What to Say?

I have been remiss.

Almost every night I think about posting, but I just can't seem to because there's too much to post about. Isn't that ironic?

Since I last posted, I have spent a week counseling girls from our youth group at Sr. High camp, I pulled an all-nighter to finish the monthly newsletter for our church, I have coordinated the decorations for the wedding of two of my loveliest friends, and I have ignored my laundry for far too long. 

And honestly, I don't feel like I can go into all those details. 

Especially with camp, I never know what to say when people want you to summarize a whole week, month, summer, or even year in the 30 seconds they are willing to listen to you talk about it. :) Was it great? Yes! Did God work in people's lives? Double "Yes!" Was I excited to come home and sleep in my own bed and shower in my own shower? ...Um...YES.

One of the best things that I think has happened in the last few weeks has been God softening my heart. He has been showing me how easily I am "prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love". I grow far too comfortable with "the sin that so easily entangles us" and allowing distance to grow between me and the Lover of My Soul. Just like the relationship within a marriage, my relationship with God takes work. I cannot just say, "Jesus, You have all of me, now and forever more...the end!" 

When I stood before my husband on our wedding day and pledged my heart, my mind, and my body to him, in essence I said:  "Where you go, I will go. What your heart longs for, I will long for. When you sorrow, I will sorrow. When you rejoice, I will rejoice. When you fall down, I will pick you up. And when I fall down, I will look for your hand to guide me and protect me." In a similar way, I have said to my Father in Heaven:  "I will go where You want me to go. I want to desire what Your heart desires. I want to see sorrow and joy the way that You do. I trust that You will never fail me, and when I fail, I trust that You will always be there to guide me and protect me."

Just as I could choose to forget our wedding vows, I can easily forget my call as a disciple of Christ. Just as my marriage takes the work of daily deciding to love and respect my husband as God calls me to and as Jordan deserves, walking with God takes the work of daily deciding to spend time communicating with Him by reading His Word, coming to Him in prayer, and--my new favorite--being still and knowing that He is God. With all of the distractions around me, it is so easy to forget that "in Him we live and move and have our being". Daily I need to choose to serve Christ--or as Jonny Diaz says in his song, "Love Like You Loved":

Help me to love like You loved,

To serve like You served,

To speak only words of truth.

Help me to care like You cared,

For a world in despair,

Help me to love like You.