It

The past few days have been interesting to say the least. As each moment passes me by and as I consider all the things that have been happening between us, I feel like I'm getting a clearer and clearer picture that she is it. Crazy? Maybe. The simple fact remains plain though, I think and believe that she is the one I've been waiting for, the one that I've been dreaming about, the one who I want to share the entirety of my life with unreservedly.

The other day I was in prayer and was just trying to figure out what God is doing in this situation. I asked Him, point blank, "Is she it?" The response I received was plain and simple, "Let yourself fall in love, everything from your past has been preparing you for this." I left prayer hesitant to say the least, thoughts shot through my head, "How in the world can this be? I've only known her for four months." We're not even dating, at least not officially, yet there is this deep peace within my soul whenever I am with her. Every time I lay eyes on her all I can think is, "She is my lily among the thorns." There's this overwhelming desire to just be with her, I don't care what we're doing, just as long as she's by my side. Hundreds of thousands of little things, quite honestly, make me love her more and more each day and it is the single most joyful experience of my life.

Today I was walking back to my car from the office and she had shown up to the church randomly for that portion of the afternoon, she stepped out of the car and was wearing this beautiful ensemble that simply cannot be described, perhaps the closest description would be, "breath-taking." She got out of her car and embraced me. We talked briefly, then she began to shiver as she was calling her mother, I stepped closer and asked her, "Can I just do this right now?" and wrapped my arms around her to keep her from being too cold. As I was holding her in my arms, and she was talking on the phone with her mother all of the sudden it just hit me...I never wanted it to end. That moment, however brief it was, could have just continued on and on and on, and I would have been okay with just being frozen right there. I gave her another embrace good-bye as I went home to change out of my more formal attire and as I was taking my shirt off I noticed that there was a lipstick stain on the collar of my shirt, right where her head was. I stopped, thought about the simplicity and beauty of all that happened and it came to me, it all clicked, just like I'd been hoping that it would someday. Rob Bell spoke about when he and his wife first went out and there was that anticipation and that mystery and that beginning love that was there and he said of it, "I thought, 'I'd rather be here, with her, at this moment, than anywhere else in the universe.'" That was what had happened, that was what clicked, I'm not afraid to love her, and that in and of itself is significant enough to prove to me that there is something bigger going on than just another infatuation. The thought of not seeing her every day for the rest of my life simply devastated me. It is now time to be patient and hope and pray ever more vigilantly that I'm not misreading these things and that she is it. How could this be? "For nothing will be impossible with God." -Luke 1:37

Find

"Go find your heart" -Ike

I was looking through some of my friends' facebook profiles the other day and when I was looking at Ike's profile, this stood out and really captured my mind and heart. How do we treat our hearts? Do we even really know our hearts? Is there something bigger that is at play inside us that we just aren't keeping in the frame of our lives?

If you were to be totally honest with yourself right now, could you truly say that you know your heart? Could you say that you understand the ins and outs the ups and downs of everything that takes place in your soul? Are you just content with what understanding you have of your heart? The other day I was driving on my way to work and thinking about this saying, and about all of the things that have brought me to where I am today. As I was contemplating all of this, it occurred to me: life is an adventure. We are made in the very image and likeness of God, there's this part of who we are in our essence that is utterly immeasurable, there's this part of us that is infinite by virtue of the fact that we are His image. Life is an adventure, complete with plot twists, heroes, villains and heartache. This is it, the situations that we have found ourselves in, the people that are intertwined with us, the love that we have to choose daily to give or to withhold are all part of this elaborate story of our lives! Each moment, every experience, every smile, every tear, every time we have that shattering realization of the depths of our humanity we discover a little bit of our hearts. This life, I think, is all about the continual discovery of our hearts and we cannot simply allow life to pass us by without actively seeking it out.

