If I spilled my heart

What would it look like if I spilled my whole heart here for you, I wonder.

This is VBS week. If I haven’t told you lately, VBS is exhausting. (I think I mean that in a good way.) I have no idea why I always feel so exhausted – is it the people? is it the standing on my feet longer than I normally do? I don’t know. What I tend to notice in group settings are the people, and how out-of-place I usually seem or feel. I go through seasons where I don’t feel like me, myself. Because of the languishing I’ve done over parenting and decision-making, I’ve felt slightly more out of sorts – more like I need to be earning the Lord’s favor instead of relishing in the Lord’s goodness I am already in. What I really need is more Jesus and less worrying. Less of me and more of Him.

During this week of VBS, I feel slightly out-of-place, and I wonder why that is – what is God doing in me and through me at this moment? What does God want to teach me through this feeling, this awkwardness in me? Are there true things about myself I don’t want to accept? Like how I am wired or gifted or how I feel when someone complements the writing work I’ve done. I call myself a people person, but I wonder if anyone else would agree? I always keep looking to tomorrow – what will I do next for God, when I am learning sometimes He wants me now today, looking at Him in the moment and not toward the next thing we will do together.

You see sometimes I feel as though I am watching myself through a window pane, a hazy glass and the view is unclear. I make all the observations about all the people I am surrounded by, and I cannot quite figure out how I fit, how I am connected, how or if people are drawn near. I wonder what people see when they look through the window. My soul craves to know what people see when they look at me.

There are lots of things to deduce – like I am not one who changes the room when she walks in. I don’t bring the life to the party. I am not the cool one. These are truisms of me, and I am paying attention to how my soul feels when I walk in the room, and a friend speaks kindness and how, in the moment, I don’t notice me or her, I just am. Or how decidedly dejected I feel when a friend does not give me the gift of her presence even though she is standing with me and is not really paying attention to me, and then I am left wondering how often I do that to others. It’s not a good feeling, and the thought that I don’t bring myself to others who are with me at the moment is slightly sobering. Or how I do this to Jesus even when He is speaking to me, like a friend who’d rather look at a phone instead of my face, instead of allowing Him to change me from the inside out.

Today, I listened to a story of how God brought one of our church staffers to work at our church. I felt the God-tingles – you know how you feel when God is apparently part of the story, and as you listen, you just feel like He is physically present in the room, and you get the goosebumps or God-tingles. I got those. God was clearly in her story, and I was a little jealous, because I want Jesus. I want to know how He is working in the background of all my questions and writing my story too. He is with me too – do I notice Him?

Later, I went to God for refreshment, and He reminded me who I am. I listened to a podcast, and boom, the tears were falling fresh, because He was so apparently with me in my tired, wandering, waiting, and weariness, because when I feel out-of-place, it is a signal to me that my soul needs Jesus even more. He was so tender and kind to me. He reminded me of the ways He is calling me closer to Him in this season. I wonder how many times I long for Him, but He longs for me just to pay attention, to be attentive to how He already is.

I wanted this new blog hangout to be a place where I wrote just for you, but I guess sometimes, I still need the freedom of writing just for me. I think technically, maybe, that breaks a lot of writer rules. Writing for me and Jesus, and I don’t really know if it will touch the depth of your tender places, and give refreshment or not to know how Jesus is meeting me in my ache for Him, but I am thankful for you coming alongside my journey to find Jesus today as you’ve read.

I have found myself low on writing time. I’ve been working on some fictional short stories, and I have a lot of things I would like to write about – Caitlyn Jenner and the McKinney video and spiritual fruit, but this is all I had time for tonight. Who knows – maybe I will come back again this week?

Much love to you, my dear reader friends. Tell me how is Jesus meeting you today? How is He rearranging your heart? What would it look like if you spilled your heart today?