Aiming for You.

There is so much going on inside lately but it's all too private to broadcast. I've been on a journey of becoming more free and it has not been the quick transportation that I was secretly hoping for... more like a slow saunter down an all-too-familiar old road.

Things may look & feel the same in my day-to-day, but I'm going somewhere new. I believe it. This is like the "one last goodbye" saunter where I look over the old ground and then turn away from it forever.

I've talked here about my struggle with intimacy and how it has affected every single part of who I am. I am currently on a journey of unpacking that struggle and basically choosing not to live that way anymore because it has all been based on a lie.

I can know deep intimacy. In friendships, in marriage, and in my relationship with God and my children.

Sometimes we are led to believe lies when we are SO young, and then we base our entire lives off of that falsity. It is not easy to backtrack and rebuild. But it is worth it. The God that I believe in is a Repairer of Broken Walls and a Restorer of Streets with Dwellings. He can wipe away this age-old lie and replace it with a foundation of flashing sapphires. And then, before you know it, He's hoisting up battlements of rubies and gates of precious stones. Over time, the "slimy sand-castle" way of existing becomes a distant dream, and the strength you feel running through you makes the very ground rumble as your enemy flees to cower under the shelter of a rock.

That is the strength of my God. Whom shall I fear?

Even though now it is a struggle every single moment to choose Him over the World, I know that this season will strengthen me and end in a good result, if I can only keep my eyes on Him. I am thankful for these tumultuous times. They are producing in me perseverance, which births character. And character brings forth hope. And hope, by its very nature, cannot disappoint.

Lord, watch over these faltering steps. I am aiming for You.

Prideful Fear.

I switched over from the classic blogger template to the newer version last night and only had about three nervous meltdowns in the process. {Go team me!} I had to recreate this website from scratch in the wee hours of the morning and while I was tweaking it and trying to salvage all those years of shoddy patchwork HTML coding, I just kept thinking of the few of you who might be checking my site at that moment and going blind from the horrendous hodge-podge that smacked you in the face instead of the nice, calming, neutral toned blog you'd come to expect here.

The good news: Now the site is much easier to maintain and also much easier to browse. Oh- and while I'm on clean up duty round these parts, let me know if there's anything else you'd like to see here or any ideas you have that would make this blog better. Things are still a bit wonky in places and will need to be messed with over time, so be patient with me, but please let me know if you see anything that is a little bit (or a LOT bit) 'off'.

Thank'ee kindly!

****************

Switching gears....  This morning at church I was hit with some gnarly revelations about pride and the fact that when I stew in anxiety and fear and worry, I am saying that I don't trust God and by not trusting God I am saying that I think I can handle things better than He can, and, when it comes down to it,  these things are really just PRIDE all gussied up in sheep's clothing.

5 Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” 6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, 7 casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Humility = Casting your cares on HIM.

So... conversely:

Pride = Not casting your cares on Him.

I had never thought about anxiety in that light before. It was like everything suddenly clicked and it made even more sense why I shouldn't go around living in fear of every single little thing the media tells me I should be terrified of. (lookout!!!  behind that tree!! germs! kidnappers! stretch marks!)

I think that a lot of times we believe that our constant anxiety and fear about things that we ultimately can't control make us better somehow.  Almost... righteous.  It becomes almost like this comfort thing... like we find our identity and worth on this earth within that fear rather than God Himself.  They become identity-stealing distractions.

God has been speaking to me so much lately about my roles as a woman and wife and mother and child and I was so blessed this morning to realize that at the root of every fear of mine, there is pride. I love learning how endlessly deep God's Words are when you stop and sink down in them a bit.  It HELPS me to know that this is where some of this stuff is coming from.  It helps me know how to pray (for myself) and find the deep down cause of some of the stuff I worry about all the time.

I want to be ever growing and changing and learning new things about God and his words.  I could learn a new thing about Him every second of every day and still only scratch the surface of all that He is.

I was so glad to be reminded of that this morning- that no matter how long I've known Him and walked with Him and studied His words...

I will never come to the end of Him.

Hallelujah.