Honest Heart, Bones, and new birth

Yesterday was the culmination of an odd season for me and today I woke up with joy. Joy and peace and believing. This honest and humility producing post poured out of me last night before I went to bed...

I have been so worried about 'getting it right that I didn't really risk getting hurt- I wasn't willing to risk waiting. I wanted the guys in my life to be where I was at instead of waiting on them and God...I forced conversations and situations that I should have entrusted not grasped....A direct reflection of how I'd been approaching God. I expected Him to work at my pace with Kenya, relationships, etc.; and I wanted answers in my timing. It doesn't work that  way. He is sovereign, thanks be to Him!

I am so thankful for things that haven't gone my way--how Kenya has come together, relationships this past year, and many little things.

I've gotten into/caught up on the TV show "Bones" this past year. This week I began to realize I am kind of like the title character, Dr. Temperance Brennan. I wish I could say it's because I share the breadth of her intellect, but it's actually in relationships that I see the similarities. Brennan, "Bones" was deeply wounded in her past and that led to a guardedness in relationships. She was impervious out of fear and mistrust- her past had taught her that people will ultimately let her down and her logic concluded that the best way to prevent that was to not let them in at all. But love isn't logical. It's a risk with many uncertainties...like C.S. Lewis articulates "To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” (The Four Loves). Love, interpersonal, vocationally, in hope; makes life worth living. Over the course of 6 seasons Bones learns this. Much like her vocation--our heart wounds are revealed as layers are stripped away and we get to the root and foundational elements of who we are. It's messy, painful, and brutally honest. One of her closest friends remarks that "Listen, you said you wanted to do this alone because feelings are ephemeral. So is life, Brennan. We're here one minute and then we're gone the next. You should know that better than anybody! If you keep living trying to protect yourself, nothing is ever going to touch you".
          As I look back over the last couple of years I can see how I've approached life (relationships, faith) this way...I've chosen to be alone, to harbor mistrust, to strive to prove myself-it's exhausting and futile. In life and love I want to risk getting hurt because of the possibility of something great. Knowing God is sovereign over all of it--I am secure. I want to step out in faith and not be held back. Like Brennan, I'm beginning to be able to say that "Im... quite strong. ...You know the difference between strength and imperviousness, right? ...Well, a substance that is impervious to damage doesn't need to be strong. When you and I met. I was an impervious substance. Now I'm a strong substance."  Today I am strong because God uses my weaknesses to make me strong in him...to help me to trust and grow. I can't wait to see where He takes me--to Kenya and in life...