Peurto Rico 2018

conclusion

I am grateful for the time of restoration that God has provided this past week… although it took time to settle into it, He was faithful to meet me when my heart finally opened to Him.

He has reminded me once again that He doesn’t measure me the same way I measure myself- by the world’s standards of success, power, and beauty. His system is completely different, wholly foreign to our ignorant human minds. He doesn’t work in the ways we think He should, but He gives us moments of clarity where He allows us to see as He does.

On the plane ride home, I was struck by C.S. Lewis’ words in the Four Loves:

The humblest of us, in a state of Grace, can have some ‘knowledge-by-acquaintance,’ some ‘tasting,’ of Love Himself; but man even at his highest sanctity and intelligence has no direct ‘knowledge about’ the ultimate Being- only analogies. We cannot see light, though by light we can see things. Statements about God are extrapolations from the knowledge of other things which the divine illumination enables us to know.

His thoughts and ways are higher than ours (Isaiah 55). We cannot begin to imagine the gloriousness of the ways He can expand our thinking if only we would let Him. While my mind is stuck on worldly affairs and centered around myself and my own circumstances, He is crafting something much larger, and He invites me to be a part of it. If only I can stop looking inward and see Him, who has been there all along helping me:

When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it.

~C.S. Lewis

Peurto Rico 2018

intermission

This island getaway comes at a timely point in my life, and gives me ample time to think and process through the current circumstances of my life… to hear what He wants to tell me if I’ll listen.

What a precious gift…this life. That we are loved by our Maker and that He so carefully and intentionally crafted us to be just as we are. That He enjoys what He has created and even delights in it- He delights in us.

It’s hard to be in a place as beautiful as this without noticing that I’m being noticed. That I’m valuable to Him not because I ever did anything right, but because I was formed by His hands. Can’t we trust in that; isn’t that the surest and most solid foundation to rest in?

He teaches me to rest and to play. These are the things we have to learn after a lifetime of being told (explicitly and implicitly) our value is in what we do. We don’t know how to be.

So here I am, being me, without anything but His arms to hold me up.

 

Peurto Rico 2018

anticipation

As I prepare to embark on my trip to Puerto Rico, I reflect on the past, present, and future events in my life- this magnificent and transient time I’m in- if I choose to look at it that way. As a time filled with hope and possibility, instead of fear and uncertainty. A time of patience and challenge and seeds being planted; so many seeds I wonder which ones will grow, and what kinds of fruits they will produce.

My heart feels ripe with anticipation.

Anticipation for what God is going to do, and how He is going to bring all these things together- these little pieces of my life that seem scattered and un-whole to my untrained eye. And I wonder if He isn’t going to give me clarity as I spend time with Him away from it all.

How amazing that He calls us away from ourselves and our chaos and invites us to rest with Him where He is.

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