We cashed in...

So... we have these wonderful friends. These friends of ours have been a HUGE part of our lives for the past 10 years. ( Can you believe that??) It takes something REALLY special to maintain a beautiful, close relationship when you are miles and MILES apart. But that was then, and this is now... and NOW they live only 45 minutes away. 

So, for Christmas, they gave us something really special. They gave us a "HOT DATE": 

Which included:

Gift certificate to the Olive Garden (to share a romantic dinner)

Gift certificate to Starbucks (to share an after-dinner treat)

Gift certificate to a Movie Theater (to see the movie of our choice)

AND....

BEST OF ALL...

da da da daaaaaaaa.......

Over 8 hours of FREE Baby-sitting. (Which meant that our children would be in the very best hands).

When we opened our gift, I almost teared up (well alright... I guess I did).

So, this Saturday, we cashed in. And oh... it was so good.

Dinner.

 Starbucks.

AND...

We "experienced" the movie, "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader". I say, "experienced", because it was in 3D... and any "Narnia" movie is an EXPERIENCE. In fact, the music you are listening to now is featured in the movie series. The movie was terrific. Now, I may be a tad bit biased, because, you see, C.S. Lewis is, well... a Saint in my eyes.These same friends of ours used to tease me..."one day you're gonna name one of your children "Aslan" or something." If I could get it to sound good with our last name...

Well, anyways, his writings have done for my soul which few have ever done.

Why? 

I can't explain with mere words... it's more than words. And that's exactly it... the story paints something that words cannot. It paints, "the Spirit inside who, "sits in the middle and knows." -Robert Frost.

Isn't it incredible that a story speaks more truth and depth than we can wrap our words around? And isn't that just like life? You can try to explain something, fumble around to describe it, or someone, and you know that you are missing it. You simply can't grasp the true essence of what you seek to disclose. It's bigger than that. It's too large to take "take down". 

But the beauty in the longing of this "larger than life" awakens my heart. 

And I see more clearly.

So, to my dear, dear friends... thank you... for giving us your Saturday, for giving us time to sit and smile at one another, and for giving us an experience that awakens our hearts. We love you. 

Dear God... love, "missing you"

I've been missing you. I used to see you everywhere and in everything. I used to say, "You lead me to this." "You helped me do this." "You opened this door for me." "You had a plan in that." And now... I'm not so sure.

Don't you love the people in Africa? Wouldn't you want to give them water? And food? And a cure for their sickness?  They pray. But they die. And their children are left with no home. And how about the people here? How about the ones that pray and pray and their sickness is not healed? And they loose the one they love?

So I've stopped asking you to "give me this", "and lead me here". And I've stopped proclaiming, "You are so good... look what you've done in my life." Cause why should you give me a silly thing like a job, or provide someone to buy our home... when others die of hunger? And children raise children? And water is nowhere to be found? Or how about when one cries out for you... and they never feel your presence? It seems pretty "lofty" for me to think that you give me all these good things and yet withhold them from others. So I've stopped with all that "God-talk". All the, "God did this and God did that in my life". But something inside me yearns to fill that place... the place where all that talk took place... with something else. Something more. More depth. More faith. More humble talk. But I'm in the "in-between".

God, I want to be like my Grandmother. The woman is filled with so much love and joy... and most of all she trusts that You are still good.  And while she trusts that You are good... she aches when things go wrong. She doesn't just chalk it up to, "Oh... God must have a plan in this. He works all things together for the good." But her trust is more than that. It's more than easy answers. It's more than simply quoting Bible verses. It's something living-breathing. I think it's Love. No wonder her favorite words are: "Faith, Hope and Love. But the greatest of these is Love." 1 Cor. 13

And God...if the "Greatest of these is Love"... what does that mean about "being saved?" My "saved talk" has broken into bits too. But I think something else is slowly forming. Something with a kind of hope that you are REALLY into saving this whole world... from evil, from pride, hatred, injustice, sickness, poverty, and pain.  

I want a faith that can see the suffering of the world as a reality and a must for a world thats really free. Free to become. We aren't puppets on a string. We are free. The mountains are free. Plate tectonics are free. The winds are free. Matter is free.

God... was C.S. Lewis right when he said, "I sometimes wonder if we have ever begun to understand what is involved in the very concept of creation. If God will create, He will make something to be, and yet to be not himself. To be created is, in some sense, to be ejected or separated."? That makes sense to me. It makes sense of this crazy world. You actually LET IT BE. Let it become. Cause a free world was worth the risk to you. Love was worth the risk.

Yet, even though you let us "be" and let us "become" ... I have this deeper than gut feeling that you don't leave us alone. I think you are over us, above us, in us and through us. And you want us to ask you. And you want us to seek. And you want us to find. And most of all... you want to Love us. Love us into "being".

You are in the pain. In the hunger. But above it. But God... I can't see you right now the way I used to see you. I can't feel you right now the way I used to feel you. I can't hear you right now the way I used to hear you. And I miss you.

I miss driving off in my car and singing to the top of my lungs how I love you.

I have hope that I will again.
 Could it be soon?

And even though...

"I took off petal after petal, as if you were a rose,

In order to see your soul, and I didn’t see it.

However- everything around-

Horizons of fields and oceans-

Everything, even what was infinite,

Was filled with a perfume,

Immense and living."

-Juan Ramon Jimenez

I miss you.

Love, me.