Lessons to Learn

Currently
Reading: Real Simple The Magazine 
I really need a new book, but I have no idea what I want to read!
Watching: Don't ask why but Mulan
Listening: "Preserve Me" by Jordan Johnson

This weekend was hard for me. Which was weird because I feel like it shouldn't have been. I mean nothing completely world wrecking happened to me, it was no different then life as I have come to know it... and yet it was. I thought I was going to have another stroke on Friday night. It was awful. Then my coworker lost her dad while we were at work. And that was gut-wrenching to watch. Which caused me to go to bed extremely early and wake up in the middle of the night to a Facebook message that prompted a conversation I was not planning on having. In case you didn't already know, if you can't ask the question when most people are conscious you shouldn't ask it when you should be sleeping. It's just plain and simple.

I think the thing that had me hung up the most is my coworker's dad dying though. I mean after being faced with my own mortality, any time I encounter it now it is earth shattering! Because I feel like I know what they are going through, yet at the same time I haven't the clue. So I let my frustration out to God. "Why?!?! Why would you do this Abba Daddy? Why is death still in the world? When will you come back and save your children from this mess? From the heartache they are in? From the filth they are forced to wallow in?!?!?! Daddy I am so ready to be done with all this brokenness!" Now, don't get me wrong, I know that death was a consequence of sin entering the world; but it just seems to be endless. When will we stop paying for sin? Again, I know the answer, when there is no more sin. But it is just so grotesque to me. I even sought friends who were pastors, asking them for this unforeseeable answer. Knowing that all they could tell me was rhetoric and truth I already knew from being a church brat. So I took to the kitchen, took to my weights, took to music and then crashed into my bed at eight o'clock on a Saturday night. Lamest twenty-three year old ever!!! But it was a fitful sleep and I woke up several times through out the night, at point for three hours.

So this morning, still in my funk, I went searching for something to soothe me, something to calm my aching spirit. What do I find? Biblegateway.com verse of the day: John 16:33 'But take heart! I have overcome the world'. It was such a simple message but one thing rang true for me out of it- I was heard. God knew and understood my frustration, but He would always win out in the end. And I found myself so overwhelmed by this. Because I went searching with arms high and heart abandoned, looking for my answers in Him. I RECEIVED.

I have been learning a lot about giving and receiving lately. Up until a year ago I was awful at both. And then I learned how beautiful it was to give, to give until it hurt. To give until I had given everything I had to offer, until I had given my best. But receiving is still a process lesson. It's hard and uncomfortable. I've seen it being the giver and I am definitely seeing it as people try to give to me. But Receiving 101: Have empty hands and an open heart, even when you want to come with all the baggage. Even when you know receiving is going to humble you. God gives nothing but GOOD gifts to His children, why not put yourself in a position to receive?