WHOOO it's been a while, I know.

So,  perhaps I let myself let time slip by without writing much of my thoughts on here.  It's not that I haven't been thinking, Lord knows that would be near impossible, but that I have been accidentally expressing myself through other avenues, so writing here would feel repetitive.  I always make fun of my mother for being repetitive, so I'll justify my absence with that.

       The definition of letting go and trusting in God becomes very physically, emotionally, and mentally apparent when you find yourself in the precise moment of uncomfortableness.  For example, I have a particular way of ordering my days, and when things, especially people, disrupt that order I tend to make sure that such rudimentary order is reinstated whether or not they need to be.  Because lets face it, nobody is going to die if they don't get to go where they want to go when they want to ...(in most cases).  If you're going to nit-pick at the meaning of that and argue about hospitalizations or abductions, go right ahead.  For everyone else who gets my point, let me continue by saying that I had the most awful headache (migraine?) today after my early morning bible study.  I had made plans, which by the way give me heaps of anxiety, with a very dear friend of mine after the study.  I tend to steer away from plan, but find them necessary as well in order to keep my anxieties at bay.  However, I am learning that regardless of my plans, anxiety itself must be done away with at it's root.  So, whether I  make plans or not, I am relying on God to bring me freedom from such illusory panic attacks.  It doesn't make sense (to me, at least) why one would have anxiety over meeting someone, but I do, and I don't want to.  So I'm riding the uncomfortable boat that makes me seasick (literally) towards the unknown, hoping and praying that I don't get eaten up by sharks along the way, which is how it feels like even when the boat I'm in is actually a rubber tube in my backyard swimming pool.  Talk about irrational fears.


       So here I am, post migraine, and grateful for the time I got to spend with my dear friend.  Of course for the first 10 minutes I was in physical agony, not showing it externally, but I prayed in my mind that the headache would subside, and that I would stop thinking about wanting to get away.  Somewhere along the conversation, which at first felt forced and obsolete due to throbbing in my head, I felt better and even stimulated by what she had to say.  Of course I did, she's a brilliant mind, and I admire her, so really it was more about me getting over myself and asking God to give me peace about the situation, in essence to give Him control of my time.  I probably only wanted to get out of there as soon as I could because that would mean I was doing what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, versus respecting the fact that she had made time to see me making it a mutual exchange.  I can be so selfish a lot of the times, and if I don't write about it I usually will not recognize it.

       This laying down of oneself and trusting in God is quite the process.  Uncomfortable like airplane seats or using a bathroom stall with a broken lock.  But when I relinquish my fears about control, I find a genuine freedom so peculiar in it's nature of logic.  I no longer fear that I will not have enough time, because time is not mine to have in the first place.  Therefore the time I am given, with whomever I am with is a gift to be thankful for.  It is only when I become selfish into thinking I must get mine with the time I have that I begin to panic and have a difficult time enjoying what is so clearly a blessing (ie: friends, food, places, etc).  Oh how I desire to make Jesus all that I need, so that in every situation I can praise Him and be thankful, trusting that whether the immediate present feels good or not that in the end it will be exactly what I needed to produce a genuine joy for my life.

       This becomes especially difficult when it involves other people, and that's why I feel inclined to be a hermit.  It's easier on a surface level, but detrimental to my overall well being because I need love as much as I need food and water, where one nourishes my physical body the other nourishes my soul, and are we not made of both soul and body?  I would even go so far as to say that nourishment of the soul is more important than the other since it is eternal.  Firstly, I must lay down any expectations of others in order to love them the way I am loved by Christ.  The reason I love Christ is because He loves me the way He does (continuously regardless of my reciprocation), so would it not also go that if I love others the way He loves me then that same veracity would uphold those relationships as well?  Indeed, to love someone regardless of how they love you in return is the first step to a real relationship.  Then to have wisdom in the actions that follow such love is what follows.  You can love someone and not spend time or see them if that is what will benefit the both of you, but these decisions must stem from genuine concern for the other person, and not because you yourself feel gypped in the exchange.

       My stomach is all twisty from this morning's migraine incident.  However, I am grateful for the peace God gave me through that.  The less I let the struggle bother me, the more I can lean on Jesus to be my strength...and His strength defies death itself.  So ...that pretty much makes me, in Jesus, indestructible.

-J