This doesn't mean that finding our hearts doesn't carry some risk, it always carries a risk. Discovering our hearts, I believe, entails giving them away. Love is the only way that we can truly unravel the mystery of our hearts. Allowing God to love us as we are, and trying our best to love Him in return; loving those around us and receiving their love in return. All of these avenues of love that we encounter, and oftentimes overlook, these are the keys to discovering and finding our hearts. It's terrifying, truly it is. In his book "Sex God" Rob Bell makes this point in a very accessible way. He talks about the stereotypical middle school dances, boys on one side of the room and girls on the other. At all of these dances there's always that one boy who is brave enough to "cross the great divide" and ask a girl to dance with him. In that very moment he is handing his heart out, in a small way, but he is taking the risk and offering a little piece of himself to the girl and she has the opportunity to either accept it or deny it. There's a real fright to that, putting yourself out there and sometimes having to come to the realization that your heart will be broken, things are not always going to be pleasant, your love will be thrown back into your face. There's a beauty to it though, something that C.S. Lewis said once hits on this:

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable."

If we don't take the risk, if we don't just jump wholeheartedly into this adventure of life, this giving of our hearts, we run the risk of losing all that makes us human. Our hearts are infinite, that means that they have an infinite capacity to love, to hurt and to grow all because we are made in His image. Go find your heart.

Hold

When you came to me with your bad dreams and your fears
It was easy to see that you'd been crying
Seems like everywhere you turn catastrophe it reigns
But who really profits from the dying
I could hold you in my arms
I could hold you forever
I could hold you in my arms
I could hold you in my arms forever

When you kissed my lips with my mouth so full of questions
It's my worried mind that you quiet
Place your hands on my face
Close my eyes and say
Love is a poor man's food
Don't prophesize
I could hold you in my arms
I could hold you forever
And I could hold you in my arms
I could hold you forever

So now we see how it is
This fist begets the spear
Weapons of war
Symptoms of madness
Don't let your eyes refuse to see
Don't let your ears refuse to hear
Or you ain't never going to shake this sense of sadness
I could hold you in my arms
I could hold on forever
And I could hold you in my arms
I could hold forever

Before I left to return to Phoenix for Thanksgiving, I spent all afternoon with the most enchanting woman in all of the land of enchantment. We watched a movie, listened to music, danced and swapped stories of our lives. Things have been touch-and-go between she and I, although it seems to be very clear to me that there is something beautiful there that she simply needs to just accept. One of the best parts of being around her is holding her in my arms, plain and simple. The hugs that I get from her just send me out of this world, the smell of her hair, the feeling of security and of being a pillar for her is incredible. It's like when she's in my arms time just stops, nothing else really matters, everything is put on hold. I was listening to this song yesterday and it hit me where I was, especially as I haven't been able to get the thought of her to leave my mind.

I think the most incredible part of this song is that it shows the insecurities of both halves of the relationship. She had her fears and it seemed like catastrophe, but he insists on holding her in his arms. He had a mouth full of questions, a mind full of worries that she quiets. Each of these people have their issues to work through, but in approaching them together, in each others' arms they work through them. As I'm trying to be strong and be a pillar for her, I shiver and quake with doubts, worries, fears. Yet, when she is in my arms nothing else matters in that moment it's like everything slips away and things are just right. Yet, the song also highlights something else, even though the couple is holding each other and it offers a temporary moment of reprieve, things are still painful, there's still symptoms of madness and sense of sadness. As I move ahead in pursuing her, I just want to hold her in my arms... and there's a part of me that really would just not want to let go.

Tension

"When we deny the spiritual dimension to our existence, we end up living like animals. And when we deny the physical, sexual dimension to our existence, we end up living like angels. And both ways are destructive, because God made us human...

But we were created to live in the tension. And when you lose the tension, you lose something central to what it means to be human." -Rob Bell, "Sex God"

I've been reading Rob Bell's book, "Sex God" which is chocked full of these insightful points of view, but as I was reading this one tonight I felt especially moved to reflect upon it. The chapter in which these statements are made point out the contrast between two extreme ways of living: as animals or as angels. The point that Rob is trying to make is that if we simply deny our souls that something deeper that resides within each and every one of us then we give in to living like animals. The opposite end of the spectrum is when we look at our humanity and our physicality like it's something dirty and something shameful, when one lives according to this world-view they live as angels.

