I was talking to a friend recently (I can't actually remember who...) but she told me that she's convinced that all of life is a continual process of tearing down and rebuilding. I think I can safely say that the last 10 months have been a real time of tearing down for me. The Lord is breaking my dependence on myself and my idolatry of people. Yet, strangely, he's not calling me away from trusting the instincts he has given me, nor is he pulling me out of community. I think this is a deep and mysterious (at least to me) work of grace happening in my life. It has been a time of fire, where I have loved deeply, been hurt just as deeply, and have fallen (read:*splat*) on the strength of the Lord more solidly than perhaps any other time in my life. I know He is real. I know He is FOR me, all the time, in all of my messiness, just as I am. I am both in awe of that and completely flabbergasted by that: why does he bother with me/us?!
In some ways, it comes back to identity, doesn't it? Am I: the thing I do, or the One I belong to? As I was leaving RI to come here, one of the deepest lessons the Lord was trying to impress on me was this cornerstone of identity: I am/was not a Campus Staff Member for InterVarsity, I am not a graduate student, I am not a 2nd LT in the Army. I'm not. I'm a daughter of Jesus; beloved, cherished child of God. This too, is a mystery to me...
Thank you all for praying for me and encouraging me, especially in light of my last post. It has been an impossibly difficult semester. But this is what it is taking to break me of my perfectionism, and I am growing in gratitude for the new freedoms that this is affording me.
I have 7 weeks left to this semester, and several large projects to still go, but I finally feel that I have settled into a place to trust and peace about the whole thing; thank you for keeping me close to God. I will complete my last Hebrew language class next week (it's only a 10week semester for that particular class) and it looks like I will be passing it respectable well (B-ish). This is sort of a fun thought: I started the semester at 18 credits (16 at Den Sem, 2 at my Denomination) and have wheedled my way down to 14 as of next week.
The following are quotes that have been resonating with my soul and informing my thinking over the last two years, I thought I'd share them for your edification:
On Communion intersecting life:
If Jesus doesn’t receive us, give thanks for us and break us so that he can give us back to ourselves and others, we will be left in our bundles of isolated deceptions. – Steve Thulson, a Sunday service, 2007
‘Love is as strong as death.’ There is a convergence of love with death in which both open the door to the unknown and uncontrollable. – Richard Hess “Song of Songs”p33.
The Shema (sort of rule of life) of Mother Theresa
The fruit of silence is prayer
The fruit of prayer is faith
The fruit of faith is love
The fruit of love is service
The fruit of service is peace
The Shema of Terri
The fruit of silence is choice
The fruit of choice is potentially wisdom
The fruit of wisdom is peace
The fruit of peace is love
The fruit of love is service
The fruit of service is life
The Shema of Hell
The fruit of silence is anxiety
The fruit of anxiety is despair
The fruit of despair is hatred
The fruit of hatred is self-service
The fruit of self-service is death
Idolatry…leads to disillusionment and despair. –Integrative Theology, p195
There is no pit that the love of God is not deeper still. -Corrie Ten Boom
If you seem empty of any feeling, rejoice- you are his ransomed bride. If those you cherish seem not to love you, and dark assails from every side, still yours the promise: come what may, in loss and triumph, in laughter, crying, in want and riches, in living, dying, that you are purchased as you are. – Peter Aschan (1726-1813), a hymn
It takes so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment or the courage to pay the price. One has to abandon altogether the search for security and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will, apt always to total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying. -“The Shoes of the Fisherman’
