I'm sure everyone who comes home to find an envelope with a hand written message to them sitting on their kitchen table gets a little excited no matter how badly their day went. Or when you go out to collect the mail and whilst sorting through the news papers and bills and advertisements, that precious square shaped one with your name on it puts a lighter bounce in your step on the way back to the house.
I love letters. It's such a concrete reminder that someone has thought about me and took the time to let me know, even if they don't write "I care about you", you just know.
Guys, my heart is so alive right now. Sometimes I come to point in my walk with The Lord where I think, "could I know His love much better than this?" But then, somewhere down the road after that, He touches me in a new place and I am overwhelmed again.
Okay, so I probably walk the most imperfect walk with The Lord. Like, I'm pretty inconsisten with my Bible reading and prayer life. Seriously, there's lots of room for improvement.
I'm also a feelings person. I do a lot of things based on how I feel in the moment (don't be surprised that my major changed 3 times). So one of my bigger struggles is spending time with The Lord no matter how my heart feels.
I mean, I can get pretty apathetic sometimes. Like when my world life gets really overwhelming and it becomes the greater reality I know and then that whole spiritual thing just seems so vague it's like, "we'll, my energy and motivation are pretty low, so I'm only gonna focus on what seems more real and more important." Which is like, the point where my whole life seems dead and boring and blah.
But here is something, no matter how cruddy my walk with The Lord is or how my life in the world is going, the greatest reality that has never left is that I am loved. Like I said,I'm a feelings person, and sometimes I don't feel loved. Which is a big deal because I need to feel. But somewhere anchored into the core of my being is a deep Truth that I am loved and I know it even when I don't feel it. And it has been a source of joy in the darkest times because it is the most consistent thing I've ever experienced.
So sometimes, I feel like I'm in a long distance relationship with The Lord. Sometimes I feel like He is forever away in Heaven and he wrote me th Bible as our long distance romance takes place through correspondence and I write him back in my prayer journals and some day way in the future when I die or He comes back, then we will be reunited. Then we will ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after.
I mean, have I not been told me whole life, "wait. Someday your prince will come." Especially because it seems to me that at my age, I'm supposed to be anticipating meeting my future husband and dreaming of our future together. But it is such a distant and vague sort if future that placing Jesus in that picture of Him being my future husband or the Prince who wants to woo me and capture my heart and keep me forever, it's hard not to think of Him as something distant and vague as well.
But the thing is, I'm not waiting for my prince to come. He's already here. I chuckle to myself as I remember one of my Kalona adventures found me at a Mennonite church function (I seriously love them so much!) and whilst standing in a circle with some of the kindly adults who had, of course, noticed I wasn't a regular, one of the gentlemens remarked on a couple across from us who were holding hands. He asked me, "is there someone you like to hold hands with?" To which I responded, " oh yes! I LOVE holding hands with Jesus. He's my favorite." I don't even remember the kind man's name but I think he found my response to be funny and somewhat unserious because, after that, he promptly began scoping out the local Mennonite boys to see which one he might deviously match me with.
I think it was then that I realized that Jesus is a present reality. It sounds silly to me now, on account I've been quite in love with him for the past several years, but I think it is easy for me to be caught up in the "someday in the future, Jesus" campaign and I forget that he's already here. But he is here RIGHT NOW and I can hold his hand every day. And it's not that someday he will come in and carry me off into the sunset and we will live happily ever after, it's that he as already done that and I'm living my happily ever after right now.
Ive already written the words, "this world is not my home." The better I come to know The Lord, the more I feel that. Honestly, I really love the stage I'm at in my life right now. I LOVE it. What I don't love is what people tell me I should want. Like I should want to be married or I should want to find a stable job or I should want my own house and garden. I would be blessed to have those things, but I'm so overwhelmed by the blessings I have now that I don't even know if my heart could handle much more.
Back to my feelings and my inconsistent quiet times. There was once a time that I became so religious about reading my Bible and stuff that it became dry and stale and even a little bitter to me. Because I didn't feel like it and I didn't enjoy it. So, I've learned to be okay with doing my quiet time when I feel like it just so that I learn to do it out of the motivation of love rather than duty. As it is, the Word has quite become so much more precious to me because I'm not reading a text book, I'm reading a love letter, penned from home. But it's not a long distance love letter, it's a now love letter. Words written to me because I need them now.
I was talking to the Father about that today. I told The Lord that I didn't want to feel like Home was a billion miles away in Heaven and that I could only long for death because that's when I would be home. He sweetly reminded me that, He is my home.
He is now. I live in Him now. And I come home to Him often. Sometimes I wander off, but he is always there to come home to. He is the most comfortable place i know. He is the most peaceful and restful place I've ever found.
And when I read the Bible, it's a letter from Home. Not from heaven magically delivered through space and time to sustain me through my time on earth, it's a letter directly from the Father now. It's living and active and precious and laced with love.
This world is not my Home, but I am home all the same.
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