January
17th-
I
have discovered a new place that I like very much. It’s the skeleton
of the new hotel rooms that Alpha is building. It’s fun to walk
through these walls and dream of the people that are going to stay
here. I should pray over it. As I’m up high, overlooking this section
of Lira, my heart swells with joy. How I have come to love this
place!
My
eyes roam to Pastor’s kids, washing dishes again… do they ever have
a day off? I wonder. Then I realize that they are washing the dishes
because we have made them dirty. I wish I could help them, but that
is taken as offense.
I
feel…. playful today. I realize that I am usually the happiest when
I feel playful… save those rare moments with God. I am discovering
a lot about myself/ God because the two are intertwined. New
revelations about God always lead to new revelations about myself and “vicey-versa”, as PJ says.
I
always thought that experiencing God would lead to greater
ecstasies… but that may not be the cause. Yes, I believe that God
delivers divine ecstasies and revelations of joy, but it’s not just a
big love fest, or joy fest.
I
used to believe that like as a christian was easier than that of a
non-believer. “Life is full of pain,” I would always say, “but at
least as a believer, I have the hope of a time when there isn’t pain.”
Yes… life is FULL of pain. I used to think life dealt pain equally-
believer or non, but now I wonder if believers endure more pain than
those who don’t believe.
Those
who don’t live in a constant state of numbness, but, us… we are
constantly experiencing rays of ecstasies, taste of the other
superior world that make the pains of this monotonous world so much sharper.
We
are constantly trying to open our hearts to experience more of HIM,
so we aren’t guarded when heartache comes.
We
are constantly trying to have open hands to the heavens, so we have
nothing to break our fall. I say nothing, but I do know that God
would catch me if ever the fall was fatal,
but
I believe that He doesn’t catch us if the fall is less than that.
No.
He is a loving father who wills us to feel raw pain,
to
bleed without clot,
and
to scar ourselves from the falls.
Maybe
it’s because we remember raw pain,
can
see the stains from the blood we shed,
and
the the scars that He promises will turn into beauty marks.
That
is, after all, the way that Jesus lived. Even thought he knew Judas
and Peter would betray Him, he still befriended them, He still opened
his heart to them. Even though he knew it would hurt, he still bled
as the whips lashed his body, and the ground tore his feet. And his
hands… his hands. He still bears the scars when he fell for my
sake.
Why
do we think this world will be a comfortable, easy place for us, if
God didn’t even let it be for His own son?
No.
God does not promise a life without bruise, heartbreak, or scars..
he does promise hope.
hope to focus on when our minds and bodies are breaking.
A
hope that is real.
A
hope worth living for.
