My worries come in costco-sized packages, in over 32 flavors, in every shape and size imaginable. They run even deeper than I know. In order to lay them at Your feet I have to lay prostrate before You so that they can all fall at Your feet. It's not like I'm only holding one in my hand. I don't know if it's really even accurate to "let them fall". Perhaps some will fall, being set on their own destruction, trembling at the sound of your voice and shattering at Your resonance. But I think You take others off my back. Some have taken up residence upon me, attaching themselves with the pursing of Judas' lips. You lift them up, and put them on You own back, and I feel the relief not only that I am not carrying them, but that You are the one carrying them.

Straighten my back, let me stand tall in the freedom You've bought for me to stand.

...They have bowed down and fallen, but we have risen and stood upright.-Ps. 20

He will not fear evil tidings; his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.-Ps. 112:7

I am having a bit of a writer's identity crisis. Let me begin with the preface that for all of the emotional glitter and romance attached to the notion of the "writer", and for all of the ways I have secretly (or not-so-secretly) delighted in the idea of the "suffering artist" who is cursed with a kind of numinous sensitivity to beauty, I remain skeptical of these artistic personas and the ways that they elevate and isolate the artist. I enjoy reading books about writing, for an example, but I nearly always begin to detect a kind of ethereal or emotionally indulgent tone that I find myself drawn to in some respects, but it also sets my mind thinking as to discerning where the lines went from a lovely arrangement into a tangled derangement. I know that some would grab their pitchforks and blazing torches in an effort to feed it to the flame, but my time in college has taught me the habit of slowing down before I start a witch hunt. It doesn't mean that she will survive the trial, only that the evidence must be picked apart by a lot of sharp objects under a steady eye before the gravel falls. So I read those books on the soul of the artist with a colorful palate, mixing the innocence of the dove and the wisdom of the snake.

All of that being said, I'm at a strange place in life as it relates to writing. As I grew from my childhood into a young adult, I spent many many hours a day simply writing about anything and everything. It was full of all of the drama of the 12-year-old's heart, with plenty of scenarios involving lingering crushes that rose and fell with the seats chosen from Sunday to Sunday and youth group to youth group, and a thousand other dilemmas of more and less weight filled those hundreds of pages. They were full of prayers and dreams, fantasy tales and entries from my best friends. They were full of many things only God would care about now, and God has (and had) way more grace for me than I have for myself now when I look back on them. But through it all, God grew a love for writing in me. So I dreamed, and I wrote, and I grew older. Few of the strong dreams from my childhood have died. They've only been refined and matured through the years. But that doesn't mean they have become any clearer through time. The bone structure is clearer, but I couldn't describe the face. It's still only a rough draft. 

There were some classes in college that nourished my dreams--they were not spoiled, but given a trellis and commanded to climb. We were taught how to dig and find the richest of foods to feed to our guests. I've come to flee from the prosaic and the utilitarian--I shy away from the route of offering a message in multi-vitamin form. I believe in the swathing of harmony and rhyme, of salting to-taste with a squirt of lime. As a college graduate, I still want us both--myself and the reader--to taste, see, feel--for the words to go down in such a way that the reader is satisfied with the fragrant Denouement, a dish cooked well done and golden on the edges.

 I want the reader to be filled.

You are the scorned fancy

The forgotten dream

Your gentle whispers hide between yellowed paper leaves

Your silent thunder in the glistening eve

the silent revelation left

to the crawling things

Shadows draped, stretched transparent out to dry

Behind trunk, stem and stone

Stars wavering, waltzing 

on the iris's balcony arches 

glittering through austral, wincing glee

Light landing, aging

x-ray of veins, leafy marrow and pore

Heat caressing, muffling

warm as the womb where the heavens were born. 

On Truth and Freedom

Surely the world is one that confuses honesty with truth. One can be “true to one’s self” and untrue to the Truth. The world views the idea of “Truth” as a snare, as something that constrains and limits us:

 “We need universes that constantly expand! Moral boundaries create categories that are not real! Truth divides! Truth narrows our minds to one reality! Truth prevents us from defining who we are! It gives us a pre-made identity! It tells us to sit still, be quiet and keep our mouths shut. It tells us to throw away our toys, our joys, our name tags and customized profiles. Rebellion is noble. The shocking is glorious. Shame is a needless fetter, nourished by the spoonful with tradition. Take pride, dance in your nakedness. Let the world see your blood, your bile, your mucus, your grime. Let others see the work of your hands, your twisting, contorting, your melding and molding. Stand tall, and let your veins pop. Let your fingerprinted body take on this new skin. Finish your art with a varnish of sweat. Stand tall. This is your world.” 

