Been here before...

Years ago, my amazing counselor at the time said something profound that has stuck with me ever since: "Natalie, you know you're alive when you - at the same time - are experiencing the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. You can and should be experiencing both simultaneously."

Yup. Sounds about right. There are so many many great things going on in my life right now - friends, family, church, ministry, fulltime job, freelance biz, life. Things are GOOD, in fact, BETTER THAN THEY'VE EVER BEEN.

Yet, things are also hard. Confusing. Frustrating. Scary. Disappointing. Disheartening. And, when hard situations arise (or at least things that seem to detour my plans or ideas), my initial tendency seems to be to focus on the hard and confusing, to focus on the disappointing, rather than being so centered in Jesus that neither the good nor the bad rattles me. But, gosh, that's my desire. I dream of one day not being knocked about by circumstances that are just plain normal for life (good and bad)....

That said, I've been in a bit of a funk the past few days...hit a couple of unexpected and irritating roadblocks and have been fighting the desire to just become numb and cynical, to stop hoping in the face of detours and postponements. I've been trying to cling to the realities of who I know God to be while also allowing myself to be human and feel the things I'm feeling.

As I've been processing, I happened upon past blog entries and realized afresh how I've been here before...I've wrestled with many of the same core questions and issues before (which I think is okay). Yet, here are a few of the profound things I've written in the past that hit me squarely in the eyes this morning:

May 4, 2006 (days before closing on my townhouse):
After coming to the realization that I'm a control freak, I spent the better part of the evening repenting for doubting His goodness and provision, for not trusting Him and mainly, for trying to control everything in my life. It's that repenting thing again...realizing that I'm not God and that I actually make a bigger mess of things than when I rest and allow Him to do it. By the time I went to bed that night, I can't fully explain how heavy a weight had lifted off of me. It wasn't just the repenting but also the realignment (again) with who God is (didn't I do this a few weeks ago?) and genuinely getting to a place where I let go of everything going on in my life. Letting go...not giving up on it all...but letting go, realizing that when push comes to shove, none of these things that I'm holding onto so tightly really matter in the grand scheme of life.
 
June 29, 2006
Jesus is not the means to another end (job, family, wealth, house, dream, spouse, ipod, name your desire....). He is the End. He is what everything is all about. Obviously, this is something I already knew. But, I think that, at least for me, it's so easy to lose sight of this truth. To get lost in the "I really want THIS HOUSE, THIS GIFT, THIS FRIENDSHIP, THIS OPPORTUNITY, THIS WHATEVER" and then the "But, God, You told me THIS" and forget that every single thing in my life is all really about knowing and loving Jesus more. It's about HIM far more than it's about the specific thing I'm focused in on.
Again, does that mean that we never get the actual things we want? No. But, it does mean that those things are secondary to the journey Jesus has us on to give more of our hearts to Him, to know Him better, to trust Him more and to see Him as He really is. It's remembering that He's doing more than merely the small thing that I'm focused on and whining about at that particular moment.
   
In closing, I'm trying to hold tightly to this convicting word from a friend, "In looking and remembering all that Jesus suffered and did for us, how can we deny His good intentions toward us - even when it seems otherwise?"