gift on a doorstep

A gift arrived on my doorstep this week... an unexpected, beautiful gift.  Given my story and the places where these shoes have walked, the gift was about as close to perfect as you could get.  I could almost see the Maker of this girl and the Giver of this gift smiling from his one big ear to the other.

So I sat with this gift... all week I sat with it.  And I talked with the Giver, "is this really for me?  really?"  And the Giver just opened His big arms - "enjoy, beth."  And I have...

Sometimes, on this side of eternity, it surprises me that a heart can feel so full, after having felt so empty.  I guess that's part of our experience here - full and empty, sometimes coming almost side by side.  But lately, it's been full, a blessed full.  And I have enjoyed it.

But it's strange - along with such fullness comes a nagging sense of NOT-fullness.  A gift so perfect, but yet, a sense that it's just NOT.  Perfection that does not exist here, in this world.

And I don't like that.  I want to know fullness... complete fullness, with NO empty.  I want wholeness, completeness, fullness of joy.  I want NOW the things that were promised to me for THEN.  How I want to hold these things now... how I wish I could see His face now.

But I can't.  And here's what He's been telling me about that this week.  This ache, this groaning, is really a promise.  It's His promise to me.  The fullness is coming.  He is coming.  One day, He will scoop me up in His big arms... I imagine that we'll dance and I'll dance well... and there will be nothing - nothing - to get in the way.  No separation.  Absolute fullness.  Fullness of joy.  Wholeness of life.  Completeness of everything as it was always meant to be.  How I long for that day... I can feel my heart jump in me at the thought of it.  I know I was meant for it.

Then.  I was meant for it - THEN.  Not now.  I have not been promised fullness now.  I was promised beauty, life, good gifts, oodles of love - but I was never promised fullness, perfection.  It is just not here - not yet.

Not yet.  What a strange relief this is to me.  No need to try to force fullness now - because it is coming.  He is coming.  He is coming for me.  And in the meantime, I groan and I wait - I wait with a blessed ache that knows with full assurance WHO I am waiting for.  I don't wait for an unknown thing - no.  I wait for Someone that I do know - as through a glass darkly, I know Him.  And I wait with Hope because when He comes, I will know Him fully, as He is, even as I am fully known.  Blessed waiting, blessed God who sustains this waiting girl with His own presence and the gifts that He leaves on this doorstep along the way.  

we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  For in this hope we were saved... 

~romans 8

you have been sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of His glory.

~ephesians 1

summer testimony

I can tell that my life is in a shift now... a painful shift but a beautiful, essential shift.  Call it shifting from duty to desire, schedule to soul, obligation to offering - I don't know what to call it!  But I look back... and oh my word, the past three years have been hard.  Working full time, school full time, ministry, counseling, friends, family - life has been good and FULL.  I'm afraid that I was in danger of losing myself - the part of me that is most precious, the connection to Jesus - in all of the busyness, pressure, and hub-bub.

So I quit my full time job and I start a part time job, and I begin to prepare myself for the next thing - my first counselor's "job" (well, it's an internship, but you know what I mean!).  In the midst of transitioning to working part time at a church and anticipating counseling, I find myself staring straight into my own heart... and maybe because life is quieter now, I can't escape my own heart.

For anyone who has spent time getting to know themselves, you know that it's good and it's bad... kind of beautiful and painful at the same time.  Except I think the bad usually comes first, then the good... the pain, then the beauty.   But anyway, here I am looking at my own heart, and I find in there a need that I can't explain in any word other than - precious.  Here's what I'm finding - it doesn't matter how much you know, how much reflecting you've done by a counselor's standards, how good your leadership skills may be, how much grace you can give in the moments when it's needed most - those things are not life in and of themselves. And even though I've grown by leaps and bounds in those areas in the past three years, as I look at my heart today, I find myself in much the same place I've always been  --  I am a child in desperate need of the love of her Father.


Maybe in my naivete or intensive counselor training, I thought "strength" would mean increasing independence.  But it hasn't... strength has meant increased dependence.  It's that beautiful, vulnerable place of knowing that the task in front of you has been crafted especially for you and walking forward with joy and anticipation... but knowing through and through, that you cannot do it on your own.  It's staring the task full in the face, falling on your knees, raising your hands up to heaven, and then walking forward.  It's knowing that if you stand, you'll be standing on Grace, but if you fall, you'll be caught by that same Grace.

So as I look in my own heart, I see even more of the need for increased relationship with my Father.  And I'm coming to understand that this is the greatest gift ever - to become aware of my own need and to be empowered to be willing to live in it... to open my hands, open my mouth and let Him fill me in whatever way He chooses.

So I learn not to be afraid of the 'bigness' of what is ahead of me... but to see it, feel it, let it impact me, and let it take me straight to Jesus and His cross.  May I become more like Him, may my life be more like His.