Jogging induces blogging, though if not for the sake of rhyme I hate the word jogging. It reminds me of sweat bands and really cheesy warm up suits. Running, however, is like a sleek African blazing through the tundra.
First, I realize no one is reading these posts but I am too cheap to buy a new journal at the moment because I spent that money on organic conditioner which turned out to be a flop. So for now, these thoughts, though totally unnoticed by the rest of the world, will be safely captured in isolated-from-the-rest-of -the-world posts. I hope it doesn't count as talking to yourself if nobody reads your blog.
Some words I found powerful and a few thoughts of my own...
"To love at all is to be vulnerable... if you want to make sure of keeping [your heart] intact,
you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with
hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket of your
selfishness. But in the casket-- safe, dark, motionless,airless-- it will change.
It will not be broken-- it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable....
The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly
safe from the danger of love is Hell."
C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
My own Thoughts:
God does not neccessarily operate in patterns. Where I see a pattern in what love does, may be completely inaccurate of what God is actually doing or has done. Just because I can rationalize my own sufferings or patterns therein does not mean God fits a pattern. My desire to rationalize God in order to cope and categorize emotions so that I may avoid them in future days does not neccessarily propel God into my idea of truth. He is immensly and victoriously methodical, purposed, and seperate, in His interactions in our lives; regardless of the boxes or patterns we resign Him to. He is gloriously above them and incomprehensibly patient and merciful toward us as we struggle to make Him fit our familiar thought processes and self-constructed forms of logic.
Where I have seen patterns of failed human relationship, reinforcing a bitter heart within me, a shade of God which bears deeper fear in His allowance of it -- He sees truth beyond the pattern. It finally became lucid as I ran away with my thoughts tonight. Brokenness breeds feeling. It is that simple. God wants to refresh within me a compassion for the broken hearted that may only come through the authentic and purposeful allowance of suffering and brokenness in my own heart. If I am to come along side the broken hearted, the down-trodden, the lonely, I must know from my own experience the ways that Jesus cares for them by experiencing the way He has cared for me in the depths of my own personal anguish. Because God wants more for me, He has allowed and purposed intentional suffering and minimization of security in my life. It has been entirely deconstructed, because he wants me to have more-- more of Him, more authentic wisdom from which to pour out, more understanding of other's brokenness, more tenderness and fullness of His heart for the lonely and suffering. It is in the brokenness we begin to feel --with maturity and seasoned truth-- what others are bearing and what we ourselves may overcome in the frevent strength of our Lord Jesus Christ.
We can paint toe nails all day, we can hand out bagged lunches, we can cry at other's stories, but can we see these beloved's with the eyes of Christ, in the depths of connection only found through similar greivance? May we earn their trust and relate to them on a level in which Christ may meet them in the dungeons of their pain if we have not comprehended such despair, or the repetitions of recurring fears constantly materialized? We may, but it is God's heart that we break as He is broken, that we rejoice in what He rejoices over, that we get down on our hands and knees together, in the midst of all the dirt ,and speak of the triumphs of battles won in places just as these.
I am the clay, you are the potter. And though the pain of being molded may feel very familiar, much like a pattern, each time you are forming something new, something unique, and beautiful only seen from the potter's perspective. Forgive me Lord for where I have confined you. Far too great for me are your mysteries.
Joys on tonights run:
Many a night claims a bold and starry sky, but tonights was the most lovely shade of delicate.
Simple lady with pinned back hair playing solitaire on her porch, she was smiling.
The old familiar weathered barn and its faithful crops.
Chains of blue mountains, each their own shade, weaving across the distance.
The smell of fresh laundry floating down from someones home.. it smelled like gentleman's cologne.
Running past the little Latino home linked with memories of their naked toddler banging on the glass door to get back in, bare butt cheeks to the road. ( :
Least favorite part:
Two people riding down the road, windows down, in an old red pick up truck completely silent. Their faces seemed so opposed to loving oneanother's company. Very heartbreaking indeed. Love is such a terrible thing to waste.
