blue like jazz

a few weeks ago, i read the book, blue like jazz. if i can have a reading rainbow moment for a minute, i would just like to tell you it is amazing. it's for anyone who is wondering if the christian faith is still relevant in a post-modern culture, anyone thirsting for a genuine encounter with a God who is real, for anyone yearning for a renewed sense of passion in life...i wish i wrote that summary, but it came from the back.

so many parts really struck something deep within me, but this one especially. i pray that anyone who reads this would experience something like this some time in life:

I just lay there, talking to God, being real with Him, I began to feel a bit of serenity. It felt like I was apologizing to an old friend, someone with whom there had been a sort of bitterness, and the friend was saying it was okay, that he didn't think anything of it. It felt like I was starting over, or just getting started. That is the thing about giving yourself to God. Some people get really emotional about it, and some people don't feel much of anything except the peace they have after making an important decision. I felt a lot of peace.

And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. I imagined Him looking down on this earth, half angry because His beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her.

I know a little of why there is blood in my body, pumping life into my limbs and thought into my brain. I am wanted by God. He is wanting to preserve me, to guide me through the darkness of the shadow of death, up into the highlands of His presence and afterlife. I understand that I am temporary, in this shell of a thing on this dirt of an earth. I am being tempted by Satan, we are all being tempted by Satan, but I am preserved to tell those who do not know about our Savior and our Redeemer. This is why Paul had no questions. This is why he could be beaten one day, imprisoned the next, and released only to be beaten again and never ask God why. He understood the earth was fallen. He understood the rules of Rome could not save mankind, that mankind could not save itself; rather, it must be rescued, and he knew that he was not in the promised land, but still in the desert, and like Joshua and Caleb he was shouting, "Follow me and trust God!"

I see it now. I could see Satan lashing out on the earth like a madman, setting tribes against each other in Rwanda, whispering in men's ears in the Congo so that they rape rather than defend their women. Satan is at work in the cults of the Third World, the economic chaos in Argentina, and the corporate-driven greed of American corporate executives.

I lay there under the stars and thought of what a great responsibility it is to be human. I am a human because God made me. I experience suffering and temptation because mankind chose to follow Satan. God is reaching out to me to rescue me. I am learning to trust Him, learning to live by His precepts that I might be preserved.

Don Miller, Blue like Jazz

transitions

i like change. i like the excitement and anticipation of something different that it tends to bring. i like the feel of a fresh start and a chance to start over. however, few changes happen without a transition. transitions occur as we move from one thing to another. we transition from our cool car to our cool house, but rarely can do so without escaping the summer's heat. we transition from windows 2000 to windows xp but not without all that comes with learning new software and transferring all of our other data and programs. we usually like the outcome of the change, but it's the getting to that, the transition, that is the difficult part.

i don't like transitions. i don't like them because i feel out of control. i cannot keep myself from holding on to what was before because i can't hold on to anything ahead in the unknown. i don't understand myself when i'm in transition. i don't know what i feel one way when i want to feel another. some things that are silly seem important and other things that are important seem silly.

i transition into life as a working woman on monday. i think it will be good for me, i've had way to much time to think and piddle around the past few weeks. i am always busy and rarely watch tv or movies, but i have little to show for all of my "free" time. i look forward to the feeling of production.

i have discovered, though, my greatest fear in life: complacency. heights don't send me into a panic attack, i laugh in the face of spiders, and there are few bodily injuries i haven't faced. but there is something in me that wants to run the other way at any sign of becoming satisfied in myself. i think complacency is different than contentment. i think contentment does not keep you from trying new things or engaging change. but i think when you become complacent, you become resistant to change. i love my family and my house. i love the neighborhood i grew up in and the school i went to. i love my church and the friendships i have made there, but so much around me screams the "American Dream" and i am terrified. i do not want to settle into a life in which i work to live and to support my 2.5 children, mortgage and black lab. we were created for more than this. we were created to live a life to the full. i long to feel like my life is lived to the full. i'm not saying that it's wrong to live the American Dream. i'm just saying right now, i cannot.

i was reading this week in journey of desire (incredible book) and this hunger for more was stirred in my heart. "the meaning of our lives is revealed through experiences that at first seem at odds with each other-moments we wish would never end and moments we wish had never begun. those timeless experiences we want to last forever whisper to us that they were meant to." (eldredge 12) when we experience misery, it doesn't mean that we are not happy or unpleasant people. it just means that we have experienced life with more depth and meaning; our misery is our way of hungering for it again. by my own definition, i am miserable right now.

progression with difficulty

strug·gle : To progress with difficulty

this is what i did today, i progressed, but with difficulty. sometimes i think all progress requires difficulty. rarely have i felt i have grown or moved forward without a struggle. most of the time i give into the fight and surrender...thus, no steps forward. but today, i made a giant step. i don't really want to explain what or how.

just know that whatever it is, the struggle is worth it.