The main point that he hits on that really struck me was this idea that there's this tension in being human, we've got our feet in two completely different realms: one the earthly and the temporal; the other the spiritual reality that stretches into eternity. What does that tension look like? How do we embrace it? More importantly, how does it affect our essences? There's a certain part of me that really connects with this idea of the tension, sometimes prayer seems like a tension between the circumstances that I have and the asking for them to be changed from on high. Relationships with family, friends, coworkers all have a certain tension to them, a balancing act of searching for what they physically need (i.e. words of affirmation, pursuit in a tangible form) and what they spiritually need (i.e. prayer for, prayer with).

This tension I think is hitting me especially hard in regards to pursuing this fantastic woman who has happened across my life's circumstances by some form of providence. The tension between being an animal (acting too much, making too many advances, pursuing things too aggressively) and being an angel (only praying about it, only sitting back and waiting on God's hand) is very real in this circumstance. I come from a history of being too angelic, trying to over-spiritualize these things. My overly analytic personality and lack of concrete experience all add to this tendency of my own. What does it look like for me to live in the tension in this? Where does that leave me? Ultimately I do not know, but what I have come to conclude is this: I cannot continue down the path of the safe, the path of the familiar. If this is to be different, then I must embrace the tension, I must place myself in the midst of this even if it is uncomfortable, even if it hurts. It's only going to be in embracing this tension that I'll be able to have a fully human relationship, now my only prayer is that she recognize this as well...

Extension

First of all, if you're going to understand any of what I'm sharing here, then you need to watch this video:

The past few weeks have seemed to be a blur of romance and love amongst my circles. Two of my good friends just got engaged, another of my best friends has started seeing someone, another friend is figuring things out with a potential significant other, a newly married couple has just infected my life and I love every minute of it. Being exposed to and getting to see these incredible things that God does when two people really love each other has impacted my soul, my very essence. There's a beauty that's simply incapable of being expressed surrounding all of these circumstances, the gift of self, the vulnerability, the warm-fuzzies and the fear that all goes into things of this nature simply astounds and amazes me all at once.

This video shows the beginnings and (ultimately) the end of such love. It's fantastic and invigorating but also terrifying and heart-wrenching all at once. Truly though, isn't that how things are with God? Is there some deeper analogy here that we tend to just brush over and forget about? For my own part, I've been fond of this dualism in a sense, this disconnect between my love for God and any love that I may someday share with the person He has set aside for me. Is it really supposed to be that way though? I mean, is there meant to be a distinction between the love that I have for my God and the love I will have for my wife if God so chooses to bless me in that way? At first I was a little off-put by the Crowder video, I wondered, "Okay, if this song is all about 'shining His light so we can see it' then why in the world is it showing this human couple?" As I've been tossing around this idea I've come to the realization that there is not meant to be this distinction. This differentiation between the love that we have for the Lord and the love that we are called, indeed, invited to share with another are not meant to be islands independent of each other, they are meant to build and grow in light of the other.

I think one of the most moving parts of the video is after the wife has died, as the husband kneels over the grave of his beloved and plants the little bean stock his tear causes this plant to grow exponentially. The point, I believe, that is trying to be communicated is that this plant was whole, this plant was complete and healthy, but it was the love that the husband had for his beloved that made it grow. What if that's the case with our own love? What if that's the way that God intends for us to truly love Him more and be loved in return? What if this love is all part of one giant calling to holiness? The little plant, I believe, symbolizes the love that both the husband and wife have for the Lord, it is complete, it is strong and it is alive on its own, but with the injection of the love between the spouses that love (the plant) grows to something far greater to anything that could have been imagined previously. This is not to say that the Lord needs for us to be in relationship or to share all of our love with one other significant other in order to bring us to the places of deepest fulfillment, but what I am saying is that this love that is shared between these two individuals greatly adds to the depth and breadth of God's love in such a way that others can see it tangibly.

