Monday, December 13, 2010

Life For Rent

Listening to 'dido', "Life For Rent", and thinking how aptly these lyrics give shape to my feelings right now:

I haven't ever really found a place that I call home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
I apologize once again I'm not in love
But it's not as if I mind
that your heart ain't exactly breaking

It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cause' nothing I have is truly mine

I've always thought
that I would love to live by the sea
To travel the world alone
and live more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
Cause' there's really nothing left here to stop me

It's just a thought, only a thought

But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cause' nothing I have is truly mine

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine

While my heart is a shield and I won't let it down
While I am so afraid to fail so I won't even try
Well how can I say I'm alive

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cause' nothing I have is truly mine

If my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cause' nothing I have is truly mine
Cause' nothing I have is truly mine
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't recall ever hearing this song before tonight when it popped up on Nathan's I-tunes, but it caught me off guard. The last several years of our life as a family have been so transitional, it's been difficult to feel safe putting down roots. 2006 found us in a year long Spanish training program in South Texas, 2007 saw us move to Guadalajara Mexico for 2.5 years and 2010 finds us back in Texas, preparing to move to Waco for a year of agricultural missions training. I am ready to commit. So ready. I long to plant those roots down deep, make a more permanent nest and raise my children. I am a bit road-weary, and yet I wouldn't trade a single moment of the past few years.
I've also been thinking a lot about fear of failure and what I would do if it were guaranteed that I could NOT fail. I would write. I would send articles in to Christian womens publications. I would speak Spanish sooo much more without the fear of messing up. I would move to an unreached village and have a simple place and do life with simple people and love Jesus and invest myself in discipling and training families. I would speak plainly about the Lord with my Dad. I would love people with more abandon...
My greatest treasures are those things in my life that I have "bought" and not simply rented; my relationship with Jesus, my husband, my children. I want to be one who commits, does the hard work of seeing something through, isn't afraid of failure or loss, but trusts that all my days are in His hands...

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Misspelling...

Thomas Merton has a quote that I love, it says; "I am myself a word spoken by God." Lately I've been trying to figure out what 'word' I am..

I am afraid of the power of my own convictions. Well, the convictions are fine, it's the mouth I own that I have trouble with. I know I'm a "black and white" sorta gal. I hate gray. Right is right, wrong is wrong and all that. I know at times, this is a gift; I make no bones about things, cut straight to the point, tell it like it is etc., but in truth, I have a love/hate relationship with this aspect of myself. The problem is, I come from a long line of women who are always right. I wish this wasn't so, as it can be taxing on one's health to have to go around all the time telling everyone they're wrong. ;)

Tongue in cheek, funny, yeah, but really, this is an area I struggle with. On the one hand, I know God has given me strong convictions. I think everyone should have strong convictions. I mean, the message of the cross is not for the faint of heart, and the life of a Christian is the life of the cross. It is authentic, not a title or a religious 'affiliation', but a day-in-day-out quest to become like Jesus, to be conformed to His image. This is radical.

I think I've got the radical thing down. I champion counter-cultural lifestyles that bring people closer to a more simple obedience to Jesus. I love it when people make radical choices towards God. My heart rises up when faced with a challenge that is only possible to overcome with the Holy Spirit. I am refreshed by people who make the Bible their standard, for real-real, regardless of what it says, even the hard parts. Strong Biblical convictions are a fabulous thing to have, they are synonymous with the life that Jesus modeled for us.

The problem is love. Or rather, it is the answer. I can admittedly, lack love in my execution. In all my zeal for ideas and p's and q's and how one should walk out his or her faith, I forget the most important thing. Love. Man, I really want to be good at this. I want HIS portion of love for people, I want to love extravagantly, selflessly, just because people are valuable, created in His image, because they are loved by HIM. So why is this so hard for me to do?

"I am myself a word spoken by God." It is profound to think of yourself as a word that God is speaking to the world, is it not? I want to be THE word He wants to say through me, but I think I keep getting in the way, not translating Him well, misspelling....