Sunday, December 27, 2015

Lines from the Months of This Last Year: October

4.
My Dearest Friend,
Thank You for life. For this particular day of it, this afternoon. Seeing J off from the train station, huddled against the cold, laughing and talking.

Where is my heart? It belongs to You. Please be its jealous keeper. Guard me and protect me. Chasten me. I desire chastity.

"Holiness takes us outside ourselves,
my heart can barely beat.
You've a lot of courage
to give Yourself to me."
-HJB

Make me more and more a lover of what is good, and help me coruscate with it. Yes, coruscate. I am so touchy and restless today. Feeling helpless and rash. Help me "heal for the honey" (Brooke Waggoner).
O God, O my delight. Take this offering.


6.
Thank You for what You are doing. DO IT.
Abba, flow through me. We beg for truth and light.

Help me to be as wise/shrewd as serpents and as innocent/blameless as doves. To be a fierce loveress, and a torch-bearer.
Carrying truth, exposing sin.
Thank You for my dear, godly parents. For true friends. For new beginnings (and sleep).
GLORIFY YOUR NAME IN ME.


7.
O Lord. Carry me. Thank You for this long, strange, good day.
I don't know what to do, but my eyes are on You. Let Your love flow through me.


9.
Dear Jesus,
Thank You. Complete this. Make it truly good, whole, pure. Use Your Word.

Thank You for Nicholas, whose first words to me were, "You don't have any kids yet." He offered me an earring he'd found in the grass. And later a hair tie. He called the guitar a banjo.

Bring truth and comfort to all of us tonight. Remind me that I am not the Savior - YOU ARE.
God, You do these things. Thank You. Chase us down. Don't let us get away with our sin. Take off the wrappings. Remove the infection. Wash us.
Jesus, Thank You. Hold me.


11.
O Lord Christ.
Show us the true weight of our lives. Help us tread lightly. And grow those strange lumps on our shoulders into wings.

Abba, we need You. Help us think not too lowly, and not too highly, of ourselves.
With loving precision You made all things, and all that goes awry is righted in Your hands. Now bend, and bloom, and piercingly infuse us with Your Essence, God, that we, though only lately born and soon departing, may not let one day pass without imparting goodness, truth, and beauty to Your world, ourselves, and back into Your bosom.
For there we lay our heads, entrust our hearts, and rest our earthly bodies.


15.
Today in the library I saw an album cover that caught my eye: "Strict Joy", by The Swell Season. It was gorgeous, haunting-looking, and I realized why - Mar & Glen. Sounds like things didn't work out for them, though. It rattles me. I've just been reading some of "Every Young Man's Battle", and it had some good things to say about sin, sexual sin in particular. It's not a cancer inside us to pray away and fight internally, at least not primarily. It's a series of disobedient acts. And likewise, holiness comes with choosing to heed God in hundreds of small ways, it's not a nebulous idea or a heavenly dispensation.
God, help me hate sin. MY sin.


23.
Began the day with Carl's poems. 'S came over, we planned. I made about 20 phone calls for church. One couple is divorcing. I got an intercessor's email for a family whose niece was killed by her father on his tractor today. A 3 year old.

"Fox's book of margins"... Oh Carl. How true.
God, don't let me be a might-have-been. Help me thrust all these fears and pettinesses out. Persuade my heart to trust You more.
Tolstoy was so staggering and simple. I'm afraid when I realize how little I perceive or understand, how childish my mind is still. There are many kinds of circles to travel, I know. Let me ride the one that's a screw, driving me deep into You.


26.
Help me care less about myself, but delight in You.


31.
A year ago today, Mom & I shaved our heads.

And last night Mr. B emailed me, and I can't handle how generous and considerate he's being. Multiple times today I've laughed. Or gone limp.
O God. Keep caring for us. Give us only our daily bread.

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