Breakfast.

It's a funny thing, you know.

This measuring and aligning my perceived self to a perceived view of you,
with your lineage of knowledge and wisdom and Truth.

It's like trying to make a shoe fit.

So, I spend quite a bit of time stretching this skin, and this mind, and this personality to make it more of what I hear it should be.
I work to steady my voice, and make myself clear in that witty sort of way, and do try to look pretty while broadening my theological vocabulary.

I've tried to speak a little louder (it's never attractive), and read a little further, and learn more about more relevant topics, always.

Because after all,
everybody wants an intelligent "something" to contribute to intellectual conversation about important or not-so-important this, that, and the other.

It's relative, I guess.

But lack of contribution?
Well, that comes a little too close to having nothing to say at all.

So I speak to hear myself.
And too often to remind you that I really can be taken seriously,
in case you need reminding.
And I'll find out more about more and we can talk about it next time.
Just not during breakfast, please. If you don't mind, never during breakfast.

No, what I've made it out to be isn't all that you are.

But I admit that sometimes I feel the crevices, void of whatever it is that would make me more suitable for your mold,
real or perceived.
and for that one and 1/4 century old history of yours that makes you you
and me, well, quite inspired and disillusioned.

This won't be forever.
Because history we have in common
and Him as well.
I never said I have to stretch all that far to see the greater Good.

But there are times when I still speak to hear myself.
And really, the shoe will never fit just right.
I am who He has made me out to be after all.

I just might call a truce.

I've been reminded...

This was grace - short film from Andrew Laparra on Vimeo.

I sat down to read Ann Voskamp's blog, A Holy Experience, this morning and she wrote of His grace and how all is really grace, referring to Isaiah 14:24:

"The LORD of hosts has sworn: As I have planned so shall it be, and as I have purposed so shall it stand."

That is His grace after all.
What He has purposed is good.
But there are questions without answers and wounds that haven't quite been bound yet and what do we do with the in-between?

A video was included later in the post, about a husband and wife and their 4 children, one born blind and autistic. Then their mother, diagnosed with stage four breast cancer.

He has purposed and it shall stand.

So they quietly share their life with the world on the web.
Loudly proclaiming the name of Jesus.
Shouting that He is their Rock.

I watched their story, and my heart gave way to more than I had planned this morning.

I saw Him there with them, and He is here with me, and so He is with us. And I think to myself that Immanuel, it's not just a Christmas word.

It's a vocabulary.

Because shouldn't I be living every day, all day expressing this very truth?
In word and deed--that God is here, that He is with us--as this family of six has courageously done? Yes indeed.

I'm thankful for this family today. And praying for them. Join me?

Missing You Today.

I stand at the sink thinking on just how much I miss You.

The One I have never seen.

With scars I've never touched.

You whose voice I have never heard.

And I hurt.

Because it is frustrating.

When the treasure possessed is intangible.

When shaking hands are held in mid-air.

And the nearest thing to a photograph is Your beating heart framed in hallowed words on leather-bound pages.

Those words are the shadows of Your face.

And I cry because I wasn't there to sit at Your feet.

Or to lay the loved one's ailing form before You.

Or to reach and touch the garment with a trembling hand.

And I wasn't at the wedding.

And I wasn't at the tomb.

And I wasn't covered by the dust that came up from under Your feet as You tread a path through this wasteland called "world".

I follow.

here and now.

But today I wish I could put my footprints in Yours.