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I went to a concert a couple of nights ago with MacKenzie.
I love when the sound is turned up so loud that the bass thumps and I can feel it in my chest. It's like the music has replaced my heartbeat, like the music is my heartbeat. I become the music, something eternal and untameable, permeating everything. I become a force of nature, a vibration and an echo, something that cannot be charted or conquered or controlled. I become free.
It's like I go to heaven for those brief moments, and all the restrictions and limitations of this world slip away and I am one with God as we dance together to my heartbeat, which is really His heartbeat. His heartbeat is my heartbeat. I am not God, but I am in God and God is in me.
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| Some Thoughts On Gifts
I have a friend who is a great storyteller. Whenever he tells a story, you feel like you are there. He isn't too descriptive or too vague, but knows how to hit all the right notes at all the times. I struggled a lot for a long time with comparing myself to him. I saw how his gift with stories touched people's lives, and I thought (and still think, at times) that I needed to be like him in order to make a difference.
When all this was happening, I also started writing. I found that my way of telling stories comes out best in my writing. I am a good speaker, too, but writing is the foundation that speaking comes out of. It is the opposite for my friend.
What was hardest for me was that, when I would hear the stories my friend would tell, I wondered why God wasn't doing similar things in my life. Do you ever feel this way - that God must be giving them more attention because they are doing something "better" than you are? I felt the same way until recently.
I realize now that God trusts us with our gifts. God gave us each specific gifts to do one thing: tell God's story. Gardeners tell stories. Writers tell stories. Painters tell stories. Teachers tell stories. Secretaries tell stories. And each person relates to God in a different way, because we need each other to get a more complete vision of who God is. When we are trying to develop gifts that truly aren't ours, we are quenching God's Spirit in our lives.
Which answers the question that has tortured me for so long: Why did my friend have such crazy things happen to him? Maybe because God knows he will do a good job at telling the story. Once I really got into my writing, let me tell you, the craziest things started happening. I met a girl online. I moved to Missouri. I got a full-ride scholarship in an urban education program. And now I am marrying that girl.
I'm not saying that all this happened because of something I did, and I'm not saying that this is my story. It's God's story, and He's letting me be a part of it. I embrace my gifts, and freedom comes from that. Maybe a reason why we so often can't see God is because we are too busy trying to be like other people, when God made us a specific way so He could reveal Himself through our gifts to us.
For people who speak, things may happen to them that won't happen to other people because God knows they will faithfully retell it.
For people who write, the world will look different because God gave writers different eyes.
And the list goes on, and on, and on.
So when we aren't living out our respective gifts, whatever they are, we are really shutting God out. But if we accept our gifts, then we give God elbow room to move around and reveal Himself to us and through us.
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Well, it's been a while. I've gotten caught up in the micro-blogging trend, and my more thought-out writing has suffered because I can't fit a lot of what I want to say in 140 characters. The 140 characters thing is a challenge, and I like it because it keeps us from getting too long-winded. It's an equalizer of sorts, because nobody can say anymore than anyone else. But at the same time, anyone can say more than anyone else, because it's all about how you choose to use your 140 characters.
Anyways, I hope this type of blogging doesn't fade away like all else does. We still need to be more thought out than 140 characters will allow. While the idea of micro-blogging is really great, it has the potential to bring us into a reductionist era, where nothing matters if it isn't shortened to match our shrinking attention spans. I wonder what some of the greatest literary works would be if they had to be micro-blogged? And if they did, would they get the point across through their 140 characters? Most likely not, because there is so much here that can't be summed up in words.
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I got lost in the woods for three hours a couple of days ago. Strange thing is, I just got off the path a little bit, and then I couldn't find my way back. I kept going in circles, walking by the same waterfall multiple times. I finally found my way to the bottom of the mountain, and by the grace and kindness of a total stranger willing to give me a ride back up, I got back to where I needed to be. I asked her, "Are you sure?" She told me, "It's too much for you to walk back up alone. I can take you." I'm sure there's some truth about God in there.
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Some things I am learning lately:
Whenever I judge somebody, within five minutes I find myself doing that same exact thing I was judging the person for. It may look different or not different at all, but it the same. I find that I have more similarities than differences with the people I judge the most.
God is the source of all provision. God is in all. God is all.
For a long time I thought this grief journey was going somewhere, like a street winding up to the top of a mountain. I felt momentum with each day, but gradually I started waking up each morning wondering why I still had moments of anger, jealousy, deep sadness, etc. I see now that I have a lot in common with a friend of mine who has one hand. The grief will always be there, and it will make certain things harder, but I need to accept that I am never getting that part of me back.
Laughing matters. A lot.
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P.S. - I am getting married in 3 months! And I have some idea what to expect, but at the same time, no idea at all.
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| Say you are laying next to the one you love, and they get out of bed. They were just there, but now they aren't. The bed is still warm, the pillows and sheets still smell like them, and the mattress is indented with their outline. But they just aren't there anymore.
Death is like that.
I think almost everything in our lives, all this busyness, is an attempt to push out the reality of death. We don't live like we are truly, definitely, absolutely, going to die. If I really understood I was going to die, would I still get mad about parking spaces and slow internet connections? No, I wouldn't.
But we put it on hold. We don't want to peer into the blackness surrounding us at every turn. Perhaps this is why books like Twilight and movies like Tuck Everlasting are so popular - because deep down, none of us want to die. Perhaps this is why every generation is absolutely certain that their Jesus will return in their lifetime - because deep down, none of us want to die.
But we are truly, definitely, absolutely going to die. Though our time with one another is unimaginably brief, may we never seek to make our lives feel more full with empty busyness. It is so strange that we are all so limited that we can't will our lives to be any longer than they will be. It is so strange that we are so weak that the smallest burst of a tiny vein inside our bodies can kill us.
Facing the reality of death and realizing how limited we really are is humbling. Because none of us understands death, and whether we like it or not, whether we are at peace with it or not, and even though we don't understand it, we will all die.
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Inside the endless universe is a small swirl of dust. Inside this swirl is a small community of planets. Inside this community of planets is a green, white, and blue planet. In this planet there is a mass of land, and in this mass of land is a state called Texas.
Somewhere in Texas, there is a forgotten town. It is small and has two temperatures: hot, and sweltering. The town is a snapshot of life decades ago, and there hasn't been a new resident in almost thirteen years.
In this town there is a street. All the houses on this street are old, but not dilapidated, because everyone in this town works hard and takes care of what they've worked for. The architecture is dated. Most houses have a few shrubs in the front yard, accompanied by one or two trees. All the houses are made of brick. In the summers, the tar on the road melts and turns the old lady who exercises by walking down the street's shoes black. She buys a new pair of walking shoes at the beginning of each fall.
On this street, there is a house. Inside this house is a stale living room. The furniture is floral, decades old, but not worn out.
Just past the living room is a small office with floral homemade curtains. A desk sits beneath the window. Inside the top left drawer is an old box of staples that has only been opened once. The box is faded blue, and a thin layer of dust coats the top.
Inside the box are, shockingly, staples, in sleeves. Hidden beneath one of the sleeves in a small, yellowing, rolled up piece of paper.
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