Taking Hold of Eternal Things

I feel something changing within me. A new, heightened sense of awareness for what is really eternal and what is only temporary. I feel myself aching to cling to what matters, but still you are prying from my clutched hands the now I struggle to let go of. You are reminding me of phrases long forgotten but so full of truth. "You are headed towards uncharted territory," she told me once. And I remember in that moment only wanting to be held. But she was challenging me instead. I was too afraid to accept that challenge then. But now I think I'm almost ready. "You will be a voice to the nations, a messenger of God," they prophesied over me. And while it sounded great, I missed the point that being a voice and a messenger is a privilege that would only come once I learn to be a servant first.

You flooded my dreams with visions of what could be, and You have been working to make me sensitive to Your Spirit. I am beginning to tell the difference between what I feel and what You want me to know. I am learning temperance. But I am desiring more than anything to possess the gentleness that You find so precious. I am longing to embrace silence long enough to let You speak to me and long enough to be able to hear others and really listen to them. I am desiring to love relentlessly those who seem so unlovable by this world's standards. I want people to know that they matter.

I am learning what it means to be an alien and a wanderer in a land I can't call home. And I am understanding that my citizenship is not in any earthly nation, but with Your Kingdom that is to come. I don't belong here. And that makes me feel so lonely. Though I have family waiting with me to be taken Home too, I feel like we are all alone together... this loneliness lingers. This longing. I am longing for my Husband. I am longing to be with you. To be held by You, dear One. I find myself craving the safety I know will only come within the walls of your Kingdom.

How can I live with eternity as my focus when the temporary is all that seems to surround me? Can you teach me to recognize eternity in the things I am encountering daily? Can you teach me to live as though you're coming back to get me tomorrow? I want to be found ready, blameless, and standing firm. I want you to find me living dead to myself. I want to take the beautiful love you've lavished on me and share it with those who need it. I want to give up the temporary conveniences that I have been relying on and take hold of eternal things now.

Unpacking Everything

I've lived my life with carefully packed boxes. Everything has always been neatly tucked away and organized, conveniently placed in a strategic way, easy to pick up and run again when things become too much to handle. Everybody has baggage, and I learned after many attempts to unpack in the wrong places that it is safest just to keep the zippers locked tight and the tape untampered with. I concluded that people don't really care about the things I've hidden- they prefer them packed away because then life can look neater.

But now you're asking me to unpack and you're reminding me that real life is messy. You are transforming my ideology that opened boxes are disturbing and unwelcome. "You are home," You tell me, "It's time to unpack." And so I started unpacking.

I took out my depression; I took out my razor blades. I took out my past hurts and broken relationships. I took out my poetry and I took out my comfort blanket called selfishness. I unpacked what I called garbage, thinking you might see it and decide instead to leave my luggage alone... but you're bigger than that, I realize now.

You began to dust off my selfishness and turned it into honest self-assessment. You took my scars and, once dusted off, turned them into arms that hug. You dusted off my depression and gave me passion for the broken. You took my broken relationships and replaced them with the ability to forgive. Everything ugly that I unpacked, you called beautiful and redeemed...

But I still have a box left unopened.

Now we are staring at the box labeled "for the future." And you're asking me to show you what's  inside. You already know though... Germany, money, a nice house, financial stability, marriage, family, graduation with honors... El Camino and California. These have been my dreams for so long. These are already good things, right? I'm not sure if I want to risk you dusting those off too because everytime you've dusted things off, you've changed them. My dreams are safe from change in their box.

But I said I didn't want to just settle for good. I said I didn't want safe and comfortable. I said I was willing to let you change my future. Was that just lip service?

Why is it so easy for me to let you redeem my past but I won't let you touch my future? Why do I want you to interfere with the now, but I won't let you give me your plans for tomorrow?

I guess I've never fully unpacked before... and this is hard because I like things neat and organized... I've grown to like my boxes with their tape and "for my eyes only" signs. I've grown to like my plans and my ideas of what tomorrow should look like. Can you change that though? I want to unpack everything for you. I want to be home to stay this time. Change my heart so I can give up this box too.

Saying Yes

She told me that true love is saying yes before you even know the question. And that thought stuck with me for the rest of the day. I feel like I've told You yes... but I feel like it was only temporary. I said yes in  my current circumstances and I said yes because the question was clearly articulated. But what if saying yes isn't just for the now? What if it's for the eternal, for the unseen, for the questions you haven't asked me yet? Am I willing to say yes to that? I want to be.

I feel like you're asking something of me. And I have been waiting for the question to be clear before I decided how to answer. But I'm struck with the idea that maybe you're waiting for my answer first.

I told her I felt like I was in the freezer section at Target. I feel like I am looking for my favorite ice cream flavor, and I can't see it because the automatic lights only come on when I'm close enough to the door for the censor to signal... I feel like I'm passing by a lot of great flavors. Good things. But there just not mine to have. If I stopped and settled for Vanilla because I can't see my favorite, it'll still be ice cream and I'll still have dessert... but it won't be as satisfying as the mint chocolate chip... even if I can't see it yet, I have to trust it's just a few doors down and keep moving.

I don't want to settle. I don't want to be comfortable. I don't want to be okay with letting the ordinary suffice. I want the extraordinary. I feel like you're asking me to say yes to that. But in saying yes to that, what am I really agreeing to? What is the extraordinary? That's what I don't know and that's what has held me back from telling you I'm okay with it.
I refuse to keep being held back by fear though. I refuse to let the unknown keep me from reaching for what you have for me. I don't want to identify myself with a plan or with a GPA or degree. I don't want to be identified by what I do or what I like. I want to be identified by you. And I want you to direct my steps.

I have realized that I'm okay if by saying yes to that, I have to say no to everything else.