Out Here in the Wild
I got a phonecall from Steve. He used the words detached .. and some others. He was calling to see if I was okay. I need to call him back, but I’ve put his number somewhere I can’t remember.

I was at a music team retreat for the weekend, trying to inspire and regroup courage into this little band and allow them to see the Image of God in each other for a short while. Simon came along to help out. It was a good and strange time. So many hopes and dreams that I have for this motley bunch, so I guess there is a pastoral heart in me after all. I have a deep and abiding love for these ones.

I’m thinking about the next steps and the where-to’s a little bit. By now, the story’s becoming obvious. I loved a boy, he didn’t love me back. I lost hope and now I’m regaining ground on a slippery slope. See, the love of the boy doesn’t matter so much as how it reminds of the love of the father. I couldn’t figure out how to win his love either. So the doorway of grief was opened up and God has been restored to me in new ways because I’m processing and leaving some of what I need to at His door. It’s all happening in quiet moments, in dark spaces, late at night, early in the morning when I can’t sleep.

I feel foolish when grief grabs me suddenly in the middle of the day. Feel like I’ve been stolen away from myself when words and dreams and hopes of a year ago present themselves again.

I’m not afraid of not being loved by people, I’m afraid that the love of God won’t satisfy me. I know that He will respond as I trust in him.. and the RLP’s dissertation on this clarifies me..some of his other writings are making me think as well.., and but I know and recognize the ache for humanity inside me.

It’s making me think that it’s the Image of God in me, crying out for intimate relationship with the humanity around me. In thinking this way, I’m not making myself more divine. If anything, in this haze I am most sinful in my self-centredness.

Carrying On

I will carry on, Lord. I will seek You out.
Not because your plans are great, or wiser, or more trustworthy.
I can’t say any of those things honestly.
I hope that they might be, but I realise I don’t want to be dishonest with You
by claiming a promise I do not hold, a faith I cannot hold up.
I will carry on, and seek You out
because You are the beginning of satisfaction.
You are the beginning of Comfort, the beginning of Love.
I am too human, and analyse too much the end of things.
So I will look to the beginning.

You make all things new in Your presence.
I still wish that I understood these things though.