To Becoming

I came back to my desk just now to find these beautiful flowers and a misspelled note from my mom (via 1800flowers). What a beautiful and day-brightening gesture. The blooms are magnificent, and there's something quite mysterious about the typo-ed note. I'd like to interpret it as a call to be my better self. I'm not her just yet. I've got some growing to do. But, here's looking at using this season to become.*

*This is a borrowed statement from my favorite and oft-reread portion of this article by Shauna Niequist. The whole thing is poignant, but skip down to the "Don't get Stuck" paragraph to dig into this reference.

Depend

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Praying today that the words of Paul -- a man happy to recognize his weakness as an invitation of Christ's strength -- would be my daily bread.

I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 1 Co. 2:9-10

Dress Up

This is my new valentines-day slash party frock, and I feel like a million bucks wearing it. Yeah for new clothes and the confidence boost they sometimes bring. But in donning new duds I also face this challenge to become a new wearer of clothes.

A new dress doesn't get you anywhere. It's the life you are leading in the dress, and the sort of life that you lived before and what you did later. - Diana Vreeland

Cold Tangerines

"I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now." -- Cold Tangerines by Shauna Niequest

I am hungry for this fruit. It may be a while before I taste it. I'm currently in the thick of grieving loss, and it's not pretty. And while I cry out and feel forsaken, I know that I am not to grieve like the rest of men. Because I have a God who helps to turn the corner in my heart when I can't. I have a hope -- what right now, feels like a tiny candle's flame of hope. I want to plant myself next to the water that is Truth, establish roots in His Word, become a flourishing tree that bears much fruit. And I want to be able to eat cold tangerines, and giggle, and see redemption in the routine of life.

Lord, turn the corner in my heart

image from here

When I write here, I often feel as though I need to have come to some great revelation; that the Lord needs to have already done some work in my heart that gives me the authority to speak. When you put your words into print, there's just something that feels a bit more been there, learned this. But, today, I am writing as one broken. Today, I write as a heap who needs help being picked up. Today, it feels like my heart is paper-thin and tattered. I am sad, and struggling to put hope in my God. Though I know nothing of the physical and emotional suffering of Job, I find myself in the pain of his accusatory words. Have you forgotten me, O God?

I pray the Lord to turn a corner in my heart, that I can hope in the words of Job's friend:

But if you will seek God earnestly and plead with the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, even now he will rouse himself on your behalf and restore you to your prosperous state. Your beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will your future be.

Job 8:5-7