A Little of My Heart

I realize that I should be reading Shakespeare right now, and I probably will as soon as I am done with this entry. But sometimes there are occasions to write because the heart yearns to be heard...

This is a wierd season for me. Good, but wierd nonetheless. What does it mean that I'm graduating in a week? What does it mean that I'm getting married in less than five months? What does it mean that the dynamics of many of my relationships have and will continue to change? What does it mean that my ideas of ministry, that the longing of my heart for past ministries are no longer options? Why do I look forward to the next step so eagerly, and yet look at the shaping moments of my life with such fondness that I feel like I could go back to them in a second - not to stay, but to visit (i.e. Calvin Crest).

The truth is, I am His. I belong to no one but the Father. Not my parents, not my friends, not JD... but Him. I am His. He calls me and I go. Sometimes stubbornly, sometimes reluctantly, sometimes willingly, sometimes eagerly, sometimes fearfully... but I always go. That's the nature of my heart. In the act of being His, I am accountable to Him - to trust Him and to abide with Him. I am reminded of when I had a bone tumor my sophomore year of high school. My parents were devestated and scared, but they realized that I wasn't theirs. I was and continue to be God's. He does with me what He wants and the world has no say in it. Do I understand that? Do I live freely in that? Am I willing to understand that people are hurt by that? Do I entrust others to Him just as He has entrusted myself to Him? Do I realize that just as He is doing a work in me, He is doing so in others too? Or am I so self absorbed that I live my life pleasing people and worrying about their feelings?

Enough, He says.

Move with me, He summons.

I am on this path right now... this journey that is taking me somewhere. I know of some of His plans, I am confident of marriage and something to do with seminary... but I have no idea where He is taking me. I've stopped trying to figure it out - I'm trying to live in it now. I know that the cry of my heart is to live unreservedly for Jesus, to live 'radically' (as I so often used to say) for the furtherance of the Kingdom. And although my heart isn't always in it, although the desert of this faith keeps me wondering, I know that He shaped my heart first and claims it always.

More than ever I am learning to be confident of who I am in Christ... and it doesn't lie in my talents, spiritual gifts, dreams, relationships, struggle with sin, sins that I've committed, etc... Who I am rests solely in being claimed by Him. It is here that I find freedom.

Right now I smell a campfire. I realize I'm in the middle of the city - and it is probably just a BBQ or something - but it brings me back to a nostalgic place nonetheless. In this place I am sitting around a campfire with a handful of brothers and sisters in Christ. We're roasting marshamallows and singing to the strum of a guitar. We play hotseat, getting to know each other in our vulnerability. Plans are being made for the summer... and we laugh. a lot. I'm taken back there and then taken to the idea that there will be more campfires to come. More fellowship around an intimate circle... more laughs... I'm reminded that we go through seasons and that it is necessary. That our faith is not meant to be stagnant, but rather ever changing... So here we go in this thing called life... We go boldly into the next season because He is guiding us. We understand that our call is not to live comfortably, but to live willing to be stretched and changed and transformed.

It's late now, and this entry is long. It's a bit scattered I know... but in the midst of the cluttered words, there is a piece of my heart. Good night friends. Rest well.