The Fall of Me

The way the sun looked at me had changed.

Almost overnight, it seemed. She sunk below the mountains that were gray and golden all at once, mourning the summer that was already gone. The evenings brought glorious freedom and light like I had never seen before. The mornings were cold, but the fog hung over the fields as I drove to school and I found myself wanting to eat it, to somehow capture it in a way that would sink into my consciousness and never let me forget its beauty.

I have been here before, I thought to myself, walking on the road.

These moments seemed to catch me again and again, the moments that seemed to whisper that not was all as it was, that there was another place that called to me from beyond the borders of what I knew was real. That reality was not at all what we thought it was. That if only I could open my eyes, really open my eyes, then I could really see the truth.

The more I thought about these moments of mystery, the more I felt the unknown places calling me, I wanted to go there. I sometimes didn't know how, but I wanted to go there--so desperately. More than I wanted to breathe, for to know the unknown is what I longed for as the epitome of my life, what I was made for. What I longed for amidst the mundane, scholastic, dull, intellectual moments of my life. It was what I wanted before money, before love, before fame. My heart beat with it.

And I think that's why people around here in these parts love the Oregon fall... it makes them realize that they, too, will fade in the end, but that in that dying, in that beautiful moment when the seed hits the ground and breaks open on the dirt, that something else more beautiful will emerge. They know when they see the browning of the earth and feel the chill that there are wilder things than summer to be had for man. There are lands to be discovered, mountains to be climbed, oceans to cross, rivers to ford, and lands to explore. There is more to live for for us than just this in and out, in and out breathing that we lose ourselves in as we go to work, come home, play with our phones, take the dog for a walk, kiss our lovers, kiss our kids, go to bed, forget to look up, forget to know that we were made to run free...

It's not just the Fall I love. It's that it brings to my mind the fall of me. The fact that I am mortal. The fact that I am neither robot nor heavenly being, but flesh and blood and bones that can hurt and bleed and cry. The fact that I only have so much breath to live, but there is one who lives in me that roars with passion and life and I do not have to live a boring life... in fact, I am called out of that and into the Light.

Oh, you precious dreamers, don't give up. Without dreams, we will lose the bliss of romance and the love of the wild places, and that must never happen. It is our lifeblood. It is our purpose.

 

 

Believing In Jesus (Gospel Style)

It's only when I start to tell someone about Him when I realize how much I don't know Him at all.

It's a sobering thought.

Because, you see, if we really were to recall the things that He said regarding Himself, we would realize that we have become far removed from the words of our Jesus.

"You believe in God, believe also in me.
"I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow me."
"I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live."
"I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture."
"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."
"This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He sent."

All these things confound me as I read them, for I realize that so quickly I begin to view my life as lived by a set of beliefs, rather than a total sacrifice to one man... the Holy man Jesus. So easily, I take my eyes off of the infinite and eternal eyes and person of Jesus, and instead become obsessed with the things that He said and the things that He did. I take what others say about Him as truth, even above what He says about Himself. I don't really go against the mold at all, I just follow the status quo, even though I swore I wouldn't. I even build routine around my life to keep myself safe and comfortable, using the way things should be done as a measure of my life, instead of "leaving my ways, my objects, myself, and taking his and Him."

And eventually, I lose my connection with Him, the raw and real faith of doing what He says because I have built my life around THIS ONE MAN, this Jesus that said over and over to believe IN Him, to follow Him, to obey Him out of love and gratitude for sacrifice. But when I read what He says, I am astonished and always convicted. Jesus seems to say while He walked the earth, "Believe in ME. Not only in my works. Not only in my deeds. Not only in the salvation that God wrought through me on the cross. Not only in the atonement and the fact that you'll be with me when you die. But believe in ME. In my entire essence of being. In my personhood, in my own self."

George Macdonald says, "No opinon, I repeat, is Christianity, and no preaching of any plan of salvation is the preaching of the glorious gospel of the living God. Even if your plan, your theories, were absolutely true, the holding of them with sincerety, the trusting in this or that about Christ, or in anything he did or could do-- the trusting in anything but Himself, His own living self-- is still a delusion."

We have spent much of our time and effort in believing about Him, instead of really believing in Him.

