It's been awhile since I last wrote. A lot has happened since then. It's been a struggle to find words. Every time I tried to find the words to express what I was going through...I would end up typing just a bunch of blah.
Desperately I have been trying to seek God's wisdom and answers to everything. I have learned quite a bit....about contentment, grace, love, truth, prudence...So much. But even then I could never put into words what God was doing.
The other day I was driving down the road, listening to some sweet tunes when I realized something....something God had been doing all along.
Change.
My life has been all about change and I didn't even realize it. I have been growing in so many new ways that I could write probably 10 blogs on each new lesson learned. But it's all been surrounded by change. That little word: change...it does so much.
For the past two months I have begun to feel my nothingness--to despair of myself. In finding myself as nothing, I sought God and found that He was everything. Every aspect about me was laid bare. I held out empty, open hands. For awhile I let my wounds and emptiness rob me of communion, grace and living each day fully. It's still a struggle. Constantly I am having to run to my God with my empty hands. He finds me here every time. I have nothing to bring Him. And yet, He is still there. Who does that?? Who in their right mind would give love constantly to someone that had nothing to bring to the table in return?
St. Augustine said this about God that got me thinking, "God gives where He finds empty hands. A man whose hands are full of parcels can't receive a gift." Isn't grace odd?
God is quite scandalous, don't you think? God tells us all from the beginning we are forgiven. That we can come to Him as we are--dirty and broken. He takes a big risk with me...loving me when I can easily decide to walk away.
But the thought intriques me. Makes me want to love Him. In a weird way, it just does. If a person were to do that for me....it would makes me want to be everything to that person in return. Makes me think of Hosea.....
How I view God is changing...and that is the reason I am changing. I used to doubt God's character and goodness. Now I am learning that it was my definitions of the characterists I was confused about. Our definition of God will easily define how we live. Though I am a long way off, I am learning a better definition of who God really is.
I like change. I'm quite taken with it. We will get along just fine.
"The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way." ~ Donald Miller
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My prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it? It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change.
