The last couple of days have been days of reflection and remembering. I was, just yesterday, remembering what it was like to stand, with two bare feet, in cooled sands, on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, listening to the waves roll and crash, watching the moonlight glimmer on the water, feeling the warm, summers-night breeze wrap me up in contentment.
So. Reality check: I have to go to a meeting on the other side of campus ...I am a college student, however discontent that statement makes me. Now, that can mean many different things. In this case, it means: I didn't bring a raincoat. Heaven knows I've never used an umbrella in my life (I don't like looking like a tree with a canopy over it). I can't make a mad dash through the rain due to the cinder block occupying my right leg. So. I put on a sweatshirt, pulled the hood up, and walked through the rain, contrasting these two experiences--one on the coast of the Pacific, one on the brinks of Chicago.
Luckily, I dearly love rain, so it wasn't a "doom and gloom" thought train at all, but rather I was dwelling on the fact that the Lord has blessed me with the ability to walk again, and through the rain, and at a steady pace, and I haven't fallen yet, and the rain is cool and the air is hot, and (my favorite) since everyone else apparently hates being out in the rain, I was alone walking through campus. Blessed aloneness. I was able to walk through hazy streets, see the puddles on the sidewalks, watch the rain fall off the color-changing leaves and find a new home in the grass. All in blessed, blessed, quiet, still aloneness. Praise the Lord.
Lastly, I thought I'd share with you all what I've been meditating on. First: the book of Zephaniah. If you haven't read it recently due to it's being a prophet and "not relatable" to life these days, go read it with an open mind and a humbly listening heart. If I could go back and change one thing about my relationship with Christ in the past, it would be all the times I read the Bible haughtily, thinking I knew which books could speak to me and how they could speak to me, drawing from my factual knowledge of the Bible and its contents rather than my relationship with the One who created it. Second: I was reading a short story by George Saunders yesterday called "The Semplica Girl Diaries". Nearing the end of the story, the narrator attends a funeral, at which he poses, to himself, the question: "Why were we put here, so inclined to love, when the end of our story = death? That harsh. That cruel. Do not like."
I thought on this for a long while. If there is no marriage in heaven then there are thus no families, in the literal, immediate sense of the word. So why, then, are we called to love anyone other than God alone? Why should we love our families or neighbors--why can we not simply be good to them out of obedience to Christ? Adam needed a helper, yes, but why must there be love involved in the relationship? Is it perhaps because God is love, and we, made in His image, mirror it without choice? Perhaps, then, the greatest apologetics argument is love. Why were we put here, so inclined to love, unless death is not the end of our story?
If any of you have any thoughts on the above pondering, I'd love to hear them if you'd like to - you can email me here or comment below. I have come to no firm resolution. I know only this:
"I am His and He is mine in a love which cannot cease, I am His, and He is mine."
Random fact of the post:
A squirrel ran by me quite furiously the other day, across the sidewalk in front of me, into the lawn beside me. He had an acorn in his mouth. He looked at me and froze, as if to say "I see you there- don't think you can move without my seeing you", and proceeded to shove his acorn-filled head into the ground with such ferocity that I was a bit taken aback. I went all the way up to him before he noticed me, at which time he jumped into the air, dropping the nut, and bolted into the trees. I suppose the Lord gives me encounters with crazy (not "cool" crazy--just plain crazy) animals because he knows I can relate.
My leg has improved slightly with physical therapy, praise Jesus.
Love and appreciation to you all! Lord bless and keep you!
Anna Click Here to Read More..
