know that He will never leave me.
What can I say? I serve an amazing God. :) :) :)
