sacrifice

And so am I writing this for you or am I writing this for me? Is it for me to give up my petty little pride war with myself or am I to pursue empty dreams of pure motives?

Pretty words, surely. I know I'm good at pretty little words, designed to stir up emotions. But are they the right words?

It feels like going out on a limb, saying the stuff I'm intending to say. I don't know if it will ring true, if it will address the right issues at the right moment. But it feels strangely like speaking to myself. It feels like reminding myself that my song is my sacrifice. That that is an area that I will truly have to lay down my pride every single day. And it will cost.

It will cost me the idea of freedom and anonymity. It will cost me the right to live and dress any way that I want to. It will drive from my head every single niggling thought that my voice is my own, that my talent is my own to use as I will. It will crush every diva thought that I am better than you just because of what I can do.

Most of all, it requires that I give up this stupid idea that I cannot serve God because my motives are not as pure as I wish them to be, because this is what it means to give up your all. To make your most precious gift, most beloved part of yourself, to make it His.

Don't show off. Show up.

unspeakable

I wish I had more to say about Christmas.
But I can't find words.

I feel like I have things to say, but I don't know how to say it.
So for now it will suffice that I have decided to stay, and stay I will.

How do you describe a feeling that has endless words in your mind that won't stay written, thoughts that are jumbled, and yet so clear, ungraspable if there is such a word.

But clarity is needed, clarity in some ways has come but not in everything.
Maybe that is enough for now.

dreams

So I said that I didn't really have any dreams, that I've decided not to think so far into the future. And maybe it's true, or maybe it's not.

Or maybe I deny myself the dreams that I dream because everything I have ever hoped and dreamed for has been buried and crushed and shattered. Maybe there are too many hurts that I cannot overcome, or hurdles that I cannot force myself to face. Maybe I am not good enough, talented enough or persistent enough to see what I dreamed of come true.

Or maybe I have too many dreams, too many things riding along in my head and heart that I don't know which to pursue, or how to go about it. Maybe I have too much wealth of ambition and desires that I cannot grasp all and so I do not grasp anything at all, like the greedy monkey who was trapped because he would not let go of the treasures he grasped in the bottle.

And so I withdraw into my shell and hide, and tell myself that if my motivations are not right, I do not want to do anything that would put me in a situation that would expose the depth and height and width of pride and hypocrisy that I see in myself every day. So maybe I am proud in my abstinence, just as I feared that I would be proud in my participation.

And so maybe, just maybe, I am just thinking too hard again, trying to squeeze out motivations that are or are not there, trying to track down if I glory in myself or if I glory in God, forgetting once again, that when we glorify God, God himself is our glory.

The Moab Option

Before Israel was ruled by kings, Elimelech from the tribe of Ephrath lived in the town of Bethlehem. His wife was named Naomi, and their two sons were Mahlon and Chilion. But when their crops failed, they moved to the country of Moab. And while they were there, Elimelech died, leaving Naomi with only her two sons. Later, Naomi's sons married Moabite women. One was named Orpah and the other Ruth. About ten years later, Mahlon and Chilion also died. Now Naomi had no husband or sons.

Ruth 1:1-5

The message preached was to stay in the land; stay in the place of God’s covering and planting. Leaving the hedge of God’s protection, as green as the grass may seem on the other side leads to even worse devastation.

Don’t take the Moab option. Simple enough, but it isn’t as clear-cut as that.

It would have been fairly simple if I had simply stopped going to church. The message then would be ‘go back to church’, except that if I had stopped going to church, I wouldn’t have heard the message. It’s fairly simple to tell one to stay in the land, no matter how bleak it looks. The question I struggle with now is this: Where is the land?

Is it here, or was it there? Did I step out of the land or did I step into it? I have no clue and I don’t know where to look. If feelings were a true indicator of anything, neither one would serve. If rationality were to prevail, I would say the here and the now is the best place for this time. But if you were to look forward to the future and try to see where I would be best placed, like a pawn in a chess game, I would tell you that I don’t know.

I don’t want to make a decision based purely on emotions neither do I want to make it based on sheer rationality. I’ve made those before and what may seem rational may not exactly be right. Neither is what’s emotional. Added to that, I don’t know what I really feel anymore; it could be hormones or guilt or God.

It doesn’t make sense, this decision, and yet it does. Why do I always feel as if it’s time to give up everything and move again just when I’m finally being settled? Just when I’m finally beginning to be comfortable with myself and think that maybe this time, just maybe I can belong? Is it something in my psyche that tells me it’s not okay to be comfortable or happy? That it’s better to be one, alone?

Is this exile temporary or permanent, self-inflicted or God-led? Is it even exile? It could very well be the Promised Land. It’s not as if I have forsaken the company of the saints. If anything, I have aligned myself to the company of those that have taken me in unconditionally.

But where do I go from here? Do I make a decision now to commit, to stay, build and grow or do I return to where awkwardness and bitterness still roots in my heart?

Maybe the answer is as they say; to stay until I am sure that I am to leave. Until I have comfort in leaving. The other question then arises: if this were a command from God, what then would this disobedience cost me? And yet I don’t know one way or another which is God and which is me and which or all could be the Enemy’s victory.

Don’t take the Moab option. Easy enough to say, but which one is it?