And yet, the words of Jesus stand: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Truth cannot be escaped from. If we close our eyes, it does not mean that the world disappears. If we cannot see truth, it does not mean it cannot see us. Truth is a threat...To some it is a threat of judgement, to others a threat of grace--a violence to the flesh and their sin. So they are afraid, and they build their own sandcastles. They play dress-up, they put paint on their skin and play their parts. They give new names to themselves. Their imaginations run wild, and possessed by them they run off the cliff. The rules of this game aren't written in ink.

But this isn’t just “them”. I know it’s me, too. I see these temptations in myself. The idea of creating my own reality, when I do not feel comfortable with Truth. Self-deception is alluring and inviting. Deception pretends to care, pretends to offer you...What?

 “That thing”. 

Deception is a very good salesman. 

“Woe to you who call good evil, and evil good.”

“Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.”

You shall know the Truth and the Truth shall set you free. 

Just a brush

Just a fleeting touch

He need not fix His gaze

Stop His eyes like fire

Upon my crumbling flesh

If I just—

If I can press—

My hand upon that One

In whom we

Live

Move

Have our Being

If I cannot kiss His feet

Grasp His arm

Hold His hand

One stroke will

Still an ocean

One touch will

Reverse death

One touch will 

Rock a stone cold heart

…As Jesus went, the people pressed around him. And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and though she had spent all her living on physicians, she could not be healed by anyone. She came up behind him and touched the fringe of his garment, and immediately her discharge of blood ceased. And Jesus said, “Who was it that touched me?” When all denied it, Peter said, “Master, the crowds surround you and are pressing in on you!” But Jesus said, “Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me.” And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace.”

-Luke 8:42-48

Singleness is such a difficult subject. Sometimes, when rising to the platform of proclaiming my contentment and the sufficiency of Jesus, I feel although I'm the person with some kind of "disability" that everyone is compelled to encourage me in and give me equal respect despite its presence, but in the end everyone secretly "knows" that I have been cut short. I feel like the blind man crying out that eyes were never necessary anyway. Maybe they're not, but you're missing out on a lot and for that we pity you. We'll give you our well wishes and words of encouragement that it's probably better for you to be in this condition now anyways, and with that they send me along with a sympathetic pat on the head and an awkward silence.

I know they mean well, but there is a strange chasm that forms when you start rolling through the twenties. When I was in high school, being single was kind of noble. It almost felt heroic to hold Joshua Harris's book in hand while my silver True Love Waits ring shone in the light. A boy sitting next to me could be expressing a form of flirtation by his choice of reclination, and that was exciting enough to giggle over. My friends dated and broke up, then many of us went in different directions in life. Suddenly the age of possibility came along at eighteen years, and I wondered at the sudden seriousness of it. Granted, eighteen is still young, but to me all of a sudden it seemed strange to go from constantly running away from dating to the beginnings of even the possibility for an actual serious relationship to take place through this new age. When the twenties began, friends were no longer just passing love notes and giggling over games of MASH. They were talking of rings.
I recently re-discovered that Joshua Harris was married at 22. I know I'm not old yet, but I've almost kissed dating goodbye for longer than he has. It's funny how ages sound so much older than when you suddenly step into their skin and zipper them up. You expect to be much fitter. You expect to be a little more buoyant.

There is all of this. And yet there is joy. Yes, there is joy. Or there can be. When I can forget the world, I can listen to the Holy Spirit, and it is precious. Painfully precious. Lonely. And precious. I am not going through depression. I don't cry myself to sleep every night. I have single friends who I can share life with and be understood with without having to make it a party of pity party-ers. But there are times when it hurts to be "alone". There are times when the yearning turns into an ache and it feels like you got hit in the gut. These are the times of beauty, the kind of times that make me feel blessed to be single, because then I get to cry out to God. I can testify to at least one memory of when God vividly flooded my heart with his love in a place where I felt that aching pain. It was wondrous, because he did not remove the throbbing wound, but instead he filled me with his love, a gesture of reassurance that he was sitting with me through it--and that was more lovely and wonderful than his removing the pain. God does not always remove suffering, and that does not mean we are sinning. Sometimes we suffer when we are obeying. Sometimes there is a blessing in the suffering.

There have been times when a part of me has almost wondered that it is not better for me to be single, because of the ways the Lord uses it so beautifully. But I know that there are also blessings that come with marriage. Marriage is not an end to itself. Life is not one big romance novel. It is all a part of God's plan to show his glory to us. And that makes marriage far more exciting, because Jesus is far more satisfying than any spouse will ever be. I have been holding onto Psalm 84:11 for some time now in this season---



For the LORD God is a sun and shield;
the LORD bestows favor and honor.
No good thing does he withhold
from those who walk uprightly.
(Psalm 84:11 ESV)

No good thing does he withhold. He is not withholding good from me in singleness, and he will not withhold good from me after I am married. Praise Him!