Can't Tame This Heart

For what brings grace and liberty to one, condemns with weight and death to another.

I'm going on week three, this phrase pounding in my heart, prying apart duty and calling. Embracing this truth is unwinding miles of knotted wandering, years of struggling to find where my lines fall. From every angle, an opinion for how my road should travel. I could take these early years of my babies' lives slow and steady, pour every ounce of my attention into their souls. I could run hard and fast after the dreams (big or small) that keep me up late into the night. I could let my house rest in mess. I could work my body hard, trained to fight laziness and apathy. These wouldn't be in vain or waste, causing my life to shine, and yet my soul could be dying.

If these last eight years could say anything, most likely, they would say don't doubt it.  About a dozen things I expected (or outright declared) I would never do, I've excitedly and whole-heartedly pursued. These divergencies could bring dismay, but I'm clinging tightly to the grace I've received. It's the grace to work outside the home, sow into my children by exampling a woman who loves life. Grace to stay out way too late, squeeze in a few hours of sleep, and make up the difference later. Grace to lock the bathroom door for five minutes to regain my sanity. Grace to believe things that aren't popular.

There are overloaded bookshelves of self-helps and blogposts cheering us on, but somehow I still feel that we're missing one cosmic gap. A hundred thousand wild spirits are beckoned to follow a calling only intended for a handful, and a pile of knotted cord is benching our best players. Tragedy is a life lived in fear, turning all-stars into bench-warmers.

Many days I've wished for no burning heart to tame. But I'm no good at that. It's just too much weight and I've never been good at faking. I love change, progress, finding solutions, making improvements. Right now they carry me out my front door and don't let my mind rest. What seemed to be so hard, is too hard to ignore. I can't tame this heart.

And it's truly amazing how this letting go of law has caused truth, the real 100%-don't-doubt-God's-opinion truth, to go so much deeper. Where tangled up roots made my mind hard and rocky, liberating love has allowed my convictions to go deeper still.

Fear wants to speak filthily that the baby will be thrown out with the bathwater, but God always rushes in to show His great Love that isn't threatened by our wandering off the beaten path.

"A great gift of any adult to a child, seems to me, is to love what you do in front of the child." - Fred Rogers

Never Ending Kingdom

Centuries of wandering and wars; through miracles, prophecies, and justice- God was speaking Himself. And then in holy obscurity unto us was birthed, to all of creation, the entirety of God.

Comfort and joy came, showing the way to live life full. Yet we turn our souls to the earth, straining to find light in contrite happenings. And why do we hasten to label all this goodness as hate? When God reached down to bring heaven and earth together, we saw rules and separation.

But grace is not defined by our finite minds.

I can't get away from this revelation that everything God is, everything He was aching to express to us, He gave in His Son Jesus; born in a humble barn among the lowliest of creatures. We get to know and love and live the truth of who God is. What a blessed gift we have received.

Hallelujah that the God of all creation pursues even the furthest soul- obstinate and sure they have no need.

And even if you don't want to accept that Savior, it is His light that will overcome all darkness. For His kingdom has no end.

Nobody's Hero

They say hard work pays off, but this payoff I can't work hard enough for. I'll make the circles in my prayers and cry the tears to sow those seeds deep, but my own two hands can't accomplish the miracle of growth. This overworked body is broken down. All my problem-solving skills have been adding, multiplying, and subtracting everything I can. How do we approach this from a different angle, find that hidden passage, so we conquer and move on to awaiting battlefields. These horrible prisons we've made for ourselves of ideals, holding tight even after the scarring of shattered promises.

As a mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend, human. I cannot solve all these. Tomorrow may be another fruitless day, no end to problems.

It's too easy to rely on a person or a program to heal this hurting world. All the good intentions and tax dollars in the world won't bring the solution.

But gracious if we can't hold tight to faith, hope, and love.