Losing your footing

An excerpt from a daily devotional I read, authored by Max Lucado.

"God is strong and can help you not to fall." - Jude 24

"You and I are on a great climb.... You took your first step the day you confessed Christ as the Son of God.  He gave you his harness - the Holy Spirit.  In your hands he placed a rope - his Word.  Your first steps were confident and strong, but with the journey came weariness, and with the height came fear. You lost your footing.... For a moment, which seemed like forever, you tumbled wildly.... But then the rope tightened, and the tumble ceased.... And though you can't see your guide, you know him. You know he is strong. You know he is able to keep you from falling."

Safe & Sound

Lately I've been inspired, by this song.  Safe and Sound sung by Taylor Swift, is on the soundtrack for the movie The Hunger Games that premiered in theaters across the nation this last spring.  I don't know what it is about this song that just "gets me." Maybe it's the eerie breathiness, or the haunting harmonies, regardless it's shaking fingers touch my heart, its in my mind. What I find most poignant is how this sweet melancholy is bound within this song - a real pain, and a lingering hope.   

Sweet melancholy is one of the aspects of life I most appreciate. Now don't get me wrong, I don't particularly enjoy pain and I am not masochistic. However, I do have a poets soul and most times that keeps me floating somewhere above the ground, fully here, but not quite. This sweet melancholy, is in essence, leaning into the pain, and in that, recognizing the beauty of the present.

I feel very deeply, but I see the purpose in the hurt, the purpose in the trials.

I don't have this incredible strength or an optimism that overlooks all odds, or even a faith that stands firm and resolute.  And perhaps this is a way that I cope with allowing myself to feel, by turning everything into a poetic expression; regardless, it has helped me, in light of circumstances, to see the beauty that remains.  But I consider it a precious gift to be able to have my heart break and move towards unwavering hope, to feel at peace deep within my soul.

Some may ask: well, what's the point? Why go through this, if it only brings hurt?

My answer to that would be along these lines...
If by chance, my hurt, and journey from it can help a single soul, it has been worth it.  If I can relate, or hold someone's hand -  if I can sit with someone in a dark place, so they know they aren't alone, it has been worth it. If I can whisper hope, and visions of freedom into their ear, then it has been worth it.

Or, say in the case of love - whether it is Phileo, which is most often loosely defined as "brotherly love" or in a more romantic sense - what is it to mean to Agape love within those two contexts?  It's the idea that you love without abandon.  You love courageously, ultimately in the face of rejection or with the the realization that the other person may never understand that love or even reciprocate it.

In matters of the heart, there is incredible risk.  Most people harden up their hearts to protect themselves from getting hurt - and I understand that response, it's normal.  But to emulate the ultimate love I've experienced in my life, Christ's love for me, I recognize characteristics that are essential to not only love fully, but also live fully....

Christ never hesitates to pour out love, even in our unfaithfulness, which is for me, more often than I'd like to admit.  And when He pours it out, He withholds nothing.  He gives everything to people who don't deserve it, understand it, or even want it.

I don't avoid pain.  I don't hate it.  But I do understand it's role in my life.

And in the midst of pain, I know that I'll be safe and sound...

I remember tears streaming down your faceWhen I said, "I'll never let you go"When all those shadows almost killed your lightI remember you said, "Don't leave me here alone,"But all that's dead and gone and passed tonight 

Just close your eyesThe sun is going downYou'll be alrightNo one can hurt you nowCome morning lightYou and I'll be safe and sound 

Don't you dare look out your window darlingEverything's on fireThe war outside our door keeps raging onHold on to this lullabyEven when the music's goneGone 

Embrace the sweet melancholy, and keep stepping on.  Your life is a beautiful song.

Purpose & Needs

I was in the middle of an altar call. I was searching for some sort of encouragement, that God would use one of these pastors to confirm and speak into my life. I prayed under my breath, "God, please hear me. Please pour out your love on me." I heard him reply, "Anuhea, in private I will pour my love on you, but now, you need to open up your eyes to the hurt around you."

This is my purpose here. It reminds me of a prophetic word that I received this summer:
"you arent like the weak lamb that needs constant care. You are like the Shepard. this role requires more responsibility...the one always helping and rarely receiving help. God chose you for this role because He knows you can and will handle it."

I am so humbled that God would pick me. This role I know, breathes life and brings healing, I'm so honored that God would entrust me in this capacity. These hearts are of high importance to Him, so they must also be to me.

I try to be strong for others and for myself, but my heart needs strength, support, encouragement, care, grace, understanding and most importantly - unconditional, unending, all encompassing love, as I stumble my way through this process.

Dreamer

By surprise he crept in.
He moved so smoothly,
I was sure I was dreaming.
I turn around to see his beautiful face -
but he is gone.
He left me, just as quietly as he came.

2.0

Somewhere in the last year, I forgot the extent of God's love for me.  I forgot the ways in which he touched my heart. I forgot his tenderness and about his attention to detail.  I forgot that he wants to set my heart aflame with his love. I forgot that he is with me, always.

I want to walk consciously with that thought, that God is ALWAYS with me. It transforms thought and it shifts paradigms.

On a different note..............
I love Lord of the Rings.  My favorite character is Arwen, I want to be like her.  There is this fierce beauty to her.  She is both an elegant maiden and a warrior.  Tolkien describes her in the following way:

Young she was and yet not so. The braids of her dark hair were touched by no frost; her white arms and clear face were flawless and smooth, and the light of stars was in her bright eyes, grey as a cloudless night; yet queenly she looked, and thought and knowledge were in her glance, as of one who has known many things that the years bring.

Obviously, there is a bit of fantasy here, something I will never be able to physically attain...but I'd like to be captivating, and inviting, elegant and wise. I cannot strive to be like that though...it would defeat the purpose.  To be beautiful is to be at rest.  I cannot strive, instead I must be.  And to be, I must find myself in God. For it's his beauty that lasts.  My beauty is only a result of his.

1.0

A couple close girlfriends and I have started a quest. We are single, and important to many single girl's is her heart.  Our hearts, as women, are beautiful things.  They are like jewels, to be cherished and sought after.  Like the King's prized gems, they are kept locked away for a select few to enjoy, including himself. He gazes upon his jewels lovingly, he makes sure they shine brightly and beautifully.  To be this beautiful gem, however, the stone had to be chiseled, scrapped, smoothed, sanded, polished. The King desired them too much to leave them how they were, he knew that they were beautiful and deserved display, for others to look on their beauty in awe.  Had it not been for the King's fierce devotion to his crowned jewels, they would not be so beautiful.

So during the next 24 hours we are intentionally choosing love.  We are choosing love over our comfort.  We are choosing to throw ourselves into the arms of God in hopes that he will take our hearts and take care of them.

It's hard to release control, but it's necessary.  I know I cannot take as good of care of my heart as he can.  I need him to hold it.

Beginning this process, I've raked through my heart and have found that I am painfully insecure (something not completely surprising to discover).  This is not a competition.  I'm not meant to strive.  I'm meant to be, to exist, to live in the fullness of who I've been created to be.

What does that look like?  I don't know.
How do I be vulnerable while still protecting my heart? I don't know.

I suppose the only answer I do have, is that we must love people the way God has loved us.
I know that that means to love with the risk of that love not being returned.
It means to love selflessly.
It means to love passionately.
It means to love purely.
It means sacrifice.
It means surrendering your heart.
It means knowing your design.
It means giving grace, and allowing grace for yourself.
It means being intentional with relationships.
It means being tender.
It means loving honestly.

How do I do that while still "protecting my heart"? I don't know yet.

I hope that God will show me.  I desire to know his heart for me.