tough to love

Some people are tough to love.

Jesus, how did you do it?

beyond description

You are beautiful beyond description,
Too marvelous for words,
Too wonderful for comprehension,
Like nothing ever seen or heard

Who can grasp your infinite wisdom?
Who can fathom the depths of your heart?

You are beautiful beyond description...

Luke 9:24

International Justice Missions (IJM) - Gary Haugen

“Love is something more stern and splendid than mere kindness…Kindness merely as such cares not whether its object becomes good or bad, provided only that it escapes suffering.” -C.S. Lewis

An excerpt from the article linked above (I underlined what I really liked):

     Sometimes the will of God is scary because he’s asking us to choose between a life that looks successful and a life that is actually significant. A life that wins the applause of our peers or a life that actually transforms lives through love. In Washington, DC, I think, one of the most exalted positions of life is actually becoming a Senator. Really though, history shows that you can actually be a senator of just about no significance. Sometimes it’s just confusing. Are we seeking success or significance? Jesus tried to be clear about all of this with his disciples. He said in Luke 9:24 “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.”

     Another colleague of mine, Sean, calls himself a mad scientist of this divine paradox. See, the hypothesis is that you’ll find your life when you lose it. So Sean decided to throw his life away, and being a proper mad scientist, tried first by doing an experiment and testing it on himself … and then on his wife and two kids. [Laughter.] Let me share with you how he said it: “IJM needed people to go overseas. I was not so afraid of going as I was to coming back. I was at the top of my profession;, I could do anything I wanted.” He was with one of the premier law firms here in town. “If I went overseas for three or four years to work for some little Christian group, I was sure I would come back to a crappy job, work with crappy people, live in a crappy house, and wear crappy slacks as I drink my crappy coffee while driving my crappy car. [Laughter.] But I just thought, ‘if I can rescue one child from the unspeakable horror of forced prostitution, it would outweigh any sacrifice I could possibly make.’ How could any sacrifice I make, how could it possibly compare to the daily abuse and suffering of a child locked in a brothel forced to serve four to seven customers a day? It was like math,” he said. “No emotion. I did not have the faith to believe that God could somehow provide for me and that I might even find joy in it. No, I just expected to be lonely and to suffer. But I signed on to try and save that one child.”

At times, my heart pounds with how God might and can use me. At other times, my heart pounds in fear that the last thing I will abide by is His will. Not really the riches part, more the "I'm more comfortable with status quo."

You can read more about IJM at www.ijm.org

writing

I enjoy writing. Yet, when I try to write an essay to gain admission into a school, it becomes a whole new ordeal. I hate writing to please. I hate writing while my mind is racing with thoughts on grammar, punctuation and word use. I want to just write -- free flow. Flow free. Fly. I want to fly with thoughts on what I am writing and not how I am writing. When I draw, I want to draw with simply the thought of what I am drawing and not how. Without the thoughts of, which paint brush? Long stroke? Short stroke? Circle or oval? Square or rectangle? Darker or lighter? The process is maddening. Just give me paper and pen and let me scream -- express and without delay. 

I want to express myself without worrying about the damning how's.

Maybe that's why I've never been too good at the arts. Or when people ask me, how do you pray? Sometimes I give flowery answers to make it sound more nice, but all I am really saying is -- just pray. Other days, I don't feel too good and spit out, "I just do it."  How? I'm not concerned about the how, I'm really concerned about the who......aren't you?

wine is better aged

 

Only time can age the wine.

One can try to perfect the temperature and humidity of the wine cellar, but again, only time can age the wine. You can shake it, stir it, expose it to more sunlight, store it under the cellar's wooden boards. Whatever the case, time cannot be expedited nor rushed. Maybe there's a chemical now that can speed the process? If there is, I remain dubious to such a chemical.

You can alter the settings and properties and what not, but there is only one constant that promotes change in wine, and that is time. All other factors are probably a good indicator of what kind of wine we may end up bottling.

Still, the issue may not lie in what we end up bottling, but when. Some of us bottle it up early, before time has taken its course, and carry around our grape extracts bottled too soon in dark, opaque, expensive wine bottles with a fresh cork stuck at the top. The deception, however, only lasts up until the moment we twist out the cork and invite others for a taste. They will swirl it in their mouths and swish it around their tongues longer than the norm. Like little children, they will grin and lean to each others sides and murmur, "Is this what I think it is?" until one will raise his voice and suggest that what they are drinking may just be grape juice. Affirmative nods are shared around the room by everybody except for the once-proud owner of this exquisite-looking bottle of wine. His eyes find shame on the floor and he silently curses his soul for the impatience that led him to bottle it a decade early. "It's too sweet, too tart, too fresh," they continue on in whispers loud enough to remind him to keep his eyes glued to the floor.

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I feel like this is me. I bottle things too early. I think I'm already there, or already here. But I sit here, and I remind myself that I am far from it. I must let myself age, and not be so instantly satisfied with what and who is around me and in front of me. Let things soak in. Too often I am deceived to believe that if I surround myself with good instruction, upstanding role models, encouraging advice, life lessons, and loving friends and family then instantly this new me is born out. Maybe that's exaggerating, but its that notion to a lesser degree. Regardless, I have learned, time and time again, for it to be wrong. I must let myself age.

Or maybe, this cycle is precisely how the human soul ages.

I don't know. Yet, I do know one thing: I am an absolute fool.