From the monthly archives: July 2004
Just got home from spending time with two good friends. Strange how despite the good time we had, I return home feeling lonely and empty. I am growing increasingly convinced that I have chasm in my heart ocean wide and mountain high…
“Thou hast made us for Thyself, O Lord,
and our hearts are without rest until they learn to rest in Thee.”
– Augustine, 354-430
I had to transfer one of my plants from the small pot into a bigger one today as it has not been growing. It isn’t a very big plant, but it sure made me work hard. Its roots were over grown, there were more roots than there was sand. It was choking itself really.
It made me think about how easily we can get comfortable in our own little pots. Sometimes we come to the point where we simply survive with the meagre water that seeps through the hardened soil. Many things tangle us up but they are all hidden below the surface where no one sees — hidden sometimes even from our own eyes.
God is doing many things in my life that are shaking me off my comfort zone. He’s getting to the root of the matter I might say. I can only echo with the Psalmist…
LORD, you have assigned me my portion and my cup;
you have made my lot secure.
The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
surely I have a delightful inheritance…
You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.
– Psalm 16:5-6, 11
Isn’t it funny how we can worry ourselves sick over things that might happen (or might not happen), only to find that things do turn out better than we dared to imagine, and that God does indeed answer prayer?
Strange how we call ourselves children of God and yet when it comes to matters of the heart, we forget that our heavenly Father does care, and that He does do something about it when we talk to Him about it.
God more than answered my prayers today 
)
She said, “I feel like I’m being thrown into the open sea. All I see is the horizon with no island in sight. I can keep swimming on if I only knew that there is going to be an end to this waiting, an end to this swim.”
He said, “Why do you fight the currents? You’ll only tire yourself. Even if there is an island in sight, how do you know if that is the right island to be swimming to? Relax, keep afloat and let the current carry us to where it wants to take us. We’ll get to where we need to go.”
A friend once said that entering a relationship is like a right handed person trying to write with their left hand… like seeing the world with two eyes instead of with one…
Same uncertain ocean, different perspectives.
Same God, different ways to trust.
What if you find yourself at the “losing” end of love?
What if you find yourself loving someone more than they love you?
…A parent aches for their recalcitrant adolescent
…A lover pines for a love that may never be returned
It isn’t fun being vulnerable. The one you love can walk out of the relationship unscathed, while you stay on nursing a broken heart.
Can we ever “make” anyone love us? Must love always be “fair”? Must the scale always be set on equilibrium? (Unfortunately life isn’t that way is it?) Do we stop loving just because we stand to lose or get hurt? Does love keep a count? Does love say who loves who more?
Are lovers fools?
If God began flinging the words “fair” and “unfair” on us, there would be no reconciliation between us and Him.
God is for the vulnerable, the broken hearted, the widows, the orphans, the poor, the meek, the disadvantaged. He watches over those who dare to love, dare to trust, dare to throw themselves at His mercy, who keep loving even when it hurts, even when it’s hard.
