Starting to Thaw

This afternoon, as I walked up to my front door, I notice a cluster of tiny purple flowers poking up through the blanket of day old snow. I think to myself... Right on.

I myself am starting to thaw.

I am waking up a little. Things were always moving, scars have always been healing, but the order...or lack of order... is starting to thrill me.

The beauty, the grand joke of it all, is that God is not safe.

He. Is. Not. Safe.

I say it all the time. I incessantly quote the C.S. Lewis story in my head. (Not safe, but Good) I type it over and and over again hoping that one day I wake up and magically become who I want to be. But truth be told all I strive for now is comfort... and God has so much more for me than that.

If I'd only thaw out a bit. If I'd only stop with the constant questioning of every move, the critical, quizzical self-protective junk, the rules, the disciplines, the things that are driven by the stark white terror of doing the wrong thing, of... hurting.

I have thirst. It scares me to have it. Yet it thrills me to know that it will be quenched. Not here, don't kid yourself, but it will be quenched. And if that is all I get, the hope that my 'i's will be dotted and the 't's will be crossed in the hereafter...and maybe some glimpses of it now, well it's all I need.

Do I want more?
Hell yeah, with all that I am I want warm house, full tummy, tragically beautiful music, to see people change, to see God move, a jet ski, really good oatmeal, pedicures, good books and to sing at the top of my lungs in the shower. I want jeans that fit, and friends who laugh, and a sense that I'm doing something right. I want someone to see that I'm trying, and to kick my ass when I'm not. I want to live without fear.

I want to slam volleyballs really hard.

I want to live as I'm led. I want to be led. I want to heed the gentle thunder that says "Come. Further up, Further In." I want people to agree.

I'm silly. I know. I'm a hopeless romantic who gets these grandiose ideas and who, still, at the end of the day...lets just say it... is wanting. The wanting wont ever stop. The joy is, that I get to know that it wont stop. I get to know that my thirst is valid, real, and totally incurable this side of heaven. So the immediate lesson I've learned is that my optimism for perfection is not off-base, I just predicted it too soon, and from the wrong, wrong, wrong sources.

So.. not only am I FREE to love with abandon (as I was starting to figure out) but I'm FREE to be loved poorly, as I often am, by the broken army of the Lord.