October

Dear readers, it is about six weeks until the end of the semester and I have no time to write a full blog post, nor energy, so this month I am trying something new and simply serving you with a compilation of excerpts from most of my in-secret writings from this month. It may not work, but I'm going to try. These are journal entries, sermon notes, song lyrics, moments of the day--whatever happened to come as inspiration. May you be as blessed in the reading as I was in the writing....

We pour out hearts on paper, over coffee, in tears. I pour mine onto the page because I fear spilling it straight into people. This page is my funnel, so my mess is at least clothed in grace. But they were naked and unashamed, in the beginning.

Reflections dance in gold/And one, two, three--we break them/Mar the surface with soon-shivering frames/One jumps free, the others jump afraid/But three of us do jump/We walk back barefoot/Holy ground/Memories made

"Goodnight, Jessi Bee," she said, holding my gaze. "I love you."

I rested my head against the window pane, feeling the weariness of it. This weekend had not been easy. I had spent more of it crying than I had ever planned to, writhing from the deep pain of hard decisions and all that people might think and who I was...But when I woke up today, there was a weight lifted...

We shared for a while, good things, heavy things, and then we prayed. I was too shy to ask if she would hold my hands, so I bowed my head, closed my eyes, and put a hand on her knee. In an instant, I felt her fingers grasping mine.

But I'm alive, held, continually with You/Because you are the God of saving

"The Bible is shallow enough for a child not to drown, yet deep enough for an elephant to swim." -St. Augustine

I love Kori. I love her laughter and her sweet acceptance and her hugs and her beauty.

Vulnerability exposes us to risk but also releases the power of God in us and through us.

Thy mercy is more than a match for my heart/Who wonders to see its own hardness depart.

She sits me down on the table and holds the stethoscope to my chest. I draw in deep, billowing breaths that make me dizzy. She listens. "Well, you sound fine," she says. "But the walking pneumonia patients all sounded fine and then were diagnosed when they got the x-rays." There's been an outbreak, a slew of Moody students who can't breathe...and the stethoscope can't tell. I think, sometimes, it's reflective of our spiritual state.

It's almost magical, what happens among those people.

Her asking was covenant proof to me, deeper than any reassurance she could have verbalized in our conversation. And in her asking, He moved.

One of the things I love about Moody is that, no matter how "spiritual" or "intellectual" we get, we all still pray like we learned how when we were five.

About halfway through, it hit me: Here was her beauty, not expressed in words, but in movement. This was not its only expression, but it was a rich demonstration, on display for all to see--and offered to a single Heart.

People don't usually express themselves that way--but I do. My heart communicates in the exact language of love she was speaking, and the dialect is a unique one. Like a sojourner hearing her native tongue for the first time in ages, I sat there both awash in relief and paralyzed by surprise. Sometimes I wonder if God intentionally renders me unable to articulate so that I simply have to receive and not give in return.

So you are invited, in the deepest sense. You are welcome. You are wanted. Take joy in experiencing God in this new way...