We are called to live and called to love

For me, life is full of undulations of the heart, waves that oscillate up and down and I wear it all. Right now, I am inspired and ridiculously amazed at how we live and how we love. Not that we got it right but that we try. We are trying to do mission. It is becoming real to me.

It has been difficult for me to bear this burden of mission. i have wanted to run to comfort and run to solace. But, on Monday, I woke up differently. Everything was more beautiful. The air around me, the sky above, the trees outside, and the people, of course the people were the most beautiful of all. I saw love all around, people who have it and people who so desperately desire it whether they know it or not. A friend of mine has been going to the Good Sam feeding lately, and after this last time I felt I could feel how she wanted to love and see love, how the faces of the poor actually resonated with her. And the men and women at the good sam, I couldn't help but see Jesus in them all. The broken and downtrodden, and they were happier than I had been for months. And grateful for watery mashed potatoes, stale chicken patties and bread on the verge of being moldy. And they are so thankful.

God is moving among us and within us. He is pouring himself out all around us and calling us to do the same.

A friend of mine from high school has been on an 11 month mission trip all over the world called the world race. I have been keeping up with her blog (http://emilymilroy.theworldrace.org/) and I am inspired by her willingness to go in spite of fear, and the diligence with which she confronts all the challenges God places in front of her. She has open hands and she allows God to move within her and use her to move. We strive to do the same, we strive to move according to His will. I have been pushing against Him lately because it started to hurt. He started to ask too much of me. But he never stopped loving me in spite of my resistance. He never pulled away but waited patiently as I went through being a whiny brat about it all. And finally whene I turn and wake up to Him, He reaffirms me that it is all ok. It is ok because He can replace the crap i have filled my life with, it is ok because as He asks me to let go of one thing, he fills that emptiness within my soul.

I live in a house where two dogs damage everything, roaches can never be fully killed, we find mice in toilets and someone uses a pair of tongs to throw it across our neighbors yard. I live next to a liquor store with street walkers on the corner. I live in a house where 10 poorly equipped, naive, selfish at times, arrogant at others, decide to commune with one another, to build and equip one another, to put each other in their place when necessary and pick each other up when they have fallen. And we don't do it because we love one another. We do it because we love God, and He loved us first. When you experience that it becomes an overflow of the heart and you cant help but love the people your are around. As Emily said in her blog, we strive to live with hands open, that the overflow of the love within our hearts meet each other and everyone we come in contact with. That the chaos that is the Lake House may help a life come to know Jesus, and help each other to remind us that it is Jesus that is our focus, nothing else. I want to desperately listen to the voice of God, and I pray that if I never reach the point where I can listen, that the desire to listen will be enough. I pray that each of us continues to be intentional in the way we live. Our actions will never be meaningless, each of them reaches into the souls of those around us, and into our own whether we pay attention or not. I love and i strive to love abundantly. I pray that it never ceases. That as I look around, I see Jesus in everyone, the good bad and ugly. As this post is, my life is a jumbled mess of emotion, thoughts, desires and people. I would have it no other way and I pray that it is God that separates it all out and uses me for what he would have of me. I thank each and every one of you for being in my life, putting up with my crap, and loving me all the same. Mad props.

Seek God, he is waiting for you with open arms and he will teach you, refine you, burn away the crap of your lives. It may hurt at times, but in the end you will be the beautiful creation, made in His image, that he intended you to be.

Love you guys