This is not to say that everything works out perfectly like a fairy tale and as soon as you find that one person that has captivated you then you're set. Love, in its essence, is emptying of self, it's give, give, give not seeking for fulfillment. Fulfillment is a natural side-effect of love quite simply, but it is not seeking for it, there is fulfillment in giving of self. Emptying ourselves is not easy, nor is it pleasurable but it is worth it. I look to the married couples that I know and see that things are not always like the honeymoon, there are pains and struggles and love hurts, but if it didn't hurt, if it didn't cause us to give all that we are unreservedly then I don't think that it really could even be love. This dying to self, this working for the betterment and the happiness of the beloved gives us in a very real way a taste of what the Lord does for us each and every day. That is the expansion, that is the building upon that causes me to believe that these two ideas of love of the Lord and love of a beloved (significant other or not) are not independent of one another. Each sheds light and expounds upon the other in a way that we may not have been able to see otherwise. The love that we experience for another is meant in a very real way to mirror the experience of heaven. The love that we have for another during this life is an extension to the love that we have for the Lord. Left on their own, I believe, we cannot truly understand what love really is.

Shine Your light so I can see You
Lift me up I need to be near You
Hold me I need to feel loved
Can You overcome this heart that's overcome?

Wonder

What I've seen and where I've been
Is breaking out, breaking in
Who I love and I despise
Melting into compromise
How I've changed
And how I've learned
Becoming less, becoming more

But I'm still nothing without You
I'm still nothing next to You

Now all the future seems unclear
Never moving, never near
But You hold me as I scream
Wake me from my wicked dream
Something out there waits for me
Hand in hand we wait for it

But I'm still nothing next to You
I'm still nothing without You

And the wonder of it all
Is I'm still standing
And the wonder of it all
Is we're still standing
Never planned it
And I wonder
Where I'll be next year

The song, "Wonder of It All" has floated in and out of my faith walk for the past two years, I was listening to this song after the retreat this past weekend and the lyrics just hit me, they actually obliterated me. This weekend was so incredibly humbling for me and I just can't help but step back and consider, truly, the wonder of it all. God just never ceases to amaze me.

The week leading up to the retreat was quite possibly one of the worst weeks of my life, the enemy was attacking me at every turn, in every imaginable fashion. Feelings of loneliness, being told, "This can't work, we can only be friends" from the woman who things had been going so well with. The nitty-gritty of planning for a retreat, concerns of everything coming together for the teens. All of it just seemed to close in on me. Then, came the retreat.

The Holy Spirit came to move through everyone over the course of the weekend. I was completely humbled by how everything came together almost effortlessly. The talks went so well, and both of the talks that I "gave" were not my own, there is no way that I could have, God must have overpowered my speech and just spoken through me. Even though all the future seemed unclear and every night really was like a wicked dream leading into this past weekend, He held me as I screamed. He woke me from that terrible nightmare. I wonder how in the world it is that I'm still standing, but it makes sense, because I'm standing next to Him. Hand in hand I wait with my Father for those things that He has planned for me. That is the wonder of it all.

Misguided

It's all for You
It's all for You
I'm letting go
I'm letting go

Things had been going so well! Our first date was phenomenal, we were both excited for a second date, then out of nowhere it seems I get the good old reliable talk. The inescapable, undeniable and down-right unavoidable, "I think this can't work, we can only be friends." Where does this stuff come from? Why do I continually put myself out there for these women only to have my heart trampled upon and shoved back into my face? I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I've discerned my vocation incorrectly, maybe my mother was right, maybe I can't "fight the will of God" and I should just give up on this whole dating thing and join the priesthood. I'm so sick, so tired of all of this.

There must be something wrong with me, that is the only explanation. That is the only conclusion that I can draw from all of these mishaps and my fouled up love life, or lack thereof. I suppose that it is only right for the Church that I give up my desires for a wife and children, that I deny that part of who I am and just take up my cross, suffer it out, and become a priest.

That seems to be all that is left.

I'm letting go.