mini-polka-dot skirt can turn into an strapless, empire-waist, below the knee
dress with just some string. Sarongs
are also quite versatile: for our
formal Christmas dinner/skit/white elephant gift exchange extravaganza, my
sarong was my shawl and Brenda’s served as our curtain for our skit.
eight (nine?) 300 ml glass bottles of Krest (bitter lemon soda, deelish!), an
already empty (not by us, I promise) beer bottle and some water. You could only imagine the sense of
accomplishment we felt when we performed “Silent Night” and “Jingle Bells” with
these instruments. And you had to be
there and, to be blunt, on our squad, to fully enjoy the comedic genius of Ben
Eppinger and Emily Rhea.
But of course, to make this a truly well-rounded New Year’s
Eve, I had my share of tears along with the belly-aching, imma-pee-myself laughter.
You see, one of the few, if any, expectations/hopes I had as
I embarked on this crazy trek was to fall in love with God. In the past few weeks, I’ve been getting
schooled about what love truly is. I
even had a chance to share with some young Kenyan women the idea that Jesus is
our bridegroom.
I’ve been reminding myself that I’m spending this year
recovering from being Martha to become more like Mary. What I realized ten minutes before it became
2009 was that falling in love is scary. It dawned on me the reason why I don’t think I’ve been “truly, madly,
deeply” (thank you, Savage Garden) in love: because it means I have to let my
guard down.
Perhaps this is blatantly clear to most of you, but if
you’re in love with someone, if you do love someone, you risk getting
hurt. Getting intimate will mean
getting uncomfortable. I didn’t want to
take that chance with a person, but now I see it’s not the same with
Jesus.
Being vulnerable to Him is not a gamble; while the stakes
are high, the cross is proof that he put Himself out there, on the line, to
love me.
I used to get tired of people praying over me that He loves
me. That’s it? I’d wonder; but that’s
so obvious, I’d protest. Why I can’t
get a sexier kind of prophesy? Something involving me curing x number of babies from AIDS in month y,
you know?
Yet hearing the simple but deep truth that He loves me never
fails to make me cry. And with tears, I
confessed that this month of being in the desert, literally and spiritually,
left me so dry and thirsty. Then Summer
prayed briefly over me – that He’s delighted in me – and I was so stunned, yet
again, that He. Loves. Me.
“My heart is yours,” I hear God say in a song we sang over a
bonfire tonight. Love as strong as
death, jealousy demanding as the grave. . . this is His love for me.
Yeah, it’s gonna hurt a lot. There’s a lot about me I know needs to change. I’m coming to terms that I’m not as
wonderful as I thought I was. But, I
sense that that’s not the end of it, there’s no need to despair.
He still loves me. “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.” His love is transforming me, but He doesn’t love me any more or
less where I am right here, right now.
Why should I fear? Over and over again, He has to hit me with a hammer with the truth that
He loves me soooo much; He always has, He always will. So. . . I share all this to declare that my
resolution for this year is not to be afraid of falling in love with God.
