consider, even, the lilies

i've been thinking lately a lot about God's goodness and provision.

i had some hard weeks. i didn't like a lot of things and i lacked hope. it seemed that God kept piling things one on top of another. and each thing was heavier: loneliness, frustration, death, hopelessness....

i had a conversation with a friend somewhere in the middle of all of that, and she had had a similar time of loneliness about a year ago. she said that in it, she claimed and gave it to God, saying to Him that she would trust Him, for as long as it would last, and that she would hope in Him to get her through it. and now, the same time this year, she is probably experiencing one of the happiest times in her life.

at the same time the onset of all of this hurt set in was when i was rereading donald miller's searching for God knows what. it was a good reminder and time of reflection on why i felt the way i did and how i was interpreting things. i was feeling sorry for myself because i didn't seem to have the attention and value of others. but miller's book reminded me that the only approval i needed to be seeking was the Lord's, and that yes community was important but that it wasn't going to solve my problems or dictate my worth.

i was thankful for that reminder, and it lifted me somewhat out of the gloom, only to enter into again in a different way with the loss of my friend.

but let me just say, our God is faithful.
even one month after losing meredith and probably four months of fairly consistent sadness, i am already seeing the lessons God is teaching me come to fruition. i feel renewed in my love for others, in my energy to meet needs, in my ability to laugh and think about hard things and speak with honesty and love about them.

God has renewed me. i feel lighthearted, and am begging Him to allow it for a time. I am asking for guidance on finding a balance between giving my time to others and spending time alone with Him. i see with new clarity and certainty my need for God alone, and my desire to grow in that.

i am praying for something upcoming, i hope. God has put on my heart a call so deep that nothing else shakes it- a call to bring justice and hope to his children around the world. he has given me a love for simplicity and beauty in life over one of abundance and complexity, and i long to be able to better practice those desires.

it's interesting, i just read someone's blog and she had posted my most favorite passage from the Chroncles of Narnia, in Voyage of the Dawn Treader. i've been thinking about it a lot lately, and hope you'll enjoy it, too:


"And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

Then the Lion said- 'you will have to let me undress you.' I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

The very first tear he made so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know- if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like a billy-oh but it is fun to see it coming away....

Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off- just as I thought I'd done it myself the other three times, only they hadn't hurt- and there it was, only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly looking than the others had been. And there I was as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me- I didn't like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I'd no skin on- and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I'd turned into a boy again. You'd think me simply phoney if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they've no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian's, but I was so glad to see them."