Sunday, December 20, 2015

Lines from the Months of This Last Year: April

1.
How sweet, how deep, how vast and satisfying is Your love, O Lord, giver of life and love. Thank You for this achingly blessed day. Thank You for revealing Yourself in Your Son.
Again I throw myself on You.
Help me to be mature as EE described it:
to carry within myself unanswered questions.


4.
Clutch us tightly in Your glorious resurrection this weekend. The way You did three years ago, in Orvieto, or two, in Vermont, or one, in my quarantine downstairs. Don't let Your life and death slip by us. Please renew the depth and utter abandon of our reliance on You. Make it absolute.
Help us be steady in the next two windy weeks. Bring us into space and quiet.

And Oh, God, again take this small heart. Prepare me to love as You love, not to run away from love, not to dominate it. Let me cultivate it, out in the air and sun, digging deep into honest earth. Let everything that dies bear seeds. Let the seeds split and be established. Waste nothing. Let the air hum with life and the pollinating ministry of Your Spirit, Your angels. Strengthen us for rain and wind and drought.
Lord, I long for a love I can run in. Open me up, prepare me. Help me be in tune, in time, with You. Not running ahead (guard me, chasten me, keep me from doing harm with my words and thoughts and actions), not lagging behind (show me how to love, not expecting, not controlling, but confident and pure and free). I believe You when You say You will give me the desires of my heart. You will give me Yourself, and all the rest is in Your hand.
Ah, my Lover.


5.
I want so much to be able to cry cleanly, and I can't - I'm still too hard and tight. Loosen, soften me. I'm asking again for vulnerability, for Your Spirit to stir, let my heart be as quickly felt as the dove's, beneath the breastbone.
Oh God be true. Are You or aren't You? PROVE YOURSELF.


9.
Lord, I prayed for vulnerability. And I am feeling vulnerable right now... owing so much in taxes, feeling tired and about to "perform"... but let me just be. Like the students who went to Mississippi, to be there and survive. But in this case, flourish through me. Help me obey You from the get-go, trust You, have the quiet courage and drive that CAN come when we are faced with cold facts and obstacles. Somehow You will do this.


11.
Psalm 50:15: "And call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me."
Also v. 12... the cattle are Yours. And so am I.


12.
Dearest,
Thank You for a beautiful day.
Help me now as I feel beastly and grumpy. Help me love You with all of me this afternoon. Guide the things. All the things.


13.
Help me Jesus, keep going and loving and trusting through this awfulness. Feeling lonely and scared. Feeling like a weakling, a disappointment. Father, lover, You're pleased with me? Take it. O Lord, take me, it, everything. Let me keep soft, not fake or hard, but strong. Help me take heart in You. Not stop praying. Protect us from the evil one, from ourselves. Be glorified no matter what. Amen.

(later)

Jesus. Oh how. I need You.
Thank You for a beautiful day.
Help me praise You.


15.
It's all Yours, all.
Thank You for everyone who loves and gives and is learning. Please help me know Who You are. Jesus. May this please You. Through the truth and the shimmer of the truth and the lies and fear and selfishness, break through.
Help me truly love You, want and work for what is good. Help me process this.
It's beautiful to feel I could say anything. To be cared for and applauded. But help me let all these goods go, for You.
Where is the treasure of my heart? Who is? You.

(later)
Jesus,
It's so surreal. J is singing "not letting fear or doubts or sorrow" from the kitchen as I sing quietly in my room. We've had a longish day, not as much progress as we wanted until just now (post supper). Thank You for that. For it all. For making this possible. Even now, without You, everything rots.
You have made everything good, and everything good possible. And I implore You to give us all that is good, Yourself, the blessings that speak of You, health and love and wisdom, comfort, courage, hope. The lessers there, to point to You, not complete themselves. I long for You. You fulfill all my desires, my desire for holiness not the least.



18.
And this is the love You have for me.
Like a husband for his wife, tenderly, burning at the chest, hands and eyes so gentle, overcome. Wholly given to Your loving. Likewise I am hungry for You, crying softly at this passion, the beauty and the ache of it, the way you cherish me and wait for me and woo me so persistently, while I am shy or blind or deviant, hardened.
Lift me from these darker, lonelier thoughts. Show me Your love. Splice our hands, our bodies, until, as they say, "I did not know You from me."
Make us one today, this hour, eternally. Show me by the truth of Your love what love is. That I be not seduced by counterfeits. That I may learn to rely on You, even when we feel estranged. Even when I am afraid, to know the largeness of Your love that makes everything OK, for I am with You.
All of me, all my love.



22.
Only You could have planned such a day.
I love You, and I want to love You more. Help me pray.
GIVE ME YOU.


24.
Again, "slip Yourself into his drink."
May he fear nothing but You.


28.
"My Mate, [He] hears me when I call
and answers swiftly to the sound..."

("Epithalamium", Forest Mountain Hymnal)

Dear Jesus,
Thanks for everything You are doing, that I can stand back and watch.
Thank You for helping me. Help me. Love You. K


29.
Thanks for today, "digging" raised best in the woodpile. Such exhilaration. Finishing "Into the Wild" round 2.
Lord, help me to know what's going on with these friends. I hate having disconnect, hurt, avoidance...
And Lord, I realize I'm such a me-pleaser. Measure people inwardly. Measure their use or how they make me feel. Please break me of this pride. I hate it. And I hate gossip. And I hate lust...but Lord, I also hate feeling insignificant, or uptight, or prudish. Help me look at You long and hard.
Look at, into me. Come.


30.
Psalm 10...O Lord, You hear the pleas of the oppressed, You strengthen their hearts, Your ear hears their prayer.
Lord, heal us in all these gaping wounds. The sheer terror - take it in hand, Lord, it is too terrible. Submerge us in Your peace. When things are not OK... help us not pretend. But in the worst of times, help us keep turning to You, and show us that all, at last, will be well, no matter what.
Thank You for more things planted, a letter to HJ (and a text from her in the middle of it). Thanks for jokes with Dad. Thanks for finished paintings and paintings underway, and for photos of me pretending to be Dwight.
Thanks for all the ways You enable us to do what needs to be done. Your abundance, Your sufficiency, Your kindness to me are real.
O speak, and let me listen!




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