This is troubling to me. I want to believe in Him. I want to be able to partake of what He lived and what he embodied when He walked here. I want to obey Him without question and leave anything and everything to do what He said and believe! I want to move past my mind and intellect and opinions and theories and know Jesus as a person that lives and moves and breathes in my spirit! To know Him as he yearns to be known.

Just a little something to make you think.

B

I feel the weight of everything today.

Of the entire Kingdom.

Of the love of Jesus and the power of simply believing in Him.

Believe in Him!

Believe IN HIM!

In the man Jesus.

That's it.

That's the gospel.

He will set you free.

He is the way.

He is the truth.

He is the life.

He unites everything.

He removes all barriers.

He will heal your heart.

He will make you perfect in Him.

He is the Only One.

He is Love.

He is God.

To The One Who Has Been Crushed by Depression

Five o'clock brought my clanging alarm and the misty, dark early hours. I stumbled out of bed. The cat rubbed against my leg as I put the tea kettle on. Too early, Soxy. I wiped the mascara out from under my eyes from the night before.

The mountain loomed gray against the narrow strip of pink light in the east. I drove to school as the light slowly emerged, flooding the gray world in pink light. Here, the rain misted softly against the windshield and the wipers on my new car no longer squeaked. They slid silently as the morning hung there in expectation, waiting for the sun.

I thought about a year ago, about when my world seemed to be ripping apart at the seams. About when my heart seemed to die and its life sink into the soil, never to be re-won. I thought about the voices I heard in my head and the crushing weight of despair that some days wouldn't let me out of my bed, that took away my will to live and my motivation to love and be myself. The knowledge that I was an abomination, a horrible person, that I was guilty. I remember feeling separated from everyone around me, despite their efforts to understand and help me. I remember feeling that there was no way out.

And so I lost everything. I lost my job, I lost my motivation for school and quit. I didn't know how to cope with things that had never caused me stress before. I knew, somehow, that this resistance could turn out for my good, that I was made for greatness someday, but I didn't know how any part of this could possibly turn out for my good. I didn't even know what to call it, how to label it.

It took me the good part of a year to figure out how to recover, to create an atmosphere for myself that was safe and allowed me to live without the anxiety and fear that had crept in seemingly unawares. I had heard so many responses from so many people in regard to my "depression." I had heard, "You are seeking attention," to "You need to get on your face before God and ask Him to heal you, and He will," to "What did you do to allow this thing in?" I felt what it was like to cry out for empathy and compassion for someone, anyone that would just tell me that I was accepted for who I was, even with the things that I was experiencing.

The fact was, the word depression did no justice to the crushing weight of death I felt threatening me constantly, in the morning when I woke up to the sweet surrender of sleep at night. The voices that I heard in that season, both in my head and from almost everyone around me, reinforced my belief that I was guilty, deep down to my very soul. I deserved nothing. I was nothing.

And here I am, a year later, and I am healed. I have felt depression flee from me so far I know that it is never coming back. I have seen my heart change from being broken and full of fear that I would never be able to be normal again to fully alive and functioning the way it was supposed to. I have felt the Lord's mercy both in the midst of my fear and on the other side of my fear, where only joy lives. And I stand here, fully knowing that there is a place where depression is no more. There is freedom from the constant stream of fear that so easily overwhelms us. There comes a moment when all the lies that have plagued you-- sometimes for your whole life-- are revealed and you see the truth about yourself-- that you are made strong and powerful.

If you only knew how powerful you were... You would be unstoppable.

The truth is... nobody really has it right. Some say that depression is normal and is just a part of life. Other say that it is an illusion or that it is because of something you've done wrong to deserve it, Some say you should just get yourself out of it.

But the truth is not any of those things. The truth is that you are SO loved right in the place where you are. On your bed, unable to get up to go to work. In your living room, watching TV while every fiber of your being hurts with a pain that is so much deeper than your skin and bones. When you're unable to explain to your friends why you don't want to spend time around people, why you can't see them right now. When you are totally unable to see yourself or anything in your life in a positive way. When you look at yourself in the mirror and see worthlessness. When you self-medicate with alcohol, TV, anything to numb the crushing weight on your chest that threatens to crush your very soul.

The truth is that you've been misunderstood and judged for something that isn't your fault by people who are ignorant and don't know the effect of their attitudes and words.

And it's that you're beautiful, Beloved one, even in the midst of the bloody battle that you're fighting.

I just thought you should know.