March 15, 2012

Deut 23:5 However, the Lord your God would not listen to Balaam but turned the curse into a blessing, because the Lord your God loves you.

Phil 1:18b-19 Yes, and I will continue to rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help given by the spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.

John 16:20-22 I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. So with you; Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy.

I do believe Beth Moore is correct when she says anguish is meant to lead to a birth. I was right when I told Jane I have so much hope and my heart is so full that I'm afraid I won't be able to do everything I want to do. I want to be a good, a better, friend by being honest with them and more confident about my feelings about what they're saying to me. I want to listen better to them. I want to study the word of the Lord my God the way I never have so that I can remember it and keep it as a tool instead of reading it all the time and remembering it for a short time just because I think it sounds beautiful. I believe there is a birth coming. And I've even loved Lent so much it doesn't need to happen extra soon, but I know it will anyway.

March 3, 2012

Indiana is beautiful and restorative for me. Every conversation and interaction with Jay and Jenny is exactly the same as 9 years ago this time, they're still together, it's still the sweet mutually appreciative thing where we love each other and now they have 3 children and the children are smart and wild boys and one baby who loves me and Jenny calls me her BFF. We drink tea and catch up and cook meals and today we went to Amish country and ate fried chicken and now we're home and Jenny's working on her dissertation and Jay's playing words with friends and I'm journaling. This used to be my life. It seems as though at least one thing I thought was gone had never disappeared.

I feel as though I'm entering into a place of rest. I mean, maybe I am. Who knows. I always feel like I want to declare some place I'm 'entering into' because I'm so excited about living. There's growth, where I want to grow things and be diligent about some outside of myself hobby and so I am growing roses. There's the part that wants to share my gifts and so I am teaching. But because the Lord wants so badly to teach me to let him intervene, I opened myself up to whatever and now I am playing an integral art in the life of a friend and I'm teaching her how to cook, along with teaching someone new how to play the piano. I'm going to be a 'satellite' teacher for Holly Evans, I can't wait. I feel so much more normal than I thought I would, getting things taken care of. It's both beautiful and gratifying.

March 12, 2012

So sweet. I felt in the beauty and sanctity of mass today the presence of God's promise that we are indeed together and that the desires for my life, all of them, and the goals and loves of my life, all of them, are safe within his recesses and that my path is safe and carved out for the two of us and that I've been given the Word and the wisdom to follow its guidance and that there is so much that is being figured out right now. Jenny and I walked around the Basilica and I took pictures and at the Grotto which commemorates the sighting of the Virgin Mary in France somewhere I lit a candle to bless the Lord and help me remember this sweet time between us, and tive me a physical action to be a reminder of God's promise to me on Earth. And Jenny and I talked about relics in the House of the Lord and them being necessary for reminding us of the physical coming of the Kingdom of Heaven. And I'm watching my friends love their sweet brilliant children more than life. And I'm letting God bless me amidst my sin and my attempts at goodness and my regrets and my gratefulness.