my savior

how dare i forget who the Savior in the story is.

but sometimes i do...and i think it's me. or you.

or my husband. or my father. or my friend.

how dare i get that confused...

more than meets the eye...

i read these words today and the Bible once again came alive like no other book can...

2 corinthians 4:16-18

So we're not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There's far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can't see now will last forever.

there is something about the perspective offered here that speaks straight to my soul. there is a picture painted here for me. a picture of me reading these words in this book and everything temporal around me "melting away". until i am no longer sitting at a table, with a pen and journal and the bible-- within the walls of my kitchen, in my little house, inside my city, within the borders of my great country. this perspective melts everything down until my picture includes only me, a great great God, the Bible, all the other people on this earth, and grass and sky...grass and sky...grass and sky. so much of it that my eye can follow the line where these two meet all the way around me in one great big glorious circle! i can see myself spinning around and around and never seeing anything but grass and sky. oh, the freedom that must live there--in that place of perspective! nothing there but me and other human beings, and how i've loved them and then this big big God that loves us all. nothing else matters. nothing else touches me.

this is how He wants me to live. this is how i long to live. but how in the world can i live with this perspective? it all sounds kind of artsy or sci-fi. the things that we can see aren't going to matter but there's so much we don't see that will mean everything. it's crystal clear to me right now and i just wonder how to put hands and feet on it and carry it into my life. into my family. into my city. into my great country. all the while being immune to the resistance i am sure to face when things that are usually given weight in this world--float away from me.

if i live in this place of grass and sky and God and others and me and love--who will i become? i won't look like many around me. i won't have the same things, the same kind of house or clothes. i won't watch the same shows or get the same jokes. this kind of freedom allures me, intrigues me, seduces me...and yet i am scared of the looks i will get, the eyebrows that will raise in my direction.

i am too scared of those things i can see that are supposed to mean nothing. too scared of those to go after those things i can't see that are supposed to mean everything...

metaphor?

this boy baby of mine is awe inspiring. i love this kid. we get to hang out while jae is at kindergarten. we play while we should clean. we sing when we should return phone calls. and we nap while we should be laundering all the things we get dirty in one day:) but it's awesome. and i wouldn't trade it for a thing!

yesterday i was feeding him spaghetti and bananas for lunch and while i was feeding him he was practicing his raspberries, spitting things out and just generally being a baby boy. so then we were done and i was cleaning things up and trying to figure out if his mess required a bath or if i could get away with just using a roll or two of papertowels:) when he reached up for me from his high chair--with his grubby little hands and an oh so messy smile.

are you kidding me? i couldn't help myself. i swung him up into a sqeeze and said, "i don't even care if you are a mess. i just wanna hold jah!"

as i said those words that Spirit whispered,

"that's how I feel about you".

wow.

i think there might be a metaphor here.