Learning to Breathe

At the end of the day: Jesus.

When I spoke of my anticipations of my journey here, I told people that it was going to be cold, dark, lonely and that God was going to break me in every conceivable way possible.

We're coming up on the completion of month three, and he has been as good as his word. Usually (always) is.

I'm a big picture person, though, and didn't fully understand when I said those things what they were going to entail or what they would feel like lived out.

I have lived in Northern Ireland for three months, and in those three months, God has stripped away everything I came here with, and it has not felt good. In fact, it's felt as though my skin were pulled off while a red hot poker slides through my heart.

Good doesn't always feel good.

But I can tell you, I have never before felt such a sense of right alignment of body, mind, and soul. It is nothing like my personality or individuality. Nothing, because it isn't mine. I'm not 100% and I never will be, but for this moment, for this time, God has me exactly where he wants me.

Literally for the first time in my life, I have no idea what my plans are past my time here. And, for literally the first time in my life, I am okay with that.

I'm tired of being the boss. Every inch of me is exhausted of ambition and trying to hold myself and everything around me together and pushing and pushing and pushing toward these invisible (well, sometimes visible) goals.

More than anything else at this moment when I should be feeling this excruciating sense of loss at something I so so wanted and believed in, I feel relieved.

God has taken away everything (both the good and the bad) standing in between the two of us, and I don't feel bitter and I don't feel like fighting it anymore. He's right. He leads us rightly.

I don't want to follow Jesus. I don't think I even have that capacity right now. The energy for it just isn't there. But I can and I will be led. Nothing in the world sounds more enticing or more restful to me right now.

At the end of the day: Jesus.

My friends, that means at the end of the day, Joy. Peace. Clarity of mind. Wholeness of spirit. Love, Understanding, and Rest. Sweet Rest.

Hallelujah and amen.