Whisked Away

It's November 22nd and it feels like September 3rd.
It's a balmy 65 degrees out and the wind has just come to a hush.
I wait in anticipation for the gusts to come billowing towards me again, making the water on the lake dance and shimmer.
My hair tickles my neck and I'm thankful for it.
Even though I was just complaining about it being far too long merely 3 minutes previous.
I just got a glimpse of the Heaven's scenery as the bronze colored leaves were whisked together to form an inappropriately timed autumn tornado.
I mean it's almost December for goodness' sake!

The leaves died down only to get sucked back into the sky as though they were unashamedly running towards their creator.
What a beautiful example.

My friend sits across from me, eyes fixed on her work, critically scrutinizing the ins and outs her her latest assignment.
Who would have thought University could make one so careful and conscientious for 5 days and indescribably irresponsible and idiotic for the remaining two?
It's the Jekyll and Hide phenomenon of college, I suppose.

With only 2 short days left until I return to my home, which, as much as I am still fervently loyal to 57 Berlin Road, is becoming a center of joy, I have to take a step back and look at how far I have come.

Or rather, how far God has taken me.
And as I think about the things I have learned, the work I have done and the friendships I am forming, I'm amazed.  Not at the capability of God, but at the grace of God.  I don't deserve any of this, because He would be glorified without my existence. But He loves me.  And it's beautiful.

The Power of Knowledge

You're better than this.
Whatever it is that you keep telling yourself... it's wrong.
You can do better.
You will do better.
You can defeat the things that overwhelm you.
Not by yourself, no never.
But with the Lord, anything is possible.

But dang it's hard.

I keep having to tell myself over and over and over again that God is bigger than anything I could possibly be going through.
He is bigger than anything I can imagine happening to me.
He is bigger.
He is stronger.
And He is SO real.

It's so hard being on your own.
Having to fight for yourself and not having someone else to turn to other than God.
Okay, that's not really true. I have so much support.

I need to realize that it's not up to me.
IT never was and it never will be.
I need to remember that relief is present and relief is coming.
I want to do that again. I want to remember.

Sometimes my thoughts are so disjointed from what I am portraying to be me.
Sometimes my emotions don't match up with the situation and sometimes who I AM is not what everyone else sees.

I am blindly trusting God.
Not because I doubt that He will always hold me close but because right now, I can't feel Him holding me close.
But I know the Truth.
The Truth that He will NEVER leave me.

It doesn't matter if I don't feel it or believe it at the moment, I know that it's true.
And if I know that, I will always have a foundation that will not falter.

Yea, it actually makes no sense at all.
It sounds completely backwards and upside down and downright idiotic to blindly trust something that I cannot see, cannot feel at the moment and cannot believe in at times.
But that's what's so beautiful about it.

I have a tendency to throw myself at people and things anyway. I tend to overly trust people and ideas and concepts, to the extent that it can hurt me.
And in this one case its the best thing God could have ever given me.
He is the one thing I know will NEVER fail me, the one person who I KNOW will always call me back when I break his heart over and over again.
That itself is humbling.

Knowledge is so underrated and misunderstood.
Knowledge can be one of the best tools to have, which might sound weird coming from someone who just said leaping into the Love of God blindly is one of the most freeing things you can do.
Knowledge, and I don't mean book knowledge, can help to separate the twisted, murky, lustful, hating, jealous emotions and thoughts from the truth.
Because in the end, it's the TRUTH that matters.

It's the trust in the knowledge that God's kingdom is being furthered by your actions, if you are in fact pursuing Christ, whether you feel passionate in them or not.
Whether you are happy while doing them or not. Whether you can say with all honesty that you love what you're doing.
Trusting that what Jesus said, that in the end the Kingdom of God will prevail, will never lead you astray, even if you FEEL it has.

I will be the first to tell you that emotions can distort your perception of everything and that they can mess with your mind and they can skew what you know.
But I'm learning the importance of Truth.
I'm learning the importance of being able to hold on to the knowledge that God will prevail no matter how many new emotions I discover I am capable of and no matter how many destructive things they cause me to do.

It is with undying trust in the knowledge of my beautiful Savior that I leap into His love and protection. It is with determined faith that, in the end, I know joy will be in my heart for eternity.