path to this race I have been noticing changes within me. Things aredrastically being recalled from my heart and reissued in a new way.
It is strange to watch, because I
almost feel like a voyeur in my own life. It is as if I am a witness to
these
events and do not feel like a part of them. Is this what
it means when I hear that I am not
my own?
Let me paint you a picture. Eight months ago I had just
moved to Denver, Colorado. As a Florida transplant, I had
taken a new job and bounded off
to the west looking for adventure and success. And a funny
thing happened. I found them.
Both of them; mixed somewhere between the wild august grasses and
frantic
leaves. They were waiting for me. So I held them both in
my
hands, rolling them between my fingers as though they were toys. And
suddenly
the things that I desired most in my life were reduced to mere trifles
of
youth. I stared in wonder at these ideals,
puzzled at how I could have ever desired them in the first place.
It was a strange experience. The entire world that
I had dared to dream for
myself shrank and almost disintegrated into dust. I wasn’t
even that disappointed. It felt as though I had oddly
known
this would happen all along. The
world would not be enough for me.
By the time that winter roared in with ice and snow, success
and adventure were merely ghosts of my heart. God had
started to slowly take me over, and resurrect
passion and life in new ways. And it was not until recently when I had
stopped
to take stock of my life that I realized just how drastic the
differences were.
I had always wanted a career. Now I want to be a
mother. I have always desired to do things alone. Now
I want a partner. I have always walked in fear. Now
I walk in peace. I have always been the first to
speak. Now I am a patient
listener. I used to take
whatever anyone would give me. Now
I desire to give it all back. And
these are just the character traits, let us not even mention the house
in the Hamptons,
and wardrobe full of khaki and pink that was on my ‘to have before I
die.’
And as I sat in quiet reflection at all of these things, I
opened my Bible to this. “The
kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will
people
say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is
within you.” Luke 17:20
So there it is.
I’ve spent my life looking for a kingdom of my own to rule, when
all
along I was clueless to realize there was one already ruling me.
