how do I love thee?

"If what we call love doesn't take us beyond ourselves, it is not really love."

Ouch!

I read this phrase, penned by Oswald Chambers, and cannot stop threading it through all parts of my brain.

The parts that ponder God.
The parts that hold my family.
The parts that hold my friends.
Even the parts that still hold a mystery...

and I wondered at my capacity to love.
Truly love.
Surrendered.
Sacrificially.
Completely.

excerpts from my journal...

A mild form of amusement for me is to reread my journals. I get a good laugh over the things that gave my head a spin, the gong shows that I have walked through, and the journey of life and growth I am always a traveler of.

Last nite I found something written across the pages that exposed a disturbing part of my warped mind...

"I am either caught in the desperate thought of wanting something WAY beyond possible reach, or the disappointment that I am destined to look but never have. They sound similar, but the first reflects fragile hope, while the second is a miscalculation of thought that God is punishing me. The reality of both is that I still wake up and go to bed alone."

Maybe this connects with the singles of the crowd.
Perhaps some of the married.
There is an element of truth that connects to all of us.
What we are hoping for could be anything...

A job.
A house.
An acceptance letter.
A relationship.
A child.
Healing.
Reconciliation.
One more chance.

And in not receiving our elusive desires, we can sometimes slip into the land of deferred hope, left with the sinking feeling that we will be the last ones in the class picked for the team. Either there's something wrong with us, or something wrong with God.

I asked really nicely...
I followed all the rules...
Why?
What are we waiting for?

Because we, of all people, should know what is best for us.
And the time it is best in.

And yet I have prime examples in my life where what I thought was a "perfect opportunity...missed..." in the long run has proved to be an "opportunity...perfectly missed"...

I don't always understand God's timing.
I don't always "get" the big picture.
I don't pretend to know why some people get all the breaks, while others score the "character building journeys"...
But what I have been learning is what trust looks like...
not blind, but eyes wide open to the tangible
with a heart expectant in the unseen.For now that means crawling into an empty bed...
but recognizing I am not alone.

on the outside of the circle

This is what my inner circle tends to look like...a closed environment of a hand-select few I enjoy spending my time with,
sharing life with,
being open with.
They are the ones I am comfortable with...
can say almost anything to
and accept me for who I am.
I am not afraid of being seen beside them in the street.
I pick up their phone calls.
reply to their emails.
and unlock my door when they come down my driveway.

God's been convicting me of something as of late...the internals of circles.
The unspoken membership requirements.
The unwritten rules of admittance.
And I had to wonder,
would Jesus get an invite in?
If he was socially awkward?
Tucked his shirts into his shorts and hiked up his socks?
Dropped corny pick up lines?
Or told dry jokes?
Sure...we'd tolerate him in public, and extend a civil sympathetic conversation,
but would we invite him to our social outings?
our house parties?
Christmas dinner?

"...there was nothing beautiful or majestic about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected...
We turned our backs on him and looked the other way.
He was despised and we did not care." (Isaiah 53)

This is where we have to turn off our human perceptions and ask God to crank up our spiritual discernment. We naturally gravitate to people who are similar to us...but we need to come to the realization that this is what God's circle looks like...one that sees the spiritually awkward, and is not ashamed to call them not just his friends, but his children.
One that nailed social protocol to a cross and hung in our place.
One that calls us to see past our own comfort zones and into a place that recognizes each soul as a being created in the image of God.